CT Only: Jump-6 Express Boat Network Ships

[Spinward Flow]

Obligatory Warning required for the following thread.

WALL OF TEXT CRITS YOU!!!

Don't say I didn't warn you.



The OTU source of the inspiration for this collection of ships designs can be found in the Fifth Frontier War boxed wargame set, page 5.

:alpha: Traveller News Service: 101-1105
:alpha: REGINA/REGINA (2314-A788899-A)
Close on the heels of the joint announcement by General Shipyards and Tukera Lines that L-Hyd drop tanks would soon be manufactured in the Regina subsector came word by express boat from the Imperial core that a decision has been made to deploy Jump-6 L-Hyd drop tank express boats on all major express boat routes. Initial feasibility studies indicate that such a system could average jump-5.5 per week by executing maximum jumps where possible, leaving current xboat units to disseminate information between the major new relay points. The system is expected to cut communications time to the Imperial hub to under 25 weeks. The Initial System Deployment Schedule indicates that the Regina subsector can expect to be fully integrated into the network within a decade.

Note that since it can take a year or more for news from Core to reach Regina in the Spinward Marches, this means that the decision to upgrade the Express Boat network was at least a year old (and very likely more than 1 year old) by the time the news reached Regina in 1105. I'm thinking that research and development of prototypes, testbeds and a competitive "fly off" of design concepts must have been going on since perhaps as late as 1090 so as to have a final decision made by around late-1103/early-1104 in the Imprerial core sectors (determined by the lowest bidder with the highest bribes, of course).

Expectations, prior to the Fifth Frontier War, were for the Regina subsector to be fully integrated into the new jump 6 express network by 1115. Since no further canon details for these ship designs were ever offered during CT (that I've ever found), here is my proposal for what the J6 Express Boat Network ship designs ought to have looked like using LBB5.80.

Spinward Marches systems with type A or B starports in 1105 capable of performing annual maintenance on TL=15 starships and small craft (4 total in the sector):

1. Glisten / Glisten
2. Rhylanor / Rhylanor
3. Mora / Mora
4. Trin / Trin's Veil

Traveller Wiki links to the legacy Jump-4 Express Boat Network and Ships:

• Express Boat Network
• Type X Express Boat
• Type XT Express Boat Tender

 

[Spinward Flow]

Alright … before we can get to The Good Stuff™ of looking at High Guard design details, I think it is important to start with the LBB S7 canon for the Jump-4 Express Boats and their Tenders to get a clear(er) sense of the precedents that ought to limit a High Guard styled "update" into a L-Hyd Drop Tank enabled Jump-6 Express Boats and what would necessarily happen to THEIR Tenders in order to support the upgrade. In other words, to know where to go with this, you need to know where the XBoat service "has been" (so to speak) in order to not be too excessively disruptive with the upgrade.



So with that in mind, let's look at the (old) type-X that we're all kind of familiar with. (LBB S7, p 8-11)

• 100 ton hull, spherical configuration.
• Jump 4, no maneuver drive (and supposedly no power plant).
• 40 tons of fuel, enough for 1 jump 4.
• Model/4 computer (supposedly) with massive communicators and data banks (okay…).
• 2 staterooms for the crew of 1 pilot, but can carry 1 passenger.
• 1 ton of cargo space for "vital cargo" (examples given).
• Deck plans feature dual airlocks (1 pair of iris valves, 1 pair of hatches) for redundancy in case of power failure. Engine room has maintenance hatches that lead directly outside with no airlocks.

I honestly kind of wish that the "massive communicators and message data banks" stuff had been detailed in a way that's useful for ship designs (how much tonnage? at what cost?) but it was seemingly a big hand wave so I'm not going to dwell on it too much.

Key thing is to know, and the USP for the XBoat bears this out, is that the XBoat can (possibly) carry 1 passenger, and (possibly) 1 ton of cargo, and it is entirely dependent on the Tender system to achieve its Jump-4 performance on 40 tons of fuel at Tech Level 10 (LBB2.77). So far, so ordinary.



Looking at the details of the (old) Express Boat Tender, the details get a little interesting. (LBB S7, p11-15)

• 1000 ton hull, close structure configuration (so gas giant skimming yes, ocean dipping for fuel no).
• Jump-1, Maneuver-1, Power Plant-1 which are all specified as being H drives from LBB2.
• 150 tons of fuel, enough for 1 jump 1 and 4 weeks of operations and reserve capacity with 40 tons of extra fuel reserve.
• Model/3 computer plus communicator relay facilities (p13 calls this "heavy duty communications banks").
• 3 turrets can be installed which are somehow "gimped by design" to all fire at -1 to hit at all times, which basically makes that model/3 computer a model/2.5 (2 for attacking, 3 for defending).
• 10 staterooms for a crew of 6 (captain/pilot, navigator/medic, communications specialist and 3 engineers). If the Tender is armed, add up to 3 gunners to the crew. This leaves 1-4 staterooms open for "passengers" which under nominal circumstances will wind up being used for XBoat crews on "ready standby" (or on layover) before they to go on their next mission through jump space.
• 20 low berths, presumably to keep XBoat crews frozen in stasis until it's their turn to go (out into jump space again). However, given that you want to have Medical-2 skill in order to get a +1 DM on the revival roll from low berth stasis … and the medic on board is a navigator/medic … meaning they're going to need to have Navigator-2 and Medical-3(!) just in order to meet the minimum requirements for Navigator-1 and Medical-2 due to pulling double duty (LBB2.81, p16) … survival rates for Scouts seem to be lower than you would want in the Communications service. Supposedly the low berths are for medical cases. (LBB S7, p14)
• 60 ton cargo bay for consumable replacement parts and equipment (or 15 tons per XBoat, basically). This includes food provisions.
• "600 ton" hangar bay that can accommodate 4 XBoats or 2 Scout/Couriers. The given dimensions of 40x28.5x12 meters equates to a volume of 13,680m³, or just a fraction over 977 tons of displacement (how you fit something 977 tons of hangar space into a 1000 ton hull with room left over for drives and fuel and everything else without resorting to Ancients tech cheating is best not thought about all that hard). The details then go on to add that by the simple expedient of leaving the bay doors open, the hangar space that can be enclosed by the jump drive field increases to 40x28.5x24 meters, a volume of 27,360m³, or just a fraction over 1954 tons of displacement (which is "towed" by a 1000 ton ship). For reference I'll note that 3000 ton ships require Q drives, at the minimum, for Drive-1 performance, so I have no idea why this detail was written this way. Suffice it to say, the "cavernous" hangar bay of the (old) Tender is Dimensionally Transcendental (it's bigger on the inside than on the outside!). However, in this case, I'm only interested in the carrying capacity of 4 XBoats simultaneously (how they need to be arranged to accomplish this feat is sadly not explained, unless the only way to do it is to leave the bay doors open). The entire hangar bay can be pressurized with the doors closed, allowing shirtsleeves access to ships in the bay by crew.
• There are two workshops … an electronics repair shop and a machine shop.
• There is an external refueling probe to allow fast refueling of XBoats without requiring the crew to don vacc suits.
• There is a fuel lab(!) for monitoring fuel quality. This sounds an awful lot like what later became known as a fuel purification plant.
• The bridge has a bay window that allows direct visual inspection of the ship's bay doors.
• Crew staterooms are capable of double occupancy at need, but are usually single occupancy.
• The weaponry details include the situation of needing to move turrets around the Tender while the Tender is docked or otherwise recovering an XBoat and is therefore not free to maneuver to bring batteries to bear from fixed location turrets.
• Brief mention of 3 variants … the Bulk Ore Carrier (cargo), the Fuel Tanker (fighter tender) and the (unofficial!) Corsair. If LBB S7 is detailing that capture of Tenders has happened enough times for a Corsair variant to be recognized (unofficially, of course), that overall bodes ill for the security measures in place for these Tenders (armament, crew numbers, etc.).

Key metrics I pull out of this are Drive-1 across the board, a model/2.5 computer, 6-9 crew (not hard for a determined boarding party of pirates to overwhelm), space for 1-4 passengers (single occupancy), 20 low berths (with inadequate medical staff skill for +1 DM to survival!), anemic fuel reserves (need to refuel after fueling only 3 XBoats!), slow to maneuver to recover XBoats (1G is good enough "nearby" but lousy at long distance hauls), 2 workshops, extra communications gear, able to transfer fuel externally and hangar space for 4 XBoats. In other words … I wouldn't want to be in one before, during or even after a pirate attack. Tenders especially feel like they're somewhat severely undermanned to me, meaning long working hours (24/7 without a break?) with little to no respite in sight beyond the same old daily grind. I can easily imagine that crews on these ships to be either exhausted, bored out of their minds ... or both ... and that crew morale during such assignments would be merely "adequate" at best (depending on who you get stuck serving with that year). Some people will volunteer for such duty, but it's hard to imagine a steady stream of (skilled!) volunteers bucking for a chance to serve as in a Tender crew ... and when you have more billets to fill than volunteers to fill them, you aren't exactly pulling in the type of people, skills and motivations you need to keep the whole operation going at peak professionalism.

Don't get me wrong, It Works™ ... but I'm thinking it could be made to Work Better™ than it has with a jump 6 refresh. :coffeesip:



So with all of that in mind … what can be done using High Guard (LBB5.80) to tweak these legacy design choices a little?

 

[Spinward Flow]

J6 Express Boat
TL=15 (LBB5.80)

Hull: 100 tons
Configuration: Sphere (Code: 5, partially streamlined, no fuel scoops, MCr 7)
Armor: 0

Jump: 6 (7 tons, MCr 28)
Maneuver: 0
Power Plant: 6 (6 tons, MCr 18, EP: 6)
Fuel: 56 tons (1 jump 5, 4 weeks of operations or 24 weeks powered down, no purification)
L-Hyd Drop Tanks: 10 tons (MCr 0.02)
Jump-5 and 7 weeks of operations while L-Hyd tanks retained, Jump-6 and 4 weeks of operations when L-Hyd tanks are dropped.

Bridge (20 tons, MCr 0.5)
Computer: 6 (Code: 6, 7 tons, MCr 55, EP: 5)
Crew: 1 (Pilot, although can be programmed to jump with no crew aboard)
Staterooms: 1 (4 tons, MCr 0.5)
Cargo: 0

J6 Express Boat   XZ-1560661-000000-00000-0     MCr 87.216   100 tons
    no batteries                            TL=15. Crew=1 (optional).
Passengers=1 (possible). Cargo=0. Fuel=56. EP=6. Agility=0.
L-Hyd tanks add 10 tons of fuel and displacement (XZ-1550661) and cost MCr 0.02.

Tonnage:           100 tons (custom). 1400 cubic meters.
Dimensions:        12 m sphere with 10 m cone rear tail. Overall length 22 m.
Crew:              1 scout. Crew is optional, ship can function automatically without any crew.
Performance:       Jump-6. 0G. Power plant-6. 6 EP. Agility 0.
Jump Range:        5 parsecs with L-Hyd drop tanks retained, 6 parsecs when dropped.
Electronics:       Model/6 with extensive data banks and communicators for data transmission.
Armament:          Unarmed. Scout pilot provided small arms in ship's locker to repel boarders.
Fuel Treatment:    None. Ship is dependent on tender for purification.
Cost:              MCr 109.02 standard. MCr 87.216 in quantity.
Construction Time: 40 weeks singly, 32 weeks in quantity.

Total Cost (first in class): MCr 109.02
20% Down Payment (first in class): MCr 21.804
Architect Fees (first in class): MCr 1.0902
Construction Time (first in class): 40 weeks
Annual Overhaul (first in class): Cr 109,020 (LBB2.81, p8)

Additional Ships Cost: MCr 87.216
Additional Ships 20% Down Payment: MCr 17.4432
Additional Ships Construction Time: 32 weeks
Additional Ships Annual Overhaul: Cr 87.216 (LBB2.81, p8)

 

[Spinward Flow]

J6 Express Tender
TL=15 (LBB5.80)

Hull: 1000 tons
Configuration: Flattened Sphere (Code: 6, streamlined, fuel scoops, MCr 81)
Armor: 0

Jump: 2 (30 tons, MCr 120)
Maneuver: 2 (50 tons, MCr 35, EP: 20, Agility: 2)
Power Plant: 2 (20 tons, MCr 60, EP: 20)
Fuel: 220 tons (1 jump 2, 4 weeks of operations or 8 weeks powered down)
Fuel Purification Plant: 288 ton capacity (4.32 tons, MCr 0.0432)

Bridge (20 tons, MCr 5)
Computer: 2 (code: 2, 2 tons, MCr 9, EP: 0)

Crew: 20 (4 Officers: Navigator, Flight Ops, Medic, Purser) (16 Ratings: Pilot, 4 Engineers, 2 Stewards, 1 Medic, 3 Ship's Boat Pilots, 3 Gunners, 3 Communications Specialists)
High Passengers: 4
Staterooms: 24 (96 tons, MCr 12)
Low Berths: 20 (10 tons, MCr 1)

Workshops (3): Electronics Shop, Machine Shop, Umbilical Docking Manipulator Arms (12 tons, MCr 1.5, 1 docking manipulator arm per 110+20 hangar bay)
Workshops (3): Heavy Duty Communications Suites with Extensive Data Banks (12 tons, MCr 1.5)
Collapsable Fuel Tank: 68 ton capacity (0.68 tons, MCr 0.034)
Cargo: 100 tons

Hangars: 3 individual 110-ton berths for J6 Express Boats (363 tons, MCr 0.726, ordinary launch facilities) (LBB5.80, p32)
Hangars: 3 individual 20-ton berths for Armored Gigs (60 tons, MCr 0.12, ordinary launch facilities) (LBB5.80, p32)

J6 Express Tender   TZ-2622222-000000-00000-3   MCr 261.53856   1000 tons
    no batteries                                          TL=15. Crew=20.
Passengers=4 (high). Low=20. Cargo=100. Fuel=220. EP=20. Agility=20. FPP.

Tonnage:           1000 tons (custom). 14,000 cubic meters.
Crew:              4 scout officers, 16 ratings including 3 civilians.
Passengers:        4 high, 20 low.
Performance:       Jump-2. 2G. Power plant-2. 20 EP. Agility 2.
Electronics:       Model/2 computer with heavy duty communications suites and extensive data banks.
Armament:          Unarmed. Scout crew provided small arms in ship's locker to repel boarders.
Craft:             Three 110 ton J6 Express Boat hangars. Three 20 ton Armored Gig hangars.
Fuel Treatment:    Integral fuel scoops, on-board fuel purification plant with 288 ton capacity.
Cost:              MCr 326.9232 standard. MCr 261.53856 in quantity.
Construction Time: 40 weeks singly, 32 weeks in quantity.

Total Cost (first in class): MCr 326.9232
20% Down Payment (first in class): MCr 65.38464
Architect Fees (first in class): MCr 3.269232
Construction Time (first in class): 120 weeks
Annual Overhaul (first in class): Cr 326,924 (LBB2.81, p8)

Additional Ships Cost: MCr 261.53856
Additional Ships 20% Down Payment: MCr 52.307712
Additional Ships Construction Time: 96 weeks
Additional Ships Annual Overhaul: Cr 261,539 (LBB2.81, p8)

 

[Spinward Flow]

Armored Gig
TL=15 (LBB5.80)

Hull: 20 tons
Configuration: 1 ( streamlined, integral fuel scoops, MCr 2.4)
Armor: 15 (code: F, 3.2 tons, MCr 5.76)

Maneuver: 6 (3.4 tons, MCr 1.7, EP: 1.2, Agility: 6)
Power Plant: 6 (1.2 tons, MCr 3.6, EP: 1.2)
Fuel: 1.2 tons (4 weeks of operations or 24 weeks powered down)

Bridge (4 tons, MCr 0.1, includes 2 acceleration couches)
Computer: 2 (Code: 2, 2 tons, MCr 9, EP: 0)
Triple Turret Missile Rack: 3 (Code: 3, 1 ton, MCr 2.25)

Crew: 2 (Ship's Boat pilot, Gunner)
Starship Cabins: 2 (4 tons, MCr 0.5)
Cargo: 0

Armored Gig   GA-0106611-F00000-00003-0     MCr 20.248   20 tons
    batt bearing                    1                     TL=15.
    batteries                       1                    Crew=2.
Passengers=1 (2 possible). Cargo=0. Fuel=1.2. EP=1.2. Agility=6.

Tonnage:           20 tons (custom). 280 cubic meters.
Crew:              2 scouts.
Performance:       No jump. 6G. Power plant-6. 1.2 EP. Agility 6.
Electronics:       Bridge with Model/2 computer.
Hardpoints:        One. Triple turret installed.
Armament:          Triple missile rack.
Screens:           Armored hull (factor-15).
Fuel Treatment:    Integral fuel scoops. No purification plant carried. Craft is dependent on tender or mothership for fuel purification.
Cost:              MCr 25.31 standard. MCr 20.248 in quantity.
Construction Time: 40 weeks singly, 32 weeks in quantity.

Total Cost (first in class): MCr 25.31
20% Down Payment (first in class): MCr 5.062
Architect Fees (first in class): MCr 0.02531
Construction Time (first in class): 24 weeks
Annual Overhaul (first in class): Cr 25,310 (LBB2.81, p8)

Additional Ships Cost: MCr 20.248
Additional Ships 20% Down Payment: MCr 4.0496
Additional Ships Construction Time: 20 weeks
Additional Ships Annual Overhaul: Cr 20,248 (LBB2.81, p8)

 

[Spinward Flow]

Total Combined Costs (3 TL=15 XBoats, 1 TL=15 Tender, 3 TL=15 Armored Gigs)
Total Combined Tonnage = 330 + 1000 + 60 = 1390 tons

First In Class Construction: MCr 729.9132
Down Payments: MCr 145.98264
Architect's Fees: MCr 4.612532

Additional Copies Volume Construction: MCr 583.93056
Down Payments: MCr 116.786112



Legacy Combined Costs (4 TL=10 XBoats, unarmed 1 TL=10 Tender) (LBB S7, p46)
Total Combined Tonnage: 400 + 1000 = 1400 tons

Additional Copies Volume Construction: MCr 345.41
Down Payments: MCr 69.082



The legacy Jump-4 Express network averages 2.6 parsecs per week.
It was estimated that a Jump-6 Express network would average 5.5 parsecs per week.

Under such conditions, having a high speed Jump-6 network backbone that delivers 211% faster at only 169% of the construction cost of the legacy TL=10 ships that probably haven't had their design updated since 624 when the Express Boat Network began actually makes good economic sense as well as communication speed to the fringes sense. Bringing the frontier "closer" to the core in terms of communications lag is a no brainer steal if the rise in cost to do so is less than the gain in communications speeds.

211% faster (5.5 parsecs per week vs 2.6 parsecs per week, on average)
169% more expensive (MCr 583.93056 vs Mcr 345.41 in mass production)

Bargain, really ... :coffeesip:

 

[Spinward Flow]

Starting with the Express Boat, it's pretty obvious that you can't fit 60 tons of fuel, and 7 tons of computer (model/6) and a 20 ton bridge, and 13 tons of TL=15 drives (Jump-6 and Power Plant-6) into a 100 ton hull and have any room left over for anything else … like 1 stateroom for the crew and another 6 tons for power plant fuel.

But you CAN fit all of those things into 100 tons (with no room to spare!) if you drop your internal fuel tankage to handle only 5 parsecs of jump range instead of 6.

50 tons of fuel jump fuel (not 60, only 50) plus 6 tons of power plant fuel, 7 tons for computer, a 20 ton bridge, 13 tons of drives (no maneuver), one 4 ton stateroom … adds up to EXACTLY 100 tons of displacement (the XBoat is FULL!). In the grand tradition of XBoat design, everything fits … barely.

Now, if you want to scale up the hull size, you can finally squeeze in enough internal fuel for a Jump-6 at 150 tons worth of starship … but that makes the 150 ton XBoat a lot more expensive (almost +25% more per ship than the 100 ton version!) while also making the uprated ship largely incompatible with the existing legacy support network of XBoats and Tenders in terms of form factors (150 ton XBoats don't fit into legacy hangar bays anymore, complicating their upkeep). You then wind up needing to make a whole new Tender that makes for a poor fit with respect to continuing to service the legacy XBoat network, so backwards compatibility is poor. Now granted, shifting from a TL=10 to a TL=15 engineering base is going to have all kinds of ramifications and knock on effects in the backwards compatibility sphere, but you still want the new Tenders to be somewhat (somewhat…) "backwards compatible" with the older legacy stock of XBoats and Tenders … meaning the new ships can't "rock the boat" too much relative to the legacy ships the new J6 service is meant to ultimately replace.

In other words, keep doing the same things as before, just do them "better" with the tech refresh. So the "new" J6 Tenders need to service both J4 XBoats and J6 XBoats with a minimal loss of volume (tonnage) efficiency, rather than being a kind of "exclusive only" J6 XBoat supporting design. Essentially, don't overspecialize into J6 XBoat support at the expense of being able to maintain efficient J4 XBoat support.

From a bureaucratic standpoint, I'm sure the effort would be divert some of the funding for the J4 ships into the newer J6 ships and let a lot of the older J4 designs "age out" over the next 40 years, reducing (but not eliminating!) their numbers in the Express fleet through simple attrition. That diverted funding would go towards upgrading the Express network to a J6 standard in the places where it makes sense to do so, while retaining the J4 standard in the places where it makes sense to do so as well (usually for technological support reasons, which can be an issue in some sectors). So ultimately you wind up with a technological hi/lo mix that ultimately speeds up communications routes where possible while maintaining the overall "reach" of the Express network as already constituted.



But with that overall scheme in mind … how is a 100 ton J6 XBoat that is already bursting at the bulkheads supposed to be able to squeeze in another 10 tons of fuel so as to actually be able to jump 6 parsecs instead of just 5?

Enter L-Hyd Drop Tanks carrying … 10 tons of fuel external to the XBoat.

Now, one of the interesting little bits of mathematical trickery that happens here is that when a 100 ton (new) J6 XBoat is carrying a 10 ton drop tank but retains that drop tank through jump when NOT jumping 6 parsecs. This gets a little tricky to explain, so let's see if I can manage it.

• 56 tons internal fuel tankage, no L-Hyd Drop Tank
  • 4 weeks of power plant operations
  • Jump consumes 10 tons of fuel per parsec (max 5 parsecs)
  • Insufficient fuel to achieve Jump-6
• 56 tons internal fuel tankage, 10 ton L-Hyd Drop Tank retained through jump
  • 7 weeks of power plant operations
  • Jump consumes 11 tons of fuel per parsec (max 5 parsecs)
  • Jump drive performance reduced while drop tank retained to a maximum of Jump-5
• 56 tons internal fuel tankage, 10 ton L-Hyd Drop Tank dropped at jump
  • 4 weeks of power plant operations
  • Jump consumes 10 tons of fuel per parsec (max 6 parsecs)
  • Sufficient fuel to achieve Jump-6 with drop tank dropped at jump

So to summarize, without a drop tank or with a tank retained through jump, a 100 ton J6 XBoat only has enough fuel for a Jump-5, not a Jump-6.
The only way to achieve Jump-6 with a 100 ton J6 XBoat is with a 10 ton L-Hyd Drop Tank AND to drop the tank at jump.

This has some interesting implications for the industrial base needed to supply these replacement drop tanks after they get expended so as to jump 6 parsecs in a single week. It means that the 10 ton L-Hyd Drop Tanks can be put into continuous mass production in multiple places to support J6 Express operations (provided they can meet the quality control standards, of course). But those drop tanks are ONLY expended when needing to make a 6 parsec jump, for every other jump that needs to be made, the tanks can be retained UNTIL a 6 parsec jump needs to be made. It can then become standard operating procedure to send every J6 XBoat out with a drop tank fueled and fitted, regardless of how far they need to jump, so once the J6 network is operational the only time that drop tanks need to be replaced is AFTER J6 XBoat needs to make a 6 parsec jump to arrive in-system. Fitting J6 XBoats with replacement drop tanks after recovery is a much "safer" standard procedure, operationally speaking, than trying to ensure that those drop tanks are fitted ONLY on outbound jumps of exactly 6 parsecs, since the drop tanks can be "ferried" through jump at a cost of +1 ton of fuel expended per parsec (max 5) and retained when using Jump-5 or less.

So the consumption of drop tanks would not be happening "everywhere" at all times throughout the upgraded J6 network for every jump. Instead, those drop tanks would be getting expended only on the 6 parsec jumps. This then puts the demand for replacement tanks at the destinations of those 6 parsec jumps, rather than at the point of origin … although in reality it will basically be 1 each (origin plus destination) for XBoats making a round trip repeating run between two systems 6 parsecs apart. The important point I want to make here is that the logistical "tail" for producing and delivering these drop tanks doesn't necessarily fall too heavily on any one singular star system along the upgraded J6 Express network since drop tanks can be "ferried in" from other star systems from up to 5 parsecs away, spreading the production load for their supply.

In terms of budgetary cost for replacing all of those drops tanks, it takes the expenditure of 50 drop tanks to equal to expense of an additional MCr 1 construction cost in the first in class ship (or 40 drop tanks once taking mass production costs into account). Since a 150 ton all internal fuel tankage J6 XBoat would cost MCr 145.2 for the first ship in class, as opposed to MCr 109 for the 100 J6 XBoat with drop tanks, that would be a cost increase of an additional MCr 36.2 … meaning that in mass production, a 100 ton J6 XBoat would need to make 1448 Jump-6 before it became a more expensive option than the 150 ton J6 XBoat. At a rate of 50 jumps per year (which is NOT a reasonable tempo expectation!) it would take 29 years of continuous Jump-6 ONLY operations before the drop tank option became more expensive than the all internal fuel alternative when comparing the ships in a mass production cost context. Even at a more reasonable, but still remarkably fast turnaround time rate of 40 jumps per year per J6 XBoat it would take 36.2 years of continuous Jump-6 ONLY operations before the drop tank option became more expensive than the all internal fuel alternative when comparing the ships in a mass production costs context. And neither of those "napkin math" analyses is including the increased cost in annual maintenance for the all internal fuel option, nor adjustments to the arrangement of hangar space in Tenders (and the requirements for more Tenders!) that would necessarily entail.

In other words, over the expected 40 year lifetime of an XBoat, the 100 ton J6 XBoat design is very likely to be cheaper to sustain (all things considered) than a 150 ton J6 XBoat design would be, since over those 40 years at least some percentage below 100% of the jumps being made will usually be 5 parsecs or less. So from both a Tender displacement tonnage standpoint as well as a sheer economic budgetary analysis standpoint, the 100 ton J6 XBoat with a 10 ton L-Hyd Drop Tank is DEFINITELY the way to go for deploying this development throughout the Third Imperium.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Just to give some examples of where this Jump-5/6 capability would make a marked difference in the Spinward Marches sector, consider these new routes that would open up with a J6 XBoat upgrade:

Regina/Regina to Lysen/Jewell: 1J6 instead of 1J3 plus 2J4 (1 v 3)
Regina/Regina to Inthe/Regina: 1J5 instead of 3J2 plus 2J3 plus 4J4 (1 v 9)
Lanth/Lanth to Frenzie/Vilis: 1J6 instead of 3J4 (1 v 3)
Lanth/Lanth to Garda-Vilis/Vilis: 1J6 instead of 3J4 plus 1J2 (1 v 4)
Lanth/Lanth to Adabicci/Lunion: 1J6 instead of 2J2 plus 2J3 plus 2J4 (1 v 6)
D'Ganzio/Lanth to Lunion/Lunion: 1J5 instead of 1J2 plus 1J3 plus 2J4 (1 v 4)
Tenalphi/Lunion to Caladbolg/Sword Worlds: 1J5 instead of 1J3 plus 1J4 (1 v 2)
Strouden/Lunion to Glisten/Glisten: 1J5 plus 1J6 instead of 1J2 plus 2J3 plus 1J4 (2 v 4)
Fosey/Mora to Mora/Mora: 1J5 instead of 3J4 (1 v 3)

So I think you can see, even in a place like the Spinward Marches, the increase in communication speeds just in these examples can be anywhere from 2-8(!) weeks of reductions in travel times using a mix of Jump-5 and Jump-6 routing through the sector.

Park a Scout Base at Echiste/Lanth and run an XBoat shortcut from Rhylanor to Regina that is only 2 jump 5(!) … instead of needing to go "the long way round" through Lanth (a 7 week trip!).

Perhaps the trifecta of all XBoat link ups that I can see would be turning Vanejen/Rhylanor/Spinward Marches into a "triple point" connector at merely jump 5 from Rhylanor/Rhylanor, Mora/Mora AND Magash/Sabine in the neighboring Deneb Sector.
I mean, talk about hitting the "location, location, location!" jackpot as a crossroads in a more capable Express Boat Service! THREE subsector capitals, all within 2 Jump-5 of each other through Vanejen? No wonder the Zhodani took word of these developments as an impetus to start the Fifth Frontier War (not the only reason, granted, but one of the reasons for doing so).



So with all of those cases for logistical improvement in the existing network, as well as "idiot proofing" the procedures for how to handle the L-Hyd Drop Tank support tail in a way that disperses the demand for production of those tanks away from necessarily being concentrated into only the routes where they will need to be used (thereby spreading the logistical burden of them more widely and hopefully a bit more "evenly" around the network) yielding a relatively firm design for How To Do It™ in a TL=15 package … it's time to move on to thinking about how to (best) support such a network of 100 ton J6 XBoats with Tenders that are better suited for their (newer) needs than the older TL=10 legacy Tenders.

So first and foremost, TL=15 XBoats will need to be supported by TL=15 Tenders … that's just the way the cookie empire crumbles, I'm afraid. The tooling available in the TL=10 legacy Tenders just simply isn't going to be fit for purpose on TL=15 XBoats, so if you upgrade the tech level in the XBoats, the Tenders need to move with that upgrade in order to keep pace so as to fulfill their supporting role properly.

However, where the TL=10 Tenders were dealing with 100 ton J4 XBoats, the new TL=15 Tenders are going to be dealing with (effectively) 110 ton J6 XBoats, since a lot of them will be retaining their L-Hyd Drop Tanks through jump if they don't need to go 6 parsecs in one jump. Obviously any new TL=15 Tender that can dock a 110 ton J6 XBoat will be able to do the same for a legacy 100 ton J4 XBoat (at a slight loss in hangar volume efficiency that is so minuscule as to almost be a non-issue in operational terms).

Now one of the missions that Tenders are given in service is to ferry additional XBoats into areas that need them … and I look at the legacy TL=10 Tenders and wonder exactly HOW those older ships were intended to accomplish that? The old ships had 150 tons of fuel and could jump 1 parsec per week while consuming 100 tons of jump fuel (and 2.5 tons of power plant fuel per week from LBB2.81 onwards). In order for a legacy Tender to cross 4 parsecs to arrive on station in a distant system further down the network, it would need to have 410 tons of fuel and 4 weeks just to get there empty (so better to have 420 tons fueled up before you start!) … which can be done if you load the hangar bay with fuel instead of XBoats I suppose, but then the Tender isn't carrying the XBoats to the new system. Of course, I can't think of a good reason to send XBoats to a new duty location inside a Tender instead of just having the XBoats use their Jump-4 drives to get there on their own from the last link in the network chain as a part of their ordinary duty rotations through the network. But my point here is that you have to completely convert the legacy Tenders into a fuel barge just in order to get them to ferry themselves(!) across 4 parsecs in 4 weeks and then once they arrive at their destination system you have to convert them back(!) into being Tenders that are supplied to recover and replenish J4 XBoats on their route assignment. Basically an arduous logistical monstrosity that could take 4-8 weeks to get a legacy Tender on station in a new system 4 parsecs away in 4 weeks. It can be done … but it is by no means a pretty sight to manage the logistics for the ferry mission.

So that was one of the first things I wanted to "fix" with a J6 Tender design, the capacity to ferry both the Tender itself AND new J6 XBoats to a new station posting that could be up to 4 parsecs distant without needing to refuel along the way.

The new J6 Tenders carry 220 tons of internal fuel tankage, which is enough to jump 2 parsecs in a single week, so halfway across a 4 parsec gap. The Tender both can and operationally speaking should have (because it will need them for this) three J6 Express Boats secured in the hangars during the trip. Those three J6 Xboats will each have 56 tons of internal fuel tankage as well as an additional 10 tons of L-Hyd Drop Tanks attached to them, giving them each a fuel capacity of 66 tons of fuel while in their hangars. That means that those three J6 XBoats will have a combined fuel capacity of 198 tons, which is 2 tons short of the 200 tons of fuel needed to make a second jump of 2 parsecs after the first in order to complete the 4 parsec ferry mission bringing J6 XBoats to a new star system. After breaking out of jump at the destination, the Tender simply needs to refuel (gas giant, ocean, starport, spaceport) and purify any unrefined fuel before transferring fuel into the XBoats so the XBoats can begin outbound operations from the new duty station. After fueling the XBoats in the hangar, the Tender will need to refuel itself again so as to be ready for Tender service duties of recovering and refueling incoming XBoats.

In other words, a 4 parsecs in 2 weeks ferry deployment of a J6 Tender loaded with three J6 XBoats to a new duty station is a far less complex undertaking and requires no special logistical measures or conversions, resulting in a much quicker activation to ready status after arrival in the destination star system (basically just 2 refueling cycles is enough to begin normal operations).

If no J6 XBoats are available for a 4 parsec ferry assignment by a J6 Tender, then three J4 XBoats can be carried, which will have a combined internal fuel capacity of 120 tons. There is sufficient spare volume in the XBoat hangars for 3 L-Hyd Drop Tanks to be set up and fueled prior to departure, increasing the hangar bay fuel potential to 150 combined tons. Beyond this, there is a 68 ton capacity collapsible fuel tank in the cargo hold which can be filled with 50 tons of fuel for the ferry mission … and that's all you need. You have 220 tons of fuel in the internal tanks, and another 200 combined tons of fuel capacity that can be pumped into the main tanks after the first jump in order to make the second, allowing the J6 Tender to cross 4 parsecs in 2 weeks while carrying a full load of (in this case) J4 Xboats. After arriving in the destination system, the J6 Tender will of course need to refuel (twice), in order to refill its own fuel tanks as well as the fuel tanks of the embarked J4 XBoats, after which it can begin XBoat service operations immediately. However, since a portion of the cargo hold needed to be devoted to fuel for the ferry mission, the cargo hold will have a reduced supply of replenishment materials for arriving XBoats and thus the J6 Tender will need to rotate out of operational service more rapidly for restocking of consumables in the cargo hold, but that isn't an immediate concern upon arrival.

And speaking of the collapsible fuel tank for the cargo hold, I added that specifically as a "flex" feature for capacity. The way I envision things, at first the cargo hold will be stuffed with everything needed to support operations long(er) term so a Tender can remain on station, only needing to refuel, for months at a time without needing to return to base for consumable supplies. However, those supplies in the cargo hold are consumed over time, first and foremost being the L-Hyd Drop Tanks needing to be replaced, but also food and life support supplies as well as parts and spares and so on. This means that the amount of cargo in the hold will start out being "full" and then slowly dwindle over time as the Tender services and replenishes XBoats while on assigned station. This in turn means that the tempo of needing to refuel after dispatching outbound XBoats actually goes down over time (can dispatch 4 instead of 3 before needing to refuel), as the balance of the contents of their cargo hold changes from consumables to additional fuel reserves over time.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Workshop facilities primarily follow the precedent (best as I can manage it) from the legacy TL=10 Tender design. There is an electronics workshop and a machine shop, which matches the description of the legacy Tender design. To replicate the refueling probe, I have one workshop allocated for umbilical manipulator docking arms (3) for each of the (3) individual hangar bays where an XBoat and an Armored Gig are berthed. Controls for these docking arms are located on the bridge and are usually the responsibility of the Flight Ops officer.

The remaining 3 workshops are all redundant heavy communications suites with the obligatory extensive data banks, necessary to handle the enormous flow of data through the uplink and downlink channels. This way, if a fault happens in one of the 3 communications suites the others can still be used while replacement parts are fabricated in the electronics shop to repair the malfunctioning communications suite. Basic idea is redundancy against failure modes, rather than being redundancy against battle damage (per se).

Each of the six workshops consumes 4 tons each and costs as much as a starship stateroom (so 24 tons total, costing MCr3 for all 6 workshops).

The cargo bay on a J6 Tender has been increased to 100 tons for three J6 XBoats, which is a significant upgrade of over the 60 tons for 4 XBoats arrangement of allowing 15 tons per embarked XBoat in the legacy TL=10 Tenders. Part of the reason for this increase is so as to have enough space aboard to assemble pre-fabricated "kits" of L-Hyd Drop Tanks that would arrive in crates of components. Using the onboard machine shop, a new drop tank can be assembled in the pressurized cargo bay before transferring it to one of the 3 XBoat berths for attachment and fueling. That then leaves another 90 tons of cargo space for three J6 XBoats, or essentially 30 tons per embarked XBoat, with more or less half of that 30 tons per XBoat being devoted to storage of drop tank kits ready for final assembly, depending on the amount of jump 6 traffic the Tender needs to support.

I figure that the L-Hyd Drop Tanks will be a "standardized" pre-fabricated design that gets the IKEA treatment of the components being shipped in what amount to flat packs in standardized shipping containers, so most of the work of fabricating them gets done at a starport where the components are manufactured. In the cargo hold of a J6 Tender, those drop tank "kits" simply need to have final assembly done and quality control checks completed before the finished drop tank can be mated to a J6 XBoat and fueled. A lot of the remaining cargo space will be devoted to life support reserves and consumables, such as water, air and food supplies that can't necessarily be recycled to replace losses over time as the Tender remains on station in operational ready status, possibly even for months at a time. Fortunately, all staterooms aboard the J6 Tender are (normally) single occupancy, so as to have enough life support reserves for long duty tours or to permit short term double occupancy if needed to respond to a distress call that results in the rescue and evacuation of another ship following a disaster or mishap where people need to be ferried safely to either a base, port or otherwise habitable biosphere after rescue for processing by local authorities.



The crew of the new J6 Tenders needed to be increased over the legacy Tender design, partly due to the increase in drive tonnage needing to be serviced, but also because the new J6 Tender replaces its armament with Armored Gigs.

One of the interesting quirks about the TL=10 Tender is that its fire control and armament arrangement winds up being so lackluster in hindsight. The "turrets on rails" so as to let 2 of the turrets move around when the Tender can't during docking, refueling and recovery operations that restrict maneuvering is actually a somewhat clever solution to the problem. However, as the text makes clear (LBB S7, p14) the arrangement is something of an ugly compromise.

I looked at this situation and asked myself … if the problem is being able to bring the turrets to bear when the Tender cannot itself maneuver, why not just move the weaponry off the Tender entirely? After all, if you remove the weaponry from the Tender and put it on a small craft, then the small craft can maneuver to bring weapons to bear while the Tender cannot maneuver during recovery operations. Additionally, the small craft could potentially be used as a tug to recover XBoats faster after breakout from jump. They would also be able to act as a sort of organic "fighter escort" for XBoat operations, hopefully deterring would be pirates from wanting to test their luck on seeing if they can capture a J6 Tender, which could compromise a whole segment of the Express Boat network in the local region of space. Basically, you don't want your best communications technologies falling into the hands of people who can wind up using that technology against you (or sell it off to the highest bidder so a third party can crack your security protocols more easily). The real clincher though was the idea of using what turned into the Armored Gigs as rapid response tugs for recovering XBoats after arrival, in addition to their potential for defensive screening and deterrence factor.

Once I decided to switch from turrets on the Tender to turrets on small craft instead, other elements of the overall design and tidbits of daily operations procedures started falling into place in a connective fashion. Because the small craft were free to maneuver beyond the relative locations of a Tender and an XBoat (the latter of which has no maneuver drive to work with), that immediately increases the volume of space "protected" by the turret and weapons on the small craft in a way that is synergistically more useful than merely putting turrets on the Tender like in the legacy design. The added benefit is that as already mentioned the small craft can operate as maneuver tugs to assist with the rescue and recovery of arriving XBoats after breakout from jump space. This then reduces the amount of time an XBoat crew needs to wait for support after a breakout from jump, since with both the small craft tug and the Tender coordinating operations there now have a wealth of additional maneuver options available for rendezvous and recovery. However, choosing this option meant reducing the available volume dedicated to hangar space for XBoats aboard the Tender, which I ultimately reduced from 4 down to 3.

Part of my reasoning for this decision to reduce available hangar space for the XBoats like this was the expectation that with L-Hyd Drop Tanks in the mix, more cargo space would be needed to replace the expendable drop tanks, so a mere 15 tons of cargo space for consumables per XBoat hangar berth would no longer be adequate to sustain operations long(er) term. Using the carried craft hangar rules (LBB5.80, p32), it was obvious that the 100 ton J6 XBoats with their L-Hyd Drop Tanks attached would require 121 tons per hangar berth, at least 30 tons of additional cargo space for consumables per hangar berth, as well as needing 50-66 tons of fuel for each recovery and replenish cycle (although operationally this would usually come from the Tender's jump fuel tankage while the Tender remains on station in-system). Add a 20 ton small craft for flight operations per XBoat hangar berth and suddenly you're looking at a budget of around 170+ tons per XBoat hangar berth while still needing over 100 tons for accommodations of crew and passengers along with 220 tons of jump and power plant fuel and 100 tons of drives for the Tender itself … and suddenly there just isn't enough "room" left over internally for 4 XBoat berths aboard anymore. The Tender's fuel tankage fraction is higher than the legacy version, the drives are larger, the crew is larger … something had to "give" so my choice was to reduce the number of XBoats can can be concurrently berthed in the hangar bays (with the doors closed) from 4 down to 3.

That said, a J6 Tender can "carry" up to 1500 tons in its jump field in a 1 parsec jump.

At first I was thinking of only using a single small craft to support the Tender's operations, but as I kept iterating and "evolving" the design of the J6 Tender, it quickly became obvious that a single small craft supporting operations invited a number of single point of failure modes that would jeopardize the availability of the small craft for carrying out that support mission in a timely rapid response fashion. For one thing, crews need to be able to rest and recover and the best place for doing that is aboard the Tender, but while docked with the Tender they can't be performing their assigned patrol functions … which then naturally led me in the direction of carrying multiple copies of the same small craft design so as to have an orderly rotation that allowed for redundancy of craft and sufficient rest time for small craft crews to prevent "burnout" from happening due to excessively long flight hours. That was when I settled upon the "3 small craft for 3 XBoat berths" idea so as to be able to have a continuous rotation of 1 small craft in flight patrolling around the Tender, ready for incoming XBoat arrivals and protecting the volume of space around the Tender so unauthorized ships cannot approach too closely without challenge, with another small craft docked on the Tender in standby mode ready to launch if needed with the crew in the quarters aboard the Tender, and the last small craft in the rotation docked aboard the Tender in maintenance mode for engineering staff to check over and maintain on an ongoing basis. This would then put the flight crews into a 3 shift rotation of space, standby and downtime, giving them ample opportunity to relax and recover from long hours of space patrolling in their small craft so as to start each shift "fresh" and not exhausted.

 

[Spinward Flow]

The last major change for the J6 Tender was an upward adjustment in the number of crew members, made somewhat unavoidable by the increase in drive capabilities (Jump-2, Maneuver-2, Power Plant-2) and the addition of small craft operations to the Tender's support duties. The number of passengers the J6 Tender can (easily) accommodate was held over from the legacy Tender design, so as to maintain continuity of personnel administration ... although with the added support staff in the new J6 Tender design, the quality of life aboard for all aboard (both crew and passengers) has been significantly upgraded and improved over legacy designs.

The officer ranks aboard a J6 Tender are comprised of the Navigator, Medic, Flight Ops director and a position that is technically classified as a Purser, but in reality is simply a civilian acting as a senior Steward.

The Navigator and Flight Ops director will both be drawn from the Scout Bureaucracy's Operations Office (Scout Fleet), with the senior officer between the two assigned command responsibilities as captain of the Tender. Flight Ops directors require a skill level of Pilot-1 and Ship's Boat-1 to be assigned this posting. The Medic will be drawn from the Scout Bureaucracy's Technical Office (Education Branch) and will require a skill level of Medic-2 before being assigned to the Tender in order to maximize survival rates for any passengers and/or crew carried in low berths.

The remaining crew members (who rank as ratings) are nearly all drawn from the Scout Field Communications Office (Express Boat Service). These consist of the Pilot, 4 Engineers (the most senior will be made chief engineer), 3 Ship's Boat Pilots, 3 Gunners, 3 Communications Specialists as well as an additional 2 civilian Stewards supervised by the previously mentioned Purser.

Although the J6 Tender itself only has 100 tons of drives, which would normally require only 3 engineers, the Tender routinely hosts additional craft in its hangar bays which also require engineering maintenance and upkeep, hence the additional engineering crew. With 4 engineers aboard, a J6 Tender can support a combined 140 tons worth of drives maintenance needs, which is sufficient to cover the drives of the Tender itself plus the drives of three Armored Gigs and up to two J6 XBoats without overworking the engineering crew's capacity (a third concurrent J6 XBoat to maintain will require some overtime hours from the engineering department). Fortunately, most routine J6 Tender operations will typically have no more than two J6 XBoats docked for refueling and refurbishment at any give time in order to leave an open berth in reserve to receive new arrivals, although depending on XBoat traffic and coordination between Tenders at an assigned duty station, there can be surges of demand for capacity (as well as lulls).

Each Armored Gig will be assigned a crew of 2, a Ship's Boat Pilot and a Gunner. As previously mentioned Armored Gigs will usually operate on a 3 shift rotation of keeping 1 active in space, 1 docked on standby reserve and 1 docked for maintenance and resupply under most circumstances. Armored Gig pilots are strongly encouraged to improve their Ship Tactics skills after having qualified as pilots, rather than continue to increase their Ship's Boat skill rating, since Ship Tactics are more broadly applicable to both Tenders and Armored Gigs, as well as other small craft and starships in the IISS than mere piloting skills alone.

The new J6 Tenders increase the number of Communication Specialists from 1 to 3 aboard over the legacy Tender designs so as to permit constant manning of the communications suites on a 3 shift rotation, much like with the Armored Gig crews. This continuous manning of the communications systems by specialists also enhances the coordination of the Tender with Armored Gigs in flight through both offensive and defensive support of their communications channels (jamming, counter-jamming, encryption, signals intelligence, detection of transponder spoofing, etc.) in order to keep their lines of communication open and secure at all times.

The final complement to the crew members are the civilian support staff who provide housekeeping, caretaker and meal services to the passengers and crew. The Purser provides services to the Tender's other 3 officers and 4 (high) passenger staterooms used to turn around and ready XBoat crews between arrivals and departures, as well as housing replacement crews resuscitated from low berth accommodations. The other 2 subordinate Stewards provide similar services for the 14 members of the crew beyond themselves, enhancing the quality of life aboard for everyone, allowing all crew members to focus more on their assigned roles and maintain higher state of crew morale, cohesion and readiness over long and potentially boring duty station assignments.

While there was a heated debate within the IISS Technical Services Office Research & Development Branch over the "wanton extravagance" of stationing a support services crew of 3 aboard J6 Express Tenders as a matter of routine policy and standard design (particularly since the previous legacy designs had only had a total crew of 6!), studies of the advantages versus costs were conducted and the proposition tested. These studies concluded that although in sheer monetary terms the addition of a support staff for a Tender's crew was an additional expense to be borne by the service's budget (how could it not be?), the increase in crew morale and quality of life aboard were large enough to make assignment to a J6 Tender effectively a prestige posting that Scouts would request and compete for, rather than shun or resent being assigned to, effectively improving the quality of the personnel pool to draw from and the retention of those personnel reducing turnover, in addition to a laundry list of other intangible benefits. In the end, the R&D Branch leadership decided that the returns on investment in a civilian support staff for J6 Tenders paid for themselves and the allocation of space for 3 civilians hired to serve the crew was incorporated into the design specs.

 

[Spinward Flow]

The Armored Gigs are were an interesting design challenge for me, since I essentially wanted "fighters+" for their role owing to the fact that they were in effect replacing armament on the Tender.

So the first thing I wanted to do was start with a 6G small craft, arm it with weapons (so a computer was mandatory), keep it as small as possible to free up space in the Tender while also having enough maneuver drive capacity to act as a maneuver tug (minimum 1G) for the addition of a 110 ton displacement J6 XBoat. The small craft also needed to be able to transfer the crew (and passenger, if any) of an XBoat undergoing recovery to the small craft, while also having cabin accommodations for both crew and passenger(s) in the event of needing to travel really FAR to reach an XBoat that arrived off navigation target in-system (for whatever reason) so as to give the small craft a long loiter endurance needed for even Search and Rescue (SAR) operations, which mere acceleration couches would not provide with their 12-24 hour occupancy limits.

Running the numbers, I realized that a 15 ton small craft would have a 2.55 ton maneuver drive, which would be sufficiently powerful to haul 127.5 combined tons of small craft (15 tons) plus starship (110 combined tons) at 1G … which worked … until I started looking at some of the other tasks that would be assigned and their parameters. Without a bridge, the computer model would be downgraded by -1, which would severely impact ship-to-ship combat potential. With a low power computer, no armor and no energy points to spare for a laser, the small craft would need to be armed with a missile/sandcaster dual turret which wouldn't be all that credible a concern to an experienced Corsair captain. The problem then was a lack of volume (15 tons isn't that much to work with) and the result was barely adequate to my needs, even when adding a bridge to the design. The lackluster combination of sandcaster with no armor didn't look all that promising either from a combat perspective.

So I reworked the Tender design to support a 20 ton small craft instead of a 15 ton small craft … and suddenly everything fell into place. A 20 ton small craft is the "optimal" size for a bridge plus computer combination for a very light 6G fighter craft (LBB5.80, p34). I had enough room now to upgrade from a model/1 to a model/2 computer, with a bridge, so as to give the small craft a fighting chance of being able to hit and/or evade a hostile ship. I was sticking with the dual turret missile/sandcaster combination until I realized that after I had added a pair of 2 ton starship cabins, 1 for the crew and a second for a passenger or two (with long endurance life support for all, if needed) ... I actually had tonnage left over and was wondering what to do with it. Add a laser into the mix in a triple turret? Tempting, but no, not really worth it.

At that point I started looking over the LBB5.80 combat tables for hits and penetration of defenses to see if I could spark an idea, and was noticing just how lackluster a Sandcaster: 3 code was for protection. The small craft still had no armor at this point, and I was getting worried that a single hit would disable it rather easily (assuming you could hit it at all), but the odds of the sandcaster being effective as a defense wasn't looking really good.

And then I remembered that I had some spare tonnage left over, this was going to be a TL=15 small craft … and decided to just Go For It™. What would happen if I stacked armor factor 15 onto this 20 ton small craft in its current configuration?

Answer: a PERFECT FIT.

At that point, I had to check the damage tables (LBB5.80, p48) and critical hit (LBB5.80, p41) rules to realize that a size 0 small craft with armor 15 needs to be hit by a factor 8+ weapon before critical hits can happen, and that only nuclear missiles and pulse lasers had a chance of inflicting any surface damage or radiation damage at all … and most pirates won't have access to nuclear missiles (some will, most won't). Meson weapons would make a mess of the small craft, by bypassing armor to do damage, so I gave the ship a Configuration: 1 to make it as hard to "tag" with a meson gun as possible and relied on Agility as the primary means of defense against meson guns (which pirates really should not have access to, but nation state entities might).

Upon realizing that the combination of size, computer and agility would make a small craft with these specs nigh impossible to hit … even if it was hit, the small craft would simply be able to "tank" the damage with Armor-15 and very likely be completely unaffected by most turret weapons mounted on ships of 1000 tons or less, which includes most commercial traffic and would be pirate ship classes (Corsair, compromised Patrol Cruiser, captured Destroyer Escorts, rogue Kinunuir class ship in "private" hands, etc.). It cost a few tons (15 tons grew to 20 tons) and a some extra MCr in purchase cost … but the added safety and security offered by the Armored Gig configuration was just so undeniably superior that I couldn't justify using anything unarmored in this role just to save a few tons of volume on the Tender. The kicker to the whole thing was being able to ditch the sandcaster entirely and switch to a triple missile rack, simply because the armor factor allowed the turret to be a pure offense installation (using no energy points) while any hits that made it to the hull would be "tanked" by the armor, with the most likely damage result being "No Effect" even when hit. The triple missile rack is even the ideal weapon to use when starting an engagement at long range but breaking off by acceleration in the first combat round if the situation calls for it (LBB5.80, p39 and p41-42).

This combination gave me my desired "fighter+" capabilities of being a local fighter escort able to maneuver when the Tender couldn't, a speedy small craft to extend the "reach" of a Tender beyond the Tender itself, an XBoat tug and a Search and Rescue craft with a 4 week loiter time before needing to return to the Tender for refueling and refurbishment. It could even transfer a small amount of fuel (0.2 tons) to XBoats when docked with them so as to extend their power plant endurance for maintaining life support on the XBoat while waiting for the Tender to rendezvous for a docking. If the XBoat's power plant and/or life support has failed, up to 2 sophonts could disembark from an XBoat and have ample accommodations aboard one of these Armored Gigs to sustain them until the Armored Gig can rendezvous with a Tender or make port at a starport, spaceport, scout base or naval base, depending on where the rescue occurred and any need for medical attention they might have.

The one thing these Armored Gigs do not do is transfer cargo, but given the nature of the Express Boat service, cargo shipments tend to be further down the list of priorities than people. So designing the them to carry up to 2 extra people for a long time (4 weeks) suits their role of rescue and recovery craft quite well, in addition to their potential as a very light armored fighter that can take a pounding from ships in the 1000 ton and below displacement classes and continue fighting if need be.



And there you have it, finally … at long last … my answer to what a Jump 6 Express Boat Network would require in terms of ship redesign(s) to support the upgraded capability.

:alpha: The OTU source for the inspiration for what these designs became can be found in the Fifth Frontier War boxed wargame set on page 5.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Power Plant: 6 (6 tons, MCr 18, EP: 6)
Fuel: 56 tons (1 jump 5, 4 weeks of operations or 24 weeks powered down, no purification)
L-Hyd Drop Tanks: 10 tons (MCr 0.02)
Jump-5 and 7 weeks of operations while L-Hyd tanks retained, Jump-6 and 4 weeks of operations when L-Hyd tanks are dropped.

Bridge (20 tons, MCr 0.5)
Computer: 6 (Code: 6, 7 tons, MCr 55, EP: 5)

Agreed, but a small quibble about PP fuel.

You can't power the PP down to a PP-1 and still run the computer. You need a computer. Hence minimum PP-5.

Internal 56 Dt tankage is enough for J-5 (50 Dt) and, if powered down to a PP-5, then 6 / 5 × 4 weeks = 4.8 weeks PP fuel (6 Dt).


Also note that you need a new drop tank for every jump, that must be manufactured locally or shipped in.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Upon realizing that the combination of size, computer and agility would make a small craft with these specs nigh impossible to hit … even if it was hit, the small craft would simply be able to "tank" the damage with Armor-15 and very likely be completely unaffected by most turret weapons mounted on ships of 1000 tons or less, ...

Yes, it is great against LBB2 ships, but any warship with a missile bay (default armament) and a decent computer will hit it and inflict crits.

Even a tiny warship with a decent computer and nukes will easily defeat them.

They will be great against a casual pirate attack, but pointless against military attacks. So Armed Gig is correct, but "fighter" is a bit optimistic.


If you want to be really scary to small ships mount a Fusion Gun (Factor 5) that will inflict crits on 400- Dt ships. It will cost you agility, but it's probably worth it against e.g. Corsairs or Patrol Cruisers.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Agreed, but a small quibble about PP fuel.

You can't power the PP down to a PP-1 and still run the computer. You need a computer. Hence minimum PP-5.

Internal 56 Dt tankage is enough for J-5 (50 Dt) and, if powered down to a PP-5, then 6 / 5 × 4 weeks = 4.8 weeks PP fuel (6 Dt).

I think you're misunderstanding something. Let me step you through everything I glossed over.

The power plant doesn't power down. Instead, what is happening is that a Jump-5 with a L-Hyd drop tank retained through jump costs 55 tons of fuel (because 100+10=110*0.5=55). So 56+10-55=11 tons of fuel remaining. A power plant that produces 6 EP consumes 6 tons of fuel per 4 weeks. 11/6*4 = 7 weeks of power plant operation "at full burn" rather than being powered down at any point (technically it's 7.333 weeks, but I was trying to keep things simple). Of that 7 weeks of power plant duration, 1 week was consumed during jump, so 7 weeks total but 6 remaining after breakout from jump.

During the jump week, 1.5 tons of fuel will have been consumed by the powerplant (6 tons / 4 weeks = 1.5 tons per week of operations). So upon breakout from Jump-5 with the L-Hyd drop tank retained, rather than expended, only 9.5 tons of fuel remains ... which is insufficient for another jump, even at Jump-1, but is enough for another 6 weeks (and a couple of days) of power plant operations before fuel is exhausted. Try to get recovered by a Tender before your 6 weeks without being able to jump or maneuver is up.

Also note that you need a new drop tank for every jump, that must be manufactured locally or shipped in.

This is factually false.

As I detailed, a new drop tank is needed ONLY after every Jump-6 in order to achieve Jump-6 ... but can be retained through jump when making a Jump-5 or less.

The drop tanks are not "required" to be dropped in order to jump. The 300 ton Close Escort detailed in LBB S7, p30-35 and p47 as well as LBB S9, p17 both detail the changes in drive performance both with and without the drop tanks retained through jump.

Yes, it is great against LBB2 ships, but any warship with a missile bay (default armament) and a decent computer will hit it and inflict crits.

A "decent" computer basically qualifies as anything model/6-9.
Also, what tonnage class do you need to be in before missile bays (50 or 100 tons) become something reasonable to expect to need to fight against? I mean, seriously, if you're going to outweigh a small craft by a factor of x100 (for a 2000 ton ship in this case) so you have have a missile bay plus any other weapons ... aren't you stretching the point you're trying to make beyond the breaking point?

The Armored Gigs will take critical hits from weapons of Factor: 8+ ... which requires either 21+ beam lasers per battery or 16+ fusion guns per battery, which is a minimum ship size of 700-1000 tons for the beam lasers and 800-1000 tons for the fusion guns (depending on the TL=13-14 +1 modifier). None of the Escort designs presented in LBB S9 Fighting Ships arranges their weapons in this manner (max code, 1 battery). In fact, the smallest ship with a factor 9 weapon code on it is the Fleet Escort (LBB S9, p18) weighing in at 5000 tons. Everything else below that tonnage is usually mounting factor 4-6 weapons in multiple batteries.

This is why I said that the Armored Gigs are "very light fighters" that are good at dealing with threats from ships in the 1000 ton and under classes, and in particular the most common types of pirate ships, which the LBB2.81 detail as being in the 400 ton class of either the Corsair (LBB S4) or Patrol Cruiser (LBB2.81) or Mercenary Cruiser (LBB2.81). Against those ship classes and under, the Armored Gigs can acquit themselves reasonably well in a matchup.

Point being, as I detailed, against most commercial grade ships and low end captured military vessels pressed into pirate service, the Armored Gigs are quite adequate to the task. As front line fleet fighter squadron material for making frontal assaults on capital ships ... not so much ... unless you have so many pilots and crews available to be able to afford "swarm tactics" assaults and can ZERG your way to victory. If you want "real" fighter small craft, use the ones detailed in LBB S9. The 20 ton Armored Gig is basically a "light attack" small craft that can hold its own against non-military and paramilitary opposition, but as soon as you start talking REAL military ... not so much. I thought I had made that abundantly clear.

Even a tiny warship with a decent computer and nukes will easily defeat them.

How tiny are we talking about?
400 tons?
800 tons?
1000 tons?
1250 tons?
3000 tons?
5000 tons?

Remember, what is the most common and/or likely ship encounter that can result in hostilities for an Express Boat network's small craft? Is it going to be:

1. A Zhodani Fleet of Battlecruisers
2. A Wing of Vargr Destroyers
3. A Sword Worlds Armada
4. Azhanti High Lightning Cruiser
5. A Meson Sled Cruiser
6. A 5000 ton Fleet Escort
7. A 3000 ton Destroyer
8. A 1250 ton Colonial Cruiser
9. A 1000 ton Destroyer Escort
10. A 1000 ton Express Tender (Corsair)
11. A 800 ton Mercenary Cruiser
12. A 600 ton Fleet Courier (gone rogue/pirate)
13. A 400 ton Corsair
14. A 400 ton Type-T Patrol Cruiser
15. A 300 ton Close Escort
16. A 200-600 ton upgunned Trader of some sort (free, far, fat, subbie, snobby, etc.)
17. Annic Nova
18. A 100 ton Scout/Courier with delusions of piracy
19. A small craft fighter launched by a pirate ship

Consider your answer carefully before replying.

They will be great against a casual pirate attack, but pointless against military attacks. So Armed Gig is correct, but "fighter" is a bit optimistic.

Against low end commercial and paramilitary ship threats, the Armored Gigs work quite nicely. They're neither intended nor meant to be used as a way to threaten ACTUAL military ships (with 9fib computers).

If you want to be really scary to small ships mount a Fusion Gun (Factor 5) that will inflict crits on 400- Dt ships. It will cost you agility, but it's probably worth it against e.g. Corsairs or Patrol Cruisers.

I'm trying to protect Express Boats and their Tenders against low end threats. I'm not playing Trillion Credit Squadron here. Why are you trying to play Trillion Credit Squadron with my Armored Gigs?

Or to put it another way, I'm talking small arms and you're saying they're outclassed by artillery. o:

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Yes, I might have misunderstood some things. I didn't read the entire text, sorry, I'm too lazy...

The power plant doesn't power down.

Really?

J6 Express Boat
...
Fuel: 56 tons (1 jump 5, 4 weeks of operations or 24 weeks powered down, no ...

As I detailed, a new drop tank is needed ONLY after every Jump-6 in order to achieve Jump-6 ... but can be retained through jump when making a Jump-5 or less.

Yes, obviously, but J-6 was kind of the point here?

But, sure, you need a new drop tank after each J-6. You still have to transport it in, unless you have a shipyard handy in every system. The point is that you need a logistics organisation to transport the new tanks to the Tenders, and store them until needed. As far as I can see the Tenders have no capacity to handle drop tanks.

All you'd need would be a few small drop tank collars and slightly oversized drives for the Tenders. The gigs can collect drop tanks at the shipyard if they had drop tank collars. Interstellar transport needs ships.

I'm not playing Trillion Credit Squadron here. Why are you trying to play Trillion Credit Squadron with my Armored Gigs?

You are building hi-tech LBB5 designs specifically tailored to beat small low-tech LBB2 ships using the LBB5 combat system. Basically you are optimising military hardware to defeat helpless civilians. A few more turrets on the Tender would work just as well?

Yes, I see the point with having small craft tugs to collect the X-Boats, and arming (cheaply) them just in case.

I'm just assuming the enemy has found LBB5 too.

Missile bays are the only way a small warship can even scratch the paint of an enemy hi-tech warship. They are the default armament for any warship of 1000 Dt or larger at high TL. About 1500 Dt ships with a bay can be reasonably effective in large numbers and cheap enough to disperse.

A tiny (<1000 Dt) reasonable privateer has to use turrets only. They can still hit, and inflict damage, on your Armed Gig with nukes and decent computers. And they will have decent computers if LBB5 combat has been considered.

A pirate might even use the same reasoning you do and only expose fighters to prey return fire. Much cheaper to repair fighters than the pirate mothership...
With a bit larger computer enemy light fighters can hit your gigs without being hit themselves.

In a LBB5 context Corsairs, Patrol "Cruisers", and Mercenary "Cruisers" are just helpless low-tech civilians. Fusion Guns are quite effective against <500 Dt helpless civilians, without the bad publicity of using nukes.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I didn't read the entire text, sorry, I'm too lazy...

Yes, I can see that ... quite clearly. :toast:

Yes, obviously, but J-6 was kind of the point here?

Again, something I really shouldn't have to explain (if you were paying attention).

Even if a legacy XBoat is capable of Jump-4, not every jump that it makes will be 4 parsecs every single trip through jump space. Even a cursory look at the Spinward Marches for its express routes through the sector will demonstrate that pretty quickly. There's a reason why the average jump by the legacy network is only 2.6 parsecs per week, not 4.

Same deal with an XBoat that is capable of Jump-6 ... not every jump that such a ship would make will be 6 parsecs every single time. The OTU news report that I quoted to begin this thread with explains this very clearly. There's a reason why the anticipated average jump by a Jump-6 express network was expected to increase to 5.5 parsecs per week, not 6.0 parsecs per week on average.

But, sure, you need a new drop tank after each J-6. You still have to transport it in

If you aren't going to "read the report" provided on the subject, because ... like you said, you're too lazy to read it ... your right to criticize the contents of that report (that you haven't read) is "somewhat curtailed" ...

The point is that you need a logistics organisation to transport the new tanks to the Tenders, and store them until needed.

And the one thing that the Express Network has never been able to do before in its history is manage a logistics organization ...?

Do you see why I'm having a hard time taking you seriously here?

As far as I can see the Tenders have no capacity to handle drop tanks.

Maybe if you weren't too lazy to READ you would have seen the multiple posts that addressed this point directly.

It's difficult to see what you deliberately avoid looking for, after all. :coffeesip:

Interstellar transport needs ships.

Reading comprehension requires reading.
A full and complete explanation was provided. Did you READ it? o:

I didn't read the entire text, sorry, I'm too lazy...

I'll take that as a firm "NO" then.

You are building hi-tech LBB5 designs specifically tailored to beat small low-tech LBB2 ships using the LBB5 combat system. Basically you are optimising military hardware to defeat helpless civilians. A few more turrets on the Tender would work just as well?

I'm still having trouble taking you (and your objections) seriously here.

Yes, I see the point with having small craft tugs to collect the X-Boats, and arming (cheaply) them just in case.

Well that's something, at least ... I guess.

I'm just assuming the enemy has found LBB5 too.

RIIIIIIIIGHT. o:
Because there's a new XBoat upgrade in the sector, every single pirate/enemy ship in that sector is going to trade in their old ship (good luck with that) for a brand new LBB5 ship, just so they can go and pirate attack the new upgraded XBoat network ships. :CoW:

Um ...

Can you understand why I'm having trouble taking your objections seriously? :toast:

Missile bays are the only way a small warship can even scratch the paint of an enemy hi-tech warship. They are the default armament for any warship of 1000 Dt or larger at high TL. About 1500 Dt ships with a bay can be reasonably effective in large numbers and cheap enough to disperse.

If it's a credible military warship, why are you assuming that it has either:

1. Been taken over by pirates (how? o: it's an even harder target to capture!) and is now attacking XBoat network operations.
2. Gone rogue and is now attacking XBoat network operations.
3. Has been given legitimate orders by command to attack XBoat network operations.
4. War has broken out/been declared and invading fleets are now attacking XBoat network operations (which haven't been suspended or withdrawn yet).

When you figure out your answer to that question ... let the class know so we can judge the likelihood of the scenario you're proposing (and how credible the threat of it is).

A tiny (<1000 Dt) reasonable privateer has to use turrets only. They can still hit, and inflict damage, on your Armed Gig with nukes and decent computers. And they will have decent computers if LBB5 combat has been considered.

So where does a "reasonable privateer" acquire nuclear missiles from to go attack Armored Gigs working as XBoat tugs? I mean, if given a choice ... wouldn't a "reasonable privateer" go after more profitable targets than XBoats, Tenders and their (armed and armored) small craft protecting them? Why go out of your way to point nuclear missiles at XBoat network operations, if you're a (so called) "reasonable privateer" like you stipulate? :CoW:

What ... is there no other ship traffic in the system besides the XBoat ships? Did all the Traders leave and not come back, so the "reasonable privateer" with nuclear missiles (I'm having a hard time keeping a straight face here!) has nothing anything else to attack besides Armored Gigs ... so ... flip it, might as well attack?

If you'll forgive the quote ...
"If none of this makes sense to you, it may already be too late!"

A pirate might even use the same reasoning you do and only expose fighters to prey return fire. Much cheaper to repair fighters than the pirate mothership...
With a bit larger computer enemy light fighters can hit your gigs without being hit themselves.

Quote: "You go to war with the military you have, not the one you wish you had."

The point and purpose of the Armored Gigs is to raise the price/cost of harassment of XBoat operations to the point where the risk/return of the most commonly encountered threats becomes unfavorable, deterring attacks on XBoat operations because they could be too costly to attempt. Against those threats, the Armored Gigs are fit for purpose.

In a LBB5 context Corsairs, Patrol "Cruisers", and Mercenary "Cruisers" are just helpless low-tech civilians. Fusion Guns are quite effective against <500 Dt helpless civilians, without the bad publicity of using nukes.

Well, when you're bored/motivated enough to show us those conversions, and the stories behind them, post them. Until then, you've got vaporware ... and I've got hardware.
I also find your lack of respect for Corsairs, Patrol Cruisers and Mercenary Cruisers ... amusing ... given that they're the OTU pirate ships explicitly detailed in CT. They're usually more than a match for civilian traders, so ...

And I'm amused that you're proposing that nuclear missiles can be obtained in unlimited quantity ... anywhere and everywhere ... no questions asked (so unrestricted supplies of them on the cheap) ... without any sort of stink eye being turned towards such activities by planetary, subsector, sector and possibly even imperial navy elements and/or assets. I eagerly await your essay on the plausibility of THAT scenario being not only reasonable but a common occurrence throughout charted space (and do cite known examples of where it happens!).

By contrast, I'm assuming the Armored Gigs would typically be armed with HE missiles, not nuclear missiles (most of the time). Of course, they could be armed with nuclear missiles (since they're capable of it) if the mission called for it, but I wouldn't expect them to be as a simple matter of routine everyday operations.

 

[whartung]

Spinward Flow, thanks so much, what a great effort.

I have not read the entire thing either.

For lulz, though, I did cut and paste it in to a word processor and did rough LBB formatting (A5 pages, 1/2" margins, 12pt Helvetica, no spaces between paragraphs) to it. You think it's a wall of text on here, try it in a LBB.

Traveller LBBs are 48 pages. Yours plots out at roughly 37.

Just to give a comparison about what you've written here compared to the original LBBs.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Spinward Flow, thanks so much, what a great effort.

I have not read the entire thing either.

To be fair, I've been writing and rewriting it all more more than a week now. It would be unfair of me to assume everyone reads it all in the first sitting (it's a lot, I know). :coffeegulp:

For lulz, though, I did cut and paste it in to a word processor and did rough LBB formatting (A5 pages, 1/2" margins, 12pt Helvetica, no spaces between paragraphs) to it. You think it's a wall of text on here, try it in a LBB.

Traveller LBBs are 48 pages. Yours plots out at roughly 37.

Just to give a comparison about what you've written here compared to the original LBBs.

:rofl:

Again, to be fair, what I've got is 3 ship designs in one (thread), and I needed to not only explain the "new" designs but also compare them with the "old" designs to help with explaining (in a forum thread setting) the cross-correlation between old and new so as to make the ... lineage ... of the design sensibilities clear. That level of detail (here's what I take from the old to inform the new designs) laying out the thinking behind everything I'm doing "works" in a forum posting where conversations are meant to happen, but certainly not in a LBB format where there isn't any kind of reply or discussion expected.

In other words, if I was writing this up for publication in a LBB, I would have carved out a tremendous amount of what I wrote, because a LBB is just presenting information for use by Players and Referees, rather than being the starting point of a conversation as a topic of discussion. Different formats for different purposes yield different edits and presentations.

And yet, I've had a lot of fun thinking about this and preparing everything for posting for more than a week now. :coffeesip:

Fortunately, my next starship design that I'll be posting is far less complex, history laden and needs much less detailed explanations of lots of trivial little details and fiddly bits. Might post that one by next week sometime.

 

[Grav_Moped]

It's been an interesting read. Thanks!

 

[Micah461]

I read the whole thing in a sitting, pulled up a couple of PDFs to check calcs (semi-retired tech writer and voracious appetite for tech ideas and sound implementation) and it works pretty damn well.