I got thinking after seen Beerfume's X-Boat station plans, there are some underlying assumptions in this plan. His station would not work with a classic no maneuver drive X-Boat. So, what types of X-Boats do you have in your universe?
What X-Boat travels in your universe?
- Thread starter Swiftbrook
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Look at the deck plans again. There's a maneuver drive on Deck 3 and Acceleration: 1G is the third item listed under the Statistics column.
IMTU the Imperials mainly use the clasical one, but also this drone is used, mostly by the Zhodani (for the reasons stated there), but also by the K'kree (who would need minor races to pilot such small ships) and to a point by the Imperium.
While I voted J5 M1 TL14+, it is in fact J5 M2.
While I voted J5 M1 TL14+, it is in fact J5 M2.
While you are correct from a design perspective, from a perception and practical view it's not quite that simple. From a perception view, this is a 'station', not a 'tender'. I think of a station as stationary, and a tender as mobile. From a practical point of view, a 1000t X-Boat Tender can carry four X-Boats in it's hold and travel at 1-G. This station appears to be only capable of moving itself at 1-G. If you attach two X-Boats, you've doubled its mass and you're reduced to 1/2-G, much less suitable for tending purposes.
Now at higher tech levels, and/or different rule sets, a 1000t Tender could easily have a 2-G drive and be more effective.
Any way you look at it, the X-Boat Station is a cool design that I will be incorporating IMTU.
It seeems to me that that the you will have the network built to allow for reliability, efficiency, and sustainability.
Not counting "secret" Xboat networks, it seem to me the "standard" in 1105 is a J4 network. So what do you need to support that?
Jump 4: Why bother building a shiny Jump 5 or Jump 6 ship for for a Jump 4 network? :rant: It costs more and you are not even making use of the extra performance? From a game CT standpoint if it is a Book 2 design, you might give it a Jump drive one letter up for "sturdiness/reliability" but that might be it. The smaller drive requirements also mean that the courier might be able to carry larger non-electronic "government parcels" if such things are still done.
Maneuver 1: What?
o: Why? o: The book 7 always bothered me because the ship could not by RAW move anywhere to refuel itself which would mean that each and every system would have additional Tenders or refueling ships, which again means more crew/expense/maintenance. That might be OK, but has not been detailed prior.
TL 13+: Increased maintenance reliability. A lower TL gives means more general support is available locally. A TL 13 ship I think could be supported on more worlds than TL 15 or TL 14 ship.
Not counting "secret" Xboat networks, it seem to me the "standard" in 1105 is a J4 network. So what do you need to support that?
Jump 4: Why bother building a shiny Jump 5 or Jump 6 ship for for a Jump 4 network? :rant: It costs more and you are not even making use of the extra performance? From a game CT standpoint if it is a Book 2 design, you might give it a Jump drive one letter up for "sturdiness/reliability" but that might be it. The smaller drive requirements also mean that the courier might be able to carry larger non-electronic "government parcels" if such things are still done.
Maneuver 1: What?
o: Why? o: The book 7 always bothered me because the ship could not by RAW move anywhere to refuel itself which would mean that each and every system would have additional Tenders or refueling ships, which again means more crew/expense/maintenance. That might be OK, but has not been detailed prior.TL 13+: Increased maintenance reliability. A lower TL gives means more general support is available locally. A TL 13 ship I think could be supported on more worlds than TL 15 or TL 14 ship.
I am correct and it is that simple.
Perception is not reality.
Ahhh yes, the referential fallacy. Confusing the label for the thing.
Try this for size, the International Space Station is not stationary.
We're not talking about carrying X-boats. We're talking about docking with, servicing, and refueling x-boats. We're not talking about stations replacing all tenders either. Both would still have certain jobs, but the station can do the dock/refuel/service job just as quickly and far more cheaply than the tender can.
Maneuver drives work on volume, not mass. Unless you're a GT purist, I seriously doubt you calculate different accelerations depending on how much your Beowulf is loaded.
A one gee tender can cross the 12K km x-boat arrival sphere is roughly 40 minutes. Anything faster would be wasteful, just like putting a jump drive aboard a ship which rarely uses it is wasteful.
The canonical tender is too much ship for it's day-to-day job. Yes, X-boats do occasionally need to be shuttled about within systems and through jump space but building that capability into every ship which docks, refuels, and services X-boats in a waste of money and resources.
The station can do nearly every job the tender can and does it at a fraction of the cost.
Yes, that would be like denying the possibility that a fleet is moslty composed by SDBs/BRs because they are labeled as starships or warships in most canon references :CoW:...Isn't it?
But that was nother discussion...
Technically, IMTU I just use the Type S Scout in that role. So J2, M2 ... we don't need no stinkin tender! The 'Tender' becomes a 1000 dTon InterPol/NSA-like vessel designed to monitor all Comm Traffic into, out of and internal to a world ... for when Big Brother really IS watching.
You do that too, huh?
Sometimes that tender is just a tender. Sometimes that tender is something else.
picked j6/m1, but in practice it would be a mix of j4-6/m1. the xboat network portrayed in the spinward marches supplement is a mess (cue grote) and deserves better.
but I'm unhappy with it. j6 navigation should be cutting edge capability and a big deal, and an xboat network would suck up a lot of navigation skill that would find a less practiced but more consequential home in the imperial navy, particularly in the j6 scout directorate. perhaps the xboat network is what it is because the navigators just aren't available.
on the other hand the xboat network would make excellent high-intensity training and practice for naval navigators.
but I'm unhappy with it. j6 navigation should be cutting edge capability and a big deal, and an xboat network would suck up a lot of navigation skill that would find a less practiced but more consequential home in the imperial navy, particularly in the j6 scout directorate. perhaps the xboat network is what it is because the navigators just aren't available.
on the other hand the xboat network would make excellent high-intensity training and practice for naval navigators.
If I'd voted, I would have gone with the classic J-4, M-0, TL10 design. I believe the system would work "well enough" at jump4 IF the routes were rationalized. We all know they were randomly determined and, while you can explain a few of the odd links, you simply cannot explain all of the odd links.
Leaving aside the irrational routes, I believe the classic design meets Nathan's "reliability, efficiency, and sustainability" criteria very well.
While jump4 was cutting edge when the system was created after the Civil War, it's now (i.e. 1105) a mature technology with centuries of operating experience, manufacturing experience, and improvements behind it. With the truly important stuff already traveling point-to-point routes by jump6 couriers for the nobility, military, and megacorps upgrading the system to jump4 isn't worth the cost. The 3I is happy with "well enough".
(That's an in-game answer mind you. I'm answering the question keeping the OTU's political elites' thinking and needs in mind. A meta-game answer is entirely different and you'll notice WoCo's "reform" of the system uses a J6/J4 mix much like Fly's suggestion.)
I'd choose TL10 for many of the same reasons I stuck with jump4. It's a supply and repair question. There are more TL10+ in the Imperium than 11+, 12+, etc. That means more worlds can build and/or repair the ships, hulls, drives, and other components of the system. I'm keeping the TL low to keep the system "robust" and to spread out the spending.
Choosing to have no maneuver drive takes a little more explaining. Let's look at an X-boat's schedule.
Generally speaking, a 'boat is in jump space for seven days and normal space for one day. During that one day, it needs to use a one gee maneuver drive for less than an hour. That's one hour out of eight days. Look at the schedule along an x-boat link next.
Each day has a boat arrive and another depart with another 14 boats in the pipeline either due to arrive on later days or have already departed on previous days. That's sixteen maneuver drives which will see about 2 hours of combined use. That's 16 drives you have to pay for, 16 drives you have to maintain, 16 drives you have to train people to operate and maintain. You're paying all that money for about two hours use each day.
That's just one link. Look at Glisten. It has four links with 64 maneuver drives used about 8 hours each day. Look at the rest of the Marches, all the X-boat links, and all the maneuver drives being lugged through jump space so they can be used for about an hour once every eight days at the arrival/destination system.
Imagine you're pricing an Imperium-wide system, are you going to spend money on a capability used for about an hour every eight days?
No X-boat maneuver drives for me. I'll leave them in normal space aboard the ships and small craft which will constantly use them. Maneuver drives are wasted aboard X-boats.
And before anyone decides to bring up mis-jumps, let me suggest you review the actual rules regarding misjumps in both CT and MT. In CT81 with refined fuel and military/scout drives, you basically have to want to mis-jump for one to occur. If all the precautions are taken - and the IISS will be taking those precautions - mis-jumps are a referee imposed events more akin to Western nation airliner crashes than anything else.
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adding m1 to a 100dton xboat costs 2MCr.
building a 100dton shuttle to tug a 100dton xboat at 1g requires 100dtons of hull (10MCr) plus 1g at 200dtons (4MCr) plus pp1 at 200dtons (at tech 10) (6MCr) for a total of 20MCr. not counting shuttle bridge, cabins, and crew, that would pay for upgrading 10 xboats.
Plus repairs, maintenance, parts, training, salaries, etc.
Each link has 16 x-boats, Fly, and that doesn't even begin to count spares.
You're going to need more than one shuttle too. Plus repairs, maintenance, parts, training, salaries, etc.
We also don't need to "tug" the X-boat anywhere. The fuel comes to the 'boat and not the other way around.
Maneuver drives on X-boats spend 7/8ths of their existence in jump space where they have no use. The eighth of that existence the 'boats spend in normal space, those m-drives will be used for about an hour.
Maneuver drives on X-boats are a waste.
Getting back to fuel opeations, do you know that the US Postal Service doesn't own the buildings all it's post offices are in? It rents space and land instead. It's a bit of legal graft that all governments employ; spreading around contracts and paychecks in return for influence and votes. It's why you, I, and six thousand men aboard four nuclear powered warships ended up home ported at a naval air station with no shore side maintenance support, no fleet parking, not enough housing for dependents, and all the rest.
Now think about a feudal technocracy which passes out knighthoods, baronies, and other titles along with sinecures to support the holders of the same. Would the IISS operate it's own shuttles and tankers feeding the thousands of tenders and stations deployed along all the links in the X-boat system? Or would a fuel concession handle the job instead? A fuel concession that isn't put up for bid every decade or so, but a concession that is part of a fief?
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Not quite a monkey wrench. More like one of those "shifts in perception" Traveller is rightly famous for. Zhos were this, then that, and now something even weirder yet nothing really changed. Ditto Aslan. Ditto Hivers. Ditto Ancients. Ditto a lot of other stuff.
Larry, Baron of Grey Matter, isn't just sitting around polishing his monocle, hunting snipe in season, and visiting his club. Part of the Grey Matter fief is the IISS fuel concession for the system. He - or his designee - needs to make sure that concession runs in a greased groove. Not just to keep the IISS checks coming so the Baron can buy new spats or the masterpiece "Shemp and Moe... at Tanagra".
That concession needs to keep running in a greased groove so the Duke doesn't strip the sinecure from the Barony and award it to another noble.
I disagree with you here. You need to tug them, at least to their jump vector, if I understood something about jump in Traveller.
That's IMHO the main reason they must be menuevered, be it by themselves (as my designed drone) by tugs or by tenders/stations (as the oficial design).
The discussion was about fuel as the following sentence you ignored makes clear:
And the tender, station, or small craft already refueling the X-boat can adjust the boat's real space vector for the upcoming jump, just as the same vessels can swap out the boat's pilots. The is no real need for a small craft which works solely as a tug for vector changes, just as there is no real need for a small craft which solely transfers pilots, because the platform refueling the X-boat can do both those things.
This problem in threads of these types is that people tend to fixate on the faulty "Pony Express" analogy while tending to forget both the system's operational tempo and the physical accuracy of jump. They may "know" that boats have a 24 hour arrival/departure window or that boats will arrive in at most a 12K km radius sphere, but they don't "grok" that information.
They don't bother to apply the 24hr/12K km data they know to their mental picture of how the systems works. Instead, they follow the faulty "Pony Express" analogy and believe that a period of frenetic activity occurs when a boat arrives much like an Express rider leaping from the back of one horse onto another with his mail bags.
The day-to-day work at an X-boat station(1) is constant. It's not frantic or frenetic however. When an arriving boat exits jump space, the out-going boat is has already been staged, fully fueled, with the pilot aboard, and it's real space vector adjusted. The arriving boat begins dumping it's message traffic to the tender or station(2) before that vessel even begins to shape an intercept course.
Given the "worst case" 12K km radius sphere, the one gee tender or station(3) will rendezvous with the newly arrived boat in under an hour. During that period, the message traffic being dumped is also being sorted by destination with those messages which need to continue along are transmitted to the waiting boat. Once the newly arrived messages have been sorted and transmitted, the staged boat jumps away and the station(4) has 24 hours to prepare for the next arrival.
If passengers or parcels need to be transferred between boats, something canon admits is rare, the tender or station can dock with the arrived boat within an hour, take off the passengers or parcels, rendezvous and dock with the out-going within an hour, and then transfer the passengers and parcels aboard.
The point I'm trying to impress on everyone is that an X-boat station(5) has more than enough time to do it's job. While that is a constant job, it is not a frantic one. There is no real need for a plethora of small craft solely dedicated to acting as tugs, tankers, or personnel/cargo shuttles because the tender or station(6) has more than enough time within the small region it works to do all those things.
1 - For the Perennially Obtuse, by "station" I am referring to the collection of ships and small craft deployed to a given link's arrival/departure region.
2 - For the Perennially Obtuse, by "station" I am now referring to Beerfume's excellent design.
3 - For the Perennially Obtuse, by "station" I am again referring to Beerfume's excellent design.
4 - For the Perennially Obtuse, by "station" I am again referring to the collection of ships and small craft deployed to a given link's arrival/departure region.
5 - For the Perennially Obtuse, by "station" I am once again referring to the collection of ships and small craft deployed to a given link's arrival/departure region.
6 - For the Perennially Obtuse, by "station" I am once again referring to Beerfume's excellent design.
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Sorry, I undertood you were talking about the need (or lack of) of MDs for the X-boats, not about refuelling (that is only one of the uses of the MDs).
After all, your sentence was (bold is mine):
And as you said, your reference to refuelling them was in a different (though related) sentence.
In this sense, I fully agree with you, in the X-boat network as described, the refuelling shuttles (or whatever they are) go to the X-boat, no needing to move it to refuel.
I mostly agree with you here too, except for one small detail, that does not void your reasoning and explanation at all.
As I understand jump (and I may well be wrong), the vector must be calculated to be in the correct vector at the correct time, and, as you say, IISS takes all care to avoid missjumps, making them anecdotical to unheard of.
As you don't know the exact time of incoming X-boat arrival (it may be at anytime along a time span (version dependent), you cannot have the X-boat in the jumping vector when it arrives, though its correct vector is constantly updated in wait of the arrival.
When the incoming boat arrives, it beams the information to the X-boat and the starion/tender begins to maneuver to leave the outcoming one on the correct vector.
Of course, this does not preclude the jumping of the outgoing X-boat in about an hour as you say, jsut may make the incoming one to wait for a little more (but it is not significant).
As said, your explanation is not voided by that, and in fact it remains as a good description of the X-boat station/tender routine.
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