X-Boat Stations

[Patron Zero]

Partial excerpt from xboat station entry in LBB S11 Library Data (N-Z) as posted at WikiTravellerRPG.com

'X-boat Station: Facility for handling x-boats at a star system. At each system served by the x-boat network, an express boat station is maintained to handle the message traffic and to manage incoming and outgoing x-boats.

The xboat station contains receiving and retransmission equipment; refueling and support facilities for the local staff and waiting crew are also provided.'

That reads pretty clear for the definition and purpose of an X-boat station, what's not specified in any particular detail is size-class of said facility.

Has there been any 'canon' materials concerning X-boat stations and if so have any such complexes ever been presented with deckplans or schematics ?

 

[BlackBat242]

I think that the size would be determined by how many routes pass through the system and how frequently X-boats travel the routes.

A station serving one route that sees one X-boat per week would be small - one serving 4 or 5 routes that all use the same system, and all have at least one X-boat per day (due to their serving high-population systems) would be much larger.

 

[robject]

Traders & Gunboats probably have some text on the management of Xboats.

But yes, the clear implication is that every system connected to the Xboat route has an Xboat Station.

Marc has said that Xboats leave in either direction, once per day, synchronized to a schedule and a designated jump exit. Presumably there are spare Xboats and Xboat tenders. The stations would be big enough to handle those, maintenance and refueling needs, and replacement crew.

 

[Space Hamster]

Traders and Gunboats is more about the ships than the X Boat system. Mongoose’s book is only about the ships. CT's book has information on the process of transmitting the data. Those are the only two I have.

I would use the station code for the system to tell what size it is. The Mongoose Starports book goes into details about the different classes of stations.

 

[robject]

S7 has a bit on stations, but no, not much additional data.

The express boat (also called an xboat) [...]jumps, relays its messages to the station on arrival, and then waits to be picked up by a tender, to be refuelled and sent on its way with a new load of messages. The local station, meanwhile, accepts messages, encodes them, and transmits them to a tender at the edges of the stellar system.[...]

The express boat tender is responsible for servicing the xboats when they arrive. It constantly roams about the stellar system [...] and generally seeing to the welfare of the xboat station.
[...]

Starships can generally expect to encounter express boats in the Imperiumis major star systems, specifically those which have scout service communications stations [...]

High population and high technology star systems can be expected to have up to twelve xboats present at one time, probably distributed evenly between arriving and departing ships. Lower population systems will have fewer xboats.

 

[robject]

I posted a design for an xboat station in 2012:

TB-ZC00 Xboat Station MCr264.9

Owner: Imperial

Built on the modular Imperial Assault Carrier frame, this Xboat Station exists to serve as a communications link between incoming and departing Xboats. The deep space communicator array is mounted in a 300 ton hardpoint bay, for exceptional power and reach.

There are crew niches for 50 persons, typically allocated for replacement crew. The cramped living quarters are compensated for by ten large crew lounges (16 tons each) plus two breathtaking observation lounges overlooking the ship structure and space (100 tons each). There are enough IISS ration packs to feed 400 people for a month.

This model has grapples for holding up to 1575 tons of auxiliaries; typically most of these are used by fuel barges, for refueling support shuttles, tenders, and Scout craft, but there are usually grapples available (roll Good Flux for the actual number available) for use by ships displacing up to 105 tons.


Actual volume: 913 tons
Crew comfort: +3
Passenger demand: -5

   Tons     Component                                MCr    Notes
-------     -----------------------------------    -----    --------------------
   2400     Cluster Hull                              48    C
      0     AV=28. 1 Kinetic Charged                   0    
      0     Jump Fuel (0  parsec)                      0    J0, 0t/pc
      0     Plant Fuel (0 months)                      0    0 months
    108     Gen Gravitic Drive-1 (M)                  27    1 G
      9     DS Ext Scope                             8.5    
      9     DS Ext EMS                               8.5    
    300     DS LBay Communicator                      51    
    0.5     Computer Model/0 std                     0.1    
     20     Life Support Long Term (10)               20    #10 40 person-months
      2     Clinic                                     1    
      2     Counsellor                               0.2    
    2.5     Cramped Controls                           0    
    200     Observation Lounge (2)                     0    #2 
    160     Crew Lounge (10)                           0    #10 
     50     Spacer Niche (50)                          5    #50 1 crew
      5     Crew Common Fresher (5)                    5    #5 10 crew
     45     Grapples (1575 tons max) (45)             90    #45 up to 35t

 

[Carlobrand]

Xboat has a crew of 1. Tender has a crew of 6 with quarters for 4 x-boat pilots and room for up to 4 x-boats. Even allowing a dozen X-boats in the system at any one time, you're looking at a station manned by a few dozen people at most. That 50-person station sounds like it's in the right ballpark.

 

[Rigel Stardin]

Xboat has a crew of 1. Tender has a crew of 6 with quarters for 4 x-boat pilots and room for up to 4 x-boats. Even allowing a dozen X-boats in the system at any one time, you're looking at a station manned by a few dozen people at most. That 50-person station sounds like it's in the right ballpark.

Using this as a model, then there would be 3 Tenders assigned to a heavily used system and possibly one more as a reserve.

 

[Patron Zero]

My thanks to one and all for the posted references, dully noted and appreciated, in particular special thanks to robject for his information on the TB-ZC00 Xboat Station.

That said, with the various books and supplements, LBBs and others, I tend to believe that there are still many places concerning The Imperium in general, The Fleet and the IISS (Scout Service) in particular that remain in shadow with details unclear and not well defined.

Not talking about command structures, dispersal of assets or other operational details but things such as the question I posed here about Xboat stations.

With such a massive amount of space, inhabited systems and governments to present, Marc W Miller did a great job laying the foundation, as did the others in the early days whom constructed upon such a mantle.

Just wondering if there would be any interest for bringing the lesser-seen bits to light, perhaps said snippets such as an Xboat station deserving a more direct look at their locations and history.

If not much beyond establishing a codex of station listings, each bearing a 'USP' derived from the formula set forth in Book 5 High Guard. That would be a nice 'footnote' to supplement information available on sector/world charts.

 

[rancke]

X-boat tenders are supposed to chase down and collect X-boats that arrive in their system. How many you need depends on how long it takes to chase down an X-boat (maximum time, not average, to prevent random chance from creating a situation where an X-boat is allowed to sail off into deep space) and on how many arrive in a system for that period of time. Oh, and they have to accelerate departing X-boats to the appropriate departure vector too. Frankly, I'm at a loss as to how to figure out how many you'd need.

Personally I think it would become a lot easier if some genius were to think of building some X-tugs to do the fetching and dispatching. But so far it's been 500 years and apparently no one has thought of that. Go figure.

Anybody else think that the X-boat canon could do with a drastic rewrite?


Hans

 

[mike wightman]

Couple of things.

First, jump is accurate to within a few 1000km, all the tender needs to do is wait near the prearranged arrival point for the time period of a typical transit.

Next, jumps are usually made with a velocity of zero - whatever that really means in the universe of orbital mechanics.

An x- boat jumps from a stationary point to a stationary point, the fact that everything else is moving doesn't matter providing it isn't going to hit it.

No, it doesn't make any sense to me either.

 

[rancke]

Couple of things.

First, jump is accurate to within a few 1000km, all the tender needs to do is wait near the prearranged arrival point for the time period of a typical transit.

The X-boat may miss the pre-arranged arrival point by as much as 17 hours movement if the tender is moving.

Next, jumps are usually made with a velocity of zero - whatever that really means in the universe of orbital mechanics.

Which requires the tender to move in order to provide the X-boat it is dispatching with a velocity of zero relative to its arrival point.

An x- boat jumps from a stationary point to a stationary point, the fact that everything else is moving doesn't matter providing it isn't going to hit it.

If X-boat tenders are all stationary relative to each other, many of them will be going like bats out of hell relative to the systems they are stationed in. Are you sure that that wouldn't matter somehow? Perhaps you're right. My mental picture has always been of X-boat tenders being relatively stationary relative to the mainworlds, for ease of physical contact. I may be wrong there.

No, it doesn't make any sense to me either.

I'm glad to hear it.


Hans

 

[Patron Zero]

.....

Personally I think it would become a lot easier if some genius were to think of building some X-tugs to do the fetching and dispatching. But so far it's been 500 years and apparently no one has thought of that. Go figure.

..... Hans

Never claimed to possess any sort of higher intellect but never prone to chasing road-runners either.

I second the motion for an update-review of all things related to the express boat network.

 

[mike wightman]

The X-boat may miss the pre-arranged arrival point by as much as 17 hours movement if the tender is moving.

The tender can't move, doesn't move - it has to maintain a stationary position relative to the arrival point.

Which requires the tender to move in order to provide the X-boat it is dispatching with a velocity of zero relative to its arrival point.

No, the x-boats are always moving from a zero vector to a zero vector, everything else in the system is moving but the x-boat departure/arrival point is fixed (more on this to come )

If X-boat tenders are all stationary relative to each other, many of them will be going like bats out of hell relative to the systems they are stationed in. Are you sure that that wouldn't matter somehow? Perhaps you're right. My mental picture has always been of X-boat tenders being relatively stationary relative to the mainworlds, for ease of physical contact. I may be wrong there.

As long as they are above/below the ecliptic they are unlikely to have to worry about stray material. Your picture may need changing. The x-boat system is going to have to ignore the movement of the systems it serves and maintain zero velocity relative to the x-boat arrival/departure points. The worlds will move in their orbits but because of the 1000km accuracy for distance but uncertain arrival time the x-boat tender will have to maintain position relative to the jump point.

Now the relativity issues. The stars are moving relative to the galaxy, the galaxy is moving relative to the local cluster, the local cluster is moving relative to the CMB (cosmic microwave background).

 

[aramis]

Now the relativity issues. The stars are moving relative to the galaxy, the galaxy is moving relative to the local cluster, the local cluster is moving relative to the CMB (cosmic microwave background).

The stars are moving relative to each other.

Barnards is over 2 G-hours difference from Sol. So is Alpha C. (In a different direction from barnard's, too.)

 

[rancke]

The tender can't move, doesn't move - it has to maintain a stationary position relative to the arrival point.

The tender has to be able to move, at least enough to maneuver, since X-boats can't. And, in fact, it has a 1G maneuver drive.

No, the x-boats are always moving from a zero vector to a zero vector, everything else in the system is moving but the x-boat departure/arrival point is fixed (more on this to come )

Um, that's what you are proposing. You can't use that as an argument to prove what you're trying to prove.

For the rest, see Wil's post.


Hans

 

[mike wightman]

I don't think I explained what I mean properly. The tenders can move, they can zip around a system just like any other magical 1g continuous thrust vessel.

But an X-boat is jumping from a fixed point to a fixed point, the time factor just means the tender has to stay at the arrival point for the arrival window. Meanwhile the system and the galaxy and the universe moves, but if the arrival point is fixed to within 1000km then the tender stays within range of that point for the jump time arrival window.

This is a fundamental flaw in the way jump works, if time of arrival is an uncertain factor but a jump is accurate to within 1000km then the jump frame of reference has to be defined as relative to something, otherwise the entire universe moves a hell of a long way in that +/- 1 day window.

 

[mike wightman]

The stars are moving relative to each other.

yes, and we can measure that movement by reference to t fixed galactic point, otherwise we have to define each star's movement relative to every other.

Barnards is over 2 G-hours difference from Sol. So is Alpha C. (In a different direction from barnard's, too.)

Difference in what frame of reference

Difference to the movement of the sun, so now calculate it as a difference to the rotation of the galaxy.

 

[rancke]

yes, and we can measure that movement by reference to t fixed galactic point, otherwise we have to define each star's movement relative to every other.

Which is why I specifically said relative to the systems the X-boat tenders are stationed in.

Difference in what frame of reference

How about the one I specified?


Hans

 

[aramis]

yes, and we can measure that movement by reference to t fixed galactic point, otherwise we have to define each star's movement relative to every other.


Difference in what frame of reference

Difference to the movement of the sun, so now calculate it as a difference to the rotation of the galaxy.

The implications of the two methods of measurement are different when you leave out the "relative to each other" part; the orbits are not synched.