Salvage ships

[Condottiere]

The JAWA STARSHIP Breakdown | Starcrawler | Star Wars Fan Ships Explained

The Jawa and their Sandcrawler are famous on Tatooine, but the Starcrawler took a Jawa clan to the stars. See how this Jawa starship was able to raid parts across the Outer Rim, and what its ultimate fate was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdYjkpW9R0k

 

[Adam Dray]

Updated Scorpion-class salvage hauler

Scorpion Class salvage hauler
400dT (Standard Hull 4, Structure 4, Self-healing)
Titanium Steel Armor (Armor 4)

Jump Drive F
Maneuver Drive F
Power Plant F
Fuel: 134 tons
Fuel Requirements: one jump-1 at 1000dT (100 tons), one jump-3 at 400dT (120 tons), two weeks operation (14 tons)
Fuel Scoops
Fuel Processors: 120 tons/day

Model 2/bis Computer (with Auto Repair program x2 attempts)
Basic Civilian Electronics (-2 DM)
Survey Sensors (8 tons instead of 10, -1 DM)
4 Staterooms (1 for captain, 3 double occupancy for crew)
Machine Shop
Ship's Locker

4 Hardpoints:
* Two Giant Claws (fore)
* Two Single Turrets (one fore, one aft)
* Fore Turret holds a Pulse Laser (also usable for salvage)

Cargo Bay: 100 tons

Total Displacement Allocated: 400 dT

Cost New: 182.19 MCr

The Scorpion is an outdated salvage model. Its main weaknesses are the underpowered electronics and sensors, making them the first thing that salvage crews upgrade (at cost of some cargo space), and a big cargo deck (100 tons).

Its main strength is its L-shape configuration, allowing it to nestle a craft up to 600 dT and produce a jump bubble around both the Scorpion and the captive craft and make jump-1 and maneuver-1. Unloaded, the starship boasts jump-3 and maneuver-3, helping salvage crews chase down opportunities before someone else gets there.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Power plant F is 22 tons. One-third of that is 7 tons of fuel per week. Two weeks of fuel is 14 tons.

I realize I mistranscribed my notes, which say two weeks (14) and one jump (100). I wrote "one week" in the ship stats, above. But the fuel calculations are correct, right?

As already noted by McPerth, you have to check all normal modes of jump separately. 400 Dt @ J-3 is 120 Dt, 600 Dt @ J-2 is 120 Dt, and 1000 Dt @ J-1 is 100 Dt.

Note that F-drives still give potential 1 up to 1200 Dt, so you could potentially jump with 800 Dt external load.


A power plant F is 19 Dt and MCr 48 according to my copy of Cepheus SRD.
19 / 3 round down = 6 Dt fuel consumption per week.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Model 2/bis Computer (with Auto Repair program x2 attempts)

A m2 computer has a processing rating of 10.

Each repair attempt has a processing rating of 10, for a total of 20.

The chosen computer can presumably not run the second level software, even if it's not very clear in the rules.

 

[Adam Dray]

Aren't those sequential processing attempts, not parallel? So 10 is fine?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

It seems to be a single piece of software with rating 20:

Computer may attempt one repair per turn, or give a
DM+1 to an attempt; at TL 12, can purchase an additional
repair attempt (or DM+1) for twice the Rating and Cost.

MgT (and hence presumably Cepheus) assumes the software runs the entire time, unlike CT. You can only run up to processing rating amount of software concurrently on a computer. If you want to run both Evade and Fire Control you have to have a computer big enough for both at the same time. Se Computers, pp 68-70.

 

[whartung]

Scorpion Class salvage hauler

...

Cargo Bay: 100 tons

Just saying, this is a ship designed to strip ships, not bring them home.

You can barely fit a Scout hull in the bay (if that's even possible, may not be "scout shaped").

I just point out the shiny, value rich bits inside specifically because it can be hard to haul back a big, empty ship.

 

[Adam Dray]

Just saying, this is a ship designed to strip ships, not bring them home.

You can barely fit a Scout hull in the bay (if that's even possible, may not be "scout shaped").

I just point out the shiny, value rich bits inside specifically because it can be hard to haul back a big, empty ship.

It's not designed to enclose another ship entirely. It's L-shaped so it "encloses" a ship up to 600 tons on two sides entirely and can build a jump bubble around it.

It's a niche salvage ship, the way an A-class free trader is a niche freight ship. It mostly steals hubcaps, sure, but finding a whole ship floating out there is rare anyway. If the Scorpion does find something under 600 tons in mostly one piece, it has the ability to grab it.

It could also saw off a large chunk of a large vessel, too. Say it came across a 5000-ton ship. It could remove its 125+ ton J-drive and 50+ ton M-drive and clamp them in the "L" and sail home.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Salvage can mean many things...

Sometimes you recover some valuable parts, and sometimes you recover the entire ship. The cargo hold can just as well be used to carry spare parts to repair a ship, as recovered parts.

I think the ship looks decent, the only thing I would change is to add a few more staterooms, to be able to carry extra rippers, engineers, or prize crew.

 

[Adam Dray]

I thought about adding more staterooms but I was trying to keep the cargo hold at an even 100 tons.

 

[Enoki]

Salvage can mean many things...

Sometimes you recover some valuable parts, and sometimes you recover the entire ship. The cargo hold can just as well be used to carry spare parts to repair a ship, as recovered parts.

I think the ship looks decent, the only thing I would change is to add a few more staterooms, to be able to carry extra rippers, engineers, or prize crew.

This is really the correct general answer. It depends on what you mean by "salvage." The type of ship you'd need would vary by what sort of salvage you intend to do.

Some variants would be:

Stripping a wreck for its valuable bits and then abandoning the rest as too low value to bother recovering.

Salvage in place with the intent of restoring the ship to sufficient working condition to take it somewhere for full repairs.

Taking the ship in tow or hauling it as is somewhere for either of the above.

For stripping a wreck or salvage in place you don't need a particularly large ship. You need sufficient cargo space to put the stripped items or to carry repair materials you need to get the ship moving again. In both cases, you need sufficient stateroom or crew space to carry a salvage crew that will do the work. You probably would also have a number of salvage robots or drones on board to assist in this.

You would also need space on your ship for shops, tools, and equipment necessary to make the repairs or parts as necessary in the case of salvage in place. Salvage in place would clearly be the most technically complex choice but it has the advantage you end up with a ship that has the basic systems working to get it somewhere for more repairs while you don't need a grossly expensive, very large lift ship to move it.

For the tow it away salvage you need a bigger ship capable of "lifting" the load and possibly jumping with it. You don't need much in the way of specialized repair facilities or equipment aboard unlike the other scenarios would require. All you need is a way to grapple the wreck and secure it in place or put it under tow.

 

[Adam Dray]

This is really the correct general answer.

LOL. Depends on the question. My original post asked, "Where can I find great salvage ship designs and/or deck plans?"

 

[coliver988]

LOL. Depends on the question. My original post asked, "Where can I find great salvage ship designs and/or deck plans?"

well, it does depend on what you are wanting to salvage: the entire thing or bits of it. Without specifications as to the exact needs, I think Enoki's response is true.

If you are wanting to just salvage the software, then a Scout ship will do. If you want to salvage entire ships, depending on if you want to repair in place to get them in under their own power or use the tug approach changes the requirements. If wanting to cut off chunks, perhaps a Seeker would work. It all depends on what you mean by salvage.

Vague requirements = vague answers. Vague often being defined, err, vaguely.

 

[Enoki]

LOL. Depends on the question. My original post asked, "Where can I find great salvage ship designs and/or deck plans?"

But the answer to that depends on how you plan to salvage. Any 200 to 500 ton freighter could be turned into a salvage ship fairly easily for a scenario where stripping useful bits off a wreck is the goal. The same goes for a fix the wreck in place enough to get it moving again.
That second one would require the salvage ship to have a dedicated shop and more specialized equipment aboard--likely all in a converted cargo bay that is also full of common repair parts.
The only time you need a specialized design for a ship is if you plan on recovering the wreck and then hauling it to wherever. Then you'd need the equivalent of something like a modern heavy lift ship or maybe the Glomar Explorer depending on circumstances.

 

[kilemall]

Salvage can mean many things...

Sometimes you recover some valuable parts, and sometimes you recover the entire ship. The cargo hold can just as well be used to carry spare parts to repair a ship, as recovered parts.

I think the ship looks decent, the only thing I would change is to add a few more staterooms, to be able to carry extra rippers, engineers, or prize crew.

For my Oort Cloud setting, ANY metal or semi-functioning ship part is pure gold. If the hull itself is too far gone, they'll be happy to render it for scrap and reprocessing.