Pioneer dev forum

Hi All,

I figured I would try and help fill out the Haber freighter lineup. I had a really rough design in my head that I would like to post for comment. There is currently an active mirror modifier applied to this model so try to imagine it a little more uneven.

The main concept is formed around three sections: the forward habitat, central cargo/container hold and engine/fuel module. Cargo crates would be loaded from underneath requiring somewhat tall landing gear. Yet again I have made a model with an open front but am not married to this idea...

https://imgur.com/a/b0E3qwN



Bob

Ah, as the Haber Guide to Designing Cargo Spacecraft states, we need to put exposed cargo boxes in middle.
So far all Haber cargo craft has followed this rule to the letter - DSMiner, the WIP bulkship, and this freighter. I say it is coming along nicely.

How big are the containers? I am asking because maybe I could take it as a base for the containers of the bulkship, so there is consistency.

Nice one.
I1m curious about the scale as well, it is not clear yet.
Judging by the size of the rear end, it feels like a short range cargo shuttle. There isn't much room for propellant in there, especially when you take the engines into account.
I'm not keen on the container sticking out downwards. It would move the center of mass down, and the engines would introduce rotation. Maybe add a third engine down to alleviate that?
If it is intended to be a medium ship, then I'd halve the containers at the minimum (so 16 TEU) to sell the size better.

Sidenote: we should rethink the cargo container model we have currently. That one should be way smaller.

Thanks Both,

I1m curious about the scale as well, it is not clear yet.

Thats fair I haven't quite figured that out exactly yet. Im thinking Deneb/Bluenose sort of size. As for propellent, the thought had crossed my mind too. Aesthetically, I didnt want the backend to dominate the ships proportions. I will have a play.

I'm not keen on the container sticking out downwards.

Haha!! That is my fault, I was not clear in my description. There are only two containers. The ones underneath are for illustrative purposes so to give an idea of how much clearance I would need if the containers were loaded from the bottom. It was late and I was tired /:)

How big are the containers? I am asking because maybe I could take it as a base for the containers of the bulkship, so there is consistency.

Sidenote: we should rethink the cargo container model we have currently. That one should be way smaller.

These are both really good points. If there is a standard I would be more than happy to follow it! I think we have mentioned before about having an "assets" repo/blend. Things like standard airlocks, containers, weapons, engines etc... If there is an artistic direction we could follow I don't mind modelling one out.

Thanks for the input,
Bob :)

I think then you should base the containers on TEU containers. A good visual reference for scale, given how prevalent they are. You can still bundle them up if they are too small.
For the jettissonable cargo container we currently have, I'd say we should make that into a 1m sided cube, or something with the smae volume. Non-uniform would likely be good for visual interest.

For the loading, maybe you'd want to figure out a way for side-loading them.

I've got the smallest docking collar modeled, and a bunch of OPLI engines. The engines are up on my repo, they could provide some reference size and proportion wise. I've also have the smallest docking collar, and a very simple blockout for the bigger ones. I'll push those to the repo as well, if you want to work on the larger ones. The idea is that they are connectable to one size up and down, so they need to fit with them (excluding those spade things, I think those should be retractable anyway).
But maybe we should discuss these on the repo and on irc. Github is quite handier with image attachements than the forum.

A modification to allow side-loading of 20'x8' containers with more space for propellant at the rear. This configuration is more akin to a heavy freighter. At either scale, Im planning to put rails on the inside to draw containers in/out.

One question I have about containers is how they are packed in relation to gravity and geforce. Most of Pioneer's ships have a horizontal orientation meaning they will be loaded relative to a planets gravitational pull. However, under acceleration these containers will undergo geforce perpendicular to the way their contents were packed potentially causing damage. Is this a concern in the Pioneer universe? There could be a mechanism to rotate the containers when under acceleration that rotates them back when landing?

Make things as "hard sci fi" as possible, thinking through that it would work in real life. But still, there is a "game" component, so things should look OK, and be fun to play.

There could be a mechanism to rotate the containers when under acceleration that rotates them back when landing?

This is most likely not where we want to put dev effort

Looks good.
I wouldn't sweat too much about the containers versus gravity. I'd say, the shippers should pack their stuff properly. :D

An update.

I have rebuilt the model from scratch. At 30.5 tonnes per TEU container the smaller, 4-container freighter would have a capacity of around 122 tonnes which really places it into the light freighter category.

The larger 24-container variant is more inline with the Mola Ramsayi and the Bluenose. Conceivably, the larger variant could also hold a number of additional 1x1m containers in the forward section.

I have added some detail to the container loading/retaining mechanism. This system would still need something ground-side to extract or load the containers. The container sections are separate objects so I can potentially scale them up if needed (two containers per section) although I would have to go in and cull some tris... At the moment there is a two-way mirror modifier which is putting additional thrusters on top - ignore these.

There is a sitting man along side the ship for added scale.

large images:
https://i.imgur.com/TdgegNM.png
https://i.imgur.com/faUkqL8.png




At this point what direction do people want me to take?? If we are happy with the general direction of the design I can either go for a light or medium freighter. What would you like to see (dont say both!!)?? :)

II'd say go for the medium one. We already have quite a few small ships.