Mike wrote: > How about hyper-tugs? > > Pull another ship or enclose another ship in it warp/jump field and take > them back for repairs? > > Mike
Hello Mike, that depends on the assumptions of the background. In some settings, the FTL drive only works on the volume enclosed by the hull. One example would be Traveller with the lanthanum grid, where a jump tug would have to use a "web" to cover the load (that's the classic LBB style). In other settings, the FTL drive takes any mass near the ship along, with possibly dangerous consequences if there is junk nearby. Take CJ Cherryh's Alliance/ Union universe. Two weeks ago, I posted the Light Transport Mk.VII, which uses tractor beams and a shaped force screen to tow external loads, but from the lool-and-feel it was closer to the CH-54 Tarhe than to a tugboat. A couple of my 30,000-ton freighters (coming soon to a mailing list near you) haul containers, and at the first glance, a ship tug and a container tug are similar. Thinking about it more closely, there are a number of differences: * A container transport will probably tow multiple smaller loads. I wrote ships with one 20,000-ton container, ten 2,000-ton containers, or forty 500-ton containers. The container transport can balance the load around the axis of thrust, the ship tug might have to cope with unbalanced loads. * Containers are standardized shapes, ships probably not. Does the ship even have an attachment point that will hold the stress of maneuvering? * Container ships will probably carry stable and well-documented loads. A ship tug might be called for salvage and rescue, with unstable loads and unknown conditions. * Range and endurance could go either way. If there are no FTL radios, or if they are too big for the usual ships, there is little interstellar rescue. I would probably give the tug one grapple or tractor beam instead of many small ones, extra power and vectored thrust, extra workshops, good medical facilities, and plenty of life support reserves. Regards, Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
