I don't recall if Zero-G is a skill included in all of the merchant Templates, but it could be included in GF. That would work well with the idea of the zero-G room.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Sunday, June 19, 2005 - 02:53 am: Edit

Nick: Might the zero-G room hamper the ability to transfer cargo from the landed shuttles into the cargo pod? That looks even more complex than the roundabout methods needed to move cargo to the command module's shuttle.

Could the skid be altered slightly in design? The main skid would remain the tiny disk but the additional shuttle bays would stick to the side of the pod and extend back to connect with the forward most side docking hatch on the pod. That would make cargo handling between shuttle and pod very easy. The standard skid would have the same extension but kept mostly empty to ease transfer of cargo from pod to the skid's transporter room and to create a more appealing entranceway for passengers entering via transporter or docking hatch. (I envision nicer furnishings than would be placed adjacent to the sensor compartment hatch.)

One problem with this design is the shuttle extensions on the skid can not bump the warp nacelles in ballast mode. I don't know if there is sufficient seperation or if the shuttle extension could be made to rotate depending on operational configuration.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Sunday, June 19, 2005 - 04:13 am: Edit

Also don't forget that freighters can be configured to carry (up to) 4 skids and no pod, so the skids need to be configurable so they don't all interfere with each other

Sideways gravity in the skid is a great idea.

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Sunday, June 19, 2005 - 09:51 am: Edit

Transferring cargo isnt bad, you push the cargo box out of the shuttle, into the zero G field, rotate it, and push it into the pod. This is what cargo tractors are for, you know.

The only way to get cargo from the pod to the command pod shuttle is through the elevator system, so if you were doing that already, and if you assume the elevator cars can rotate themselves to orient with the skid, then it is no more or less difficult than what you were doing before: put cargo from pod in elevator car, move car to shuttlebay you want, move cargo from elevator to shuttle. If the elvator is doing the rotating, the cargo (and personnel) would never even notice.

If you had extensions out the sides of the skid that would interfere with balast mode and when you tried multiple skids as noted above. You could position them to fit over the nacelles of the engine pod, but you couldn't do multiple skids unless all the skids were different or only one had the extensions, probably not workable. You can't rotate them to any orientation becasue the points of entry for corridors and elevator shafts to go through the skid are not on the centerline of the ship.

Also, I remembered that the skid shuttle is supposed to be a heavy transport shuttle, even bigger than a normal shuttle, so you really need the sideways dock if you want to actually fit it in the skid. This is assuming that HTS shuttles are longer and wider but not taller than standard admin shuttles, I think the existing artwork bears this out.

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Sunday, June 19, 2005 - 09:59 am: Edit

Went back and looked at the plans for the freighter, actually the elevator doesn't go the the command pod shuttlebay at all. The only way to move cargo from the cargo pod to the freighter's shuttle is by hand in pieces through the spiral stairwells.

That must be why skids are so darn useful then, the HTS shuttle is parked adjacent to the cargo pod with easy cargo access through the elevator system or other means.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Sunday, June 19, 2005 - 12:02 pm: Edit

Nick: you could also modify the pod plans so they work better, you know ...

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, June 19, 2005 - 12:16 pm: Edit

This is true... I'd venture to guess that there are many layouts for pods. In fact, Nick could make a carrer of just doing pod plans! Oh, how I'd like to see a Battle Pod (of course those are used on freighters).

Still, I'd like to see the AUX done as well.

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Sunday, June 19, 2005 - 06:50 pm: Edit

Did you consider aligning gravity in the skids so that "down" was out, towards the outside of the skid? Wheels within wheels? Less surface area to grav-plate, and a natural transfer area from the keel of the ship to the center of the Skid?

--
JonB

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Sunday, June 19, 2005 - 11:13 pm: Edit

Jon, that still leaves the problem of rooms that are only 3 meters wide, not big enough for a HTS shuttle. The rooms are still shaped like elevator shafts, just shaped like donut rings instead of straight lines.

The only way to get a room more than three meters wide is to orient gravity toward the circular face of the skid.

You could do the other configurations if you just always had zero-G in the hanger space allowing the shuttle to dock sideways, but that makes maintenance harder.

Doing it as a circular room 40 meters in diameter is just so much more flexible when you try to divide up the interior, because you rarely need rooms much taller than three meters...

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Monday, June 20, 2005 - 01:10 am: Edit

I hope it will be possible to get a piano from the cargo pod to the HTS without disassembly.

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Monday, June 20, 2005 - 10:00 am: Edit

It's hard to get a piano from anywhere to anywhere else without disassembly...

If you were moving a piano by freighter it would be in a box or crate with at least the legs removed I would assume.

Should be no problem to have space to move a box of that size though.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, June 20, 2005 - 10:36 am: Edit

You could just ask me to change the history to 5 or 6 meters wide.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, June 20, 2005 - 11:00 am: Edit

D'oh!

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Monday, June 20, 2005 - 11:00 am: Edit

I thought of that, but it seems to me you quickly get to the point where the skid has an internal volume much larger than is needed for the systems shown on the SSD.

I have to try laying out some designs and see if the sideways gravity thing with three meters works, or if sideways gravity with 4 meters wide works better (a bit more space to land the shuttle and the sideways deck height matches the deck height of the pod and freighter), or if 5-6 meters wide with normal gravity and 10 decks in the skid works or is too big of a space.

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Monday, June 20, 2005 - 11:01 am: Edit

Plus I sort of assumed that the history was fixed once published.

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Monday, June 20, 2005 - 11:01 am: Edit

Maybe I can get some different designs done to bring to Origins...

By Andrew C. Cowling (Andrew) on Monday, June 20, 2005 - 11:23 am: Edit

SVC could tell us that a skid is really twenty or thirty metres thick, and my mind would not boggle. (As a typical freighter or freighter variant pod has around 24-28 system boxes, I was somewhat surprised that an add-on occupying only 1/30th the volume of a cargo pod could accomodate 1/4 of the systems, even given that not all system boxes require equal volume.)

Nick, perhaps some of the 'excess' volume is occupied by additional fuel storage, or extra life support systems?

By David Kass (Dkass) on Monday, June 20, 2005 - 11:32 am: Edit

Given that pods are often loaded/unloaded while detached from a freighter, I always assumed they had large hatches on the side that were used for such operations (essentially one side of the pod would fold away). Thus cargo wouldn't be transferred from the shuttle in the shuttle bay into the pod, but from the shuttle floating in space (or on the planet's surface) to the pod. The same hatches could be used while the pod is attached to the freighter for larger objects.

Delicate and special cargo obviously might need special handling (eg those cases of 20 year old Bordeaux).

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, June 20, 2005 - 01:12 pm: Edit

Does the skid HAVE to be perfectly round?

How about:
..______
./..........\
||..........||
.\______/.

I don't know if this will shape up for others but basically it is a circle with the top and botom cliped off. The Command module would still fit, it could be deeper AND wouldn't have too much volume.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, June 20, 2005 - 01:16 pm: Edit

Maybe cargo pods have access doors on the front and back so the deck space on the skid is arrainged in a german cross shape and the space between allows for docking to the front four cargo doors.

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Monday, June 20, 2005 - 02:21 pm: Edit

Doing a thicker one with the top and bottom cut off could work. The problem is the attachement points. The pod is round, and the freighter command pod while not round itself does have a big giant "plate" on the back side that is round in order to attach to the pod. With an oddly shaped skid you aren't using all the attachement points making for a weaker structure.

I did finish a quick design on the computer of a lash skid with my original idea of the sideways gravity. It works pretty well I think. There are two passthroughs you need. There is one place where the elevator car goes from the command pod to the cargo pod. It passes through very nearly (but not exactly) on the centerline of the pod. There is one hatch off center port side for personnell to pass from the freighter to the pod. It is a small hatch in the freighter side and enters into a small hatch in a cargo hold on the pod side.

I changed the hatch on the cargo pod side to a big door attaching to a big door on the back of the skid, the front of the skid has a small hatch to line up with the small hatch on the freighter. Without the skid you have a little door (freighter) matching up with a big door (pod), but no problem, the big door can have a little door built into it.

The Lash skid has a phaser, APR, double size shuttlebay, and three transporters. The "floor" of the skid is the back wall, so down is toward the aft end of the freighter/pod combo. There is enough space for the elevator car to rotate, and two positions in the skid for cars to stop at. The phaser is at the "top" of the skid for 360 degree firing arc. There is a phaser control room. The bottom of the skid has the reactor.

The starboard side has the shuttle bay with the HTS shuttle and enough room for it to turn around, work on it, and load/unload it, this side also has the shuttle control room, life support, shuttle supplies. There is a place for shuttle fuel, and fuel for the APR. There is a cargo transfer corridor (large) from the port side to the starboard side running "under" the elevator pass through. It connects the starboard side shuttle bay to the port side (through hatches, airlocks, etc) where the personel hatch is. The small hatch goes forward (which is up from the point of view of someone in the skid) to the freighter, the large cargo hatch goes aft to a cargo hold on the pod (going down through the floor from the point of view of someone in the skid). The rest of the space on the port side is open with several large cargo transporters and a personnell transporter. There is a small internal cargo tractor beam that runs along the large transfer corridor, so a cargo box coming from the pod comes up through the "floor" of the skid, is caught by the tractor, can be placed on a transporter, or moved along the large corridor to the shuttle bay. Reverse the process to load cargo into the pod.

There is plenty of space for all of this, not too much.

I haven't done a general skid, but it would be easy to do and would also have plenty of space for all the stuff shown on the SSD.

Now I need to try a design with the gravity normal, 10 decks (unless I lop of the top and bottom as suggested above), but a thicker skid (probably needs to be 5.5-6 meters wide, twice the original skid thickness, to land the HTS shuttle). I will try some different things and see if it works better than the sideways version (but I like the sideways version...)

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, June 20, 2005 - 02:55 pm: Edit

POSTED IN ANOTHER TOPIC BUT A COPY POSTED HERE AS IT SEEMS GERMANE TO THE DISCUSSION:

As to the Skid. SVC designed the LASH skid, and the design included an HTS shuttle. There is no way that an HTS shuttle would be present in the skid if it was not possible to load cargo into it, and for it to take off and land back aboard. Since it is a two-space shuttle, there is no way it can have cargo loaded onto it by landing in the freighter's normal shuttle bay, as doing so would automatically make that bay "overcrowded" even if the normal Admin shuttle was not present (J1.646), and cargo cannot be loaded on a shuttle in an overcrowded bay (G25.222). And having the shuttle dock externally for the purpose of transferring cargo would take ridiculously long and inefficent time (C13.983). So it must be capable of having cargo loaded onto it while in its bay in the skid.

All this means is that the bottom deck of the shutle bay of the Skid is level with one of the decks of the pod, and there is a hatch that connects from the pod to the shuttle bay so that cargo can be moved from that deck directly onto the shuttle. Cargo from other decks would, of course, have to be brought down (or up) to that particular deck, and this is one of the things the crew does while en route from one planet to another, i.e., marshall the cargo for unloading at the next planet.

"Move the 15 pallets/containers of Garbonzo beans that we brought up from planet Zenon which we are leaving to a space on Deck #9, back section. Move the four pallets of type-I drones for the planetary Defense forces of Planet Yezdegerd VI on Deck #2, front section, down to the staging area for transfer to the planet, and then bring down that pallet of Scotch from Deck #1, mid section to the staging area, and . . ."

And so it goes.

What? You thought the crew just sat on their thumbs occassionally trading duty shifts as they flew between planets?

Yes, actually, sometimes they do. That freighter that is moving an entire cargo pod of raw materials to Klinshai's orbit is going to leave the whole pod and pick up a new pod. All they need to be able to do is go through the customs and security and run a verification of the cargo they are dropping off in that pod (or pods if they were a large freighter), then clamp onto a pod of finished goods heading out to the colonies and away they go.

And sometimes when they are marshalling cargo they aer not marshalling it for the HTS to land, but are going to a more settled colony with a Commercial Platform to which they will dock and more speedily (due to the greater automation and the fact that they will not need to offload and load the shuttles) move their pallets onto the Commercial Platform, load their outgoing cargo the same way, and be merrily on their way.

But by definition the Skid has to allow for the efficient operation of both the HTS shuttle (as do the Ducktails) and allow cargo to throughput to the docking ports and out to whatever the freighter is docked to.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Monday, June 20, 2005 - 03:31 pm: Edit

I'd say that settles that issue; 5-6 meters it is.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, June 20, 2005 - 04:49 pm: Edit

Maybe 3m is the gun skid and 6m is the lash skid?

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Monday, June 20, 2005 - 05:48 pm: Edit

I've done a 3 meter lash skid design, and I will do a 6 meter lash skid design, and you can decide which is "right".

Going to do a ducktail engine module too of course, but no problems there.