Johannes replied to me: > [...] I don't have the impression, that the Falcon needs a > dedicated onboard mechanic, for routine operations. Even if i am wrong > here regarding star wars, there is the option to have freighters need > mechanics only in situation, that are not expected to happen to a ship, > without pcs on it.
Hello Johannes, my impression from a couple of Star Wars paperbacks was that the Falcon used seriously overstressed engines and power systems, and required plenty of maintenance. The default tramp freighter or smuggler crew was a captain and a first mate -- one hotshot pilot/gunslinger and one generalist. > Any crewmember might get in conflict with the captain and start > questioning him. Provided there is FTL communication, they could call some > higher authority in hope that this higher authority gives orders to the > captain. This makes a different feel from a scenario where the captain is > absolute ruler of his ship. A couple of questions in there. * Would FTL communications work while the starship is in hyperspace, or just during the (infrequent?) stops for navigation? In that case, what could a random crewman do to get access to limited bandwidth? Are we talking about internet in the 2010s or wireless in the 1910s? An extreme case is the Alien setting, where crew and passengers sleep through the flight anyway. The only place to complain is in port. * Who can legally order the captain of a starship? Is the ship running under the flag of some world, or could it be 'independent'? Especially if it has been flying for a couple of generations. I'm thinking of C.J. Cherryh's Alliance/Union universe, where the big freighters were legally equivalent to the sovereign star stations. * Can any warship investigate crimes on any civilian ship, or do worlds insist that they alone police the civilian ships under their flag? Compare universal jurisdiction questions in the real world. I'm working on 100-ton "stock light freighters" right now. TL Payload Occupancy Accel Hyperdrive 10 20 tons 6 1.2 G 0.24 pc/day 11 52 tons 4 2 G 1 pc/day 12 25 tons 4 2 G 1.2 pc/day 13 62 tons 4 2 G 2 pc/day 14 52 tons 4 4 G 2.4 pc/day 15 ? ? ? ? 16 52 tons 8 2.5 G 3 pc/day In 3E, FTL commo is prohibitively heavy for the ships I had in mind. The short-range FTL com is 125 tons and a mere 0.1 parsec. Even for a 3,000-ton ship, a FTL communicator would really cut into the payload. At 10,000 tons, maybe. The 100-ton ships are designed for surface landing in rough frontier spaceports. Maybe the 10,000-ton design could be a container carrier that stays in space, at least most of the time. > And if you in principle have the ability to transport live animals as > cargo, you can add passangers or additional crewmembers as well, as custom > modification for one ship, or just for one trip. I would assume, that > doing that being easy, would be the default. The question is life support. At TL10, extra life support really eats into the payload, which isn't great to start with. By TL11, it becomes much more feasible. > It might not be ecconimically > sensible to do it, or it might give you problems with some authorities > though. Say the law says triple redundancy on the life support. A lawless freighter could carry triple passengers, then. Regards, Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
