A slightly more expansive shipping/transport Lore.

[SgtSammac]

Hi all, Sammac here and today I am bringing to you work done between myself and Jamini to bring some standardization, and flesh to the various ships used in the Aurora universe.

Type (e.g. Planet, Faction, System): Transportation Lore - SHips n'stuff

Region of Space: Sol Alliance Space primarily, extending to all human space

Controlled by (if not a faction): Sol Alliance/Friendly Factions - (Haven't written anything beyond Sol Standardization, other non-friendly groups would be free to use their own designations and stuff.)

Space Ships in the 25th century are a common sight. Ranging from the wide variety of military and paramilitary vessels seen in the Sol alliance, to small private craft that operate out of various inhabited systems, to the gargantuan corporate barges that transport tonnes of goods between systems along the warp gate network. Approximately 95% of the population in the inner and middle systems of the Sol alliance has went through a warp gate at least once in their life, approximately 35% travels at least once every year, and approximately 12.5% pass through a warp gate on a weekly basis or more. Inner-system flights are even more common, for many akin to taking a train or ferry.

Ships are, essentially, a common sight in the airspace of all major known species. There are millions of smaller in-system ships, and due in no small part to the prolific production of Einstein Engines and their patented civilian-class "Quad Thrust Bluespace Warp Drive" even smaller ships are within the reach of most middle-upper class humans if they desire it. The most costly components commonly being the bluespace crystals that power the warp drives or plasma for an in-house reactor core. Due to this, many smaller ships and shuttles simply do not have an internal power core. Instead relying on stored power in a SMES or similar. It is not unheard-of for such ships to run out of power in emergencies. Many more populated systems have a handful of "Engineering Tugs", privately, corporate, or government owned, which will fly out to a stranded derelict and repower it for a fee. This service is often horrendously expensive for the foolish captain who allowed their power to run out.

Ships, much like stations, hold a three or four-letter prefix in their name that designates the ownership, type, and classification of the ship. Some common prefixes are:

Please note this suggestion includes major changes to already established ship information, thus the canonization application. If people prefer, I can swap back to a more in line with the current prefix system that me and Jamini worked on.

SAM'S SUGGESTIONS FOR PREFIXES NEW SYSTEM:

(I am aware I haven't done much to help this with NT at this point. BUT if I could change things, and I might suggest it after this, my opinion on Prefixes is that indentifying ones would be used by Governments/Militaries/Maybe Trans-stellar corps. Whilst other ships would be prefixed based on type, similar to how modern maritime prefixes work. I.e. the following:)

SAMV - Sol Alliance Military Vessel - Vessels employed by the Sol Navy, or one of the few landing craft owned specifically by the Sol Army

SAGV - Sol Alliance Government Vessel -- OR -- SAFV - Sol Alliance Federal Vessel - Vessels used by the Sol Government for passenger or freight transport

ERV - Elyran Republic Vessel

ENV - Eridani Naval Vessel

NMRV - New Mars Republic Vessel

JFV - Jargon Federal Vessel

EEV - Einstein Engines Vessel

NCV -Nanotrasen Corporate Vessel

PMV - Private Military Vessel. - Vessels, mostly small craft, used by Private Military Contractors/Companies for the purpose of Transport, Asset Protection or other duties. Craft prefixed with PMV are licensed and regulated by the Sol Alliance.

NSS + NMV - Nanotrasen Spacestation and Nanotrasen Martial Vessel - Two specially registered prefixes under the Sol Alliance Shipping Authority for use by Nanotrasen

FV - Freighter Vessel (Ehh, not happy with these, Imma take a look again at existing prefixes and see what I whip up)

IFV - Interplanetary/Interstellar Ferry (vessel)

TCS - Traffic Control Station : Type of station with the purpose of controlling the movements of spacecraft within an area ranging from a planets orbit (These can be land based as well but maintain the prefix) up to an area the size of an entire solar system, I.e. Sol and Tau Ceti.

ERRT - Emergency Response Rescue Tug

SMV - Stellar Mining Vessel - Used for Mining Freighters, Barges and Platforms used for resource recovery.

------

Ship Size and compliment.

Ships within the Sol Alliance, and her allies and subsidiaries are generally classified into categories by size. Most ships use historical terms for seafaring vessels for size classification.

Compared to their tradiational seafaring counterparts, ships in the sol alliance tend to require significantly smaller crew compliments compared to their terrestrial counterparts due to both major advances in networking and computing software, as well as increased cost of moving and mining minerals

Ship Classifications by Size

Shuttle

-The smallest of all spacefaring vessels, any ship which does not possess a jump drive is considered a shuttle. Shuttles are used solely for inner-system travel, and tend to be very minimalistic in design and function as a rule.

While larger shuttles do exist, most shuttles that exceed 36m in length are eventually fitted with a jump drive for pratical reasons. The average compliment to run a shuttle is normally 1-8 crew.

Shuttles are very common and inexpensive. Many larger ships and carriers often have one or more shuttles for atmospheric operations.

Military Shuttles generally do not possess a main gun (as most lack an internal reactor), instead having between two and eighteen secondary emplacements.

Military ship classes

Corvette

-The smallest classification of true ships within SA and Skrelian territory, Corvettes generally cover any ship with under 80 crew and under 100m in length. Including many patrolcraft, small civilian yachts, support craft, and tugs.(Non military ones will commonly have their own designations however.)

Corvettes tend to be very heavily specialized, and often forgoe one or more major subsystems in order to keep cost or power usage down. Very few Corvettes possess an internal reactor, but all possess a jump drive (and thus, can use warp gates). The average compliment of a corvette ranges between 16-50 crew-members, though larger examples can easily reach more.

Corvettes are a common sight in most spaceyards, and most navies possess hunderds or thousands of such ships. Like shuttles, some smaller corvettes are able to dock on carriers or battlecruisers. Most corvettes are able to enter atmospheric conditions and land on the surface of a planet.

Military Corvettes generally have a singular main gun (with an internal reactor) or missile battery (without an internal reactor), and between four and eighteen secondary emplacements.

Most corvettes have a single deck, or two half-decks, depending on configuration.

Frigate

The second smallest classification of true ships within SA and Skrellian territory, Frigates cover any ship with under 150 crew and up to 300m in length. They tend to have high thrust to mass ratios, giving them exceptional speed and manuverability.

Frigates tend to specialize as escort and support ships. Their small size offset by their low cost, making them very popular for scouting missions and hit and run tactics. Smaller frigates often do not possess an internal reactor, and rely on larger ships or installations to "top off". The average compilment is between 100-120 crew, though larger examples can reach up to 150 or more.

Frigates are a common sight in most spaceyards, and many navies possess hundreds or thousands of such ships for scouting, electronic warfare, and supply. Frigates are generally not able to dock on all but the largest of carriers. Some frigates are able to enter atmospheric conditions and land on the surface of a planet.

Military Frigates have between two and four main guns or missile batteries, and can have up too thirty-two secondary batteries.

Most frigates have two decks, or three half-decks, depending on configuration.

Destroyer

Destroyers, along side frigates tend to make up the majority of any naval force, Destroyers can vary from around 250m up to 450m with crews up to 500 on average, they tend to be slower than Frigates but are capable of bringing immense fire power to both orbital and deep space battles.

All bar a few destroyers are completely incapable of atmospheric operations due to their size or type of engine used for propulsion so are completely reliant on smaller replenishment vessels or orbital docking stations with use of shuttles for movement of crew to a planet.

Destroyers tend to have up to 8 main weapon arrays with a multitude of secondary and tertiary weaponry systems and defensive counter measures.

Some of the largest destroyers can be fitted with small powerplants for their own power generation. Normally in the form of an energy recovery system fitted to the main propulsion engines.

Cruiser

Cruisers were a class of ship that returned to service with the advent of the second space age, designed to be a warship capable of completely independant operation anywhere in space, they are most commonly built with at least two engines, one solely for propulsion and another for generating power and providing all other services to onboard equipment including hydraulics, pneumatics and atmospherics.

Cruisers can be up to 800m long with crews nearing one thousand depending on size, role and age. Cruisers can have up to 15 main weapons emplacements with a multitude of secondary and tertiary weapons systems. Some cruisers have been retrofitted for orbital warfare and can be fitted with weapons to suit, generally in the form of kinetic weaponry or ballistic missiles.

Battlecruiser + Battleship : I am iffy about the need for these two classifications. Even cruisers are seeing the end of their days, with only 4 Nations operating them in 2015 and 2 other nations keeping a handful "commissioned" but not in active use.

Assault Ship

Assault Ships are smaller carriers, normally coming in at an average size between that of a Cruiser and a Destroyer used for the purpose of carrying troops, equipment and weapons. Some Assault Ships double up as Carriers and will carry a small fleet of startfighters as well as shuttles and dropships.

Compared to other military vessels, assault ships tend to have a larger cargo space due to their multi-role nature, these spaces can be adapted to holding embarked army forces, aircraft or cargo.

Carriers

Carriers can vary massively in terms of ship size and crew complement due to the range of tasks a carrier can do, drone carriers can be relatively small, due to the small size of unmanned drones, assault carriers would be of a moderate size to carry fighter craft and drop pods, larger ones may also have shuttles, fleet or super carriers make up the larger margin being large enough to dock with frigates or even carry corvettes and other small craft as well as fighters and troops.

Examples of these carriers include the Drone Carrier employed by Nanotrasen Corportation, Icarus which has a crew of around 115, with a length of 150m and a beam of 75m, the Icarus carries up to 75 Unmanned drones of varying sizes for the purposes of Asset Protection and Asteroid Surveying.

A second example is the SAMV Georgy Zhukov, the Flagship of the Sol Alliance's First Fleet, She maintains a length of 1790m and a beam of 400m at her widest point. She is one of the largest military vessels in existance and has a crew compliment of 2705 plus 8061 in Air Crew, Engineers and Army Personnel. (Figures to be revised)

---------

Civillian/Commercial Vessels:

Freighters:

The mainstay sight of commercial spacefaring are the freighter vessels, used for the transport of supplies and raw materials from pretty much every destination in the known universe. They can vary in size from the small interplanetary hoppers up to interstellar super freighters, with a size range from 50 meters to three kilometers for the largest hyperfreighter.

Most freighters are built to rely on the bare minimum of crew with the majority of ships systems being completely automated with only the need for a main supervisor who oversees multiple systems. A generic crew for an average freighter of about 210m would be the Captain, First Officer, Chief Engineer, 3 Deck Hands and 3 Assistant Engineers.

Bulk Freighter

Working alongside Mining Barges, the Bulk Freighter is a type of freighter built specifically for the transport of bulk loads, such as mined minerals, I.e. Coal, Metal Ores, Rock, etc.

Mining Barges:

Specially built vessels designed to be able to move from asteroid belt to asteroid belt and mine them for resources. Many barges are built to also serve as processing platforms but some offload directly into Bulk Freighters.

Tanker

Freighters designed for the transport of gaseous or liquid cargo's, such as plasma gas, water and oils. Many can also be fitted with cryogenic tanks to keep cargo's at low temperatures, or even heavily reinforced tanks for extremely high temperatures.

Ferries/Liners:

Used for the transportation of passengers and light goods, as well as vehicles between planets and systems.

Ferries are smaller craft, larger than shuttles, used for interplanetary hops and can carry anywhere between 200 and 2000 passengers in one go, with up to 100sq/m of cargo space on average and expansive vehicle decks.

Liners, also called cruisers (Not to be confused with the military cruiser) are used for longer distance travel or tourism, some liners will still have space for vehicle transportation. Liners are used for intersystem travel and can carry anywhere between 500 and 25,000 people at once depending on size and owner company.

Most ferries are designed to be atmospherically stable, whilst liners make use of orbital docking stations and shuttles to move passengers and occassionally vehicles back down to the surface of a planet.

Tugs:

Small, shuttle like craft, used for helping to move larger vessels around spaceports. Tugs generally have a small crew consisting of a Master/Helmsman, Engineer and two deckhands/assisting engineers. Most tugs also have between 2 and 4 Robotic/Cyborg units for assistance with EVA tasks.

Tugs can range from 20-150m in size and can very in strength and power. In addition to their tasks at local space ports. Emergency Rescue Response Tugs are used to rescue stranded craft when they become damaged or run out of power, they are generally the smallest craft to be fitted with their own Bluespace Drive in order to allow them to rapidly respond to any emergency in their effective areas. Most major spaceports have at least one ERRT as well as two port master tugs.

Star Yacht

A type of small, private shuttle, generally owned by the rich and powerfull as their own personal means of transport, a Star Yacht can vary in size from small pleasure craft right up to relatively large craft capable of interstellar travel.

Edited June 3, 2015 by Guest

[Guest]

I happen to like this. Assists in expanding background for people who served on transport ships prior to coming onboard the Aurora and etc.

Is it possible you can clarify stuff for station classifications and etc?

[SgtSammac]

Sure. Anything specific about stations?

[Rusty Shackleford]

[Jamini]

The Millenium Falcon is officialy classified as a corvette. Sammec. It's literally a Corellian Corvette. (And it has a crew compliment of around 10)

[SgtSammac]

The Millenium Falcon is officialy classified as a corvette. Sammec. It's literally a Corellian Corvette. (And it has a crew compliment of around 10)

 

That was the bit,you wrote. -.-

[Crescentise]

Alright. I'll put it straight out there - this is very dense and hard to read. I would not like to see it on the wiki in its current state. If you could somehow organise it a bit more - with tables, say, with headers like 'capacity', 'designation', you'd know better - it would be more digestible. Also you wrote 'is a common sight' twice. Using phrases/words too often isn't exactly bad, but to me it's jarring. There is more of a demand for well-written lore the more detailed and voluminous it gets.

This was my feedback. Hopefully it is taken constructively and not offensively. Good luck~

[Guest]

Generally, I like this being here. We do need standardization. I would just like this clarified as a design decision:

Space Ships in the 25th century are a common sight. Ranging from the wide variety of military and paramilitary vessels seen in the Sol alliance, to small private craft that operate out of various inhabited systems, to the gargantuan corporate barges that transport tonnes of goods between systems along the warp gate network. Approximately 95% of the population in the inner and middle systems of the Sol alliance has went through a warp gate at least once in their life, approximately 35% travels at least once every year, and approximately 12.5% pass through a warp gate on a weekly basis or more. Inner-system flights are even more common, for many akin to taking a train or ferry.

It's probably just me, but I would like that lower classes be barred from large scale spaceship use by making it possibly more expansive. Maybe by making a cost of an inner system ticket more akin to today's intercontinental flight than a train or a ferry. Mass poverty is strongly tied to limited mobility of the population. Having such low prices on space travel wouldn't allow for so much difference in wealth of populations.

Unless the ideas about poverty in the future are being removed from lore, I would very much like a great deal of populations to have never actually been to space. Just my personal preference. If most players really prefer their characters to take daily commutes from another galaxy to this one, I'm fine with that as well, just saying I don't like the concept of space travel being so cheap.

[Guest]

Alright. I'll put it straight out there - this is very dense and hard to read. I would not like to see it on the wiki in its current state. If you could somehow organise it a bit more - with tables, say, with headers like 'capacity', 'designation', you'd know better - it would be more digestible. Also you wrote 'is a common sight' twice. Using phrases/words too often isn't exactly bad, but to me it's jarring. There is more of a demand for well-written lore the more detailed and voluminous it gets.

This was my feedback. Hopefully it is taken constructively and not offensively. Good luck~

 

Please note, that the format people post things in, is not how things go on the wiki. They get formatted to look nice and pretty, and are checked for repetitiveness and grammar issues.

[Crescentise]

Please note, that the format people post things in, is not how things go on the wiki. They get formatted to look nice and pretty, and are checked for repetitiveness and grammar issues.

Well sometimes you guys miss those issues so isn't it nice that I'm pointing them out well in advance?~

I knew from day one there's different special formatting involved with wiki stuff, right, I'm not daft. What I mean is - to fit a significant section into a table requires a lot of cutting down, minimisation, rewording. That's not just knowing formatting codes, it's being skillful with the sculpting of the writing. Hopefully somebody can do it.

[Guest]

Sure. Anything specific about stations?

 

oh shoot apparently i closed out a tab of a reply where i had suggestions

Uh, refugee, listening outpost, military logistics, research, medical, some others I can't think of, kinds of stations.

[jackfractal]

Hmm... a few more off the top of me head,

 

• Residential
• Farming
  
• Mining
  
• Wormhole Jump Gate (they're stations, right?)
  
• Dry Dock
  
• Entertainment and Recreation (space disney world!)
  
• Storage and Resupply
  
• Manufacturing
  
• Energy Production (mass solar cells)
  
• Accidental (space hulks)

[SgtSammac]

Alright. I'll put it straight out there - this is very dense and hard to read. I would not like to see it on the wiki in its current state. If you could somehow organise it a bit more - with tables, say, with headers like 'capacity', 'designation', you'd know better - it would be more digestible. Also you wrote 'is a common sight' twice. Using phrases/words too often isn't exactly bad, but to me it's jarring. There is more of a demand for well-written lore the more detailed and voluminous it gets.

This was my feedback. Hopefully it is taken constructively and not offensively. Good luck~

 

Thank you for the input. Formatting is completely different between the Wiki and the Forums and the collaborative software that was used to draft it. I have presented it as it is here on the forums because this is how its best read on this format.

It will be changed and adjusted for presentation on the wiki, don't you worry about that. In fact I already have some good ideas.

AKA Spec Table/comparison chart for crew size and length, etc.

Sure. Anything specific about stations?

 

oh shoot apparently i closed out a tab of a reply where i had suggestions

Uh, refugee, listening outpost, military logistics, research, medical, some others I can't think of, kinds of stations.

Hmm... a few more off the top of me head,

 

• Residential
• Farming
  
• Mining
  
• Wormhole Jump Gate (they're stations, right?)
  
• Dry Dock
  
• Entertainment and Recreation (space disney world!)
  
• Storage and Resupply
  
• Manufacturing
  
• Energy Production (mass solar cells)
  
• Accidental (space hulks)

 

Alright, thanks you two. I've got a few bits up on the collaborative document and if you two are interested in helping in any further way just shoot me a PM and I will shoot you the link. I'll be doing the station stuff in another application if this one gets accepted.

Have a good one.

[Conservatron]

if you want advice on stations (and don't mind cribbing from other games lore) then I'd strongly suggest taking a look at Egosoft's X universe and its galactic economic system. Its not perfect by any means, but it can give a good base to work off of.

[JamesCampbell]

I'd be delighted to get involved in this. I think you may have some of the crew capacity off by a margin.

Otherwise it looks interesting

[SgtSammac]

If by "by a margin" you mean too low?

Thats done for a reason. Differing factions with differing amounts of tech. As well as different vessels with different tasks.

If by "by a margin" you mean the range is too wide?

Again, done for a reason to allow player creativity and ties in with the above.

[JamesCampbell]

Yeah, I think the ships are a bit small, and a tad understaffed.

Going by any other space lore, ships are gargantuan, often assembled in space. I suppose with the way Aurora is run, with the power systems, and a few other factors, size and staff can be scaled down.

Is there any way I can get involved with this development Sam? I'm very interested in this.

[SgtSammac]

The thinking me and Jamini had (and if he denies it, I'll kill 'im because he converted me to the thinking)

But realistically the vessels would be if anything, smaller, because of COST, especially of filling the atmospheric systems.

As for staffing: AUTOMATION. AI's, Robots.

Besides, some craft are still fucking big regardless. There is a reason that I made the sizes broad, and even then I tried to keep it as vague language.

 

generally cover

 

average compliment

 

This is to allow again for expansion with need by players.

As for the "often assembled in space" I don't believe I said anywhere in this document that they are not. I've actually got for the batch 2 roll out (stations) the orbital dockyards.

[Guest]

Accepted. Since there seems to be discussion going on still, I'll leave it unarchived for a bit.

[SgtSammac]

Huh, didn't notice this. Thanks Xander. I guess I will make a second application? (I'll leave it until you request though, I'll talk to you on the lore chat later.)

UPDATE

I've drafted a wiki formatted copy of this application, including the updated portion below. Any suggestions for parsing updates will be reviewed and incorporated if I think it'll make it better. http://aurorastation.org/wiki/index.php?title=Ships_and_Stations

Note, this is not an exhaustive list.

Space Stations

Military:

Defence Platform

Defence Platforms are small-mid sized stations kept at various altitudes of orbit and act as weapons platforms in order to defend a planet. Much like Anti-Aircraft platforms in current times (2015) but for use against starships.

Forward Operations Command Station

The FOCS is a large station that is a mix between an Orbital Dockyard, Traffic Control Station and an Assault Ship, they are designed to be moved into a solar system by military tugs and act as a forward command centre during an operation, typically used for long term planetary assaults and seiges.

They are designed to allow for all kinds of military vessels to dock and to act as a staging point for military forces, equipment. Some larger FOCS have been known to be equipped with orbital bombardment weaponry with devastating effect.

Medical Centres

These large stations, capable of treating tens of thousands of casualties, are perfectly suited for dealing with Mass Casualty Scenarios, many being designed to interface with larger hospital ships, medical frigates and military craft.

Due to Sol Laws and Universal Regulations, it is a war crime to arm a hospital ship or station but at the same time it is also a war crime to attack one, this however still leaves hospital stations highly vulnerable in the event of an attack, leaving them dependant on other vessels.

Civillian

Orbital Dockyard

Built for the purpose of allowing larger spacefaring vessels to dock securely and have their wares offloaded, due to the fact that they are too large, or their engines too dangerous for use in atmosphere.

Most orbital dockyards are used for the construction of larger craft as well, the Zero-G environment making it alot easier to move heavier components into place reducing the costs, builders required and equipment required.

Research Station

Any space station used for the purpose of scientific (General, Medical, Bluespace, etc) research falls under this category. They can vary massively in size and are most commonly owned by private companies and TS Corporations such as Nanotrasen with its facilities in Tau Ceti most notably.

How they are built varies depending on the type of research. For example weapons research facilities will be built with reinforced cores but have several disposable and reconstructable weapon test ranges.

Hospital Station

Stations used for the treatment of the sick and injured. Most public hospitals now reside on the surface of planets and colonies, but some emergency centres are orbital as well as some military triage hospitals in order to allow larger vessels to make contact.

Manufacturing Station

Whilst not particularly common, with favour being put on the use of shuttles moving from planet to orbital dockyard, manufacturing stations tend to be used for the production of massive bulk components, for example Einstein Engines are one of the primary uses of manufacturing stations in order to construct their engines and propulsions systems to allow for direct transfer from assembly line to transport vessel.

Processing Plant

Processing Stations, used most commonly to refer to the stations used in the processing of bulk resources such as ores, are large structures which turn our raw materials into a useable form, they are now favoured for mass production companies that import materials due to the fact that the largest super freighters are able to dock and offload, whereas a planetary operation will rely on the costly use of shuttles and tugs to move resources.

Traffic Control Stations

Prefixed with TCS, orbital Traffic Control Stations are used for controling the flow of traffic entering and leaving a planets sphere of influence, or for larger stations entering and leaving the SOI of a solar system. With the heavy increase in space traffic it became neccessary for facilities to be put in place to control who moves where and when to stop the risk of collisions.

[Killerhurtz]

Application was approved. Contact lore team for any changes. Archiving.