Hangar Bay, Cargo Hold & Steerage Cargo

[Humabout]

So if Cargo Holds are pressurized and you can pay extra for a refrigerated one (I'd assume you can pay for a heated one, even though it's not RAW), the only difference left would be what Refplace said: the amenities. I guess steerage cargo would be easily accessible while under way, could double as sleeping quarters, etc., but a cargo hold is just a big, empty space until you jam it full of stuff. So you'd probably store your provisions for a trip in steerage, I'd guess. Thanks for clarifying all of this.

I have come on another question. Can a ship with an External Clamp clamp itself to a larger ship and let itself get towed by the larger ship, or is this abusive, since a really large ship could have a bazillion really small ships clamped to it? Then again, you could just use the smaller system rules in combination with the Small External Clamps system to get bazillions of little clamps for little ships.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Humabout

I have come on another question. Can a ship with an External Clamp clamp itself to a larger ship and let itself get towed by the larger ship, or is this abusive, since a really large ship could have a bazillion really small ships clamped to it? Then again, you could just use the smaller system rules in combination with the Small External Clamps system to get bazillions of little clamps for little ships.

The big ship will have its effective mass increased, and thus acceleration decreased, thus preventing any abuse.

This reminds me of a curious moment:
Once, back in VE2e days, another player and I built spaceships. He had a super-expensive mecha/fighter, and I had a roughly as expensive big space truck with some armaments. The funny thing was that when not attached to cargo containers, my truck outperformed his fighter in space (it still had somewhat inferior DPS, and abyssmal DPS/mass ratio, of course).

[jacobmuller]

Originally Posted by Humabout

My question is this: What are some examples of Hangar Bays, Cargo Holds, & Steerage Cargo in RL, TV, or movie examples?

my take on it
Hanger bay: aircraft carrier below deck storage and on deck pre-flight zone. Spaceships: 2001 EVA bay (a store for vehicles where you maintain, man and launch). Can't think of any movies that have this kind of area without adding in the launch tube sequence from the BGs:) A specialised cargo zone that has variable/ as needed life support

Cargo Hold: container ship, oil tanker, the ship in Indiana Jones where the Ark kills the rats. spaceships: Space Shuttle cargo bay; rocket payload. It doesn't provide life support.

Steerage - spaceships: Serenity's cargo bay, Alien2 cargo and launch area. It does provide life support.

Shielded/concealed cargo: behind the panelling in your car. Spaceships: Serenity and Millennium Falcon smuggler's nooks... But then again, they're concealed within their steerage.

[Humabout]

Yeah, that's sort of what I was thinking, Vicky, but I wasn't sure if it'd be abusive, since you could build a carrier that keeps all of its fighters clamped outside, jumps into a battlefield, and launches all of its ships in a single combat turn. There would be drawbacks, like servicing the fighters, and targeting them directly while they're still attached. I guess it does balance out. Just odd in my mind.

[jacobmuller]

Build it with the fighter weight included, reassess it's performance fighterless. Battlecarrier or somesuch in Traveller? Maintenance only on return to base or include a "dry-dock" facility to maintain in the field.
You'd either need fighters that were self-contained (power plants, reactionless drives and beams) or a hanger bay just for rearming/ refuelling/ repair. Oh, a space going aircraft carrier (Doh). Now where was that article about submersible aircraft carriers...

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Humabout

Yeah, that's sort of what I was thinking, Vicky, but I wasn't sure if it'd be abusive, since you could build a carrier that keeps all of its fighters clamped outside, jumps into a battlefield, and launches all of its ships in a single combat turn. There would be drawbacks, like servicing the fighters, and targeting them directly while they're still attached. I guess it does balance out. Just odd in my mind.

Jumps into a battlefield? So its has more than one jump drive in order to support the extra mass? (Alternately: it jumps slower/shorter than other ships due to extra mass?) Also, maintenance is gonna be inconvenient. All in all, it's not much different from spending all those Clamps and the carrier's Jump Drive to fit fighters with jump drives instead.

[jacobmuller]

it'll be like your truck example - lumbering behemoth that becomes disturbingly agile when it's payload of fighters launch. Pre-launch it's like Pearl Harbour in space; post launch, it's a fairly normal aircraft carrier.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Humabout

Yeah, that's sort of what I was thinking, Vicky, but I wasn't sure if it'd be abusive, since you could build a carrier that keeps all of its fighters clamped outside, jumps into a battlefield, and launches all of its ships in a single combat turn. There would be drawbacks, like servicing the fighters, and targeting them directly while they're still attached. I guess it does balance out. Just odd in my mind.

This was part of the background in the Babylon 5 Universe - some people (especially the raiders) had their fighters on the outside of the hull as opposed to in a hangar.

As for steerage ... as people have already said, it recalls the era of mass sea travel (e.g. the various America runs) where the cheapest berths on the ship were in Steerage ... barely converted cargo space.

[Humabout]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Jumps into a battlefield? So its has more than one jump drive in order to support the extra mass? (Alternately: it jumps slower/shorter than other ships due to extra mass?) Also, maintenance is gonna be inconvenient. All in all, it's not much different from spending all those Clamps and the carrier's Jump Drive to fit fighters with jump drives instead.

Well, the situation I'm looking at is specifically one where a longer duration is required for the clamped ships and carrier as a whole, but the individual clamped ships are not large enough to support their crews. This way the carrier extends the duration of the overall unit while disembarking them as quickly as possible in the heat of battle.

But performance implications aside, it is legal and balanced to have ships clamp themselves to a carrier, it seems. That makes me smile.

For reference, I'm looking at a jump drive that doesn't use jump points (guess that makes it a probability drive of sorts), but requires massive measurements and calculations to use. Typically, getting further from a system will reduce the complexity of the calculations, as will making shorter jumps. But if you want to jump while orbiting Mercury to a point halfway across the galaxy, you're welcome to try (and probably completely miss your mark and get lost, of course). So travel time can be rather long, and a fighter certainly would lack the necessary accommodations to make such a journey without some support.

[Langy]

The Serenity definitely has a hangar bay. It's even used to launch smaller vehicles, after all, though not while in space.

A cargo hold is almost certainly not fit for human use while in space, due to the fact that it takes up no mass - it's just an empty space, devoid of life-support, pressure support, vacuum support, or anything else. It's exactly the same as the cargo hold on the Space Shuttle.

Most cargo holds seen on space ships are either Hangar Bays or Steerage Cargo. If I remember right, Hangar Bays and Steerage Cargo take up the same amount of mass for the same amount of storage - they're basically identical, just Steerage Cargo is smaller.