Real World versus Traveller: End access

[Rigel Stardin]

It’s about shipbuilder’s attitudes and what the customer wants. It’s also about how laws governing ship certifications process.

Since I know nothing of what it takes to certify a modern ship sea worthy I’ll use the car as an example.

The federal government mandates safety requires on vehicles and MPG. This requires manufactures to place certain safety items on vehicles and improve gas mileage. State inspections are supposed to head off accidents but every state uses a different criteria. These are mandatory inspection made by the states certifying that your vehicle is safe to operate in their jurisdiction. Both legislative actions have created industry surrounding safety inspections where the states, manufactures and mechanics share in the revenue.

Parts wear out or are required to be changed under these laws. This in itself would drive the designers on the recommendations of the mechanics what parts of the vehicle need a certain amount of access to conduct these inspections and allow them to replace worn out parts or part required by law to be changed on an annual basis. We have also seen how engine compartment have become smaller due to gas mileage standards as manufactures tend to cut the weight of vehicles by removing excessive space.

I tend to agree that frontier and military vessels would have much more access to their major components than ships located in the core systems. Laws in the core systems may hamper engineers from doing annual maintenance since some form of safety inspection is also performed by a third party at the same time.

So there is not only the issue of complexity but the laws governing starship safety which dictate the designs of ships.

 

[Timerover51]

It’s about shipbuilder’s attitudes and what the customer wants. It’s also about how laws governing ship certifications process.

Since I know nothing of what it takes to certify a modern ship sea worthy I’ll use the car as an example.

So there is not only the issue of complexity but the laws governing starship safety which dictate the designs of ships.

Actually, there are no laws per se governing ship construction, what you have are building standards set by one of the certificating agencies, such as Lloyd's or the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) standards, which are the two that I am familiar with. As your ship insurance is based on the certificate issued by one of the recognized classification agencies, they have as much clout as a government agency. In the US, the US Coast Guard has established manning standards for US-flagged ships which are mandatory to meet.

Given the wide range of planets building ships in Traveller, I have a Lloyd's Interstellar setting building standards for commercial ships. In the Solomani Confederation, the standards are set by the Terra Bureau of Standards. And yes I know that Terra is not part of the Solomani Confederation, but hope springs eternal.

 

[Enoki]

It’s about shipbuilder’s attitudes and what the customer wants. It’s also about how laws governing ship certifications process.

Since I know nothing of what it takes to certify a modern ship sea worthy I’ll use the car as an example.

The federal government mandates safety requires on vehicles and MPG. This requires manufactures to place certain safety items on vehicles and improve gas mileage. State inspections are supposed to head off accidents but every state uses a different criteria. These are mandatory inspection made by the states certifying that your vehicle is safe to operate in their jurisdiction. Both legislative actions have created industry surrounding safety inspections where the states, manufactures and mechanics share in the revenue.

Parts wear out or are required to be changed under these laws. This in itself would drive the designers on the recommendations of the mechanics what parts of the vehicle need a certain amount of access to conduct these inspections and allow them to replace worn out parts or part required by law to be changed on an annual basis. We have also seen how engine compartment have become smaller due to gas mileage standards as manufactures tend to cut the weight of vehicles by removing excessive space.

I tend to agree that frontier and military vessels would have much more access to their major components than ships located in the core systems. Laws in the core systems may hamper engineers from doing annual maintenance since some form of safety inspection is also performed by a third party at the same time.

So there is not only the issue of complexity but the laws governing starship safety which dictate the designs of ships.

I'd think that there is some variation here, actually, probably quite a bit. While the bigger powers might have standards, the non-aligned plants and smaller political groups probably don't.
There are likely some that have very loose standards, if any at all. There might be rules about whether these ships can operate some places and agreements to allow substandard ones into certain systems just because of trade.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

I'd think that there is some variation here, actually, probably quite a bit. While the bigger powers might have standards, the non-aligned plants and smaller political groups probably don't.
There are likely some that have very loose standards, if any at all. There might be rules about whether these ships can operate some places and agreements to allow substandard ones into certain systems just because of trade.

IMTU, they are much like aircraft of the 20th century: you really don't want to fly on a domestic Russian aircraft. Boeing? Cessna? Some of their aircraft from the first half of the last century are still flying in really good shape. This is a combination of the people doing the maintenance (professionalism, motivation, liquidity of lunch, etc) and of the original airframes. For a while there, Antonovs were not ... well, quality control was not a big thing for a while. IMTU, only desperate people or folks wanting to 'customize' their ship have them built in Chuqualatague. If you've got the money, you really want a Houstian ship. Ironically, Chuqualatague has the more strict ship-building code........

 

[epicenter00]

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...

I just noticed this comment. Yes, jumps can be inaccurate.

Under this model, certain varieties of commercial vessels would not have the ability to repair themselves while underway. They stick to well-mapped jump-route mains where there's a string of "proper" starports with safety and rescue services.

They don't jump to Gas Giants; they're not streamlined and they don't have scoops.

If this kind of ship is very common in the Traveller Universe, it actually explains why buying fuel at a Starport is so expensive; captive market. The starport charges as much as it can get away with. The time (and therefore money) saved by jumping directly to your destination from your origin saves far more money than "fueling it yourself" at the local gas giant.

I think such non-user serviceable designs would be pretty interesting the Traveller universe, especially if they exist alongside more "traditional" designs. Such ships won't be nearly as popular in the second-hand market, in fact hardly anyone would buy them. On the other hand, that means that the former operator might be willing to sell them to you for dead cheap, like the fraction of a cost of a normal ship, because it's sell it to someone for that little money or just sell it by weight to be scrapped. The cheapness of the ship might overcome every other factor for a free trader captain just starting out.

I think it'd be fairly fascinating to provide that as an alternative. I personally love this image. Struggling starting captains and their crews, where even "routine" drive repairs and such require the engineering crew to EVA outside the ship in spacesuits. Engineers groping around pre-marked handholds on the outside of the ship, with covers over their helmets or staring very hard at the hull in front of them because they're doing these repairs while in Jump space and looking around is ... hazardous to one's mental health. Maybe once they get enough money they'd buy a flexible "tube" extensible to the airlock so they can just "worm" a temporary passageway on the outside of the ship to the point they want to repair because some components might require 1ATM to service if the ship is designed to land (like the air conditioning system).

 

[copperhamster]

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.

The Flight Engineer could access the B-36 Peacemaker's engines in flight through the wings if they were below pressurization altitude. Standard takeoff checklist included a detailed inspection of all 6 or 10 engines from inside the wing. (The B-36 had 6 pusher prop engines, and added 4 turbofan jets in the 'J' variant', leading to the report 'Six turning, four burning'.)

 

[Vladika]

Maybe a nuclear submarine analogy is in order? They, for sure, are closed systems. Computers are perfectly capable of running them. Why then bother with nuclear power and propulsion engineers aboard?

1) Computers can't think.
2) Computers don't have Bachelor, Masters or Doctoral degrees in physics.
3) Computers can't repair pumps, replace bearings or anything else.
4) Robots must be controlled by humans (with knowledge and training)
5) Robots, like human engineers, need access to engines and drives

I could go on...

Tech level 7-8 world; Starport D-E; resources worth acquiring and transporting.

Tech level 9-11 ship, in or outbound, or on planetary surface.

Murphy shows up. Shit happens. Ships engineers, with parts aboard or ability to fabricate, with or without the help of local infrastructure either fix the problem or stay there until?

I don't see a triple A wrecker truck showing up from several parsecs away. I see "fix it or forget it".

 

[Carlobrand]

...Murphy shows up. Shit happens. Ships engineers, with parts aboard or ability to fabricate, with or without the help of local infrastructure either fix the problem or stay there until?

I don't see a triple A wrecker truck showing up from several parsecs away. I see "fix it or forget it".

Murphy shows up? Heck, beyond a certain ship size, Murphy has his own private stateroom.

However, I don't see anyone walking away from a multi-million credit investment. Salvage value alone would make it worth hiring a jump ship (Suppl. 9) to haul it back.

 

[BytePro]

...
The federal government mandates safety requires on vehicles and MPG. This requires manufactures to place certain safety items on vehicles and improve gas mileage. State inspections are supposed to head off accidents but every state uses a different criteria.

Most some states do not have required inspections.

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

Why not? If it works and saves your bacon, what's a tube of JB cost IYTU?

I've personally fixed modern electronic engines with wire ties (separating high voltage wires) and just my fingers (fuel pressure lock release), not to mention replaced and repaired vehicles on the side of the road with spare parts (belts, alternators, batteries, fuses, etc.). Also worked pit crew for stock races, where major change-outs could happen very fast (and sometimes frequently).

I can't tell you how many times I've fixed (expensive) servers and industrial control equipment using only a paper clip - for grounding, cutting traces, shorting failed senors, jumper based resets, even manually 'programming'.

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.

Ditto. And see this as even more likely on futuristic starships - and they will need access.

Not all starships may have qualified engineers who can repair or rig things, but swapping out common failure parts with simple directions would certainly be desirable - especially as a compromise from an economic/legal/insurance standpoint.

Of course, having access doesn't mean it has to be easy or ready access...

Murphy shows up. Shit happens. Ships engineers, with parts aboard or ability to fabricate, with or without the help of local infrastructure either fix the problem or stay there until?

I don't see a triple A wrecker truck showing up from several parsecs away. I see "fix it or forget it".

This.

 

[SanDragon]

And, as I recall, you have to be standing next to the vehicle holding your AAA membership card...

 

[SpaceBadger]

I can't tell you how many times I've fixed (expensive) servers and industrial control equipment using only a paper clip - for grounding, cutting traces, shorting failed senors, jumper based resets, even manually 'programming'.

I hope that you have had at least one opportunity to submit an invoice for these repairs with a very small line item for "Paperclip" and a very large line item for "Knowing where and how to use paperclip".

 

[BlackBat242]

The Flight Engineer could access the B-36 Peacemaker's engines in flight through the wings if they were below pressurization altitude. Standard takeoff checklist included a detailed inspection of all 6 or 10 engines from inside the wing. (The B-36 had 6 pusher prop engines, and added 4 turbofan jets in the 'J' variant', leading to the report 'Six turning, four burning'.)

Turbojet, not turbofan (there is a definite physical & design difference), and an early tj at that... the General Electric J47 (the same engine as in the F-86 Sabre).

 

[BytePro]

I hope that you have had at least one opportunity to submit an invoice for these repairs with a very small line item for "Paperclip" and a very large line item for "Knowing where and how to use paperclip".

Er, that would be 'Torsioned steel conductive fastener, modified'.

 

[aramis]

Er, that would be 'Torsioned steel conductive fastener, modified'.

Manual drive eject tool.

 

[Zutroi]

Access spaces for drive (or any other system) maintenance or repair was always a HUGE bugaboo for me when doing deck plans... By the time you ensure that you can reach everything, your 200 ton ship has bloated to 250...

I've adopted a 'footprint' rule in my current designs: if a system displaces 12 tons, that tonnage includes the access required. Now 200 tons of systems can actually fit into a 200 ton hull!

 

[Carlobrand]

Access spaces for drive (or any other system) maintenance or repair was always a HUGE bugaboo for me when doing deck plans... By the time you ensure that you can reach everything, your 200 ton ship has bloated to 250...

I've adopted a 'footprint' rule in my current designs: if a system displaces 12 tons, that tonnage includes the access required. Now 200 tons of systems can actually fit into a 200 ton hull!

That's been my standing rule from the beginning. I figure if a 4dT stateroom includes hallways and life support and so forth, then a maneuver drive, power plant, etc. can include the engine control room and crawlspaces.

I forget who it was but someone hereabouts also point out that, given the nature of modern computing systems, the 1dT "Model/1" and its larger brothers more likely represent a network of computer equipment scattered throughout the ship - and the space needed to access and service them - rather than one big ol' mainframe. So, your Model/9 could be represented as, for example, 13 different 1dT server rooms scattered about the ship, or a 5dT mainframe and 8 1dT server rooms, or whatever fits your vision of the thing.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

I've adopted a 'footprint' rule in my current designs: if a system displaces 12 tons, that tonnage includes the access required. Now 200 tons of systems can actually fit into a 200 ton hull!

I think that's stated explicitly somewhere. Or, maybe it's just a house-rule everybody uses. For me, it defines the engineering spaces - I just fit the drives within them as appropriate and proportionally.

 

[aramis]

I think that's stated explicitly somewhere. Or, maybe it's just a house-rule everybody uses. For me, it defines the engineering spaces - I just fit the drives within them as appropriate and proportionally.

When allocating space within the ship for deck plans,
assume that only a portion of stateroom tonnage must
actually be in staterooms; the remainder should be used
for common areas and other accommodations for the crew. (TTB p67)​

 

[BytePro]

I think that's stated explicitly somewhere. Or, maybe it's just a house-rule everybody uses. For me, it defines the engineering spaces - I just fit the drives within them as appropriate and proportionally.

Yeah, I thought so too, in Book 2 or 5, but don't find it. Just the stateroom provision Aramis quoted and the 10%-20% deckplan leeway. As long as its not used for anything else, I figured the drive and PP dtons included operation and maintenance access (explicit aspects of Engineering skill). Being part of the Engineering Section of the ship, presume this also includes passage through the section inclusive in the parts making it up.

 

[atpollard]

Yeah, I thought so too, in Book 2 or 5, but don't find it. Just the stateroom provision Aramis quoted and the 10%-20% deckplan leeway. As long as its not used for anything else, I figured the drive and PP dtons included operation and maintenance access (explicit aspects of Engineering skill). Being part of the Engineering Section of the ship, presume this also includes passage through the section inclusive in the parts making it up.

... which implies that I can shoehorn a PP and MD into half of the listed tonnage if it is only serviceable from external access panels - like a fighter or small craft might have.

Ah, what might have been ...