message 0743

• What kind of drive do Cherryh's spaceships have?
• Using the realspace/hyperspace interface

;Subject: cherryhlist  - ship design
;Date: Mon, 24 Jan 1994 12:20:01 +0100 (MET)
;From: Onno Meyer <Onno.Meyer@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de>

> Lucy  (KG  -  german  translation  by Heyne, as I remember):  The main
> corridor  went around the ship, with the exception of 'segment-locks':
> Sandor  used these locks to close down the 'upper cylinder section' (I
> believe  it  was translated as 'Ring').  I don't remember any hints to
> swing  sections  in  either  Merchanter's  Luck  (KG, Heyne), Pride of
> Chanur  (SDC, Heyne) or Chanur's Legacy (CL, DAW).  On the other hand:
> They  add some complexity to the ship's structure and do not help much
> in merchanters.

The _Pride_ might have had swing sections. These was a quote about 
something _not_ unlocking on an easy flight. Furher more, during
CH the galley was occupied during acceleration, and PC showed that
all these people wouldn't fit against the aft bulkhead.
> 
> concerning the fuel thread:
> ---------------------------
> 
> I tried to gather something more exact than "more than 0.02g" from the
> stories. Normal space acceleration is not that important, since the
> jump ships seem to be able to use the interface to gain speed.
> 
> Estimated normal space acceleration of ships:
> 
>    |          - in-system ("trawlers":tugs, miners): acceleration << 1g.
>    | the      - lander: upto several g in gravity well, usually less.
>    |          - long hauler: usually less than 1g, can do more.
>    | ships'       SDC285: catching the lander/rendez-vous.
>    |              SDC302: breathing was difficult under the preassure of
>    | opera-               acceleration.
>    | tions        CL85: "No more energy, in the long haul, to put a push
>    |                      on it - v was v, and you pay for it, until you
>    | are                  ran past your capacity; [...]"
>    |                    "The Legacy achieved v at a gentle burn [...]
>    | increa-              but the Legacy had a stsho aboard, a creature 
>    | singly               that couldn't take more than 1.5g [...]" -
>    |                      remember the cylinder already generates ca.
>    | time-                1 (hani?) g.
>    | critical - mahen/kif hunter
>    |          - tca 
>   \/          - knnn
> 
>
The performance of the merchanters reminds me of another question: what
percentage of the total load is cargo? Whenever we see merchanters in
serious action, they fly light or empty. (The Pride had her holds blown 
in PC, the Legacy was loaded light in CL, the Dublin Again was empty in
ML.
If the cargo is 50% of normal operating mass, the performance is doubled
if the holds are empty. 
Since compact hunter ships are about the same size/design as merchanters,
the main advantage of hunters over empty merchanters would be the lack of
(empty) holds and a much better electronics/weaponry set, and the 
performance of hunters in just marginally better, not orders of magnitude
better (a hunter saves days of a transit time of weeks).
 
> - Concerning an old thread:
>   Using the interface (to subspace) a ship may accelerate/dump speed. 
>   I think it's also possible to change direction within limits using
>   the interface. Otherwise I'm not convinced of the disadvantage of
>   small speeds, when any greater change of course must include a
>   stand still of the ship... Perhaps the interface acts as kind of
>   multiplicator of the normal space engines (Legacy: The Legacy cannot
>   accelerate as fast as it could because of it's Stsho passengers'
>   inability to stand more than 1.5g. But the main part of the velocity
>   must be gained/dumped by use of the interface! Legacy p224: 4h from
>   Kita and they were approaching jump (ship-time?)).
> Peter

If you imply by "multiplicator" that the vanes add to the effect of
running engines, I disagree. The velocity changes come in bursts.
Perhaps the velocity (in a frame of reference with the local gravity
well) is multiplied with a constant every time the vanes pulse, and
the ships use their realspace engines to get something worth multiplying.

> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> I had 1000+ in mind for the big family merchanters.  However, even if it's
> only hundreds, the ship still needs to pay for oversized jump drives,
> maneuvering drives, fuel, etc.  How will they get enough profit to pay for
> that--or worse, the interest on the loans for that--when a ship with a crew
> of a dozen or so could move the same amount of cargo for much lower initial
> investment?  The smaller, cheaper ship can just lower its prices and drive
> the ship full of "deadwood" into bankruptcy.
> 
> For spacer families, the price of a huge merchant vessel could probably buy
> an orbital habitat for them, plus several smaller, more efficient ships.
> Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca

Remember the history of the merchanter families. They developed on STL ships
because the crews became alienated with the stationer cultures. The ships
were "taken" by the crews who simply refused to leave. By the time of newly-
built FTL caft, that was a way of live.

Onno Meyer