Hi Guys, I can see where a heavy cargo hoist would be too much on a small ship like a J-Hawk, might work well on a 100,000+ ton mega freighter.. My idea for a hoist system was not the big ones you see at container ports or even the smaller vehicle ones that just drive over a container and latch on and drive off with, but something lighter. Just how big a container can fit through a 20 m2 cargo hatch. I'm assuming about 4 tons as you would want some wiggle-room so as not to dent the captains ship and have the captain hand the cargo master a bucket, a shovel and a tooth brush and be told to clean up after Betsey.
I pictured something like two rails running for and aft along the upper corners of the bay with a cross I-beam connecting them. Attached to the cross beam would be a frame that could be extended or retracted to connect to the top of cargo containers up to about 4 tons, at the corners. Or in place of the container frame, or addition to it, a cargo hook that cables can be attached to. So as not to take up cargo space I generally assumed the gantry took up some of the space devoted to air-ducts, piping and cable-ways under the second deck of the J-Hawk? I've always thought that 1.1 meters of vertical space devoted to air-ducts, pipes and cables to be a bit too much.
My reasons for the crane and gantry system are mostly that the J-Hawk is a tramp freighter. It stops at small ports and picks up anything from crates and pallets (break-bulk) to small containers, even live animals or plants. Some of the cargo might not react well under changing grav conditions. Wine could be spoiled, I picture a wine cynosure sipping turpentine and thinking happy thoughts about the shipper. It might be possible to have multiple plates in a cargo bay but what if some cargo extended over two or more plates, here I picture Betsey-the-cow with her front legs firmly on the deck but doing a high kick with her rear feet, soar milk forever, not to mention the flying "debris" as she made her feeling known.
I like the idea about light weight air-freight containers. I never gave them a thought but they would dove-tail nicely with a small ship like a J-Hawk.
I looked up the following skills as someone recently asked about them. They are of my own design for an old MT campaign that I dusted off for TNE so feel free to use them how you like. I put both skills under INT but I guess EDU could also work. Suggested carriers include Manager, Merchant Marine, and Trader, other carriers might again, might also work.
Cargo Handling: The ability to use cargo handling equipment like pallet-jacks and forklifts safely in restricted areas like ship's holds or warehouses. Also the ability to identify, ship, store or move various cargos and to identify them and their characteristics by markings and or numeric codes and the ability to use and maintain cargo manifests.
Has-Mat: The ability to move, ship or store hazardous materials safely. Also the ability to identify hazardous materials and their characteristics by markings and or numeric codes and the ability to use and maintain cargo manifests.
Roger
All of that makes perfect sense to me to fill out the details of the tramp
freighter campaign.
The 1.1 meters of ducts is just to make the math work out on the deck
grid. But the 1.5 meter grid still worked better than the T2K grid for
deckplans. Given enough time and practice we could have figured it out,
but every time I tried it I spent most of my time wishing it was a 1.5m
grid.
Given the choice I'd put Cargo Handling under INT because spatial
reasoning is more like native intelligence, and HazMat under EDU because
that stuff is not intuitive, it's learned knowledge.
What both of the skills remind me of is how much problematic
overlap-underlap kept working its way into the skills roster. Maybe one
way of looking at Cargo Handling is that it would also work for warehouse
managers. I think there is a legitimate place for it. If you've spent time
with furniture movers or people who pack moving trucks or storage units
for a living you notice that some people have developed a real utility for
"3D Tetris" that many people don't have. HazMat could be a cascade subset
of a Chemistry or Laboratory skill. And those last two I freely admit that
I don't recall what they are really called.
> Hi Guys, I can see where a heavy cargo hoist would be too much on a small
> ship like a J-Hawk, might work well on a 100,000+ ton mega freighter.. My
> idea for a hoist system was not the big ones you see at container ports or
> even the smaller vehicle ones that just drive over a container and latch
> on and drive off with, but something lighter. Just how big a container
> can fit through a 20 m2 cargo hatch. I'm assuming about 4 tons as you
> would want some wiggle-room so as not to dent the captains ship and have
> the captain hand the cargo master a bucket, a shovel and a tooth brush and
> be told to clean up after Betsey.
> I pictured something like two rails running for and aft along the upper
> corners of the bay with a cross I-beam connecting them. Attached to the
> cross beam would be a frame that could be extended or retracted to
> connect to the top of cargo containers up to about 4 tons, at the
> corners. Or in place of the container frame, or addition to it, a cargo
> hook that cables can be attached to. So as not to take up cargo space I
> generally assumed the gantry took up some of the space devoted to
> air-ducts, piping and cable-ways under the second deck of the J-Hawk?
> I've always thought that 1.1 meters of vertical space devoted to
> air-ducts, pipes and cables to be a bit too much.
> My reasons for the crane and gantry system are mostly that the J-Hawk is
> a tramp freighter. It stops at small ports and picks up anything from
> crates and pallets (break-bulk) to small containers, even live animals or
> plants. Some of the cargo might not react well under changing grav
> conditions. Wine could be spoiled, I picture a wine cynosure sipping
> turpentine and thinking happy thoughts about the shipper. It might be
> possible to have multiple plates in a cargo bay but what if some cargo
> extended over two or more plates, here I picture Betsey-the-cow with her
> front legs firmly on the deck but doing a high kick with her rear feet,
> soar milk forever, not to mention the flying "debris" as she made her
> feeling known.
> I like the idea about light weight air-freight containers. I never gave
> them a thought but they would dove-tail nicely with a small ship like a
> J-Hawk.
> I looked up the following skills as someone recently asked about them.
> They are of my own design for an old MT campaign that I dusted off for
> TNE so feel free to use them how you like. I put both skills under INT
> but I guess EDU could also work. Suggested carriers include Manager,
> Merchant Marine, and Trader, other carriers might again, might also
> work.
>
>
> Cargo Handling: The ability to use cargo handling equipment like
> pallet-jacks and forklifts safely in restricted areas like ship's holds
> or warehouses. Also the ability to identify, ship, store or move various
> cargos and to identify them and their characteristics by markings and or
> numeric codes and the ability to use and maintain cargo manifests.
>
>
> Has-Mat: The ability to move, ship or store hazardous materials safely.
> Also the ability to identify hazardous materials and their
> characteristics by markings and or numeric codes and the ability to use
> and maintain cargo manifests.
> Roger
>
>
>
On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 11:31 AM, [Traveller_TNE] <
> wrote:
> My idea for a hoist system was not the big ones you see at container
> ports or even the smaller vehicle ones that just drive over a container and
> latch on and drive off with, but something lighter. Just how big a
> container can fit through a 20 m2 cargo hatch.
>
Figure 4.5 meters square abouts, so a standard 3 meter square 4 dTon
container will fit comfortably through.
I pictured something like two rails running for and aft along the upper
> corners of the bay with a cross I-beam connecting them. Attached to the
> cross beam would be a frame that could be extended or retracted to connect
> to the top of cargo containers up to about 4 tons, at the corners. Or in
> place of the container frame, or addition to it, a cargo hook that cables
> can be attached to.
>
You are pretty much describing a bridge crane, which would be ideal for the
purpose.
>
> I like the idea about light weight air-freight containers. I never gave
> them a thought but they would dove-tail nicely with a small ship like a
> J-Hawk.
>
That is another thought, and simpler too. Many cargo aircraft have roller
systems as part of their cargo decks. In a lot of ways I like the aircraft
model for smaller starships.
Roger wrote:
> Hi Guys, I can see where a heavy cargo hoist would be too much on a small
ship like a J-Hawk,...
[snip]
I've got some notes about free traders and cargo containers in the Trade
Tables section of my website (in addition to the colour text in the
Introduction that mentions "break-bulk leftovers").
They're a bit tucked away, tho':
==> Tavonni Repair Bays
====> House Rules
======> Trade Tables
=========> Cargo Tables by Trade Classification
===========> Ni [i.e. click on the "Ni" World Type]
=============> Unprocessed Substances
===============> Standard Cargo Containers
The other thing you'll see in there are my Bulk Marine Holding Tanks. One of
the random trade goods rolls is live seafood, and how else are you going to
ship them? I'm sure Menelvagor Ltd would sell some to you at a fair and
reasonable price... (FWIW, they're based on real-world shipping containers -
albeit not vacuum-proof and space-rated, I'll grant you! - for live
seafood).
As for shifting stuff, I'm happy with using either Jesse De Graff's grav
forklifts (see the front of GT: Starports), or a lighter, smaller version
that fits somewhere in the corner of the cargo bay (deduct half-a-ton if
you're not feeling generous). Something like a grav version of those mini
forklifts that literally "fit on the back of a lorry":
http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/truck-mounted-forklift-8904937.jpg
Or maybe even a portable set of high-power grav plates that you slip under
each corner of a container - a high-tech version of the "ezmoves" furniture
sliders:
< http://ezmoves.com/>
(I can see the promos now: "G-Zee Moves, your high-tech moving solution. We
Make Everything Lighter Than Air!!!")
Yes, I'm the person who invented Tavonni's Vargr-owned long-haul bus
company, _G-Hound_. Yes, I'm the sort of person who tried to insist that the
Dragon article on "backpack-packing" skill ("...can fit in 10% extra into a
backpack...") applied to my 12th-level Ranger. (My DM just laughed and said
"no, by this time, EVERYONE in the party would be an expert"...)
And yes, "3D Tetris" used to be one of my favourite games. ;-)
----------------------------------------------------------
David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson ..at.. Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
My job involves a certain amount of "Cargo Handling", aka, loading furniture and electrical doohickeys into people's cars, trailers, and what not.
It's not "native intelligence". It's "learned knowledge".
Having to learn to do this was a very strong reminder that there is more to intelligence than the merely academic. I am, of course, the kind of person for whom walking and chewing gum is a challenge.
---In , <dcndcn13@...> wrote :
Given the choice I'd put Cargo Handling under INT because spatial
reasoning is more like native intelligence, and HazMat under EDU because
that stuff is not intuitive, it's learned knowledge.
What both of the skills remind me of is how much problematic
overlap-underlap kept working its way into the skills roster. Maybe one
way of looking at Cargo Handling is that it would also work for warehouse
managers. I think there is a legitimate place for it. If you've spent time
with furniture movers or people who pack moving trucks or storage units
for a living you notice that some people have developed a real utility for
"3D Tetris" that many people don't have. HazMat could be a cascade subset
of a Chemistry or Laboratory skill. And those last two I freely admit that
I don't recall what they are really called.
The trick, however, is spreading the skills across all of the attributes
so that they don't all stack up under Edumacation, which they too easily
could. So that's one more tortured rationalization to come up with to move
an EDU skill over to INT to keep things even. :-)
> My job involves a certain amount of "Cargo Handling", aka, loading
> furniture and electrical doohickeys into people's cars, trailers, and what
> not.
>
> It's not "native intelligence". It's "learned knowledge".
>
> Having to learn to do this was a very strong reminder that there is more
> to intelligence than the merely academic. I am, of course, the kind of
> person for whom walking and chewing gum is a challenge.
>
>
> ---In , <dcndcn13@...> wrote :
>
> Given the choice I'd put Cargo Handling under INT because spatial
> reasoning is more like native intelligence, and HazMat under EDU because
> that stuff is not intuitive, it's learned knowledge.
>
> What both of the skills remind me of is how much problematic
> overlap-underlap kept working its way into the skills roster. Maybe one
> way of looking at Cargo Handling is that it would also work for
> warehouse
> managers. I think there is a legitimate place for it. If you've spent
> time
> with furniture movers or people who pack moving trucks or storage units
> for a living you notice that some people have developed a real utility
> for
> "3D Tetris" that many people don't have. HazMat could be a cascade
> subset
> of a Chemistry or Laboratory skill. And those last two I freely admit
> that
> I don't recall what they are really called.
>
>
The trick, however, is spreading the skills across all of the attributes
so that they don't all stack up under Edumacation, which they too easily
could. So that's one more tortured rationalization to come up with to move
an EDU skill over to INT to keep things even. :-)
> My job involves a certain amount of "Cargo Handling", aka, loading
> furniture and electrical doohickeys into people's cars, trailers, and what
> not.
>
> It's not "native intelligence". It's "learned knowledge".
>
> Having to learn to do this was a very strong reminder that there is more
> to intelligence than the merely academic. I am, of course, the kind of
> person for whom walking and chewing gum is a challenge.
>
>
> ---In , <dcndcn13@...> wrote :
>
> Given the choice I'd put Cargo Handling under INT because spatial
> reasoning is more like native intelligence, and HazMat under EDU because
> that stuff is not intuitive, it's learned knowledge.
>
> What both of the skills remind me of is how much problematic
> overlap-underlap kept working its way into the skills roster. Maybe one
> way of looking at Cargo Handling is that it would also work for
> warehouse
> managers. I think there is a legitimate place for it. If you've spent
> time
> with furniture movers or people who pack moving trucks or storage units
> for a living you notice that some people have developed a real utility
> for
> "3D Tetris" that many people don't have. HazMat could be a cascade
> subset
> of a Chemistry or Laboratory skill. And those last two I freely admit
> that
> I don't recall what they are really called.
>
>