In your games what is the largest ship that can land on a planet.

[Krikkitone]

How about having grav plates (like the ones that are built into the floors of every starship) built into the floor of every starport? Gravity could be reduced to allow large fragile ships to land, or even assist with the landing or takeoff of ships with feeble drives unable to overcome local gravity? They could also be used to float cargo across the starport, or disabled/shut down ships into repair facilities.

At that point it’s easier to have s Highport

 

[Badenov]

If the tarmac is not properly rated, you may land, but your landing gear may sink into the ground after breaking through the covering tarmac. The Portmaster coming out on a tram, yelling expletives, would be "Scene 2".

Simple solution to that is never fully cut your M-drive and never let the weight of the vessel come down on the tarmac. No reason you can't sit there for a few days in stationkeeping mode until your heavy cargo is unloaded, or until you need to go. A lot of colonies with class E or X starports are probably like this. Max load rating is almost certainly part of any starport briefing and contained in the info that gets sent to ships before they land. If you land an overweight ship on their landing pad and damage it, that's on you, and I would absolutely expect the above scene 2.

 

[Rupert]

Simple solution to that is never fully cut your M-drive and never let the weight of the vessel come down on the tarmac. No reason you can't sit there for a few days in stationkeeping mode until your heavy cargo is unloaded, or until you need to go. A lot of colonies with class E or X starports are probably like this. Max load rating is almost certainly part of any starport briefing and contained in the info that gets sent to ships before they land. If you land an overweight ship on their landing pad and damage it, that's on you, and I would absolutely expect the above scene 2.

And this is why manoeuvre drives that have no exhaust, etc. are boring. If you can do this at a spaceport, you can do this anywhere, and at whatever altitude you like. The owners (such as a PC party) now have a massive armoured air/raft that they can set anywhere they like. It makes discussions of how to do adventures for people in air/rafts look cute (especially as a great many ships are armed, and a simple ship laser is a very heavy weapon in groundside terms).

 

[Badenov]

And this is why manoeuvre drives that have no exhaust, etc. are boring. If you can do this at a spaceport, you can do this anywhere, and at whatever altitude you like. The owners (such as a PC party) now have a massive armoured air/raft that they can set anywhere they like. It makes discussions of how to do adventures for people in air/rafts look cute (especially as a great many ships are armed, and a simple ship laser is a very heavy weapon in groundside terms).

Well, not many planetary authorities are going to let you cruise over the planet surface in a starship just joyriding. Or, really, whatever your business. Now an air/raft is almost certainly your answer there.

 

[Spinward Flow]

CT gives an answer:
S9 p6 "Surface support of ships is generally limited to vessels displacing 1,000 tons or less"

A more fulsome quote of LBB S9, p6:

NAVAL BASES
A naval base has several distinct parts to it; each helps achieve the general purpose of naval harbor
The berthing area is generally a series of orbit patterns which large naval vessels are placed into when not in need of any sort of major repair. Smaller craft also use these orbits when not wishing to land as part of their stop. Light repair work involving no structural or integral systems can be performed with the ship either placed in an orbit pattern or berthed at the ground based facility. Surface support of ships is generally limited to vessels displacing 1,000 tons or less. Although larger ships can sometimes be handled on the ground, they are usually repaired and maintained in orbit.

Fun fact ... this means that Kinunir class starships are "too big" to land for surface support at naval bases (oops!).
That would seem to be something of a "design flaw" (in all kinds of directions).

---

At a bare minimum, LBB2 implies that a 5000 ton starship CAN be "landed" (safely) onto a world surface (solid or liquid) ... otherwise, why have streamlining available for craft that big? Streamlining exists to permit craft to (re)enter atmosphere with the intention of reaching the surface (typically a downport, but there are exceptions, such as wilderness refueling).

---

If you REALLY want to come up with some house rules that essentially "compute" the maximum downport berth size, you're looking at wanting to use a combination of starport type, world population ... plus government OR law level (whichever is higher) ... as your variables.

Pull the starport type DM from the table that determines tech level (LBB3.81, p12):

• A = +6
• B = +4
• C = +2
• D = 0
• E = 0
• X = -4

Add that DM to the world population code.
Then add either the world government code or the law level (whichever is higher).
The resulting number is the largest hull size code (LBB5.80, p23) that can be accommodated in a downport berth on the surface of the mainworld.

1105 era Regina/Regina (A788899) would therefore have a maximum downport berth accommodation of (6+8+9=23) hull code: P ... which is 50,000-74,999 tons displacement, using the above (hurriedly thrown together) interpretation.

Compare that downport berth capacity to 1105 era Rethe/Regina (E230AA8) which would have a maximum downport berth accommodation of (0+10+10=20) hull code: L ... which is 20,000-29,999 tons displacement, using the above (hurriedly thrown together) interpretation.

1105 era Forboldn (E893614) would have a maximum downport berth accommodation of (0+6+4=10) hull code: A ... which is 1000-1999 tons displacement, using the above (hurriedly thrown together) interpretation.



Obviously, such a sliding scale house rule system could probably do with a bit more thought (and consideration of edge cases), but for something that took me less time to think of than to actually type up into a forum post, it's a serviceable notion for "quick 'n' dirty" use by a Referee.

 

[Grav_Moped]

At a bare minimum, LBB2 implies that a 5000 ton starship CAN be "landed" (safely) onto a world surface (solid or liquid) ... otherwise, why have streamlining available for craft that big? Streamlining exists to permit craft to (re)enter atmosphere with the intention of reaching the surface (typically a downport, but there are exceptions, such as wilderness refueling).

That last line is your answer.
Streamlining is needed for skimming; it does not necessarily mean landing.

It should, though.

 

[Condottiere]

Lifters do need to be kept energized.

 

[mike wightman]

That last line is your answer.
Streamlining is needed for skimming; it does not necessarily mean landing.

It should, though.

That depends on your reading of
"Streamlining exists to permit craft to (re)enter atmosphere with the intention of reaching the surface (typically a downport, but there are exceptions, such as wilderness refueling)."

Let's break it down to the clauses shall we:
"Streamlining exists to permit craft to (re)enter atmosphere with the intention of reaching the surface" - this is self explanatory

"but there are exceptions, such as wilderness refueling" this is an exception to the reason for entering the atmosphere, not the ability to land at the world's surface.

 

[mike wightman]

A more fulsome quote of LBB S9, p6:

"Surface support of ships is generally limited to vessels displacing 1,000 tons or less. Although larger ships can sometimes be handled on the ground, they are usually repaired and maintained in orbit."

Fun fact ... this means that Kinunir class starships are "too big" to land for surface support at naval bases (oops!).
That would seem to be something of a "design flaw" (in all kinds of directions).

No it doesn't you just quoted the exception that allows the 1200t Kinunir to land.

The fact that you break into General shipyards on the ground to investigate the hull rather than have to find the hull in an orbital knackers yard tells you that they can land at Regins.

I would imagine they can land at any IN base.

 

[bookwyrm]

A more fulsome quote of LBB S9, p6:

Fun fact ... this means that Kinunir class starships are "too big" to land for surface support at naval bases (oops!).
That would seem to be something of a "design flaw" (in all kinds of directions).

---

At a bare minimum, LBB2 implies that a 5000 ton starship CAN be "landed" (safely) onto a world surface (solid or liquid) ... otherwise, why have streamlining available for craft that big? Streamlining exists to permit craft to (re)enter atmosphere with the intention of reaching the surface (typically a downport, but there are exceptions, such as wilderness refueling).

---

If you REALLY want to come up with some house rules that essentially "compute" the maximum downport berth size, you're looking at wanting to use a combination of starport type, world population ... plus government OR law level (whichever is higher) ... as your variables.

Pull the starport type DM from the table that determines tech level (LBB3.81, p12):

• A = +6
• B = +4
• C = +2
• D = 0
• E = 0
• X = -4

Add that DM to the world population code.
Then add either the world government code or the law level (whichever is higher).
The resulting number is the largest hull size code (LBB5.80, p23) that can be accommodated in a downport berth on the surface of the mainworld.

1105 era Regina/Regina (A788899) would therefore have a maximum downport berth accommodation of (6+8+9=23) hull code: P ... which is 50,000-74,999 tons displacement, using the above (hurriedly thrown together) interpretation.

Compare that downport berth capacity to 1105 era Rethe/Regina (E230AA8) which would have a maximum downport berth accommodation of (0+10+10=20) hull code: L ... which is 20,000-29,999 tons displacement, using the above (hurriedly thrown together) interpretation.

1105 era Forboldn (E893614) would have a maximum downport berth accommodation of (0+6+4=10) hull code: A ... which is 1000-1999 tons displacement, using the above (hurriedly thrown together) interpretation.



Obviously, such a sliding scale house rule system could probably do with a bit more thought (and consideration of edge cases), but for something that took me less time to think of than to actually type up into a forum post, it's a serviceable notion for "quick 'n' dirty" use by a Referee.

How about start with Hull Code A and use the Star Port Tech DM to move it up or down from there? You could use Pop or Govt to tweak it if necessary.

I think X would be land at your own risk and E would depend on the ships landing gear vs. the composition of the landing area at the Landing Beacon/Site.

 

[Grav_Moped]

I'm gonna pull a @Spinward Flow here, and post a video of a recent attempted landing.

Good drone and camera ops, but post-processed enough that it looks kind of fake.

Note that it's NOT Spacex...

A Chinese rocket narrowly missed a landing on Sunday—the video is amazing

Deep Blue Aerospace is just one of several Chinese companies working on vertical landing.

arstechnica.com

 

[casquilho]

Must have been a heart break for those poor guys. So very close.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I'm gonna pull a @Spinward Flow here, and post a video of a recent attempted landing.

Good drone and camera ops, but post-processed enough that it looks kind of fake.

Note that it's NOT Spacex...

It's called Flight Testing for a reason.
Also, the Payload is DATA.

Even if they flubbed the landing, they got a LOT OF DATA out of that test flight.

Took SpaceX multiple tries to get it right, too.
But once you get the engineering "dialed in" ... it's all GRAVY ...

 

[RossWinn]

A million dton ship is smaller than most, a radius of 147m and change. so a sphere with a diameter under 300m is a relatively small object. About the length of an aircraft carrier. With the gravitics available that's not huge, or dangerous to land on a planet.

 

[Rupert]

It will have a mass of about 5 million tonnes, though. Unless the manoeuvre drive it's using has truly magical thrust vectoring it's not going to be nimble. On the other hand, it's not going to be much concerned with wind.

 

[Black Vulmea]

CT gives an answer:

S9 p6 "Surface support of ships is generally limited to vessels displacing 1,000 tons or less"

NB: this is specifically in reference to naval bases, but I assume the same limit applies to commercial port support.

And yes, I use that rule.

Same here.

Private companies like the megacorps may construct pads for larger ships, usually for their own fleet, but 1000 dtons is the Imperial standard.

 

[Rupert]

For the HePLAR adhearants landing with cargo is what we are talking about, it is not 1mt/DT the ship's average density depends on what % of the internal volume is fuel tanks which are 1mt/DT. a 100 DT ship at J-1 1g might have only 25% if the internal volume as 1mt/DT. the rest of the ship is 2 DT of jump drive at 2 to 3 mt per m3. Power plant at 6 to 2 mt/m3 depending on TL and so forth. The average J1 ship is a lot closer to 5mt/DT and armored warships come closer to 10mt/DT. Now this is all empty weights. Merchants will be landing with a cargo aboard which for the J1 ship is likley to have at least the density of water, and that is close to half of the ship's internal volume which pushes the average density up to 10mt/DT. so for a safe landing a unstreamlined ship needs to have at least 10,000 mt of thrust per planet's g local, and fuel reserves to feed the HePLAR for (planet size) hours.

IF you're a HePlaR fan you're likely using TNE/FF&S' contragrav, and that means you ship floats on the wind and local gravity, your ship's density, etc. are simply not important when determining whether you can get to and from orbit. How much acceleration you have, and for how long does still matter, because of atmospheric drag, etc., but most ships won't have much problem supplying the thrust.

If the ship isn't streamlined and the place is windy it could get exciting for a low density ship, and I assume that unstreamlined ships lack landing gear and if dropped into water will probably float with an annoying attitude, making getting anything on and off them a real pain (and potentially making lift-off exciting). If you want to operate in atmospheres at the very least streamline your ship. If planning extensive in-atmosphere operations, get an 'airframe' ship and do it right.

I don't think I've ever set a limit on the size of ship that can land, but I do assume that D and E ports' landing pads generally only handle up to 1,000 DTon ships, as a default.

 

[warwizard]

IF you're a HePlaR fan you're likely using TNE/FF&S' contragrav, and that means you ship floats on the wind and local gravity, your ship's density, etc. are simply not important when determining whether you can get to and from orbit. How much acceleration you have, and for how long does still matter, because of atmospheric drag, etc., but most ships won't have much problem supplying the thrust.

If the ship isn't streamlined and the place is windy it could get exciting for a low density ship, and I assume that unstreamlined ships lack landing gear and if dropped into water will probably float with an annoying attitude, making getting anything on and off them a real pain (and potentially making lift-off exciting). If you want to operate in atmospheres at the very least streamline your ship. If planning extensive in-atmosphere operations, get an 'airframe' ship and do it right.

I don't think I've ever set a limit on the size of ship that can land, but I do assume that D and E ports' landing pads generally only handle up to 1,000 DTon ships, as a default.

"For the HePLAR adhearants", means we who do not wish to use CG tor tactical or illogical reasons. Tactical, CG makes you a big blip on gravetic sensors. Illogical, handwavium, we're doing first contact for Earth campaign, and earth tech does not include CG. Whatever the reason. Edit. (Sorry for late response it's a week before winter solstice, generator is down, 2 kW/h available in the LiFePO4 battery bank. Using lead acid battery for internet power.)