Newcomer / Intro Weight of a unit of cargo?

butcherbird

B
Hello. Yep, n00b questions here ... where can we find the weight of a unit of (any) cargo? When I highlight a commodity in the Commodities Market screen, I do not see weights listed. Or is each cargo bay 1 ton -- ie: 4 cargo slots in the Sidewinder would equal 4 tons of cargo when fully loaded?

ED weights.jpg

What does the Jump Range in parentheses stand for?

ED jump ranges.JPG

Thank you for your help!
 

purf

purf
1 ton.
You see, in the future, the size of Cargo compartments adjust to the density of the Cargo :p

and the numbers:
Current Jump Range (Jump Range of Empty Ship)
 
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the100thmonkey

the100thmonkey
The bracketed number is your unladen range.

Cargo comes in tonnes, although this is not explicitly stated anywhere in the game, to the best of my knowledge.
 

Kr4ftw3rk

Kr4ftw3rk
I'm thinking that the weight to mass/density ratio of different items doesn't quite figure out correctly in ED. The difference in density/mass of the different items would fit differently in each cannister... and if every item were adjusted to fit into a cannister in order to equal one ton... then wouldn't that leave alot of space in a container which contained an item that had less density/mass but still wieghed one ton?. It seems we're stuck with ED's math for the time being.
 
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Alec Turner

Alec Turner
The Cargo bays in E: D employ quantum matter compression which enables them to fit a tonne of gold and a tonne of Eshu Umbrellas into the same space :)
 

AstroZak

A
To answer the two questions...

1. The cargo space is measured per Tonne - this is not an arbitary weight, or volumne. It is a measure that has upper limits in both weight and volumne, so it could be "100 square meters of stuff" or "1000Kg of stuff" which ever is lower. i.e. if you are carrying textiles, the changes are that you will fill the space completely. But if you are carrying lead, you'll hit the weight limit first. There's no quantum anything going on, just a limit of the amount of stuff that you can carry because either, it'll be too heavy and break stuff, or too big and overflow the space.

2. The distance shown is your current max jump distance with your ships current loadout. That takes into account what's currently in the cargo bay, weapons, fuel, engine specs everything. The figure in brackets is the maximum distance that your current ship can achieve - by dumping all unneeded weigh (the cargo and maybe some fuel)
 

zumbledum

Z
Kr4ftw3rk said:
I'm thinking that the weight to mass/density ratio of different items doesn't quite figure out correctly in ED. The difference in density/mass of the different items would fit differently in each cannister... and if every item were adjusted to fit into a cannister in order to equal one ton... then wouldn't that leave alot of space in a container which contained an item that had less density/mass but still wieghed one ton?. It seems we're stuck with ED's math for the time being.
Click to expand...

its just simpler this way

a Tun was actually a measurement of volume it was a large barrel, the English eventually gave it an arbitrary weight measurement and the Americans gave it a new name and not understanding the difference between weight and mass use it a measurement of weight but measure it in KG's

a tonne of cargo in deep space doesn't exist technically because we measure it by weight not mass , and its weight will vary depending on gravitational pulls or centrifugal forces like inside a Coriolis station.

Now as mass has serious affects in space travel but weight is variable and largely irrelevant its much simpler to just limit all cargo canisters to one metric tonne , so you dont fill your hold with high mass items items and suddenly find your craft weighing 100X as much as usual as you drop out next to a sun and suddenly your thrusters cant get you out of the gravity well.
 

butcherbird

B
Thanks for the input, guys. Follow-up question based on something that happened to me ... I found a trade worth trying; so, I purchased the cargo at point A. After making the purchase, I found that my ship could no longer make it to point B due to the weight of the cargo.

If weights aren't published, how do we determine weight of cargo BEFORE buying the cargo? If I could calculate the weight, I'd be able to use the Jump Range slider to see if the flight is possible in my ship.

Thank you again.
 

Carbucketty

Carbucketty
According to the manual for the original Elite: "Pressurised cargo canisters are the Universal means of storing cargo for Interplanetary Space Voyaging. Made of HiFlux Chromon-alloy, they hold one Gal Tonne of goods, under variable pressure and temperature conditions. Tales have been told of such barrels being discovered after over five hundred years on barren moons, and such 'Moon salvage' is a remarkable source of historical artefact material".

Whether this is still canon, and whether a "Gal Tonne" has any relation to a 21st-century "tonne", is anyone's guess :)
 
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