Cargo Weight/size isn't being done right...or I'm wrong

[Vladimar Rubicon]

Something just occurred to me that I never thought about before.

1 Ton is 1 Ton, but 1 Ton isn't the same size of another Ton of a different substance, For example, a ton of gold would take up this much space, but a ton of clothes, or fish, or food would take up a much much bigger space. So if I can fit 120 tons of Gold in my Asp, and then unload and load on 120 tons of fish, it means that the Gold took up a very small space....

I know it's about MASS....however, the way I see it, there would be so much extra room in the cargo holds, I should be able to load that 120 Tons of Gold in ONE SMALL cargo compartment, which would free up space for other modules like shield cells, etc.

Then, if I needed more space for another type of cargo, I'd have to buy and sell modules to make room.

Doesn't this make sense?

 

[Jet Fusion]

Yes, weight and mass is being mixed up. You can only speak of tonnes of cargo when the type of cargo is a fixed one compared to the vehicle. A tonne of feathers take far more room than a tonne of lead. What you can still do in your imagination (please don't one-shot me for using this word) is pretend it's a metric tonne which makes it a volume again instead of a weight.

 

[Vyvian]

Think of it like this. You are loading X number of 1 ton containers on board your ship. These containers are all the same dimensions to make loading and unloading simplified and easy to mechanise.

The containers size has been determined to be able to hold 1 ton of low mass materials. So 1 ton of feathers will fill the container. 1 ton of gold may only fill 1% of the container but is still shipped in the same size container to make handling of the containers an uniform procedure.

Modern shipping containers work in much the same way. It's cheaper to ship stuff inside a container because they can be stacked and easily moved. If you fill it with feathers or gold you will pay the same price as long as they both have 20 tons in them.

 

[Vladimar Rubicon]

Thanks, I guess that makes sense...kind of like getting that little computer component shipped fedEx and it comes in a 2 foot square box filled with bubble wrap and Styrofoam.

BTW: What did the Feds do to Blake?

 

[Ceannard]

BTW: What did the Feds do to Blake?

I think thats a reference to Blakes 7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terran_Federation_(Blake's_7)

 

[SirAdelaide]

This bothers me too.

Much better to list cargo capacity in m^3. Jump range would vary depending on the cargo, due to different masses. It'd add a little more complexity (a good thing), generally resulting in ships carrying low value goods having better range (food etc) and ships carrying high value goods having lower range (gold etc).

 

[Crimson Kaim]

Never thought about it, but the OP is absolutely right.

 

[Lunchmoney]

..... a metric tonne which makes it a volume again instead of a weight.

No it isn't. A metric tonne is a 1000KG - still a measure of weight.

 

[Harker]

DB said in one of the development videos that they are more like TEUs, but they kept the word Ton, both for simplicity and historical reasons (from previous games)

 

[Udayana]

Something just occurred to me that I never thought about before.
...
Doesn't this make sense?

I don't know. At one time i hauled a couple tons of imperial slaves, left the station into SC then dropped soon after in the middle of nowhere. Pressed the eject all button and said something like you are free now! You know, things you do just for fun

 

[Dr Wookie]

No it isn't. A metric tonne is a 1000KG - still a measure of weight.

To be precise, kg are a measurement of mass; weight is force exerted on a mass in a gravitational field .

It makes sense to use standard containers, because cargo mass affects more than just jump range and a ship with a load much heavier than it is designed for could be in serious trouble in many ways.

 

[Robert Maynard]

It makes sense to use standard containers, because cargo mass affects more than just jump range and a ship with a load much heavier than it is designed for could be in serious trouble in many ways.

Indeed - I would expect that the cargo would be carefully stowed in the canisters so that the centre of mass was in the same place as for all other canisters (and possibly, the radii of gyration of the mass too.... ). To do otherwise would greatly increase the difficulty of stowing the cargo such that the added mass did not move the centre of mass of the loaded ship outside acceptable limits.

 

[Morbad]

This bothers me too.

Much better to list cargo capacity in m^3. Jump range would vary depending on the cargo, due to different masses. It'd add a little more complexity (a good thing), generally resulting in ships carrying low value goods having better range (food etc) and ships carrying high value goods having lower range (gold etc).

The problem with basing cargo capacity around volume is that densities differences are great enough to make ships filled with dense materials in capable of withstanding the stresses of flight or landing. Even at the reduced gravity inside a Coriolis station an Anaconda with 5,000 cubic meters of grain would collapse under it's own weight.

Mass limits make a lot more sense than volume limits.

 

[Bran Tse Mallory]

Sci-fi game... Matter compression - problem solved.

 

[{SAS}Stalker]

We touched on this (sort of) in this thread;
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=94625

And I even made some models because I'm so nice!

 

[jacozilla]

Well FD is using metric tons in fuel scooping - it rates the scoop based on max inflow, say 0.18 T/s - and then in your hud when you are scooping it will show a rate of 180 / s which would be exactly right if it is metric tons (0.18 T/s = 180 kg/s)

I think the container ship analogy is the best fit. Modern container ships all have a tonnage capacity to be sure, but no one counts or refers to shipping in that way - they rate both the ship as well as the cargo hauled in terms of #containers or standardized TEU

So instead of referring to the shipping tonnage, it's just this Panamax ship is rated at 10,000 TEU cargo ability, or this ULCV even bigger than a panamax is 14,000 TEU

So I figure it's not that a ton isn't a ton, or mass and weight are being confused, it's just the labels for our ships are wrong / misleading.

Our ship that says has max cargo of 100 tons is basically saying 100 TEU - you can part fill it, you can fully fill it to max capacity, but you pay the same shipping rate as it takes the pallet position of a container. Given orbital stations, and example of modern shipping - getting the goods to the dock is the easy part. Unloading all that crap is the logistical nightmare.

So what we probably don't see is our ships dock at a station and then some standardized robo hauler pulls up to pickup and pull whatever standardizd cargo pallet the FD universe uses.

the only kink I can think of in this line of reasoning is that for small volume, heavy mass items like gold, I don't see why people wouldn't fill the damn container to the max and therefore ship more 'tonnage' of gold unless mass was the primary penalty, in which case then no single 'tonnage' rating applies - it would have to be a different value based on whatever good you are shipping, as a combo of both mass and volume needed.

 

[Slopey]

BTW: What did the Feds do to Blake?

How very random, and at the risk of being off topic, they reconditioned his mind, then after that broke down, convicted him on fabricated charges of child abuse, packed him off to the penal colony Cygnus Alpha, where he subsequently escaped, then caused the Federation no end of trouble, attempted to destroy their command and control complex but changed his mind and the aliens destroyed it anyway, then vansihed to end up on Gauda Prime as a bounty hunter where he was shot by his best mate Avon.

That's about it.

 

[Quineloe]

While you are correct, what you are proposing would screw up the balance of cheap and expensive goods even more. So just don't think of it as 1 ton, but rather as 1 unit.

 

[Robert Maynard]

the only kink I can think of in this line of reasoning is that for small volume, heavy mass items like gold, I don't see why people wouldn't fill the damn container to the max and therefore ship more 'tonnage' of gold unless mass was the primary penalty, in which case then no single 'tonnage' rating applies - it would have to be a different value based on whatever good you are shipping, as a combo of both mass and volume needed.

Presumably this isn't permitted because the safe working load of the framework that canisters are locked into in the cargo bay is the empty mass of the canister plus 1,000kg of cargo.

 

[lien_leposh]

Presumably this isn't permitted because the safe working load of the framework that canisters are locked into in the cargo bay is the empty mass of the canister plus 1,000kg of cargo.

Likewise, the forklift trucks, etc on the surface of planets might be standardised for the canister size and max mass of 1000kg + canister...

Does this make me a Tory* politician? I'm making things up to justify my warped view of reality?

*other political parties also available.