Real World versus Traveller: End access

[Rigel Stardin]

This thread pertains to certain design elements I use in my drawing. A question arose about the Bay Class Cargo Container Ship concerning the engines housed in the boom at the end of the ship. “How do you work on the engines?” It’s not the first time this question has come up and as I sat there and thought about it, I felt there was a need for an explanation.

I design my ship using real world elements. Every ship I design has an avionics bay and life support system. Elements left out of most Traveller ship designs for some reason? But one thing Traveller ship designers always put in is a way to work on the engines.

Why?

Just in the news was the Cruise Ship lost power because of a small fire. The engine and the generators were not damaged by the fire; the computer system that operated it was toast. And there was no backup system or repair parts on board to replace it. Over a thousand people were stranded out in the middle of the Gulf…

We’re just talking about civilian ships here, not military. What makes a civilian starship any different than something we might build today at shipyards around the world?

The second thing I looked at was the complexity of the engine or drive. You might be able to replace a power relay or a burned out capacitor but fixing a battle damaged drive with the spare parts on hand seems a bit out there for me. Then of course size comes into play as well. Trying to fit a 7 ton particle accelerator down a 1.5 meter hallway from the cargo bay might be a wee bit of a problem as well.

But wait, I have an engineer on board…

In today’s world do airline flight engineers crawling through narrow passages to fix the jet engine onboard an airliner? Star Trek and RPGs in general have distorted our view of what an engineer does onboard a ship. Yes, he fixes small things and maybe bypasses a few bad components, but can he really fix a drive with a blown thingamajig?

Civilian Starships and their drives are not something you can work on in the wilderness. There not a ’57 Chevy engine which only requires a tool box full of wrenches and a large hammer. The days of working on your own engine are long gone. So why do people believe you can whip out you TL 15 tool kit and rebuild that TL 12 engine on some wilderness planet where Mustaffa has just learned to make fire?

Annual overhauls are done at Starports for a reason. They have the equipment, the trained personal and the spare parts. There is really no need for the engineer to walk around the engine so he can tinker with the drive coils. The only reason we allow people with engineering skills near those engines and drives are for gaming purposes. ..

 

[rancke]

In today’s world do airline flight engineers crawling through narrow passages to fix the jet engine onboard an airliner? Star Trek and RPGs in general have distorted our view of what an engineer does onboard a ship. Yes, he fixes small things and maybe bypasses a few bad components, but can he really fix a drive with a blown thingamajig?

As an SF trope, the analog of a starship isn't an airliner but a steamer.

Civilian Starships and their drives are not something you can work on in the wilderness. There not a ’57 Chevy engine which only requires a tool box full of wrenches and a large hammer. The days of working on your own engine are long gone. So why do people believe you can whip out you TL 15 tool kit and rebuild that TL 12 engine on some wilderness planet where Mustaffa has just learned to make fire?

For the same reason they believe a human gunner can outperform a computer. And a pilot can outperform a computer. And an astrogator can outperform a computer. Traveller is a role-playing game, not a futurist prediction. It doesn't have to be realistic, it just has to have enough verisimilitude to allow the players willing suspension of disbelief. If it's good enough for the SF authors I grew up reading, it's good enough for me.


Hans

 

[DaveChase]

Well, why not be able to fix the ship in space in the middle of nowhere?

Come on, this is not like today where everyone has a cell phone and help is just minutes to hours away.

This is space, where if something goes wrong, you either fix or you are dead.

That is one of the reasons that when I build most of my ships, they have extra lifesupport (paid for in tonnage and price) and that the engineering room has extra space to walk around in it.

The higher the tech the more unlikely of a break down in most cases.

In my Futura universe which is much higher TL than Traveller is, being an engineer was considered a down trodden, school boy/girl person. They designed the good stuff back in their office but never travelled or adventured.

Engine rooms were sealed affairs and help was always just a light call away. (FTL was much better too in Futura.)

So, in Traveller setting, you are darn right that the ship can be fixed in the middle of nowhere (basic repairs not complete overhauls).

Dave Chase

 

[HG_B]

As an SF trope, the analog of a starship isn't an airliner but a steamer.
Hans

Exactly. The airliner turbofan is a VERY bad analogy to a starship.

 

[whartung]

Civilian Starships and their drives are not something you can work on in the wilderness. There not a ’57 Chevy engine which only requires a tool box full of wrenches and a large hammer. The days of working on your own engine are long gone. So why do people believe you can whip out you TL 15 tool kit and rebuild that TL 12 engine on some wilderness planet where Mustaffa has just learned to make fire?

Haven't you ever watched "Deadliest Catch"? They're typically down in the engine room banging on something, or fixing a leak, or whatever at least once every season. They get props snagged on things, have to dive to cut them free, etc., they lose power. All sorts of mishaps.

An airliners single priority is to get landed in case of trouble with it's passengers and crew in tact (the vehicle itself is disposable at this point), because if the problem isn't addressed, the vehicle itself will "land" on its own accord, typically with great drama.

At sea, or in space, the vessel (mostly) is stable and secure for at least some time, giving the crew opportunity to work. Clearly no ship wants to be adrift, but it beats sinking.

Obviously not all repairs are capable at sea/in space, but the physical plant should be accessible in some way, even in port, so as to not need to remove large chunks of the ship to get to it.

 

[Enoki]

I can think of two general reasons:

Until recently, ship's engines were worked on extensively by the crew underway and in port. It is only with increased reliability and remote control systems that engine rooms on commercial ships have largely been emptied.
The same goes for aircraft. Up through the 60's most larger aircraft carried a flight engineer to monitor and adjust the engines. Many very large aircraft had access built into them so the engineer could fix stuff in flight.
I see Traveller as a universe where reliable space flight is not the norm. That is, ships breakdown all the time and need constant maintenance on systems.

The second reason is that many of the smaller ships are not getting regular maintenance of any sort where it costs money and requires the use of facilites akin to taking your car to the dealership for maintenance. Instead, many rely almost entirely on having one or more skilled crews do "shade tree" maintenance on them.

So, summed up, I see it as a need because of unreliablity and cost.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

The point has been made about a "flight engineer" - those don't generally even exist anymore, and they were never a true analog to a ship's engineer. (BTW, whartung, that description of a crash - "the vehicle itself will "land" on its own accord, typically with great drama" - is one of the best I've seen.)

And, I'll put my 0.02CrImp in for the idea that starships can't just pick up the handy and call for a tow truck/tug. Part of the engineering space in any ship I design and build is a parts locker for certain "black box" items, and oodles of widgets and nuts and washers and such.

This is also one of the reasons (according to some) the computer is sized so extravagantly (yes, a retro-fitting, but still valid): the dang thing is made at least partly with vac tubes. The rest of it is built so you can take a board out and pull a chip and replace it, or re-solder connections.

And, yes, you might not be able to fix a drive if it's badly damaged enough. But, that's even true of that '57 Chevy - if you throw a rod, you ain't fixing it by the side of the road. The key is to make enough of it easily repairable to get it limping home, or to keep enough power going to keep air circulating, or whatnot.

As to putting the engines on struts extending into space - I could see legitimate reasons for that. And, if, IYTU ISA (that's Imperial Starship Association) is a radio call away with a space tug to drag you home, then cool. But, if not, you better have 1) 100% reliable, damage-proof engines, or 2) a spare to swap out, or 3) a way to fix the dang thing. Otherwise, nobody's going to be going to space because it just isn't worth it.

 

[Timerover51]

The point has been made about a "flight engineer" - those don't generally even exist anymore, and they were never a true analog to a ship's engineer. (BTW, whartung, that description of a crash - "the vehicle itself will "land" on its own accord, typically with great drama" - is one of the best I've seen.)

I will second that comment.

And, I'll put my 0.02CrImp in

You need to allow for inflation. The earliest usage of "my two cents worth" that I can find is Benjamin Franklin in the mid 1700s, when a two-pence piece was made out of silver. Figuring inflation in there, it should be your 2 Cr Imp worth.

 

[Rigel Stardin]

I used airliners because of their complexity.

Again replacing circuit boards and minor components, aligning drive coils and giving the engines or drives a simple tune-up is vastly different than replacing a major component within the drive.

“The Deadliest Catch” scenario can be seen in two ways. One is the design of the engine is prone to breaking down, which isn’t very good for business or the people using that vessel to make a living. Two, instead of spending the money necessary to make the proper repairs, the Captain spent it elsewhere. Again that’s bad for business and the crew.
The spare parts on a ship are for minor repairs not rebuilding the drives. There is no way anyone is going to carry all the major components for the drive in storage just in case they have a drive go bonkers on them. It would reduce their revenue by taking away from the ship’s allotted cargo area. Ship lockers are just too small to dothat.

You’re not going to use JB Weld on a crack in the reactor vessel, are you?

So it’s all about the complexity of these drives and what could go wrong with them. You just can’t whip out the duck tape, bailing wire and chewing gum and hope it makes it to another star system so you can repair it. People are not going in trust their livelihoods and lives to such a craft. The risk is just too great for that.

The Hindenburg is a great example of what happens in the real world to an item of technology that doesn’t provide a safe track record. It’s fiery end ended airship transportation. Planes were fast and safer in the public eye. You have starships disappear every week because of malfunctioning drives people are not going to want to travel on them. It would doom interstellar travel and trade.

So yes, drives are far more reliable than today’s technology. And the Poor Ship’s engineer is just a flight engineer from the early days of air travel…

 

[Fritz_Brown]

One is the design of the engine is prone to breaking down, which isn’t very good for business or the people using that vessel to make a living.

Or, it could be that it is "rode hard and put to bed wet". There's a lot of negative input to an engine in that situation. Despite man's best intentions, the things he makes break.

Where we all seem to disagree with you is in severity - you appear to think that we're arguing you need access to the engine because we're going to bondo up a reactor wall or put in the equivalent of a new engine block. Not at all.

But, we are saying that things will need fixing - things that can be fixed. What about preventative maintenance? What happens when the thing breaking is a 1CrImp washer, rather than massive failure of the thingamabobber inside? "No, ma'am, Dame Snooty, I'm afraid there isn't anything we can do. I realize you have the Emperor's birthday party to get to, but we're stuck here until they come tow us in. Yes, ma'am, it's a 1CrImp part. Yes, ma'am, but see, it's waaaaaaay out there in that hermetically-sealed, impossible-to-access-except-in-port dealy out there that pushes us around. Yes, ma'am, I realize you could buy and sell this entire line and not blink an eye. Please ma'am, take it up with corporate engineering at Ling Shipbuilders. No, ma'am, I don't want to captain a garbage scow. *groan* No, ma'am, I understand..........."

The spare parts on a ship are for minor repairs not rebuilding the drives. There is no way anyone is going to carry all the major components for the drive in storage just in case they have a drive go bonkers on them.

No, you aren't going to carry a spare engine block in your trunk. But, being able to do those minor repairs still requires access to where the thing is broke! If your hood is welded shut, and there's a panel under it, as well, then something as simple as adding coolant will have to wait for the AAA man to come tow you home. If your livelihood is tied up in that vehicle getting where it's going, that's not good - especially in space where it's 10x harder to take everyone off the bus and put them on other buses.

Yes, these things will get worked on every single trip at the starport. I understand that. But, if you can give access in the starport (and "access" doesn't mean suiting up for an EVA, and having to handle things with big, ham-fisted gloves and through a faceplate and such), why not design in access when away from the starport?

So it’s all about the complexity of these drives and what could go wrong with them. You just can’t whip out the duck tape, bailing wire and chewing gum and hope it makes it to another star system so you can repair it. People are not going in trust their livelihoods and lives to such a craft. The risk is just too great for that.

And, I say that no one except the foolhardy is going to trust their lives to something they can't at least *try* to fix. The real problem here seems to be that you assume the piece that makes the starship go is one giant piece of magic-in-a-box, and it's all beyond the engineer's capability. I am arguing that there's a jillion bits to this thing, and it's just that one black box in the center of this contraption that we can't do anything about until we get home.

The Hindenburg is a great example of what happens in the real world to an item of technology that doesn’t provide a safe track record.

Dude, are you arguing that static electricity is a danger? o: 'Cause putting the engines on the end of a big stalk, then going fast is a sure way to exacerbate that problem. (Yes, that's a joke.)

So yes, drives are far more reliable than today’s technology. And the Poor Ship’s engineer is just a flight engineer from the early days of air travel…

And, there's where we disagree in the extent of our beliefs: I don't see them as near-perfect. Which they would have to be to not require some level of access to the engines and the reactor during travel. Airplanes are up for a few hours, too, not weeks, and they don't operate in the really hostile environment that is interplanetary/interstellar space. Space is a whole lot of empty, and you can't just stick your thumb out for a ride home.

I hope you don't think I am showing disrespect to you here. But, there is a real paradigm difference between you and me. And, I wanted to make it clear where that difference lie.

 

[Carlobrand]

...Just in the news was the Cruise Ship lost power because of a small fire. The engine and the generators were not damaged by the fire; the computer system that operated it was toast. And there was no backup system or repair parts on board to replace it. Over a thousand people were stranded out in the middle of the Gulf…

...

The cruise ship could get on the radio and call for help. The star-travelling ship could find itself in jumpspace with no help available for days.

I think a lot depends on what you're expecting to break down, and how often it breaks down. In the sail days, spars, rigging and sail failed under the windload so regularly that ships carried spares as a matter of course. In the early steamer days, before radio, fixing the elements of the plant that were most likely to fail wasn't terribly complicated - and was a necessity, since you were otherwise becalmed and hoping for someone else to come along and rescue you. In the era of radio and diesels, you can call for a tow or for parts, but your engine's a good deal more reliable and some of it, as you point out, just isn't practical to fix at sea. On the other hand, as someone else pointed out, there's a fair chunk you CAN get at that can give you fits.

I might point out that in an era of robotics and automation, a boom-mounted engine's likely to have remote-controlled waldoes and cameras and such built in, to allow the engineer to repair those things most likely to need repair without having to physically be there. Might even be an advantage; the engine doesn't have to be built to give him room to get into those areas, you just have to make sure the repair systems are independently powered and controlled so they don't go down with whatever takes your engine down. They don't even have to be physically in the engine: The engineer can control a mouse-size waldo as easily as a man-size one, and it can park elsewhere and make its way to the inspection point through "mouseholes". A boom-mounted engine's a bit vulnerable for combat but has certain advantages for civilian shipping in terms of dealing with heat, radiation and such; the added expense of such remote-control repair systems could easily be offset by the reduced cost of heat exchangers and other systems.

 

[HG_B]

The spare parts on a ship are for minor repairs not rebuilding the drives. There is no way anyone is going to carry all the major components for the drive in storage just in case they have a drive go bonkers on them.

You haven't done your research at all. One of the Mærsk E-class container ships (largest and most advanced in the world) changed out two of its engine cylinders while en-route from Malaysia to Holland. Still made its schedule too. That is a VERY major repair. The recent cruise ship examples are only examples of VERY poorly managed lines.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

I might point out that in an era of robotics and automation, a boom-mounted engine's likely to have remote-controlled waldoes and cameras and such built in, to allow the engineer to repair those things most likely to need repair without having to physically be there.

As long as the repair waldoes don't break down.........

The recent cruise ship examples are only examples of VERY poorly managed lines.

They may also be examples of the attitude that says you can control everything by remote and through computers and "that would never happen to *this* engine". (I argued against the idea of removing human navigators from US Air Force tankers, and replacing them with computers, for years with the advocates having those very same attitudes.) If there's a universe where Murphy's Law doesn't operate, I'd like to know how to get there!

 

[Ishmael]

You haven't done your research at all. One of the Mærsk E-class container ships (largest and most advanced in the world) changed out two of its engine cylinders while en-route from Malaysia to Holland. Still made its schedule too. That is a VERY major repair. The recent cruise ship examples are only examples of VERY poorly managed lines.

What they repaired was actually replacing a broken cylinder head stud.
That sort of repair is relatively quick with the engines being stopped for only a short period of time.
This is from engineers who actually work on that sort of thing.
http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/showthread.php?t=39489

http://www.emma-maersk.com/gallery/photo/engine_10.jpg

 

[Rigel Stardin]

I’m not offended by any comment made by any of the responders to this thread. I’m only trying to point out the complexity of ship’s drives versus the crew’s ability to repair them if something goes wrong.

The references I have used about the Hindenburg and the ’57 Chevy are to point out degrees of Technology. Had airships used helium instead of hydrogen and other airship crashes around the same time, prevented the technology from being advanced because at the time it was seen as unreliable and dangerous. Originally, cars engines were designed to be worked on by farmers and shade tree mechanics up until the ‘70s. Reliability was also a key selling point back then too. The trend in today’s technology however is pointing us towards the more complex. While they're safety than those vehicles of yesteryear, specialize equipment is now required to inspect, diagnose and repair those components.
I get the idea from reading the post thus far, that everyone wants reliability with the ability to be a shade tree mechanic when it comes to their starship’s engines. Then I would like to point out that spacewalks by this time are like walking your dog every morning.

Items that I see as complex to me are seen as routine tasks to you.

On a side note: I’m a big fan of modular designs and programmable systems which allows for easy change out of parts if they wear out or get damaged.

 

[Timerover51]

I’m not offended by any comment made by any of the responders to this thread. I’m only trying to point out the complexity of ship’s drives versus the crew’s ability to repair them if something goes wrong.

The references I have used about the Hindenburg and the ’57 Chevy are to point out degrees of Technology. Had airships used helium instead of hydrogen and other airship crashes around the same time, prevented the technology from being advanced because at the time it was seen as unreliable and dangerous. Originally, cars engines were designed to be worked on by farmers and shade tree mechanics up until the ‘70s. Reliability was also a key selling point back then too. The trend in today’s technology however is pointing us towards the more complex. While they're safety than those vehicles of yesteryear, specialize equipment is now required to inspect, diagnose and repair those components.
I get the idea from reading the post thus far, that everyone wants reliability with the ability to be a shade tree mechanic when it comes to their starship’s engines. Then I would like to point out that spacewalks by this time are like walking your dog every morning.

Items that I see as complex to me are seen as routine tasks to you.

On a side note: I’m a big fan of modular designs and programmable systems which allows for easy change out of parts if they wear out or get damaged.

The reason the Hindenberg did not have helium was that, at that time, the US was the leading world producer of helium from natural gas wells in, I believe, Oklahoma and had classified the helium as a critical resource and refused to supply Germany with any. Then there is the distinct possibility that the Hindenberg was destroyed by sabotage as well. With helium, the Hindenberg does not burn, and it would be interesting to speculate on how that would have worked out.

As for the recent cruise ship fire, I had a tour of the engine room and fire-fighting set up of the RCCL Explorer of the Seas courtesy of my work on the Marine Forensic Panel. The RCCL had a duplicate backup of the electrical distribution system for the engine room in a separate location from the main distribution system.

Many of your Zeppelins had their engine gondolas accessible to the crew for in flight repairs and maintenance. Some of the early very large aircraft had the same thing, I would just have to check on which ones. A lot of your early aircraft engines had separate cylinders, rather than a one-piece cylinder block, and it was possible to change individual cylinders in flight. Also, many of your airships were using Diesel engines for propulsion, and in the case of the Graf Zeppelin of the 1930s, used what was called "blau gas" for fuel, which had the benefit that is was a gas weighing about the same as air, therefore not requiring buoyancy adjustments as fuel was burned.

 

[epicenter00]

I think these three quotes really sum up why Traveller ships can repair themselves.

An airliners single priority is to get landed in case of trouble with it's passengers and crew in tact (the vehicle itself is disposable at this point), because if the problem isn't addressed, the vehicle itself will "land" on its own accord, typically with great drama.

A starship in Traveller will not immediately crash if its engines break down, unless it is making entry or exit from a planet's surface. The reason why there are not stores of spare parts and engineers able to make repairs on modern aircraft is that if something fails that badly, the aircraft is going to crash; there's no time to be doing it.

The cruise ship could get on the radio and call for help.

One of the Mærsk E-class container ships (largest and most advanced in the world) changed out two of its engine cylinders while en-route from Malaysia to Holland. The recent cruise ship examples are only examples of VERY poorly managed lines.

The outrage over the recent cruise ship problem, as well as some of the more recent recent ones (in the last year or two) was pretty interesting to watch for me because of what people were getting outraged about. Perhaps experienced mariners were asking "why couldn't they repair it?" but most people were asking "Why did the rescue take so long? / Why didn't the Coast Guard just evacuate the ship?"

It suggests to me that indeed many people watching the news don't expect underway vessels to be able to repair themselves. I think it is because people expect the global village to have grown small enough that rescue should always be just a few hours away. In fact, I'll never be able to prove this, but I suspect the executives at these cruise lines are of the same mentality - "we'll cut costs by not putting this stuff in, it'll be a lot cheaper, and we can just get rescue from land if we have a problem since our ships are usually near shore."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but modern container ships spend a quite a bit of time out in the middle of the ocean, far away from aid. I think the only aid a lot of container ships will get if they suffer an engine failure deep in international waters would be another passing container ship or simply to carry the parts to fix problems themselves. Despite our comfy view of a nice, safe 21st century world I don't think a single nation as the ability to go rescue a container ship that sinks hundreds of kilometers from shore without some days of preparation and a pretty large (and expensive) undertaking.

To play Devil's Advocate against myself, I'll say that perhaps Jump Drive ships don't really fail in Jumpspace, so any real failures would be would be near planets - their departure planet or destination planet, either moving to 100D away, or moving in from 100D. In this case, the airliner model might work, 100D in the Traveller future, you might have rescue that can reach you in a few hours if you just sit tight - similar to how most smaller pleasure ships don't really carry equipment to do major repairs, they'd just fail and sit tight in space and await rescue, in which case you might not need an engineer or a ship that can be user-serviced. I would imagine such ships would be common along Mains where traffic is very frequent, and most planets have A to C class starports (or space ports). You could probably assume such starports would have a reasonable "space rescue" capacity to go and help ships that are dead in space. Ships might only have like one week and a few days of life support in that case, 1 week in jump space plus a few days to wait for rescue. After that it's time for the emergency berths.

However even in this universe, I'd think that player ships operate more on the container ship model. The common meme for Traveller is that players are aboard smaller tramp freighters or ships of an equivalent type that ply frontier and "rural" starlanes in frontier regions that might not necessarily have starports worthy of the name, let along orbital rescue services. In other words, they'd be closer to the container ships that operate far in international waters, as opposed to ships that rarely leave the sight of land.

 

[HG_B]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but modern container ships spend a quite a bit of time out in the middle of the ocean, far away from aid. I think the only aid a lot of container ships will get if they suffer an engine failure deep in international waters would be another passing container ship or simply to carry the parts to fix problems themselves.

All depends. The one I mentioned is never far from another country. Also, cruise ships are designed to go cross oceans. But, a couple of lines aren't ready to even leave port. In addition, the ship I mentioned actually scheduled the repair. It wasn't an accident or failure.

To play Devil's Advocate against myself, I'll say that perhaps Jump Drive ships don't really fail in Jumpspace, so any real failures would be would be near planets - their departure planet or destination planet, either moving to 100D away, or moving in from 100D. In this case, the airliner model might work,

Not really. Jumps can be inaccurate and you end up days away from the target planet. Also, jumping to a GG can mean that you are almost a week away from the main world...

 

[SpaceBadger]

To play Devil's Advocate against myself, I'll say that perhaps Jump Drive ships don't really fail in Jumpspace, so any real failures would be would be near planets - their departure planet or destination planet, either moving to 100D away, or moving in from 100D.

I think if your life support (or other systems not connected to the jump drive) start going bad while in jump you work on them and try to fix them, same as if you were in normal space.

I think if your jump drive (or any essential system connected to it) go bad while in jump space then you are pretty much SOL and your ship is destroyed.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Yes, this isn't all about drives, IMO. It's about the paradigm of what you can pull a panel and accomplish in space.

One concession I will make to Rigel, based on epicenter's post, is that some ships - mainly really large passenger liners and bulk freighters - might have sealed up engines. Those that go from A starport to A starport, never more than 100D from someplace to dock/land. They would be foolish to do so, imho, but they might.

(It would really suck to be inbound to a gravity well and have your maneuver drive fail. You are about to land "with great drama" - if you don't burn up in atmo. o: )