> At 3:29 PM -0700 10/8/01, Don M wrote:
To do what? Carry around Non FTL ships? Well, that's an additional edge that
you can add to the combat ship versus the mass carried in the Non Front line
ship. On an economic front, tugs do make sense for non FTL applications for
moving immobile objects around a system. Or from a recovery standpoint, moving
a disabled vessel that has had more than critical damage to its TK drive
system and can't move itself to a depot to be repaired.
Strike boat tenders make sense from a standpoint that you could use them to
tend more craft than they could carry based on the fact that the strike boats
don't really need to dock all the time, just for
servicing and re-arming. You could theoretically deploy a tender and
several strike boats to a system via the tender and a few cargo vessels. The
cargo vessels then return for more stores while the PT boats and their tender
establish a zone of control and surveillance.
Likely smaller non FTL combatants like Patrol Craft, Cutters and other small
combatants are better off with no FTL drive based on size and maneuverability
constraints in system. Many of those small craft could also be utility vessels
like lighters, mine sweepers, "harbor"
tugs, floating dry docks, scows, barges, and support/auxiliary
landing craft and heavy shuttles. Small combatants should not make up the bulk
of a navy's fleet unless the preponderance of their space is very limited.
If you look through various US navy (and related) we sites one can see the
large number of yard craft and other support equipment that has some hull
number but one wouldn't expect to get from Port to port on its own power.
That's where the Float on Float off ships help. An equivalent craft in FT
would be some sort of cargo vessel that just
had docks/latches on its length for smaller craft to be fitted to for
transport.
From looking at the Joint Modular Lighter System and Side Loading Warping Tugs
(sectional causeways with their own power) has me wondering if there would be
some means of a major military deploying what amounts to a portable Beanstalk
or not.
That or perhaps cargo containers that could be easily dropped on
their own using some sort of Aerobrake/heat shield and then would
land in a given LZ after a automatic controlled decent through the atmosphere.
Both capabilities for even non manned cargo containers would have a profound
effect on the ability to support an opposed landing of a given planet.
By the way, does anyone else thing FTL engines are awfully cheap in the
Tuffleyverse?
And as a result, tugs are totally uneconomical.
Take your theoretical "ideal" tug.
Mass 100 Main Drive Thrust 1 (minimum allowed) 5 mass Tug's FTL Drive 10 m
Fragile Hull (10% minimum) 10 m
OK, so you've blown 25% of your mass in required systems. And this is just
barely mobile on its own and completely unarmed.
The other 75 mass is for tug engines. Multiply by 5 to get a total hauled mass
of 375. And the ships costs 200 points. This means it costs more than half a
point per mass. 8 per 15 mass.
Now your average combat startship costs maybe 2.5 points per mass. So you're
spending more than 20% of your budget on tugs. And having to escort the silly
things as well.
John
John A said:
> >And as a result, tugs are totally uneconomical.
Ryan replied:
> To do what? Carry around Non FTL ships? Well, that's an additional
or for moving system defense ships around. At most major wworlds, you're
always going to have a garrison squadron. May as well build it
non-FTL. That way a) you save the expense; and b) you're not as
tempted to leave the system uncovered while you go off expeditioning.
Note that IF BB's and SDN's have a couple of mass dedicated to towing
tiny non-FTL boats. 3 mass = 1 hull box plus 1 mass drive plus 1 mass
enhanced sensor (or weasel system). Depending on what you allow for rounding,
this boat should have main drive 6 or better (MD9 if you're feeling generous).
Can't fight, but it's just intended to be a
missile-catch...ah, that is, intended to be a recon vessel. A SDN can
carry four of these for 2 mass.
> Ryan M Gill wrote:
> From looking at the Joint Modular Lighter System and Side Loading
Well what we aren't looking at is that the point system for FT is based on
combat effectiveness, not money cost to build. It's a system to balance fleet
effectiveness. In real life an FTL drive might cost 30x's mass to build where
a pulse torpedo only costs a total of 5 units.
Bean stalk ships would be very economical if FTL was expensive. Instead of
having to pay out to have your own you could rent space on a interstellar
transport. Navies would be mostly FTL ships for the flexability of it but
civilian craft may only have a small percentage of FTL capable craft.
Each bean stalk would have a route that it "flew" and a schedule so you could
plan on ship tranfers to get to your destination. A s hip would arrive every
few days or weeks. That or it instellar trade was very big you'd have lots of
these ships making regular runs as soon as their drives were recharged so that
a transport would be leaving system every few hours.
> At 4:04 PM -0700 10/8/01, Jaime Tiampo wrote:
> Bean stalk ships would be very economical if FTL was expensive. Instead
I was actually thinking of Beanstalks as the elevators that rise from the
ground and go up into space. Something that was in Low Earth Orbit (big heavy
object) and able to deploy to the ground some sort
of massively long cable/elevator. Not necessarily something as big as
a full on permanent one, but something able to deploy and start off loading
containers from orbit in a speedy fashion.
> Ryan M Gill wrote:
Ah ok. Something as massive like that would probably have to be perminant to
be economical. Imagine having to unspool the line for that repeatedly. A good
writeup on how one of those would work and effect shipping is in Kim Stanly
Robinson's Mars series, Red Mars, Blue Mars, Green Mars.
On or about Mon, Oct 08, 2001 at 06:00:30PM -0400, Ryan M Gill typed:
> That or perhaps cargo containers that could be easily dropped on
I think that some sort of automatic aerobraking/landing cargo container
would be pretty easy to put together - we could very nearly do it now.
The only problem would be precise landing - you need your ground crews
to be able to go out and get stuff out of the containers, while not dropping
more on their heads...
> At 5:15 PM -0700 10/8/01, Jaime Tiampo wrote:
I've already read them.
> Ryan M Gill wrote:
> I've already read them.
Good books:)
On a thought about shipping up a gravity well, the GZG universe has anti
gravity. I'd think that ships equiped with drives would be able to just lift
cargo up with only expending electricity. On the way back planetword the unit
might be able to recoop some of the lost energy via the grav drive assuming it
could act like an electric motor working as a generator.
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