So… I was wondering. Let's say you tried to set up a Goliath ship as an 'Omni-Miner'. You know, between the plasma mining, asteroid mining, cloud mining, a lux net (for light mining I guess), maybe the extra electricity is useful in a manufactorum in making something? Hydrogen fuel?? and an absolutely absurdly minmaxed pilot… what could you achieve? Could this and a separate trade ship basically go around everywhere, mining valuable things, while the goliath fills up the trade ship's stores? Some threads have talked about 'trade' ships that have absurdly large amounts of 'Main Cargo Bays', but most DMs will say something like 'an empty cargo bay gets you no profit' -- could this ship fill up another's cargo bays so you actually get some benefit out of those huge amounts of cargo bays that a properly kitted out ship can manage?

Does anyone have any ideas about whether this would work in an appropriately short period of time so as to be worthwhile? Would a *monitor* version of this ship in an appropriate (blue-starred) system help a colony an absurd amount, just going from asteroid to star to comet to colony? What would that do??

I don't know if rules cover this… but I would like people's best guesses…

What about the arboretum component? Could you use that, combined with things like the lux net, and maybe a servitor crew and a competent ship's steward, to grow more food than you need? How about that manufactorum, for use in processing the various ores, water, plasma, etc. into something useful? CAN a ship essentially, barring repair and component maintenance need, be completely independent of going to port for resupply?

I mean, it looks like you could mine:

starlight (lux net, arboretum, presumably with all these supplies you can just grow crops??)

blue stars (goliath itself)

asteroids (asteroid mining facility)

cloudming facility (comets for water)

plasma scoop (gas giants, explicitely can let you stay without resupplying)

and you could use a manufactorum for refining all of this stuff into something useful, and your cargo hulls for storing the more refined versions of things… what sort of circling endeavor, and how much success in that endeavor, for how much profit factor would a 'loop' in an appropriate system (gas giant of appropriate type, comet, some decent asteroids, blue star) be? What if you founded a colony to specifically be part of your in-system loop (injdustrial colony of some sort??)

It seems like this could be done for 50 ship points…

But assume you have 60, to make components smaller. How many Arboretums would it take for you to produce more food than you consume (presume steward and servitor crew)?

Never mind… only one arboretum per ship… grumble grumble..

This is an idea my players have considered, but not been able to get their hands on a Goliath to pursue. They were considering using an Asteroid Mining Facility and a Cloundmining Facility. The goliath allready refuels from stars, so it shouldn't need the lux net or plasma scoop. Add in a Manufactorum and Arbetorium and you end up with something that never really needs resupply. We have discussed it, and it would be a Greater Endeavor to set up the ship and loop. It would basically make high grade plasma fuel and flasks while being completely self sufficient barring major damage. I believe we had discussed that any additional PF would come from surplus comet water and high grade ores the ship accumulated due to superior planning/resources/efficiencies.

Well, the things you can get from a gas giant might be different than the things you can get from a blue star. One's a plasma, the other's a gas. Also one needs ore as a reactant or something. So those might be an issue.

I was working on a design for this today (I couldn't find the ship the players had designed) and realized that you can't reasonably fit all that equipment in the hull anyways. Even fitting in the Asteroid Mining Facility and Cloudmining Facility leaves you with insufficient space for weapons and the Manufactorum. The players are going to have to pay for Good/Best quality components to make it work. It would actually be easier to build an Asteroid Mining ship, and have the Goliath do the Cloudmining Facility and Manufactorum. It would actually be cheaper, as you would avoid buying Best quality components. Note that a single Best quality component is at least -30 Aquisition. A fully outfitted Jericho transport Asteroid Miner is probably less than -30 (-20 Hull, plus less than 10 SP of components). The Jericho Asteroid Miner ship is probably more reasonable to find as well.

The point was to start with it via ship points when starting, not acquisition checks, of course. You can't get anything interesting via acquisition checks until you have like 100 profit factor or other such crazyness, or are willing to burn through like 20 pf buying a ship. I'm not asking about that -- I'm asking about the endeavor versions of what a ship like this could do...

Goliath Omni-Miner Space Power Ship Points BUDGET 48 Goliath 40 10 -25 For mining blue stars Lux Net -2 0 -2 For mining starlight Arboretum -2 -2 -1 For mining starlight Compact GS Asteroid Mining Facility -5 -6 -5 For mining asteroids, is archeo GS Cloudmining Facility -3 -3 -3 For mining comets Plasma Scoop -3 -2 -3 For mining gas giants Manufactorum -1 -2 -2 For refining all of this Int Cargo -2 Int Cargo -2 GS Strelov 1 -9 -10 -1 Warpsbane Hull 0 -1 -2 Single Void -1 -5 0 Commerce Bridge -1 -1 0 GS Vitae -1 -4 -1 Voidsman -3 -1 0 Modified GS Lathe 1 -7 40 -5 is archeo 201b 0 -5 0 Mars Macro -2 -4 -1 Planet-Bound for Millenia 3 For maneuverability close to gravity wells, archeotech SUM 0 0 0 Comes with a Halo Barge!

See? Start the game with 48 ship points, the right warrant type, and it's fine.

EDIT: Well that didn't work.

I hadn't realized you meant this to be your starting ship, or that you were willing to drastically underarm it. I personally think that is a horrific idea, but your group may make it work. I ran the numbers on the ship you have there and had a few questions and comments:

1) You have a Stars of Inequity component. I personally would not allow it, and there aren't actually rules to cover having one on your starting ship. Also, if you have one you have to include a quirk. You have also chosen the bonus on the item, which I would probably not allow. Dropping 5 space from a component is a pretty severe improvement, on par with having a modified drive. If I could be convinced (very unlikely) to allow it I would probably raise the price of the component 3-4 PF instead of the 2 you listed.

2) What is GS stand for? Good Quality, reduced space? That seems to fit, so that is what I assumed.

3) You are mounting only a single Mars Macrocannon Battery on your main starship? Doesn't that beg for some raider to come ravage your ship and steal your archeotech compoents off of your corpse? It seems drastically underarmed to me, and I would strongly suggest my players find another way to make their ship work than to leave it so undefended. You have 3 weapon mount locations, and one mediocre weapon system.

4) A Manufactorum cannot be mounted on a transport. In this case, I would allow it as it makes sense in game and based on the size of the ship.

5) A Plasma Scoop can't be mounted on a transport. In this case, I would not allow it and rule it completely uneccesary. You will note that the ship refuels via scooping the plasma out of stars... You don't need it, and you can't technically use it.

6) The Lux Net is completely extranius. You can refuel from stars and generate more power than you need that way.

7) As allways, I recomend a Miloslav Warp Drive. 2 less power and twice the speed. The more frequent encounters actually works out to less encounters covering the same distance (1/3 days at double speed vs 1/5 days)

8) As the ship has 50 Hull, you can actually have 10 small craft without extra bays, plus 8 extra due to the two Main Cargo Holds. If this is going to be your main ship I would recomend 8 Halo Barges, 2 Guncutters, and 8 other small craft based on your preferences.

If you remove the uneccessary components and swap out the warp drive you gain 2 Power 5 Space and 5 SP back. Trade out the Warp Drive for another 2 Power. You could spend those extra SP to upgrade components to Best to reduce Power more and then mount some weapons on the side arcs to improve survivability. The players and I discussed the idea again this week and they came up with some other changes, but they are looking to buy it with PF instead.

I hadn't realized you meant this to be your starting ship, or that you were willing to drastically underarm it.

8) As the ship has 50 Hull, you can actually have 10 small craft without extra bays, plus 8 extra due to the two Main Cargo Holds. If this is going to be your main ship I would recomend 8 Halo Barges, 2 Guncutters, and 8 other small craft based on your preferences.

Wait, where are the rules for this? How many craft you can carry and launch and such? And I was doing theoretical to figure out HOW much could fit on this ship and what could and couldn't.

I believe the plasma from gas giants and the plasma from stars are two different types of plasma... Plus you can only get plasma from some types of gas giants, and some types of stars. Having both pieces of equipment increases the chance that you'll be able to get plasma at all in some systems.

Goliath Omni-Miner

Space

Power

Ship Points

BUDGET

49

Goliath

40

10

-25

For mining blue stars

Arboretum

-2

-2

-1

For translating these resources to food

Compact, G.S. (Patient, Trusty) Asteroid Mining Facility

-5

-6

-7

For mining asteroids, is archeo

GS Cloudmining Facility

-3

-3

-3

For mining comets

Manufactorum

-1

-2

-2

For refining all of this

Int Cargo

-2

Int Cargo

-2

GS Miloslav 616b

-9

-8

-1

Warpsbane Hull

0

-1

-2

GP Single Void

-1

-4

0

Commerce Bridge

-1

-1

0

GP Vitae

-2

-3

-1

Voidsman

-3

-1

0

Modified GS Lathe 1

-7

40

-5

is archeo

m100

0

-3

0

Dorsal: B R/S Stygies Macro

-2

-4

-3

Mars Macro

-2

-4

-1

Mars Macro

-2

-4

-1

Planet-Bound for Millenia

3

For maneuverability close to gravity wells, archeotech

SUM

0

0

0

The number of small craft a ship has is on page 11 of Battlefleet Koronus in the sidebar.

Plasma is the 4th state of matter in which a gas is ionized and can carry an electrical charge. The plasma in Blue Giant stars is made up of Helium, Hydrogen, and possibly heavier element Plasma. It depends on what part of the life cycle the star is in and whether it is a blue giant or supergiant. Note that Gas Giants do not have significant amounts of plasma. The Plasma Scoop component doesn't say that it actually gathers plasma, only 'fuel for plasma drives'. As gas giants often have large amounts of hydrogen, that would be an appropriate source of such fuel. So, using a plasma scoop allows you to get hydrogen that you can then feed to the plasma reactors to power them.

The Goliath instead gathers plasma from a star and refines it into high grade starship fuel. The star limitation is most likely due to safety limitations and plasma densities. Note that a plasma scoop must be used once a month, but the Goliath needs to dive a star once a year. This provides the Goliath with 'Infinite range', provided food and other supplies can be provided.