missiles as cargo?

[sneer (OP)]

specialized magazine ships atached to battle fleet to rearm it is ok to me
but there are certainly better ways when you want to build missiles pdc off your world
you pack prefabricated pdc on your freighters and move the to destination
construction troops may assemble it sooner or rather later
but the problem is how to move enough amunition
why freighters can not deliver them
lets assume freighters cant rearm any ships and missiles MUST be unloaded at colony before rearming any launchers
this would save a lot of trouble when fortifing remote parts of empire
the only current solution like building relatively large colliers seems far from optimal

[Jorgen_CAB]

I often use SM mode and move cargo ships empty and destroy missiles and create them at the destination.

But I do agree that you should be able to move missiles with cargo ships.

I also allow cargo ships to move fighters and FAC in the same way between destinations.

If cargo ships can move entire industrial complexes they can move some missiles or attack crafts.

[Paul M]

I rather doubt it is a function of "ability" to move them.  For example in War in the Pacific I transport military supplies including crated air craft in every sort of cargo vessel imaginable.  But they move (usually) in convoy.  Now consider that you are talking about moving nuclear warhead armed missiles about on a completely defenceless ship, or an attack craft with the capacity to launch those birds I think most modern militaries would say "not on my watch."

I don't know how NATO moves its ammo around, but I do know that the Canadians pulling out of Afghanistan was done in different stages with the final stages being more or less infrastructure equipment.  I don't know how they got their leopards, artillery and related ammo back to Canada but I'd have thought on one of the US Auxiliary ships.

I don't see where the problem is in having a few colliers and escort carriers for this sort of task.  Logisitics like this is bread and butter for a military.  Going back to War in the Pacific you would be astounded at the number of different ship designations that exist to cover every task conceivable.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I personally see no immediate difference between a collier ship and a cargo ship that a both run in my empires name (this is not by the civilian private fleets). They both have the same capability to defend each other and both need escorts to survive any kind of attack. I would always give a military escort to a ship carrying any sort of high grade military equipment, such as missiles and or fighters/FAC. I also only use cargo ships when there are no other more dedicated ships available for the task.

It is perhaps even stranger they can't even load ship supplies and haul them from one place to another.

I view ships such as supply ships, colliers, tenders and other specialized ships as ships that can perform these tasks with military ships in space without maintenance facilities and other heavy equipment. I sometimes go so far and don't allow big ships to replenish missiles on locations without either some maintenance facilities (does not have to meet the ships size) or a dedicated ship to do so. At least loading missiles in such a place without special equipment would take a very long time since it has to be done more or less manually with civilian crafts and is not safe, thus only done in desperation.

[backstab]

It would come down to Safety Equipment ... A normal Merchant Ship will not have the required storage containment facilities for Nuclear Missiles while a collier would have.

[Elouda]

That can be circumvented with careful preparation for transport and the like. Its done in reality too.

The difference I think should be as follows;
-Colliers are built to store missiles, so do it in a much volume-effective way. The missiles loaded onto a collier are also fully functional, and thus can be used to resupply another ship in space.
-Cargo ships can move missiles, but these need to be partially disassembled and packaged which takes a lot more space than on a collier. It also means that a cargo ship can only unload the missiles at a colony where they are reassembled for use (perhaps requiring a spaceport or something to signify this).

In other words, Cargo ships can do the logistics role as part of your supply chain, but for fleet operations (or more efficient transfers) you need a collier.

Since someone draw a War in the Pacific parallel, the comparison there is an xAK/AK, and an AE. One is purely for moving 'stuff' (including ammo), the other is what you need if you actually want to resupply elsewhere than at a port.

[Paul M]

I assumed you meant civilian freighters, my fault. If you do all that then I don't see why you have a problem building a collier or two more if it becomes obvious you need a few more.  I'd like to have some dedicated military cargo ships myself, for moving things like pre-fabricated PDC parts around.  I may need something like that for my salvage ship as well.

I can't comment on the maintenance supply question except that it is likely due to the definition of a ship as a supply ship more than anything else.   There is no logical reason one can't have maintenance supplies in cargo spaces.  The only thing is that only those at hand can be used for repairs.  The maintenance bay is basically, in my view, like that ship the had in Once a Hero...or the next book which was basically a huge maintenance repair facilty and had this huge warehouse for spare parts. 

As far as colliers go I'd rather see a specialized magazine for that.  One that holds more missiles per tonne but is not usable for firing them and instead has a missile exchange function.  So it speeds up missile exchanges between ships.

Moving missiles around should not be made easier, and it is currently pretty trivial, because the difficulty in keeping the beast fed is supposed to be a balance point. 

[sloanjh]

I would suggest you stick a suggestion in the official suggestion thread.

I'm pretty sure this topic has come up in the past.  I have a vague recollection that it (along with transporting e.g. crated fighters) is something that Steve just hasn't gotten around to, rather than a philosophical objection on his part.  There might also be a little bit of "it would be a bit of a pain to code up".  The obvious difference between colliers and freighters carrying missiles (or anything else light crated fighters) would be that colliers can "cross-deck" ammo to other ships in space, while freighters would need to offload to a colony.  This would meant that missiles in magazines would be a different flavor of item from missiles in cargo holds - this distinction might require some extra coding, especially since both magazines and cargo holds can be present on the same ship. 

Another consideration: given that Steve doesn't seem to have a lot of bandwidth for Aurora right now, I doubt this will be done any time soon even if he agrees it's a good idea.

John

[Sharp]

You can't blow up the cargo of cargo ships to make them explode, you can with colliers though.

I suppose that's the beauty of SM mode though, you can RP it how you want so you can have Cargo ships holding whatever, the only thing I would like for Cargo ships is a bit of a complex mass system to affect speed depending on how much cargo it has so an empty cargo ship will travel faster then a fully laden one, would be quite a bit of work to add in though so I am not too bothered about even putting it as a suggestion in the suggestions thread.

[Wolfius]

I'd think the easiest way to impliment it mechanics-wise(insofar as you can potentially just repurpose existing mechanics and code) might be a 'Crate Missiles' construction project that consumes some ordinance and creates cargo-loadable items of apropriate size - representing the missiles being disassembled and crated up for storage/transport.

Then to convert them back into usable missiles you need an 'uncrate missiles' construction project, bit like assembling a PDC. Needs created missiles and some tiny token amount of build points, so for example you could use your freighters to rush missiles where they're needed and have some Construction Battalions uncrate then.

Of course my coding skills are lacking even if I had the database password so I might be entirly off base.

[alex_brunius]

the only thing I would like for Cargo ships is a bit of a complex mass system to affect speed depending on how much cargo it has so an empty cargo ship will travel faster then a fully laden one, would be quite a bit of work to add in though so I am not too bothered about even putting it as a suggestion in the suggestions thread.

It might be possible to use a space train

Tug + X amount of engine-less bulk freighter holds tied together. The more you add the slower it'll go.

[Sharp]

It might be possible to use a space train

Tug + X amount of engine-less bulk freighter holds tied together.  The more you add the slower it'll go.

Hmm never thought of using Tug for hauling cargo, nice .  Still doesn't work though because Tug speed is only affected by the tonnage of what it is hauling, regardless of what the hauling thing is hauling, can a Tug tractor multiple ships at the same time? I thought it was 1-to-1 but never tried multiple tbh.

[alex_brunius]

Hmm never thought of using Tug for hauling cargo, nice .  Still doesn't work though because Tug speed is only affected by the tonnage of what it is hauling, regardless of what the hauling thing is hauling,

The idea was that you could vary the total tonnage by attaching only as many "cargo unit" ships as you need.

can a Tug tractor multiple ships at the same time? I thought it was 1-to-1 but never tried multiple tbh.

If not you might be able to attach a tractor beam to each "cargo unit" ship.

I know it's a big workaround and not exactly smooth, but for someone that likes to RP something like this it might work

[Sharp]

Space trains does sound pretty awesome, sorry for the derailment (get it ) from the original post.

[andrea69]

Space trains does sound pretty awesome, sorry for the derailment (get it ) from the original post.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I remember Steve removed the possibility to create "space trains" long ago.
Now it should not be possible to create a caravan using just one tug and many engineless freighters linked one to the other with tractor beams.