To full utilise all the resources of a planetary system it is almost
always necessary to transport material goods from one location to
another; in most systems different widely separated locations hold very
different resources which gain value when shipped elsewhere. The hot
inner planets of a planetary system often have metals, rare
earths and radioactives; the outer colder worlds have vast reserves of
hydrogen, water ice and other volatiles. For this reason two principal
methods of cargo transport have developed; mass driver streams (often
accompanied by
Herders)
and cargoships, also known as freighters.
Some commodities which have been
carried by
freight ships at one time or another in history:
Algae; aluminium; Bigelowes (inflatable habitats); calcium; chemical
compounds; clarketech; components; computers (non-sentient);
construction materials; consumer durables; cryptographic keys;
cultivated soil (including Garden Paste); cybernetic enhancements;
diamondoid materials; dense memory storage blocks; drone robots; drugs
- medical; drugs - narcotics (often illegal trade); fertilised zygotes;
fuel cells; foodstuffs (processed, preserved, ready-to eat and/or raw);
gen-engineered organisms; gold; goo (blue, khaki, grey...) handheld
weapons; He3; high tech equipment; ices (hydrogen, water, nitrogen,
ammonia, others); iron; regolith (unprocessed); luxury goods; machine
parts; macro-refined nano feedstock; metal alloys; microbots;
microchips; micro-refined nano feedstock; mining bots; missiles (often
illegal trade); nanomedichines (medical nano); nanonarcotics;
nano-refined nano feedstock; neumanns; neural enhancements; ore
(unprocessed); organic material; oxygen; platinum; probes
(exploration); rarities (unusual high-value goods); recipes for
nanofacture (encrypted); robots (assembled); robotic components and
spares; rockets (used to launch probes, satellites,common warheads,
nuclear warheads, etc.); sapphiroid materials; silicon; small ships and
ship components; ship weapons; slag (dead mass for ballast and momentum
exchange); smart materials; space equipment; surveillance devices;
titanium; vecs; volatiles in gaseous form..
Almucantar
class container
ship
(unloaded)
Almucantar
class container vessel loaded
Commodities
can be carried in tanks, bulk powder carriers, containers ( a typical
container vessel is shown here, the Almucantar
class, both loaded and unloaded); large items can be attached by straps
or clamps, or may be propelled by multiple drive units (the famous Bork
drive unit is versatile and powerful). For ice transport in cold outer
regions most ices have structural strength which may be
reinforced
by fractal buckyfibre reinforcement, so tankage is often not
necessary;
if transported to warm inner regions an insulating outer skin will be
required.
Design notes - More details about
interplanetary trading can be found and discussed at the
Freehauler space
trader sim ; the commodities list above is from the
forum.
The Almucantar freighter was designed By John M Dollan for his
Arcbuilders
Universe;
it is used here with permission.
