CT Only: How do you create space-stations?

[tim_manley]

I generally create them using LBB2 rules just like ship, only no maneuver drive, no jump drive, only a power plant. Gives a maximum size to your station.

Have you built your own stations? How do you deal with it?

 

[GypsyComet]

There is a JTAS article on the really big stations. Issue 23.

The little stations that have showed up, like FASA's Eshpadir, have been as you describe, though. You might want to borrow docking rings from later editions to establish docking limits for a small station, but you can just wing it if need be.

 

[Shonner]

An Azhanti High Lightning can be a space station. Just put it in orbit somewhere. Strip out the jump drives and weapons. Ships can dock at the bottom.

 

[GypsyComet]

An Azhanti High Lightning can be a space station.

One of the Research Stations (MT era, though, in Challenge 42) does just that, though it uses only the center of an AHL, not the full stem to stern.

Even 60ktons is pretty small compared to a proper O'Neill Cylinder, though.

 

[Shonner]

Even 60ktons is pretty small compared to a proper O'Neill Cylinder, though.

Cylinders are beyond space stations, for me. Those are the mini worlds, hollowed asteroids. I love ring worlds. But they cover so much real estate.
http://www.cornucopia3d.com/galleries/displayimage.php?album=lastupby&cat=0&pos=3&pid=60108

 

[BlackBat242]

Orbital habitats ≠ space stations - nor do they use the same rules.

 

[Vargas]

For space stations I use a narrative description. They are the equivalent of movie sets or SFX shots in my games. If details were really required, as in someone wants to enter into combat with a station, I'd pick a gross dtonnage to use as a base for calculating numer of turrets and such but that's about it.

Note: The space stations I've whipped up for my games have tended to be big ones, major ports in their own right.

 

[Golan2072]

Even Elite's relatively small space station is about 1 cubic kilometre in volume, which is, IIRC, far beyond and Traveller ship. This is a location, not a ship; in the lack of any bigger inhabited bodies in the system, or when most population is on station rather than groundisde, this would be classified as a "SIZE 0" world in Traveller terms.

EDIT: It turns out that Elite ships are quite big in Traveller terms, where, for example, the two-seat fighter Cobra Mk.3 is 253,500 cubic meters, which is 18,107 dtons. Now, let's say that an equivalent Traveller ship would be 100 dtons; so the station would be smaller than a square kilometre. How smaller, I'd ask?

 

[GypsyComet]

EDIT: It turns out that Elite ships are quite big in Traveller terms, where, for example, the two-seat fighter Cobra Mk.3 is 253,500 cubic meters, which is 18,107 dtons. Now, let's say that an equivalent Traveller ship would be 100 dtons; so the station would be smaller than a square kilometre. How smaller, I'd ask?

A "square kilometer" is a lot of volume, but not off the chart until it gets five decks deep.

Unless Elite has art to back up those "fighter" sizes, I might suggest that someone in the development process forgot to calibrate the scale on their CADD volume tools. 18 kdtons is a multi-story office building.

Cylinders are beyond space stations, for me. Those are the mini worlds, hollowed asteroids. I love ring worlds. But they cover so much real estate.

Even a Halo is several orders of magnitude beyond an O'Niell. True Ringworlds are much larger than Halos.

The popular idea of Space Stations often fails to convey the size of them unless you are paying attention. Even the "tiny" station in "The Trouble With Tribbles" is in the low millions of dtons, and the main Starbase seen in the Trek movies above Earth is in the billions. The station seen in Starship Troopers, with those big ships crashed on the deck, is somewhere between the Trek stations in size. Terok Nor, aka Deep Space Nine, is also not a small station.

Even the smaller stations, such as the spinner seen in 2001 A Space Odyssey, is probably 50kdtons.

For something really small, you are essentially flying a Lab Ship to the right spot and parking it. So yes, use the ship rules.

 

[aramis]

EDIT: It turns out that Elite ships are quite big in Traveller terms, where, for example, the two-seat fighter Cobra Mk.3 is 253,500 cubic meters, which is 18,107 dtons. Now, let's say that an equivalent Traveller ship would be 100 dtons; so the station would be smaller than a square kilometre. How smaller, I'd ask?

you forgot that it's essentially a pyramid, so only 84500 cubic whatevers. And, given the lack of units on the wiki, I suspect it's in feet, not meters. which moves it to a still huge 2416 cubic meters, or 172 Traveller tons.

 

[Reban]

As I recall the Cobra Mk.III "Fighter" had plenty of room for cargo, passengers and had an FTL drive making it a small starship not a fighter in the Traveller sense.

 

[Golan2072]

As I recall the Cobra Mk.III "Fighter" had plenty of room for cargo, passengers and had an FTL drive making it a small starship not a fighter in the Traveller sense.

Yep, something along the lines of Type-S or maybe even a Type-A.

 

[Shonner]

It turns out that Elite ships are quite big in Traveller terms, where, for example, the two-seat fighter Cobra Mk.3 is 253,500 cubic meters, which is 18,107 dtons.

It's hard to compare other sci-fi vehicle weights and measures with Traveller, because they typically don't equate to volumes of displaced liquid hydrogen.

 

[Golan2072]

It's hard to compare other sci-fi vehicle weights and measures with Traveller, because they typically don't equate to volumes of displaced liquid hydrogen.

I was compared based on volume - 1 Traveller dton equals 14 cubic meters IIRC.

 

[aramis]

It's hard to compare other sci-fi vehicle weights and measures with Traveller, because they typically don't equate to volumes of displaced liquid hydrogen.

Volume is volume is volume.

If it gives cubic feet, cubic meters, or displaced tons of water or air at STP, it's still just volumes.

Elite should be measuring in meters, but might not have been, and the sizes are much better if one assumes ship sizes given in feet, despite some cargos being in g or kg.

 

[Shonner]

If 14cm displaces 1 ton of liquid hydrogen, does 14cm displace 1 ton of light hydrogen?

 

[McPerth]

If 14cm displaces 1 ton of liquid hydrogen, does 14cm displace 1 ton of light hydrogen?

14 m³, not 14 cm...

 

[Shonner]

14 m³, not 14 cm...

Which page is that on?

 

[aramis]

Which page is that on?

cm is the SI abbreviation for centimeters - 0.01m. Linear measure

m³ = m³ = m^3 = cu m (note the space) = cubic meters.

 

[Shonner]

Interesting that you two guys went there.