Hangar Bay, Cargo Hold & Steerage Cargo

[Flyndaran]

Are there really that many items that can survive the rigors of unpressurized non-temperature controlled space? Other than satellites ejected from the previously mentioned space shuttle?

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Humabout

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.

That might be a problem for you externally clamped fighters then. Pilots sitting in them too long.
What about a way for them to get in and out? EVA?

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Are there really that many items that can survive the rigors of unpressurized non-temperature controlled space? Other than satellites ejected from the previously mentioned space shuttle?

Depedns how they are packed I would think. I would think most things could survive that way though. Just not perishable items (though they may have thier own temp controled containers) and living things.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Depedns how they are packed I would think. I would think most things could survive that way though. Just not perishable items (though they may have thier own temp controled containers) and living things.

Lots of dry goods probably fit - from silicon chips to heavy metals.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Langy

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

It was also used to transport cattle... Which being a live cargo belongs under the 'steerage cargo' header. Actually given the airlock arrangements (on the 'door') on Serenity that seems doubtful that would have been a hangar bay by any common definition. There did not appear to be airlocks leading into the cargo area - which would have been nice if it had been intended to be used as a hangar bay, however there was one leading out.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Lots of dry goods probably fit - from silicon chips to heavy metals.

Machines not built to operate in vacuum generally suffer if exposed to it for long. Plastics lose their volatiles, lubricants evaporate, moving parts bind together as the adsorbed gasses on their surfaces vanish, and so on. Anything organic will suffer badly.

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

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).

Not too inaccurate. Most Semi-trucks can really move when they arn't carrying a load.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Machines not built to operate in vacuum generally suffer if exposed to it for long. Plastics lose their volatiles, lubricants evaporate, moving parts bind together as the adsorbed gasses on their surfaces vanish, and so on. Anything organic will suffer badly.

Which is why I said 'dry'. An oiled machine isn't dry, nor is a CPU with thermopaste. A raw silicon chip, OTOH, is.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

Not too inaccurate. Most Semi-trucks can really move when they arn't carrying a load.

Yeah, but most semi-trucks don't have a reactionless 360°-vectored drive . . .

(The fighter had vectored superscience torches, with better thrust per mass used; it's just that my ship was 80% engines, and his was maybe 20-40%, the rest being weapons, cockpit etc.)

[fredtheobviouspseudonym]

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. . .

There is a "wet navy" precedent.

During the mid-years of World War II the British built what they called "merchant aircraft carriers." This was a fully-operational merchant ship (usually a somewhat fast one -- c. 12 kts loaded, fast for the time) with a flight deck built on top. There were very limited fuel facilities and (IIRC) to service the aircraft you set up a fabric "hangar" on the flight deck.

The ship would carry 3 to 4 Swordfish biplanes, adequate for a minimal air search around a convoy.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_aircraft_carrier for more detail.

An "escort carrier" (CVE in USN parlance) was different -- it carried no cargo, had considerably more aviation fuel, ordnance load, and aircraft control facilities (not to mention AA guns, etc.) and had a hangar under the flight deck that could accommodate most of its aircraft for maintenance or simple protection from the elements. They usually carried 18 to 24 aircraft.