Massive problems call for massive solutions

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Boss, you know me because I'm obsessed at beating Theed Palace Space Vessel Engineering Corps at their own game. We'll show Theed Hangar that they are not alone in being capable of building civilian Star Destroyers that can land on planets anymore! And of exacting my vengeance over Kuat Drive Yards at the same time" Jessica told Charzon in yet another meeting with the landing gear vice-president.

"Vengeance... I know you were fired by KDY because of the landing gear problem, and that a Star Destroyer is just a size category to you, but a civilian Star Destroyer is guaranteed to be a very limited production at best. Look, if you still want to exact vengeance on KDY, the best bet would be to use the Maximum Battleship Star Tours ordered the feasibility studies from us a while ago. Plus they are replacing its fleet of Pullmans for a fleet of Neimoidian Yachts" Charzon told the other C-suite lady.

"It promises better economics than the Super Transport XI, which is the closest competitor not only in KDY's catalog but also across all manufacturers: the VT-Gundark just can't haul nearly as much cargo (in tonnage) and Star Tours is now in the business of bulk freight. The Acclamator would better counter a Rasta Sub than a Maximum Battleship"

"The only reason why it promises better economics than a Super Transport XI is because the Maximum Battleship can operate unescorted whereas the Super Transport XI cannot" Marcia retorted while she reviews the information available.

The Super Transport XI features 10 million cubic meters of cargo space, 40,000 containers that are roughly the size of three Hedeek intermodal containers, and can carry 2-2.5 million tons of cargo with a crew of 100 (they clocked in at 25 million tons but that was with a shipment of heavy ores). In comparison, the Maximum Battleship features twice as much space, requires a crew of 800, but much of that crew is due to the increased weapon complement, which features six Bulkhunters in three double turrets, as well as 20 point-defense quad lasers and equally many point-defense ion cannons, whereas the Super Transport XI didn't have any of that stuff.

"That said, we have come to a point where the bottleneck isn't at the landing gear level anymore. It's repulsorlift by now"

"Maximum Battleships will be a mainstay of the galaxy-wide cruises as well as bulk cargo flights Star Tours will operate in the future, with the flagship of the fleet being, at some later point, their Star Destroyer"

[member="Junko Ike"]

 

[Junko Ike]

[member="Charzon Loulan"]

Junko had been asked to come and help with something. A way to land larger ships on a planet that didn't use the Sasori cradle for repulsorlifts of their massive factory ships... Well she could do that as the jedi princess stood with her parasol looking out. She had some other things to work with while she was wearing the mesh, the new and improved design they were working on as an overlay using the producing and processing faciltiies across the galaxy to build up a nice reserve for themselves. She moved wearing the specially designed kimono and felt the material that had been synthweaved together. Letting the mesh turning over and over when she clasped her hands. "An interesting place."

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

With the landing gears already in operational use on the Maersk-class, and Maersk Star Freight having ruled out Kuat Drive Yards (and Suwantek, too) until they could offer a bulk product capable of carrying hundreds of thousands of tons capable of landing on planets, the pressure was on to especially since Charzon made a point to retain the trio of shipping companies, and possibly attract Hedeek Shipping, which was the reason why Jessica was on Bespin a week earlier. Because Jessica once worked with dark-sided KDY, Force alignment was not as much a problem to her than it was to Charzon, who by virtue of signing with Acanthus, aligned herself with light-sided factions. And also because Jessica was driven by revenge, placing her closer to the dark side of the Force.

"Welcome, Highness. I take it that you're here regarding the repulsorlift project?"

"Even assuming that the number of landing gears would tend to increase as the largest dimension to the three-half, it would not be practical to put more landing gears. Hence the main bottleneck is repulsorlift generators by now. Please don't talk about networking these repulsorlift generators together; we already do that. I suspect the problem is in the arrays themselves"

Marcia and Jessica were some of the best technical experts Charzon met in her lifetime, but even though Jessica's expertise is mostly tied to hydraulics and how does that relate to landing gears, Charzon knew that starship engineers working on capital ships are often so specialized due to the sheer number of them required to design a capital ship. Her knowledge of repulsorlift technology was somewhat limited and only ranged as far as their implications on building ships of a certain size vs. their needs for landing gears and repulsorlift generators. More than landing gears, when capital ships were involved, repulsorlifts were key to their abilities to land on planets. Cradles allow ships built planetside to take off, so long as the ship doesn't have to land again, but are of no use if you want something other than a crash-landing.

"Is there some way to either put the subnuclear knots of space-time closer one another? Would hooking up an ancillary reactor increase the power of the system or just make the system more redundant?"

"Some tradeoffs have to be made, I understand as much. Redundancy can make the system safer, but at what cost?"

[member="Junko Ike"]

 

[Junko Ike]

[member="Charzon Loulan"]

Junko looked at the one there while she offered a bow of her head. "Yes I am." She was looking at it and whatever information she could offer from their research on all of the repulsortech. With the cradles they had made for ships like their saratai a massive factory and manufacturing ship it was an important thing to have for the endeavors. "We have been creating repulsor cradles with the same purpose for awhile now so it was offered I come and help with whatever might be needed. We have been developing new materials for it that will make the cradles frames stronger and lighter weight." She had also been working with some of the engineers so they could develop new tech.

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Because we do not expect to sell a whole lot of Star Destroyers, just using multiple copies of the item we are developing on a Star Destroyer would suffice. That segment of the market is one where high costs are usually, well, part of the game"

"The last corporation that tried building Star Destroyers capable of landing had difficulty finding buyers in the civilian market. You wouldn't market a civilian Star Destroyer capable of landing the same as you would market a Maersk because no faction would allow a single corporation to own more than one Star Destroyer, and those corporations that can afford a Star Destroyer would usually have enough cash for most custom equipment so as to fit their specifications"

"The item we are developing requires one unit on a kilometer-long ship. It would be best if the item is as flat as possible, preferrably not taking up more than three or four decks in height. Nevertheless tell me how is the stuff in use in an external repulsorlift cradle going to be of use inside a ship"

All that Charzon knew about repulsorlift was that it was preferrable to place the repulsorlift generator as close to the center of mass of the ship as possible, if one uses a single generator. If multiple arrays are being used, repulsorlift arrays would be best placed at locations where the torques would cancel out, assuming the mass distribution is planar. But the Acclamator is an oddball in this respect: it was known that the repulsorlift generator would be in the aft fin, alongside the inertial compensator. For some reason the schematics were released to the general public at some time after the Clone Wars... Plus stacking repulsorlift generators is okay for transportation (i.e. hauling) but a big no-no for actual usage, presumably because the layers of repulsorlift generators would interfere one another.

[member="Junko Ike"]

 

[Junko Ike]

[member="Charzon Loulan"]

Junko was looking at her taking in what was being said and she remained there. "A cradle being stored on the ship is able to be dropped down from orbit and assmbled for the ship to land within it. Another one being built as needed or retrieving it. The materials used are designed to be super lightweight and strong rather then bulky and all of our ships can create it using the new synthweaving mesh we have developed. It even for worlds where there can be a danger provide protection tot he ships. Given our ships are designed for setting up cities and colonies or checkpoints for the massive seeder ships that chart across the universe relaying details to the main computers and relays of Sasori."

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"How big is that cradle anyway? A repulsorlift cradle isn't the same as a repulsorlift generator, but contains one. Or maybe more than one. Perhaps our problem is one that has a simple solution and that we have overlooked, but taking the repulsorlift generator we currently have and use more than one unit, would that work? Take one of the repulsorlift generators we know works and equip more than one unit, as is done with ion drives? How are repulsorlift generators different from ion drives in this respect?"

"How much do the repulsorlift generator inside the cradle weigh anyway? Maybe if the repulsorlift generator in it is satisfactory to us, we can buy as many units of the repulsorlift as there would be ships on order for that"

Having two or more ion drives are usually the standard, if only for reliability. Usually an antigrav generator has to make sure that the effective weight of a ship on its landing gear is within certainlimits, hence the power required for that to work increases linearly as a function of the ship's mass and has to sustain the weight of the ship and then some, accounting for the drag, the difference of pressure between the topside and the underside and the net upward acceleration, especially once the retraction sequence begins; usually the ion drives are fired after landing gears are retracted and the ship is at a safe distance from the ground.

[member="Junko Ike"]

 

[Junko Ike]

[member="Charzon Loulan"]

"In transport? It is not that large generally taking up a hanger and then able to be assembled on the ground. We value efficiency over bulk and with the parts of it there are eight repulsorlifts within the cradle to ensure its function. The size of the ship can add more as she have preformed it with agricultural stations as well as our saratai class colonization ships. The second being three kilometers long and far heavier then standard ships." Junko remained there standing with her parasol while she walked a little looking down with small flicks of her eyes. For the most part the idea was interesting as opposed to some of the others she had heard and making landing gears for ships was fine but you ran a risk of malfunction or damage throwing all of it all and preventing it from working.

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"With twenty Jessicas, if one or two of them fail, it's not as big of a deal as if you were to use the landing gears on the Acclamators/Venators, where one or two failing out of five would be a disaster. But even with 20 landing gears you still need repulsorlift generators"

"If a disassembled cradle takes up the space of one squadron's worth of hangar space, how long does it take the cradle to assemble on the ground? That is, how much time does a ship need to launch the cradle before landing sequence can be initiated?"

"We have to let go of using just one generator in a ship: the cradle has eight. We may as well use two repulsorlift generators the size of what we plan to mount on the Rasta Sub which also fits on the Acclamator's tail fin socket reserved to it"

"Good news: we can now mount more than one repulsorlift generator on a ship. The Venator had three RG750s, rather than one as was the case on the Acclamator"

On many ships the repulsorlift generator has the length of about 5% of the ship's largest dimension, if it has only one, and the height, or width, of 5% of the second-largest dimension, whichever is more convenient. The Rothana Heavy Engineering RG750 repulsorlift generator, which equips Acclamators and Venators, were cylindrically-shaped and were 37 meters long for about 15 meters in diameter. These were the largest repulsorlift generators on the market, of which the Indispensable-class has four, until Ringovinda Systems developed theirs. Charzon was baffled as to why they were so headstrung to the idea of a single repulsorlift generator while you could mount more than one ion drive onboard.

"Said repulsorlift we use on Rasta Subs is the same as a RG750 by Rothana Heavy Engineering, size and performance-wise, just with a different power feed system and an alusteel casing to match"

[member="Junko Ike"]

 

[Junko Ike]

[member="Charzon Loulan"]

Junko raised an eyebrow listening to her and she spoke tapping the hilt of her parasol while she spoke. "We have never really needed to time it but it connects easily and can be assembled while being deployed to the planet. The generators slow the descent and the droids assemble it quickly with functionality." he walked a little while going. "Given the new work we have been working on for creating colonies on planets there is little reason to work on some of the thing here and there. Defense can be given away in exchange for speed."

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"If I had to guess, that would probably be a matter of seconds, about 30 seconds perhaps. In an emergency landing, time is at a premium. This is why it is important: so that I can prepare standard operating procedures for safety"

"The repulsorlift generators would be placed right next to the main ion drives on the new ship we are about to develop: after all, a lot of the main power feeds are already there for the main ion drive, it makes sense to hook up some of the same power conduits to the repulsorlift generator"

"Hmmm... Your Highness, I dealt with your family on multiple occasions, one for the waste management systems, another one for life support. From the looks of it, the cradle may be used on Star Destroyers, Battecruisers and command ships, but for something that isn't at least SD-sized, it might be better to just strap repulsorlift generators and landing gears to the underside of a ship, we've already got the latter. For the time being, we're just going to use two repulsorlift generators"

The Maximum Battleship is going to have two RG750-sized repulsorlift generators, so that's one less bottleneck to deal with. Charzon could now breathe a lot easier and Jessica is one step closer to achieving her revenge on her former employer. But, to Jessica, the Theed Palace Space Vessel Engineering Corps vendetta remains whole. For the time being Charzon could accommodate with such a vendetta because it would allow her to enter a market, while restricted, would push the limits of current starships. And the success of the Maersk could push companies like Maersk Star Freight or Star Tours to order Rasta Subs, Maximum Battleships or even Star Destroyers from them. Or so both Jessica and Charzon hoped.

"I would assume the disassembled cradle comes with an ion engine or two for it to reach the ground and be assembled before the landing sequence can be initiated"

[member="Junko Ike"]

 

[Junko Ike]

[member="Charzon Loulan"]

"It works on anyship that needs it to work. We are skilled to et it up much like the shuttle we developed to be assembled as a runabout." THe woman was turning over with some of the attention as she listened about the rest. "The smallest as have made them as needed was for a hammerhead which is around two hundred meters. The largest we could use on dreadnaughts." She thought about it still working on some of the numbers in her head. "The cradle is designed to asemble and safely land yes, it will use small engines while droid work with it. FOr quick landings though I recommend emergency landing procedures."

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"The main thing with a repulsorlift malfunction is that, on ships that massive, overhauling a repulsorlift generator just had to be done in orbit; the same can be said of a cradle-equipped ship. No ifs, ands or buts about it: grounding a ship with a repulsorlift malfunction would make the ground around the ship sink. But how common were repulsorlift malfunctions anyway? What are common causes of such malfunctions?"

"More repulsorlift generators would increase the reliability of the repulsorlift systems so long as the total power is the same. Unfortunately, many ships have only one repulsorlift generator. Presumably, just as with landing gears, Most people think of maintenance as simply being the maintenance of powertrain, that is, the reactor, hyperdrive and sublight engines, and that of the hull. And tactical systems if any"

If you have an X-Wing whose total mass is thirty tons fully loaded, give or take, three landing gears could do it without relying on the repulsorlift generator. It's easy for an X-Wing owner to neglect the repulsorlift generator, but the military seems to take better care of ships than many a private owner. But if you have an Acclamator-sized ship, you just can't. You absolutely need to have a functional repulsorlift generator or two to land such a ship. Perhaps the cost of thorough maintenance is prohibitive but one never knows when does an overlooked system can cause serious trouble. Bluth Company understood that long ago.

"What droids do the cradle use?"

[member="Junko Ike"]

 

[Junko Ike]

[member="Charzon Loulan"]

"It uses the dodoria and ginyu droids that sasori produces for what it needs. Sasori's purpose of having the funding for all of it projects was a very important thing we were working on. We still are with colonization ships and developing everything towards a greater purpose that we have been building towards." They had some plans and with the construction efforts as well as all fo the work on factory ships or their parts to make a superior level of machining tools. The jedi knight was proud to say Sasori functioned as they wanted to developing its own mined materials while selling what it needed to fund itself or its endeavors.

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Dadorias vs. R9s. The R9 is the closest thing to a Dadoria that we use"

Charzon listened to the Jedi princess talk about some models of droids she never used operationally. Between a Dadoria and a R9 droid, she would probably stick with the R9s. Even though the R9 is a little larger than a Dadoria, it can still perform all the functions of a Dadoria and even fly the cradle while it is being assembled. A complement of a few dozen droids would be required to man a cradle the size of what she expects out of a cradle taking up a squadron's worth of hangar space. Furthermore, a 30-second assembly time in flight would also require the droids to be equipped with magnetic soles or something of that sort. Like magnetic clamps.

"Remember that we couldn't make the repulsorlift generator larger than some 15x40 cylinder? I forgot why a while ago, but now I remember something about how alusteel's properties have something to do with the space-time knots"

"I'm all ears"

"We found that an alusteel casing would allow us to contain repulsorlift failures more easily than would be the case in a GR750; however it puts a straitjacket into the number of space-time knots you can put into it. Usually it is not a problem on most ships: it becomes a problem when cruisers are involved"

"It often seems to be a problem when dealing with big ships: durasteel is not as strong, but accommodate more space-time knots, plus it has less of a capacity to contain repulsorlift generator failures before power can be shut off" an off-voice from the repulsorlift generator team told the four ladies.

"Looks like it is a question of milliseconds or micro-seconds when containing repulsorlift generator failures. I understand safety is important, and such must not come at the expense of functionality, and the reverse is true"

[member="Junko Ike"]

 

[Junko Ike]

[member="Charzon Loulan"]

Looking at her as she listened to the talk of alusteel and durasteel.... she was glad the materials they worked with was superior in quality and strength with all of the information. "Alusteel is helpful and durasteel common. That is why if needed desh-terethium synthweaved properly with the new materials we have developed serves a greater function. Sasori's researchers have made it so it doesn't break, bend or even melt when introduced to heat. It just continues to become stronger and more powerful until eventually I think it will match the ancient sun crushers hull for strength against damage." Also it was designed with the force to become super lightweight which meant it wasn't such a burden to move around.

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"That's the main thing: how long would it take until the... desh-terethium synthweave would become as strong as quantum-crystalline armor? Because QCA can only be legally used by Corusca gem miners. For all its practicality, I believe its high cost, would probably require a client to take a closer look at its maintenance requirements"

And QCA was the armor used on the Sun Crusher. Corusca gem mining ships are semi-unique at most and have no offensive ability whatsoever, unless its mining equipment could be weaponized. But that was unlikely that it could be weaponized with much efficiency. None of Ringovinda StarYards' clients were holding Corusca gem mining permits, and those usually wanted customized equipment. And Corusca gem mining had a looooot of red tape attached to it. But QCA had one big drawback: its cost of repair. Whereas alusteel could be repaired on the cheap, QCA, on the other hand, can cost multiple times the cost of a ship of equivalent size with an alusteel hull, in both repair costs and manufacturing costs. Thankfully QCA-equipped ships didn't need repairing that often...

"That might be useful to have in a black box though: should a ship crash, flight data from its last moments are often useful to determine why it crashed. Black boxes require much, much less of the material"

[member="Junko Ike"]

 

[Junko Ike]

[member="Charzon Loulan"]

"Two weeks, we created the technology to age it at an accelerated rate. Far superior when we can use all of it as needed." She stayed over some few of the things holding a palm holo up to show it and they had tested it as some of the strongest levels in prototype fighters that had blasted through the skies of mimban or through the maw cluster avoiding the gravity from the black holes but being safe as they were working with a few of the things. "We can produce in a day and age it within a week to llevels of superior protection that can't be attacked. Then the more age we add to it will continue to empower and strengthen it."

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"That was helpful information. Now, how much does the cradle cost? I mean, one that takes up one squadron's worth of hangar space? When I last dealt with Sasori with regards to pricing, [member="Orihime Ike"] told me it was best to talk about a range of prices rather than a single price"

If Charzon wanted the cradle to be mounted as an option on capital ships, at least the cost of mounting the option on the back end would be helpful to have, and pricing has to be adjusted accordingly. If cradles came in several sizes, each size carries different costs. The bigger a cradle, the more expensive a cradle was. But Charzon was referring to the Zamboni line of products: one of them was fitted to a starship used for cleaning the space lanes from the smaller navigational hazards, the other to a line of tanks of which the only operational user is the Galactic Alliance: most other factions rather left minesweeping to sappers, either organic or droid, rather than to use specialized vehicles to that end. Pricing is a key component of how would a client desire to outfit its ship.

[member="Junko Ike"]