Oolite Bulletins

Commander McLane wrote:

Specialist290 wrote:

What, exactly, are the dimensions and volume of an Oolite cargo container?

Well, the core Oolite cargo container has the shape of a regular pentagon with a side length of 3.6m and a depth of 9.6m. This gives it a total volume of 3.6^2 * 1.720477400588967 square meters * 9.6m = 214.054916271676949 cubic meters, which is more than three times the volume of a standard 40 ft container (67 cubic meters).

Yup.. hence my suspicion that it was based on the volume of a tonne of loosely-packed feathers..

Diziet Sma wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

This gives it a total volume of 3.6^2 * 1.720477400588967 square meters * 9.6m = 214.054916271676949 cubic meters,

Yup.. hence my suspicion that it was based on the volume of a tonne of loosely-packed feathers..

I didn't believe Diziet Sma, so I checked his claim:

In a site about down I found its average volume:

The ability of down to loft, or to fill a given volume of space, is called fill power. Fill power is measured in cubic inches of volume. One ounce of 650 fill power goose down, will loft to fill a volume of 650 cubic inches. Fill power ranges from about 500 to 800 for special types of white goose down.

Now start calculating with rounded values:
- 1 ounce down measures 500 cubic inches.
- 1 Ton is 35 000 ounce.
- 1 ounce is 500 inch^3 = 8000 cm^3 = 0.008 m^3

This gives: 1 Ton down = 280 m^3. That is very close to the volume of an Oolite container. You even have to press it slightly to make it fit

Huh! Learn something new every day.

Eric Walch wrote:

This gives: 1 Ton down = 280 m^3. That is very close to the volume of an Oolite container. You even have to press it slightly to make it fit

Although, to be fair, nobody knows the thickness of the container hull, thus its net volume is anyone's guess. It's going to be less than 214m^3, anyway. So you may have to pack even more tightly.

Another useless trivia from Wikipedia: you need 250,000 - 400,000 individual goose feathers for 1kg of down. If you use the finer and lighter feathers of the common eider, you'll need 500,000 - a million for 1kg (and those are collected individually from the eiders' nests, without killing the ducks).

Commander McLane wrote:

Although, to be fair, nobody knows the thickness of the container hull

They can contain slaves, so that gives a definite minimum internal volume of perhaps two cubic metres. 99% of the volume being armour plating would explain how they occasionally survive explosions that atomise entire ships...

cim wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

Although, to be fair, nobody knows the thickness of the container hull

They can contain slaves, so that gives a definite minimum internal volume of perhaps two cubic metres. 99% of the volume being armour plating would explain how they occasionally survive explosions that atomise entire ships...

First note the plural in slaves. With live support, we should assume something more than just 2 m³.
Regarding the survivability, note the method for oolite to spawn those containers. Most of them just shatter when the ship explodes (if we assume that most traders would fly with at least half of their max load).

Eric Walch wrote:

Diziet Sma wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

This gives it a total volume of 3.6^2 * 1.720477400588967 square meters * 9.6m = 214.054916271676949 cubic meters,

Yup.. hence my suspicion that it was based on the volume of a tonne of loosely-packed feathers..

I didn't believe Diziet Sma, so I checked his claim:
<snip>
This gives: 1 Ton down = 280 m^3. That is very close to the volume of an Oolite container. You even have to press it slightly to make it fit

Yay! I love those rare occasions when I manage to say something intelligent!

cim wrote:

99% of the volume being armour plating would explain how they occasionally survive explosions that atomise entire ships...

I always just assumed those were the ones that were packed in the middle, and saved by virtue of the other containers shielding them from the blast.. also explains why even large ships only have a handful of containers that survive.