Jonathan_S wrote:Thanks for that. I admit I didn't go back and try to find the reference.lyonheart wrote:Hi Jonathon_S,
A minor nit; from the textev the Hermes buoy range appears to be close to a light hour than 5 light minutes.
So ~15 ought to be fine, and redundancy makes it thirty.
Since we have no textev for how long the fuel of those distantly orbiting in system last, what rate of refueling those in the Manticore A-B link do people think is really required?
L
So it was more a paper exercise of "what if they were very short ranged". If we only need 30 or so it seems quite reasonable to place a chain from Manticore A to B.
As to the fuel capacity I've no idea. (But I look forward to everyone's speculation)
Since Hermes buoys are part of fleet detachments, and since those need to get to where they're needed without a ship to drop them off, they seem to be built on Ghost Rider drone bases. Since they've still got a lot of Top Secret military technology (micro-fusion plants, FTL com technology, etc.) I see no reason why the version deployed in the Manticore Binary System shouldn't either be the same units, or a slight modification with more endurance. That means, among other things, that there's no reason for ships to go out and service them; they can simply use their own drive to come back to base when their relief arrives.
Beyond that, I might plan for a month endurance, although a week wouldn't be impossible - the tradeoff would simply be requiring four and a bit more times maintenance capacity.