yeah, there are hatches, just try jettisoning something in your cargo (select a unequipped item or trade item, select it and click the small Recycle Bin icon next to its name, then, it asks you how many you wanna drop, make your choice and drop it, some doors should open and shoot it out of your ship, i assume this is both the way to get in and the way to load cargo. But i could be wrong

Jettison Cargo??? The idea is unthinkable to a freighter pilot like myself.

On the topic of "one unit of oxygen being the same as one unit of construction machinery," I look at it this way:

1 cargo unit of oxygen = 1 crate of 10 oxygen tanks
1 cargo unit of construction machinery = 1...construction machine thingy

In the above example, a cargo unit is a measure of the bulk, or cargo space consumed. There's another factor that needs to be considered as well, since we're talking about flying vehicles: weight. Thus:

1 cargo unit of gold = 1 case of 10 gold bars

The gold bars don't take up much space, but their weight decides how many can be loaded on board. After all, you have to be able to break out of a planet's gravity pull. The only place this all breaks down is when you start talking about an item that is both small and light weight, like diamonds. For that issue, I bent the rules a little bit. Seeing as how this all takes place in a galaxy far, far, away, all of those asteroids are just loaded with diamonds. There is such a huge over abundance of them, in fact, that the price of diamonds has dropped to about the same as Zirchonia. Thus, we get back to the first example:

1 cargo unit of diamonds = 1 crate of 5,000 diamonds.

Now, now... even Han Solo jettisoned his cargo. Sure that lead to him being frozen in carbonite, but that's beside the point.

During the story missions, you see Juni getting into her ship, through the open cockpit. I'll have to look at that point again, but it seems the cockpits open.

Edit: Actually, I just watched it again, and you just see her in the cockpit. It kinda looks like she came from behind, further inside the ship. Dunno...


<@ElectricBrain> TACH IS DEAD! <@Tachyon> am not <@Tachyon> stfu <@ElectricBrain> no u stfu <@Tachyon> no you
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Edited by - Kahar on 11-03-2003 21:33:20

sigh ... 30th century technology and still fussed about how to get in / out the cockpit... tsk tsk tsk

Perhaps the whole underside opens (like boba fett's ship in Starwars)
As for visible hatch, perhaps there aren't any... like in the moive contact (the hatch disappears after sealing)

I can't say that much without spoiling, but there is an SP mission which shows you getting into a fighter and it shows a hatch on the back side of the cockpit opening. I would assume the "low-profile" fighters (Dagger, Defender, Dragon, etc) would just open the cockpit with a retractable chain ladder in the cockpit edge. For the taller fighters...maybe a really long chain ladder?

For freighters, I haven't looked all that much. Though, it's possible the crew entrance is through the cargo bay.

edited: Some clarifications.

Edited by - ReallyBored on 11-03-2003 22:37:13

It seems like any place that could reasonably be used as a cargo hatch for freight has a turret stuck in the middle of it. The one exception I can remember offhand was the Clydsedale. It's back end looked like it could provide a spacious opening for loading and unloading. Oh yeah, the Humpback could also load through the hump in it's back. The whole top of the hump looks like it could roll back, similar to a garage door.

I'm not saying that the various ships don't have a means of access, it's just that many of them actually provide any hint for them. The ship graphics show the weld lines of the various panels, but if any of them is a hatch, you would never know it. Some of them show small squares that could very well be a door. The most obvious that I can think of is on the Barracuda/Hammerhead. If you look at the bottom of the hull from the back, you'll see a big square indentation right in front of the lower vertical wing. I can imagine a pilot climbing the short distance up to that section and climbing in. Of course, then they still have to move from the lower part of the ship up to the cockpit in the top. Using my own imagination, I surmised that he climbs a ladder up through a hatch located directly beneath the pilot chair.

One problem with that, and I alluded to it earlier: if you provide space for a ladder tube up through that section of the hull, you steal a lot of potential cargo space. It's hard to believe that the whole back end behind the cockpit is anything less than engine space.

Note, I don't think there's any real need for the pilot to be able to access the cargo while in flight. All those loading/unloading functions are automated.

Also, the "single unit size" of commodities is kinda explained by their price. I mean, think about it. Oxygen is not very expensive. Usually, it's free!. So, even if you compress it or liquify it, it's still going to be pretty cheap for a large volumes.

Meanwhile, diamond and alien burritos are much more expensive. So if you were to fill up a crate with them, it would be very expensive. That's why those commodities cost so much more.

ER

edit: no, I don't know how the pilot gets in the ships either.

Edited by - Easy Rhino on 12-03-2003 12:00:08

The cockpit pops open. As simple as that. 2 or 3 stories high? why is that a problem? artificial gravity in space stations are lower than Earth's.



Aku. Soku. Zan. (Kill. Evil. Instantly.)

Been on the ISS lately?

I'd say it's more of a problem when you land on the actual planets, which--scaling issues aside--should have gravitational constants closer to that of Earth. I like the anti-grav rings idea.

if u want to see where you put stuff in your freigther eject like one water in space and look for the hatch to open

I reckon the best place to get an idea for the scale of your ship is to land on DSE pittsbourgh in the New York system.

Talk to the commodity trader, who stands almost right under your ship. The rhino, which I was piloting at the time looked MASSIVE, being atleast 4 or 5 times taller than trent...

Maybe one of those "staircases on wheels" like the president uses on Air Force One rolls up to you ship?