Why aren't XBoats automated?

[CTWarlord]

That brings up a point of Cart vs Horse ... ROUND 1 ... FIGHT!

Designing an XBoat for automation isn't the issue (because it already is, by default).
You want to have quarters for up to 2 people on board so that the XBoat service can be used as an emergency transport system for highly sensitive cargoes and personnel (an example of vaccines is given in S7). By having habitable space aboard, the IISS can even use XBoats to move personnel around when issuing post reassignments and/or when mustering out of the service at the end of a career. Granted, an XBoat is no passenger liner, but it ought to be capable of carrying "precious" people and "precious" cargo (in limited quantities!) when needed ... in addition to the baseline capability of carrying communications between star systems.

Designing the system such that only "specialized" XBoats have the capacity to carry crew/passengers/cargo would be self defeating, since by their very rarity those "extra" transport services will always wind up being in short supply exactly when you need them (go away, Mr. Murphy!). The logistics of needing to manage two types of XBoats just isn't worth the expense of NOT having the capability to transport crew/passengers/cargo when you REALLY need to in a crisis situation. Better to just streamline everything on a standardized design that has the pressurized life support capacity built into it every single time so it's there whenever you might need it.

Because that's the thing about emergencies.
They rarely give you enough advance notice to get all your logistics "just so" and perfect in time to meet the needs of the emergency. Best to have the capacity built in from the start.

One of those "you always fight with the forces you have" kinds of deals, rather than wish casting for the forces you WISH you had to meet the moment.



I can easily imagine that there have been plenty of times (i.e. more than can be conveniently counted) in the history of the IISS between IY 800-1100 when the fact that the standard XBoat design is one that can carry a Middle Passenger plus 1 ton of Cargo has proved critically pivotal to the outcome of all kinds of time sensitive crises on plenty of worlds inside the Third Imperium. Even if it's a case of "1 world per year" out of the 11,000+ worlds within Imperial borders, that's still amounts to some 300 worlds that would have had a different outcome if the passenger+cargo option was not available in a time critical way during a world crisis.

Sure, it might cost a little extra relative to a purely automated drone service with no life support on board ... but when you measure that slight surcharge in XBoat fleet construction, operations and maintenance costs against the value of WORLDS SAVED by having that otherwise superfluous capacity built into every XBoat, you're suddenly talking about shaving pennies at the expense of financial stability for entire banking systems.

I think this is a brilliant explanation for the design of the XBoats. It doesn't explain why the XBoats would be routinely manned. Maybe they wouldn't be - I'm not aware of anything in CT that addresses the question.

I don't find the "human crew to protect against boarders" explanation to be convincing - one crewmember with some small arms wouldn't provide much protection against a determined boarding attempt. For that matter, if I were a pirate trying to get the XBoat, ideally I'd have a Corsair type ship (ala The Spinward Marches Campaign) to take the boat onboard and then move someplace private to deal with it. Failing that, I'd just tow it somewhere where I could deal with it. Rather than attempt boarding, I'd penetrate the hull to depressurize the ship (hopefully killing the crewmember). Voila - XBoat secured.

Unless the XBoat's point of exit from jumpspace is predictable (which it must be if turnarounds times of hours are routine), then the armed tender will be close at hand, and small arms to defend against boarders are completely unnecessary.

Or if you're worried about misjump. But there would be very big worries in this case - the ship might come out of jump space in interstellar space, in which case it would be stranded - unable to make another jump, and unable to even accelerate to a velocity that would get the boat to a star in years. Or, you might jump into an unplanned system. In this case, the pilot could contact the local authorities and request assistance, possibly more effectively than an automated ship could. Still, the remote possibility of a misjump seems a small reason to require all the thousands of XBoats to be manned by pilots who must endure a week of solitary travel to do approximately nothing at either end of the trip.

 

[aramis]

I agree with you.

My posts have been trying to dispel the idea that a sophont has to be onboard to allow jump travel within the OTU.

It is yet another example of Mongoose Traveller authors whether by intent or accident sneaking in more setting inappropriate fanon/factoid.

I know that it was discussed before they added it.

It seems borrowed from Dune, WH40K:RT, and Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda.

(Then again, WH40K:RT looks way too much like Traveller through a smoky window.)

 

[aramis]

I think this is a brilliant explanation for the design of the XBoats. It doesn't explain why the XBoats would be routinely manned. Maybe they wouldn't be - I'm not aware of anything in CT that addresses the question.

I think the real answer can be found in (17th to present) International Maritime Law...
An unmanned vessel not capable of maneuver is claimable as salvage.
An unmanned vessel causing peril to another is claimable, too.
An unmanned vessel capable of manned maneuver is still claimable if it was at peril.
A manned one is only claimable if the crew agrees to abandon, or the crew are incapacitated and at peril.

Of course, the first claim of any crew abandoning is that they didn't abandon willingly...

Do note that the claims have to be heard by an admiralty prize court, and salvage is seldom 100%, but in a few cases (ISTR 7 years missing), the court can outright grant new title.

We also know from Annic Nova that prize courts do exist in the 3I and salvage is part of them.

 

[Enoki]

Isn't it obvious? It's an Imperial jobs program. Once it was necessary and now it's an entrenched bureaucracy that will never end.

 

[Condottiere]

It's not efficient, at least, not in it's present form.

When I was mapping out the Confederation Navy factor five courier routes, I based that on hub and feeder spokes.

 

[Tobias]

I don't find the "human crew to protect against boarders" explanation to be convincing - one crewmember with some small arms wouldn't provide much protection against a determined boarding attempt.

One security guard won't stop a determined burglary. But businesses still employ them.

 

[Condottiere]

Could be more to do with insurance premiums.

 

[mike wightman]

I think the real answer can be found in (17th to present) International Maritime Law...
An unmanned vessel not capable of maneuver is claimable as salvage.
An unmanned vessel causing peril to another is claimable, too.
An unmanned vessel capable of manned maneuver is still claimable if it was at peril.
A manned one is only claimable if the crew agrees to abandon, or the crew are incapacitated and at peril.

Of course, the first claim of any crew abandoning is that they didn't abandon willingly...

Do note that the claims have to be heard by an admiralty prize court, and salvage is seldom 100%, but in a few cases (ISTR 7 years missing), the court can outright grant new title.

We also know from Annic Nova that prize courts do exist in the 3I and salvage is part of them.

This is the likely explanation.

Otherwise what is to stop an ethically challenged merchant selling jump 4 drives...

 

[Tobias]

This is the likely explanation.

Otherwise what is to stop an ethically challenged merchant selling jump 4 drives...

Changing Imperial law to be less stupid?

(Actual maritime salvage law does of course not allow people to seize vessels nilly-willy; would not be applicable in an equivalent case since X-Boats are not privately owned; and would not be comparable in the first place because current maritime law is based on international agreements while X-Boats operate exclusively in Imperial space.)

Leaving all that aside: If you really applied this as the law, probes, drones and satellites, including those used by the ISS (and the Navy, too?) could just be legally seized by anyone.
I really, really don't think so.

 

[McPerth]

Leaving all that aside: If you really applied this as the law, probes, drones and satellites, including those used by the ISS (and the Navy, too?) could just be legally seized by anyone.
I really, really don't think so.

Are they capable of maneuver?

See that the International Maritime Law, as quoted by Aramis, specifies unmaned vessel not capable of maneuver or that represents a peril.

This asside, I guess a drone (and most other things you said) is maned albeit remotely...

Or does the word maning mean they must be physically in the vessel? is there a difference among maned and crewed? (honest questions from a non-native English speaker)

 

[Tobias]

Are they capable of maneuver?

Depends. Satellites are not, by design. Probes or drones in a limited fashion. But even if, say, a naval drone's power runs out - do you really think the Imperium would allow any Tom, Dick and Harry to snatch it for profits?

If at some point during the centuries someone had used an obscure loophole in a law that allows people to claim unmanned X-Boats as salvage, the Imperium would have changed that law.

I also feel comfortable in predicting that as soon as autonomous shipping becomes viable in the real world, the law will evolve to deflect that.

 

[Baroun Tardis]

The question then arises that if an X-Boat can be automated, why wouldn't the default model be designed to be automated, seeing as how you could replace all of the life support equipment and crew space with extra communication and data storage mission-module equipment (and avoid unnecessarily pressurizing the interior with an oxygen environment). A manned-variant could still be built for sensitive transmissions (to defend the vessel from boarders) and/or for transport of small high-value and/or sensitive express parcels (or passengers) along with the normal data-dump. But then maybe that is the only side of X-Boat Communications that we are seeing.

But how much more comms equipment do you need?
Over in the thread about "how often", the busy worlds are sending an X-boat every few hours.
Its not like they're piling up a month's worth of mail.
Even at a slight increase in modern storage density, I think a terabyte per cc isn't unreasonable for X-boat storage
At that density, a d-ton is ... a lot. What's the word for 10^7 terabytes?

 

[mike wightman]

Ten exobytes

 

[Dragoner]

Any autonomous vehicle is one accident away from a heinous lawsuit mandating it be crewed, like an xboat slamming into a station or planet like a nuke.

 

[whulorigan]

. . . like an xboat slamming into a station or planet like a nuke.

But X-Boats do not have M-Drives (other than perhaps some basic maneuvering thrusters for station keeping, repositioning, and attitude control, (which fall below the level of the specifics of the rules system). So they are not going to be moving with the velocities (and kinetic energy) of starships under M-Drive constant acceleration power. In fact they likely do not approach worlds at all normally, remaining near 100 dia limits with corresponding trajectories/orbits.

 

[Condottiere]

In terms of salvaging, it's gotta be cheaper and safer than piracy.

Considering how eager every military is trying to secure crashed hardware, someone is going to pay for what's recovered.

 

[Spinward Flow]

In terms of salvaging, it's gotta be cheaper and safer than piracy.

True ... but piracy is merely "stepping it up a notch" from salvage recovery.

The difference between salvage and piracy is ... resistance.
A craft that can be salvaged will rarely offer resistance ... while when it comes to piracy, the default assumption is that there will be resistance (anything between token to unfairly effective).

Considering how eager every military is trying to secure crashed hardware, someone is going to pay for what's recovered.

That's what I was thinking.
Paying third parties a "finder's fee" for recovering (para)military hardware and turning over to the service(s) would be the way to go.

 

[McPerth]

But X-Boats do not have M-Drives (other than perhaps some basic maneuvering thrusters for station keeping, repositioning, and attitude control, (which fall below the level of the specifics of the rules system). So they are not going to be moving with the velocities (and kinetic energy) of starships under M-Drive constant acceleration power.

Just two points here:

• that means they will emerge jump at the same vector they had when entering it and may not significantly change it, and that may be from stopped quite high speed* (version/setting ependent, as I understand in some of them the ships emerge at "vector zero").
• they don't need to be at high speed to produce a fatal crash, as even if they are at "vector zero", if the ship approaching has his own high speed the effect would be the same.

* side note: I personally would give them some vector away from the closest world to the aimed point of emergence, so that gravity would take more time to crash it, and you'd have some more time to recover it should something go wrong

 

[Condottiere]

Which reminds me about vikinging.

You trade if there is possible effective resistance, or just reconnaissance when you return with reinforcements.

 

[whulorigan]

• they don't need to be at high speed to produce a fatal crash, as even if they are at "vector zero", if the ship approaching has his own high speed the effect would be the same.

* side note: I personally would give them some vector away from the closest world to the aimed point of emergence, so that gravity would take more time to crash it, and you'd have some more time to recover it should something go wrong

Yes, but my point was that it wouldn't be a "slamming into a planet like a nuke" event like a vectoring ship under maneuver power.