Re: FB - Thrust Ratings for Freighters

That's what I was thinking when I came up with this idea.  Even if you
don't
want to use it everyday, it would be fun for a scenario rule where the
convoy
has to get x-mass of cargo off the board.  The freighters when then have
the
option to ditch some of their cargo to have better chance of making it,
but if
that just means the pirates have to kill fewer freighters... 
Interesting???

IAS

Thomas Anderson wrote:

> On Sat, 23 Jan 1999, Aaron Teske wrote:
> > At 10:25 AM 1/23/99 -0500, IAS wrote:
> > >Sean Bayan Schoonmaker wrote:
> > > > This road leads to differing thrust according to fuel and
ammunition
> > > > loads. I don't even want to go there.
> > >This will allow frieghters to dump cargo to increase thrust in
emergency
> > >situations.
> >
> > True... kinda.  The thing is, who's to say what is *in* the holds? 
If one
> > hold is full of iron ore, and another full of... of... I dunno,
goose
> > feathers, they are going to have a considerably different mass to
begin
> > with.  While everything in ship construction goes by mass, the cargo
holds
> > actually take up *volume*.
>
> i disagree. you get this with cargo ships today, and holds are very
rarely
> totally filled with very dense cargo, so that a hold's carrying
capacity
> is mass-limited not volume-limited. it would be daft to build a ship
with
> a million cubic metre cargo hold, capable of doing full acceleration
when
> the hold is full of steel; it would be going ludicriously fast if you
> decided to ship hollowfibre wall insulation instead.
>
> what i meani is that the definition of 'full' for a hold will be based
on
> mass, not volume.
>
> besides, isn't it realistic to assume that most freighters will use
> strap-on cargo bays? the ship itself is an engine, a jump motor,
sensors,
> computers, a bridge and some crew space. the cargo is loaded into big
> boxes and the boxes are fixed to the ship. feathers would just be
carried
> in bigger boxes:
>
> <============#	  the ship
>
>   [**]  [**]
> <============#	  the ship carrying steel
>   [**]  [**]
>
>   /--------\
>   |%%%%%%%%|
> <============#	  the ship carrying feathers
>   |%%%%%%%%|
>   \--------/
>
> since freighters don't need to wrap everything in an armoured hull as
> warships do, there is no incentive to use internal cargo bays.
>
> > So I'd opt for keeping things simple, as well.
>
> i'd agree, but it's nice to have the option of having the option of
> dumping cargo, if you catch my drift.
>
> > after all, warships won't be packed solid with
> > stuff like merchies might,
>
> oh, they will. why would warships have any free space? that would be
> inefficient design. they are packed solid with power plants, drives,
> computers, armaments, crew quarters, etc. look at how much room each
> sailor gets on a current warship (on an rn destroyer, it's basically a
> bunk in a cupboard).
>
> Tom