Subtopic	Posts		Updated
	Archive through March 13, 2021	25		03/14 01:49pm
	Archive through March 18, 2021	25		03/18 07:05pm

Let me say this.

I am not against a new variant of the Free Trader. I just want such a variant to make sense. Adding a couple of phaser-3s and a drone rack (something other than a drone rack for the Lyrans, Hydrans, Tholians, Vudar, Seltorians, and Borak, possibly a Plasma rack for the ISC, Gorns, and Romulans) just does not seem like a good idea to me. It also opens a can of worms that why not add them to all the other Auxiliaries and armed freighters. If you do not have a good reason to add this to the Free Traders, and not the Armed Priority Transport or the Federation express there is no reason to open that can of worms.

The Free Trader in its basic design has powerful engines (the only freighter design that can accelerate at warship speeds, even auxiliaries cannot do that even if they can disengage by acceleration). I cannot see keeping those engines if you are going to use the hull as a barge. By definition they take more maintenance than mere freighter engines. So you have to keep that in mind, which makes it not cost effective.

The engine refit that some Free Trader types got was to make them work well with the fleet. Rather than slow the fleet (or task force) down to their speed. But that comes at a cost of making it harder for those upgraded ships to disengage if they are moving slowly. An executive transport is not likely to be part of a task force, and does not need the engine upgrade, it is money wasted for no gain.

Again, I am not against doing things with the Free Trader, but they have to make sense. Even if in a niche market. The Free Minelayer had a niche, something had to lay minefields around bases, and it was faster than the Minelaying Freighters, WHICH DID NOT EXIST at the time. A niche. It was also faster than the minelaying freighters so it could patch minefields in a hurry.

The Free Q-ship failed because it was too fast, but it was a valid concept (however much I was opposed to it at the time, see, I can be persuaded).

The Free Trooper and Free Tanker took advantage of the Free Trader's ability to land directly on planets (not to mention the design had cargo hatches that could be modified to allow the tanks or GCVs to deploy). The Prospector was big enough for a small party to prospect and the engines let them run to avoid bad guys they could not (after all) fight. The executive transport had the same thought. So did the Free Salvor. The Free Traitor can run, but it was small enough that it might prey on merchants without anything special (not something a standard freighter could do and escape the police).

Again. I am not opposed to a new version or variant. But I want it to make sense in the Star Fleet Battles Universe.

By Jim Davies (Mudfoot) on Thursday, March 18, 2021 - 05:41 pm: Edit

What could the WYN have done with a Free Trader to turn it into an emergency warship? I can imagine that (early on) they'd like to keep the few they have to conduct trade because they'd be much better at making it through the wall than a standard freighter. But I can't imagine they didn't consider packing one with APR and guns.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, March 18, 2021 - 06:12 pm: Edit

Jim Davies:

SVC has suggested such a ship or ships. I have to admit that the design essentially eludes me. The armed freighters that the WYN have seem to provide what might be possible, but those designs are essentially a cargo pod conversion. The Free Trader does not have a cargo pod, so it would be more like a warship conversion.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, March 18, 2021 - 06:39 pm: Edit

In another thread...

Is there a needs for a civilian Survey trader version?

NOT a variant intended to mimic a GSC or a small survey freighter, but rather a small (and hopefully fast) vessel to confirm the government surveys of new planets, Star systems and terrain features. (Such as dust clouds, nebula, asteroid fields, heat zones etc.)

Billions or trillions of credits are at risk if a gove4nment survey has any errors.

In the real world Oil or other energy companies spend money hiring their own surveyors, geologists, technicians (radar, sonar ) engineers etc. to conduct their own surveys.

Most of the time the Government surveys are good enough... some times they miss key information.

Some times the reports omit key information as to just how easy (or difficult) it is to access the surveys.

By Jim Davies (Mudfoot) on Thursday, March 18, 2021 - 07:05 pm: Edit

That's not a bad idea. Lose 8 cargo, add 2 hull, 2 shuttles and 4 lab. Crew goes up by about 4 (including 1 or 2 BPs). I'd like to wedge in another transporter, but I'm not sure it would fit. The option mount could possibly hold a special sensor, but I don't think it's needed. A drone rack with probe drones would be more likely.

Corporations might like a thing like this too (especially in the Federation).

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, March 18, 2021 - 08:33 pm: Edit

Time wouldn’t be an issue, it’s peace time normally for the Federation for many years between year 125 (YIS date for free traders) and year 168. At non combat speed, the single trans porter would function fast enough.

At the risk of provoking Petrick with whiteitis, adding a second transporter to the right of the existing transporter should just fit.

I suppose you could do the same on the left side of the Free Trader SSD, though I am not sure just how a second tractor aids in Survey work.

I agree, a special sensor is not needed. It’s being able to deploy a team to the planet hex side to verify the geology, minerals, water, or energy resources (oil?)(geothermal)(solar energy)(wind ).

Definitely needs a probe or a drone rack with probe drones., though probably not both.

One shuttle however is a problem. I wonder if you could mount a admin shuttle on a Mech link?

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, March 19, 2021 - 11:44 am: Edit

Free Surveyor:

Generally I would think the small exploration freighter fills the bill.

I fear you have to give up the drone rack, because the ship has to be generic, and there are too many empires that cannot use probe drones.

Your crew is too small. Looking at the small exploration freighter, the freighter's crew would be one crew unit to start with. They have added three boarding parties (1.5 crew units), which means you have roughly eight crew units of scientists and surveyors and

With a Free Trader your starting crew is 2 (three counting the existing security team, and those engine are still relatively high maintenance for the speed). Four crew units for the surveying is not enough. Four lab is passably acceptable (the freighter has five), but for survey you do need the special sensor. You definitely need a probe launcher. Shuttles, two is kind of the minimum. But you are also running into a problem that you need cargo space both for supplies (spare probes to load into the probe launcher, spare parts because you are going to be out on your own for long periods, stowage for examples and things of interest, etc.) and cutting the cargo o just four boxes is not going to cut it for the mission.

By A David Merritt (Adm) on Friday, March 19, 2021 - 05:58 pm: Edit

Might a Free Surveyor be a good fit during the rush to find material for X-tech? Send it to "maybe" worlds to do a fast scan for limited stuff, instead of a full survey, the better engines being justified by the critical need, particularly once the Andro War is in full swing.

By Jim Davies (Mudfoot) on Friday, March 19, 2021 - 06:17 pm: Edit

It's a matter of what we think this thing will be doing. I don't see it exploring wide areas of unknown space on a Five Year Mission etc; it's to survey that system for minerals and flora and fauna, and to get there before the competition. So it doesn't need extreme longevity and huge amounts of supplies and I'd think that 4 cargo should be enough (a Fed CA has none).

I can accept more crew. Not sure how much hull you need for that. Warships seem to be about 2 to 2.5 crew per hull, so the 6 hull should be enough.

A probe is the logical thing to drop in to the option mount, though (for races that can do it) a drone rack with probe drones is more versatile.

Essentially, one is stuck with the size of the ship, and (for an MC 1/2 ship) it's quite small. 37 internals, compared to 50-60 on an average DD. Or the F-L with 76. Even an MC 1/3 F-S has 40. One wonders about the efficiency of the FT design. On the one hand it'll be cheaper than a warship with less packed in, but OTOH it doesn't need all the crew and redundant systems of a DD.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Friday, March 19, 2021 - 07:21 pm: Edit

If you are using a hypothetical Free Surveyor I don't think engine speed is the selling point. I think that it can land is the selling point. This is a follow-up mission to other survey units, not initial survey. There's unlikely to be anything there that you need to win a gold rush for, if the initial survey found something that good, well, the initial survey ship was a full up survey ship and RIGHT THERE. It won any such race before it even started.

Thus, the initial survey report was probably filed years ago, and your company is just working its way through the list of places you think look plausible. You're not trying to win a race for the McGuffin/resource, you're trying to solve a puzzle of where the McGuffin/resource is.

In any case, a conversion of an armed small freighter is substantially larger, and approximately as fast, but it can't land. I think that landing has to be the selling point.

So, why does a (followup) survey ship need to land for?

All I can think of is landing really heavy equipment, like a mining, tunneling, or drilling machine to check for something deep underground or a deep water submarine to check deep oceans. You need to be landing something that a mere heavy transport shuttle can't land.

The initial survey ship DID NOT have such really large equipment, so if it found something that needed such equipment to investigate, that's an obvious niche for the followup Free Surveyor.

So I'd expect most of the cargo to be converted to a really big transport bay.

The ship is then expected to support the landed equipment, using its special sensor to find good spots to investigate and moving the heavy equipment from place to place. And possibly letting the gear's operating crew live aboard the ship.

Convert 6 or so cargo to the big bay, 2 to extra hull for the enlarged crew, toss in a special sensor and probe, figure one shuttle is enough because you can land the ship in place of having a second shuttle.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, March 19, 2021 - 08:40 pm: Edit

I expect that some resources can not be exploited by transporter.

Geothermal heat exchanges require a heat exchange and some sort of piping.

Conventionally , you have two options. You use a bull dozer to clear enough surface material to lay piping on the same horizontal plane. Or you can dig a hole to deploy the piping vertically.

Either way, you need a bull dozer the size of an ARmored Personnel carrier, or a drill that can dig a pit deep enough and wide enough to allow separation of the piping.

Desert worlds may have subsurface water resources, but transporter exploitation may be energy inefficient. A well , pipe casing and a subsurface pump needs far less energy than a constant use transporter. (The difference between running a transporter at 0.2 points of energy 24 hours a day/ seven days a week, 365 days a year. Or the electricity to run a small pump which, at a guess might be 0.0001 points of power.)

Wind power generation resources need to be determined, but I haven’t got a clue as to how that process works.

Wouldn’t be surprised if you need a way to suspend sensors over a wide area at various altitudes.

Many other things that a free trader survey ship could verify might require special equipment not normally carried by a GSC or Survey freighter.

Particularly if it’s something *Special* tm

By that I mean something out of the normal events. Like dilithium crystals that can be hand harvested by just picking them up off the ground instead of having to break rocks.

Or, plants that exude palladium flower petals.

It’s things that haven’t been encountered before that need to be verified before spending billions of credits on establishing a colony intending to exploit whatever resources have been discovered.

I suspect that not only will the Free Survey ship need a larger crew of experts to do the actual surveys, but the Free Survey ship will need another Hull box, or two.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Saturday, March 20, 2021 - 02:58 pm: Edit

A thought about survey work done nowadays here on Earth.

There are some non-governmental organizations that do a great deal of survey/research/exploratory work. National Geographic and the Smithsonian are two that come to mind. Universities are others. In the SFU, these are the groups that might charter one of the survey freighters (or the proposed Free Trader Survey Ship).

If one of the big organizations didn't have enough interested personnel from their own groups to fill the jobs required, they often will offer the slots to grad students.

The exceptions are for REALLY small expeditions, like those with maybe two or three scientists. In the SFU, wouldn't most of those be filled with Seeker Skiffs with LAB in their NWOs?

For this reason, I'm inclined to doubt there would be a "Free Surveyor" class of ships.

Sad, too. I kinda like the idea...

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Saturday, March 20, 2021 - 04:35 pm: Edit

Douglas Lampert:

Survey does not necessarily need a landing, and the thing to be surveyed is not always comfortably near where a landing can take place for a ship, even one as small as a Free Trader. You might have to make do with a shuttle. Or maybe, I do not know, a transporter. Also note that a ship in orbit can sent survey teams down to multiple locations, while a ship landed is basically at one site (okay, it can probably support teams at different sites with its shuttle, but still.

Jeff Wile:

I do not think you are describing survey, you are going into development which is what the colonists will do, not the surveyors.

By definition, if the Survey freighter cannot do it (I will grant that this does not include the ability to land on planets, which I will concede seems to be a selling point for the Free Surveyor) the the Free Surveyor does not need to do it. If the exploration freighters can do it, then it is likely the Free Surveyor needs to do it. So far, that includes a probe launcher (and no, not a drone rack because the unit has to be generic. A special sensors and a probe (10 shot) launcher.

I cannot see these waiting around for someone to find something that is worth sending them to investigate. While their maintenance is no where near what even a small Survey ship (Hydrran Destroyer variant), if they are not out looking for something they are not earning their keep.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Saturday, March 20, 2021 - 07:02 pm: Edit

Steve Petrick: this might be a question for SVC. Until something is tested, you never know if it will work. It borders on deep background. The oil fields in Canada and North Dakota were discovered in the 1950’s.

The oil couldn’t be recovered until Fracking was discovered and put into practice.

Same thing with surveys. Until you actually test the conditions you do not know if something will work, or not.

Oil fields are discoverable. The quality of the oil deposits is not discoverable until you install a drill and pump, (unless the pressure of the deposits forces a geyser. )

Yes, some things are discoverable remotely. Some are not.

How could you determine the sulfur content? What is the viscosity? Oil from new fields flows better than from old oil fields. Older oil deposits need to be processed.

Same is true for metal ores and mineral resources.

Will these survey test bores be the same as that used by the colonies that actually put the resources into production?

Almost certainly not.

But just because you have a tricorder able to detect water 3,000 meters below the planet surface, does not reveal if there are micro bacteria present. Or if there is a trace contamination (arsenic? Radioactive material? Or something else never before encountered?

If you as project leader of a survey certify that the water is safe to use, and a year later 10,000 colonists settle on that planet die because you didn’t detect toxic contamination... how could that be a good thing?

ACME Mining Corporation will not be pleased with you if they spend credits developing mining facilities (and hiring the personnel needed to work the claim) only to discover that you failed to detect a detail that makes the resources uneconomic to recover.

Bringing along a vehicle mounted drill on a Free Trader/free surveyor is cheaper in lives and credits.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Sunday, March 21, 2021 - 02:25 pm: Edit

JSW, you got me thinking...

(... Aaand for me, thinking seldom happens... )

If the initial surveys show a world to have the potentials you're talking about, I believe the general response is to establish a GSO on the planet.

IIRC, there's a scenario where the GSO has a problem of the type about which you expressed concern.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, March 21, 2021 - 04:41 pm: Edit

JGA,

That would seem to be a planet with valuable resources, but current technology is unable to exploit it economically.

Might well be a case where the Corporation paid for the mining leases, then discovered it would be uneconomic as the technical process to exploit that resources does not work in this particular case.

The GSO might be a last ditch effort to recover SOMETHING from this boondoggle.

In other news, Captain Petrick and his Free Trader/Free Survey Trader WILL NOT be getting anymore survey contracts from this company.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, March 22, 2021 - 08:06 pm: Edit

A. David Merritt:

Re:Andromedan war Survey trader.

Perhaps.

I can not speak for S.P.P. But the Issue is different from what was proposed. The Survey Trader being currently discussed in this topic assumes that a “proper” survey has already been done by a legitimate survey ship. (Such as a GSC or a survey freighter.)

The Proposed Survey Free Trader variant is a non government ship paid for by a colony wishing to develop a “sister” colony, or a corporation wishing to develop a mining or agricultural colony.

The intent is to verify details of the governmental survey. Specifically, to double check that the surveyed world can support a colony (I.e. that there are no contamination that would render the world uninhabitable. For the corporation colonies (mining or agricultural), it is to verify that the resources are exploitable at a price point that is profitable.

A government survey wants to sell leases to mining companies for a limited number of years, sold at auction. The government will not mine the materials, so they have zero motivation to spend the time or resources determining how much it will cost to extract the minerals, metal ores or agricultural materials.

The parties bidding on the leases have the motivation to cost the project properly. Successful corporations do a good job. Failed corporations, not so much. The bid price of the leases reflect the costs.

Therefore, the survey trader does not need everything a GSC or a Survey freighter have to conduct a full survey.

Just the equipment and personnel necessary to verify those portions of the government survey most pertinent to what ever use the party wishing to exploit the planet.

If it’s a general colony (a sister to an existing major or minor world in the empire) food, water, toxins, dangerous flora or fauna, extreme weather or climate patterns (if the intended colony experiences annual monsoon weather patterns that flood all potential colony sites to a height of 100+ meters, the colony had better be able to survive living under 100+ meters of water.)

If the valuable resources are excreted by “sand worms” on a desert world with no local water resources, (a.k.a. Dune World clones) the company had better know how to harvest the product, and how to survive an attack by a thousand meter long sand worm that weighs in at the tonnage of a WW2 battleship,

S.P.P. Posted some thoughts, but there appears to be no clear agreement yet as to what exactly a Survey trader should be yet.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Tuesday, March 23, 2021 - 02:28 pm: Edit

I suspect that MOST survey freighters are actually private companies doing exactly what you describe. The military (Iguess) is just running the GSC/ SR etc survey ships on the edges of nowhere where their additional capabilities (combat) might be needed.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Tuesday, March 23, 2021 - 05:12 pm: Edit

When you say "survey ship" that would imply it has a Scout Sensor. I can see a FT-based ship used to explore and survey new planets that does NOT have a Scout Sensor, especially Y120-Y155 or so, give or take.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, March 23, 2021 - 05:57 pm: Edit

Garth, until S.P.P. Weighs in to contradict me, I will assume that the “full blown” Star Fleet prescribed Survey policy calls for a GSC level ship.

Generally, that means:
10 regular cargo boxes (NOT Orion Pirate 25 point capacity cargo boxes, but regular 50 cargo point ones.)
10 lab boxes,
2 probe launchers,
Special Sensors, the GSC has 4, I forget how many the freighter hull survey ship has.
8 admin shuttles,
3 transporters,
2 tractor beams,
2 warp engine nacelles (redundancy, one engine could fail.)

And enough trained “expert” personnel (engineers, scientists, geologists, etc...) to staff six independent teams for planet side surveys.

Other empires may have different requirements.

Simply put, a Free Trader is too small to complete the assignment.

That is why I am not calling for a special sensor on the Survey trader variant. Star Fleet records from the special sensors should be sufficient.

The planet side activities of these proposed survey traders, are insurance against any unexpected surprises that Star fleet might have missed.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, March 25, 2021 - 05:11 pm: Edit

Jeff Wile:

Survey, even if done by a Galactic Survey Cruiser, is pretty much just to see if a planet is capable of supporting life (some empires have a wide variety of life that opens more planets to being exploited, i.e., Earth Normal citizens probably would not like a planet that would be comfortable for Prellians. You might land survey teams by transporter or by shuttle, but you are not going to do any infrastructure improvements like tapping a heat source. Your teams are going to check out likely areas for an initial landing site, check for inimical species, or anything that would be counter to colonists surviving.

But basically once you determine a planet can sustain life, has resources that can be useful to the colonists (e.g., Potable water that is not subject to flooding) which can be determined by investigating the site. You are going to tag it and the colonists when they come will do the exploring. THEY HAVE A WHOLE PLANET to build their future on.

Does the Survey need to have a special sensor? Probably at least very good sensors (warship). But if you are planning to colonize you do NOT look at just the planet and say "okay." You are going to survey the system (Special Sensor is handy for that) to determine what the orbital period is and if there are any nasty asteroids on a collision course with the planet in the near (about 30-40 years I should say) future. Are there signs that another Race/Empire has been around?

You also have to study the star. Is it stable or prone to producing solar flares that can affect life on the planet? Or does it produce harmful radiation, or radiation normally not harmful but in such quantities that it will have a negative impact.

Planetary Survey is basically to determine if you can colonize. It may turn up resources that can be exploited right away, or may have to wait until the planetary population reaches the size to do the exploiting because the diggers are going to need time to grow up.

But even a planet that has little to offer other than good climate can be colonized by "get back to nature" cultists, if is is safe and that is what survey is about.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, April 11, 2021 - 11:01 pm: Edit

Cicadas.

Have (it is said), a seventeen year life cycle.

A Federation GSC looking for worlds to colonize would not detect creatures with such long life cycles unless they happened to be conducting the survey during the brief active phase of the insects.

If those Cicada like life forms have voracious eating habits (like locusts) the colony could lose both crops and even colonists (if these flesh eating Cicadas happen to resemble piranha.)

TOS had several episodes where dangerous creatures were not detected by such survey procedures as they existed at the time.

One was the Horta, another was the salt vampire. A third was that parasite that jumped from host to host... you know the episode where Scotty was accused of murdering the wife of a planetary government official during a lay over to allow the crew some r&r / shore leave.

Assuming that a survey will identify all possible dangers is clearly not possible given the background.

Sure, a free trader conversion may not do as good a job as a GSC.

Some dangers can’t be anticipated.

The City of Pompey in Italy clearly did not anticipate the effect of A major eruption of a near by dormant volcano.

But modern technology can identify terrain of dormant volcanos that erupted thousands of years in the past.

The city of Naples, Italy, is in one.

Yellow Stone National Park is in another. So is Manila, Philippines.

There was a dormant volcano on the border between China and North Korea. Last erupted 50,000 years ago. It’s now showing rising levels of activity. (Out gassing, earth tremors, lava dome growth.)

Some times, mistakes happen.

Just saying that a responsible business or government sponsoring a new colony would commission a survey before a colony.

Even Star Fleet makes mistakes.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, April 12, 2021 - 02:41 pm: Edit

Jeff Wile:

Your memory is incorrect in some details.

You are correct on the Horta, but incorrect on the other two items.

The salt vampire was the last of its species, it was a survivor of its civilization which endured some kind of collapse (missing one lifeform on an entire planet is not much of an error, but then we have had indications that the Enterprise was capable of tracking a single life form on a planet). It was intelligent, and essentially chose suicide (chose to make Doctor McCoy kill it by continuing its attack on Kirk in front of him), or made a bad mistake in understanding human love, that Bones cared more for Kirk than the Scientist on the planet did for his assistants.

The "parasite" that killed the dancer was not native to the planet it was found on, but had migrated there from Earth (who knows if it was native to earth or migrated here from somewhere else). It was also intelligent, and was known on Earth by various names, including "Jack the Ripper" (hence the reference to "Red Jack")

It is noted in "Prime Directive" (the role playing game) that some dangerous life forms are missed by planetary survey, some by virtue of various aspects of their life cycle (i.e., we are not unaware of such plot lines from Sci Fi Stories).

Humanity has ignored the warning signs of Volcanoes in the past, and it is only fairly recently that we have begun to notice them. But the resulting fertile soils in the aftermath of such events has caused us to locate near these ticking timebombs. And lets not forget the recent knowledge of plate tectonics and earthquakes. But those are phenomena we can apply to other planets we go to..