Ship's boats, ship's vehicles and runabouts
Ship's boats, ship's vehicles and runabouts posted in Spaceships & Vehicles forum comment posted by cobalt_phoenix| Author |
| From crunching some numbers elsewhere, a Trader-sized vessel originally intended as a very small tug might not turn out particularly specialised and might find a use just for a variety of tasks around a spaceport. |
A tug may be better off being large. A quick idea for you: a modification of missile technology that combines high-precision (but not high-power) engines and the grapple from a cable gun, governed by the tug's computers.
The idea is that a tug would carry what is basically a modified launch system (launch rack at PL6, ordinance cell array at PL7+). Loaded into the launcher would be a set of drones equipped with planetary thrusters (PL6) or advanced engine (likely particle impulse or inertial flux for PL7+). The engines used are high-precision, so they can control their thrust with far greater precision than normal engines*. When deployed, they lock onto the hull with their grapple heads. From there, they are controlled by the tug's crew (you could even call the personnel who manage this "harbor pilots").
These drones act as effectively planetary thrusters, and lock onto key locations to serve as highly capable maneuvering thrusters and landing engines. The tug, in this case, would need to be large (to carry enough of the drones and their larger crews), and would fly close to but not alongside the ship under tow (probably within about 0.1 light-seconds, so they have enough time to react). The modifications to the launcher would be to allow the drones to return and be refueled/recharged as needed.
That sort of system should give a tug the ability to actually bring a ship in, either to land or dock. Stations could also have their own drone launchers, allowing them to push ships out of port.
I could see a couple of sizes for such tugs. Light hulls would probably work for short-range or harbor tugs, since they likely don't need to have crew accommodations beyond some small areas, and are able to use numbers to increase their capabilities. They don't even need incredibly powerful engines, but they do need space for the drones, fuel tanks (at PL6), and control areas. For longer ranged tugs, a medium hull would likely be better, which would give them the needed space for crew berthing, additional fuel spaces, and extra drones.
* This is actually important for a tug. Normal ships tend to not be very controllable at low speeds, with some battleships, carriers, and cruisers basically needing to make a least a few knots just to keep their rudders working. On top of that, they don't have the most accurate control over their engines. Oh, if they are going 20 knots, they will be within one or two tenths of a knot, but they can't control where they fall within that range, while tugs have much finer control. The reason is that trying to take out the slack of a line or trying to push a ship with a bumper can go very badly if you don't have that kind of fine control (the lines could snap, their attachment points could be ripped out, the two ships could collide and cause damage, etc). That same issue could be the case in space-born ships, where a tug uses engines that are controllable down to just hundredth of a point (orders of magnitude more precise than normal engines). That is likely to be especially true with cable guns, which can break.
Post replies at
AlternityRPG.net forum#alternity #rpg #alternity-rpg
