Not enough "large" haulers?

[Gunney_Plym]

As promised Titan screenshots. Top and rear views, nothing from the front as I keep being run down trying to frame a decent shot

As a scale reference the ship is a shade short of 320m long.




The graphical artifacts are due to my work PC being a dog

[Commander McLane]

Hi. There are large haulers, I me self have a pcc (Python class cruiser), 160 ton cargo. Sometimes I find it hard to fill it. Though the side contracts make it worth while. Amazzing what carrying a few hundred or thousands of Kilos of gold, platnium or grams of gems will do for your credits! In relation to the golden circle (M25 round London) Large haulers don't really go inside. 18 Wheelers (44 tons) tend to stick to real motorways. They are a booger when it's raining, bit like having to deal with 4 hostiles in a boulder field coz someone didn't destroy an asteroid fully! My Old boss and Commander, Garrott used to make the run from Scotland to England to France to Italy to France to Spain to France to England and back to Scotland in a trusty old 44 tonner with 18 wheels.
I have all the bells and whistles on my pcc (handles like a standard cobra mk3. or is that just my flying?) And manage to make a credit or million.
p.s. My rating is Deadly. Getting close to 3500 kills. 1.3Million Cr. still saving up for the super cobra so I can get rid of this 18 wheeler.

And by the way: this topic is about the (missing) really large haulers. We're not talking PCC-stuff here.

[Disembodied]

Pretty cool, Gunney! I think one of these babies should be slooooow... maybe 0.1, something like that. It would add to the sense of scale (heavy and ponderous) and it would allow players to a) admire the thing without *too* much risk of being ploughed under, and b) scoot past without being mass-locked for too long, especially if it's going the same way!

[pagroove]

@Gunney_Plym

Yes this is what we need!. I like the 6 engines! One remark. Maybe you could make a hull texture because it now looks a bit flat. I like the details though and also the txt

[CptnEcho]

On my daily commute between Newbury and Swindon I travel on the A34, M4 and A420 (apologies at this point to non-UK ooliters for my geographical references) I noticed something that I'm trying to put into perspective into the trade routes (and witchpoint to station space lanes) of Oolite.

On Friday morning I saw 67 different distinct 38-ton lorries, 19 of which were from outside the UK.

Logistics, removal lorries, cold-chain trucks, general haulage, each them shifting stuff along the same route as me so I thought this:

The traders in Oolite are the equivalent of "White van men" - independent traders, single ship company outfits, even somebody flying an Anaconda is just the equivalent of a large wheel base Transit compared to the Cobby3 pilot whose flying the equivalent of an Astravan.

Other than the Oo-hauler (the oolite equivalent of a Scania/DAF/Volvo/Iveco 38-ton truck), we don't seem to have many equivalent ships (if any). Even Thargoids excellent looking addition to the fleet - the Conger is quite a small cargo carrier.

Yet the ooniverse is now fully populated with an emerging back story (through YAH) of loads of these bulk carrier companies - Oo-Hauler, Tescoo, Sainsboory's, FedOox, Oops, Planet Express, (so we also should have the equivalent of the big major Haulage companies - Oodie Stoobart perhaps?)

So what I was sort of postulating in a very round about way is this: Should Oolite have lots more Company owned/branded/sponsored Oo-hauler styled ships?

If the answer is positive here - I may move this across to Expansion and start asking for thoughts on AI of how all these company branded ships should behave...

I admit I view things with a different perspective.

It could be said that an Oolite ton is a different quantity of mass than a ton is understood to be here on Earth. Also, on Earth there are variations known as the Long Ton, Short Ton and Metric Ton. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton
Perhaps an Oolite ton is simply a larger mass, equal to several Earth tons?
Perhaps we could pronounce an Oolite ton as 'tawn' and an Earth ton as a 'tun'?

If Oolite tons are greater mass, then ships in Oolite are flying around with the equivalent of what sea-going cargo vessels here on Earth are laden with.
Some vessels are larger than others. Some have holds meant for standard shipping containers* and some have holds meant for bulk products in solid or liquid form (i.e. coal ships or oil tankers).

So when you see a truck (be it a lorry, a transit, or tractor-trailer) here on earth hauling around a standard shipping container*, it is hauling the equivalent of 1 Oolite cargo container, in my opinion.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipping_container

It's a different Ooniverse.
In Battlestar Galactica the writers used words like centon and micron to denote units of time (instead of using minutes and seconds). There's no reason in my mind to limit the definition of "ton" in a fictional Ooniverse.

[Sarin]

Hold on, and think: forget the fact that here on Earth, ton is related to mass. But is it the same in Oolite Universe? Since the cargo actually don't affect the ship handling it means that either cargo makes only small fraction of ship's mass, or the engines work on some inertialess mechanism, as discussed at some thread before. In either way...conclusion is, that it's not the mass that defines cargo capacity of ship, it's volume. So...I think in Oolite "ton" is a mesure of volume...and so it is entirely different from Earth ton.

And....I think what game actually misses is haulers with capacity from 250 to 1000. With RS we got Naga (250), Oresian Trader (600) and Anaconda (750). Just these three. So....more medium than large...and what we also need is, higher planetary production...like 10x-50x, depending on comodity...for example agricultural planets should have stock reaching thousands of tons of food. Stuff like gemstones, platinum etc...should be only little higher, so small ships will not make excessive profit from trading with them.

[CptnEcho]

Hold on, and think: forget the fact that here on Earth, ton is related to mass. But is it the same in Oolite Universe? Since the cargo actually don't affect the ship handling it means that either cargo makes only small fraction of ship's mass, or the engines work on some inertialess mechanism, as discussed at some thread before. In either way...conclusion is, that it's not the mass that defines cargo capacity of ship, it's volume. So...I think in Oolite "ton" is a mesure of volume...and so it is entirely different from Earth ton.

And....I think what game actually misses is haulers with capacity from 250 to 1000. With RS we got Naga (250), Oresian Trader (600) and Anaconda (750). Just these three. So....more medium than large...and what we also need is, higher planetary production...like 10x-50x, depending on comodity...for example agricultural planets should have stock reaching thousands of tons of food. Stuff like gemstones, platinum etc...should be only little higher, so small ships will not make excessive profit from trading with them.

Good food for thought.

The planetary production situation is addressed by cargo & passenger contracts to move large quantities from here to there.
Some OXP's increase the number of cargo & passenger options available to Commanders.

[Sarin]

The planetary production situation is addressed by cargo & passenger contracts to move large quantities from here to there.
Some OXP's increase the number of cargo & passenger options available to Commanders.

Hmm....I never seen contracts going past like 300 tons...and it is highly unlikely to get two contracts at once with same destination...okay, I haven't been much into contract trading yet...

hmm...what OXP you had in mind? Can't find any such....

[Commander McLane]

It is a long known fact--and we have indeed a WordOfGod for it--that the letter 't' in Oolite does not refer to 'ton' or 'tonne', but rather to 'tun'. Although it is not perfectly clear what a tun actually is, the evidence (same-size cargo containers for one 'tun' of different stuff) suggests that it is indeed a measure of volume rather than mass or weight (which would differ from each other anyway, depending on the gravitational pull).

[Gunney_Plym]

Thanks for the compliments, makes me all warm and fuzzy

I think one of these babies should be slooooow... maybe 0.1, something like that

Absolutely, you wouldn't want to be stuck behind one of these on a country lane

I'm keeping the performance at a highly level for testing but it will handle like a very large house brick in the release.

Maybe you could make a hull texture because it now looks a bit flat. I like the details though and also the txt

There has been a fair bit of discussion about the smooth v. detailed textures and how Oolite ships would be manufactured. I fall into the smooth camp.

Maybe my choice could also have something to do with the fact that I haven't been able to create convincing detailed textures

One of my person fav's for a ship texture is one the Imperial Courier, a superb piece of work

[TGHC]

A "tun" is an old English measure (252 gallons) for barrels of ale, I remember it well from school. My favourite has to be a "firkin" though (8 gallons) what a brilliant word. Stargazer might also recall rods, perches and chains etc, it was a little different in those days with imperial measures and £sd, mental arithmatic was great fun, best of all was at secondary school when we used log tables and if we were really flash a sliderule! You young whippersnappers have it so easy with the metric system and hand held calculators!

[Gunney_Plym]

I still have my slide-rule.

I also used to have a cylindrical slide rule which worked exactly as a standard rule but the log scales wound up in a spiral. I donated it to my then school, which I now regret as I've never seen a similar one since.

It also extended out to a fair degree (think telescope design) which could be used to surprise young ladies in the class. Apparently, as I would never carry out such actions, not me, never, and you've definately got no proof so there

[TGHC]

I had two slide rules, an old wooden one given to me by me dad, which was great for exams, because it was possible to secerete formulae and the like underneath the slide out of view! Of course I never did
My other one was unusual, the log scale started at the middle instead of each end so you only had to move it in one direction for a calculation.

[ClymAngus]

Maybe you could make a hull texture because it now looks a bit flat. I like the details though and also the txt

There has been a fair bit of discussion about the smooth v. detailed textures and how Oolite ships would be manufactured. I fall into the smooth camp.

Maybe my choice could also have something to do with the fact that I haven't been able to create convincing detailed textures

One of my person fav's for a ship texture is one the Imperial Courier, a superb piece of work

You could of course, hold a competition.......

Pimp my hauler.

[pagroove]

You could of course, hold a competition.......

Pimp my hauler

Thats a good idea. It will give a nice variety of haulers