On 3/11/20 7:49 am, Cian Witheren wrote:
> I have to agree with Ewan here, Teapot is running close to the margins
> with no room for anything unscheduled. I would say try to have fuel
> reserves and space for 4-5 weeks of passengers, freight waiting for
> transhipment, and fuel, with that being refilled fairly qickly. So
> that will be about 500dton cargo holding area, 10 visitor quarters (I
> would say 15 for any layovers) plus LS (charge them maintenance
> costs!), another 4-500dtons of fuel, plus facilities to fill about
> 50-100dt/day. Docking should be about 1200dtons, to allows multiple
> ships, plus a repair facility suitable for basic maintenance. And, of
> course, a bar. 
> Looking at it story-wise, if enough interest is placed into
> colonization and there's private expeditions, adding some additional
> space for supplies colonists might have forgotten might be a way to
> make more money, as is seeking subsidization to defray operating costs.
> On Mon, 2020-11-02 at 20:12 +0000, xxxxxx@quibell.org.uk wrote:
>>
>> Hi Alex,
>>
>>  
>>
>> Yup I suffered ;)
>>
>>  
>>
>> For your station around teapot I’d suggest you put in a fuel shuttle
>> and some flight crew. And work out how many times you have to fill
>> your fuel tankage in the time you need to deliver it around the edge
>> cases as opposed to the average. i.e. for the first two weeks of the
>> year what happens if your traders turn up on day 7 in the first week
>> and day 8 in the second week. The average is one a week the reality
>> is the day after (I hope that makes sense). Or you could just use it
>> as a plot hook “no fuel today, we’ll have the tanks filled in three
>> days though …” but the merchants aren’t going to like that, or they
>> are going to skim their own and that loses you revenue. Also what
>> about the military? They won’t be in the trade volumes but they may
>> well want to buy fuel?
>>
>>  
>>
>> And will the station make any money?
>>
>>  
>>
>> O and you might want for more life support to allow for visitors? And
>> a shop and a bar/restaurant for them to generate more income from?
>>
>>  
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>>  
>>
>> Ewan
>>
>>  
>>
>>  
>>
Cian, Ewan,

Thanks for taking the time to read and review the
rock-bottom-bare-minimum cut of Teacup.  This is why I posted it - so
other people can take a shufti and point out mistakes they can see, so I
can go make a new batch of my own.  I suspect the final station will end
up approx 100x bigger once I map out the colonisation efforts.

Ewan, the fuel retrieval is covered by the fuel refinery - that includes
drones controlled by the station to do the skimming, refining kit, etc. 
Following on from Ken Pick's article about gas giants that I referenced
earlier (and why I doubled up on the per-train refinery capability),
as-skimmed fuel from Teapot is not merely unrefined, it's _contaminated_
(as Teapot is not massive enough to naturally stratify its atmosphere
sufficiently) - needing double the time, double the kit, or some
combination thereof, to end up as
refined-not-make-your-Jump-drive-chuck-a-wobbly fuel.

Grognard question - what happens to milspec drives (that can handle
unrefined fuel without special concerns) when contaminated fuel is fed in?

I see your concern about edge/corner cases re: demand - do you have any
suggestions as to how I would model that?  Full tanks would serve just
under 1000 dton of shipping that lobs in quick succession, but that's a
surge capacity and not sustainable longer-term.

I'll definitely need to add a drinkery - the "Merry Little Boozer" (with
hat-tip to Korpiklaani).

Cian, thank you for the "convenience store" idea - will have to think on
that.

Alex