Standard Cargo Units need to be modified in some way.

[Drewpan]

Hi Guys,

Lets be honest here, the Standard 20' Shipping Container did indeed revolutionize cargo transport around the world but it
does still have its limitations. So does Elite Cargo.

In a nutshell, if I filled a 20' container FULL of say Gold I would struggle to find a crane to lift it because Gold is dense. On
the other hand if I filled one up with Instant Coffee it would a relatively easy lift for a crane because Coffee is a lot less
dense than Gold.

In some ways the economics of the game reflect the differences in cargo with pricing, but how about modifying Cargo
to reflect this Density issue? From a Mass point of view I could probably fit Gold in Tonne Cargo Canisters in my ship,
but if I fit the same number of Coffee Canisters in the ship I would be significantly lighter so how about reflecting this
in jump range? Also if I needed say 10 Units of Gold for a Mission, I should be able to fill the hold up with the same
amount of other Cargo plus a handful of extra containers because the Gold would be significantly smaller containers
for the same mass amount.

Should Ships also have Loading Limits? CAN I lift 100T of Gold and 50T of other Cargo? Maybe a Density Limit would fix
this if you want to still use Standard Cargo Containers (SCC). It is the same issue with a SCC full of Gold or Coffee - it isn't
a Volume issue it is a Mass problem.

This should be relatively easy to implement in Code and it would also assist Players to have a running Load Calculator.
Even a simplified Light, Medium or Heavy Cargo would work along the lines of a Bulk Carrier Ship could be filled with Grain
but probably sink with the same volume of Ore.

Cheers

Drewpan

 

[Lestat]

Hi Guys,

Lets be honest here, the Standard 20' Shipping Container did indeed revolutionize cargo transport around the world but it
does still have its limitations. So does Elite Cargo.

In a nutshell, if I filled a 20' container FULL of say Gold I would struggle to find a crane to lift it because Gold is dense. On
the other hand if I filled one up with Instant Coffee it would a relatively easy lift for a crane because Coffee is a lot less
dense than Gold.

In some ways the economics of the game reflect the differences in cargo with pricing, but how about modifying Cargo
to reflect this Density issue? From a Mass point of view I could probably fit Gold in Tonne Cargo Canisters in my ship,
but if I fit the same number of Coffee Canisters in the ship I would be significantly lighter so how about reflecting this
in jump range? Also if I needed say 10 Units of Gold for a Mission, I should be able to fill the hold up with the same
amount of other Cargo plus a handful of extra containers because the Gold would be significantly smaller containers
for the same mass amount.

Should Ships also have Loading Limits? CAN I lift 100T of Gold and 50T of other Cargo? Maybe a Density Limit would fix
this if you want to still use Standard Cargo Containers (SCC). It is the same issue with a SCC full of Gold or Coffee - it isn't
a Volume issue it is a Mass problem.

This should be relatively easy to implement in Code and it would also assist Players to have a running Load Calculator.
Even a simplified Light, Medium or Heavy Cargo would work along the lines of a Bulk Carrier Ship could be filled with Grain
but probably sink with the same volume of Ore.

Cheers

Drewpan

Here in Elite if a Cargo had 1 ton of Feathers it weigh 1 ton. As well as 1 Ton of Gold weighs 1 ton. I look at Elite Dangerous Cargo Containers are set at 1 ton weight limit. But in theroy could hold more but it would affect the ship.

 

[varonica]

Hi Guys,

Lets be honest here, the Standard 20' Shipping Container did indeed revolutionize cargo transport around the world but it
does still have its limitations. So does Elite Cargo.

In a nutshell, if I filled a 20' container FULL of say Gold I would struggle to find a crane to lift it because Gold is dense. On
the other hand if I filled one up with Instant Coffee it would a relatively easy lift for a crane because Coffee is a lot less
dense than Gold.

Mass versus weight, we are in a space situation so the capacity of the cargo racks is measured in volume not weight, weight = mass x acceleration of gravity, and since we are in a micro gravity environment that's not a relevant unit of measure. for a given mass feathers and gold weigh exactly the same in space, and that's 0. So a 2 ton cargo rack when filled with gold is the same as a 2 ton cargo rack filled with feathers and a crane can lift a container full of gold as easily as it can lift a container full of feathers.

 

[777Driver]

Here in Elite if a Cargo had 1 ton of Feathers it weigh 1 ton. As well as 1 Ton of Gold weighs 1 ton. I look at Elite Dangerous Cargo Containers are set at 1 ton weight limit. But in theroy could hold more but it would affect the ship.

This is all there is to it, each container has a 1 tonne limit, labelled as 1 unit. This also makes things a lot easier when calculating ship performance (manoeuvrability, acceleration/deceleration rates/jump range) are all affected by ships mass/weight.


@Veronica - Keep in mind that many of us do operate under gravity, one of my highest paying trucking routes is from a 2g surface port.

@Drewpan - Ships do have a load limit, dictated by thruster maximum mass. For exmaple, when they increased the T9's cargo capcity to +700 tonnes, it is possible to hit a lower cargo limit if running D-rated thrusters with other heavy modules.

Below is an old post of mine, explains thruster limits

Spoiler

My Total Mass states: 481.3 / 482.9 / 1,155.0 t.

Current Mass - 481.3T
Total gross weight fully fueled/cargo - 482.9T
Maximum mass thrusters can launch with (dependent on thruster rating/class) 1,1550 T

My current jump says: min/current/max 16.93 / 16.99 / 18.14

Min = Fully laden fully fuelled
Current = Actual gross weight with current fuel & Cargo.
Max = Max plotted jump range (Fully fueled) Onboard jump range indicator displays max jump range with an optimal fuel load (Right functions panel)

 

[varonica]

@Veronica - Keep in mind that many of us do operate under gravity, one of my highest paying trucking routes is from a 2g surface port.
[/SPOILER]

Yeah I deliberately left that aside due to the magic thruster effect that will still lift your ship no matter what the load and gravity. It would be really nice if ED took into account the power of thrusters versus mass of ship and weight of cargo when landing planet side so that you actually had to calculate whether you could land, and/or take of succesfully if you take an empty ship down and fill it with, as the OP brought up, gold, but that would annoy a lot of people who simply don't enjoy that level of detail in a game, and that's a great pity because I personally think it would be wonderful if it actually worked that way. It would add an entire new aspect to planetary landings, what ship to take, will the thrusters lift it both empty and full against the gravity or do you need to upgrade or even take a different ship.

For planetary landing above a certain gravity level you can effectively ignore the effect of gravity on the mass of the ship and cargo because it's the same no matter what you do, and that's a big pity.

 

[Robert Maynard]

In a nutshell, if I filled a 20' container FULL of say Gold I would struggle to find a crane to lift it because Gold is dense. On
the other hand if I filled one up with Instant Coffee it would a relatively easy lift for a crane because Coffee is a lot less
dense than Gold.

Other than not finding at standard container crane to lift it, any crane trying to lift it using the top corner lifting points would very probably rip the container apart - as it's designed for a maximum gross weight of 30.4t, resulting in a payload of 28.2t (as the container weighs 2.2t).

The volume of a 20' container is 33.1m³ which results in an average load density of 0.852t/m³, i.e. the container would be overloaded if it was completely filled with water. Gold, on the other hand, has a density of about 19.3t/m³, over 22x the permissible average load density, which would result in a fully loaded 20' container with a gross weight of 641t.

For the cargo canisters in the game, given that they can reportedly transport "1t" of hydrogen (presumably liquid; density = 0.0781t/m³), the inference is that they have a usable volume of c.14.1m³ - which would correspond to c.272t of gold, if it was permitted to be overloaded.

As all cargo handling in the game is apparently automated, I'd expect that all of the handling systems, i.e. ship and dock, are designed for standard "1t" canisters.

 

[Yaffle]

I'd always seen them as a standard size/mass 'unit' and not necessarily containing 1T of the cargo. This was just for ease of gameplay, but could be seen as helping with loading patterns too, it's easy to keep the ship balanced if every intermodal is the same mass. Each container has the same final gross mass, the mass of the contents would vary.
This also helps make a bit more sense of the ₢ value of things, think about how much a 'unit' of gold is compared to the price of a ship.

 

[Morbad]

Canisters have an internal volume in excess of 1.5 cubic meters.

This is enough to hold an actual ton of almost any commodity on the list, except perhaps hydrogen fuel, if that fuel is liquid H2, which it probably is not (more sensible to use a hydrogen compound to get more hydrogen in a smaller space than you could with liquid hydrogen).

Denser materials would simply fill the canister less completely, which isn't much of an issue since everything is built to handle standardized canisters, and the limit is always going to be one of mass, not volume, on our ships.

For the cargo canisters in the game, given that they can reportedly transport "1t" of hydrogen (presumably liquid; density = 0.0781t/m³), the inference is that they have a usable volume of c.14.1m³ - which would correspond to c.272t of gold, if it was permitted to be overloaded.

Liquid hydrogen is an extremely poor way to transport hydrogen unless you need pure hydrogen for some reason and don't have the means to separate it from something. For example, there is way more hydrogen in a liter of gasoline or water than there is in a liter of liquid hydrogen.

Also, canisters in game are very obviously ~1m*2m and roughly cyndrical in shape. They likely have ~1.5 cubic meters of usable internal volume.

 

[Hell Razor5543]

While a standard cargo module (in Real Life OR the Game) could have varying weights of cargo (depending on what is actually IN the module), weight, weight distribution and balance (as any cargo handler will tell you) is critical to the safety of the vessel carrying said modules. While I am not privy to the methods of loading cargo modules onto any of the enormous freight vessels plying our seas, I would imagine that the weight is loaded according to a set distribution pattern, to allow the vessel to sail safely in all weather conditions.

I do know that, in the past, narrow boats on the canals in the UK that were loading dense heavy goods would load them at the fore and aft of the boat, so as to prevent it sagging in the middle (which could cause a vessel to ground in shallow, but otherwise navigable, waters (or, in extreme cases, break the back of the vessel).

While my Eagle could have a couple of canisters which had 641T gold in each canister (1282T in total), her handling would be atrocious! I doubt she could even lift off from a low gravity planet (a high gravity planet would cause her to collapse under the weight!), a sick snail could out accelerate her, and you would have to give a months notice before attempting any turns! That much mass would take a huge amount of energy to get moving, and lots to change the direction and slow it down (I think an interstellar jump would fail for weight reasons).

Having standard cargo module parameters makes cargo handling simpler, both in the Real World and the Game. If a handler KNOWS that a module has standard dimensions and a maximum weight they can manage the module easily (regardless of the contents). They do have to trust that the clients shipping the cargo module have made sure the contents are secure within the module, but this would have been explained to the client.

Yes, one tonne of feathers takes up much more space than one tonne of gold, but (assuming it can fit in the module) it is the mass that is key, not the volume.

 

[Sylow]

Mass versus weight, we are in a space situation so the capacity of the cargo racks is measured in volume not weight, weight = mass x acceleration of gravity, and since we are in a micro gravity environment that's not a relevant unit of measure. for a given mass feathers and gold weigh exactly the same in space, and that's 0. So a 2 ton cargo rack when filled with gold is the same as a 2 ton cargo rack filled with feathers and a crane can lift a container full of gold as easily as it can lift a container full of feathers.

Acceleration does not only happen by gravity. So if we fill up the same cargo containers based on volume, the cargo rack will easily handle the strain of hitting the boost while holding several cubic meters of feathers. Do the same with several cubic meters of gold and you might wonder why your container, along with some parts of the cargo rack, just punched a hole into your hull and is floating somewhere behind you.

Actually mass might be the most important factor in space. It doesn't matter if something is a bit bigger or not. It's not like drag will affect you too much, so size and geometry are of secondary interest. (That is, of course bigger size adds some mass and thrusters need to be reasonably places. So in the end they do matter, but mass still is what you'd look at first. ) Mass on the other hand affects everything you do in space.

So the volume of your cargo might really not matter that much. The deciding point is the mass and where you can store it to not affect your vehicles performance. And i'm not speaking just of maximum speed: badly placed mass (just because you have volume spare) might very well affect your turning axes or make the ship completely uncontrollable. Standard containers and cargo racks avoid that problem.

 

[Hydrino]

Canisters have an internal volume in excess of 1.5 cubic meters.

This is enough to hold an actual ton of almost any commodity on the list, except perhaps hydrogen fuel, if that fuel is liquid H2, which it probably is not (more sensible to use a hydrogen compound to get more hydrogen in a smaller space than you could with liquid hydrogen).

Liquid hydrogen is an extremely poor way to transport hydrogen unless you need pure hydrogen for some reason and don't have the means to separate it from something. For example, there is way more hydrogen in a liter of gasoline or water than there is in a liter of liquid hydrogen.
<snip>.

Citation?
Methinks you may be confusing energy density with amount of hydrogen in these statements.
Gasoline is full of lots of other stuff than hydrogen, thus it has less hydrogen than pure liquid hydrogen.

 

[Maolagin]

Canisters have an internal volume in excess of 1.5 cubic meters.

This is enough to hold an actual ton of almost any commodity on the list, except perhaps hydrogen fuel, if that fuel is liquid H2, which it probably is not (more sensible to use a hydrogen compound to get more hydrogen in a smaller space than you could with liquid hydrogen).

Denser materials would simply fill the canister less completely, which isn't much of an issue since everything is built to handle standardized canisters, and the limit is always going to be one of mass, not volume, on our ships.



Liquid hydrogen is an extremely poor way to transport hydrogen unless you need pure hydrogen for some reason and don't have the means to separate it from something. For example, there is way more hydrogen in a liter of gasoline or water than there is in a liter of liquid hydrogen.

Also, canisters in game are very obviously ~1m*2m and roughly cyndrical in shape. They likely have ~1.5 cubic meters of usable internal volume.

Agreed, my presumption has always been that galactic standard cargo racks are specified for a few standard form factors (standard cylinders, the red cylinders that some rares and salvage come in, escape pods, any others...?) and exactly 1t mass per unit. Incidentally, this suggests that in all cases "1 unit" is less than 1t of commodity, because the cargo canister has to have some mass. For some commodities you can well imagine that the materials to safely transport the item might be a significant fraction of the total mass. For most of the bulk commodities, no problem. But there are a few "interesting" cases.

One is the low-density liquids. The only one that has a clear problem is Hydrogen Fuel (mineral oil would have an issue if the usable volume is under 1.2 m^3 per unit, but they're probably larger than that). Obviously LH2 is far too low-density, but the best compression methods today don't get above 100 kg/m^3, although that's in the ballpark where you can certainly say futuretech will be able to get that density up by another factor of ten. (For scale, note that 1 m^3 of liquid methanol also contains about 100 kg of H2.)

The other odd case is things like guardian relics and other salvage items, where it's implausible that an orb or totem or some antique jewelry found floating in space masses exactly 1t (that would be a seriously large totem, nevermind the coincidental match between these ancient artifacts and human cargo handling standards). So we should probably assume that in cases where a unit would be underfilled, we actively ballast the cargo canister to make up the mass. Say our SRV scoops up the guartian totem, and enough rocks to top off the cargo canister. Pity it can't instead pack several artifacts into a single canister, but that's automated handling for you. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Yaffle]

One is the low-density liquids. The only one that has a clear problem is Hydrogen Fuel (mineral oil would have an issue if the usable volume is under 1.2 m^3 per unit, but they're probably larger than that). Obviously LH2 is far too low-density, but the best compression methods today don't get above 100 kg/m^3, although that's in the ballpark where you can certainly say futuretech will be able to get that density up by another factor of ten. (For scale, note that 1 m^3 of liquid methanol also contains about 100 kg of H2.)

Ballast makes up the rest. Maybe H2 is in an osmium lined cannister - which is why there are so many missions to mine it.

You've an interesting point on the random pick-ups, which are very gamey - even if you scoop up rocks to ballast it, you don't have any empty cannisters to put it in. It's the same with mining, we magic up cannisters on the fly. IIRC the DDF wanted us to have empty cannisters for mining etc, which would have removed this little oddity.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Modern cargo uses "dimensional weight" at the consumer level.
Just try to send something via UPS etc.

And a container on a ship is still the same size no matter what is in it.
The number a ship can carry is fixed, even if they are empty.

 

[JetsonRING]

In space you do not have to worry about weight, only mass. While it is true a 20' shipping container filled with gold would be a nearly impossible lift on Earth, in space a child could (with some difficulty) push it around with his/her finger since its weight would be exactly zero. Regarding mass, as another poster pointed out a pound of feathers (in a one-G gravity well) has the same mass as a pound of gold so volume and inertia become the important factors. Instead of thinking of a "unit" as a unit of weight, get into the habit of thinking of a "unit" as a unit of mass. o7

 

[Maolagin]

Ballast makes up the rest. Maybe H2 is in an osmium lined cannister - which is why there are so many missions to mine it.

You've an interesting point on the random pick-ups, which are very gamey - even if you scoop up rocks to ballast it, you don't have any empty cannisters to put it in. It's the same with mining, we magic up cannisters on the fly. IIRC the DDF wanted us to have empty cannisters for mining etc, which would have removed this little oddity.

Well, if we can imagine suitably strong canisters, we could be transporting slugs of metallic hydrogen. That has a density up to a couple times the density of water. Probably need to keep it pressurized to a few million atmospheres though!

SRVs can synth their own spare parts and fuel from minor amounts of raw elements, maybe they synth canisters the same way? Or maybe the ship does, once the SRV docks again. Maybe the cargo racks themselves contain equipment for 3D printing new canisters if needed. Would explain why the larger ones cost so much.

 

[Para Handy]

Standard Cargo Units need to be modified in some way.

No they don't.

The whole galactic supply system is geared to use the standard 1 tonne cannister. Mucking about with this would require changes to the loading / unloading cranes and conveyor systems on each docking pad. It has taken humanity hundreds of years to settle on a standard cargo handling system, don't mess with something that isn't broken*.


(* There is plenty in the game that is broken, go fix that. )

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

In space you do not have to worry about weight, only mass. While it is true a 20' shipping container filled with gold would be a nearly impossible lift on Earth, in space a child could (with some difficulty) push it around with his/her finger since its weight would be exactly zero. Regarding mass, as another poster pointed out a pound of feathers (in a one-G gravity well) has the same mass as a pound of gold so volume and inertia become the important factors. Instead of thinking of a "unit" as a unit of weight, get into the habit of thinking of a "unit" as a unit of mass. o7

No, the child would move.
An astronaut can't move the space station either.
They have to hold on to something just to turn a screwdriver.

 

[Garzvug]

You know, OP is onto something. I think putting some consideration into density of your chosen cargo could be quite relevant. Heavy metals, because of their increased density, might become viable trade-route goods to compete with void opals. Balancing would need to be done on all of the commodities, though, so it would not be a simple change.

 

[Maolagin]

In space you do not have to worry about weight, only mass. While it is true a 20' shipping container filled with gold would be a nearly impossible lift on Earth, in space a child could (with some difficulty) push it around with his/her finger since its weight would be exactly zero. Regarding mass, as another poster pointed out a pound of feathers (in a one-G gravity well) has the same mass as a pound of gold so volume and inertia become the important factors. Instead of thinking of a "unit" as a unit of weight, get into the habit of thinking of a "unit" as a unit of mass. o7

In various contexts you might have to worry about both.

Mass is the more fundamental quantity of course, telling you how much matter there is. That sets the inertia of the object and thus how quickly it will accelerate if you push on it with a known force. In-game, our hyperdrives and shields are also limited in terms of the maximum mass they can act on.

Weight is the force that a given mass exerts under acceleration (either gravitational or kinematic). This matters since structures must be engineered to withstand that force, and it's an especially interesting quantity in this game since we operate in a wide variety of gravitational environments. It's main effect in-game is the fact that you can overload a freighter to the extent that it can't take off in high gravity.

Strictly speaking, neither mass nor weight explains why a child can't push a shipping container around on Earth. That's due to friction with the floor. Put it up on air bearings and a child will move it just fine, although it will accelerate quite slowly (and definitely don't get between it and a hard place once it's moving).