MegaTraveller - Explorer ship

[Hemdian]

Is it possible to squeeze a robotic brain into the probe's design? It might be nice (given that probe recovery is desirable) if the probe isn't automatically lost when communications are blocked. A robotic brain could be instructed to attempt to 'return to base' under such an eventuality.

Actually, I'd be tempted to have a couple of different designs to meet different mission profiles: a cheap basic remote scanner type and a more advanced sample collection droid type. (The latter being an anti-grav propelled robot with a tiny cargo capacity and a light robot arm.)

 

[OjnoTheRed]

Hemdian, your comment is the inspiration for the work behind this thread.

Working from the principles I've been developing there, I've come up with this draft design that I think means I need to re-question my assumptions.

If I include the control panels, it's 250 litres of volume I don't have. If I don't include them, everything fits, with 1 litre left over to pack an initial missile propellant into. I'm also 32kg over weight with the control panels in.

The volume of 17 litres I am trying to get within is the volume of a Traveller missile spelled out in Special Supplement 3 - Missiles. It says the missiles are cylinders with a diameter of 15cm, a length of one metre, and must weigh less than 50kg to fit into standard turret launchers.

A cylinder of 15cm diameter by 1m length works out a 17 litres of volume. And I've just spotted I've left 10 litre volume mass and price for the base hull. Never mind.

I could get around my own assumptions by installing a slave unit instead of a robot brain - but this would mean that if the probe lost contact it would have no initiative and be no more than a remote controlled probe missile.

So I think that, at TL15, a robot controlled probe fitting within a standard missile can't be done on my current assumptions about brain-vehicle interface.

But a slaved missile could be.

A robot probe would need to be larger than a standard missile.

I might take a look at TAC missile design in TNE or Striker to test assumptions again and look for further inspiration.

 

[Hemdian]

I think I would question your assumption on control panels.

In the MT design sequence, control panels are described in terms of how they interact with sophonts. And control panel add-ons, like large holodisplays can be used to replace control panels. So, at least a portion of a control panel would be redundant if a direct linkage could be made. (Such direct linkage was described in JTAS22, for CT. So, perhaps, there should be a “jack-in” control panel add-on added to the MT rules. But I digress.)

If control panels could be split into control circuitry and sophont interface then the control circuitry part would be required even if the missile were computer controlled or remote controlled.

I know this isn’t conclusive but my take on this is that control circuitry is included in the component stats of each component, thus control panels are sophont interface only.

 

[aramis]

ISTR it's 250cp per point of int. ISTR that's from MTJ.

 

[shadowdragon]

i see that the solar cells will recharge the batteries in 4.41 hours (4h 25m), is it possible to increase the total m^2 of solar panels to drop it to 4h even? or even to 2h, as this would allow you to run with extended life support. This would allow you to run emergency life support off the solar panels during the day (or in space), and batteries at night (or in orbit on the dark side), and by shutting off non-vital areas it could allow you to trickle charge the batteries during the day while still running life support off of the solar cells. an integrated system, with minimal volume considerations but a possible increase to cost, would switch between the two relatively seamlessly.
just a thought.

Edit: after perusing the spreadsheet i see that in order to do that you would have to have a deployed solar panel array. which would eat up space, unless someone has come up with rules for having fold-up arrays mounted externally in the space reserved for standard arrays.

nice work on the excel sheet, btw. a few more notations would help those of us going "huh?" at your side notes, but other than that- a fine job.

Edit part Deux: I noticed you're pulling more power than the PP is generating by a significant margin.

what i see here in the spreadsheet is that you pull a total of 2037.2114Mw. your power plant generates 2016Mw, with an additional 6.642 from solar panels and 29.4 stored in batteries. even by running without the fuel processor, any com systems except radio, ems passive only, and no power to the probe launcher, you are still pulling 2022.6978Mw

this could be a problem. o:

Edit the Third: you had left your discretionary fuel in the calculations for life support, as well as the fuel processor and possibly the g-carrier and its fittings. so i removed all those from the calculations and you can reduce your PP to around 108.6kl - giving you 342.3381 kl left over......

one side effect, your batteries now last 5.79+ hours and your solar panels should be able to run things during daylight and shunt a small amount to the batteries.

if i'm reading this right- i haven't messed with megatraveller in a lonnnnnng time.........

 

[Major B]

Edit: after perusing the spreadsheet i see that in order to do that you would have to have a deployed solar panel array. which would eat up space, unless someone has come up with rules for having fold-up arrays mounted externally in the space reserved for standard arrays.

SD, this entry has a draft errata entry that covers extendable solar arrays.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

Thank you heaps for your time and patience with the analysis. I will follow up on the power re-balancing and upload a new spreadsheet that's more clearly laid out. FYI just now, I maxed out the allowable surface area solar cells - in Mega Traveller, the square root of the hull volume in kL is the maximum allowable square metres of solar panel. A reasonable abstraction that allows for other things that need surface access.

Sorry, yeah, the notes aren't great, and some of them appear to be random calculations but are along the lines of "I wonder how many X I can fit into space Y?".

 

[Hemdian]

Hello there. My daughter has been watching me get back into Traveller, and has naturally taken an interest in it.

She wanted to design a ship, and really wanted it to be a Jump-6 because "I was looking at all these ships and there wasn't a Jump-6 ship". It's true - she has been pouring over the Imperial Encyclopedia, really interested in the ships there.

Reading back over this thread I realised we've all gotten a little carried away on this. Is she still following what's going on or have we become too geeky? (Wouldn't want to put off a prospective new player.)

 

[OjnoTheRed]

Hemdian, not at all, not at all - like many projects involving father-child relationships, it's Dad who gets carried away. And she's actually really pleased that the ship is getting discussed and receiving feedback.

The lesson here for her is that finding Internet communities who share interests passionately can be fun and safe. It's very special for her.

Just on the solar cells, one of the things I've considered is a structured shut down of the cargo bay for life support on solar cells only. But if I've managed to still supply life support to part of the fuel tanks, that may fix the power requirement problem.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

OK, I have cleaned up the spreadsheet from my scrappy calculations (some of which were a complete mystery to me, others were a complete mystery only until I deleted them and discovered bunches of cells giving errors).

I have corrected the power balance - have to love fusion power, just had to add a couple of cubic metres of plant and there's ample power to run everything just from the fusion.

Removing the last of the fuel from the life support needs took the power requirement down enough that basic life support and basic environment can now run on solar power only. Batteries will supply 4.5 hours of power for basic environment and basic life support. Thus, crucial systems for the crew are backed up with two separate power systems.

This is the adjusted spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel format (originally done in OpenOffice): http://www.box.net/shared/x72iac9j11

 

[shadowdragon]

unless there was a reason to increase the PP volume, you can reduce it to 109.7 and still run everything and still have emergency LS solar powered and only lose a couple minutes from battery powered support. This brings your cargo space from 203 and change, up to 235.8527, and increases nominal LS duration to 3.5 years.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

Uploaded files to file library

Explorer ship spread sheet:

Explorer Ship

Broken probe robot spread sheet:

Probe Robot

 

[OjnoTheRed]

New space probe design fitting inside missile dimensions can be found here.

The probe has no initial propellent, and relies on the ship launching it to use it's own vector carefully and drop the probe for an initial vector very precisely. As soon as the probe is within a gravity field the robot brain takes over controlling the craft using anti-gravity thrust.

The probe is designed to send back pictures to the craft via a Planetary range (50,000km) radio. The robot brain can be given simple instructions about where to navigate with some conditionals such as "if contact is lost, return to ship at location X" and so on.

The robot brain control interface and how I came up with those figures is found in this thread.

 

[E.D.Quibell]

Does your Basic Enviroment cover the whole Hull Volume? because it should.

Regards,

Ewan

 

[OjnoTheRed]

No - it doesn't cover the fuel tanks. The existing Mega Traveller errata provides the clarification on this part of the design sequence (discussed earlier in this thread).

 

[E.D.Quibell]

No - it doesn't cover the fuel tanks. The existing Mega Traveller errata provides the clarification on this part of the design sequence (discussed earlier in this thread).

You'll need to put it back in then.

Basic Enviroment needs to cover the whole ship's volume (keeps the fuel in the tanks, at a constant tempreture and privides lights as well for inspections) ...

You don't need to provide basic life support, or exstended life support in the fuel tanks, and if you really want to squeeze the design you probaly don't have to provide Basic LS or Exstended LS in the volumes taken up by the equipment (Power plant, jump drive etc) either (that's just me, it's not a "standard" optermising MT design route).

Best regards,

Ewan

 

[OjnoTheRed]

Ah, right, I see my mistake now. Yes, just life support doesn't need to be provided - I misinterpreted that. I don't think it'll stretch the design too much to put it back in.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

OK, have re-installed Basic Environment for the whole hull - in the end it went from about 16 kL to 33.75 kl and the additional weight and price are negligible, and take a bit of the cargo space and everything is fine.

Well, not everything. Basic Environment and Basic LS can no longer run just off Solar Power. But if Solar panels are contributing, the batteries can be extended to 8.7 hours - and if not, it's down to 2.9 hours basic environment and basic LS.