Given that these tankers would be hauling refined Quirium fuel (a key component in Q-bombs), I'd expect that they'd be liable to go "boom!" without much persuasion in combat as well.
Apologies for going slightly off-topic, but this made me think! Regular ships don't explode in a quirium fireball when destroyed, despite many of them no doubt having quirium fuel on board. This suggests that just igniting quirium will not lead to a quirium explosion. Two conclusions, and a question, then...
One) Q-bombs are designed to explode and possibly have special detonators or something to achieve this.
Two) The destruction of a quirium tanker would not necessarily result in a quirium exolosion.
The question...Why then do StarJellies explode with a quirium blast?
Interesting point there Smivs and explanation Diziet
My view would be that prhaps the Quirium is under pressure within a Star jelly therefore its destruction and subsequent explosion is due to the release of this pressure at the time of the initial explosion.
Regarding standard ships then perhaps they don’t store the fuel in a pressurised manner to avoid such a destructive explosion (An inbuilt safety precaution perhaps).
<looks up "Status Quo" on the origin of the Q-bomb>
Given that it's the combination of a specific Quirium isotope with regular Quirium fuel that initiates the cascade in a Q-bomb, it's possible that certain levels of pressure encourage the denaturement or "distillation" of the offending Quirium isotope in large volumes of ordinary Quirium. The higher the storage pressure, the greater the rate of transmutation of regular Quirium into the C64 Quirium isotope that can trigger the Quirium cascade.
Shipbuilder wrote:
This all leads me on to my next question if star jellies contain pressurised quirium but standard ships carry unpressurised quirium how would the fuel be stored in tankers?
Logic would suggest that for developed worlds tankers would be forced by law to store the quirium in an unpressurised manner however tankers for less technologically advanced worlds may be tempted to store in a pressurised manner as this would allow much more fuel to be collected in a single trip. i.e. the old case of profit against safety.
Perhaps in this case a tanker would be produced at the shipyards with the safety precautions built in to the design but a number of unscrupulous owners would convert the tankers to carry pressurised quirium in an attempt to make more credits.
Sounds reasonable. There's a definite analogue here with terrestrial LPG tankers.
Shipbuilder wrote:
Taking all of this in to account it I am thinking of developing the OXP so that a limited number of tankers would explode as a star jelly would but you would have no way of knowing which these would be.
If nothing else it would provide a bit of risk of the unknown for anyone just happy to blast away at the tankers.
<evil grin>
Commander Ranthe: Flying the Anaconda-class transport Atomic Annie through Galaxy 2. Combat Ranking: Dangerous
"Big ships take more booty on your interstellar flights..."
Most games have some sort of paddling-pool-and-water-wings beginning to ease you in: Oolite takes the rather more Darwinian approach of heaving you straight into the ocean, often with a brick or two in your pockets for luck. ~ Disembodied
That'd be great! The whole retrofit thing would be great as well, considering the rough backstory I've drafted for the 249th. Being what essentially amounts to a volunteer militia based out of democratic systems, a retrofit would probably be the simplest way for a volunteer militia to make the most of a token subsidy from a democratic system.
Got all turned around, lost my nav connection... Where am I now?
At the moment the ship is 180m long so as to allow it to dock at system stations however this is not 100% set in stone yet.
Just wondering about this, in relation to the idea about tankers exploding violently ("going Q") if hit ... would anyone in their right minds allow a giant bomb to come anywhere near the main station - or even the main spacelanes?
If there was such a risk, I think these ships would have to stay away on a different route, running between the star and an off-lane refinery. Smaller ships might then take safe quantities of fuel from the refinery to the main station. Even then, the refinery might be protected by a ring of Q-bomb suppression buoys or somesuch. Of course, if somebody was to destroy those buoys, who knows what might happen?
Alternatively, if the tankers were to come in to dock at the main station, they'd need to be "safe" to shoot. Pirates might leave them alone anyway though because all they'd be carrying would be unrefined quirium in giant tanks: no cargo pods, and not even much in the way of alloys either.
The potential destructive power of a quirium tanker probably pales into insignificance when you consider the amounts of fuel and ordnance already stored in the station.
Commander Smivs, the friendliest Gourd this side of Riedquat.
The potential destructive power of a quirium tanker probably pales into insignificance when you consider the amounts of fuel and ordnance already stored in the station.
Yeah, but you can't (under normal circumstances) shoot a main system station and make it explode, setting off a chain reaction which wipes out all the ships in the aegis, which might extend back down the spacelane and even towards the planet ...
...you can't (under normal circumstances) shoot a main system station and make it explode, setting off a chain reaction which wipes out all the ships in the aegis, which might extend back down the spacelane and even towards the planet ...
Yeah, I know
Commander Smivs, the friendliest Gourd this side of Riedquat.
Looks like a concept of some kind of stackable container vessel. It would be good to see ships with different numbers of modules flying around .
This was the idea that the ship would be able to connect additional or less storage tank units however I’d not thought about actually producing models with different numbers of tanks. To do this however wouldn’t be too much more work than producing a single model so good Idea Eric I think that I’ll include multiple size models as you suggest.
Disembodied wrote:
Just wondering about this, in relation to the idea about tankers exploding violently ("going Q") if hit ... would anyone in their right minds allow a giant bomb to come anywhere near the main station - or even the main spacelanes?
My current thoughts on this are that perhaps quirium is not explosive unless it is stored in a pressurised manner. Further explanation of my line of thought on this matter is as posted on page 3 of this thread i.e.
My view would be that perhaps the Quirium is under pressure within a Star jelly therefore its destruction and subsequent explosion is due to the release of this pressure at the time of the initial explosion.
Regarding standard ships then perhaps they don’t store the fuel in a pressurised manner to avoid such a destructive explosion (An inbuilt safety precaution perhaps).
This all leads me on to my next question if star jellies contain pressurised quirium but standard ships carry unpressurised quirium how would the fuel be stored in tankers?
Logic would suggest that for developed worlds tankers would be forced by law to store the quirium in an unpressurised manner however tankers for less technologically advanced worlds may be tempted to store in a pressurised manner as this would allow much more fuel to be collected in a single trip. i.e. the old case of profit against safety.
Perhaps in this case a tanker would be produced at the shipyards with the safety precautions built in to the design but a number of unscrupulous owners would illegally convert the tankers to carry pressurised quirium in an attempt to make more credits.
The GalTech Industries Corporation - Building ships to populate the galaxies.
Logic would suggest that for developed worlds tankers would be forced by law to store the quirium in an unpressurised manner however tankers for less technologically advanced worlds may be tempted to store in a pressurised manner as this would allow much more fuel to be collected in a single trip. i.e. the old case of profit against safety.
Hmm ... I don't think this would necessarily have anything to do with technology levels. A low-tech world wouldn't (I don't think) be more likely to pursue profit against safety than a high-tech one. It would be more a function of the wealth, and the political setup - but not necessarily a straight relationship: certain types of Corporate States might be more prone to pursue profit over safety than certain types of e.g. Communist worlds.
Basically, though, I'd be wary of adding too many potential Q-bombs to the game, from a gameplay point of view, especially if those Q-bombs can be triggered by NPC activity that the player can't influence or even see. Sudden random outbreaks of catastrophic destruction for no apparent reason would tend to seem buggy, I think. It's a good scenario for a mission - a rogue company breaking perhaps the most glaring safety rule of them all - but not for everyday!
Regarding the possibility of a Q bomb style explosive I wonder if it would be possible to script it such that:
1) It would be a rare event (5% chance perhaps!!!)
2) Could only be instigated by a player attacking and destroying a Tanker.
I have much to think about regarding this OXP and at this stage have not made any definite decisions on how exactly it will work so very much appreciate all the feedback.
The last thing that I want to do is produce an OXP for the Oolite community which will be unpopular or adversely affect the gameplay of this great game.
The GalTech Industries Corporation - Building ships to populate the galaxies.
Looks like a concept of some kind of stackable container vessel. It would be good to see ships with different numbers of modules flying around .
This was the idea that the ship would be able to connect additional or less storage tank units however I’d not thought about actually producing models with different numbers of tanks. To do this however wouldn’t be too much more work than producing a single model so good Idea Eric I think that I’ll include multiple size models as you suggest.
You could make the 'tanks' sub-entities then by 'like_ship'-ing you could have variants with different numbers of tanks.
Commander Smivs, the friendliest Gourd this side of Riedquat.
