An Entry with a Bang: Non-canon Stories

8-12 million per colony would be barely enough to maintain a 1990s tech level let alone the 30th century tech level that Spheroids enjoy. They might be able to maintain a planetary garrison but not build or maintain a fleet of monitors. They'd have to import heavily from CEarth to do that. Those colonies are going to be contributing squat to any wars that CEarth engages in. Well, mebbe aside for food...

And being local resupply bases, even if just using stockpiled equipment from CEarth.

True enough.

I thought that this was the Non-canon Stories thread not the FTL comm/system defence thread?

Topics tend to cross threads quite often in here. Since it's generally kept on topic, or it naturally moves to the correct thread, we don't really argue the issue, and just let it happen.

I'd also assume they wouldn't colonise more than 1 jump from CEarth until the "First wave" Colonies had grown enough to support a reasonable defence establishment; in fact, the limiting factor on Colonies may be the number of Jumpships the CSN can afford to assign for defence/rapid response purposes - it's possible that the CSN may have a lot less colonies by the time the Clans come than your "split the difference" figure simply due to this factor.

I don't see any way CEarth's co-ordinates are going to be a secret beyond 3030 at the latest.

How many worlds are 1 jump from Earth in B-tech? (Terra)

That's how many.

Barricade always wants to put forth the rosy picture of CSN colonization. A better guess would be three colonies near CEarth, with numbers nearing 100 million by the Clan invasion. With another... I want to say million in space around CEarth, but a more likely starting number is 100,000 in various industries as a base guess (going up from there).

By the Clan invasion time, the CSN should likely have a small-ish O'Neill station, with plans to build more as their space industry keeps expanding.

Actually that isn't rosy. That's pragmatic. As I said, they could go for 80-100 colonies of 1 million or so per colony. That'd fill up the Grantville Cluster and likely several other star systems outside of it as well. However that would be a very dumb idea. It'd allow them to expand the most, but it'd be a nightmare to defend those worlds. Along with effective (read: large/fast) population growth at any one of those colonies would be rather slow going for at least 100 years, not counting an invasion from outside forces, local plague surprising the colonists, or internal socio-political issues causing tensions, etc.

They could go 'Fortress Grantville' and do the method you mentioned, of developing a minimum number of colonies to their absolute potential. From an economic standpoint, that's an excellent idea, as it maximizes the returns while minimizing economic risks. Population growths on each world would be exceptionally good, but it'd also likely be a bit of a burden on those worlds just from the sheer number of children under 18 you'd have to devote resources to. From a military standpoint though, it's a horrible idea. If you only develop a small number of worlds surrounding your capital, you leave yourself wide open to attacks from any/all directions you haven't expanded to yet. And even if you leave a small garrison in the worlds that aren't 'true' colonies yet, they're still just that - small garrisons. Enough to hold off pirates and last just long enough to send word back to Earth of an upcoming invasion. Because any smart enemy, once they realize how the CSN's government works, will do their best to bypass the colonies and go straight for Earth itself. They'll best preserve their fleets that way, and then can later on go back and take out the other colonies at their leisure after blockading them.

That's why I said cut the difference. 20-30 colonies would fill up between half and two-thirds of the Grantville Cluster (in canon, there are 49 star systems* within 50 or less light-years of BT's Terra, and those worlds have rough parallels with the ones that got pulled along with ClancyEarth). Each with a population around that of a large metropolitan (Earth) city, which is also likely going to be clustered fairly tightly together. If just 2% of the population is military, that's 60,000 personnel, of which, probably 20,000 are field troops, while the rest are support. Additionally, they're likely to have substantial orbital presences for both mining and manufacturing, which will greatly cut down on the need for large personnel pools in any one section of that colony's economy.

There are also enough colonies linked together one jump from each other, and not just one jump from Earth, that they form their own nodal defense points. This means that you can station fleet assets away from Earth (which has it's own benefits and disadvantages in doing this) as rapid-reaction forces, while Earth's main defensive fleet(s) can concentrate just on dealing with incidents one jump away from the capital. Since you have around 20-30 colonies, it'll force the CSN to build the RRFs in enough numbers to be able to cover most of them at any given time. The lower the number of colonies, the less the number of RRFs that likely will be pushed for (in the converse, if you build too many colonies, Earth and it's 'core' colonies, even with OWA help, just won't be able to build up enough forces to act as a true deterrent), so the 20-30 number is actually fairly optimal.


*

Code:

Rigil Kentarus 	3.88 	1 	TH 	LC 	LC 	FC 	FC 	LA 	LA 	LA 	RotS
Sirius 	        7.92 	1 	TH 	CC 	TFR 	FC 	FC 	CMD 	FWL 	FWL 	RotS
Keid 	        10.64 	1 	TH 	CC 	TFR 	FC 	FC 	CMD 	CMD 	WoB 	RotS
Procyon 	11.55 	1 	TH 	CC 	TFR 	FC 	FC 	CMD 	FWL 	FWL 	RotS
New Earth 	12.91 	1 	TH 	LC 	LC 	FC 	FC 	LA 	LA 	LA 	RotS
Caph 	       	13.05 	1 	TH 	FS 	FS 	FC 	FC 	CMD 	CMD 	WoB 	RotS
Denebola 	13.17 	1 	TH 	FWL 	LC 	FC 	FC 	FWL 	FWL 	FWL 	RotS
New Home 	14.72 	1 	TH 	CC 	TFR 	FC 	FC 	CMD 	CMD 	WoB 	RotS
Altair 	 	16.92 	1 	TH 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	RotS
Bryant 	        18.81 	1 	TH 	CC 	TFR 	FC 	FC 	CMD 	CMD 	WOB 	RotS
Dieron 	        20.17 	1 	TH 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	RotS
Carver V 	21.57 	1 	TH 	CC 	TFR 	FC 	FC 	CMD 	CMD 	CMD 	RotS
Fomalhaut 	21.82 	1 	TH 	FS 	FS 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	RotS
Yorii 	        22.87 	1 	TH 	DC 	LC 	FC 	FC 	CP 	CP 	DC 	RotS
Alula Australis 24.96 	1 	TH 	FWL 	LC 	FC 	FC 	FWL 	FWL 	FWL 	RotS
Thorin 	        25.07 	1 	TH 	LC 	LC 	FC 	FC 	LA 	LA 	LA 	RotS
Graham IV 	25.92 	1 	TH 	FWL 	LC 	FC 	FC 	FWL 	FWL 	FWL 	RotS
Asta 	        26.15 	1 	TH 	DC 	LC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	RotS
Epsilon Eridani 28.29 	1 	TH 	CC 	TFR 	FC 	FC 	CMD 	CMD 	WoB 	RotS
Saffel 	        28.47 	1 	TH 	FS 	FS 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	RotS
Chara 	        30.18 	2 	TH 	LC 	LC 	FC 	FC 	LA 	LA 	LA 	RotS
Muphrid 	31.64 	2 	LC 	LC 	LC 	FC 	FC 	LA 	LA 	LA 	RotS
Zavijava 	32.08 	2 	TH 	LC 	LC 	FC 	FC 	LA 	LA 	LA 	RotS
Oliver 	        32.84 	2 	TH 	FWL 	LC 	FC 	FC 	FWL 	FWL 	FWL 	RotS
Epsilon Indi 	33.37 	2 	TH 	CC 	TFR 	FC 	FC 	CMD 	CMD 	CMD 	RotS
Imbros III 	34.49 	2 	TH 	DC 	LC 	FC 	FC 	CP 	CP 	DC 	RotS
Northwind 	34.55 	2 	TH 	FS 	FS 	FC 	FC 	CMD 	CMD 	CMD 	RotS
Lipton 	        34.78 	2 	TH 	LC 	LC 	FC 	FC 	LA 	LA 	LA 	RotS
Outreach 	35.09 	2 	TH 	CC 	TFR 	FC 	FC 	CMD 	CMD 	CMD 	RotS
Zollikofen 	35.15 	2 	TH 	LC 	LC 	FC 	FC 	LA 	LA 	LA 	RotS
Pollux 	        35.46 	2 	TH 	FWL 	LC 	FC 	FC 	FWL 	FWL 	FWL 	RotS
Athenry 	35.97 	2 	TH 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	RotS
Styx 	        36.70 	2 	TH 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	RotS
Devil's Rock 	39.62 	2 	TH 	FWL 	LC 	FC 	FC 	FWL 	FWL 	FWL 	RotS
Nirasaki 	39.82 	2 	TH 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	RotS
Terra Firma 	40.79 	2 	TH 	CC 	TFR 	FC 	FC 	TCC 	TCC 	TCC 	RotS
Dyev 	        41.61 	2 	TH 	DC 	LC 	FC 	FC 	CP 	CP 	DC 	RotS
Capolla 	42.51 	2 	TH 	CC 	TFR 	FC 	FC 	TCC 	TCC 	TCC 	RotS
Menkent 	44.10 	2 	TH 	LC 	LC 	FC 	FC 	LA 	LA 	LA 	RotS
Pike IV 	44.55 	2 	TH 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	RotS
Castor 	        45.00 	2 	TH 	FWL 	LC 	FC 	FC 	FWL 	FWL 	FWL 	RotS
Nusakan 	45.32 	2 	TH 	LC 	LC 	FC 	FC 	LA 	LA 	LA 	RotS
Lyons 	        45.49 	2 	TH 	LC 	LC 	FC 	FC 	LA 	LA 	LA 	RotS
Sheratan 	46.55 	2 	TH 	CC 	TFR 	FC 	FC 	CMD 	CMD 	CMD 	RotS
Hall 	        46.77 	2 	TH 	CC 	TFR 	FC 	FC 	CMD 	CMD 	FWL 	RotS
Ko 	        47.95 	2 	TH 	DC 	LC 	FC 	FC 	CP 	CP 	DC 	RotS
Quentin 	48.08 	2 	TH 	FS 	FS 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	RotS
Talitha 	49.06 	2 	TH 	FWL 	TFR 	FC 	FC 	FWL 	FWL 	FWL 	RotS
Deneb Algedi 	49.13 	2 	TH 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	DC 	RotS

Actually there C-Earth isn't shy of space habitation, there are some more options. One imagines that systems with out a habitable world won't be colonised though, unless they find some pressing economic/military reason to do so. For an economic example, one discovers an asteroid with ridiculously rich Germanium deposits. Something that is most likely to occur in very young star systems where the planets haven't finished forming yet and thus many of the heavy materials are still easy to get at.
(Also younger star systems have access to gas clouds enriched much more heavily with heavier elements, so total germanium present in system will be higher as well)

A question on K/F booms. Do they need to extend down into the core of a dropship? Or are they a part of the hull of a dropship?

A possible work around to the necessity of building dropships with K/F booms and applicable to monitors is build a gantry like structure that has the necessary hardware to act as a K/F boom. Call it a K/F Gantry cage. I seem to recall having suggested this before.

The basic design would be a gantry like structure with four (or more) arms that a monitor would dock itself to which would then fold around and enclose the monitor in a cage. The cage would serve the same purpose as a K/F boom does for a dropship. The K/F gantry cage with enclosed monitor would then dock with a jumpship for transport to another system.

There are a few tradeoffs that occur to me that could be applicable.

-A K/F gantry would be limited in the amount of jumps it could be used for before requiring a major overhaul or scrapping. Say 6-10 jumps initially 40-50 jumps later as technology is refined. It would enable C-Earth to surge a batch of monitors to a point where they'd be able to confront an incoming invasion fleet or to reinforce the defense of a colony or ally. However it's range would be limited to the maximum amount of jumps an individual K/F gantry cage would be rated for and how many jumps it had already been used for.

-Attempting to use a cage beyond it's rated amount of jumps would result in bad things depending on when a component might fail. Each jump beyond it's rated usability limit would raise the probability of any of the following: misjump, K/F field abnormalities, (insert favorite spacers nightmare here).

-Monitors or any other type warship enclosed in a K/F gantry would be unable to use their weapon systems and sensors effectively while enclosed and be vulnerable to enemy fire. In fact you could have an incident in which a C-Earth taskforce rushing to reinforce a fleet gets ambushed in route by an opponent leading to the loss of various monitors still in their K/F gantries due to being unable to undock from them in time.

-Monitors or any other object enclosed in a gantry would marooned in uninhabited or remote systems if a K/F Gantry suffered a systems failure or combat damage in route. This being at least til a replacement gantry and jumpship could be sent to pick them up.

-K/F gantries would have to be designed to fit units of specific monitors classes. They can still be used to enclose ships or containers matching the hull shape of a monitor class. It would be a useful means for moving space station components from system to system or transporting a base ship for a bunch of asteroid mining tugs.

-Finally a K/F Gantry could be expensive say 1.5 to 3 times the price of an equivalent K/F boom. Cost would drop over time but still remain more expensive than an equivalent K/F boom.

KF booms are a magnetic clamp that has a computer connection on it. That's pretty much it as far as non-fanon goes.

They literally just attach the dropship to the jumpship.

The jumpship collar modification however is what makes a dropship possible, as apparently its what allows the jump field to form correctly in a bubble shape away from the hull and encompass the dropship.



Here's how it works IIRC:

1. The dropship docks to the KF boom

2. The dropship connects to the jumpships jump-controller computer and sends the jumpships computer its exact measurements from dimensions to mass.

3. The jumpships computer calculates how to shape the KF field and imputs it.

4. The KF drive is fired, and the computer shapes the KF field to exactly encompass the dropships. If they sent the wrong measurements in step 2, you are liable to accidentally leave behind part of the dropship since the jumpship might not know that its actually there.




AFAIK the whole 'KF conducting gantry/mesh' thing is entirely fanon made in order to try and explain the vastly inflated cost multiplier dropships suffer, when in fact that multiplier is just so you wouldnt make big dropships and to limit shipping capacity... Another one of those rules that exist to keep engagements small and favoring small battlemech battles.

The multiplier is so absurd that its cheaper to build another jumpship rather than just make a decent sized dropship.

IIRC its cheaper to build a small compact core warship than a large combat dropship due to the ABSURD multiplier.

:rage:*Head desk*
OK now that explains things...

Talk about arbitrary, downright idiotic and contradictory rules. Still if we have to work around the rules maybe using fanon is a possible solution...

fanon doesn't explain a lot of things though, so its seriously flawed too.

you can bet it doesn't touch upon volume changing the price at all.

It ends up with monitors and non-dropship large craft being incredibly cheap.







personally i would prefer it to remain with the KF stuff to remain entirely under the control of the jumpship and just leave out the whole 'KF conducting mesh'. Its unnecessary when the only thing that has to be done is to throw out the arbitrary pricing guidelines for dropships.



I actually really like the idea of 'primitive jumpships' making a huge comeback though. having a fixed jumpship size would simplify the jumpship greatly, meaning you don't need collars. Instead make the jumpship into a big enclosed space dock to park VERY large craft (aka dropships).

Primitive style jumpships using a modern standard core would be the perfect thing for the technologically deficient IS to start manufacturing to make up for jumpship losses.

How large could we build a 'primitive ' jumpship? Cause well I just had vague images of Dune in my head with a jumpship toting several hundred MILLION tons of cargo in one go.

guild highliners... it must be done.

If you read through the threads a lot of Crays 'reasons' get picked apart.

The least of which is that the KF boom is more or less invisible. Its an implied limitation that only exists within a few words and doesn't have an effect on anything else.


pretty much according to cray, a big dropship is 'better off just sticking a KF core in it' despite the fact that this would ruin the dropship and render it useless.

He's basically saying 'yeah... you have this cool 100kton dropship that can carry like 70,000 tons of cargo for interstellar shipping so as to make use of your jumpships actual capacity... but you are better off just turning it into a jumpship and using a 6,500 ton dropship to carry cargo despite this being a total waste of resources and being completely retarded... please don't pick apart this with logic' :wtf:

It makes 0 sense. It's an asspull, plain and simple.

The arguments on this mostly just end up as grasping at straws to justify the whole 'use tiny dropships or build warships, don't do anything else that could disrupt the carefully contrived balance we have going on here. We here at fasfa don't want to have to rework things to make more sense. Please also ignore how this also further destroys any possible hope of salvaging even a little bit of Fasfanomics into something excusable by making it so that we squander 80% of the limited shipping capacity by not carrying as much cargo as our limited shipping actually allows.'





EDIT:

In one of those threads Herb even admits its an entirely arbitrary limitation for game balance purposes.

You know what the argument eventually boils down to? The fact that the dropship is engineered to operate in extreme enviroments is the reason its so expensive.

They end up saying 'fine, so its "Because at the level of complexity needed for such a multi-environmental vehicle as a DropShip, let alone a large combat DropShip, it'd be easier to build a small WarShip, even if the WarShip was more expensive. A WarShip never needs to worry about operating its weapons in hypersonic flight, submerging them underwater, dealing with a howling dust storm, or any of the dozens of other considerations that complicate DropShips."'

Yeah... the simple solution is not to. To do all that is retarded 95% of the time. Those should be specialty dropships. They are basically saying that every dropship is built to the standards of being capable of extreme aerospace combat in every type of situation imaginable, even civilian designs.

Eventually they are made to agree that space only dropships should be much cheaper...

"That would be a useful way to cut cost multipliers for DropShips - make space-only DropShips much cheaper."







Lesson at the end? The cost multiplier is bogus, there is no reason to even apply most of it in 99% of dropships. The IS should wake the f**k up and start building 100kton space only dropships to multiply they shipping capacity easily by 10-15x.




Sorry if i seem confrontational, this entire topic is filled with so much Failure Is the Only Option bullsh*t on behalf of the BT writers it drives me insane. The implied misuse of such a scarce resource as FTL shipping done by the IS is cause for me to suspect that the Terran Hegemony managed to do a huge spin campaign promoting 'Wall Candy' as a health food for babies that still continues to be popular to the present time.

Hmmm.... the other option would be to either built a KF boom into a container "module" or to develop internal bays that could accept boomless modules.
The problem with internal bays is that the cargo they are carrying, the droppers, aren't built to match its contours. a module can and then you would only need some local tugs to move the module to an orbital station.

In short how can we turn Standard core or compact core jumpers into Container freighters. That should be something CEarth would aim to implement, of course, the question would be when, and the answer is not anytime soon.
But they will need to work towards it.

compact core jumpers would sent a message to C*

Oh, that's easy enough, if we want to do it.

Just check out Space:1999.

Modular cargo containers, and just enough "hull" that can open and shut - and when shut, carries the KF field.

Of course, when ejected, the containers will need a tug - and when you want to land the contents on a normal planet, you'll need some sort of drop ship.

Check out 21st Century Fox as well (the webcomic, that is.) Scott, the artist, likes to use DY-100's in the story, for the lolz, but depicts them with the original external cargo containers that are trapezoidal, to fit around the submarine-shaped hull.

I need sleep, tomorrow I'll go thru the 21stCF archives and find you one of Scott's images of a partially "unloaded" DY-100.

Ed.
(g'nite)

I see I'm not the only one with this idea. I've been playing around a bit with the idea of a scaled-up Eagle Transporter, tentatively called the Eagle Mark I. The rear consists of the engine block, containing thrusters, jump engine, fuel etc. The front with the distinctive Eagle nose, contains the command deck, crew quarters, grav deck, etc., basically all the stuff a jumpship's crew needs on voyages. It also contains a hangar bay with a number of drop shuttles. All two sections being connected by a spine running along the top.

The basic cargo module (and any other module you can dream up) slots in between both sections. It has maneuvering thruster assemblies that connect to the spine of the Eagle Mk. I, using its built-in thruster capabilities. Once slotted in, access from either engine or command/crew module is through airlocks (the modules are pressurized so only in emergencies do you need EVA suits). Otherwise, access to either module is through the spine itself.

It would be about 300 meters long at about 50.000 tons and be able to carry about 35.000 tons of cargo. The cargo module would basically be a massive single container, filled with standard-size containers. These would be transferred by the onboard drop-shuttles and any planet-side dropships available. Of course, the moment space stations are build in-system, the vessel would dock with these for cargo transfer, making its operation much easier.

Not being an engineer myself, I do think it would be easier to design something like this as a first, primitive jumpship. The next step up would be the Mk. II, basically being an even more scaled up version at 100.000 tons. The Mk. III would be a Mk. II with a collar, significantly reducing internal carrying capacity and probably doing away with the exchangeable module. The Mk. IV would be even bigger at 250.000 tons with a jump collar.

I'll be posting this to the jumpship thread as this isn't the correct thread for this discussion.

Okay, here's Scott's take on bulk cargo carrying, albeit in an as-of-yet STL universe.

First pic of a DY-100 with an almost full ring of cargo modules.



Second pic, the DY-100 being unloaded by small "pick and place" Eagles.

(pay close attention to the Eagle on the far left of the top panel)



Silly animal comic, and Scott does love his in-jokes, but the basic concept looks VERY sound.

Ed.

When can we expect the light of this to arrive?

I don't see anything, not even when copying and pasting the URLS to new tabs.

Huh. Came out okay in FireFox, running under Ubuntu...

Okay, link to main comic page:

http://techfox.comicgenesis.com/

Click on the "Archives" link on the left, go to the year 2003, and the two relevant comics are July 25 and July 28.

Ed.

Comicgenesis has a somewhat annoying system in place to prevent hotlinking. If you use firefox and have a an Addon like RefControl active it won't show anything. Thats at least the problem I had, dunno if it helps you.