Author Topic: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?  (Read 6427 times)

Korzon77

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Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« on: 17 March 2018, 20:18:39 »
Ok, the Newgranges were very impressive, but I'm wondering--where they fatally flawed?

The reason is simple--the Newgrange can repair a warship. But in doing so, it becomes completely immobile due to KF interactions and thus needs complete space supremacy--not superiority, but supremacy. At the same time, it is a vital strategic target. 
It would seem that a better design would be a large repair ship that erected a frame (possibly transported by dropship/spacestation that was carried via drop collar) around the ship to be repaired, tht would function as an unpressurized bay.

Granted, erecting the frame would take more time, but it would also leave the repair ship free to escape if an attack occurred, thus savihg the far more valuable repair ship.

It seems that the Star League never even considered this flaw--likely because before Amaris, there was nobody who could challenge them.

idea weenie

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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #1 on: 17 March 2018, 20:29:07 »
The NewGrange is the difference between having a Warship that can jump back for full repairs, and a Warship that must be abandoned due to damaged seals on the KF core.  A NewGrange also would allow construction of a non-jumpable station on-site, using the full NewGrange's machine shops and assembly bays to speed up construction.

That would be some interesting rules, where a station would have a construction and cost multiplier based on what was being used to build it.  I.e. a space station built in orbit over a House Capital should be fairly easy, while a space station built over an uninhabited planet would have to be transported to the location (i.e. traveling to and from the Jump point), and would have to either assemble itself (similar to the ISS, where a single habitable location is built first, and the engineers/technicians assemble more components out of what is also provided), or have another vessel help out (i.e. a NewGrange class).  The NewGrange would have its on-board machine shops that would provide benefits to construction rate (it can build the necessary components out of basic materials instead of needing final products in cargo bays).  This would of course require a change to the Space Station cost multiplier (instead of *5 overall; it would have a base price, multiplied by situational effects).


But you are right, having a droppable 50 kton space station that just acted as a gantry, with cargo bays for repair materials would be a much better solution.
« Last Edit: 11 April 2018, 22:38:22 by idea weenie »

Vition2

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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #2 on: 17 March 2018, 22:20:15 »
"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space." - Douglas Adams

Not even being facetious with that comment.  There are sooooooo (add additional "o"s if necessary) many different places to hide that it is abominably easy to hide something even as large as a newgrange - hell you could hide the entire SLDF navy in interplanetary space without being particularly careful.

All that's really needed to maintain secrecy is to use a tug to get the broken warship to the site of the Newgrange, using minimal thrust it's entirely possible to keep the location secret (small enough drive plume to not be particularly noticeable).

marauder648

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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #3 on: 18 March 2018, 03:51:35 »
Most definately not.  The ability to bring a complete repair facility along with the fleet would be indispensable.  Instead of having to send a badly damaged ship home in a journey that could take weeks or months, and you risk loosing the ship and crew, you can bring in a Newgrange and put it somewhere safe and secure before taking the damaged vessels to it for repairs.

A facility that could house a Warship for repairs would take a fair bit of time to build whilst  a Newgrange can perform on site repairs.

If you're worried about security, just put her in the Oort cloud of a system and tow the damaged ship to her.  Lost in all that space you'll almost never find her.  Or you just have her sitting amongst a group of DDs and a cruiser or two and then its too big a challenge to get close.

They operate like the Mulberry docks at Normandy or as a mobile floating dry dock does nowdays.  And whilst having as ship docked is a major issue, not when you consider how bloody huge space is as Vition2 pointed out.
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Charistoph

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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #4 on: 18 March 2018, 11:17:04 »
If you're worried about security, just put her in the Oort cloud of a system and tow the damaged ship to her.  Lost in all that space you'll almost never find her.  Or you just have her sitting amongst a group of DDs and a cruiser or two and then its too big a challenge to get close.

Not even that far, just jump in at limit+10-25% distance from either standard point and that is more than far enough away to detect anyone who decides to come after you.
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idea weenie

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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #5 on: 18 March 2018, 12:51:08 »
A facility that could house a Warship for repairs would take a fair bit of time to build whilst  a Newgrange can perform on site repairs. 

Not that much.  IIRC an unpressurized repair bay only takes up 2.5% of its capacity.  So for every 1000 tons the Unpressurized Repair Bay masses, it has a capacity of 40,000 tons worth of a single vessel (specialized rules for the Repair Bay are not going to be posted here).

A modified Mammoth 52 kton Dropship could convert its 40,000 tons of cargo capacity into the framework for an unpressurized repair bay.  That bay would have the capacity to handle vessels up to 1.6 Million tons.  Have a second cargo Dropship serve as the repair parts depot, and dock it to the first.

A NewGrange can handle up to 4 Dropships, so it could deploy two Mammoth-sized Repair bay dropships, two cargo Dropships, and have a third vessel in its own repair bay and work off its internal cargo supplies.

You could even have other ships (such as the Potemkin class) carrying additional repair Dropships on an as-needed basis.  As long as one of the vessels had devoted 38,000 tons (37,750 if you want precision) to an Unpressurized Repair Yard, that would be large enough to fit the Potemkin inside

Korzon77

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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #6 on: 18 March 2018, 14:55:36 »
And also, we have to take the tactics to protect a newgrange in light of hte fact that none of them survived the Succession wars. It gets to the old problem that what can be done with the rules isn't what was done in canon, or it didn't work, which implies that there were other factors at play that made hiding out in the oort cloud less useful, and it still doesn't change the fact that once a Newgrange has a ship internal to it, it can't move, either in real or ftl space. Building a big factory ship with attached "drop-hangers" also has the advantage that you can now repair more than one ship at a time.

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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #7 on: 19 March 2018, 03:25:55 »
One would say that its more due to bad writing that none survived outside of ComStar.  We can assume that Kerensky and friends took many with them.  Some units which have great rules are flogged, flayed then shot in the fluff.  The Quixote class for example.  Amazing anti-fighter ship, huge number of dropships, lots of cargo, great protection and all that jazz.  But fluff "Yeah she sucks harder than a dyson."  Plus the answer of how these things were lost was never explained. To loose that many, would they be taking them with them into battle against Caspars?  The Rim World's mobile fleet was gutted and didn't really recover during the taking of the Hegemony, so their main mobile units are M5 Caspar's.  Which can't go hunting and chasing ships as they don't jump outside of tightly controlled situations.  So what was causing all these losses? Were the crews holding open pit BBQs in ammo stores or something? :s

A lot of the stuff with chunks of lore stop making sense when you think about it too much :p
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Frabby

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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #8 on: 19 March 2018, 05:08:23 »
As for the original question, I believe a mobile fully functional repair yard is more practical than shipping in a disassembled repair yard that has to be assembled before it can do its job, then disassembled and packed up again to be moved out.
Remember that the Newgrange was a military vessel and thus used for "field repairs" to JumpShip cores.

I imagine that the civilian sector, more concerned with economic viability than speed and ease of logistics, would indeed have shipped in a modular repair yard on DropShips - while it would take much longer, it would also be cheaper to salvage or rescue civilian cargo JumpShips in this way.

As for why the Newgranges died out, I reckon their logistics train (which must've been staggeringly huge) quickly became unsustainable once infrastructure became a target in the Succession Wars.
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Korzon77

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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #9 on: 19 March 2018, 23:31:14 »
Wou7ld it take too long?  A  100,000 ton dropship or space station could have a bay as large as the new granges, and be deployed relatively quickly--certainly quickly enough that the main time waste is going to be repairing the ship, rather than getting into the frame. Meanwhile, you keep all of your machine stops and storage on a ship that you've equipped with an LF battery, and can immediately jump out if a threat appears.

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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #10 on: 21 March 2018, 19:56:48 »
Ok, the Newgranges were very impressive, but I'm wondering--where they fatally flawed?

The reason is simple--the Newgrange can repair a warship. But in doing so, it becomes completely immobile due to KF interactions and thus needs complete space supremacy--not superiority, but supremacy. At the same time, it is a vital strategic target. 
It would seem that a better design would be a large repair ship that erected a frame (possibly transported by dropship/spacestation that was carried via drop collar) around the ship to be repaired, tht would function as an unpressurized bay.

Granted, erecting the frame would take more time, but it would also leave the repair ship free to escape if an attack occurred, thus savihg the far more valuable repair ship.

It seems that the Star League never even considered this flaw--likely because before Amaris, there was nobody who could challenge them.

It's my understanding that in the Meta; the concept of mobile yards predates the rules about KF-drive field interaction.
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kato

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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #11 on: 01 May 2018, 03:10:33 »
I imagine that the civilian sector, more concerned with economic viability than speed and ease of logistics, would indeed have shipped in a modular repair yard on DropShips - while it would take much longer, it would also be cheaper to salvage or rescue civilian cargo JumpShips in this way.
The cost multipliers on large-scale naval repair facilities result it them being actually the cheapest to mount it on a jump-mobile platform itself.

An Invader with all three of its docking collars removed and replaced with a naval repair facility could service another Invader or similar-sized jumpship/warship for under 1 billion in extra cost. A space station with the same rig would cost around 4 billion just for the repair facility.
« Last Edit: 01 May 2018, 03:12:43 by kato »

Kasaga

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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #12 on: 01 May 2018, 07:43:37 »
Also remember that the Newgrange had a pressurized yard.  that would allow for faster unencumbered work to be completed.  With a scaffolding you have to use pressure suits which are bulky and you risk tearing one on damage parts of the ship which makes the works slow down even more.  even in a pressurized yard you have zero G so workers are still able to manipulate heavy equipment like they would in vacuum. 

The Newgrange and Faslane are still better for quick mobile repairs and in the case of the suffern able to build ships on location if needed.  which IMO would be great for building the lead ship in a new class without stopping production in yards already being used. 

but building ships is different than repairing in the field.  for mobile repair work the yardships work out great for their intended missions.

If you want to build and repair ships enmass just drop a ton of scaffolds (or as they are called unpressurized yards) all over a systems LaGrange points and you could build a 100 warships at a time if you had the production capability for the ships components for final assembly within the yards.

snewsom2997

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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #13 on: 01 May 2018, 12:35:32 »
Flawed, no, not for its intended purpose. Repairing SL warships with local space supremacy, in places far from the normal shipyards in the Hegemony, is what it does. For example a cracked core can be removed and another core can be jumped to the location, it would not surprise me if the SL kept several cores in reserve just for this purpose, plus it keeps the workers working and their skills intact. Conversely, if the interplanetary drive or structure is unsalvagable but the core is good, it can be removed, the rest of the ship scuttled or placed in Graveyard orbits. Those would probably be the most complex repair done, they are not going to make a Warship from scratch. Everything else would be repairing damaged armor, weapons, equipment, enough to jump back to the hegemony for structural repairs in a proper yard where it might need to be dismantled to get to the guts.

However after the end of the Star League that purpose became unfeasible. Warhsips could not count on local space supremacy, nor could they spare the ships to defend such a valuable asset with another valuable asset inside for months.

While space is big, so too is the consumption of supplies for a 7,000 Factory and shipyard workers not to mention the raw materials and parts that have to come in. So in this regard it is difficult to hide, it will have a logistics tail that is very lagre.

Korzon77

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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #14 on: 01 May 2018, 23:53:50 »
The cost multipliers on large-scale naval repair facilities result it them being actually the cheapest to mount it on a jump-mobile platform itself.

An Invader with all three of its docking collars removed and replaced with a naval repair facility could service another Invader or similar-sized jumpship/warship for under 1 billion in extra cost. A space station with the same rig would cost around 4 billion just for the repair facility.

Have I mentioned just how utterly insane aerospace unit costs are?

beachhead1985

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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #15 on: 03 May 2018, 10:11:10 »
Ok, the Newgranges were very impressive, but I'm wondering--where they fatally flawed?

The reason is simple--the Newgrange can repair a warship. But in doing so, it becomes completely immobile due to KF interactions and thus needs complete space supremacy--not superiority, but supremacy. At the same time, it is a vital strategic target. 
It would seem that a better design would be a large repair ship that erected a frame (possibly transported by dropship/spacestation that was carried via drop collar) around the ship to be repaired, tht would function as an unpressurized bay.

Granted, erecting the frame would take more time, but it would also leave the repair ship free to escape if an attack occurred, thus savihg the far more valuable repair ship.

It seems that the Star League never even considered this flaw--likely because before Amaris, there was nobody who could challenge them.

The original concept of the yardship appeared in the universe before the arbitrary rule that they couldn't jump while carrying/repairing another ship did.

Yes; it makes them pointless. Which is why I ignore it.
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Kasaga

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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #16 on: 08 May 2018, 14:22:30 »
The original concept of the yardship appeared in the universe before the arbitrary rule that they couldn't jump while carrying/repairing another ship did.

Yes; it makes them pointless. Which is why I ignore it.

Yeah I would too.

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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #17 on: 22 May 2018, 07:01:09 »
The original concept of the yardship appeared in the universe before the arbitrary rule that they couldn't jump while carrying/repairing another ship did.

Yes; it makes them pointless. Which is why I ignore it.

I thought the Newgrange (or any JumpShip) could carry multiple KF cores as cargo, but could only have one hooked up and active at a time. Sort of like how a semi truck can carry a bunch of crate engines for other semi trucks.
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snewsom2997

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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #18 on: 22 May 2018, 13:18:01 »
I thought the Newgrange (or any JumpShip) could carry multiple KF cores as cargo, but could only have one hooked up and active at a time. Sort of like how a semi truck can carry a bunch of crate engines for other semi trucks.

KF Cores are manufactured in a factory, a command module is added and they are jumped to the place they are needed as a single monolithic module. You cannot jump a core near another core and have anything good happen. Jumping a Newgrange with a final product KF core will just turn both ships inside out, along with their crew. Now you can carry as many interplanetary drive bits you want, with no ill effects as long as you could fit it in the ship. I do not think you can jump a ship without a KF Drive inside a Newgrange, maybe if it had a reinforced ship yard you could, but the Newgrange doesn't have one, if it did more would have maybe survived.

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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #19 on: 22 May 2018, 22:18:15 »
KF Cores are manufactured in a factory, a command module is added and they are jumped to the place they are needed as a single monolithic module. You cannot jump a core near another core and have anything good happen. Jumping a Newgrange with a final product KF core will just turn both ships inside out, along with their crew. Now you can carry as many interplanetary drive bits you want, with no ill effects as long as you could fit it in the ship. I do not think you can jump a ship without a KF Drive inside a Newgrange, maybe if it had a reinforced ship yard you could, but the Newgrange doesn't have one, if it did more would have maybe survived.

Yeah, somehow; for some reason, there is something about an inert, completed jumpdrive, which by-the-book is just anathema to it's own kind.

I think there is another thing limiting the mass they can jump with IOT further nerf monitors.
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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #20 on: 29 June 2018, 11:49:07 »
They operate like the Mulberry docks at Normandy or as a mobile floating dry dock does nowdays.  And whilst having as ship docked is a major issue, not when you consider how bloody huge space is as Vition2 pointed out.

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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #21 on: 29 June 2018, 12:03:33 »
The original concept of the yardship appeared in the universe before the arbitrary rule that they couldn't jump while carrying/repairing another ship did.

Yes; it makes them pointless. Which is why I ignore it.

Why would it make them pointless? A busted K-F drive needs to be repaired before it can leave the system, so you have a yard that goes to where the broken ship is and fixes it. It's very unlike wet-water navies, but in BT it seems logical enough.

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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #22 on: 29 June 2018, 21:06:15 »
Why would it make them pointless? A busted K-F drive needs to be repaired before it can leave the system, so you have a yard that goes to where the broken ship is and fixes it. It's very unlike wet-water navies, but in BT it seems logical enough.

The main use for the NewGrange is being the support vessel jumping the new KF core to the crippled ship.  From there, it removes and rubbles the original (damaged) KF core, and helps to install the new core so the crippled ship can jump back to a repair depot.

The problem is that the KF removal/rubbling/installation can all be done by a Dropship with a Repair Yard.  Any Jumpship could serve as the power supply for the spare KF core, and that same Jumpship could also carry a Dropship with a Repair Yard.  You might need a second Dropship to carry the spare parts, but they don't need the specialized capabilities of a NewGrange.

Where a NewGrange should shine is using its internal Machine shops to benefit other vessels.  A 2.3 MTon Warship might have ~1 Mton devoted to weaponry, while a NewGrange has 1 MTon devoted to repair equipment/supplies.  So repairs that are impossible for other ships, would be almost routine for a NewGrange.  To do this though, it would have to travel with the fleet, as otherwise you would have damaged vessels jumping back to a shipyard.

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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #23 on: 29 June 2018, 21:35:14 »
The Newgrange is an underused concept frankly.

It is large enough for 1G grav decks and that is a massive advantage.  I envisage colony ships built to similar specifications,  go easy on the engines, in fact it need not have more engine power than a Scout class jumpship 0.1G is fast enough, and you can make in system jumps.
The central manufacturing space could be used to store an ore processor and smelter, several internal mining dropships and shuttles and a fabrication unit large enough to make hab dome components.

The vessel could be sent with combat dropship escort to the fringe of known space carrying colonists in comfort, then build a working spaceport and dome city once you get there.  After five years the new colony is cut loose and the colony ship returns to the Hegemony/Star League for a new match of colonists.

This way you arent making a ring of slums and backwater worlds but an expansion effort that establishes an infrastructure as it goes along.  I could see the Inner Sphere colonised this way.  Perhaps these ships existed, then were no longer needed as they had colonised as far out as was practical from Terra and the core.
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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #24 on: 29 June 2018, 22:11:50 »
The Newgrange is an underused concept frankly.

It is large enough for 1G grav decks and that is a massive advantage.  I envisage colony ships built to similar specifications,  go easy on the engines, in fact it need not have more engine power than a Scout class jumpship 0.1G is fast enough, and you can make in system jumps.
The central manufacturing space could be used to store an ore processor and smelter, several internal mining dropships and shuttles and a fabrication unit large enough to make hab dome components.

The vessel could be sent with combat dropship escort to the fringe of known space carrying colonists in comfort, then build a working spaceport and dome city once you get there.  After five years the new colony is cut loose and the colony ship returns to the Hegemony/Star League for a new match of colonists.

This way you arent making a ring of slums and backwater worlds but an expansion effort that establishes an infrastructure as it goes along.  I could see the Inner Sphere colonised this way.  Perhaps these ships existed, then were no longer needed as they had colonised as far out as was practical from Terra and the core.

To me, this would be putting a KF core in one location for far too long (5 years?!?!).  I'd want to use it as a giant freighter with maybe a few Dropships on its exterior.  The interior would be equipment for a machine shop equipment, components for a space station, aso, that would be assembled and used on-site to support the colony.  To me the colony process would be:
(after making sure there are no dangerous comets/asteroids, plus the planet is safe to live on)
1) Freighter arrives with Dropship with internal Repair Yard, ~1/3 of the pre-made giant space station, and sufficient supplies/personnel to run the Dropship/Repair Yard
2) Freighter returns to base, and the Dropship/Repair Yard begins assembling the first ~900 ktons of station
3) Freighter returns with another 900 ktons of station, and a large number of science personnel/equipment to survey the planet selected.  It then takes orders for what the Dropship wants on its next trip
4) Freighter returns to base, loads up another 700 kton of station, along with a lot more materials that the Dropship and science crew will want.
5) Freighter returns and delivers the last components of the station, plus offloading the last bits of supplies.
6) Freighter returns to base for colony materials and the first colonists
7) Freighter makes final trip to colony system, dropping off colony supplies and colonists to new station in orbit.  Dropship with Repair Yard re-attaches to Freighter, and it returns to the base system to help set up a second colony.  The first colony can now be serviced by standard Jumpships and Dropships, using the space station as the transshipping location.

Instead of the Freighter staying in one location (for 5 years) to perform the manufacturing, it would be delivering components back and forth to the space station, and the space station would be assembling the components into whatever the colony needs.  Even assuming it takes a year for the first colony to be set up, it means that the compact core freighter can set up 5 colonies in the same time as the NewGrange machine shop can set up one colony.  (It will be more expensive since the material has to be delivered to every colony, but it also means that the freighter can do more work jumping back and forth compared to sitting in one location, and the space station can handle all of the initial industrial needs)

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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #25 on: 30 June 2018, 11:46:10 »
Ok, lets run with this idea weenie.

You need a fabrication station to build a whole colony, I summise that that can be worth more than a compact KF core.  You have to build the station once there, that requires tooling, and from components summoned from elsewhere.

Now a giant colony ship can do all that and meanwhile the skilled craftspersons making the colony have a comfortable 1G environment in which to live.  They are not living in temporary accommodation on the surface.  You will want the vessel there, for a start amongst everything else its a scary warship, your colony building efforts are inherently lootable, with the colony ship present they are not.

Yes this would be colossally expensive, but it will nevertheless be economical. You are constructing a whole new self sufficient colony with infrastructure and base industry, in five years and at the end the seed infrastructure is returnable to begin a whole new project. This will be a major jump to colony expansion and four or five such craft can make 25-30 decent infrastructure heavy worlds in as many years, which is a major permanent expansion to an entire interstellar nation.  For the cost of those colony ships you will cost effectively import the entire base layer of a new systems infrastructure efficiently and in comfort again and again.  Ships are built to last in Battletech, this is a project that would pay for itself quickly.
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Re: Is the Newgrange a flawed concept?
« Reply #26 on: 30 June 2018, 14:12:29 »
By using a space station with compact core freighter, you can leave all the high-tech manufacturing on-site, while the freighter makes runs back and forth with cargo.  This would leave the space station on-site with no way to escape if something goes wrong, but the freighter could pop back multiple times with additional defenses/weaponry as needed.  At the end of five years, the colony equipment could be transferred back on board the Compact Freighter, and it would return to set up a colony elsewhere.  But until that 5 years is finished, you have a freighter that is capable of running cargo around your pocket empire as needed.  One good example is that instead of building all the material locally, the freighter can deliver pre-built sections from the source planet, saving a lot of manufacturing time.

The NewGrange with an internal manufacturing system would have to remain on-site, taking its KF core out of action for the 5 years needed.  It would be able to jump out in case of trouble, but the constructed colony components (and colonists) would be stuck on the planet as well.  It is not as good economically, since it would be manufacturing from local raw materials, instead of taking advantage of the source planet's better established economy/industry.

Basics:
Compact freighter advantages:
- FTL shipping capacity is available to more locations (since the freighter is only needed by the colony for ~3-4 months)
- remote-assembled space station has more internal capacity for manufacturing and assembly equipment than compact freighter (SS can have up to 90% of tonnage for internal space, Compact core freighter/NewGrange can only have ~45% due to KF core)
- Can use source planet industry so only final assembly is needed at destination
- Only need assembly equipment at location instead of entire industrial base

NewGrange internal manufacturing style advantages:
- only need the one ship, vs extra space stations
- in case of trouble, can run

 

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