Any Space Transport Sims?

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Solanus612
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Re: Any Space Transport Sims?

Post by Solanus612 »

I apologize - I think these posts may come in out of order...

Part 3 of the mega post:
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Passengers are also significantly different from regular cargoes:

Passengers are carried in accommodations, more or less permanent structures in a ship’s or Shuttle’s hold (any ship or Shuttle with at least one passenger “container” is more appropriately called a Passenger Liner). The accommodations are either part of the initial configuration for the Liner or are refit into the hold.

Passengers self-manage where they want to go, i.e., any given group of passengers actually wants to go to any number of planets. The fare that they pay is based in part on how likely they feel that they will eventually be able to get to their ultimate destination. When a Liner arrives at a Spaceport/Station to take on passengers, the Tycoon can determine on a slider within the Route whether they would prefer to take passengers willing to pay “full price” (because the Liner is going somewhere they want to go; this could mean longer layovers or fewer passengers) or to take passengers willing to board right away at a “discount price” (because the Liner is going on a sub-optimal path for the passenger). (Or should that decision be set at the Spaceport/Station?)

Passengers are actually willing to pay for distance traveled, unlike most cargoes, with the major caveat that it is distance from planet to planet, not for the route the Liner takes, that matters. Time in transit is also important, with some differences based on the type of passenger.

Accommodations are split into three categories: Coach, Luxury, and Sleeper. Coach has basic room, board, and entertainment for the passengers, resulting in median fares and capacity available. Luxury passengers demand more extensive rooms, food, and in-transit entertainment, leading to reduced capacity but near proportional fare hikes. Sleeper passengers are loaded into hypersleep beds, which eliminate the needs for in-transit requirements and allow for the highest passenger density, but for very low fares. Luxury passengers are most interested in popular destinations (this might mean established planets or those that are experiencing tourism surges) and quick travel, Sleepers have much lower time demands, with Coach somewhere in between.

Cargoes could include:
  • Fauna – any live creatures being moved from one location to another (different from Livestock being sent to a Factory for slaughter)
  • Food – any number of foodstuffs, whether animal or plant in source, preserved for transport
  • Fuel – this could include bulk solid fuels and liquefied gasses
  • Goods – basic consumer goods, usable to meet quality-of-life needs
  • Industrial – technological equipment used to make planets livable and productive
  • Mail – this is a combination of physical packages needing to be moved and electronic information that cannot be sent (at a reasonable price) via subspace transmission (should this type of cargo also have a movement profile similar to passengers?)
  • Metals – any refined metals to be used in industrial applications
  • Ore – unprocessed materials that had been imbedded in rock or soil
  • Passengers – explained above
  • Valuables – any materials with a high value-to-mass/volume ratio, which require significant protection
  • Vehicles – whole or components of conveyances and their parts
(Any additions or changes appreciated.)

Tycoons get paid whenever a consignment or passenger reaches a delivery point. For cargoes, this is when the load arrives at the destination settlement on the planet, while passengers pay when they disembark, which can be at their intended destination or at a layover point. If a cargo has to move through local authority Shuttles, either at the beginning or end of its run, the Tycoon pays for those services as they complete. Other services (e.g., Jump Gate toll) are paid for when the Tycoon uses them. (Depending on the rating for the Tycoon at a planet, Spaceport, or Space Station, a Tycoon may pay a hefty premium (when the Tycoon’s service is poor) or a slight premium (when it is good).)For example:
  • A load of Metals is being picked up from a smelting facility on a planet in System A. A Route is set that will take the Freighter to System B, one of the allowed destinations for the consignment. The Tycoon does not have any of his own Shuttles or Slips at the pick-up or drop-off points, and will land at the Spaceport in System A and dock at the Space Station in System B. The Freighter is FTL-capable, so there’s no need to use a Jump Gate (assuming one was available).
  • LA Shuttles move cargo from settlement to Spaceport in advance of the Freighter’s arrival – Tycoon pays fee on consignment arriving at Spaceport.
  • Freighter lands at Spaceport in a public Slip, after waiting in the queue – Tycoon pays fee on take-off from Spaceport.
  • Freighter achieves orbit, transits to system outskirts, jumps to System B, and travels to high orbit around destination planet.
  • Freighter docks with Space Station in a public Slip, after waiting in the queue – Tycoon pays fee after decoupling from Space Station.
  • LA Shuttles move cargo from Space Station to Spaceport and then to the destination settlement – Tycoon gets payment from supplier and pays fee for Shuttles on consignment arriving at settlement.
A Tycoon that relies on local authority Shuttles and public Slips likely has to wait longer for cargoes to be available at the pick-up points, longer to get a Slip to use, and longer for the cargoes to be un/loaded. The Tycoon has to compare the costs, in fees and lost time, to the benefits and costs in investing in the planetary Slips and Hangars, in order to determine whether to rely solely on public assets or adding their own to the mix.
____

Again, a tremendous amount to digest, but I needed to get it out sometime before it killed me. I am not a programmer, so I have no idea if what I'm asking for here is a viable way to make a game like this. Comment, suggest, etc. And thanks!
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Re: Any Space Transport Sims?

Post by Solanus612 »

Question: What would be the general preference between these two options?

1. Individual star systems are connected to other star systems nearby with wormholes, allowing any ship to travel to any other system simply by hopscotching through the intervening systems until they get there. An FTL drive is available that allows for faster direct travel, but takes up a lot of cargo space and is very expensive to buy and maintain; some cargoes will probably be worthy of the faster movement, though.

2. An FTL drive is necessary to travel between systems normally, but the ship can go from any system to any other. It takes up some room and adds additional costs to purchase and maintain; a ship without an FTL drive is normally stuck in one system. Wormholes are rare, with probably 5-10% of systems connected to another this way, but the distances between them are always considerable (i.e., they're great shortcuts) and system ships can pass through them.
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Re: Any Space Transport Sims?

Post by Redirect Left »

I would prefer 2 (and is similar to what i'm using for the quick thing i'm pulling together in Unity), although perhaps any ship can go any where, just with time taken increasing extravagantly for slower ships / those lacking FTL capability.
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Re: Any Space Transport Sims?

Post by SquireJames »

Myself i'd also use the Frontier Elite II system where "the larger the ship, the bigger the hyperdrive required and the slower it is through hyperspace"

This way, small fast ships maintain their usage as couriers for parcels, a few VIPs or high value/time sensitive goods.
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Re: Any Space Transport Sims?

Post by YNM »

I'd take option 2 as the first thing available, but later, as technology is moving forward option 1 can be available too.
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Re: Any Space Transport Sims?

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Part 4 of the mega posts
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Additional cargoes available could include:
  • Environmental – equipment and structure elements necessary for living and working in harsh planetary environments or for terraforming environments to Earth norms
  • Illicit – materials and goods that would be considered contraband in most systems; limited suppliers/customers, but high value (carrying them through Spaceports/Stations or Jump Gates in systems where they are contraband may result in loss of cargo and/or impounding of ship)
  • Arms – this includes offensive and defensive systems for personal use or mounting on vehicles/emplacements; these are legal movements (illegal arms are handled as “Illicit”)
____

Travel from system to system using a Freighter’s FTL drive is initiated by heading to the outer edges of the system and then activating the drive. Depending on the distance between the two systems, the Freighter will need a number of days in hyperspace to cover the distance before it exits hyperspace. Once clear, the Freighter will head in-system on its subluminal engines.

A Jump Gate is a stabilizing mechanism for a wormhole between two systems, which can be separated (on average) a distance equivalent to 6 to 10 times that between two populated systems. Each end of the wormhole has a Jump Gate built to allow any ship (even those without FTL drives) to travel instantaneously from one end to the other. Because of this incredible capability, companies and Tycoons line up eagerly to use the Jump Gates, and local authorities charge considerable sums to translate through them. As long as the Tycoon is willing to wait and pay, they can queue up their ships to use the Gates, adding them as separate stops to their Routes instead of defaulting to an FTL jump to exit the system.
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Ships are bought from Stardocks: many ships can be purchased immediately at each location, while others can be made to order. (Should Tycoons have to buy new ships each time, or should “used” ships be available? How would used ships be handled from running costs and maintenance standpoints?) When the Tycoon looks to purchase a ship, they indicate what size ship they’re looking for, along with starting configuration options (e.g., passenger compartments, Shuttle hangars, FTL drives). For a ship to be built to order, the cost and time to complete will show in the top line of the list; any ships that are in inventory at any Stardock are shown in the remainder of the list, along with their costs and ETAs to arrive at the requesting Stardock. (If used ships are included, then either age, maintenance costs, etc., could be included in the list or the ship marked to indicate the Tycoon should drill down to find this information.) If the Tycoon does not get the configuration that they want on purchase, they can always pay to refit their ships at any Stardock or Slip (probably more expensive).

Like all vehicle types in Transport Tycoon games, Shuttles, Freighters, and Liners all require regular maintenance throughout their operating lives. Ships are able to get maintenance done at a Spaceport/Station Slip (or Hangar, for Shuttles) or at a Stardock. A maintenance rating (similar to the cargo handling rating explained before) would be used to determine the speed of maintenance/repairs, and activity done at a Stardock or public Slip would result in a fee charged at its completion (another reason to invest in company Slips).

Freighters and Liners can also break down while in transit – ships that break down in system come to a halt temporarily, while ships in mid-FTL-jump could either complete their jump normally and then experience the breakdown, experience a slowdown during the jump and then exit normally but broken down, or actually experience a jump malfunction and be ejected from hyperspace in a random nearby system. (For gameplay simplicity, Freighters and Liners could use reactionless engines for system movement, to avoid dealing with acceleration/deceleration and constant refueling. This means that a broken down ship is effectively not moving, rather than coasting along (and possibly hitting something). If reaction drives are seen as an interesting challenge to work with, this could probably be managed.)

A ship that experiences a breakdown is stopped while they either jury rig repairs or (if breakdown severity is allowed) a repair ship gets to them. Ships that are repaired are still not at 100%, and will travel slower than normal until they reach a maintenance facility. (Also, if breakdown severity is allowed, a ship could experience an issue with its FTL drive (either in system space or mid-jump) that would take the whole system offline until repairs/maintenance can be done. In this instance, I would say that a repair ship could get the FTL drive up to limping performance – this would be essential if the ship broke down in a system without an accessible maintenance facility (e.g., non-planetfall Freighter in a system without a Space Station or Stardock).)

A Tycoon can indicate on a ship’s profile (and probably a company default) whether it will rely solely on company Slips or look for first available, with separate options for maintenance and repairs. A ship that is in a system without company Slips and configured to only use them, might then prefer to jump out at reduced speed to get to a company Slip rather than just head in-system for a public one. Maybe a message would pop up to let the Tycoon know that a breakdown has occurred in a non-company system, and he could then decide whether to override the restriction (temporarily?) or even to quickly buy a company Slip.
____

Should there be areas of the galaxy that are more dangerous to travel through than others, because of pirates or other forces? If so, there are a few ways to handle this:
  • Ships simply run the gauntlet and each run can result in loss of cargo, crew ransoms paid, damage to the ship, or even destroyed or stolen (probably not a great option, but possibly a cheap choice a Tycoon might make)
  • Ships hire gunship escorts, with a fee each run and a portion of the liability if the escorts are damaged or destroyed, and the same potential results if the escorts are overcome (this is my preference, as it can be handled more abstractly)
  • Ships purchase their own gunship escorts, with normal running costs and full liability if they’re damaged or destroyed, and the same potential results if the escorts are overcome (this could be done, but then we’d have to decide where the gunships end up after each run)
(I would rather not have the ships themselves be armed, as I think it gets away from the traditional ways that transports have been handled historically for the most part (Spanish treasure galleons, notwithstanding).)

There would need to be a pretty high premium paid to move cargoes into or out of dangerous systems, to cover both the insurance on the cargoes and the risks to the Tycoon’s assets.
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Re: Any Space Transport Sims?

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Part 5 of the mega posts
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Like the standard Transport Tycoon games, Local Authorities and Industries will form opinions of the Tycoon’s efforts to move their goods. Because of the nature of the consignment system and the presence of other non-Tycoon transport companies, the Tycoon will be graded on their participation in the transfer of cargoes and passengers to and from, not on all of the activities that are outside of the Tycoon’s responsibilities.

A Tycoon that moves a large quantity and/or high percentage of a Local Authority’s or Industry’s cargoes/passengers will receive high marks for volume, while one that moves a small percentage will receive low marks. A low mark does not necessarily mean the group thinks the Tycoon is doing a poor job, just that it hasn’t proven it can/will move large quantities from there.

A Tycoon that delivers a high percentage of the cargoes/passengers they pick up from a Local Authority or Industry, to profitable locations, especially including the speed of delivery, will receive high marks for quality, while one that consistently delivers to poor locations and/or after lengthy transit times (relative to distance between markets) will receive low marks. A low mark does not necessarily mean the group will not work with the Tycoon, just that they will prioritize other companies for higher value movements.

A Tycoon that delivers a lot of cargoes/passengers, but does so poorly, will often be regarded about as well overall as a Tycoon that delivers only a few cargoes/passengers but always very well. A Tycoon can still work to improve their overall performance by offering more available outbound opportunities, prioritizing loads from underserved Industries, or streamlining Routes to ensure quicker deliveries.

As an additional wrinkle, separate Industries (whether of the same type or in the same system, or not) can be part of a multi-stellar MegaCorp. The Tycoon’s rating with the MegaCorp is based on how much activity and how well they do across any and all Industries within the MegaCorp. The rating within the MegaCorp can influence the view of the Tycoon by each of the MegaCorp’s associated Industries, but the direct rating with the Industry is more important.
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Challenges are an expansion of the “first delivery” subsidies from the Transport Tycoon games. Challenges can include:
  • Successfully delivering a set quantity of a given cargo from an Industry/Local Authority, to whatever system(s) – this would improve your rating with the supplying Industry/Local Authority, earn a bonus upon completion, and a temporary premium on further shipments
  • Successfully delivering a set quantity of a given cargo to another Industry, from whatever system(s) – similar reputation and credit gains
  • Successfully moving a set quantity or percentage of containers by Shuttle traffic – similar reputation and credit gains
  • Successfully delivering a specific consignment from one location to another – this will usually be more time-critical, both to pick up and to deliver, and if accepted but not completed in time, a significant penalty could be assessed, but proportionally higher gains if successful
    (Specific consignments might include cargoes that aren't part of the normal offerings, like relief supplies going to a planet dealing with an asteroid impact. Some Challenges might offer a different bonus as well, including new/used ship discounts, waiving of slip/Shuttle fees, etc.)
Challenges can be offered to any taker or specifically to the Tycoon, and can come from Local Authorities and Industries that the Tycoon has worked with before or ones wanting to test the Tycoon. For example, an Industry that deals in Valuables or Illicit goods probably will not offer its cargoes to just any company to transport, and will set a Challenge to move a different type of cargo in order to see who steps up, with the successful Tycoon getting a new, potentially lucrative open market.
____

A Tycoon is not restricted to simply moving consignments of goods for other Industries – they can also purchase cargoes directly from source Industries, or invest in and later outright purchase Industries. Normally, Industries produce their goods at a given cost and then look to sell them in markets that will cover the costs to transport them there, along with (hopefully substantial) profits for the Industry and any transport companies.

If a Tycoon decides to purchase cargoes directly from the Industry, they would pay for the cost of the cargo along with a portion of the profit that the Industry might have otherwise seen after delivery. While a considerable amount of credits will be tied up in the purchased cargoes, larger profits are seen from each delivery, probably comparable to (if not better than) equal investments in additional consignment Routes. The Tycoon marks cargoes that they wish to purchase in the same area as marking cargoes for pick-up, and they’re able to place priority on Routes for preference in picking up owned versus Industry cargoes (no preference, prefer owned but take any, only take owned). A Tycoon can only mark cargoes for purchase that they also have marked for pick-up and delivery.

If a Tycoon decides to purchase a stake in an Industry, they would pay for 5% of the Industry’s value at a time (a very significant investment). The percentage owned would determine the portion of Industry profits coming back to the Tycoon, and would be used in votes for the direction the Industry takes (expansions, exclusivity rights, etc.). A Tycoon should work to support the delivery of raw materials into and finished goods out of Industries where they have an ownership stake, to ensure that they are healthy and successful. They should also be wary of attempts by other Tycoons to buy into Industries that they rely on, as well as being aware of opportunities to turn those tables on their competitors.
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Re: Any Space Transport Sims?

Post by YNM »

Could we have a mechanism where you can be the frontier of the interstellar community ? (ie. Inhabiting new systems, contacting an uncontacted system and serving to be a connection between them and the others). The option to be able to create own ship design is great; maybe we need something along KSP's VAB or SPH to do that...
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Re: Any Space Transport Sims?

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Is there a preference for generalized or specific cargo types? My previous text had more generic terms for the types of cargoes that could be carried, with just 14 types between posts. However, I'm just starting to use FIRS, which has both more cargo types and more industries that produce or consume the same cargoes. I've also seen the more varied approach in other games with transportation of cargoes.

Also, is there a preference for the amount of lawlessness in a game like this? I had put forth a couple of options, one to smuggle illicit cargoes (with a chance for the ship to be caught) and the other to have areas of the map where pirates are present and need to be defended against. Both add a real level of risk and chance into the game, versus it being strictly a business strategy game. I could see some additional wrinkles being thrown in (e.g., being hassled by customs at a station that delays delivery).
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Re: Any Space Transport Sims?

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Starships would be powered by fusion plants, which would require some sort of “fuel” (hydrogen, water, etc.) in order to continue the reaction. Basic operation of the ship (engines, life support, etc.) would consume a relatively small amount of fuel to power the reactors; the biggest consumer of reaction fuel would be the ship’s FTL drive, which requires monumental amounts of power to operate. Between the massive fuel tanks and capacitors needed, having an FTL drive in a Freighter/Liner is one of the biggest trade-offs to work with.

The FTL drive is capable of a hyper jump of a given distance, proportional to the fuel consumed/power produced and the size of the ship. For example, a small tramp Freighter that takes up 10% of its base cargo capacity with its FTL drive would be able to travel just as far in a single jump as a large pleasure cruise Liner that has the same 10% capacity drive. Using arbitrary numbers, a ship that uses 20% of its capacity could jump 20LY (light years) in one movement, compared to a 10% capacity ship only covering 10LY each time. Because a ship needs to travel from beyond the jump limit of the system, in-system to a Spaceport/Station to refuel, and then back out before jumping again, a ship with a larger FTL drive can shave significant time from their transits.

If an FTL ship wants to travel to a system that is 100LY distant, but can only travel 20LY in a single jump, it will almost certainly take more than 5 jumps to make the journey. This is because there aren’t likely to be four equidistant systems in between the origin and destination to be perfectly efficient, and so the ship will have to veer around to follow whatever path they can use to get there, adding more jumps to the Route.

Many cargoes simply won’t see much benefit to justify the premium of very fast transit times, so a large-FTL ship may be unprofitable when trying to move bulk ore but well suited to foodstuffs. The very fastest transit times on long Routes may only be demanded by limited cargo types and quantities, like Valuables or Luxury Passengers, so a 80-90% FTL Liner may command premier prices, but barely be able to fill more than a couple of holds worth of cabins in a given run.

Laying out a Route with these FTL fuel considerations would take some additional horsepower, with the program calculating max jump distances and fuel consumption, along with implicit stops at Spaceports/Stations for refueling. For example, a Freighter going from system A to system F could start a Route that identifies systems A and F as the cargo-handling Stops. The program would then generate a suggested Route that goes through systems B, C, D, & E as refueling-only implicit Stops (similar to how Google Maps would show the various turns when getting directions). The Tycoon could then move one of the stops (go to system G instead of E) or even select an alternate path (go through systems H, I, J, & K instead).

Also:
  • Charging the FTL drives does take time, with significantly long jumps forcing the ship to wait at the jump limit for a number of hours before fully charged.
  • Under-developed systems might not have accessible fueling facilities, requiring the ship to jump into the system and back out without refueling. The Route planner would need to identify Stops that don’t have refueling capability for that ship and reduce max jump distances appropriately.
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Re: Any Space Transport Sims?

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It's been a while since I've posted anything on this, but I've been working through a bit of the math and I have some different conclusions as a result. Prepare for infodump!
____

Earlier in this process, normal space movement was posited as being a constant speed without the need to accelerate or decelerate. That may have been a little too simplistic and so I’ve come up with an acceleration-based model for system movement:

Ships would move around in normal space using engines capable of reactionless movement (not requiring reaction mass to be ejected at high velocity/in large volumes in order to move the craft). These engines are capable of producing constant accelerations for days and weeks on end, using some sort of exotic, high-density low-volume “pixium” fuel to power their operation.

Basic physics states that an object under a constant acceleration will travel a total distance equal to ½ of the rate of acceleration multiplied by the square of the time spent accelerating. This can be expressed as:

y=1/2 at^2

Where y is the distance, a is the acceleration, and t is the time. Solving for time results in:

t=√(2y/a)

What this means is that if we know our distance to cover and our acceleration, we can determine the length of time necessary to cover the distance.

For example: we want to travel from Earth to Mars when they are at their most distant points. (More often, we will use astronomical units (AU), the mean distance from our Sun to the Earth, defined as around 149.6MM kilometers), as a handy shorthand for star system distances.) When situated like this, the two planets are around 2.5 AU apart (we’ll ignore needing to go around the Sun during this example).

We’ll look first at maintaining an acceleration equal to one gravity (1 G, the mean force of gravity on Earth’s surface, equal to 9.81 meters per second squared), as this could be used to simulate the feeling of gravity for the crew and passengers of our ship. If our ship departs from Earth orbit at 1 G acceleration toward Mars, it will get halfway there in about 54 ¼ hours. At this halfway point, the ship is travelling at 1.92 million meters per second, or 0.64% the speed of light, and would need to slow down to insert into Mars orbit. So the ship would turnover (flip end-to-end) with its engines now facing Mars, and decelerate at 1 G the rest of the way, for another 54 ¼ hours. All told, the trip took 108 ½ hours, or just over 4 ½ days.

Earlier we had talked about ships needing to execute their FTL jumps outside of the “jump limit”, the minimum distance away from a star to avoid any issues with its gravity well interfering with a safe jump. We had also included the major planets in that discussion, but considering that all of the planets (and lesser objects) in our solar system in total equal about 0.14% of the mass of our Sun, there should not be any problem with having a significantly closer jump limit. For a star similar to our own Sun, that limit could be at around 4 AU (in between our primary asteroid belt and Jupiter’s orbit).

For any FTL jump between star systems, ships need to be beyond the jump limit and fairly close to a line bisecting the origin and destination stars – this keeps the origin star from unduly influencing the jump process. From a 1 AU orbit (similar to Earth’s), the average distance to any particular jump point is roughly 4 AU (3 AU if the planet is at its closest to the jump point, to 5 AU if at its furthest).

At our 1 G acceleration, our ship would need 68.6 hours to get to the mid-way point between Earth orbit and our average jump point, and then need to turnover and decelerate to come to rest immediately prior to their jump. Not counting the time spent on the jump itself, the ship would then need to spend another 137.2 hours to get back in-system. In total, the trip from one system’s inner planets to the next system’s has taken 274.4 hours, equal to about 11 days, 10.4 hours.

Compare that to other travel times through history: A Yankee Clipper in the 1820’s might make the trans-Atlantic voyage from New York to Europe in as little as 15-16 days (westward was longer because of winds and currents not being suited to a direct route). But later on, those transit times dropped as steam engines took over as the primary motive force from sails. Increasing the acceleration would allow our ships to go faster, but first we would have to allow for some type of inertial compensator to keep the effective acceleration on the passengers to a comfortable amount.

Because of the square root nature of the time-distance-acceleration equation, increasing our acceleration doesn’t result in a proportional decrease in time. A ship accelerating at 4 G would make the longest Earth-Mars trip in 54 ¼ hours total, or half that of the 1 G ship, and the average FTL transit in 5 days, 17 hours; a 9 G ship reduces the 1 G times to a third – just over 36 hours and 3.81 days, respectively. A faster ship can also make more trips in the same amount of time, however.
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Re: Any Space Transport Sims?

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While the previous changes to the system engines made them more complex (hopefully in a positive, challenging way), these changes to the FTL drives look to make them less complex. By adopting a similar power/fuel model to the system drive, there is no more need for large fuel tanks to supply the FTL reactor. Instead the space set aside is for the capacitors necessary to collect and then discharge enough energy through the FTL drive all at once to make the jump. Second, the game would use near-instantaneous jumps between systems, rather than time-consuming transits through hyperspace.

While the need to travel to a refueling point is no longer necessary, ships will still need to travel between each jump whenever they’re not able to make it to their destination in a single jump. Now, the distance will be between their arrival point (which should be close to the reciprocal jump point for their previous system) and the next jump point. The bare minimum arc between any arrival point and the next jump point will be just over 60 degrees; of course, the maximum arc is 180 degrees and the average of the two is 120 degrees.

For a typical 4 AU-radius jump limit, the 120 degree arc would put the straight-line distance between the two points at 6.93 AU. At 1 G, a ship could cover the distance and be ready to jump again in 180.6 hours (about 7 ½ days); the 4 G ship is 90.3 hours (3 days, 18 hours) and the 9 G ship is 60.2 hours (2 ½ days).

Having powerful engines or long-distance jump capability for a ship has its drawbacks. The first is lost cargo capacity: The engines and jump drive are rated to move a certain volume and mass of ship, but including those systems in the hull and frame takes away cargo space. For example, a ship has 100 Hull Points (HP) of total volume and mass to work with. At a given technological level, engines capable of 4 G of thrust might take up 20% of the ship’s HP (5% per G); the 40 LY jump drive and its capacitors take up another 40% (1% per LY). This leaves just 40% of the original 100 HP (now 40 HP) for cargo space. Another ship might have a smaller jump drive (20 LY) and have half-again more cargo capacity (60 HP). Also, at a later point in time, that same 4 G acceleration and 40 LY jump distance might only take 20-30% of the ship’s HP, as newer technologies miniaturize and economize earlier capabilities.

Second is the cost for the systems, upkeep, and fuel. Engines and jump drives account for easily 90-95% of the purchase price for a ship and an equal percentage of the general upkeep. And while there wouldn’t be a need to constantly refuel, especially in bulk, like you would with a ship that uses traditional fuels and reaction mass, you would need to pay for all of the fuel that you are using. A ship that accelerates at 1 G for an FTL transit would run its engines for over 68.6 hours each time it accelerates or decelerates. If it does that four times (2 accelerations, 2 decelerations), then it would use 274.4 gravity-hours of fuel (not counting the multiplier for the overall size of the ship). The 4 G ship only runs its engines for 137 hours but at four times the acceleration, so it uses twice as much fuel; 9 G is a third of the time, but three times the fuel in the end.

Third is the limited opportunity to sell those capabilities. A ship that travels at 4 G will deliver a cargo in half of the time of a ship only capable of 1 G, but it will do it at twice the fuel cost and a higher running cost (beyond fuel). To do so profitably, it will likely have to limit itself to cargoes that can pay the higher premiums, like first-class passengers, mail, or xenofauna. Those cargoes will also probably be in limited quantity compared to lower-tier options. One balancing factor for this is that a ship that makes twice as many trips only has to make half as much profit on each trip to be just as profitable as the slower ship, all other things being equal.

When the Tycoon is shopping for ships, they will likely find them split among several categories:

Stock – these are ships that are essentially what the manufacturer offered when the model was introduced. There may be some small model year updates that are made as small technological improvements come into play, but otherwise will be functionally similar to their first versions.

Upgrade – these are ships that originally had engines and jump drives using older technologies, but have since been updated to more modern capabilities. If a ship with 30% of its HP taken up with engines capable of 3 G of acceleration, replaces those with engines again taking up 30% but instead can crank out 6 G, it’s an Upgrade. Upgrades are fairly straightforward, requiring a trip to a Slip or Stardock and a few days to a week or two. Ships that have already been Upgraded can be found on the used ship market, and are marked to indicate which elements have been Upgraded.

Refit – these are ships that originally had a given mix of engines, jump drives, and other systems, along with cargo capacity, but have since been significantly modified to have different capabilities. If a ship originally had 30% of its HP in engines and only 20% in jump drive, and then switched to 20% engines and 30% drives, or 30% and 30% (cutting into the cargo space), it’s a Refit. Refits are more involved than Upgrades, mostly in terms of time – especially if more or less cargo space results from the changes. Refits are also on the used ship market, but are more clearly marked to show they are different from their Stock version.

Because some ships can be considerably larger than others, Slips are rated to handle ships of a given class. Probably the smallest could handle a single ship up to 100 HP in size, while the next size up could handle perhaps as much as a single 1,000 HP ship or a handful of smaller ships. A larger Slip can process much more cargo over any given length of time, but that is split among the various docking collars. When smaller ships share a larger Slip, each of them is likely to only use one or two collars at a time and thus would only be able to use a portion of the handling capacity. The largest Slips would be able to handle ships up to about 10,000 HP fairly efficiently, but beyond that it becomes harder as only a portion of the hull is able to mate up to the docking collars.
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Re: Any Space Transport Sims?

Post by Solanus612 »

Jump Distance Example:

Nine systems lay in a ragged line across the map – going from “West” to “East”:

Alpha @ 3 x 4
Beta @ 1 x 12
Gamma @ 6 x 19
Delta @ 8 x 29
Epsilon @ 10 x 32
Zeta @ 5 x 42
Eta @ 8 x 49
Theta @ 2 x 53
Iota @ 4 x 59
Kappa @ 11 x 75

Code: Select all

           O
                                                    O
   O
                                                          O
                                             O
                  O

                             O                  O

                                O
                                                                          O
The distances from each system to all of the following systems:

Code: Select all

           Beta  Gamma  Delta  Epsilon  Zeta  Eta  Theta  Iota  Kappa
Alpha         8     15     25       29    38   45     49    55     71
Beta                 9     18       22    30   38     41    47     64
Gamma                      10       14    23   30     34    40     56
Delta                                4    13   20     25    30     46
Epsilon                                   11   17     22    28     43
Zeta                                            8     11    17     34
Eta                                                    7    11     26
Theta                                                        6     24
Iota                                                               17
A ship with a 10 LY FTL drive could make four jumps before it would have to hand its cargo off to another ship, because it couldn’t make the Epsilon to Zeta jump, never mind the later Iota to Kappa. A 20 LY drive would have to make 5 jumps (Alpha to Gamma, Gamma to Epsilon, Epsilon to Eta, Eta to Iota, and Iota to Kappa) in total to cross the 71 LY from Alpha to Kappa, and it would burn through 80 LY worth of fuel to do it. A 30 LY drive makes it in three jumps, burning 74 LY worth of fuel; a 40 LY drive is two and 72, while a 50 LY drive still needs two and as little as 71 LY of fuel.

Any time the ship has to make more than one jump, it will have to travel from the previous jump’s arrival point to the next jump’s jump point. As an example, we’ll assume that each ship is using 60% of its hull for engines and drives, and that each gravity of acceleration uses 5% of the HP and every LY of max distance uses 1%. This means that our 20 LY ship is capable of 8 G of acceleration, the 30 LY ship does 6 G, 40 LY for 4 G, and 50 LY is only 2 G.

Our 20 LY / 8 G ship scoots out to the jump limit in no time flat (relatively speaking – 48.5 hours), but needs 5 jumps and 4 transits from jump point to jump point (63.9 hours each), and another 48.5 hours at the end. In total, it has taken 352.4 hours (14.7 days) for this ship. The 30 LY / 6 G ship can do each end in 56 hours, but still needs 2 J2J transits at 73.7 hours each, for a total of 259.5 hours (10.8 days). The 40 LY /4 G ship gets it done in 68.6 hours, 90.3 hours, and another 68.6 hours, for 227.5 hours (9.5 days) in total.

However, despite having the biggest jump drive, the 50 LY ship has the weakest engines (2 G) and still has to make a second jump, so it takes 97 hours just getting out to the jump limit, another 127.7 hours between jumps, and 97 hours more on the opposite end, taking 321.8 in total (13.4 days), or almost 4 full days more than the 40 LY ship.

When would the 50 LY ship been more appropriate? Certainly a voyage from Alpha to Theta (49 LY) would have been ideal, but it still would have taken 194 hours (8.1 days), only about a day and a half less than the 40 LY ship, which is still stuck with a second jump and J2J transit. The shorter-jumping 20 and 30 LY ships would be able to shave time off of their transits, by one fewer jumps and J2J transits each. That would put them at 288.5 hours and (amazingly) 185.8 hours, respectively. More likely, the longer jump capability will be more useful when there is a significant gap that won’t allow a shorter jump to cover the distance.
____

Sorry, that was a massive wall of thought there. I'm also still just thinking this through, with no attempt to see if this is at all reasonable to program - or fun, really. Comment as you see fit, but let me know if I'm onto something or just on something...
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Re: Any Space Transport Sims?

Post by Greyfox »

Bit of a bump, considering the date of the first post. The only space game that I am aware of that comes close to transporting goods is "X3". You'll find it on Steam. However, It also involves fending off enemies as well.

Hope this helps. :?:
Windows 10 discussion here: http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=72527
Looking for AMI trains, Chicago Locomotive Works, etc: You'll find your needs here: http://www.locomotiondepot.net/
Here's another: http://www.walter1940.de Lots of interesting stuff on this site, including tutorials.
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Re: Any Space Transport Sims?

Post by SkeedR »

Greyfox wrote:Bit of a bump, considering the date of the first post. The only space game that I am aware of that comes close to transporting goods is "X3". You'll find it on Steam. However, It also involves fending off enemies as well.

Hope this helps. :?:
What about Freelancer? Also, the new Elite: Dangerous and Star Citizen games.
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Re: Any Space Transport Sims?

Post by Solanus612 »

Thanks for the bump! The whole purpose of starting the discussion was to have a game very much in the feel of OpenTTD but in a science fiction environment. Games like Freelancer, Elite: Dangerous, and Star Citizen are all space flight games that have trading elements, but are all very hands on for the flying and you can very easily avoid any significant cargo hauling (and still enjoy the crap out of yourself in doing so).

I've been thinking about my ideas expressed in this thread and, while I'm confident that they are the basic building blocks to what hopefully would be a very interesting game, I'm convinced that this particular audience might be looking for something a little less spaceship-intensive. So I've been bandying about some ideas for a game that is much more in the OpenTTD model of planet-based transport with some interplanetary and interstellar elements. Those aren't really ready at this point to share with the group - mostly I'm trying to figure out the dynamics of a game that would have elements from ground trucks all the way up to FTL freighters - but I'll feed those ideas out as I go along.
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Re: Any Space Transport Sims?

Post by PhiliThunder »

This seems interesting. I have not seen any games like that :|
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Re: Any Space Transport Sims?

Post by Solanus612 »

One of the big issues I'm trying to get my head around is the idea of having a set of formulas for determining price paid for shipping that works for a ground truck moving a load of ore from a mine to a smelter 60 kilometers away AND for an FTL freighter moving a load of envirotech from another system that's a 4 AU (about 600 million km) transit to the jump point, an FTL jump, and another 4 AU away. It brings a number of questions:
  • How inexpensive would each kilometer of movement have to be per ton in order to have interstellar transport REMOTELY viable, especially once a more locally-available source comes online?
  • How tight would the margins on interstellar transport have to be to keep every tycoon from switching entirely to that business exclusively once they could afford their first FTL ship?
  • How many people are going to be able to afford to actually travel from one system to another, in order to justify star-liners?
If you could somehow say that the total cost for an FTL trip is only $0.10/km-ton, that's still $120MM/ton not counting the premium for it being an FTL movement (maybe x2, if not considerably higher). Even moving the price per km-ton down doesn't help much because you're multiplying it against more than a billion miles (and that's for a simple transit-jump-transit movement). Even an intra-system trip is still hideously expensive with potentially even greater real-space distances involved.

More later...
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Re: Any Space Transport Sims?

Post by Expresso »

Transportation cost irl isn't so much based on distance. It's based on time spent and actual costs. I think you should first consider your setting before getting into details like this, because the setting might tell you more about how things should work.
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Re: Any Space Transport Sims?

Post by Solanus612 »

Expresso wrote:Transportation cost irl isn't so much based on distance. It's based on time spent and actual costs. I think you should first consider your setting before getting into details like this, because the setting might tell you more about how things should work.
Correct, cost doesn't have a pure relation to distance like the very simplified system in OpenTTD. But distance drives several of the variable costs for a transport, including fuel and wear & tear, and acts as the foundation for time factors, like distance divided by average speed equaling time spent travelling. Many IRL transportation companies can and do boil their costs down to a per mile or km value.

The primary reason for asking about the extreme costs for interstellar and long interplanetary travel is that it drives the demand curve for the accepting locations. An industry is not going to want to pay through the nose for long-haul materials when there are closer alternatives. Even if they have no option, their resources are going to limit how much of the pricey stuff they can afford.

Within the limitations of a computer game, especially one focused on the transport side, you would probably simplify the supply & demand curves to make them more easily digested by the player. My thought is to simply limit the quantity that a given receiving industry will accept during any given time period, based on the price grouping of where the materials came from (local, on the planet, off planet, and possibly out of system). But you would need to have some idea as to what the relative costs are to determine the ratios of how much would be bought from each price group.

For example, a ton of ore itself costs 100 units to extract from whatever mine and then gets transported to a smelter for refinement. If one smelter is only 150 km away and another is 1,000 km away, the difference in total cost to the receiving industry might only be 10-20%, as it may be peanuts to move the 150 km and not a ton more to go 1,000. But if the receiving industry is a billion km away, the end price to the industry is going to be many, many times what a local product might have cost.

The transport company is still going to get paid their rate for what gets delivered, but without a way of simulating out all of the actual consignments of goods, there's not really another way (I can think of right now) to simulate the reality that supplying industries are not actually going to get many orders for materials from two systems away, especially if their prospective customers have much closer, much cheaper options.
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