What X-Boat travels in your universe?
 

I got thinking after seen Beerfume's X-Boat station plans, there are some underlying assumptions in this plan. His station would not work with a classic no maneuver drive X-Boat. So, what types of X-Boats do you have in your universe?

Look at the deck plans again. There's a maneuver drive on Deck 3 and Acceleration: 1G is the third item listed under the Statistics column.

IMTU the Imperials mainly use the clasical one, but also this drone is used, mostly by the Zhodani (for the reasons stated there), but also by the K'kree (who would need minor races to pilot such small ships) and to a point by the Imperium.

While I voted J5 M1 TL14+, it is in fact J5 M2.

While you are correct from a design perspective, from a perception and practical view it's not quite that simple. From a perception view, this is a 'station', not a 'tender'. I think of a station as stationary, and a tender as mobile. From a practical point of view, a 1000t X-Boat Tender can carry four X-Boats in it's hold and travel at 1-G. This station appears to be only capable of moving itself at 1-G. If you attach two X-Boats, you've doubled its mass and you're reduced to 1/2-G, much less suitable for tending purposes.

Now at higher tech levels, and/or different rule sets, a 1000t Tender could easily have a 2-G drive and be more effective.

Any way you look at it, the X-Boat Station is a cool design that I will be incorporating IMTU.

It seeems to me that that the you will have the network built to allow for reliability, efficiency, and sustainability.

Not counting "secret" Xboat networks, it seem to me the "standard" in 1105 is a J4 network. So what do you need to support that?

Jump 4: Why bother building a shiny Jump 5 or Jump 6 ship for for a Jump 4 network? :rant: It costs more and you are not even making use of the extra performance? From a game CT standpoint if it is a Book 2 design, you might give it a Jump drive one letter up for "sturdiness/reliability" but that might be it. The smaller drive requirements also mean that the courier might be able to carry larger non-electronic "government parcels" if such things are still done.

Maneuver 1: What? :oo: Why? :oo: The book 7 always bothered me because the ship could not by RAW move anywhere to refuel itself which would mean that each and every system would have additional Tenders or refueling ships, which again means more crew/expense/maintenance. That might be OK, but has not been detailed prior.

TL 13+: Increased maintenance reliability. A lower TL gives means more general support is available locally. A TL 13 ship I think could be supported on more worlds than TL 15 or TL 14 ship.

I am correct and it is that simple.

Perception is not reality.

Ahhh yes, the referential fallacy. Confusing the label for the thing.

Try this for size, the International Space Station is not stationary.

We're not talking about carrying X-boats. We're talking about docking with, servicing, and refueling x-boats. We're not talking about stations replacing all tenders either. Both would still have certain jobs, but the station can do the dock/refuel/service job just as quickly and far more cheaply than the tender can.

Maneuver drives work on volume, not mass. Unless you're a GT purist, I seriously doubt you calculate different accelerations depending on how much your Beowulf is loaded.

A one gee tender can cross the 12K km x-boat arrival sphere is roughly 40 minutes. Anything faster would be wasteful, just like putting a jump drive aboard a ship which rarely uses it is wasteful.

The canonical tender is too much ship for it's day-to-day job. Yes, X-boats do occasionally need to be shuttled about within systems and through jump space but building that capability into every ship which docks, refuels, and services X-boats in a waste of money and resources.

The station can do nearly every job the tender can and does it at a fraction of the cost.

Yes, that would be like denying the possibility that a fleet is moslty composed by SDBs/BRs because they are labeled as starships or warships in most canon references :CoW:...Isn't it?

But that was nother discussion...

Technically, IMTU I just use the Type S Scout in that role. So J2, M2 ... we don't need no stinkin tender! The 'Tender' becomes a 1000 dTon InterPol/NSA-like vessel designed to monitor all Comm Traffic into, out of and internal to a world ... for when Big Brother really IS watching.

You do that too, huh? ;)

Sometimes that tender is just a tender. Sometimes that tender is something else. :D

picked j6/m1, but in practice it would be a mix of j4-6/m1. the xboat network portrayed in the spinward marches supplement is a mess (cue grote) and deserves better.

but I'm unhappy with it. j6 navigation should be cutting edge capability and a big deal, and an xboat network would suck up a lot of navigation skill that would find a less practiced but more consequential home in the imperial navy, particularly in the j6 scout directorate. perhaps the xboat network is what it is because the navigators just aren't available.

on the other hand the xboat network would make excellent high-intensity training and practice for naval navigators.