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Containerized Components

Uso

Uso

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This might be a good question for Ray: What kind of things do you even need on a starship?

I'm trying to flesh out the individual components needed for a starship and get them palletized so they can be easily swapped out / reused on other ship designs. As of now I have the following:


With the MCAS-1 needing to be retired or removed, and the 2-3 needing to be updated for sure. I should also make some kind of short range communications gear for setting up a local mesh network.


Maybe containerized pump systems for radiators? Solar power system? Something useful like RP like a portable armory?
 
Depending a starship. I assume we're talking about a starship hosting a meatbag.

Going down the list, at the top of my head, starting from mission essentials:
  • Power source
  • Mission computer (Manages and processes sensor data, might need more than one for more complex missions like firing a gun)
  • Systems computer (Manages all the subsystems, routes power)
  • Comms: Not sure how this'll pan out in the future, but modern spacecraft all carry high gain and low gain antennas: https://www.esa.int/Science_Explora... high-gain antenna,a ground station is weaker.
  • Thermal management: This would be surface coating, blankets. Currently, small spacecraft can get away with just a surface with high emissivity, but our future, high power stuff will definitely need convective cooling with fluids pumped around the ship to heat radiators.
  • Propulsion: main engine and RCS
  • Structure: Current small spacecraft are just metal boxes that are super optimized for mass, with cutouts everywhere possible. Larger spacecraft will require spring-dampeners that you see in skyscrapers and other more complex support structures.
  • Mission actuator: be it a sensor, a grabbing arm, a gun. I like the idea from an aesthetic and practical perspective to be big and noticeable.1643907072457.png
Will talk about keeping meatbags alive in a separate post.
 

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Power source

What do I even do here? I guess the obvious answer is a small fusion reactor but how useful would that be in this setting? A large fusion reactor is a more efficient and super critical part of a starship (along with the shielding). Maybe it should be a small emergency fusion generator?​



Mission computer / Systems computer

How different would this be from a generic computer-core? The current containerized computer system is basically just a self-contained and maintaining server farm that can be configured for whateverjob. Do we also need mission-specific computer clusters?​

Comms

My big problem with Comms is "Are they large enough to really be its own container? Or would this be a small component you just glue to the side of the ship?

Maybe it would make sense to have a container that drops communications satalites and also can deploy a bunch of backup radio antennas that are normally retracted to protect against space-trash?​


Thermal management

I don't think I can containerize a surface-coating. A deployable radiator could work but that might be something that needs to be built into the ship.

An alternate idea would be a curie style radiator using hot liquid metal and magnets but I'm not sure how reasonable that actually is.​

Propulsion main engine and RCS

Here is another 'should I bother' thing? RCS might be too small to be containerized in a shipping container. Main engines might be too big? Then there are the problems with radiation shielding and the like.

​
Structure

This is a big one, I think mass-dampeners can go in the Avionics package but drones or even 'empty drones that can hold a payload' would be a neat thing to have.
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Mission actuator
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big arm? or Deployable arm-bot? Maybe both?​
 
There's only so many things that you can make modular. At modern times, multiple corporations have attempted to make modular spacecraft, where the only, special changes are the addition of the customer's mission module, all with varying levels of success. Coming to think of it, this is basically how the GDW designs their spacecraft, and the HFR to a lesser extent.

The easiest way to create a modular ship is to just stack stuff on top of one another, then weld in the structural support after the fact.
 
You can certainly go the route of making the drive system independent of the rest of the ship, and the Assembly has gone that route with its larger ships.

But what happens when you need to make smaller changes along the lifetime of the ship? palletizing sensor arrays is an obvious one, since those are going to be sensitive systems that have to be mostly-exposed to space in order to work. Upgrades or even replacement for damaged units can be done quickly by swapping them out.

And the more things that are containerized on the ship, the more things can be easily swapped out and moved around.
 
There's pros and cons with such containerization. The upside of containerization is that it puts everything in fixed geometries that prioritizes accessibility. The downside of containerization is that it puts everything in fixed geometries that prioritizes accessibility.

Instead of having the liberty to put sensor arrays anywhere on a ship, containerization forces the ship designer to put it in one of a few discrete locations, potentially preventing design loops from being closed properly and reducing a ship's efficiency. There are center of mass considerations, electrical routing, plumbing, thermal management, all now have to be designed around discrete blocks so that they can stay accessible for the relatively small amounts of time for refit, trading off optimal performance during the majority of the time of operation. These are engineering trade offs no amount of technology will fix.

Currently, on modern cargo ships, standardized containers work because the entire purpose of crates is to be moved around. They don't serve ship functions, they don't carry sensors, their entire purpose is to be moved from ship to harbor to train to truck. In this case, standardization greatly simplifies logistics with no additional tradeoffs, since other functions are non existent.
 
I don't think all components will be containerized, but I do think it makes sense for many of the systems to be containerized, especially when the ships they are designed for are also designed with the containerization in mind. This lets the manufacturing centers of the assembly focus on pumping out ships without really caring what they will be used for. Stockpiles of ships can then be quickly configured for whatever task just by putting in the appropriate modules.

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The S1 can stack laser modules and engine modules all over the place to make a laser-armed combat ship, but it can just as easily have a battery of telescopes or other 'face toward the thing' tools installed.


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And the S2 has a bunch of storage space/connections around the sides that can be used to house equipment like banks of lasers, missiles, sensors, etc.

1644347776128.png

The S4 is even more modular, with a generic engine module that can have other modules stacked on top. It also has built-in locations for containerized thrusters to use for maneuvering. It is kinda hard to tell but the engine module also has some angled retro-thruster spots.

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And then there is the S-10 which might seem like a step back from the S4 in terms of modularity. I think it makes sense to drop the "engine module with attached other module" design and just build the entire ship out of common modules, but also build other variants of the ship using the same parts. You really don't NEED to be able to swap out major sections of a ship like that quickly after all.

The S-10 does still use many of the containerized components though, mostly missile systems, maneuvering thrusters, life support, and avionics. Some things just work better not-containerized and you can see that the gun turrets and major communications/sensor systems are in their own housings on the exterior of the ship.


Which is to say: This makes designing ships a lot easier/faster both in character and out of character.

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There are also some side-benefits that I particularly like. Need to do something complex like shove an asteroid? You can take some of your thruster-containers off the ship and fit them to the asteroid that needs shoving.

You can yank the life support system and bring it down to whatever colony is in trouble.

Even things like missile launchers and drones can be packed up and left behind somewhere for defensive operations.

Ships making the FTL trip between star systems like Atlantica and Hawking can even leave many of their containers behind at Atlantica to bolster their supplies, then make the trip back to Hawking and restock while they are in the home system. This serves double duty of helping supply Atlantica AND reducing the mass that has to transit back to Hawking.

Come to think of it, S4 starship modules could have been left behind and strung together to make space stations...
 
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