GURPS Traveller: Far Trader spent many words on the idea of LASH (Lighter
Aboard Ship). The idea is you take something like a Modular Cutter (or in this
case a lot of them) and using external clamps have your main ship grab them and
Jump. The primary ship contains just a jump drive. So when it arrives in system,
all the lighters detach and fly to the main world (or other worlds). and any new
Lighters in the system fly up and attach. There is a tanker ship there to refuel
the main ship. Once the lighters have all been reattached and the ship refueled
it takes off again.

	This works just fine for the Battle Rider concept, so why not merchant ships too?

On 7/6/2020 11:16 PM, xxxxxx@gmail.com wrote:
> Another interesting idea, but mostly would need to be some sort of standard:
>
> For cargo, you build a long, this ship with the ability to load containers in so
> that when you reach another system, you can dock with the high port or a
> transport shuttle and just roll all the modules off destined for the planet. No
> moving of actual cargo items individually.
>
> For passengers, your liner has a module called the embarkcation/debarcation
> module. It contains batteries, life support, etc. for a short period (say a
> day). During embarkcation, your passengers stroll into a windowed 'building'
> sitting on the tarmac. They can be delivered there by bus or limo. A transfer
> steward gets everyone buckled in. A transfer shuttle drops down, picks up the
> module with underbelly clamps, and lifts gently off to climb to orbit. Once in
> orbit, the module can be put on a pad at the high port and emptied or it could
> be directly transferred to another vessel in orbit.
>
> This might be a good way to quickly load large passenger volumes from surface to
> awaiting non-streamlined liner.
>
> Probably not directly feasible for a subsidized liner due to size limits, but
> maybe useful for larger liners.
>
> TomB
>
> On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 9:27 PM Jeffrey Schwartz <xxxxxx@gmail.com
> <mailto:xxxxxx@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     I wonder if some worlds with no Highport would have Downport based,
>     privately owned launches and such.
>     I can picture them sending data-spam about "Ride from orbit to planet,
>     only 50cr" as you come in-system.
>     When there's no traffic, they'd be getting jobs delivering people to
>     moon bases and such
>
>     On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 7:27 PM Greg Nokes <xxxxxx@nokes.name
>     <mailto:xxxxxx@nokes.name>> wrote:
>      >
>      > Well, the ship has a 20tn launch. That can carry a number of passengers
>     (say, 20 folks and 3 dtons of luggage using CT). So you could tender all of
>     the passengers down in 2 or 3 runs.
>      >
>      > I’d envision it working like a real world ship at a port not deep enough
>     for it. You just have to tender the stuff around.
>      >
>      > High passage passengers might even have arranged  planet side transfers
>     directly to their final destination, so they would not have to deal with
>     changing ships at the star port.
>      >
>      > Sent from my iPhone
>      >
>      > > On Jul 6, 2020, at 3:59 PM, Evyn Gutierrez <xxxxxx@gmail.com
>     <mailto:xxxxxx@gmail.com>> wrote:
>      > >
>      > > Have you ever noticed the odd duck the subsidized Liner? J3 and
>     unstreamlined. As a commercial vessel it is optimized for systems with high
>     ports.
>      > >
>      > > I figured that A and B ports have high ports and half or so C ports
>     also have one as well ( consider pop score and Tl and geographic location).
>     D port might have the off refueling station if they in the right chain.
>      > >
>      > > This chain of thought started when I was pondering a route map through
>     the corridor sector.
>      > >
>      > > Evyn
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--
         Thomas Jones-Low
Work:	xxxxxx@softstart.com
Home:   xxxxxx@gmail.com