Colony support pod
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
New Ships:
R01: GENERAL UNITS PROPOSALS:
Colony support pod
This pod is a combination of a cargo pod and a "passenger" pod.
So 20 cargo, 4 hull & 1 armor (anti radiation hull protection for when it's not hooked up to something with shields. It has built in power enough to run it's own life support.
1) Say you are running a triangle trade route between Coles Farming Planet, Petricks Asteroid Ore refinery full service bunkhouse & prospector truck stop, and Sextonia the Industrial world; each a couple days away from the others, you might have one of these on your freighter. (So you bring food and replacement crew to the Asteroids, tired crewmen back to corporate with some cargo, and then vacationers & finished goods from the Industrial world to Coles dude ranches, nude beaches and exotic skiing on his agricultural world. Lets you rotate crews, bring in stuff, and more. Transporters, control stations, tractors are all supplied by the freighter.
2) This is also useful to move "colonists" out to their destination. It's totally reliant on the freighter, so no one aboard can hijack the ship or get up to mischief. So you load up your "volunteer colonists" with some cargo, tote them to "Botany Bay," beam them and their stuff down (things like prefab houses, shovels, picks, plows, etc) and off you go...
Currently a freighter has limited ability to take passengers and has significant security risks if they are mixed in with the crew. By keeping them in the pod with no way to get aboard the ship except by transporter you eliminate a lot of issues and need to hire BPs.
Accommodations would be more like those aboard a USN ship than a cruise liner. Maybe you'd get an 8"x8"x8" cubicle. Potties down the hall, meals in shifts, etc. It wouldn't be so bad for a few days. I have lived in much worse (an un air conditioned tent in Kandahar in the summer, bunk beds 18" apart and working nights so I was supposed to sleep all day while sweating in my bunk) and I promise you that a private cubicle with a door, climate control, and lights you control is a major upgrade.
Mike? I'm probably misreading this, but it feels like this pod is meant as a sort of support unit for an established colony.
Wouldn't such a place either have a Commercial Platform (if not a Civilian Base Station) nearby and/or a Civilian Planetary Operations Base on its surface?
Over in the LUSV thread, you brought up the uninhabited rebuilt antique freighter idea for moving cargo between the Ore Refinery (a brilliant idea at first glance, IMO, but I do wonder about many nuts and bolts that my subconscious is using to try to turn me against it 
). Efficiently moving cargo on ITS schedule while Seeker Skiffs do passenger runs on a more people-friendly schedule FEELS like it may even be more economical.
Then again, that's just a gut feeling.
For those colonies just setting up, I have long felt like that would be a mission for some sort of survey freighter; likely one from the Y-era that has been seconded to that role. Tramp steamers (from R6) also come to mind.
In short, while I think the idea is wonderful for thinking outside the box, there are pre-existing elements within the game that are (unfortunately) ruining the wonderment of the idea. 
Mike Grafton:
Interesting idea.
I have to compare itto the published prison ship variant of the small freighter.
Might not be something a planetary government would use unless someone or some other colony offered to charter a freighter pod combination on a regular route.
Might work as a corporate world that is recruiting “colonists” who complete there sentences on a prison world… and the corporate world needs colonists desperately enough to offer free land to the excons looking for a freeride away from said prison world.
Might even make for a setting for a fiction piece as part of the background for a different story.
Well, it DOESN'T need to be convicts who are the passengers. The point is that currently there isn't really a cargo/ passenger pod or ship for those routine runs to and from low density worlds/ places.
This is a Pod. So "MS Mighty Wile" might rent or own one for a nice little route. Or the Klinks might use them for moving subject races around so there isn't any funny stuff.
Could be something else… such as refugees from a “failed” colony being relocated by some altruistic entity (federation of planets NGO or even a charity. ) There was a history piece that refered to a vessel named for Dorothy Day. In the real world there are dorothy day shelters in many cities to help clothe, feed and shelter homeless people.
I don't see a need for a specific ship. There are plenty of tramp steamers that do this. Or add a passenger skid to a standard freighter. Or a cargo skid to a passenger freighter. Or use two mini-pods, one of each type.
And no armor.
Mike: as SVC noted, the tramp steamer (R1.44) has a pod with four hull boxes and 20 cargo boxes (as well as a two-box shuttle bay), which certainly seems to meet the requirements of your proposal.
To be fair, mike did specify a separation between the pod and the rest of the ship for security considerations.
Lots of scifi stories (non SFB’s) concern mutiny scenarios, passengers taking over command of the ship they are taking passage on, even piracy.
Not sure if that is a direction for SFBs should, would or even could go…
But Mike has presented it as an idea.