Re: FT cargo/aux ships.

On Fri, 20 Aug 1999, Tom Anderson wrote:

> on first reading this paragraph, i thought you were disagreeing with
mne;
> now i think it's support. someone agreeing with me? impossible! :)

You'd be surprised...;P

> > What about the palettized container ship concept. Small orbital
shuttles 
> > (ala the trucks) transport the cargo up to the ship, they are
attached 
> > (internal or external) to the freighter. 
> 
> it would be more mass-efficient to use the shuttles to carry
containers
> which are loaded on the freighter, rather than attaching entire
shuttles.
> otoh, it is less time-efficient. this is the crux of the difference
> between hold-type and tug-type frighters. otgh, if the containers are
huge
> (a few thousand tonnes each), they would be very quick to load and
unload.

Well I'm seeing it like the container ships/trains/trucks that we have 
now. The Truck (tractor) is the shuttle part. It attaches itself 
to/around the container and transports it (just like now where only the 
container gets pulled off the flatbed of the truck) to and from orbit. 

> > I don't know that a Tug would be the same as a cargo freighter. In
the 
> > case of the tug, its extending its drive field around a separate
craft. A 
> > freighter would already have the drive field emmitters placed at 
> > strategic locations around the ship to warp the space around it and
jump 
> > to light. 
> 
> it's true that the freighter has a more deterministic load, and one
that
> can be better balanced around the ship:

True, if you need to get an odd/unusally large load from one sector to 
another one would use a tug if a sufficiantly large bulk. One could 
concevibly have a large auxillary craft capable of taking a corvette 
inside its hull were the corvette disabled. If one needed to move a 
damaged battleship to a system that could effect repairs that would make

it space worthy again, a tug would definately be needed and would 
necessitate the BAD (Big Ass Drive) system. 

> that's quite true - a tug's ftl drive is less efficient than a
standard
> ftl drive. in this case, you could probably say that the lighters were
> effectively part of the ship when carried (provided they were quite
> small), and claim standard ftl efficiency. there is still the cost of
the
> lighters' systems to deal with, though.

Well, if you wanted a Freighter that did not need port facilities, it 
would have to have its own cargo shuttles for ferrying material in. 
Otherwise you could get more cargo bang for your buck with a Cargo only 
freighter (rather than spending internal space for a Lighter bay or
two). 

> i understand that this is essentially how the IF operate.

> like star destroyers in star wars (at least, the computer games).

sort of, more like PT boats in WWII and PBRs/Swift Boats/Riverine 
Monitors during Vietnam. Small combatants for a particular job. Also not

that many modern navy's have small combatants like this that are really 
light and fast for working in littoral waters. 

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