Alrighty. Here's the Colony Jumper. Now I know Jumpships are supposed to max out at 500k tons. But I like mine bigger. So with that out of the way, it was what to do with the space? A few strange things had to be done.
I don’t like breaking the rules. Making it 50kt larger than the largest allowed in the construction rules is kinda cheating… ;)
1) although small craft bays normally take "bay personal" these are not normal small craft bays. They stay closed and mostly unused during transit. Also, the colonists themselves do a large part of the maintenance to double efficiency. So although I allowed for Bay Personal for the 4 fighters per Jumper, I did not for the 30 Dropper Bays. I know that the colonists will be in these bays keeping the livestock and gardens, but they will also be keeping the bays serviced. So I'm calling that good, unless someone can explain otherwise why it won't work.
2) The Jumper needs to house the colonists during the transit. Probably in bigger quarters than they will have on their Droppers. Therefore, 300 "2nd class" staterooms are onboard for the long journey.
I disagree. The SC droppers should remain accessible to the colonists during the journey on the jumpship; they can be “plugged into” the jumper’s bays for water, electricity and sewage, adding their capabilities to those of the jumpship. This reduces the cost of the jumpship and the colony significantly; it also allows the colonists to get used to their new homes and their facilities/capabilities in a controlled environment; by the time they reach the landing site, they will know their droppers inside and out.
For livestock, yes; the jumpship needs to have at least one gravdeck dedicated to livestock during the journey; this will be done for the health of the animals; humans can live in their SC’s and go at will to the gravdecks, but the livestock will have to live in the ring, being moved to the SC’s pens at the last moment.
Mind you; the SC droppers will NOT be fuelled up on board! Fuelling will take place hours before launching for the final flight to the colony world.
3) For crew and colonist health, 12 separate grav-decks have been installed. One for the Jumper Crew. One for the Dropship crew. One for every 30 colonists, or 3 Droppers. The colonists are more free to inter-mingle with each other than with the Jumper or Dropship crews. Encouraged even, to build relationships.
I don’t think so many grav decks are needed. Grav decks are HUGE things, even the relatively small ones and the colonists don’t have to be in the things 24 hours a day. 300 passengers is not really that big a number; you might be able to get by with 3-4 gravdecks, plus one for livestock.
4) The Jumper carries lots of food and water, not only to get the passengers to the colony area, but to get the crews back home. They also carry thousands of tons of other cargo and spare fuel for the colony.
Besides the supplies for the jumpship crew itself, you’d need enough supplies for the colonists for the duration of the voyage up to the point when the SC droppers actually leave the ship; all their supplies after this point are pre-loaded in the SC droppers themselves (except for the livestock, as mentioned above).
5) I SERIOUSLY hate going anywhere in the battletech universe without some sort of military backup. So the Jumper has 4 Aerospace Fighters, plus full technical crews in case of hostiles, and 7 marines to help keep order on board or assist with the odd chance of being boarded. These will not stay with the colony, but are there to protect the precious cargo during transit.
I’d actually house the fighters in SC bays; it might add 200 tons to the whole, but not all colonies are set up in far away places where fighters are needed. With SC bays instead of dedicated fighter bays the bays can still be useful if fighters are not needed or carried.
Regarding the marines, I would not count much on them being used for anti-boarding operations; if four fighters failed to dissuade the attackers, seven dudes with CQB firepower are not going to do much. However, if you have your heart set on a paramilitary presence, the marines can be equipped with anti-personnel weapons like needlers, for minimal risk to internal components.
6) One Dropship Docking Collar only. Most of the mass has gone into passenger quarters and small craft bays, with everything else going towards the above grav-decks and cargo/fuel. One dropship will accompany the colony to carry several thousand more tons of things like grain, water, livestock, weather satellites, fuel, building materials, agromechs, loggermechs, small cache of military grade equipment for the colony militia (let's face it, if you are in the colony you are also in the militia and fire department), medical supplies, mining equipment, and possibly even small craft that can be used as shuttles from planet-side to orbit or edge of solar system if needed. Maybe even an HPG transmitter depending on wealth and backing of colony.
Yes. I agree with the idea of a single DS collar; not only does it keep the cost of the jumpship way down, but it can serve a non-colony-related function.
AeroTech 2 Vessel Technical Readout
VALIDATED
Class/Model/Name: Colony Jumper
Tech: Inner Sphere / 3067
Vessel Type: JumpShip
Rules: Level 3, Standard design
Rules Set: AeroTech2
Mass: 550,000 tons
Length: 871 meters
Sail Diameter: 1,382 meters
Power Plant: Standard
Safe Thrust: 0
Maximum Thrust: 0
Armor Type: Standard
Armament: None
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Class/Model/Name: Colony Jumper
Mass: 550,000 tons
Equipment: Mass
Power Plant, Drive & Control: 6,600.00
Thrust: Safe Thrust: 0
Maximum Thrust: 0
Kearny-Fuchida Hyperdrive: Standard (Integrity = 10) 522,500.00
Jump Sail: (Integrity = 6) 103.00
Structural Integrity: 1 3,667.00
Total Heat Sinks: 159 Single .00
Fuel & Fuel Pumps: 1,020.00
Bridge, Controls, Radar, Computer & Attitude Thrusters: 1,375.00
Fire Control Computers: .00
Food & Water: (572 days supply) 1,004.00
Armor Type: Standard (100 total armor pts) 249.00
Capital Scale Armor Pts
Location: L / R
Fore: 22
Fore-Left/Right: 16/16
Aft-Left/Right: 16/16
Aft: 14
Cargo:
Bay 1: Fighters (4) with 2 doors 600.00
Small Craft Bays (30) with 15 doors 6,000.00
Cargo (1) with 1 door 500.00
Fuel (2) with 2 doors 1,000.00
Refueling Drogues (2) with 2 doors 2.00
DropShip Capacity: 1 Docking Hardpoints 1,000.00
Grav Decks #1 - 12: (95-meter diameter) 600.00
Crew and Passengers:
6 Officers (6 minimum) 60.00
30 Crew (28 minimum) 210.00
300 2nd Class Passengers 2,100.00
7 Marines 35.00
8 Bay Personnel .00
Weapons and Equipment Loc SRV MRV LRV ERV Heat Mass
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Lot Spare Parts (0.25%) 1,375.00
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS: Heat: 0 550,000.00
Tons Left: .00
Calculated Factors:
Total Cost: 375,218,750 C-Bills
Battle Value: 2,406
Cost per BV: 155,951.27
Weapon Value: 0 (Ratio = .00)
Damage Factors: SRV = 0; MRV = 0; LRV = 0; ERV = 0
Maintenance: Maintenance Point Value (MPV) = 43,991
(13,026 Structure, 29,375 Life Support, 1,590 Weapons)
Support Points (SP) = 79,650 (181% of MPV)
BattleForce2: Not applicable
It occurs to me that for this model of colony, thirty SC droppers in one jumpship might be a bit high unless you are building a single-drop colony; 18-24 SC droppers per group might give more bang for the buck.
Even with 30 SC dropper bays, the jumpship does not need to be much larger than a Starlord; certainly smaller than a Monolith.
Another thing that occurred to me is that the SC bays could be actually mounted on one of the gravdecks; since they are expected to be “launched” only once (at the destination), there would be no risk with multiple launch/recoveries. Works like this:
The jumpship’s livestock ring and “SC habitat” ring(s) are next to each other, connected by several access tunnels between the rings. When the jumpship reaches the destination system, the livestock is transferred from the livestock ring to the SC ring and loaded in the SC’s. After this is done, the SC’s are fuelled up and the SC crew load up. Finally, the actual colonists board and the SC’s are buttoned up. This is followed by all jumpship personnel leaving the bays before the grav ring is stopped. Once stopped, the bay doors open and the SC’s float out.
I originally considered using centrifugal force to shoot out the droppers… but too much can go wrong with that; adding complication for no practical gain.
