Consolidation Thread: Xboats in a System

[whartung]

Well, it occurred to me that if the Express Stations were, literally, parked somewhere, the system could be more efficient.

By parked I mean the station uses station keeping drives to fix their point in space relative to their primary. They are NOT in orbit. They're system velocity is for all practical purposes, zero.

What does this buy you?

Given the jump window, its impact is two fold. One, is trying to coordinate arrival of independent ships, like a fleet. That is not a problem here.

The other is that whatever their target is, typically a planet, it's moving. So, with the jump window, you have to account for that motion.

At earth speeds, the arrival area is 3.6Mkm long. Even in space, that's a lot.

But guess what happens when the speed is 0?

Now the XBoat can arrive pretty much on top of the tenders. Not quite, there's several 1000km of variance on arrival, that's just the raw accuracy not accounting target motion. So, they can't just appear in the dock. Also, there is likely a delta V from their original system maintained that must be acconted for in the catch.

But it sure beats the heck out of 3.6Mkm!

The down side is, naturally, maintenance of the station from the local infrastructure. These guys are out in the dark. If they were parked in earth orbit, and Earth was on the opposite side of the system, it's a 4 day one way trip at 1G.

But, these Scout guys dig that kind of thing. Not like they're not doing anything, catching boats, chatting up the crews. Crews are just hitting a bunk and turning around in a day or too anyway.

The bright side, though, is that with closer arrival, you don't have to go far to catch and recover, and you can turn the boats around that much faster.

The System can probably save 10% on the overall boat count -- and that's not nothing. A system like this is all about efficiency.

Its also a longer turnaround if the XBoats are used for package delivery, but I never felt that was the case. Contact a dedicated parcel company, or, hey, I see a trader over at the end of the bar that might take that harmless parcel to Barcelona IV for you!

 

[mike wightman]

"Xboats: The ships of this network have been specifically designed for the job, and are not really suited to any other duty. Each contains a pilot's compartment, message data banks, powerful broadcasting equipment, and jump drives permitting up to Jump-4. Space is so cramped aboard the xboats that they do not even contain maneuver drives. A ship makes its jump, relays its messages to the station immediately upon arrival by means of a high-speed, tight-beam radio transmission, and then waits to be picked up and towed into the xboat station by a specially built xboat tender, where it will be refueled, refitted, and prepared for its jump to the next destination."

So the tender doesn't refuel; the xboat, it takes it to the station...

"Xboat Stations: An xboat station is usually located near the edge of a system, where it can pick up the information beamed to it from incoming xboats with the smallest possible delay. The station contains receiving and rebroadcast equipment, to receive the xboats transmissions and send them in turn to other xboats and to the populated world(s) of the system. An xboat station contains facilities for refueling and repair of the xboats and their tenders, as well as quarters for the pilots and the staff of the station"

 

[Dragoner]

Nice x boat station: https://travellerrpgblog.blogspot.com/2016/10/x-is-for-x-boat-station_2.html

 

[Spinward Flow]

So the tender doesn't refuel; the xboat, it takes it to the station...

I'll let someone else (who wants the joy of it ) poke holes in the idiocy of that notion when implemented as Standard Procedure for logistics.

 

[mike wightman]

Oh I am well aware of how it could be done better.

Each xboat needs 40t fuel, so you purpose design a refueling smallcraft that refuels the xboat and can do a passenger/crew transfer and/or parcels of an important nature

You also need to be shipping fuel from a gas giant, ocean or iceteroid to the xboat station.

A tug could move the xboat to the station if it is in need of repair or refurbishment, or the oiler could have a large enough maneuver drive to do the job.

The 1000t tender... not so sure about that... but it is what canon says so hey ho.

 

[Dragoner]

A tanker meets the tender.

 

[whartung]

It depends on the doctrine. If the game is turning the XBoat as fast as possible, then, sure, fuel "in situ", but if not, then may as well bring it back for a maintenance look over and fuel it at the station.