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2D300 ton Far Trader (Traveller): 2D plans

24

Posts

  • traqtraq0 Posts: 0Member
    fleshing out the air/raft

    airraft-concept1.png
  • cavebearcavebear179 Posts: 623Member
    traq wrote: »
    fleshing out the air/raft

    airraft-concept1.png

    The front seems a little stubby to me but otherwise I like the seating arrangement and all the glass. Kind of like the mini-van of the future :)
  • Fre'dniFre'dni0 Posts: 0Member
    Where is there room for the powerplant? Lol, I know that's just the cargo/passenger compartment. Was thinking about ways for the fat trader to unload cargo. The USAF has some cargo plane, whose cockpit area rotates upward, to allow drive on cargo. Just use that technique on the secondary hulls. Or since it prolly has landing struts, just lower a area to the ground from the ventral side. They can either load or unload. Or a regular ramp would suffice. I tinkered with you design, by adding something that looked a roll up garage door. Looked weird as heck, but would work on a curved surface
  • traqtraq0 Posts: 0Member
    cavebear wrote: »
    The front seems a little stubby to me but otherwise I like the seating arrangement and all the glass. Kind of like the mini-van of the future :)
    I'm probably going to tweak the lines on the nose. This is also probably taller than the final craft will be (I was having trouble fitting everyone's feet inside, so I just scaled it up, but I'll refine the dimensions later).
    Fre'dni wrote:
    Where is there room for the powerplant? Lol, I know that's just the cargo/passenger compartment. Was thinking about ways for the fat trader to unload cargo. The USAF has some cargo plane, whose cockpit area rotates upward, to allow drive on cargo. Just use that technique on the secondary hulls. Or since it prolly has landing struts, just lower a area to the ground from the ventral side. They can either load or unload. Or a regular ramp would suffice
    The cabin will sit on a "sled" (for lack of a better term, it'll all be a single hull) that houses the powerplant and engines.

    Cargo loading:
    Well, as it turns out, I'm pretty happy with the concept I wip'd up above. We'll see what Dave thinks.

    There will be landing struts, but not very tall (I don't have any indication that this will need to be capable of landing on terribly uneven ground); basically just tall enough to hold the main hull up high enough to launch and recover the air/raft from its drop bay.

    thanks, guys!
  • Capt DaveCapt Dave0 Posts: 0Member
    traq wrote: »
    Well, not as bad as I thought. comments?
    cargo-concept1.png
    I just don't see how this would work mechanically.

    I use to work as a security guard at the Portland international airport way back when. I got to see one of the major air shippers move the air freight from the sorting hub to the air craft quite often.

    Long before the jet was on the ground the handlers would sort the parcels into cans going to specific distribution hubs. As each can was filled it was I signed the paperwork and sealed it. Another handler would then move them out to a staging area.

    When the jet landed it was directed to its stall, and the cargo door was opened. The cargo loader then pulls up to its side and unloaded the cans on board, putting them onto trains of dollies pulled by "goats" (a small tractor). As the last can was coming off and being loaded onto an empty dolly, the goats with trains of cans ready to be loaded was pulling up.

    A cargo loader is designed to lift the standardized cargo containers from ground level all the way up to the cargo door on the jets.

    Cargo-loader.jpg

    Edit: Somethings to note about the floor of a cargo jet is that it is covered in swiveling rollers. This makes it easier to handle the cargo containers. In some cases these rollers are designed so that the cargo can only travel is specific channels. Once the plane is loaded, the rollers are locked, this prevents the cargo from shifting.
  • traqtraq0 Posts: 0Member
    hydraulic arms. the extendo-floor is stored in sections under the inner bay floor when collapsed. I've got the mechanics of it worked out.

    I was trying to figure out a solution independent of any loading facility - if there's going to be cargo loaders anywhere she lands, that's great, I can just make a simple door. Whichever way you want to go.
  • Fre'dniFre'dni0 Posts: 0Member
    About the cargo loading, I had a flashback to traveller. The air-rafts worked on a antigrav system. Why not create forklift that does the same. If carried on the ship, could unload cargo on low tech worlds. higher tech worlds would have their own.
    Besides, a anti grav forklift model would be a stupendous model
  • Capt DaveCapt Dave0 Posts: 0Member
    Fre'dni wrote: »
    About the cargo loading, I had a flashback to traveller. The air-rafts worked on a antigrav system. Why not create forklift that does the same. If carried on the ship, could unload cargo on low tech worlds. higher tech worlds would have their own.
    Besides, a anti grav forklift model would be a stupendous model
    You mean like this? Image Credit goes to MAG, over at Freelance traveller.

    29-gravtruckfqtr.jpg

    30-gravtruckrqtr.jpg

    33-gravtruckandcont.jpg

    At all space ports their is something they use to get the cargo up into the ship, even if its a grav lifter that nearly falling apart from the inability to get parts locally. If the local star port is so podunk that they don't its also so podunk that this ship isn't going to be headed there.

    Those worlds are serviced by Venture class ship. After all, a world with around 10,000 people isn't going to be a huge cargo draw.
  • JennyJenny2 Posts: 0Member
    The turret on that looks like the head of a ScopeDog. :cool:
  • Capt DaveCapt Dave0 Posts: 0Member
    Actually I think thats the airlock.
  • traqtraq0 Posts: 0Member
    Capt Dave wrote: »
    At all space ports their is something they use to get the cargo up into the ship, even if its a grav lifter that nearly falling apart from the inability to get parts locally. If the local star port is so podunk that they don't its also so podunk that this ship isn't going to be headed there.
    that solves that, I guess.
    A bit of sad news:
    My desktop has problems. It's gone to the shop now.
    Fat Cat is fine - everything's backed-up thrice - but I'm living on an old laptop for a few days and I'll be without the programs and processing power I'm used to. Sorry!
  • Capt DaveCapt Dave0 Posts: 0Member
    traq wrote: »
    A bit of sad news:
    My desktop has problems. It's gone to the shop now.
    Fat Cat is fine - everything's backed-up thrice - but I'm living on an old laptop for a few days and I'll be without the programs and processing power I'm used to. Sorry!
    No worries, we generally don't have control over when out pc gets wonky.
  • Andrew BoultonAndrew Boulton0 Posts: 0Member
    Nice work!

    I think Mag's cargo lifter is based on a design by Jesse DeGraff.
  • Capt DaveCapt Dave0 Posts: 0Member
    Nice work!

    I think Mag's cargo lifter is based on a design by Jesse DeGraff.
    Dude, I didn't know you were on here. Cool.
  • Andrew BoultonAndrew Boulton0 Posts: 0Member
    Capt Dave wrote: »
    Dude, I didn't know you were on here. Cool.

    I'm everywhere :)
  • Capt DaveCapt Dave0 Posts: 0Member
    I'm everywhere :)
    Indeed you are.

    @traq - Any progress?
  • traqtraq0 Posts: 0Member
    yeah, I got everything set back up.

    wip-0220-maneuver.png

    I don't really know how these work in Traveler, but I assume this is passable : )
    That "cooling element" might turn into a power tap or something, I thought after the fact that a cooling system wouldn't make much sense there...

    I'm going to work on the upper deck now.
    p.s.
    the specs say the maneuver engines should only take up 2.5 dTons - what I've got here is about five, but it just didn't look right trying to make it any smaller. But if you only count the engine itself (not the exhaust cone), it's about 2-3/4 dTons.
    p.p.s.
    Actually, if you think in 3d terms (the engine is cylindrical, not a cube), it's only about four dTons total.
  • Andrew BoultonAndrew Boulton0 Posts: 0Member
    The standard manoeuvre drive uses reactionless thrusters, but other tech is available.
  • traqtraq0 Posts: 0Member
    how do reactionless drives work (more importantly, what do they look like)?
  • Capt DaveCapt Dave0 Posts: 0Member
    @Andrew - Thats one of the things that has always stuck in my craw about traveller. You simply can't have a reactionless drive. Something must act to cause the ship to move. Even if its the reaction of mass to fall toward a gravity well from a gavitic drive.

    @Traq - The Fluff of a Versis Drive is that they are an ultra efficient "Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket" (VASIMR) that uses electro-gravitic fields to draw in and pulverize space dust and then convert it into reaction mass. This makes the drive much more powerful in atmosphere as it has access to significantly more material. It also uses the ships reactor waist as thrust medium.

    So your drive looks just fine.

    As for the jump drive I figure it looks something like a Sphere with lots of identical dohikies that inject gravitons into the core creating a micro-singularity that become the crucible for generating the Jump reaction. The nucleus of this singularity is a tiny pinhole into subspace that is the terminus of a micro worm hole.

    The Jump drive then begins collecting the anti-mass that floods out of the singularities nucleus for use in generating the jump reaction.

    When the Drive has collected enough anti-mass it forcibly floods the nucleus with the anti-mass causing the terminus of the wormhole to enlarge forming a bubble around the ship. If calibrated correctly the exit point of the worm hole will be near the desired exit point. If its not calibrated properly all manner of things can go wrong from the ship being riped apart by the singularity, to the exit point opening in a random point within 36 parsecs in any direction.
  • traqtraq0 Posts: 0Member
    so, a VASIMR drive would need intakes, correct (or at least, ought to)?

    sounds a lot more like a (trek) impulse engine than I thought initially
  • Capt DaveCapt Dave0 Posts: 0Member
    Yep, pretty much.
  • Andrew BoultonAndrew Boulton0 Posts: 0Member
    traq wrote: »
    how do reactionless drives work (more importantly, what do they look like)?

    They work by pushing against a gravity field. Yes, this breaks the laws of physics, but so do a lot of things in SF, including reaction drives that will give you more than a few hours of useful thrust without needing obscene amounts of fuel.

    They look a bit like reaction drives with a blue glow.
  • Capt DaveCapt Dave0 Posts: 0Member
    They work by pushing against a gravity field. Yes, this breaks the laws of physics, but so do a lot of things in SF, including reaction drives that will give you more than a few hours of useful thrust without needing obscene amounts of fuel.

    They look a bit like reaction drives with a blue glow.
    I like my fluff better. Sounds more plausible.
  • traqtraq0 Posts: 0Member
    do they push against a gravity field (i.e., a gravity field behind them) or pull into a gravity field (i.e., a gravity field in front of them)? Pushing just sounds a little absurd (I mean, a little more absurd)...
  • Capt DaveCapt Dave0 Posts: 0Member
    traq wrote: »
    do they push against a gravity field (i.e., a gravity field behind them) or pull into a gravity field (i.e., a gravity field in front of them)? Pushing just sounds a little absurd (I mean, a little more absurd)...
    To put things in persecutive for all, the traveller "Status Quo" is something I'm wanting to get away from. Too much of the setting's "technofluff" flies in the face of reason. So I'm disinterested with "How the Imperium does it" and after a ship that makes sense to me.
  • traqtraq0 Posts: 0Member
    The upper deck under construction: this is the main "public" area, where passengers dine and can spend free time outside of their cabins. With a full passenger compliment (16), meals are served in two shifts. To starboard is the galley area. To port is a medical supply locker, which contains basic through advanced equipment. In an emergency, the dining table and chairs are cleared, and the area is used as an infirmary. Surgical equipment is supported as well, allowing the crew to respond to nearly any injury or illness (provided a doctor is aboard).

    wip-0228-public.png

    I haven't decided yet exactly how the dining area will clear; it will mostly depend on the design of the table. I like the idea of the table pulling up and away (to the ceiling), but it may be more practical for it to lower into the floor and be covered by plates.
  • JennyJenny2 Posts: 0Member
    On WWII submarines, Corpsmen performed medical procedures using the galley tables as surgical tables.
  • Fre'dniFre'dni0 Posts: 0Member
    Heh, on the topic of the jump drive, someone once referred to it as a turkey baster, with a vacuumed sealed bag, on its other end. When you jumped, the power stored in the capacitors discharged, squeezing the contents of the bulb into the bag at its other end, which had the same volume as the contents of the bulb. What the liquid flowed in was some kind of connection between stars, infinitisimal volume, so once squeezed the bulbs liquid, the ship, was squirted along that line, reappearing in space along that line. Scouts were used to discover the closest, yet safest spots, to unsquirt along that line.
    Trac, they did have ramscoops. Originally used hydrogen as fuel, would orbit gas giants to refuel, or at least top off their fuel tanks, via a purifier thingy. Well, scouts had them. I would guess merchant ships would plan their jumps to systems where purified fuel was stockpiled, or have a fuel supply capable of several jumps. Think its 15 tons for a 300 ton craft at jump 2.
    Liked your updated work. Agrees with Jenny.Would you need the table to disappear? Just spray it off with disinfectant, and put the patient on it. Remember, as Jenny suggested, think Submarine cramped spaces.
    They also had combat drugs, that could put a casualty into a form of hibernation.
  • traqtraq0 Posts: 0Member
    Jenny, Fre'dni: I thought about that. Star Trek has done it too (Timescape, TNG). The table is kinda large (it's 4m long x 1.8m wide), but I suppose it could have gurneys attached on either end/side, and be lowered slightly to a good working height. I'm just not sure about an operating table where you can't get to all sides of the patient. But it's not designed to be routine, anyway... I will give it a second thought. thanks!
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