When it comes to the Intruder, just how big are the hangars supposed to be, relative to the size of the ship itself?

If you look at, say, a Seltorian Hive or Nest Ship, the bays are mounted so as to open out to space; and the sheer amont of volume required to hold a ship in each bay makes even the smaller of the two a truly massive vessel in its own right. (The weapons and power systems used in each bay when in Battlewagon configuration presumably have some sort of structural limitation, that only allows as many of each to be fitted per size of bay as we can see on the SSD.)

For an Andromedan Mothership, how do things work out instead? Since there is no need for a set of doors to allow for launch and recovery, and a relatively saucer-like shape to the Satellite Ships to be held within each hangar bay, one could imagine the need for less "empty" volume within each hangar space; or in other words, the SatShips might fit more "snugly" than Selt ships do in a Hive Ship's more "normal" bays. But that would still ask for a lot of internal volume to be turned over for hangar bay use; which may raise a few follow-on questions if you then factor in variants that take the amount of hangar space one way or the other, like the Infestor or Imposer.

Unless the hangars are kind of like a TARDIS; in that the bizarre workings of Andro tech, such as they are, allow them to be "bigger on the inside"?

(This would also be useful to figure out for miniature purposes, if/when the time comes for the Andromedans to be considered for addition to the Starline 2500 range. Would each class of Mothership mini have to be scaled so as to leave enough interior volume for its variant with the largest hangar space to be able to fit all of its SatShips at once; or would the Motherships and SatShips have to be done in separate scales; or does some sort of mind-bending Andro trickery allow for each hangar to be smaller than anyone else can understand, let alone try to account for?)

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Monday, September 03, 2012 - 08:15 am: Edit

I have always assumed the hangers are bigger inside. This is just a small scale use of a temporal elevator which we know can make a given volume of space (one hex) contain a larger volume (several hexes) temporarily. The use inside the hangars is a much much smaller volume increase, and is self contained, and so can essentially be on all the time.

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Monday, September 03, 2012 - 08:37 am: Edit

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Quote:

This is just a small scale use of a temporal elevator which we know can make a given volume of space (one hex) contain a larger volume (several hexes) temporarily.

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By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, September 03, 2012 - 11:30 am: Edit

Andro bays: I think they are near perfect fits for whatever it is designed to carry with no room to move which is why they use transporters.

Andro hulls may have less crew space than Alpha ships because of the space for the bays (ship and shuttle) but that hull is more durable so the box count on the SSD is what it is. Orion cargo is proof that an SSD box is not a volumetric thing but a durability thing.

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Monday, September 03, 2012 - 12:00 pm: Edit

Terry, to my mind that really amounts to the same thing.

By Matthew Potter (Neonpico) on Monday, September 03, 2012 - 12:29 pm: Edit

Moving something a couple minutes (actually, a few seconds comes to the same thing) away in time wouldn't help you. Temporally displacing something means it still has the same volume, and that volume must be accounted for.

I favor the idea that the sat-ships fit very, very snugly in the hanger. One might say that the various-sized sat ships share the same height or diameter dimension and only vary the other way. (for example: all cobra and mamba variants have the same height, while vipers are half the height; letting them be stacked in the same volume as a Mamba)

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Monday, September 03, 2012 - 01:03 pm: Edit

Andro Crew Space is something of a mystery, so it is wisest not to make any assumptions.

No sane person has ever seen an Andromedan, but just their robots, Until the time comes for the Steves to reveal what an ethnic Andro looks like.

I've been waiting years to find out and have stopped holding my breath.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, September 03, 2012 - 01:36 pm: Edit

I think the more immediate question is how many living crew are there?

Then there is the level of autonomy of the robots.

I've sort of imagined that Andro ships have very few living crew, perhaps, at most, the same number of top officers on Alpha starships and that they have something similar to a telepathic control of the robots (perhaps a cybernetic style link).

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, September 03, 2012 - 01:39 pm: Edit

If you wanted to dodge the issue of who/what the Andro "crew" are, you could say that parts of the Intruder deck plans are "redacted"; not necessarily due to them being highly classified, but more that no-one has been able to understand how those sections of the ship actually work. (Or you could say that certain sections are simply missing from the data tapes, for reasons unknown.)

So, the decks and rooms you do see are the ones which are operated by Andro robots (to include the simulacrum robots mentioned in the Rimworld fiction story).

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, September 03, 2012 - 02:11 pm: Edit

So, how am I supposed to run an Andro character with that?

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By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, September 03, 2012 - 05:02 pm: Edit

Also, if there is room for notes on any of the Intruder's variants, could one be added for the Incisor from Module C3A? (Perhaps based on records brought back from the alternate universe by the Darwin.)