Bulk freighters

[abomination]

I've been mucking about designing a super tanker in MT for a campaign. I've gone for an open frame design with the fuel will be carried in a number of detachable spherical tanks of 200,000Kl with a 73m diameter. This gives the ability to create deep space fuel dumps and for the empty tanker to jump greater distances.

I then got to thinking you could use the 75x75m space for other things. Like a massive warehouse / container vessel. Or a troop transport capable of carrying a regiment. You can have 11 standard 3m high decks without increasing volume.

Naturally these would need to have their own power plant & fuel to provide life support as they aren't calculated in the original design.

So what else could you put in that space?

I might get round to putting the modules together.

How do you put a regiment down? Is there already a craft designed for landing company sized units or grav tanks?

 

[BillDowns]

Just some ideas off the top of my head - and most are from some log-ago sf book.

1. ferry modules - carry docked craft w/o jump drives along a route

2. factory modules - notably in Alien (but not original to it), the ship picks up raw materials from one system, refines and produces something from them by the time it gets to its destination

3. spacious living quarters a la Heinlein's Free Traders, with a large clan aboard.

4. cities in space - inspired by Tales of the Flying Mountains, where a fleet of such ships would travel together, each with some or all of the above modules. This would provide a true space-nomad culture for a setting.

 

[BlackBat242]

Colony ships... 4 set down a complete, fully-equipped, self-contained & populated colony of ~10,000.

Two are housing blocks, one is admin/medical/hydroponics, one is manufacturing/fabrication. Each block has its own fission (yes I said the "Fi-word" ) powerplant good for 25 years before requiring the fusion plant that is one of the things they are set up to fabricate.

 

[Major B]

How do you put a regiment down? Is there already a craft designed for landing company sized units or grav tanks?

Depends on a number of things but mostly the composition of the carried force and the type of operation. This design may not be the best suited for an assault. Maybe it would be better for reinforcing an assault force that has already secured a lodgement, in which case I'd want to have something like the propulsion and guidance units of a modular cutter that can pick up one or more of the 'cargo' modules and bring them down.

Or, if this is a lift infantry/armor type force, the modules need only to have maintenance bays with egress hatches so the troops can ride down in their combat vehicles.

Drop capsule launchers are another option, as are carried craft such as the Pinnace or Cutter or any of a number of dropship designs that are around. If you use drop capsules, don't forget to include craft that can pick up the deployed force if things go bad.

Last thought - personally I don't like the idea of company-sized assault craft. The cost is too high if one of those craft gets destroyed by the defenders. Okay for administrative landings or reinforcing a secure LZ, but not for an assault.

 

[Gadrin]

GURPS Traveller Ground Forces to the rescue...

with the Keith-class 30K dton Transport, which has stats for both the Grav Tank Brigade and a Lift Infantry Brigade.

They also have a couple of 1200-ton landers examples for company-sized ops.

Each Keith carries 6 landers.

>

 

[kafka47]

Being half Irish and half Slovene, I always liked the idea of gypsies or travelers. Nomandic peoples who live on Space Hulks for the bulk of their existance. Now these ships would have to be large to carry all the livestock, supplies, tool shops to sustain a nomadic space "nation". Nominally, these could be Imperial but not citizens and their ships would porously pass through the Interstellar borders...only welcome on different worlds because of the exotic wares that they would bring. For instance, how much Trajian wine ends up on Home? Yes, special deliveries but on a large scale as travelers could concievably bring...

I have been trying to think how these groups would survive the TNE Virus and 1248 does not give me much hope. But, perhaps, the bulk of essential systems were already at a lower tech to adapt the changing Harder Times...using more manpower rather than computing, as a way of keeping the "community" alive.

 

[boomslang]

Being half Irish and half Slovene, I always liked the idea of gypsies or travelers. Nomandic peoples who live on Space Hulks for the bulk of their existance. Now these ships would have to be large to carry all the livestock, supplies, tool shops to sustain a nomadic space "nation". Nominally, these could be Imperial but not citizens and their ships would porously pass through the Interstellar borders...only welcome on different worlds because of the exotic wares that they would bring. For instance, how much Trajian wine ends up on Home? Yes, special deliveries but on a large scale as travelers could concievably bring...

IMTU, nomadic trader tribes (and their large-to-enormous caravan fleets) are actually the principal driving force behind most interstellar trade for exactly the reasons you describe. Not being citizens of any particular "terrestrial" polity however is a two-edged sword; they tend to rely on Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud resources, which often lets them pass essentially unnoticed across interstellar boarders, as they stick to the "outer system" at times. This mobility and non-allegiance, in turn, can breed suspicion and distrust similar to what the Romany and the Irish Travellers have traditionally encountered.

On the other hand, the nomad tribes often hold valuable Mail contracts, and are thus often the only point of contact between mutually-hostile terrestrial polities. Likewise, they are also often the only trade contact that resource-poor worlds can count upon.

I should note that they do, from time to time, set up camp on outer system snowball worlds, mostly for mining and manufacturing purposes, but these are always temporary settlements -- once the desired fuel and minerals are harvested, refined, and employed in the construction of new infrastructure, a nomad fleet will pull up stakes and move on.

Nomad tribes actually hold a slightly patronizing view of cultures which still feel the need to rely upon worlds in a solar system's habitable zone to live and thrive upon; they believe that as soon as star travel is possible, cultures owe it to future generations to leave the cradle and become completely self-sufficient space-dwellers.