General What does your up port look like?

[WhiteSpider]

I was thinking of drawing deck plans for an orbital Star Port. And while considering what facilities to add, I wondered what the structure should look like, dispersed structure, cylindrical, mushroom shaped (like Star Trek), Big and Blocky (Babilon 5).
What do the stations look like in your Universe?

WhiteSpider

 

[kilemall]

IMTU artificial gravity is a relative thing, so pre grav stations are ring with a spin and heavier ships dock at the center shaft so as not to induce unbalanced wobbling. Something like Expanse Tycho Station.

Maybe tethered asteroids in the belt with induced spin, docking in the center rock.

Modern stations would be bigger with a tendency towards tubes for smaller or flattened spheres for larger. Distributed open structure for rapid trans load or shipyard facilities if armor isn’t a factor.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Big and Blocky (Babilon 5).

In the absence of artificial gravity, the "rotating cylinder" with immobilized zero acceleration "spine" makes far too much sense for true megastructure space stations.

 

[Rupert]

IMTU up-ports vary enormously. As they age they tend to grow, and it's generally not in a way that follows any grand long-term plan. Thus big old stations will tend to look like an asymmetrical assemblage of random starship construction parts.

Newer ones look more orderly. It's fairly common for lower TL worlds to use 'planetoid hulls'. As they often use a rock that's much bigger than they initially need, these can absorb considerable growth before they need to start growing random growths externally, though docking towers and shipyards for major ships will tend to appear stuck on apparently random parts of the rock over time.

There will be exceptions, of course. These will be either nice new stations, or ones owned by an entity that's good at making and sticking to long-term plans (a megacorp or perhaps the Imperial Navy). I would expect most to have a base form that's both inexpensive and that has a large surface area, because a great deal of an up post's utility is in dealing with spaceships and that means docks and cargo bay and access to them, and so on. Ease of maintenance and of managing traffic control works against things like dispersed or close structures, with their many small parts and odd angles, etc. Therefore such well-designed and managed up-ports will tend to be boxes or cylinders. Low TL worlds with questionable artificial gravity might used spun wheels, but gravitics are so common that this would be rare.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Watching. More to come, but basically this thread:

Thread 'Brainstorming Boughene/Regina (SM 1904)'

Dec 8, 2021

This thread is just a spot to gather my thoughts (and whatever input anyone wishes to contribute) about Boughene Station.
I'll probably consolidate it all into a parallel IMTU-annotated version of the Wiki entry at some point, as I did for Collace/District 268.

Boughene/Regina (SM 1904) (trav wiki entry)
A8B3531-D
First: According to wiki, the planet's UWP is irrelevant since almost all of the 600,000 residents live on a space station in orbit around it. That's a pretty big space station (approximately 3 million Td). This space station is at least 200 years old.

Second...

• Grav_Moped
• Replies: 107
• Forum: Imperial Interstellar Scout Service

• 

 

[Condottiere]

I'd suburbanize it, by adding additional spacestations that specialize in specific roles, rather than expanding beyond a certain tonnage.

 

[Spinward Scout]

I was thinking of drawing deck plans for an orbital Star Port. And while considering what facilities to add, I wondered what the structure should look like, dispersed structure, cylindrical, mushroom shaped (like Star Trek), Big and Blocky (Babilon 5).
What do the stations look like in your Universe?

WhiteSpider

Do a Google search or Pinterest search for: orbital Star Port deck plans Traveller rpg

On the Google search, you have to click IMAGES.

 

[gchuck]

Found this right here on CoTI, a few years back, and have periodically gone about making it intelligible. You will need a image editor to make it legible.

 

[Commander Truestar]

IMTU, stations vary
Where a system or the balkanized local governments "can't afford" a system-owned station
1) Stations may not exist
2) Stations may have been put in place by other organizations (Ex: due to shipping time and storage needs, LSP has put in place a "maintenance station" allowing their ships transiting the system can get support and repairs - [Secret: and also supporting operations either the local government(s) or Imperial authorities might disapprove of])


Where a system has a station in place, it is either:
1) A station some MegaCorp put in place with or without support of the local government
2) A station for which the locals cut a deal (and perhaps took out loans) to build/emplace
3) A station for which leveraged support was given by the Subsector, Sector or Imperial government
(even more explanations)

Stations that exist "now" may have been "purpose-built" and delivered in modules or whole, by megafreighters
Or, they may have started as a smaller stations to which module have been bolted on after the fact

In fact, in the older systems, you can likely trace the evolution of the station where you have the needed access clearance.

Based on the economics, you have to ask yourself:
1) Does the system provide an economic value to allow a station to grow and upgrade?
If not, then the station may be aging and there will be maintenance issues

2) Does the local government benefit enough from economics to be the power behind the station?
If not, what MegaCorp would benefit most from the Astrography of the system?
Are there other local competing resources?
(Ex: the D'Ganzio system[Spinward Marches] is the Sector HQ for InstellArms so they have multiple orbital logistics stations
Because of that, they not only will not have placed support stations in the Lanth or Ivendo - and, they might rent out
station storage warehousing to other customers)

Given the above, a game master has a wide range of "what does the local station look like?"

 

[ady]

I tend to have the up-ports as a range of large transportable stations (Battletenders are used to move them), placed above a world by the Imperium for loyalty, trade, naval support and enforcement. They vary in size, capacity and number based on the Starport rating, based on the expected and disired space traffic and support. For what they look like, I use images from My-Rho of Perry Rhodan ships - most are absolutely huge and make good space stations. https://www.deviantart.com/my-rho/art/Peter-Pan-Apollo-Class-1241709253

I don't use floor plans for the Mains, as the Main Up Port's are basically huge cities. I assume that most star systems have many smaller stations though, for trade, agriculture, industry, living quarters, mining, solar etc, so I often use art from scifi artists and computer games, making small maps of specific locations on them. R Pearce's Starship Geomorphs are useful for doing local maps of much bigger structures.

Starship Geomorphs 2.0

The Starship Geomorphs book has been revised and expanded and is now available for free download. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD STARSHIP GEOMORPH...

travellerrpgblog.blogspot.com

Any complete maps of space stations I would use would tend to be either tiny monitoring outposts, satellites or stations used by primitive pre stellar star systems. I prefer a 'Big Ship' universe with a comparitive supporting infrastructure.

 

[agorski]

Cirque has the plans for Rhylanor's Old Station.

 

[aramis]

I was thinking of drawing deck plans for an orbital Star Port. And while considering what facilities to add, I wondered what the structure should look like, dispersed structure, cylindrical, mushroom shaped (like Star Trek), Big and Blocky (Babilon 5).
What do the stations look like in your Universe?

WhiteSpider

varies, but most are TL 9-10 dispersed structures with lots (60-90%) wasted space for gangways

 

[Grav_Moped]

Brings to mind the issues with Rangent/Villis (Spin 1411). Remember that place?

Pop 6 (5 million). But. "Rangent’s people are primarily belters, though pirates have also been known to seek safety within the system."

The place is TL-7. Um... Ok, so they're using fission teakettle reaction engines to get around. That works, except...

Apparently they had a tech collapse in the aftermath of the last couple of Frontier Wars. Which means that their space infrastructure had to have been built assuming artificial gravity -- which they can no longer support. Whoopsie!

The original gravity-dependent hydroponics and carnicuture systems probably don't work any more. I'm sure that anything built or added recently (almost certainly imported) has spin-gravity, but most of what's already there does not.

Food has to come up from planetside, via whatever grav vehicles are still available or can be imported, transient ships, or nuclear-rocket lifter ships. And there's not much of an industrial base to begin with.

 

[Traveller76]

I could see mined out asteroids either moved into planetary orbit since they would possess shielding from radiation and sections could be sealed and pressurized. Perhaps a central spine or space would be left open to space for vessels to be repaired and serviced.

 

[whartung]

I don't see the need for MOVING and mining asteroids for orbital installations.

There's already a mature, productive starship industry."We" have already mastered and made ubiquitous the creation of airtight structures in space. Skilled workforce, known toolset, materials, proven practices. Bolting together starship hulls seems much faster and efficient method for building highports (even if those hull parts are imported from outsystem).

 

[Condottiere]

You could mine, and establish a starport, on an already orbitting moon.

 

[whartung]

You could mine, and establish a starport, on an already orbitting moon.

But then it's not a highport.

 

[Enoki]

IMTU, stations vary
Where a system or the balkanized local governments "can't afford" a system-owned station
1) Stations may not exist
2) Stations may have been put in place by other organizations (Ex: due to shipping time and storage needs, LSP has put in place a "maintenance station" allowing their ships transiting the system can get support and repairs - [Secret: and also supporting operations either the local government(s) or Imperial authorities might disapprove of])


Where a system has a station in place, it is either:
1) A station some MegaCorp put in place with or without support of the local government
2) A station for which the locals cut a deal (and perhaps took out loans) to build/emplace
3) A station for which leveraged support was given by the Subsector, Sector or Imperial government
(even more explanations)

Stations that exist "now" may have been "purpose-built" and delivered in modules or whole, by megafreighters
Or, they may have started as a smaller stations to which module have been bolted on after the fact

In fact, in the older systems, you can likely trace the evolution of the station where you have the needed access clearance.

Based on the economics, you have to ask yourself:
1) Does the system provide an economic value to allow a station to grow and upgrade?
If not, then the station may be aging and there will be maintenance issues

2) Does the local government benefit enough from economics to be the power behind the station?
If not, what MegaCorp would benefit most from the Astrography of the system?
Are there other local competing resources?
(Ex: the D'Ganzio system[Spinward Marches] is the Sector HQ for InstellArms so they have multiple orbital logistics stations
Because of that, they not only will not have placed support stations in the Lanth or Ivendo - and, they might rent out
station storage warehousing to other customers)

Given the above, a game master has a wide range of "what does the local station look like?"

I agree with this.

Stations vary by who built them, what resources were available, tech level. and purpose.

For example, IMTU, the Anubian Trade Coalition in the Hinterwords

Anubian Trade Coalition - Traveller

wiki.travellerrpg.com

The Anubians rely heavily on what is for all intents slave labor throughout their territory. To keep things under control, they have very strict and oppressive systems in place. Their up ports are under the heavy handed, boot on the neck, control of the ATCSA (Anubian Trade Coalition Starport Authority) which amounts to a combination economic bureaucracy and crushingly strict police force.

Most of their high ports only dock smaller, non-jump capable ships. Non-ATC ships might not be allowed to dock at all. Instead, the non-ATC ship settles into an orbit or path that tracks with the station. The ATCSA then sends over approved and cleared smaller craft to unload cargo onto and take it to the station. The planet-side port is generally off limits to foreign ships of any sort.

The Anubians / ATCSA do this to prevent smuggling, or at least make it damn hard to do, and to prevent their labor force, or virtually anyone else, from escaping from one of their planets.

So, their up ports are going to be designed to only dock small craft and local vessels, will have lots of security measures and self-defense systems aboard.

There can also be multiple up ports around an important world or economic hub. Various larger corporations would likely have their own station in place to deal with things like mass cargo movements. They might even have a public and private station in orbit, or a cargo station with a space elevator that is continually moving cargo containers to and from the planet. If there is a serious military presence they'd have their own station in orbit.

So, it really depends...

 

[Enoki]

I could see mined out asteroids either moved into planetary orbit since they would possess shielding from radiation and sections could be sealed and pressurized. Perhaps a central spine or space would be left open to space for vessels to be repaired and serviced.

I've had smaller worlds done with asteroids that are tethered to the planet as orbital stations.

 

[Condottiere]

Depends on anticipated capital outlay.

Once you do have a planetoid, or moon, in place, it becomes mostly the cost of burrowing like a hobbit.