Oolite Bulletins

Shipbuilder wrote:

Smivs wrote:

Ranthe wrote:

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).

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.

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.

Shipbuilder wrote:

Basic textured test model in game.

Shipbuilder wrote:

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.

Smivs wrote:

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.

Disembodied wrote:

...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 ...

Eric Walch wrote:

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 .

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 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.

Shipbuilder wrote:

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.

Shipbuilder wrote:

Eric Walch wrote:

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.