Container Carrier, a Universal Freighter Concept quik n' dirty

[smoelf]

I think xenoscepter's comment about gamey-ness was rather referring to reducing deployment time to a minimum while retaining commercial status.

[xenoscepter (OP)]

Yeah, I view the deployment time thing as a trick. I sue it, for sure and mechanically it would vastly improve the design, but I consider gamey and don't use it too much.

[Rich.h]

I can't recall 100% but is the tractor beam a civillian component? IF so then would it not be easier to just make it as a space truck, you could argue it is gaming the system, but then in systems where you are not sure of absolute safety that is potentially a lot of cargo containers just waiting to be blown up.

As an extra idea for space trucks:

Your main engine unit with a tractor beam and reasonable fuel amounts with speed. Then you have various sizes of container along with different types (fuel, cargo, mainenance, etc). But add in a cargo shuttle to each one, that way your trucks can carry the container to a destination and drop it off to return for another job allowing the container to unload itself. This will definitely add huge amounts of micromanagment to things, but for myself it will save days and days of unloading time when counted across all frieghters. I make it a rule that I only have a single cargo system on any ship for each task that ship can carry out (1 cargo shuttle, 1 troop shuttle, and so on). For really massive containers you could potentially save weeks of loading/unloading time that a standard freighter spends not moving.

[xenoscepter (OP)]

@Rich.h

 --- A few points of contention.

   - If you re-read the design, you'll see that it possess Cargo Shuttles, a Re-fueling System, and an Ordinance Transfer System. This means by swapping containers it can become a tanker, a supply ship or even a collier if needs be. I am still in the process of testing it, but it's not a priority so it may take awhile. I am currently unsure if it can reload a fleet from magazines contained in the hangar via Ordinance Transfer.

   - Containers need one full Engineering Space and 3 Months of deployment to become commercial ships and skip Maintenance / Deployment Clock. These Containers are Military Ships. The Freighter may seem to have overblow MSP and Engineering for a commercial ship, but the Commercial Hangar doesn't maintain docked military ships. Making the containers commercial requires more tonnage and 30x the deployment, cutting into payload per container.

[macks]

So what DOES the commercial hangar deck do? I want to build a commercial maintenance base to be towed around but that doesn't seem very viable if it doesn't do anything to the military ships retained in it.

[xenoscepter (OP)]

@macks

It freezes deployment clock on military ships, but doesn't freeze or reduce maintenance life w/o maintenance facilities and/or modules. So Crew Morale doesn't degrade while inside of a Commercial Hangar. Also, a parasite can refuel from, reload from and repair itself using the mothership w/o the need for cargo shuttles, re-fueling systems, or ordinance transfer systems. Your parasites will use the mothership's MSP instead of their own to cover failures too, so while the maintenance clock for Military ships isn't frozen, they won't consume their own MSP either. They are quite useful for carrier designs, with my favorite so far being the "Attachable Jump Drive". Since Jump Drives are Commercial Components by default, off-loading them to a ship with minimal engines can give your warships some extra strategic mobility. Dock, jump, undock, fight. Better still for surveyors.

[Ehndras]

That's clever. How does up-scaling go?

[Person012345]

So what DOES the commercial hangar deck do? I want to build a commercial maintenance base to be towed around but that doesn't seem very viable if it doesn't do anything to the military ships retained in it.

One assumes it's intention is similar to that of the commercial magazines, that is not as a viable combat hanger but as a way to move fighters from one colony to another.

[skoormit]

@macks

...So Crew Morale doesn't degrade while inside of a Commercial Hangar. ...

In fact, a military ship in a Commercial Hangar is treated as if at a recreational location. Deployment time will decrease.

[skoormit]

So what DOES the commercial hangar deck do? I want to build a commercial maintenance base to be towed around but that doesn't seem very viable if it doesn't do anything to the military ships retained in it.

Freezes the maintenance clock and provides shore leave (the deployment clock reduces over time).
This makes them very useful for me on my survey carriers.

[Vastrat]

An interesting idea, looking forward to seeing how it woks.

[kenlon]

An interesting idea, looking forward to seeing how it woks.

I redid the containers to waste less space on things they aren't actually for, and came up with these:

Code: [Select]

Cargo Container class Cargo Ship      644 tons       10 Crew       32.2 BP       TCS 13    TH 0    EM 0
1 km/s      No Armour       Shields 0-0     HTK 1      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 66.64 Years     MSP 415    AFR 7%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 0    5YR 3    Max Repair 20 MSP
Cargo 500   
Capitaine de corvette    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days   

Cryo Container class Cargo Ship      1,000 tons       15 Crew       100.8 BP       TCS 20    TH 0    EM 0
1 km/s      No Armour       Shields 0-0     HTK 6      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 17.93 Years     MSP 431    AFR 16%    IFR 0.2%    1YR 3    5YR 38    Max Repair 20 MSP
Cryogenic Berths 3,400   
Capitaine de corvette    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days   

Fuel Container class Cargo Ship      1,000 tons       9 Crew       49.8 BP       TCS 20    TH 0    EM 0
1 km/s      No Armour       Shields 0-0     HTK 6      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 32.06 Years     MSP 415    AFR 16%    IFR 0.2%    1YR 1    5YR 12    Max Repair 20 MSP
Capitaine de corvette    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days   
Fuel Capacity 850,000 Litres    Range N/A

Supply Container class Cargo Ship      1,000 tons       17 Crew       81.8 BP       TCS 20    TH 0    EM 0
1 km/s      No Armour       Shields 0-0     HTK 4      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 85.82 Years     MSP 7,225    AFR 16%    IFR 0.2%    1YR 2    5YR 29    Max Repair 20 MSP
Capitaine de corvette    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days   

Troop Container class Cargo Ship      949 tons       25 Crew       54.8 BP       TCS 19    TH 0    EM 0
1 km/s      No Armour       Shields 0-0     HTK 1      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 39.69 Years     MSP 418    AFR 14%    IFR 0.2%    1YR 1    5YR 8    Max Repair 20 MSP
Troop Capacity 800 tons     
Capitaine de corvette    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days   

Most are 1K tons, but the lack of small options to pad out the Cargo and Troop containers led me to leave them as they fell and just use non-round numbers of containers.

These are then loaded into:

Code: [Select]

Haai class Superfreighter      499,802 tons       4,586 Crew       27,444 BP       TCS 9,996    TH 25,000    EM 0
2500 km/s      Armour 1-561       Shields 0-0       HTK 849      Sensors 8/6/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 0
MSP 2,034    Max Repair 250 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 168,000 tons     Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 2   
Capitaine de corvette    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Flight Crew Berths 3,360   

Perkowski Engines Limited MegaIon 8Kt  EP1000.00 (25)    Power 25000    Fuel Use 2.65%    Signature 1000    Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 7,350,000 Litres    Range 99.8 billion km (461 days at full power)
Refuelling Capability: 60,000 litres per hour     Complete Refuel 122 hours

Ordnance Transfer Rate: 48 MSP per hour
Assorted Civilian-grade EM Sensors EM1.0-6.0 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  19.4m km
Assorted Civilian-gradeThermal Sensors TH1.0-8.0 (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  22.4m km

When fully loaded, a Haai can hold one of:

• 130K cargo
• 571.2k colonists
• 142.8M liters fuel
• 1.213M maintSP
• 141.6K troops

Sounds reasonably good, right? But if you strip out the hangars and simply straight up replace them with the appropriate dedicated modules, you can haul:

• 282K cargo - 110% more.
• 1.11M colonists - 92% more.
• 289M liters fuel - 102% more
• 2.22M maintSP - 83% more.
• 279K troops 97% more.

You lose about half the capacity by containerizing.

I also tried, just for the hell of it, this one, using military hangars:

Code: [Select]

Military Haai class Superfreighter      499,983 tons       7,615 Crew       41,495.2 BP       TCS 10,000    TH 25,000    EM 0
2500 km/s      Armour 1-561       Shields 0-0       HTK 2553      Sensors 8/6/0/0      DCR 500      PPV 0
Maint Life 4.83 Years     MSP 81,935    AFR 4000%    IFR 55.6%    1YR 5,792    5YR 86,886    Max Repair 250 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 200,000 tons     Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 2   
Capitaine de frégate    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Flight Crew Berths 4,000    Morale Check Required   

Perkowski Engines Limited MegaIon 8Kt  EP1000.00 (25)    Power 25000    Fuel Use 2.65%    Signature 1000    Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 7,350,000 Litres    Range 99.8 billion km (461 days at full power)
Refuelling Capability: 60,000 litres per hour     Complete Refuel 122 hours

Ordnance Transfer Rate: 48 MSP per hour
Assorted Civilian-grade EM Sensors EM1.0-6.0 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  19.4m km
Assorted Civilian-gradeThermal Sensors TH1.0-8.0 (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  22.4m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

I ended up having to put 25Kt of engineering spaces and 7Kt of maintenance storage to get half-decent deployment out of it, leaving me with:

• 153.1K cargo
• 680k colonists
• 170M liters fuel
• 1.445M maintSP
• 168K troops

So how does it work out?
Not very well, I'm afraid. The overhead of Commercial Hangar Decks massing 1600 tons for a 1000 ton capacity, and the additional losses inherent in the container, means that dedicated cargo ships whoop container ships all up and down the lot.

You're also burning way more TN materials on the modular ships. These are the totals without MSP costs for a couple:
Haai + cargo containers: 36,277
Dedicated cargo config: 8,898.9

Haai + cryo containers: 44,839.4
Dedicated cryo config: 20,019.3

The military version is pretty much right out just because of the ludicrous cost of feeding it all the MSP it would need, on top of it's staggering base cost (41,956.2 with no MSP). Though smaller military container ships are a good way to have tankers/colliers/troop transports/supply ships out of a single shipyard.

[Migi]

So what DOES the commercial hangar deck do? I want to build a commercial maintenance base to be towed around but that doesn't seem very viable if it doesn't do anything to the military ships retained in it.

Freezes the maintenance clock and provides shore leave (the deployment clock reduces over time).
This makes them very useful for me on my survey carriers.

Based on the description in the changes thread commercial hangars should not be freezing the maintenance clock.

They are intended for transport of other commercial vessels, temporary transport of military vessels, reloading of box launchers and for repairing ships. With this in mind, a military ship still has normal maintenance requirements while in a civilian hangar.

[Emphasis added]

[kenlon]

Based on the description in the changes thread commercial hangars should not be freezing the maintenance clock.

I designed containers I made with extended maint times because of this - just remember to overhaul them when you come back to the yards.

[skoormit]

So what DOES the commercial hangar deck do? I want to build a commercial maintenance base to be towed around but that doesn't seem very viable if it doesn't do anything to the military ships retained in it.

Freezes the maintenance clock and provides shore leave (the deployment clock reduces over time).
This makes them very useful for me on my survey carriers.

Based on the description in the changes thread commercial hangars should not be freezing the maintenance clock.

They are intended for transport of other commercial vessels, temporary transport of military vessels, reloading of box launchers and for repairing ships. With this in mind, a military ship still has normal maintenance requirements while in a civilian hangar.

[Emphasis added]

"Normal maintenance requirements" means what, exactly? I don't think it means that the clock keeps ticking. I think it means that it can still suffer a maintenance failure if in space, and still costs MSP for upkeep if at a maintenance facility.
When in a military hangar, ships don't need any maintenance and don't have any failures, regardless if they are at a maintenance location or not.