CT Ship Errata Discussion : X-Boat

[boomslang]

Speaking of strictly CT, and strictly Book 2 CT at that, isn't it illegal to put less than four full weeks' worth of fuel into a ship? Wouldn't that require changing the rules too? After all, if you allow that, what's to prevent a merchant from having only 14 days worth of power plant fuel aboard and profiting from the extra cargo space thus gained?

Yes, it is.

Yes, it does.

Nothing at all.

Which is why I interpret it as a regulatory requirement, not an engineering one. Otherwise, for example, cargo rates would be per parsec, rather than per "jump" -- to cite a similarly-obviously-broken-but-kept-sacrosanct-to-protect-canon rule.

The fuel workaround is found in my earlier, L-Hyd-inspired suggestion in the Type J thread: as long as the Type X has 40+ dtons of fuel, it is carrying a full four weeks' load for the powerplant; it is actually Jump fuel the Type X runs short on (since Xboats and Seekers restricted to BT do not have external tankage of any variety from HG2/TCS fitted). In operational use then, powerplant fuel is repurposed to support the Jump, and we are left trying to run the powerplant on the leftovers for as long as possible.

At a minimum 50 dtons of fuel, the Xboat can support its powerplant for four weeks and make a single Jump-1; exceeding these basic parameters is the sole risk of the operator and is not approved in commercial applications.

This is retconning rules-lawyers at its most hair-splitting, but it worked servicably-enough over in the Type J thread, I suppose... unless one considers it, too, to be "hand-waving"...

:devil:

 

[boomslang]

For the sake of completeness...

Since no one has picked up the gauntlet, here ya go:

The "Not Fat, Just Big-Boned" Type X

025  J-Drive-D (J-4)
013  P-Plant-D (P-4)
040  P Fuel (4 weeks)
074  J Fuel (1 x J-4)
020  Bridge
004  Model/4
008  2 Staterooms
001  Cargo
---
185 dtons, unstreamlined, military (scout) drives & avionics

Cost: plenty

Meets all published performance and payload specs, breaks absolutely no BT rules. Only requires crew of 1 (Pilot) because displacement does not equal nor exceed 200 dtons (BBL/TTB, p. 60, RH column). But if you are uncomfortable with even that, hey -- there's a handy second stateroom that can quarter the Engineer you feel compelled to carry.


If you do not mind running light on powerplant fuel, you can squeze it down to:

025  J-Drive-D (J-4)
013  P-Plant-D (P-4)
015  P Fuel (1.5 weeks)
058  J Fuel (1 x J-4)
020  Bridge
004  Model/4
008  2 Staterooms
001  Cargo
001  anything [i]except[/i] an M-Drive-A, if you please
---
145 dtons, unstreamlined, military (scout) drives & avionics

Cost: plenty

Similar rationale on crewing.

You're welcome...

 

[rancke]

The fuel workaround is found in my earlier, L-Hyd-inspired suggestion in the Type J thread: as long as the Type X has 40+ dtons of fuel, it is carrying a full four weeks' load for the powerplant; it is actually Jump fuel the Type X runs short on (since Xboats and Seekers restricted to BT do not have external tankage of any variety from HG2/TCS fitted). In operational use then, powerplant fuel is repurposed to support the Jump, and we are left trying to run the powerplant on the leftovers for as long as possible.

Lovely, but the rule requires both jump fuel plus power plant fuel.

"At a minimum, ship fuel tankage must equal 0.1MJn+10Pn, where M is the tonnage of the ship, Jn is the ship's jump number, and Pn is the ship's power plant rating." [TTB:60]​

There seems to be no loopholes in that rule. Minimum fuel tankage is 80T.


Hans

 

[boomslang]

There seems to be no loopholes in that rule. Minimum fuel tankage is 80T.

Unless, of course, you are fitted for drop tanks, as per HG2.

Isn't there a starship in S7 that is fitted for drop tanks?

And another starship in S7 that uses demountable tanks from TCS?



:smirk:

 

[rancke]

Unless, of course, you are fitted for drop tanks, as per HG2.

If you're allowed to use HG2, the problem goes away, because power plant fuel tankage becomes 4T instead of 40.


Hans

 

[boomslang]

If you're allowed to use HG2, the problem goes away, because power plant fuel tankage becomes 4T instead of 40.

But only if using HG2 drives; if using B2 drives -- as HG2 allows -- they still (technically) use the 10Pn formula for minimum requirements; it's the Jump fuel requirement you are intended to reduce when importing tankage rules from HG2/TCS.

And since fuel is all inevitably stored in the same tankage, abuse is going to be commonplace.

For example, I have never seen a Type J willingly operated only at Jump-1 on a regular basis because the PC crew was worried about making inappropriate use of fuel that was supposed to be officially reserved to run the powerplant for four whole weeks.

OT: the rules for L-Hyd break a lot of things. <cough>Eurisko!<cough> But such issues have been declared outside the scope of the present design problem.

And I posted the solution in Message #42 above, so there's no need to keep tussling over it.

 

[aramis]

I'm at the point where I think a disclaimer saying we all know it's broken is the best we can do... And yes, it's easy to do under HG2, or I could use a small stateroom, or I could invent a Model/3bis, or I could design a 200-ton ship, or I could assume that 1d6=3 for battery use (I always seemed to roll "1"s for that roll though).

But for now, "yes, it's broken" appears to be the best way to go.

Just a note, 4 years on. Models 1bis to 7bis were in HG 1E ('79), on page 29, so it wouldn't be "inventing" anything.