 April 24, 2008 - 7:48am | I have begun work on a new ship class initially called the Jump Tug. The function of this vessel will be to assist other vehicles with low or no jump capability in making void jumps. Essentially this vessel would be a huge highly reliable jump drive capable of numerous jumps before requiring an overhaul which would dock/attach to the host ship and provide transport during the jump. Once the jump is completed the host ship could detach to conduct its mission. The Jump Tug could be automated/robotic or have a very small crew. The jump tug could operate independently but would be slow, lightly armed if armed at all, and not practical as a self-sufficent starship as it would sacrfice a lot of systems for the huge jump drive. Navigation, Engineering, and Flight Operations would be the primary systems of the ship. Jump tugs with service crews would include extremely spartan life-support and living conditions. I will be working on this for a while and would like to hear what the community thinks about it. |
 April 29, 2008 - 2:25pm | What is the deadline and what infor do you need from me? No deadline. When the SFMAN Staff gets enough submissions edited and yours isn't in I'm sure there will be an announcement so you'll know to get crack'in! I could write my mini-story without yours completed but wanted to see if I could use some of your terms or technology garble. |
April 30, 2008 - 10:53am | Ok, my work week is starting today and I work nights so I unfortunately will not have anytime to work on the jump tug project for a while. I will be working on woot's FTLT project for a while and producing some images for the project. Woot and gang you are more then welcome to move forward on the Jump Tug project for submission to the Frontiersman with my complete blessing (not that you really needed it in the first place or I would,'t have posted the idea on a public forum...lol). If I am able to do some more work on the jump tug or make some images before the Frontierman article goes to e-print then I will get on it when I can. I really like terlobars' proposed stats and think that they pretty much express the concept I was thinking of in terms of canon SF game rules. I'm not fond of the idea of the mobile space dock (no offense, just not my cup of tea) and think it should be a separate concept all together. As far as the mobile shipyard AFP, very creative but a little too over the top on size and resources for what I had in mind. PS Someone (I can not remember who because the posting was lost) on the site requested a scale mock-up of my Wolf Enterprises Ship Designs which ended with the Battleship at 2000 pixels for electronic game play. Ok, I enlarged the image to 2000 pixels and it took up my entire computer screen. I am sorry to say that project just aint gonna happen, that dog won't hunt. Feel free to enlarge my posted images to 2000 pixels if you wish but It just was completely un-realistic to continue to pursue as a project as the size comparison chart would not fit on my screen let alone on this site, Sorry, it just won't work at those scales proposed. |
 May 2, 2008 - 5:39pm | Okay, here's a first cut at the jump tug. It should be enough to get you started on your story w00t. I'm working up the full KH details this evening.The Jump TugEver wonder how all those star systems that don't have a Starship Construction Center get their system ships? If they can't make them and the ships are not Jump capable, how did they get there? The answer: The Jump Tug. This vessel consists of little more than a small crew module, some massive engines and a long boom used to attach the ships it transports. Unloaded, it is one of the fastest ship on the Frontier (especially the smaller model). With crews of three to six beings, these ships traverse the space lanes moving other ships throughout the Frontier. CharacteristicsJump tugs come in three sizes based on a size 4, 5 and 6 hull. Any smaller and the hull can't support the stresses. While they could be larger, you are decreasing towing capacity and increasing cost for no real benefit. Despite their relatively large size on paper, the hulls of these ships are in truth physically small as most of the hull material has been used in reinforcing the engine struts to handle the massive engines mounted on these small hulls. Depending on their size, jump tugs sport between 4 and 8 Class C Atomic engines. The relatively small hull size combined with the large engines give the Jump Tug some unique characteristics that make it ideally suited for the role of interstellar ship transport. Sporting the Class C Atomic Engines, the jump tug only needs an overhaul once every twelve jumps through the Void. This means that a jump tug is able to make at least one round trip from any SSC to any system in the Frontier without an overhaul. Because of the over-sized engines on the small hulls, these ships are able to move a large number of smaller ships all at once. Depending on the size of the jump tug it can ferry ships up to a total combined hull size of between 26 and 34. To put that into perspective, it would only take three jump tugs to move any one of the UPF Task Forces (Cassidine, Prenglar or Nova) between systems. The large engines also mean that, unloaded, these ship are fast. Unloaded, they have ADF and MR values of 6 or 7 depending on size1. In fact, it's not uncommon for jump tug captains to hold impromptu “drag races” on off days for bragging rights on who has the fastest ship around. Of course having these large engines mounted on these small hulls comes at a price. The hulls have to be incredibly reinforced to withstand the large stresses placed on the ship. This extra reinforcement uses up most of the available hull material leaving little to be used for actual crew space. As a result the crew area is smaller than an entire hull size 2 vessel. CrewBecause of the limited space available for the crew, jump tug crews are small, typically three to four beings and never more than six. At a minimum the crew needs a pilot, an astrogator and an engineer. Many times the crew will include a second astrogator to speed up jump calculations. Crews, especially on independently owned tugs, may have a few extra engineers in the crew to speed up the overhauls when they are needed. (It can be a drag to overhaul eight Class C Atomics all by yourself.) While crews are typically in the three to six range, there are tugs out there that are run by a single, albeit highly skilled, being. Whether because they like the solitude, just need more personal space or some other reasons, these spacers choose a solitary life among the stars. Hauling CapacityDepending on the size of the ship (and therefore the number of engines), jump tugs can carry different loads and have different performance characteristics. Table 1 summarizes some basic information about each of the different jump tug sizes.
Deck PlansCramped. A bridge, a crew deck and an engineering deck, that's it. Image not much more than decks 2, 4, and 5 from the Assault Scout on the back of the KH map with the fourth room on the crew deck being storage (the rooms have bunk beds when more than 4 crew) The engineering deck would be a bit bigger as it would have a workpod plus access to the engines. More comming soon. Full KH StatsWill appear in the Frontiersman article. 1 Assuming the Referee allows performance like this in the campaign. If not the upper limit can be what ever the Referee decides applies. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
May 2, 2008 - 7:23pm | Excellent, Excellent, Awesome Work Terlobar, wish I had more time to devote to this right now, but I think you got the essence down exactly as I had pretty much imagined it. Thanks for the stats and the synopsis. Great Job!  |
May 3, 2008 - 8:24pm | Upon further reflection and looking at the economics of the ships, I'm going to change the description to only have one hull size (probably HS 5) with four engines. The HS 6 version with 8 engines cost almost twice as much as the HS 4 version with four engines due to the huge cost of the engines (one engine cost more than all of the other systems on the ship combined!) but could only tow 32% more ships. Plus it cost twice as much to operate. The HS 5 version was not as bad but still not cost effective over the HS 4 version. So what I'm going to do is drop the various hull sizes and say it takes the material from a hull size 5 ship to support the stresses of the four large engines on the smaller hull. Full revamped details will be in the Frontiersman article. The general ideas of my previous post all still hold. Also, anybody handy at drawing up deck plans electronically? I can do it, but have only ever done it on paper before. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
May 3, 2008 - 9:01pm | Also, anybody handy at drawing up deck plans electronically? I can do it, but have only ever done it on paper before. CCR or I can help in that department. I've asked CCR to provide "chits" for MS Word so that we can share and start making deck plans as a community. (Like he did in Issue 8 - Heavy Scout) We will need a basic layout - pencil it, scan and email or upload to give us an idea of the deck layout. |
May 6, 2008 - 2:21pm | Here is the initial drawing of the decks for the jump tug. They are, in order from top to bottom, the bridge, the crew deck, the airlock and engineering. The larger circles are 8 m in diameter. The actual image is 96 dpi and I drew the maps at 50 pixels per meter but there was a bit of a translation issue (I'm still learning the software) Plus I think it was scaled when I uploaded it as well.. Anyway, enjoy. And yes, I'm almost done with the full article for the Frontiersman. I just need to, put a grid on the plans and label the various parts of the ship. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
 May 6, 2008 - 7:52pm | nice work. What program did you use? Time flies when your having rum. Im a government employee, I dont goof-off. I constructively abuse my time. |
May 7, 2008 - 6:02am | I used XaraLX (www.xaraxtreme.org). It's an open sourced version of a commerical Windows product (I work mostly in Linux) for doing vector graphics. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
May 7, 2008 - 6:14am | TerlObar - excellet work! It looks like the lower deck is where ships connect - up to four? |
 May 7, 2008 - 7:06am | Wow - cool Terlo. Love the workpod! |
May 7, 2008 - 8:57am | Actually, those four passages on the engineering deck are the engine access tunnels from the ship. The towed ships will attach to a large external boom. The question is, does the tug push or pull the ships. If you pull, you have to mount your engines out on very long (>=50 m) struts or the towed ships will be bathed in the exaust from the engines. (Remember a HS 20 ship is ~100m in diameter so if towed on the tug's centerline, which it would need to be, you engines need to be at least 55 meters off the center line and even then should be angled outward somewhat to keep the exaust off the ship) So what you end up with is a vesell whose hull is about 15m long, 8.5m in diameter and then has engines mounted 50+ meters out from the hull. On the other hand, if you are pushing, it makes the engines mountings more compact and structurally sound and on normal everyday runs, has less potential opportunity for damage to the vessels being moved. However if one breaks (or gets blasted) free it will crash down into the tug causing lots of damage there as well. Of course, this makes mounting the bigger ships tricker to get the load balanced. Anyway, I'm still looking into this a bit more. Feel free to pipe up with your thoughts or suggestions. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
May 7, 2008 - 10:24am | Actually, those four passages on the engineering deck are the engine access tunnels from the ship. The towed ships will attach to a large external boom. The question is, does the tug push or pull the ships. If you pull, you have to mount your engines out on very long (>=50 m) struts or the towed ships will be bathed in the exaust from the engines. (Remember a HS 20 ship is ~100m in diameter so if towed on the tug's centerline, which it would need to be, you engines need to be at least 55 meters off the center line and even then should be angled outward somewhat to keep the exaust off the ship) So what you end up with is a vesell whose hull is about 15m long, 8.5m in diameter and then has engines mounted 50+ meters out from the hull. On the other hand, if you are pushing, it makes the engines mountings more compact and structurally sound and on normal everyday runs, has less potential opportunity for damage to the vessels being moved. However if one breaks (or gets blasted) free it will crash down into the tug causing lots of damage there as well. Of course, this makes mounting the bigger ships tricker to get the load balanced. Anyway, I'm still looking into this a bit more. Feel free to pipe up with your thoughts or suggestions.  Something like this - ships mounted in front of engines. The beings on the bridge don't necessarily need to "see" in a 180 degree arc out the front window. :-) |
May 7, 2008 - 1:08pm | w00t, I considered that as well. The only problem I see with that method is balance. What happens when you have a big HS 20 ship you have to move? You can only tow a total of 25 HS so there is no way to balace out that HS 20 with something on the other side. So now your center of mass is way over inside the big towed ship and all your engines do is spin you in circles. You have to mount that sucker on the center of mass line of your ship which means it either has to be directly behind you or directly in front of you Otherwise you need engine mounts that are both really strong and can seriously swivel in order to line them up on the center of mass and then it feels like your decks in your ships are on the side of a hill as the accleration vector is not perpendicular to your decks any more. The more I think about it the more I'm leaning toward the push configuration which would just take what you drew and put the little cylinder back by the engines with the big boom out front. Then if you had to move a big ship (>HS14) you mount a plate (to distribute the forces) at the front of the boom and attach it to that. The other ships would attach around the boom as you drew it. And if you just had a bunch of little ships it would just look like that anyway. The only problem really comes when you have to move anything larger than HS 12-13 as you can't really pick up another ship the same size to balance out the load so the big one has to end up on the center line of your ship to get the proper effect from the engines. BTW there is no front window anyway  so seeing out of it isn't an issue. It's all camera systems.Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
 May 7, 2008 - 1:26pm | I can't believe no-one has mentioned this aready - What if the Tug is made into a mobile battle platform or 'ad-hoc' battleship. Simply add a few modules, and hey presto, an instant warship! This could open a whole arena of modular designs, which could be adapted to the tug for different missions. What if you don't need a particular module? Just mothball it until the situation arises. |
May 7, 2008 - 1:31pm | Of course, this will also open up a number of anomilies; for example, what if the hulls differed ( reflective on the battle modules, but nothing for the tug), Shielding, damaged control. It could potentially make life complicated for KH. Life is never simple! |
May 7, 2008 - 3:10pm | I can't believe no-one has mentioned this aready - What if the Tug is made into a mobile battle platform or 'ad-hoc' battleship. Simply add a few modules, and hey presto, an instant warship! This could open a whole arena of modular designs, which could be adapted to the tug for different missions. What if you don't need a particular module? Just mothball it until the situation arises. hmmm, interesting, I don't think a millitary would go for it though. Battleships already are floating weapons platforms that are relatively modular (with in reason, just remove one similar sized battery and replace it with another). I have played with a weapons platform ship before which essentially was a engine platform, crew accomodations and canon...much like the german railroad guns of WWII..which I used for planetary bombardment in my campaign. But essentially they were offensive vessels only, mobile artillery if you will, and often were picked off by smaller warships during battle but could inflict some heavy damage to stationary targets before bitting the dust. I don't mean to rain on your idea, but I just don't think in my opinion that the UPF would waste resources on a lightly armored tug hauling around weapons systems. Generally I think this vessel is definitely more civillian in nature and would have millitary logistical support roles when used by the UPF. |
May 7, 2008 - 7:18pm | The more I think about it the more I'm leaning toward the push configuration which would just take what you drew and put the little cylinder back by the engines with the big boom out front. Maybe were over-thinking this -- what about different sizes / configurations to match up with HS categories. X class - HS 1 - 6 Y class - HS 7 - 12 Z class - HS 13 - 20+ I'm not confident a one-jump-tug to fit them all (and in cold dark space bind them) ;-) |
May 8, 2008 - 9:24am | You are right, there probably should be some variation. The problem as I see it is in the KH mechanics for ship design and engine performance. Another option is to make the boom removable. Then when you need to move a big ship, you just remove the boom and attach the tug directly to the back end of the ship. You can't take any thing else along for the ride but hey, if you just paid several million credits to build the ship, what's a hundred thousand more to get it to where you need it. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
May 8, 2008 - 11:57am | I was thinking of using multiple tugs to move large ships. They would clamp onto the sides of the larger ships and sync computers, then make the trip. Time flies when your having rum. Im a government employee, I dont goof-off. I constructively abuse my time. |
 May 8, 2008 - 2:54pm | Multiple tugs for larger ships, especially for one of Shadow Shack's dreadnaughts, would be more ideal than a "one tug fits" all approach. "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
May 8, 2008 - 3:12pm | Multiple tugs for larger ships, especially for one of Shadow Shack's dreadnaughts, would be more ideal than a "one tug fits" all approach. How about one tug per ship, but with additional "engine packs" or clusters of engines that get placed around the towed vessel. Time flies when your having rum. Im a government employee, I dont goof-off. I constructively abuse my time. |
May 8, 2008 - 3:23pm | Multiple tugs for larger ships, especially for one of Shadow Shack's dreadnaughts, would be more ideal than a "one tug fits" all approach. How about one tug per ship, but with additional "engine packs" or clusters of engines that get placed around the towed vessel. An engine with a magnetic clamp that is remotley controlled by the tug? Sounds cool - seems like it would need a special skill to place on a ship, kinda like the arm on the Space Shuttle. How are they hauled when not in use? |
May 8, 2008 - 4:23pm | An engine with a magnetic clamp that is remotley controlled by the tug? Sounds cool - seems like it would need a special skill to place on a ship, kinda like the arm on the Space Shuttle. How are they hauled when not in use? Either in a special cargo hold, or special clamps on the hull of the tug. I think I would set it up that the tug has a maintenance bay that can hold one engine pack. It could be stored there when not in use, but the main purpose would be to overhaul the pack. This bay would open up to space so a workpod could remove (or place) a pack inside. The rest of the packs would be stored in specific places around the hull of the tug with a shielded cover to help prevent excesive wear-and-tear while not in use. If the crew did it correctly, they could be doing minor maintenance on one pack while the rest are in use. Then switch out the "fresh" pack with one of the others on the next trip. It could be a logistical nightmare, but at the same time it might cut expenses when it comes to the big overhaul. Time flies when your having rum. Im a government employee, I dont goof-off. I constructively abuse my time. |
May 8, 2008 - 6:15pm | Not a bad idea, however, the tug would probably just attach the packs while in port prior to launch. However while in the field this maybe worth considering. However if the ship that big would probably have sufficent jump engines of its own as to not require a jump tug. Unless of course we are talking about a rescue of a drifting vessel. In those cases I would presume that a technician crew would have arrived from another vessel with repair parts to attempt to repair the ship. If we were talking about a complete breakdown or salvage of a massive capital ship then more than one jump tug maybe necessary for the job. Think of it in terms of a modern aircraft carrier, the Navy would probably try to repair the vessel at sea rather than attempting to tow this huge of a ship to port. If it did come to that it would require more than one tug and some outboard motors. My vision of the jump tug is intended for system ships, assualt scouts, the occassional larger ship break down, etc. With the limited jump capacity of his privateers' engines, Captain Rennik knew that he would have to contract a local jump tug opeator to complete the Run to Casadine and back to deliver his cargo. Captain Rennik glanced nervously down at the port schedule and tug fees "Damn parasites, with only one jump left before overhaul I'm stuck hiring a tug...man what a racket". The market for live cargo was a tricky one, if he didn't get these specimens to Casadine soon Rennik would be out more than a fistful of credits. Luck would have it, one privately owned jump tug was still un-booked and docked on the stations lower collar. "hmmmm, strange name for a tug, Fortunes' Smile, but what the hell if the prices right I'll settle for the dung express." |
May 8, 2008 - 6:43pm | heh heh. I have been watching too much Discovery channel lately. Most Dongerous Catch keeps going through my head for the last few posts. So I think of small crews doing long hours of work on the hull of the ship to be towed, while living in cramped conditions on their own. I also keep thinking in terms of modern tug boats. While I am not familure with them, I can recall seeing them moving huge ships around, sometimes 2-3 would be used to move one. Time flies when your having rum. Im a government employee, I dont goof-off. I constructively abuse my time. |
May 9, 2008 - 12:51am | heh heh. I have been watching too much Discovery channel lately. Most Dongerous Catch keeps going through my head for the last few posts. So I think of small crews doing long hours of work on the hull of the ship to be towed, while living in cramped conditions on their own. I also keep thinking in terms of modern tug boats. While I am not familure with them, I can recall seeing them moving huge ships around, sometimes 2-3 would be used to move one. yeah dangerous catch does come to mind gotta love Sig and the crew catchin them crabbies. Anyway, yes I got that same feel but maybe a little more industrial in nature and a little less fishy...lol |
May 9, 2008 - 6:30am | My vision of the jump tug is intended for system ships, assualt scouts, the occassional larger ship break down, etc. Exactly. That is what I designed to. The tug I made is really desgined to move a bunch of small ships around but can, if needed, even move a disabled battleship. It would be ugly but it could do it.The main arguement I see against using multiple tugs in Star Frontiers is cost effectiveness. It is cheaper to build an operate a single tug that can do the job than multiple ones. If nothing else, more engines = more cost regardless of the size of the engine. It's not realistic but it is the way the game is laid out. A Class C atomic engine uses just as much fuel per jump as a Class B or Class A atomic engine which are not as powerful and thus can move less. Not only that, the required time for an overhaul is also the same regardless of engine size. So if you have a bunch of little tugs all sporting the smaller engines they are going to use more fuel combined than the single tug with the big engines. Plus, since you have more engines, you have more total down time for maintenance (which has to occur more often as well), more costs for crew salaries, etc. It is simply more expensive. I like a lot of the ideas presented some of them could be incorporated into a new tug design. I encourage someone to come up with a "MK II" jump tug. No reason there has to be only one kind. I'd give it a go but have other projects I need to get finished. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
