One way to deliver the explosive on target (assuming the target is basically stationary) would be to simply release it while moving relative to he target. Motion is relative in space so releasing the cargo container of boom is literally identical to a normal release, it's just going to cross paths the the target at some predetermined time.
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The real kicker for Trek space mines is that with all its technoabble it shouldn't be hard to accept that we could do shaped explosions on these high yield devices. TNG Photon torpedoes are ~50 MTs and we can do that today, but if we could focus that into a hemisphere or even a 90 degree cone you need a lot less boom to do the same job.
Godwinson
"Well, I've got nothing."
That handily settles my opinion, then.
[X] Loading Deck (4 Engineering, 16 Type-F Shuttlecraft, 6 Cargo]
- Location
- EcksEcksEcksEcks
[X] Loading Deck (4 Engineering, 16 Type-F Shuttlecraft, 6 Cargo]
And with that clarification by the qm I have made my choice, though I don't think there are wrong choices here.
And with that clarification by the qm I have made my choice, though I don't think there are wrong choices here.
The issue is that an antimatter warhead wouldn't be any worse at being focused and it's I think there's some suggestion in quest canon that they already do this. But more broadly if really big torpedo were desirable there doesn't seem to be too much standing in the way. A ships antimatter pods already have a huge amount of explosive potential and it's easy to imagine just making an Impulse driven missile similar to a shuttle.
[X] Loading Deck (4 Engineering, 16 Type-F Shuttlecraft, 6 Cargo]
- Location
- Fort Worth, TX
[X] Loading Deck (4 Engineering, 16 Type-F Shuttlecraft, 6 Cargo]
Teleporters might be critical mission gear with our cargo pod. Essentially pulling things out if we need it in a hurry.
If such a thing were practicable then Sayle would have mentioned it in their clarification post. Ergo it is not, at least with current generation cargo storage methods and transporters.
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Okay, that is actually worse than even my most pessimistic estimate, I assumed there would be like, a turbolift or at least a series of turbolifts going to the entryway where the pod connects to the ship. Even if it required people physically going with a low loader or something and was fairly cumbersome. Needing to EVA just to access your only cargo storage instead of designing around it is actively insane.
[X] Loading Deck (4 Engineering, 16 Type-F Shuttlecraft, 6 Cargo]
Still, thank you for answering, that's a great demonstration of why it's always good to ask! Mea culpa for having been completely wrong. 😅
If you've ever interacted with a shipping container you'd see the problem really. People pay by cubic foot, even if that space is empty, so they literally pack the containers to the very top. When I load containers for export if there's an inch on the top left we put in small things like chainsaw blades or anything that's less then a few inches high just to cram a few more dollars into the container.
They are not meant to be accessed enroute basically.
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To be fair, there is a turbolift going down to the docking point. Though in retrospect I should've realised that it was just going down to docking control rather than continuing off into the cargo pod (since it lacks any real detailing).
That's a fair point, but I think the requirements for a military ship - especially an engineering and logistical support ship which is meant to build stuff, help out other ships, etc. - are different than for a pure cargo freighter?
Like I would have assumed that say, 7/8ths of the pod was essentially packed bottom-to-top with cargo containers, whilst let's say the 1/8th closest to the attachment point with the ship would have more easily accessible cargo like spare parts, as well as giving you a limited ability to grab specific cargo containers from the back, if you need to get the container of seeds for Rigel IV or something. To a certain extent this ship isn't just mean to be like a modern containerised cargo ship, in a lot of instances it has to replicate the functions of the port that unloads the cargo containers, and the factory that then assembles the stuff brought off the ships.
Needing to open the back of the pod every time you want to crack open a barrel of widgets to help repair another ship, or set up weather-monitoring satellites for a colony, or whatever is like... there's no reason to impose such a massive tax in time and efficiency to the workflow of your ship when alternatives exist, I think? Except apparently not unless we pick the Loading Bay.
Me going on a long spiel to @Fouredged Sword about "never make assumptions" and then getting this answer is poetic justice at its finest lmao
Iirc it's much the same for those that carry a mix of containers and 'loose' cargo (like the Fleet Solid Support Ship Programme), outside of dedicated cargo space (like we're going to have with the loading deck/probably gonna have with some of the engineering and auxiliary modules) anything put in a container is kept there until you go to a proper facility to offload it. There's some exceptions but that's stuff like aircraft engines (kept in containers because they can keep the conditions far more even than 'loose' storage), the equivalents of which we're probably gonna have on hand in the shuttle maintenance workshops anyways.
Could be incorrect, I've never actually read up on it much.
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Well, it's a standard cargo pod, not a specialist cargo pod meant to be opened up and rummaged around in, is the problem. The loading and unloading infrastructure goes in the port, the ship just moves it around. We are using off-the-shelf parts, not a bespoke rapid-access cargo module, and a consequence is that it's as usable as an off the shelf part is. You imagined that the pod was gonna have like, an airlock/shuttledock, and a big old cargo elevator and cranes/tractor beams to manipulate the cargo inside it. But it's not a bespoke starfleet part, it's a standard civie cargo pod, so 'rough field resupply' wasn't in the design brief.
Someone might make a specialist cargo pod meant to be opened up and rummaged around in, eventually. If the Halley is a sufficiently successful ship.
But we don't get that up front; we need the Halley to be good enough without it.
Well, it was mentioned in the story post that most Halleys will never undock their cargo pod in favor of simply transporting the material in and out, but I don't know how selective that can actually be. For all I know stuff is packed in so tight a transporter struggles to isolate just one thing and so while you can unload the cargo container with an industrial transporter it's an all or nothing thing. Useful if you are at a space dock who has a standardized unloading receptacle to transport the entire container contents into for unloading, not for pulling widget 7 out from it's literally air tight pack between widget 6 and 8.
It's probably undesirable to transport out the crate at the bottom of a stack, too.
Or, well, the pods probably don't have artificial gravity but they're still subject to acceleration; there's probably some standard way to deal with that that doesn't assume you're mucking about with the pod's contents mid Warp, because why would it?
Or, well, the pods probably don't have artificial gravity but they're still subject to acceleration; there's probably some standard way to deal with that that doesn't assume you're mucking about with the pod's contents mid Warp, because why would it?
Though this does imply that the fastest way to unload the cargo pod onto a planet's surface is to fly down in a shuttle and set up a bunch of force field emitters to create a temporary forcefield container we transport the cargo pod's contents to. Then it's simply a matter of carefully turning off patches of the force field and unloaded the concentrated slab of cargo into a more accessible format.
Basically forcefield scaffolding so you can actually just transport the entire contents down to a planet without the cargo falling and crushing stuff on the bottom of the pile.
Also useful because once you have force field emitters up I bet the make good forklifts. With clever programing I bet you could create a program to use forcefields to automatically unpack a standardized load.
Filling the container would just be the same process in reverse. Fill up a forcefield scaffold with cargo and then transport it into the pod.
And the loading dock gives us the space needed to store such a mobile forcefield unloading bay in a collapsed state outside of the pod itself so we CAN load it into shuttles and assemble it on site.
Basically forcefield scaffolding so you can actually just transport the entire contents down to a planet without the cargo falling and crushing stuff on the bottom of the pile.
Also useful because once you have force field emitters up I bet the make good forklifts. With clever programing I bet you could create a program to use forcefields to automatically unpack a standardized load.
Filling the container would just be the same process in reverse. Fill up a forcefield scaffold with cargo and then transport it into the pod.
And the loading dock gives us the space needed to store such a mobile forcefield unloading bay in a collapsed state outside of the pod itself so we CAN load it into shuttles and assemble it on site.
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Additional use for the loading docks: shipboard space where we can transport large chunks of the cargo pod's cargo at once, so the specific stuff we're looking for can be taken out and the remainder re-stacked for transport back into the pod.
Might not be a usable technique with the default pod, but even if it doesn't work off the shelf, it's probably much easier to implement (and more space-efficient) than a custom pod with built-in cargo handling.
Might not be a usable technique with the default pod, but even if it doesn't work off the shelf, it's probably much easier to implement (and more space-efficient) than a custom pod with built-in cargo handling.
And even if you had to sacrifice some storage space for clear divisions between segments it would be a lot less space sacrificed than having everything so isolated the transporter can lock into every individual item.
Though I bet there are specific things like feedstock for food printers that you can transport 90% of it straight from the pod simply because it's goop and you don't care if you miss the outer edges transporting it directly into another ship's holding tanks.
EDIT - And the other problem with setting up a virgin land unloading dock is finding a flat space on solid soil big enough to fit the cargo, but that's not actually a problem once you realize the Halley in orbit can be asked to "Set phasers to landscaping".
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darkstarling
Brilliantly Crazed
- Location
- Columbus, Ohio
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- He/Him
Why do we assume the cargo is automatically getting ditched?
They've absolutely got to be covered by the intertial compensators or none of the cargo will survive.
That's more 24th century I would think.
Because if you must choose between ditching cargo and the ship exploding you ditch cargo. This is a choice captains will conceivably have to make.
EDIT - though if force fields are not there yet we at least know gravity plating exists, so it may be possible to lay down a layer of that, calibrate it to cancel the planet's gravity field, then transport the cargo into open air where it floats in artificial zero G until you unload it.
Just, like, attach an anchor line first so the next gust of wind doesn't push it off the plating.
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