Gearhead Challenge!

[far-trader]

The Imperial Ministry of Galactic Studies has detected certain anomalies in the edge of the Canis Major dwarf galaxy. This small galaxy once on the edge of our own and still the closest to the Milky Way bears certain anomalies that warrant closer investigation. A call has been issued for tenders for a mission to actually cross the inter-galactic void and explore the near edge.

Applicants will have to plan for a vessel that can cross about 25,000 light years of sparsely populated space each way. J6 will be required and wilderness refueling capability is a must. Finding fuel along the way will be difficult and this time must be factored in. Jumps will average J4 even with the occasional J5 and J6 possible, and will consist primarily of jumps between detectable deep space bodies suitable for fuel. Detection of such bodies will take up the bulk of the mission duration, averaging 2 weeks after each jump. There are likely to be few actual stellar systems in the middle of the gulf but while these will be easier to detect enroute the time will be the same to allow 1 week of investigation in such systems.

The ship will require capacity for a minimum of 1200 scientists and family in addition to the crew, and each crew member will likewise have allowance for 3 family members. This is to be a generational style ship, a functional city while engaged in the mission.

Subcraft for exploration and lifeboat use must be capable of independent J4 to allow J2 return side tracks with onboard fuel and in an emergency should have emergency lowberth capacity for 100% of the ship's compliment.

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So what did I miss? And more important is anyone interested in the challenge?

Oh yes, "Where did you get such an idea?" Why from this post here. And a link to a site of the basic press release with some graphics here.

I see this as (finally) an Imperial answer to the Zho's core expeditions. A grand exploration seeking answers to riddles. Only rather than looking inward, the Imperium chooses to look outward. I have my own ideas on what the anomalies are, and what they will find. That could be part two of the challenge, what is discovered...

 

[mike wightman]

Robots.

Can I include robots in the crew?

Does it have to be a generation ship or can it be a sleeper ship instead?

Does it have to be a TL15 design or can it be built at one of the Imperium's TL16 worlds?

Using the "mapping unknown space" rules from a couple of the CT Alien modules this could make for quite an interesting campaign.

Set off in 1115-ish, return about 100-150 years later

 

[mike wightman]

Just one nit pick.

How does the Imperium send this ship to investigate beyond its borders when it is surrounded on all sides by other empires?

Don't tell me the ship has to be capable of jumping into the mystical 3rd dimension

 

[ChaserCaffey]

What system should we use in answering this challenge? High Guard? FF&S1? FF&S2? If FF&S1, should we give this thing HEPlaR thrusters, or use thruster plates?

Is there data anywhere on installing life support systems intended to support a crew for decades? The basic "extended" life support from FF&S1 seems to assume that air and water would be recycled, but food brought along as cargo, which obviously wouldn't work here...

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Robots.

Can I include robots in the crew?

Certainly. In compliance with the Shudusham Concords of course.

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Does it have to be a generation ship or can it be a sleeper ship instead?

I think the mission would require a wakeful sentient population and given the duration it would be generational (I'm not sure my minimums is enough for a stable population, feel free to expand on it if needed). A sleeper component would be fine, to allow some backup and/or variety. I'd do it that way.

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Does it have to be a TL15 design or can it be built at one of the Imperium's TL16 worlds?

I see no problem there. I think it will probably launch from the Spinward Marches and proceed along the minor rift skirting the Consulate (if I have the direction figured right).

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Using the "mapping unknown space" rules from a couple of the CT Alien modules this could make for quite an interesting campaign.

Set off in 1115-ish, return about 100-150 years later

Yes, I was thinking the same

 

[mike wightman]

FF&S2 has rules for "extended" extended life support, and so does GT Starships (farms etc. as ship modules).

As to shipbuilding system, most things like this are thrown open to any Traveller design system...

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Just one nit pick.

How does the Imperium send this ship to investigate beyond its borders when it is surrounded on all sides by other empires?

Don't tell me the ship has to be capable of jumping into the mystical 3rd dimension

hehe, no, as I began to answer above based on this map...
.

...and my ideas I think the trip can "avoid any extra-Imperial entanglements"

Travelling "west" on that map misses everything and is I think in the right (er, left ) direction.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
FF&S2 has rules for "extended" extended life support, and so does GT Starships (farms etc. as ship modules).

As to shipbuilding system, most things like this are thrown open to any Traveller design system...

Yep, any system you are comfortable with and if it doesn't have the "stuff" you need feel free to improvise, extrapolate, interpolate, and make it up

 

[mike wightman]

So I can have this thing built at Vincennes/Deneb or Depot/Deneb then

How about an experimental TL17 hybrid - there is canonical precedent (if QLI pdf products are now canonical, that is

).

TL17 would allow for 80% jump fuel requirement (using MT rules as the guide)...

 

[TheDS]

My submission (without actually building anything):

The Flying Fueltank: Ship #1 is at least a million Dtons. It has a J6 drive, a minimal maneuver drive, and is otherwise all fuel capacity. This should be enough for 2 maximum jumps for it and for its companions. The ship also devotes considerable surface area to passive sensor equipment (so it doesn't need a big, space-wasting power supply). It is a non-folding array. The ship will be a sphere, to save space.

The Mothership: Ship #2 is probably 250,000 Dtons (1/4 the size of the fuel tank) and contains the habitat module for the crew, a small fleet of small J6 scouts. It has a lot of sensory equipment, enough to set up a considerable synthetic aperature, as do each of the scouts. Setting this up on multiple ships allows the aperature to be any diameter we want, out to about J6, and using most of the surface area available (plus huge folding arrays for the scouts) allows us to have a lot of surface area, so it's sensative. Finding stuff is going to be hard, so we need the best, and most sensative eyes we can get. The rest of the ship is devoted to living space and life support and recreation.

The Warship: Ship #3 is also probably about 1/4 the size of the fuel ship. It is not especially well armed as warships go, probably equivalent to a frontier cruiser. But it carries fighters. Its most important role, however, is that it carries a small fleet of refueling craft. These craft are each around 1000 Dtons. Yes, fueling will be a long, arduous process, BUT, we can lose 10 or 20 ships and still not have to worry. We don't want our MAIN fuel tanker to do its own GG refueling, because you never know what's lurking in a GG. Likewise, you can lose a bunch of fighters and it's no big deal, but you don't want to risk your main 3 ships, so they get to wait for long fueling operations.

All 3 main ships are basically spheres, to save space. They are not streamlined, so they cannot refuel themselves, so they can stay away from planets and stuff. Subordinate craft are streamlined, since you will probably need them to get close to a planet at some point, and you don't know how many you'll lose.

SOP will be: deploy scouts within the current jump zone and scan for fuel sources and possible dangers in the next jump zone, first concentrating on the area that would be the most direct jump, then spreading around that. If nothing useful can be found, scan the potential jump zones for the scouts, to send them out and increase sensor value. When it is assured that the scouts can jump to better viewing positions safely, they do so, gather sensor data for the desired jump zone, then return. Probably a scan will take 2 weeks to find something, or 8 weeks if the scouts must jump out to increase the sensor diameter.

While all this scanning is going on, the fuel shuttles refuel everybody, and will have plenty of time to get it done. Once a new jump zone can be found, everything is gathered together and the jump proceeds.

If a scout goes missing, another scout will be sent to gather relavent light and find out what happened to it. This involves jumping to a position of a few lightweeks away from the expected jump location of the missing scout (distance depends on how long the scout's been missing) and watching the area for the scout to arrive and seeing what happened to it. If this second scout goes overdue, a third will be deployed to determine if the second scout is simply waiting for the incident of interest to occur, or if it is missing. This will be a jump in jump out kind of mission, and what it finds (or if it goes missing) will determine whether the fleet immediately retreats or waits.

Once it is determined that there is a safe place to jump to, with fuel available at the next jump (or likely to be fuel a jump after that), the fleet jumps to the new location, then deploys to find the next location. The only time the fleet will make jumps in just one week will be when bridging a gap between two fuel sources more than 6 parsecs apart. Otherwise, it will probably take days to refuel everyone, maybe a whole week if fuel reserves had to be exhausted crossing a rift.

In any case, a scout CAN be used to previsit an intended jump destination. Scouts on sensor missions are NOT to make contact with any races or explore any findings; they are simply to gather data and return it to the fleet, and at that point, a data-gathering or contact mission can be planned if desired.

Naturally, these are not hard and fast rules. The commander on site will need to be intelligent and flexible enough to make wise decisions, but he should remember that he has a limited supply of things, and should not waste them fruitlessly, nor should he bring high tech invasion fleets back to known space. He should also leave buoys behind, so that followup missions can retrieve the fleet's data if the mission should fail to return, or another mission can be sent to retrieve the information on the buoys.

That's all just off the top of my head.

 

[TheDS]

However, I think I would just build a ship and accelerate it to .999c or more, so the crew could get there in a year ship's time, or wait until there's a better ftl drive invented (or a more efficient use of j-fuel).

 

[ChaserCaffey]

Originally posted by TheDS:
However, I think I would just build a ship and accelerate it to .999c or more, so the crew could get there in a year ship's time, or wait until there's a better ftl drive invented (or a more efficient use of j-fuel).

Unless, of course, the Imperium wants its data back in "only" a couple centuries as opposed to 50,000 years.


Thanks for the systems info, all- I may make some stuff up with FF&S1.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by TheDS:
or wait until there's a better ftl drive invented (or a more efficient use of j-fuel).

Jump fuel required by TL from MT, converted into the 10% per jump number used in almost every other version of Traveller:
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> TL %hull/jump number
9-16 10
17 8
18 6
19 4
20 2
21+ 1 </pre>[/QUOTE]

 

[jhulse]

Can we use Darrian "consultants" (higher tech)?
Or is this a "super secret" mission... Imperium scientists/engineers only?
Would you like deckplans?

 

[GypsyComet]

I am reminded of a once-posited set of outward expeditions by the Solomani that were, in 1100, still ongoing. I don't recall if these were mentioned in Rats & Cats or only in an MT-era manuscript called "Grand Explorations" I read once.

Unlike the Zhodani Core Expeditions, which have been described as "Fleet Migrations", the Solomani Orion Arm Expeditions were based on giant motherships, very similar to the above request.

 

[far-trader]

Just a few quick notes before lights out now that I'm back at the keyboard for a minute.

TheDS, excellent outline, many helpful ideas there.

ChaserCaffey, good point, yes I think the Imperium could have the forsight for a mission lasting a couple centuries but not 50,000 years. I often overlook that side of near-C missions myself, or worse. Have fun (above all) and if you come up with something do share.

Sigg, certainly cutting edge tech can be incorporated, hey wait a minute, what am I forgetting about the Deneb systems??? Oh, and thanks for posting the Jump fuel savings from MT. Use them for any CT designs too I'd say. And T20 designs at TL16+ I think might be able to take advantage of them too (or if you really want an edge, the 50% fuel optional rule in the Handbook).

Jak, Darrian "consultants" could be ok depending on the time frame you want to use. This isn't exactly a "super secret" mission and no it needn't be an Imperial effort only, that I leave to the designer to decide, along with any social engineering type aspects you (anyone) might want to add to the discussion. Like will the society be designed/fracture into a working class (the crew) and ruling class (the scientists) over time.

Jak also asked "Would you like deckplans?" Is there any doubt? I'd love deckplans! Of course I'm not expecting any, these will likely be huge ships. See TheDS's outline, I think he's close to the mark. Of course you could have "sample" bits. You know, typical Astrometrics Lab, Fleet Command Bridge, Habitat Module, etc. That'd be great, and useful by themselves for other mammoth projects.

GypsyComet, hmm, that could be ringing some bells now you mention it. Anybody have more details handy? I'm just a little curious now, not that this seems too similar, but I'd hate to find it's been done

Again, everyone, this is just some idle speculation on my part, and a hope for some fun and sharing of ideas. So whatever cranks up your meter goes

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by GypsyComet:
I am reminded of a once-posited set of outward expeditions by the Solomani that were, in 1100, still ongoing. I don't recall if these were mentioned in Rats & Cats or only in an MT-era manuscript called "Grand Explorations" I read once.

Unlike the Zhodani Core Expeditions, which have been described as "Fleet Migrations", the Solomani Orion Arm Expeditions were based on giant motherships, very similar to the above request.

The Solomani Rimward exploration mission, the Perseus Project, is mentioned briefley in S&A.
The longest journey mentioned is 3000parsecs, although a few ships haven't returned yet.

 

[veltyen]

Thinking of long term life support Atomic Rocket might be worth a look.

Is the goal of placing a permanent research colony is part of the spec? Personally I can see the prestige value in calling yourself an Intergalactic Empire

 

[far-trader]

That's a thought veltyen. There would be some definite PR in being the first to colonize another galaxy, even one that is being sucked into this one.

I think you have something there Consider that as a bonus parameter to the design. Probably a sleeper corps of colonists and boot-strap materials.

 

[BetterThanLife]

An atimatter powerplant would offer several advantages but one major disadvantage. The advantage is of course the power output for the size and fuel. The disadvantages are as follows. It is new experimental tech and therefore more subject to failure over long periods of time. (A couple of centuries would definitely qualify.) The fuel supply is designed to be about a year in length. Aquiring fuel for a starship or warship that frequently returns to base, (once a year or so) would be easy. Aquiring fuel when you are away from base for a couple of centuries, well that is another story. Anti-matter isn't like Hydrogen, which is abundant or easy to break out of many common molecules.

The best option would be to borrow a ship from Grandfather. (With a nice habitable world in the pocket universe that powers the ship.) That way you could get there relatively easily and have a whole planet of people along for the trip.