Do Air Rafts make Ground Transpo moot?

[robject]

ASSUMING a traditional OTU, about half the worlds lack grav infrastructure. Thus there would be worlds with DC-3s and Studebakers for example. Granted, a percent of those people and corporations will want to buy grav vehicles from off-world. But it'll be uncommon, and have to abide by local laws for air traffic.

ASSUMING the tech level permits grav, then *some* first-world people with the means and motivation have grav (compare with small aircraft and corporate jets).

The air/raft itself doesn't delete ground transportation, but the grav-bus does.

Your busses no longer need roads. BOOM, that clears the streets for bikes and cars.

Also "interstate" and freight traffic. Trains/trucks would need air corridors. Grav UAV Amazon Drones deliver to your front porch.

Intercontinental traffic would probably still be cheaper by boat, though there's always a niche for "need it now" stuff.

 

[mike wightman]

There is a TL5 world in the Spinward Marches moving comets to impact the planet to improve water %.

Grav vehicles are like Toyota trucks - you may not be able to make them locally but they can be imported.

 

[McPerth]

There is a TL5 world in the Spinward Marches moving comets to impact the planet to improve water %.

Grav vehicles are like Toyota trucks - you may not be able to make them locally but they can be imported.

Toyotas are cheap, even if imported. Can be so grav vehicles?

 

[Condottiere]

Depends on the actual cost of the grav module.

Current price of an air/raft is a quarter of a million, which is one and a quarter million in today's dollars.

I see it as a treasured heirloom in some families.

 

[mike wightman]

Depends on the ruleset of choice, but Striker, MT and FF&S all allow for much cheaper grav vehicles than the KCr600 basic air/raft.

My point is that a low TL Imperial world may still have high tech stuff flitting about. The local mob boss, a rich industrialist, a head of government and the like may all use their private wealth to import such stuff.

 

[Willie Dewitt]

I think maybe imagry in later Traveller material had me thinking Rafts were far more common than the high price indicated to me would lead me to believe. At first I described a place like a port where a ship is getting loaded as having some modern Earth-like forklifts and the odd loader-suit such as in Aliens. A player said "why wouldn't they use air rafts?" And I shrugged. I just thought ground vehicles would be efficient enough to be the go-to for thousands of years, in the way the basic bread toaster remains unchanged. A point where improvements on the technology meets diminishing returns.

Then I got GURPS Starports just for fun reading and see a ship being loaded mainly via air raft. OK, it maybe looks cool and all, but I still think in terms of CT, at any tech level, ground loaders (including Stevador loading I imagine) being the way. I mean, you can fly some tons of material into the ship bay, but you still have to get them off the raft. What would they do, flip around so the stuff just falls out o: No, it means loading a raft and then unloading the raft. Seems like extra work.

The main reason I wish I had double checked the cost of air rafts is I let one be included in the old Free Trader my group got during chargen. I mean, 600,000? But it's an old model. I can have it break down a lot. Heh.

 

[Whipsnade]

There is a TL5 world in the Spinward Marches moving comets to impact the planet to improve water %.

Thisbe/Trin's Veil. Sharurshid is running the project, however, under a Ministry of Conservation (?!) contract and they're using ice/gas asteroids from the system's planetoid belt.

The only reason I remember that, Mike, is that I jotted down lots of notes about the shenanigans going on on and off Thisbe for my IISS Active Duty campaign. Notes that weren't much used sadly.

 

[maksimsmelchak]

Though I should point out that it is sometimes difficult to get PCs out of their Air/Rafts and into the adventure...

I have heard reports about this topic being discussed by Dave Nelsen and Frank Chadwick at a local con a few years ago.

On related note what do you think of when thinking Air/Rafts? I always go back to the works of H. Beam Piper. Though a related question occurs, how do you feel about short range Gravitic manipulators?

I'm not sure that air/rafts are affordable to a middle class income, and probably are quite rare on poorer worlds.

Shalom,
M.

 

[mike wightman]

Thisbe/Trin's Veil. Sharurshid is running the project, however, under a Ministry of Conservation (?!) contract and they're using ice/gas asteroids from the system's planetoid belt.

The only reason I remember that, Mike, is that I jotted down lots of notes about the shenanigans going on on and off Thisbe for my IISS Active Duty campaign. Notes that weren't much used sadly.

The ministry of conservation isn't mentioned in the original SM supplement sd bring involved in this project:

The desert world of Thisbe has undertaken a long-term project to divert large
numbers of frozen water and gas asteroids from the Thisben belt to the planetary
surface; the intention is an improved atmosphere and hydrographic percentage.

The ministry of conservation is mentioned as being involved in:

Nexine is an underpopulated water world currently being used by the Ministry
of Conservation for reseeding efforts using biologically altered humans.

 

[infojunky]

Again IMHO, the question I cannot answer (as I said I lack Striker) is, can those cheap MT designs be mimiked in CT by using either Striker rules (even if using LBB8 for some components, as power plants)?

Just as a note if y'all have MT, you have better 90% of Striker.

 

[Whipsnade]

It's in the later Spinward Marches Campaign and not S:3. (I'm not entirely sure after 35+ years but I think I owned SMC before S:3.)

Page 20, in the Trin's Veil subsector section:

Thisbe (2539) is a desert world being terraformed by the megacorporation Sharurshid under a contract from the Imperial Ministry of Conservation. Ice and frozen gas asteroids are maneuvered from the Thisben planetoid belts to Thisbe, where they improve water availability and atmosphere content.

The question that immediately popped into my pointy little head was why Sharurshid - "A Vilani trade and speculation corporation with very little manufacturing capability" - is bombarding a desert planet with ice-teroids under contract from the Imperial Ministry of Conservation.

And why is the Imperial Ministry of Conservation changing a world's ecosystem?

 

[mike wightman]

I tend to ignore the SMC - thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

As to the why - to kill the sand worms of course

I had to go read up the subsector blurb in SMC - I noticed they expanded on the water world stuff too:

Candidates are provided with gill implants, synthetic skin insulation, and webbed extremities;
they are transplanted to Nexine and participate in sea farming operations under the world's shallow seas.

Interesting take on Imperial bio-modification capabilities.

I wonder how else the Imperium biologically modifies 'candidates' to be better adapted to environments?

 

[aramis]

The individual air/raft, as a ruggedized military design, is the Hummer of the grav cars...

A 2x4x1.5 grav car, grocery getter type ala striker...

12 kl	0 tonnes	0 cr	Hull dimensions
0	0	0	Suspension
7.2			Radical SL front and rear
1	0.2	100	1 crew seats
0.085	0.068	136	Armor, .25cm, soft steel
2	2	20,000	1.2 MW MHD Turbine
0.24	0.48	24,000	12 T Thrust Gravitics
2.16	2.16	(KCr54)	6 hours fuel
0.215	0.43		cargo
1.5	0.2		1 passenger
	5.538	44236	Total

Armor math
2x4=8
2x1.5=3
4x1.5=6
2x(8+3+6)=2*17=34 m²
34*.25*0.01=8.5*0.01=0.085 kL at 8T/kL = 0.68T and @1.6 KCr per kL, Cr136

Fuel 1.2MW * 300L/h per MW = 360L/h @ Cr0.25 and 1 kg/L
So 6 hours is 6*.36 = 1.8+.36=2.16 kL and Tonnes, and KCr0.54 per load.
50 tons thrust of gravitics requires 5 MW, 2Tonnes, 1 kL, and Cr100,000... (Striker B3 p 8)

12/5.538=2.166 G about 1200kph, NOE 40.

Also, that assumes cargo of electronics...

Hmm WAY overpowered.

Cutting the drives in half, and the cargo to water weight...

12 kl	0 tonnes	0 cr	Hull dimensions
0	0	0	Suspension
7.2			Radical SL front and rear
1	0.2	100	1 crew seats
0.085	0.068	136	Armor, .25cm, soft steel
1	1	10,000	0.6 MW MHD Turbine
0.12	0.24	12,000	6 T Thrust Gravitics
2.16	2.16	(KCr54)	12 hours fuel
1.335	1.335		cargo
1.5	0.2		1 passenger
	5.203	22236	Total

6/5.203=1.153 G =
0.15G_m=150
0.2G_m=240
Diff = 90
.003/.05=0.06
0.06*90=5.4

154 km/h, 40 NOE. Manually controlled. Op cost 45/hour... or Cr0.30 per km...
Much more expensive than my ground car. But still affordable... kind of.

12 kl	0 tonnes	0 cr	Hull dimensions
0	0	0	Suspension
9.6			Radical SL front
1	0.2	100	1 crew seats
0.085	0.068	136	Armor, .25cm, soft steel
3.456	3.456	1,123,200	0.6 MW x2 hour (7200 sec) batteries
0.12	0.24	12,000	6 T Thrust Gravitics
0.439	0.439		cargo
4.5	0.6		3 passenger
	5.003	1,135,436	Total

7200 * 0.6 /1.25 = 3456L

Ok... 6TT/5.003T=1.19
.04/.05=0.8
0.8*90=72
222 KPH, 40 NOE
Frightful and short ranged, but clean...
Note: All of these are TL 8 designs. The batteries drop radically as TL improves.

So, they're the SUV of TL 8...

 

[kilemall]

Okay, batter up I guess for why LBB8 has a seat at the table.

Grav bike-

We'll go chassis B which yields 1000 liters or 1 cubic meter, open frame which cuts weight and costs in half.

So weight 50 kg, price 2000.

Crew seat which will include enough for a second person clinging, Striker terms going to cut in half, 100 kg .5 cubic meter or 500 liters, price 50.

We'll go HV Grav modules as that is a nice power to lift ratio without paying too much. 2 modules, requires 16 kw per hour, 40 liters volume, 24 kg, thrust 800 kg, price 20000 Cr.

This means a Type B Fuel Cell, 20 kwh,30 liters 35 kg weight, price 800.
That leaves 4kwh for recharging equipment even underway, a nice to have.

We have used up 570 liters leaving 430 or so, we'll leave space for attach points for 330 liters of equipment or cargo and call it 100 liters of fuel. At .15 liter use per hour, that gives us 666 hours of operation. Fuel weight 7 kg.

Cost, 22,850 Cr.

Thrust is 800kg, weight is 216 kg, add on a 200kg human, that's 416 kg, 1.92 -1 G to neutralize gravity, that's .92 G, yielding 1080 km/h on ye olde Striker speed table.

Definitely a power ride.

You can up even that by getting the LT or light grav modules, much more expensive but can really crank up that speed.

Did the math on just one grav module, cuts the cost down to 10,650 Cr, 20 liters of fuel so 200 hours on fuel and just .04 G, which doesn't make the .1G lowest level. Divide that lowest speed of 120 by 2 and you get 60 km/h- the scooter of the grav world.

The seat weight may be a bit much given that it's a simplistic motorcycle seat, but I'm assuming a few more straps and safety devices given the precarious position of a grav bike driver, so leaving it be for now.

These things are awfully sensitive to weight increases, carrying extra people or cargo should incur harsh thrust costs.

 

[mike wightman]

What is the discount cost of a TL8 grav vehicle built on a TL15 industrial high pop world?

Automated production and cheap fusion energy keeping production costs down should mean high TL manufacture of goods should be cheaper.

In general, prices will tend to drop by 5-15% at each tech level after the level of introduction of an item, with examples of the item sold at the regular base price generally incorporating improvements or representing deluxe models.

So a TL8 air/raft should have a 35% minimum reduced cost (the 105% price reduction is a little silly

 

[Timerover51]

Having grown up and now living in the Chicago area, I keep trying to visualize a half a million air cars trying to occupy the same air space at the same time. It just does not compute. Much as a like H. Beam Piper, I am not sure about air vehicles for everything.

 

[kilemall]

Heck, that's been a staple at least since Metropolis.

Would likely require automated traffic control, with only free flight outside the cities and lanes.

 

[Condottiere]

Also parking.

The preference is going to be air/rafts, especially for first responders, and it's going to be easier picking up passengers from top of buildings, whereas at street level you'll have ground based transport, and underground you'll have trains.

 

[mike wightman]

Having grown up and now living in the Chicago area, I keep trying to visualize a half a million air cars trying to occupy the same air space at the same time. It just does not compute. Much as a like H. Beam Piper, I am not sure about air vehicles for everything.

Once driverless cars are a thing, in a decade or so I can see major cities replacing a lot of their public transport systems with driverless. Then will come the insistence that private vehicles have driverless technology within city limits - for safety and insurance reasons of course.

Twenty to thirty years from now I doubt if anyone will be allowed to manually control a vehicle within city limits.

Flying cars will require automation.

 

[Willie Dewitt]

Once driverless cars are a thing, in a decade or so I can see major cities replacing a lot of their public transport systems with driverless. Then will come the insistence that private vehicles have driverless technology within city limits - for safety and insurance reasons of course.

Twenty to thirty years from now I doubt if anyone will be allowed to manually control a vehicle with city limits.

Flying cars will require automation.

Heh. I live in West Los Angeles where half the drivers are from countries where all the traffic signs say "every man for himself." I hate to think what manual flying vehicles would yield around here. o: