Where is your starport?

[Hyphen]

I don't quite see how that would work. Is it four Imperial starports? Or one Imperial starport and three non-Imperial starports?

Tureded is a weird one - but that just means someone needs to come up with a good reason - e.g. an IASM starport design competition?

I like the idea in "From Port to Jump-Point" that Hi-Pop worlds may have more than one 'port, and even introduced a calculation. Terra, for example, has three on the "Invasion: Earth" map. (I know it's by Leroy, but it's in his pre-High-Weirdness days, and it's a good article).

Although, I *guess* you could argue they were not Imperial? Depends which historian you listen to regarding the Solomani Autonomous Region, I guess. Does anyone have _Travellers' Digest 13_ (I think - it's the one with Terra) handy, to see if Terra still has 3 Imperial 'ports?

 

[rancke]

I could see four not-very-big ports spread out to handle population groupings in widely separated areas, especially if fairly bulky resources are being collected there.

Oh indeed. So can I. What's more difficult for me to imagine is 700,000 people being spread out in widely separated areas yet in four sufficiently big groupings to warrant a spaceport each. Just to be clear, though. I'm not saying it is unbelievable or even suspension-of-disbelief-straining. It's just an oddity that I'm sure can be explained, but I haven't thought of a good explanation yet.

You might have a port at the equivalents of Sydney, Tokyo, New York, and Buenos Aires; I leave it up to you to determine what resource is bulky enough (and in enough demand) to make it more economical to put up a small port instead of just shuttling it to a specific location.

That's just my point. With 700,000 people, you're not going to have any equivalent of Sydney, Tokyo, New York, and Buenos Aires, let alone four.

Of course, a class C starport isn't that expensive, so you don't need a major metropolis to account for traffic enough to support it. But why have four sets of repair facilities? If all you need is to load and unload cargo, you'd expect one Class C starport and three Class [equivalent of E] spaceports.

I could also see smallish ports to accommodate limited numbers of tourists who might be coming in for something very specific (natural wonders, or a cultural festival). Combined with the others, maybe you have two ports principally serving passengers (one for a beautiful cavern complex, and one for a regular music festival), and two cargo ports (one for animal hides harvested from a savanna dweller on a northern continent, and one for mildly-alcoholic beverages made from a specific plant on a string of islands in the southern hemisphere).

What would you say was the minimum capital investment and running expense of a Class C starport? It's a "Routine Quality Installation", whatever that may mean in terms of buildings and personnel. And it has "reasonable repair facilities". You need enough traffic to pay for that (or someone to subsidize it).

Hmmm... there's a thought. TP says that the four ports are situated equidistantly along the equator. That implies central planning. What if the three other ports are maintained by the Tureded government in order to encourage settlement?

I still don't see the three other ports as starports but only spaceports, though.


Hans

 

[rancke]

It seems you're assuming that the starport is built to service a pre-existing population, where I'm assuming the starport is built as a frontier base and the population grows around the starport. This would have significant effects on the choice of location. Maybe it's an OTU/ATU thing.

I'm assuming that there are several different settlement patterns, but that in the end, the capital of the world will have the most passenger traffic and that the port closest to it will be chosen to be the Imperial starport. Also that the original settlement has a good shot at becoming (and remaining) the capital of the world, but that this is very far from being a given.

Pre-existing populations would occur on perhaps 1% of the worlds in virgin territory (i.e. very little or no earlier star travel) and on several percent in regions with pre-Long Night populations.

If your 'Ancients' seeded planets with millions or billions of people and the Jump-inventors simply co-opted those people into an empire (as in most historical empires), you'd have a completely different situation from that in which humanity expanded into a universe populated only by animals and possibly a handful of primitives (as in the colonisation of America & Australia).

I'm assuming OTU history of the universe. I know that this is the IMTU board, but I keep MTU as close to the OTU as I can .


Hans

 

[rancke]

I like the idea in "From Port to Jump-Point" that Hi-Pop worlds may have more than one 'port, and even introduced a calculation. Terra, for example, has three on the "Invasion: Earth" map. (I know it's by Leroy, but it's in his pre-High-Weirdness days, and it's a good article).

The traffic numbers he comes up with are absurdly low, though.


Hans

 

[Gray Lensman]

from TD 13:
map shows 3 (pp 27)
Grand Survey World Profile lists 5 (pp 26) with 2 at orbital cities

 

[aramis]

The traffic numbers he comes up with are absurdly low, though.


Hans

Only absurdly so if one insists that the modern economics model fits with the time-lag travel model.

For the OTU as described in the post-Bk5 fluff, yes, absurdly low.

But then, the total tonnage servicable at Aramis isn't that high, based upon the landing areas shown in TTA. I'd do some rough calcs...

West partial ring 975m outer radius, 592m inner radius, approximately 1/3 circle... about 628487m²
Center pad: 780m diam, approximately 477836m²
North pad: 405m diam, approximately 128824m²
South Pad: 638m diam, approximately 319691m²
Total 1554838m² - 1.5 square kilometers

How much that can service is a matter of much more conjecture; it depends on packing densities and facilities layout.

 

[rancke]

Only absurdly so if one insists that the modern economics model fits with the time-lag travel model.

Although I do think that sticking to the FT model until something better comes along is the way to go, in this case I was considering the number of ships he came up with absurdly low for a world with a population of tens of billions decades before FT was published.

But then, the total tonnage servicable at Aramis isn't that high, based upon the landing areas shown in TTA. I'd do some rough calcs...

West partial ring 975m outer radius, 592m inner radius, approximately 1/3 circle... about 628487m²
Center pad: 780m diam, approximately 477836m²
North pad: 405m diam, approximately 128824m²
South Pad: 638m diam, approximately 319691m²
Total 1554838m² - 1.5 square kilometers

How much that can service is a matter of much more conjecture; it depends on packing densities and facilities layout.

Interesting source of information. I've never thought of mining the Leedor City map for that. There are a couple of wild cards, though. The starport has a Class A rating, which implies an orbital component. That means a ship can offload on the space station and have cargo and passengers shuttled up and down. A shuttle only needs to spend [how many hours?] on the pad instead of the five days a free trader spends there (or the one day a regular trader spends).

But keep in mind that Aramis only has a population of 50,000 people. I don't have the time to work out the commerce figures that FT would mandate, but I wonder if they would exceed, say, six ships in port at any given moment? Six ships in the downport, that is.


Hans

 

[Captain Midnight]

That's just my point. With 700,000 people, you're not going to have any equivalent of Sydney, Tokyo, New York, and Buenos Aires, let alone four.

OK, I was not being clear. I picked those cities because of their geographical dispersion and general name recognition; I wasn't implying that they were the sort of cities required.

Of course, a class C starport isn't that expensive, so you don't need a major metropolis to account for traffic enough to support it. But why have four sets of repair facilities? If all you need is to load and unload cargo, you'd expect one Class C starport and three Class [equivalent of E] spaceports.

I'm assuming from this that some previous reference established Tureded as having four separate class-C starports, then? I have to agree, that would be difficult to justify. I'd be thinking something much more like a class-C principal highport/downport combo, with a supporting cast of mixed class-F & class-G spaceports to back them up for scattered needs.

 

[fredofmars]

<snip>
I'm assuming from this that some previous reference established Tureded as having four separate class-C starports, then? I have to agree, that would be difficult to justify. I'd be thinking something much more like a class-C principal highport/downport combo, with a supporting cast of mixed class-F & class-G spaceports to back them up for scattered needs.

Adventure 3: Twilight's Peak

• p14: Tureded/Lanth (0207-C465540-9). There are four starports at Tureded, situated equidistant along the equator. Each has full facilities for a class C starport; one of the starports also has an octagon shelter now serving as a bar for spacers. This octagon is identical to the one on page 29, but converted to a taven.

 

[jatay3]

IMTU they often construct starports in wilderness areas. This is so that conflict with locals can be kept to a minimum. With modern transportation technology on-planet trade is little hindered, a war would be worse and of course transit traffic continues unhindered.

This is not Imperial policy but the habits of some extra-imperial groups around which my traveller universe is centered.

 

[Enoki]

I would add that the more major ones (A and B) would have to have a space component as well as a ground component. Many ships using these ports would be incapable of atmospheric travel. Others would be hugely inconvienenced by having to land and take off out of a deep gravity well.
Therefore, I would think that there would be a space port and a ground port that cooresponds to it. For worlds that are high law limits the space one may be the only open zone with anyone travelling to the surface port undergoing heavy scrunity. That way such worlds could limit any "contamination" of the surface by foreigners or criminals.
There likely would also be some sort of local "trucking" / "rail" firms that move cargo from the space port to the surface for cargo ships. This would reduce the need for lots of ground space to dock a large ship. Would a say, half million ton cargo ship really want to land to unload? I'd think it would be more like supertankers do today off-loading at a terminal well out to sea to avoid entering port at all. Less chance of a collision and less congestion to boot.

 

[Jame]

A lot of C-ports should have a highport as well.

 

[Hyphen]

The traffic numbers he comes up with are absurdly low, though.

True. Those are really Book-2 (small ship Imperium) flavoured.

 

[Hyphen]

It's just an oddity that I'm sure can be explained, but I haven't thought of a good explanation yet.

That's just my point. With 700,000 people, you're not going to have any equivalent of Sydney, Tokyo, New York, and Buenos Aires, let alone four.

I've just had a nasty idea. Although all three can do everything a Class C port is supposed to, they... chose NOT to. Instead, one port repairs hulls, another the drive, another the environmental systems, etc. Thus forcing the PC's to shuttle about across the planet to fix their ship ("What do you mean, it's not broken? It's a _PC's_ ship! You're just not trying hard enough, GM!!").

More travel = more encounters = more adventures!

 

[HG_B]

Hmm, my starports are where goods and people need to be transfered. On worlds with a billion + there are many starports on the surface.

 

[Dragoner]

To me, Starports are strategic control points and transportation networks, so anywhere that fulfills these conditions will be used.

 

[jatay3]

Starports might be fixed by law. Supposing a given world ordered that any ship attempting to land outside a given port without permission was automatically a smuggler? That would make life easier for customs, and except on balkanized worlds it would likely be true anyway. Even someone with legal DFD contract would only find it mild inconvenience to be inspected before delivering his goods.

 

[Cryton]

Starports might be fixed by law. Supposing a given world ordered that any ship attempting to land outside a given port without permission was automatically a smuggler? That would make life easier for customs, and except on balkanized worlds it would likely be true anyway. Even someone with legal DFD contract would only find it mild inconvenience to be inspected before delivering his goods.

Its how I always handled it.

 

[shadowcat20]

I wonder what tech level a space elevator is? Have your Highport right above your Downport with a elevator between them.