Fritz_Brown
Super Moderator
Bouyant? I suppose that would depend on how dense bonded superdense is.
Starports and Downports and freight
- Thread starter whartung
- Start date
Andrew Boulton
The Adminator
Based on the TNE stats, most civilian ships float. Military ones tend to sink.
BetterThanLife
SOC-14 1K
Now I always thought that landing pads, at least for low tech starports, Starport type E, were placed there because there was a flat piece of bedrock there. SO you could always fusion cut your pads.
RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
I'm of the opinion that advanced starports, B, and most certainly A, would use ground-based gravitics to run the final landing and beginning of launch for all vessels. These ships (those most likely to land in most situations) are typically carrying thousands of tons of hydrongen fuel. Inside a pretty tight shell. They would make far bigger bombs than the Challenger explosion in the event of a disaster. Unless all the facilities of the starport consisted of massively armored everythng, it would be far too risky to let ships land entirely on their own systems. Both the ship and the ground based systems would work together, both ready to take the full load if either failed.
Highports have it worse than downports. They're going to be covered in industrial commercial repulsors to ward off orbital junk, small meteor showers, and the occasional vessel headed straight for them that emerges from jump space with it's crew gone stark raving mad from having Yaskodray over for tea in the middle of the jump (or other smiliar on-target no-control scenario . . . no relation to the Kobayashi Maru scenario . . . despite superficial appearances).
Highports have it worse than downports. They're going to be covered in industrial commercial repulsors to ward off orbital junk, small meteor showers, and the occasional vessel headed straight for them that emerges from jump space with it's crew gone stark raving mad from having Yaskodray over for tea in the middle of the jump (or other smiliar on-target no-control scenario . . . no relation to the Kobayashi Maru scenario . . . despite superficial appearances).
Liam Devlin
SOC-14 5K
Multiple starports tho are canon. An example of Rhylanor from the MT era showed two orbital A-class, and two down side, with multiple B and C-class for freight and such.
Population is a factor, as well as market. IMTU, multiple starports downside are expected. IMTU, on worlds of pop 3 or less have a single facility, and not always then--there are always exceptions.
Generally, the "extra" ports planetside are one class less than the main facility IMTU.
Planet's tech level administrates mode of transportation of goods distributed landside. So guess what, that A-class port on a TL-3 world? Possible--but don't expect goods to arive by truck--IMTU, probably animal transport and wagons. Loading of containers at port, manpower intensive and few forklifts.
Hey--I just loaded three wet ships with an army brigade's worth of containers and 2000 vehicles and trailers last month.. when the port's vehicles are strapped, good ole manpower is the next tool of choice, and this is at TL-8+ in RL.
Population is a factor, as well as market. IMTU, multiple starports downside are expected. IMTU, on worlds of pop 3 or less have a single facility, and not always then--there are always exceptions.
Generally, the "extra" ports planetside are one class less than the main facility IMTU.
Planet's tech level administrates mode of transportation of goods distributed landside. So guess what, that A-class port on a TL-3 world? Possible--but don't expect goods to arive by truck--IMTU, probably animal transport and wagons. Loading of containers at port, manpower intensive and few forklifts.
Hey--I just loaded three wet ships with an army brigade's worth of containers and 2000 vehicles and trailers last month.. when the port's vehicles are strapped, good ole manpower is the next tool of choice, and this is at TL-8+ in RL.
P
Pickles
Guest
IMTU Starports are generally limited to one per government on the planet. Apart from facilities, a starport is different from a spaceport in that it handles interstellar traffic, so there are security and revenue issues, as well.
IIRC, the actual construction cost of a major airport pales into insignificance compared to maintenance and staffing, especially over the timescale of starport lifespans. The simple(!) answer would be to work out the amount of interstellar revenue available, and determine from this how many starports a world could support.
I would imagine that the vast majority of traffic at downports would be smallcraft and ships of no more than 500 dtons would use downports, so perhaps a starport could have one or two orbital facilities with multiple downports scattered near major population centres. It's got to be considerably cheaper dropping off cargo from orbit than transporting it across a planet after it's landed. Customs could still be handled at the highport.
All IMO.
IIRC, the actual construction cost of a major airport pales into insignificance compared to maintenance and staffing, especially over the timescale of starport lifespans. The simple(!) answer would be to work out the amount of interstellar revenue available, and determine from this how many starports a world could support.
I would imagine that the vast majority of traffic at downports would be smallcraft and ships of no more than 500 dtons would use downports, so perhaps a starport could have one or two orbital facilities with multiple downports scattered near major population centres. It's got to be considerably cheaper dropping off cargo from orbit than transporting it across a planet after it's landed. Customs could still be handled at the highport.
All IMO.
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