How are junction fees paid and collected

So, carpooling would seem to be an option for saving on junction fees. If enough people wish to dart through to Beowulf they can simply ride on the same yacht. Like in the good old days when everybody tried to break the current record for how many people could fit in a Volkswagen Beetle or VW bus.

Split the junction fees.

Are hyper generators commensurate with ship size?

penny wrote:Are hyper generators commensurate with ship size?

It's not clear to me; in HotQ there is this quote:

Chapter 17 wrote:Valentine had pointed out that both Thunder and Principality had far more powerful hyper generators than any Masadan starship. In fact, their generators were powerful enough to extend their translation fields over six kilometers beyond their own hulls if he redlined them. That meant that if they translated from rest, they could take anything within six kilometers with them when they did. And that meant that if Masadan LACs clustered closely enough around them, they could boost the lighter vessels into hyper space.

Normally, that would have been little more than an interesting parlor trick, but Valentine had taken the entire idea one stage further. No LAC crew could survive the sort of acceleration ships routinely pulled in hyper for the simple reason that their inertial compensator would pack up the instant they tried it. But if they took the entire crew off and removed or secured all loose gear, Valentine suggested, there was no reason the ships themselves couldn’t take the acceleration on the end of a tractor beam.

But that seems to suggest that the PRH warships had hyper generators that were far more powerful than needed. So how much more powerful would the generator on an SD need to be?

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:Are hyper generators commensurate with ship size?

It's not clear to me; in HotQ there is this quote:

Chapter 17 wrote:Valentine had pointed out that both Thunder and Principality had far more powerful hyper generators than any Masadan starship. In fact, their generators were powerful enough to extend their translation fields over six kilometers beyond their own hulls if he redlined them. That meant that if they translated from rest, they could take anything within six kilometers with them when they did. And that meant that if Masadan LACs clustered closely enough around them, they could boost the lighter vessels into hyper space.

Normally, that would have been little more than an interesting parlor trick, but Valentine had taken the entire idea one stage further. No LAC crew could survive the sort of acceleration ships routinely pulled in hyper for the simple reason that their inertial compensator would pack up the instant they tried it. But if they took the entire crew off and removed or secured all loose gear, Valentine suggested, there was no reason the ships themselves couldn’t take the acceleration on the end of a tractor beam.

But that seems to suggest that the PRH warships had hyper generators that were far more powerful than needed. So how much more powerful would the generator on an SD need to be?

Also unclear to me.
In that same "nested" hyper generator post there was this

runsforcelery wrote:bear with me and remember that any starship's hyper generator is designed to produce a translation field tailored to pretty exacting dimensions and a specific mass. There is some flex in those parameters, but not a whole lot

But I'm not sure how that squares with being able to flex the field size by 6 km when it seemingly doesn't need to be more than about about 0.15 km x 0.75 km to cover a heavy cruiser. That seems a proportionately vast flex - even if the expanded area covered is still less volume protected by sidewalls; much less the volume inside a ship's wedge or sail.

(Though now that I type this I realize that HotQ was before the great resizing. Given how much larger sizes RFC was envisioning for the ships back then, that 6km might not have been quite as proportionately large an increase as it seems when viewed with the current perspective of the smaller, post-resizing, ships)


What is very clear is that, for whatever reason, larger ships have slower hyper generator cycle times - with dispatch boats taking about 1/8th as long as an SD to go from standby to translated. But whether that's because of a difference in their hyper generators or simply the impact of greater volume and mass on the hyper generator field is not spelled out.

penny wrote:So, carpooling would seem to be an option for saving on junction fees. If enough people wish to dart through to Beowulf they can simply ride on the same yacht. Like in the good old days when everybody tried to break the current record for how many people could fit in a Volkswagen Beetle or VW bus.

Split the junction fees.

That's certainly what shipping companies do. Freight gets dropped off at warehouses on one side of the wormhole until there's enough to fill a ship (or fill the remaining volume of a ship) so you're not paying to send a partially filled freighter through the wormhole. (Then it often gets offloaded into warehouses on the other side until a ship shows up that's heading that cargo's way)


Though I kind of doubt there's enough yacht traffic through most wormholes for "carpooling" to be a major thing. Most people who can afford a hyper yacht can afford not to cram random strangers aboard to try to split the transit fee. (That seems like of like suggesting that private jet owners are constantly trying to cram ride sharers aboard to split fuel costs. It seems nonsensical -- if you can afford to own and operate it in the first place you can afford to not to seek penny pinching cost savings. Especially cost savings that come at the expense of any of the convenience you'd bought the thing for in the first place)

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:So, carpooling would seem to be an option for saving on junction fees. If enough people wish to dart through to Beowulf they can simply ride on the same yacht. Like in the good old days when everybody tried to break the current record for how many people could fit in a Volkswagen Beetle or VW bus.

Split the junction fees.

That's certainly what shipping companies do. Freight gets dropped off at warehouses on one side of the wormhole until there's enough to fill a ship (or fill the remaining volume of a ship) so you're not paying to send a partially filled freighter through the wormhole. (Then it often gets offloaded into warehouses on the other side until a ship shows up that's heading that cargo's way)


Though I kind of doubt there's enough yacht traffic through most wormholes for "carpooling" to be a major thing. Most people who can afford a hyper yacht can afford not to cram random strangers aboard to try to split the transit fee. (That seems like of like suggesting that private jet owners are constantly trying to cram ride sharers aboard to split fuel costs. It seems nonsensical -- if you can afford to own and operate it in the first place you can afford to not to seek penny pinching cost savings. Especially cost savings that come at the expense of any of the convenience you'd bought the thing for in the first place)

You've got a point. Though if four of your closest friends split a five thousand dollar junction fee, the savings are significant. And close friends are not strangers. And of course, those would most likely be frequent flyer trips through to Beowulf to the girlie bars. What happens on Beowulf stays on Beowulf.

But Ubers and private cab drivers and certainly busses should be able to make a tidy profit.

****** *

That parlor trick is rather interesting. At first glance it might be something the MAN could take advantage of in the end game. For instance, a certain streak boat might be able to skirt through a junction without paying. Not that a Detweiler might not be able to afford to pay; but it might not be able to afford all that goes along with paying. Like identifying itself. Several large freighters might be waiting to extend their field around the streak boat and… gone in 60 seconds. "Go! Go! Go!"

That's another thought. I wonder if a ship can use the junction without the owner/occupants identifying themselves. Like the classier hotels require an ID even if you are paying with cash. Some classier hotels won't even accept cash. So if you are trying to remain off the grid and stay off the radar you've got to find a flea bitten roach motel.

I would imagine the MBS would see many more visitors if they didn't have to identify themselves beyond the required transponder. But I would assume some sort of personal identification would be required in case the check bounces or the dreaded "insufficient funds." I've had a few insufficient funds myself. I only keep just enough funds in a particular checking account in case the card is lost or stolen, transferring the funds into the account just before use. There are times I forgot to make the transfer.

penny wrote:
That parlor trick is rather interesting. At first glance it might be something the MAN could take advantage of in the end game. For instance, a certain streak boat might be able to skirt through a junction without paying. Not that a Detweiler might not be able to afford to pay; but it might not be able to afford all that goes along with paying. Like identifying itself. Several large freighters might be waiting to extend their field around the streak boat and… gone in 60 seconds. "Go! Go! Go!"

Good luck with that.

First, freighters don't do simultaneous transits -- far too risky and actually slows down the total throughput of the wormhole; so there would only be one at a time in position to extend its field and try to take another ship with it.

Second, to be close enough to go through the wormhole you have to be under sail, so there's going to be lots of time to see the dispatch boat trying to head towards, into, and down the departure lane without permission and payment -- so it's not like it's going to surprise Astro Control and disappear before anybody can say anything. It'd become obvious it was making a run probably at least 10 minutes before it could jump through the wormhole.

Oh, and because it needs sails to survive to reach the point anything can transit the wormhole it's not going to be able to get close enough to a freighter to be included in the freighter's hyper field. The furthest we know of a ship being able to stretch that field is 6km. But the sails stick out hundreds of km; forcing ship to stay nearly 1000 km apart. The dispatch ship can't sidle up next to the freight to get inside its hyper field without dropping sails; but if it drops sails it gets destroyed.


So yeah, can't see how that parlor trick is supposed to work

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:* If it's one bi-directional lane just split for human traffic control conventions into entry and exit channels then yeah, you'd probably be able to hit the reverse and head back towards the combined entry/exit point.

This one is highly unlikely. When Harvest Joy initially transited to Lynx, it needed time to scan the terminus to find the lane back to Manticore.

Moreover, if they were the same, it would be possible to scout a hostile wormhole: make a ship with two hypergenerators charged, then transit, reverse course, and transit again within 2 seconds. That's enough for someone to fire from 1 light-second away, but if this is unexpected, you may get away with it.

You're quite possible right about it not being bi-directional. Though Harvest Joy found the return path far quicker, and there might be enough uncertainty in your arrival position and vector to still require some surveying to nail down the actual departure line even if the lane was bidirectional. So I'm not sure that having to survey some before returning from a newly explored wormhole 100% disproves that the entry and exit points might be the same.

However, IIRC, RFC specifically address why two hyper generator wouldn't work in one of the long threads where folks were (unsuccessfully) proposing ideas to allow the scouting of hostile wormholes.

Ah, found it in my cheat-sheet - it was in a 2012 post in the thread "SPOILER – finding the torch wormhole’s destination"

runsforcelery wrote:However, this is where the problem of "nested" hyper generators comes in, because you cannot have a hyper generator online inside another hyper generator's translation field. That means you can't even have it at Routine Readiness. The inner hyper generator would have to be at Powered Down status".

Jonathan_S wrote:He was specifically addressing the proposal of having a dispatch boat hiding inside a larger ship (hence the reference to "inner") -- but this would also block a ship having two hyper generators online.

(And the time to go from powered down to ready would take at least as long as simply recharging the original hyper generator)

But it doesn't have to be nested if the dispatch boat is instead waiting for the warship to exit (the lane as well). After the warship exits, then its hyper-generator field is down, at which point the dispatch boat can simply steer into the larger ship's boat bay then put the pedal to the metal???

Assuming a DB can inconspicuously deploy an oversized hyper generator, if needed.

Jonathan_S wrote:In that same "nested" hyper generator post there was this

runsforcelery wrote:bear with me and remember that any starship's hyper generator is designed to produce a translation field tailored to pretty exacting dimensions and a specific mass. There is some flex in those parameters, but not a whole lot

But I'm not sure how that squares with being able to flex the field size by 6 km when it seemingly doesn't need to be more than about about 0.15 km x 0.75 km to cover a heavy cruiser. That seems a proportionately vast flex - even if the expanded area covered is still less volume protected by sidewalls; much less the volume inside a ship's wedge or sail.

(Though now that I type this I realize that HotQ was before the great resizing. Given how much larger sizes RFC was envisioning for the ships back then, that 6km might not have been quite as proportionately large an increase as it seems when viewed with the current perspective of the smaller, post-resizing, ships)

What is very clear is that, for whatever reason, larger ships have slower hyper generator cycle times - with dispatch boats taking about 1/8th as long as an SD to go from standby to translated. But whether that's because of a difference in their hyper generators or simply the impact of greater volume and mass on the hyper generator field is not spelled out.

penny wrote:But it doesn't have to be nested if the dispatch boat is instead waiting for the warship to exit (the lane as well). After the warship exits, then its hyper-generator field is down, at which point the dispatch boat can simply steer into the larger ship's boat bay then put the pedal to the metal???

Assuming a DB can inconspicuously deploy an oversized hyper generator, if needed.

Note that Jonathan_S pointed out that HotQ was written before the great resizing and the author's remark about the hyper-generator being specifically sized to the ship came after; so the idea of a DB having a generator field large enough to enclose a warship which could carry the DB has been shut down.

Currently the only outsize hyper-generators allowed are those for the streak drive.

What good would this maneuver be anyway? It cannot be for scouting, since the DB could just go through by itself to report.