On 13Jul2020 1625, xxxxxx@gmail.com wrote:
> Luminaries,
>
> Hark thee back to the various versions and sources and hear my query:
>
> Hast there been any version of Ye Olde (Or Less Olde) Rules in which
> the mechanisms to do ship-to-ship refueling are covered from a design
> perspective?
FF&S (both the TNE and T4 versions) mention probe & drogue aircraft
refuelling systems, but give no detail on how fast fuel can be
transferred. There's nothing on ship-ship transfers so far as I know.

For what it's worth, GURPS Spaceships lets you transfer 10% of a ship's
fuel mass every 3 minutes (so all of it in 30 minutes). Note that this
rate is based on the smaller value, so a tanker or battleship can't
refuel a destroyer in next to no time (but could refuel many at once).

>
> HasT there been, yea verily, any scribblings that smell of the lamp
> about safer storage of large amounts of fuel (for a tanker)?
>
> If not, and one wanted to design one of these, are there any other
> proxies that might suggest the scale/power consumption/rate of
> transfer, and so on?
>
> I am thinking a big fleet on the move might want to have tankers.
> Given J-4 or more in some systems, the fuel use would be a fair bit as
> would the jump engines. But you might be able to make up for that by
> having a LOT of external fuel storage as well.
>
> This, forsooth, doth bring yet another query: Hast there been
> declared, by powers most righteous, a limit upon the size of tanks
> external and wonderous in Our sight? (I grasp that there likely are
> rules defining the impacts on jump transit with these external tanks,
> but I just wondered if there were any explicit rules like... oh..
> can't build an external tank more than 50% the size of your craft...
> or some such)

You can build them as big as you like. In systems like FF&S you have to
build them with armour, supporting structures, stealth surfaces, etc.,
so a big tank for a high-performance military ship will cost a fair bit.

--
Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>