Relais Space Ports

[TheEngineer]

Hi !

Playing around with planetary system astrography I noticed (more clearly than before), that there seems to be a strong need for space stations in many system in order to compensate the bad effects of jump masking / shadowing on in-system travel times and as such trading efficiency.

So, where would You locate such "Jump friendly" ports ?
Guess it make sense to let fast 6-g cargo shuttles to do the mainworld-high port travel generally.

I thought about these general locations:
- primary highport not in direct mainworld orbit but at nearest jump friendly distance to mainworld
- secondary highport perhaps at 180 degrees rotated, so that its directly accessible even if primary highport is in suns shadow.

Whats with mobile stations, which keep on holding optimal coordinates for trading travel, perhaps even dedicated to special departure systems ?

Other thoughts ?

Regards,

Mert

 

[TheEngineer]

Originally posted by thrash:
Note that most systems are accessible by moderately capable (Jump-2 or Jump-3) merchants from a large number of neighboring systems (~9-18 at standard density). In the absence of a canonical correlation between real, 3D space and jumpspace (and judging from the Known Stars List), the relative orientation of these systems should probably be assumed to be random.
[QB]

I'm still bouncing between using a real universe astrography and somehow weird jumpspace correlations, or a weird universe astrography with an somehow regular jumpspace.
Anyway, what I fixed in MTU is the relative orientation of planetary systems and the jump vectors between systems.
So, there is a defined jump vector to leave one system in order to exit in the destination system with an also defined vector.

There are basically two cases: either the mainworld is worth visiting in its own right, or the system is mostly just a waypoint enroute to somewhere else.

If the mainworld is a major stopping point, the expense of maintaining multiple stations to serve the number of potential destinations, together with the added cost of transshipping goods on long-distance insystem shuttles, makes stations uneconomical. It is cheaper to build one station at the most commonly visited, most central point: the mainworld itself.

Ok, perhaps the multiple station model is something for a rare amount of super high traffic systems...

[QB]
LASH-type operations are competitive with this arrangement, but only just, and mostly when the LASH freighters can shuttle between a single pair of systems.

Whats LASH ?

If there is not a major destination in the system, the best bet is to build the system's one main starport outside the 100D jump shadows of the stellar primary and any gas giants; this may be a small rocky planet, an asteroid, or a distant moon. A highport station can be added there as appropriate to the port class.

My thought was to place high ports - if they exist - even if the system has a major destination, at a place near to the jump limits.
IMHO that makes much more sense for line passenger,cargo and freight transport, as it enables those to significantly reduce unproductive in-system time. Guess the typical maintainance procedures could be handled in just a few hours and as such enabled those "liners" to make 4 jumps a month..... (I assume, that passenger, cargo, freight stuff is organized in advance...).
Well, thats for the lines and more organized traders. Guess the typical Travellers have to make their deals at the dirtside.

Regards,

Mert

 

[Andrew Boulton]

"My thought was to place high ports - if they exist - even if the system has a major destination, at a place near to the jump limits."

A thought: given that you can't predict your jump exit point with much accuracy, there may be many situations where jump-point to station is actually further than jump-point to orbit.

 

[TheEngineer]

Hi !

Reasonable remarks. I have to think it over.
Though I still have the impression, that a farport would be a reasonable thing, e.g. for a mainworld deep inside the primaries jump limit, where in-system travel times would eat up days...

Location of the farport question:
Given, that YTU has a somehow reliable jump space geometry with fixed in/out vectors, the farport could located at optimal coordinates. So heres a choice, that does not exist for a planet fixed to its orbit.

Regarding possible seasonale shadowing effects of the primary star, wouldnt a farport might be the only chance for some systems to keep a status as trade partner world (well, perhaps those are even running backup ports on another planet).

Hu, parameters are so diverse again...

But Thrash, I think I will have a look at "Starports", too. Seems to be interesting stuff

Regards,

Mert

 

[Fritz_Brown]

The masking issue is (for me) the largest issue, because of the seasonal orbit of the planets. If you build a highport "above" and "below" the system, then you have a point that is never masked if you are near the ecliptic. And, 100D shouldn't be more than a few light hours from one (incoming) to the other (outgoing).

 

[Straybow]

In a real (3D) universe going above or below the eccliptic doesn't help. The nearby systems will be randomly oriented wrt/eccliptic, and you are just as likely to be obscured.


On the other hand, if you know the 3D orientation makes an out-of-plane station economical that station must still be in an orbit, and thus passing out of optimal position through most of its period. Either that or it must use power to maintain its position, which could get expensive for a large station.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

I think most systems would conform to the ecliptic to a large extent, based on the idea of disk formation of the galaxy and individual systems. (Yes, that's an assumption.) If the general motion of the original matter is in or near one plane, the systems forming out of it will tend to be in (or near) that plane.

I think the power requirements wouldn't be terribly substantial given contragrav.

(Of course, you don't really have to put the highport, there. You could just have people jump in there, then tranist to the normal orbital location.)

 

[TheEngineer]

Ecliptic or rotational axis of a system and its star usually depends on the distribution of mass when aggregation started, so it really should be kind of random I guess.
Anyway I started to collect real world data in an astromonie board and will provide results ASAP.

I agree, that there might be a power issue for a farport if it wants to hold position, but isnt power one of the cheapest things in the TU ?

Regards,

Mert

 

[Fritz_Brown]

I will gladly stand corrected.

 

[TheEngineer]

I set up a 3D scenario for a couple (five) of systems in the Rhylanor subsector using virtual z coordinates and random ecliptic/tilt for every system.
Well, finding an optimal position for a farport in any system is a real puzzle

, perhaps a job for another computer program.
I will post the example as soon as I was able to put it into an acceptable form....