I started with this:
And came up with what I think is a really interesting design at 2000 tons.
Roughly, it's that 450m diameter spun ring hull for 1400Td of living quarters and a 600Td non-rotating "axle" with part of the bridge tonnage, the Jump-1 Drive, a battery bank, plus a shuttle dock and cargo bay. It has a Collector-1. The minimal life-support and sensor/comms power requirements are supplied by thermal generators using the Jump Drive heat sinks (or waste heat from the collector when it's charging) as a heat source. (Yes, it's a house rule, but there's nothing on it that needs power in 250MW Energy Point increments except the jump drive, and the collector covers that.)
The interesting thing is that the Collector Canopy is entirely inside the spun ring, remaining stationary so it doesn't get centrifugal loading. There are elevator spokes alongside it to provide for access to the center hull (as well as a short-cut across the ring). There are also tram cars that run along both edges of the ring for fast point-to-point transit.
The canopy does not need to retract for Jump, as it's contained within the Jump field generated by the ring hull (this is a house rule, but it feels plausible).
The ship has [or may have] what MgT calls "Maneuver-0" (station-keeping or very slow transit); when under (small-fractional-G) thrust, the canopy is held in place by low-power grav generators on the ring and the elevator struts. It has a small power plant for this purpose, but it's offline unless maneuver is required. Using T5 collectors rather than Double Adventure 1 collectors means it doesn't really need any maneuver capability since the collector doesn't have to be pointed at a star to gather energy.
I don't think it's armed. If so, it'd need a [bigger] power plant to support weapons.
Haven't run any numbers on it other than to note that the canopy area can be proportionately 150% larger than the one on ANNIC NOVA in terms of Jn X Td before it reaches the inner surface of the ring hull.
Crew is going to be about 20, mostly engineers. It will be able to carry more than 300 passengers. Might have a couple of hundred tons free for shuttles and cargo.
Since it gets nearly all of its power from the Collector (either directly, or indirectly from the jump drive heat sinks), it can keep going as long as the food supplies last. It's just not going very fast -- one Jump-1 every other week
Here's my problem: it's nifty and all, but... what's it for?
It's kind of slow for a passenger liner, and inconveniently laid out as well. Not a great troop ship, either. If it's just for rift crossings, a conventional ship using drop tanks or fuel caches would be more effective.
Maybe swap a bunch of the staterooms for hydroponics and carniculture vats for extended life support capacity?
Any suggestions for why someone would build this thing?
...
An easily-tolerated 1G from 2RPM needs a 224m radius. You're going to need to do this with a tethered pod, because even a 3m x 4.5m cross-section makes for a 1400Td ring at that radius.
...
And came up with what I think is a really interesting design at 2000 tons.
Roughly, it's that 450m diameter spun ring hull for 1400Td of living quarters and a 600Td non-rotating "axle" with part of the bridge tonnage, the Jump-1 Drive, a battery bank, plus a shuttle dock and cargo bay. It has a Collector-1. The minimal life-support and sensor/comms power requirements are supplied by thermal generators using the Jump Drive heat sinks (or waste heat from the collector when it's charging) as a heat source. (Yes, it's a house rule, but there's nothing on it that needs power in 250MW Energy Point increments except the jump drive, and the collector covers that.)
The interesting thing is that the Collector Canopy is entirely inside the spun ring, remaining stationary so it doesn't get centrifugal loading. There are elevator spokes alongside it to provide for access to the center hull (as well as a short-cut across the ring). There are also tram cars that run along both edges of the ring for fast point-to-point transit.
The canopy does not need to retract for Jump, as it's contained within the Jump field generated by the ring hull (this is a house rule, but it feels plausible).
The ship has [or may have] what MgT calls "Maneuver-0" (station-keeping or very slow transit); when under (small-fractional-G) thrust, the canopy is held in place by low-power grav generators on the ring and the elevator struts. It has a small power plant for this purpose, but it's offline unless maneuver is required. Using T5 collectors rather than Double Adventure 1 collectors means it doesn't really need any maneuver capability since the collector doesn't have to be pointed at a star to gather energy.
I don't think it's armed. If so, it'd need a [bigger] power plant to support weapons.
Haven't run any numbers on it other than to note that the canopy area can be proportionately 150% larger than the one on ANNIC NOVA in terms of Jn X Td before it reaches the inner surface of the ring hull.
Crew is going to be about 20, mostly engineers. It will be able to carry more than 300 passengers. Might have a couple of hundred tons free for shuttles and cargo.
Since it gets nearly all of its power from the Collector (either directly, or indirectly from the jump drive heat sinks), it can keep going as long as the food supplies last. It's just not going very fast -- one Jump-1 every other week
Here's my problem: it's nifty and all, but... what's it for?
It's kind of slow for a passenger liner, and inconveniently laid out as well. Not a great troop ship, either. If it's just for rift crossings, a conventional ship using drop tanks or fuel caches would be more effective.
Maybe swap a bunch of the staterooms for hydroponics and carniculture vats for extended life support capacity?
Any suggestions for why someone would build this thing?