Gigantic Ships - a design

Hello out there,

the following ship-design is my answer to the discussion of gigantic
ships and their problems. Its designed close to the German Traveller
rules, so I don't know, to which set of american rules it fits. Any comments
to the design a strongly encouraged !!!!!


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MC-01 Erkunder der Mark   MC-Y76169Z-009940-000000-Z    TG-15

price: 10,603,293 MCr (only primary hull, without tank-tender)

The Modular-Carrier (MC) "Erkunder der Mark" is a military ship designed
as a transport of complete task-forces with a tonnage between 80,000
and 580,000 tons over different jump distances. The Carrier has an open
structure. The primary hull has a displacement of 200,000 tons. Jumpdrive,
konverter, maneuver drive and crew quarters are placed in the hull together
with the bridge and the computer. The fuel is carried in AQT-Tank-tender.
These ships are especially designed as riders for MC-Carriers. They
have a displacement of 100,000 tons, 95% of that is fuel (for more
details see below). So every Tender carries 95,000 tons of fuel. The
Carrier is designed, to make a jump with the AQT's, then these ships
seperate from the carrier and get fuel at the next gas-giant. The jump-
distances and payload in different configurations are displayed in
table 1.
The advantage of the design is the simplification of the refueling
process. Instead of an ultra giant ship of 1,000,000 tons, only (max.)
7 ships of 100,000 tons take fuel. Someone calculate the number of
fuel-carry-flights to a 1,000,000 ton ship (jump-6 !!!) as 14.000 flights
with an average Modular-cutter with a capacity of 43 tons fuel. In
standard Spaceports this procedure will last about weeks, perhaps month.
In the actual design, the refueling of the AQT's isn't difficult, if a
gas-giant is in the system. In all other cases, the refilling is as
difficult, as the refueling of a 1,000,000 ton ship.


Table 1: Jumpdistance and payload

   Jump     #AQT-Tender    payload (in tons)

    1           2              580,000
    2           3              480,000
    3           4              380,000
    4           5              280,000
    5           6              180,000
    6           7               80,000

Mission-profile:

The MC-Carrier leaves the jump-space and enters a system. He releases all
his fighting-ships and aktivates his Black-Globe. Then it has to wait (A
Commander in Chief must not stay on board of the carrier !!!!!!!!!!). If
the carrier is attacked, it will wait until the jump-accus are full, and
then will enter jump-space. Normally the ship will open his Black-Globe
all hour to recieve informations about the combat-situation.
There are two major disadvantages of this mission-design:

1. If the fighting-ships, which have left the carrier, are defeated, the
   chance of escape is very small, because the carrier is very vulnerable
   to attacks. A rendezvous with the carrier is almost impossible.

2. If the carrier is attacked, he isn't able to defeate the attackers,
   because he has no offensive weapons. The only possibility is to
   leave the system by jump. For a jump he has to deactivate the
   Black-Globe. In this case, the other two force-fields are activated
   to protect from accidential hits. The time between the deactivation
   of the Black-Globe and the activation of the jump-drive is very
   dangerous, because the ship is very vulnerable.


Tank-Tender AQT-Class

These riders are especially designed to be the fuel-tanks of a MC-Carrier.
AQT is the abbreviation for Heavy(A) Tank(Q) Tender(T). Here's the USP for
these Class:

AQT-01.1 Tender-1 AQT-R3011654-000000-000000-0   TG-15

Price : 16,383.650 MCr including the designer-fee
  and   12,977.152 MCr for the other ships of this type

displacement: 100,000 tons


GR-790 Fuchs  GR-F206Q693-39770?-?9?J?-0     TG-15

Price : 10,147.10 MCr including the designer-fee
  and    8,037.28 MCr for the other ships of this type

displacement: 6000 tons

These r(a)iders are the primary offensive force on board the carrier
"Erkunder der Mark". They are normally attached to the carrier.
Because of the use of different weapons in these ships, the USP can
not be filled completly. A MC-Carrier will normally carry 6 of these
r(a)iders.

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That's all for today,

Good by,
  Juergen

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Everythink that can go wrong will go wrong.
                                              (Goofy)
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Juergen Kirsch
Institut fuer Informatik, Universitaet Bonn
Germany
[email removed]