Thrifty Class Trader

[veltyen]

Designed for the safe areas of the imperium, the requirement is cost/dTon over all other factors. Thus the thrifty class trader.

All costs have been kept to a minimum. No vehicle bay. Minimum crew quarters. No armor. No hardpoints. When it comes down to it every corner has been cut.

There are three variants available. All are built of the same shell, the only difference being the engineering required for the differing jump drives.

All are built at TL12 to allow the design to be maintained and repaired almost anywhere. You do gain a small ammount of space (9 extra tons for the 200dTon Border Trader) from a TL15 powerplant, which is an option where available.

Thrifty (Free, Far, Border) Trader 200dTon

Class: Thrifty Merchant
TL: 12
Size: 200 dTon (closed)
Streamlining: Partial
Jump Range: 1/2/3
Acceleration: 1
Fuel: 22/44/66
Durations: 4 weeks
Crew: 2
Staterooms: 2
Cargo Space: 145/118/90.9 (72.5%/59%/45.45%)
EP output: 2/4/6
Agility: 0/1/1
AC: 10/11/11
AR: 0
SI: 115
Main Computer: 1/1bis/2bis
Sensor: 1
Comm: 1
Avionics: 1
Cost: 37.6/52.8/69.6

There is also a mini design, which kitted out with emergency low berths is sometimes used by luxury liners as escape vehicles.

Thrifty Class Minitrader 100Ton

Class: Thrifty Merchant
TL: 12
Size: 100 dTon (closed)
Streamlining: Partial
Jump Range: 1/2/3
Acceleration: 1
Fuel: 11/22/33
Durations: 4 weeks
Crew: 1
Staterooms: 1
Cargo Space: 65.5/52/38.4
EP output: 1/2/3
Agility: 0/1/1
AC: 10/11/11
AR: 0
SI: 100
Main Computer: 1/1bis/2bis
Sensor: 1
Comm: 1
Avionics: 1
Cost: 20/28.4/38.4

 

[Falkayn]

Interesting, and I like the design concept. I'll run these through my magic spreadsheet and see what the cargo kCr look like.

BTW, you could save more space by reducing the fuel duration to 2 weeks, after all they should always be close to refuelling places.

 

[veltyen]

With Acceleration of 1G a slight misjump could be fatal. 4 weeks duration is fine. The difference is less then upgrading to a TL15 powerplant.

With a 2 week duration and a TL15 powerplant the 200dTon J-3 vessel does have 50.7% cargo (101.4dTon)which is a considerable gain.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Bump the powerplant to TL13 and you save a bit of space, and can maintain it at more places. It isn't the savings of a TL-15 powerplant but it is half again as efficient as the TL-12 plant.

(Or 1, 2 and 3 tons.) The TL-15 plant saves 3,6 and 9 tons.

With no craft and only partial streamlining it does have a major disadvantage at starports C-. (Those without extensive highport facilities.) It is costing you quite a bit to get your cargo dirtside. Flattened disk might be a better choice.

 

[veltyen]

Hmmm the real reason that they are built at TL12 is that the major shipyard in MTU is TL12 (civilian) TL14 (religious and navy). Politically the place is a religious oligarchy, hence the split. Effectively they system can build naval vessels to TL15 as it has three outlying production centres that build powerplants/Meson weapons/Xboat systems for naval craft.

Think more of two systems sitting next to each other. One a high pop Industrial, the other a rich agricultural (which is the sector capital). You have two systems next to each other, both heavily guarded. A small jumpship could jump from one to the other on a continuous circuit always having highly profitable goods for sale at either end.

Instead of an ocean going yacht these are transcontinental semi's. At under 30 MCr (100dTon Jump 2) the price is low enough for a medium sized merchant company to dip its toe into the water on interstellar trade.

The point about C- is taken, considering that these craft are unarmored, unmanevearable, and don't even have the option of being armed the extra cost factor (2Mcr for the 100dTon, 4MCr for the 200dTon) is another cost increase for limited utility. The danger of being waylaid in a class C system is far too high. Anyway, I like close structures for the option of having a large part of the ship in "standard shipping containers" much like a modern container vessel.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Actually if you build them at TL-13 and keep the power the same you actually save (On the 200T ship, MCr3, MCr6 and MCr9. (Or almost enough to go flattened sphere on the jump-1 ship and more than enough on hte others.

)

Like i said. I like the concept. I think it works and I intend to steal them as cargo haulers. SInce most cargo is in 5 and 10 ton increments, using containers that are those sizes and make it more like a RORO (Roll On, Roll Off) design.

 

[GypsyComet]

Do you have component volume breakdowns? More econo-boxes to populate starports with is always good, but deckplans and pictures are what make a design for me...