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beccaelizabethHow many people can you fit through a Stargate? I have thought about this before http://beccaelizabeth.dreamwidth.org/2319899.html . Last time I figured 1 per second forwards, in 4 columns cause that's the most we've seen SG1 do. 4*60=240 people a minute; in a 30 minute gate opening that's 7200 people. 30 because they need to open it, check it's the right place, get people moving, and leave a margin for stragglers and that thing where everyone hesitates the first time. So it could be slightly more, but, basically, 7200.
But that's figuring from a guess that it took a second each. Today I woke up thinking it's a simple matter of how far a human can walk in half an hour times average spacing between humans. So average human walking speed is apparently 5km per hour. Half an hour is 2500m. If one person per m, then 4*2500 = 10000 people per half hour. But I also found a site about ticket gates that reckoned people go through at 0.8m spacing, so that would be 3125 people per column, or 12500 people per half hour.
Only when I woke up I was trying to figure it in yards and miles, because I've been reading GURPS. That required more brain and more numbers my brain don't got.
... average walking speed 3.1 miles per hour, 1760 yards in a mile (really? why so weird? ... googles says because Romans and conversions, and I don't really need this factoid anyway...) , ((3.1/2)*1760)=2728 people per half hour, *4 for columns makes 10912. So that's like in the middle of one person per m or per 80cm. And a yard is 90 cm. So it's the same, just with unreasonably complicated math.
Between 10,000 and 12,500 people can get through the stargate in a single opening if they form 4 orderly lines and keep moving.
That looks like a large number until compared to, say, Wembley Stadium, with 90K capacity. Even Norwich is over 27K. Total traffic to another world couldn't fill a stadium. Unless there's more than one gate opening to the same place in a row, obviously. But I'm still left wondering what a Stargate is really good for, if planet to planet traffic is going to be so limited. Also, consider the fraction of the planet than can get through the gate. Can it keep up with the birth rate? First google result says 255 worldwide births per minute, so that's 7650 in half an hour. So yes, we can ship out more people than we create. That's nice.
How many gate openings per day? It wouldn't be (24*60)/38, or 39 for dialling time, because humans aren't that efficient. But if it was it would be slightly short of 38 gates per day, which is tidy.
If you have people walking through it all the 38 minutes then it's between 12,666 and 15,833 , depending on spacing.
So I guess it's between 10,000 and 15,833 people per gate opening, depending on margins of time and space.
Next I want to figure out how much freight can fit through, but there's too many variable numbers in that. Like, I think I figured standard shipping containers might (but probably won't) fit through sideways, but it depends on how you move them. Plus, any way of fitting containers through quickly could be filled with people, who would then go more quickly too.
If people are carrying it all in those giant backpacks, it's going to be walking speed with heavy encumbrance, and it'll depend on how much they can carry each, which GURPS has rules for but which varies a lot person to person. Like, 10K people carrying an average of 200lbs would, assuming an average ST 10, be crawling along at their maximum encumbrance but would make easy math. However, if they're all military, their average ST is unlikely to be 10. Which would mostly mean they move quicker. Or at all. I poked at military loads for combat and they start around 50lbs for fighting in and go up to nearly 150lbs for 'emergency approach march', but if you're only walking for half an hour I guess you could carry more.
Still, 10K * 150lbs as everything the whole colony can carry to a new planet could get interesting...
Wheels are still more likely though. And then, assuming they make sure in advance it fits and have drivers who can keep it straight and steady threading the needle, it's again a question of how far they can travel in half an hour and vehicle spacing. 13.6m long lorry? That's interior on a curtain sided trailer, great big lorries like you see on the road. The whole lorry has to fit through the 4.74m square in the middle of the gate. 2.45*2.7m width*height, trailer is no problem, but what's the outside of the driving bit? Up to 4m tall of cab is the EU rule apparently, that should fit. Ah, articulated lorry on wiki, UK sizes... wait, should I be looking up US if it's their Stargate? I'll check both. UK: a coupled tractor unit and trailer will have a combined length of between 50 and 55 feet (15.25 and 16.75 metres). US... gets complicated because they put more than one trailer on the back. Really? Big road corners they have there.
Right then, 16m of lorry. HGV limited to 90 km/h ... personally I wouldn't want to thread the needle at any speed, but I'm sure someone would. It could be set up as a nice straight line anyway, and though you'd have to fiddle a bit to get the approach to be flat you probably want to do that because otherwise angles make math complicated. It's the driving into a blank shimmering glow that would bother me. 45000/16=2812.5 , but you'd want to leave gaps. Two second rule at 90km/h says one vehicle-length for every 8 km/h which is 180m, so effectively every truck is 196m long, so 229.5 trucks. But if you're going crawl along at 8 km/h then each truck is 32m long and you get 125 trucks through without the heart attacks. 16km/h, each truck needs 48m, 166 artics. 24 km/h, each truck needs 64m, back one travels 12000m in half an hour, 187.5 trucks. 32 km/h, each truck needs 80m, back one drives 16000m, 200 trucks in half an hour. Tidy maths. And that's still like 20 miles per hour, nice and slow for a driving speed. No need to rush.
As for weight, website for driving intermodal containers on lorries says shippers should usually be able to load up to 26,000 kilos of cargo. 57,320 lbs ? Decimal is much better.
200 trucks, 26,000 kilos each, 5,200,000 kilos, 5,200 metric tons, through the gate at one dialling. And 200 truck drivers. How many people can fit in a lorry cab each? More than two, if it's brief and they're tidy. Four or six hundred colonists, with 8666kg to 13000 kg of equipment each, plus the container lorries, which are a substantial resource in themselves.
A Humanitarian Daily Ration pack weighs 850g, or presumably the content does, since it also says 11kg for a case of 10. 36.5 cases for one year of emergency food, or 73 for two people, which is more likely than everyone breaking a box. 36.5*11 = 401kg each for a year of food. That wouldn't fit on your back but it's easy enough with a lorry along.
I'm so bored these numbers are interesting.
But, if you were packing for another planet, and shelter is all going to be the shipping containers and their contents, what 8000 kg of stuff would you take with you?
... I wonder how much my stuff actually weighs?
... actually, simpler and just as crucial to figure, will it all fit in the one removal lorry? You could be driving one lorry each to the new world.
A 200 person new world is pretty small though. Which 200 people would you bring?
But that's figuring from a guess that it took a second each. Today I woke up thinking it's a simple matter of how far a human can walk in half an hour times average spacing between humans. So average human walking speed is apparently 5km per hour. Half an hour is 2500m. If one person per m, then 4*2500 = 10000 people per half hour. But I also found a site about ticket gates that reckoned people go through at 0.8m spacing, so that would be 3125 people per column, or 12500 people per half hour.
Only when I woke up I was trying to figure it in yards and miles, because I've been reading GURPS. That required more brain and more numbers my brain don't got.
... average walking speed 3.1 miles per hour, 1760 yards in a mile (really? why so weird? ... googles says because Romans and conversions, and I don't really need this factoid anyway...) , ((3.1/2)*1760)=2728 people per half hour, *4 for columns makes 10912. So that's like in the middle of one person per m or per 80cm. And a yard is 90 cm. So it's the same, just with unreasonably complicated math.
Between 10,000 and 12,500 people can get through the stargate in a single opening if they form 4 orderly lines and keep moving.
That looks like a large number until compared to, say, Wembley Stadium, with 90K capacity. Even Norwich is over 27K. Total traffic to another world couldn't fill a stadium. Unless there's more than one gate opening to the same place in a row, obviously. But I'm still left wondering what a Stargate is really good for, if planet to planet traffic is going to be so limited. Also, consider the fraction of the planet than can get through the gate. Can it keep up with the birth rate? First google result says 255 worldwide births per minute, so that's 7650 in half an hour. So yes, we can ship out more people than we create. That's nice.
How many gate openings per day? It wouldn't be (24*60)/38, or 39 for dialling time, because humans aren't that efficient. But if it was it would be slightly short of 38 gates per day, which is tidy.
If you have people walking through it all the 38 minutes then it's between 12,666 and 15,833 , depending on spacing.
So I guess it's between 10,000 and 15,833 people per gate opening, depending on margins of time and space.
Next I want to figure out how much freight can fit through, but there's too many variable numbers in that. Like, I think I figured standard shipping containers might (but probably won't) fit through sideways, but it depends on how you move them. Plus, any way of fitting containers through quickly could be filled with people, who would then go more quickly too.
If people are carrying it all in those giant backpacks, it's going to be walking speed with heavy encumbrance, and it'll depend on how much they can carry each, which GURPS has rules for but which varies a lot person to person. Like, 10K people carrying an average of 200lbs would, assuming an average ST 10, be crawling along at their maximum encumbrance but would make easy math. However, if they're all military, their average ST is unlikely to be 10. Which would mostly mean they move quicker. Or at all. I poked at military loads for combat and they start around 50lbs for fighting in and go up to nearly 150lbs for 'emergency approach march', but if you're only walking for half an hour I guess you could carry more.
Still, 10K * 150lbs as everything the whole colony can carry to a new planet could get interesting...
Wheels are still more likely though. And then, assuming they make sure in advance it fits and have drivers who can keep it straight and steady threading the needle, it's again a question of how far they can travel in half an hour and vehicle spacing. 13.6m long lorry? That's interior on a curtain sided trailer, great big lorries like you see on the road. The whole lorry has to fit through the 4.74m square in the middle of the gate. 2.45*2.7m width*height, trailer is no problem, but what's the outside of the driving bit? Up to 4m tall of cab is the EU rule apparently, that should fit. Ah, articulated lorry on wiki, UK sizes... wait, should I be looking up US if it's their Stargate? I'll check both. UK: a coupled tractor unit and trailer will have a combined length of between 50 and 55 feet (15.25 and 16.75 metres). US... gets complicated because they put more than one trailer on the back. Really? Big road corners they have there.
Right then, 16m of lorry. HGV limited to 90 km/h ... personally I wouldn't want to thread the needle at any speed, but I'm sure someone would. It could be set up as a nice straight line anyway, and though you'd have to fiddle a bit to get the approach to be flat you probably want to do that because otherwise angles make math complicated. It's the driving into a blank shimmering glow that would bother me. 45000/16=2812.5 , but you'd want to leave gaps. Two second rule at 90km/h says one vehicle-length for every 8 km/h which is 180m, so effectively every truck is 196m long, so 229.5 trucks. But if you're going crawl along at 8 km/h then each truck is 32m long and you get 125 trucks through without the heart attacks. 16km/h, each truck needs 48m, 166 artics. 24 km/h, each truck needs 64m, back one travels 12000m in half an hour, 187.5 trucks. 32 km/h, each truck needs 80m, back one drives 16000m, 200 trucks in half an hour. Tidy maths. And that's still like 20 miles per hour, nice and slow for a driving speed. No need to rush.
As for weight, website for driving intermodal containers on lorries says shippers should usually be able to load up to 26,000 kilos of cargo. 57,320 lbs ? Decimal is much better.
200 trucks, 26,000 kilos each, 5,200,000 kilos, 5,200 metric tons, through the gate at one dialling. And 200 truck drivers. How many people can fit in a lorry cab each? More than two, if it's brief and they're tidy. Four or six hundred colonists, with 8666kg to 13000 kg of equipment each, plus the container lorries, which are a substantial resource in themselves.
A Humanitarian Daily Ration pack weighs 850g, or presumably the content does, since it also says 11kg for a case of 10. 36.5 cases for one year of emergency food, or 73 for two people, which is more likely than everyone breaking a box. 36.5*11 = 401kg each for a year of food. That wouldn't fit on your back but it's easy enough with a lorry along.
I'm so bored these numbers are interesting.
But, if you were packing for another planet, and shelter is all going to be the shipping containers and their contents, what 8000 kg of stuff would you take with you?
... I wonder how much my stuff actually weighs?
... actually, simpler and just as crucial to figure, will it all fit in the one removal lorry? You could be driving one lorry each to the new world.
A 200 person new world is pretty small though. Which 200 people would you bring?
no subject
Date: 2014-02-11 03:47 am (UTC)I think they're just sitting there without it, honestly.
Power!
Date: 2014-02-11 05:30 am (UTC)One nuclear fission reactor can fit in the same space as a cabin and provides one power point. Systems that require power so far are factory, mining, and refinery. Each of those need one power point. so you need as many cabins of nuclear fission reactors as you have of mining, refinery, or factory.
It does solve the mining container thing: Control room, mining, mining, nuclear reactor, nuclear reactor.
*blinks*
... that seems... unusual.
Each reactor will last 25 years on internal fuel, or at TL9, 50 years.
It costs $500K
... but where do you shop for them?
A $500K 5 ton fission reactor in the Stargate setting seems VASTLY less likely than buying naquada reactors. But there's no stats for those. They are man portable, or possibly 2 man at most, and they give enough power for a Stargate.
Try figuring from the rules for a Jump Gate; Jump Gates are only available on SM+9 vessels because they need a whole 150 ton space, so that naquada reactor is at least equivalent to 150 tons of uranium fission reactor.
So a naquada reactor weighs... call it 200lbs, or 0.1 tons, and makes the equivalent of at least 150/5 SM+6 power points. 0.1 tons, 30 power points.
If you can get the power from the naquada reactor to the mines, factories, and refineries, that seems likely to cover the needs of the colony.
Total Conversion, the super science ultra powerful most best generator, gives 5 SM+6 power points per 5 tons; naquada gives 30 in 0.1. That's... wildly more power. Examine assumptions.
A Jump Gate in an SM+9 ship weighs 150 tons and can let 100 tons (SM+6) pass through it.
A Stargate weighs about 30 tons (there are two kinds of tons is it 29 or 32 GURPS Starship tons and where did the wiki page get its numbers argh) and for purposes of this imaginary colony can let 30 tons (SM+5) pass through it. So it's at least a whole size modifier smaller.
SM+8 power generators would weigh 50 tons. That's 10 of the SM+6 uranium generators, 10 SM+6 points. Naquada gives 10 power points, that's not so wild any more. Still twice as good as the exotic superscience and weighing 1/50th the amount, but, an improvement.
Okay, the superscience reactor last effectively forever at 5 tons. Naquada doesn't, they need to mine more, and often. So what if the part we've seen, the part they can carry, doesn't last very long? Is it ever stated?
Internal fuel last anything from 2 years to 200 for an antimatter reactor, 25 for nuclear fission, wild ranges for all the rest. They end up weighing the standard amount, it's the endurance that changes.
Then the rest of the tonnage would be fuel.
So they've either got a portable reactor that doesn't last very long, but has all the power they could need, or a 5 ton compartment filled with naquada that lasts... however long the plot wants.
... if they have 5 tons of naquada, why do they need to mine for naquada?
I'm just saying, that seems like a lot of naquada.
If we just figure that a Jump Gate, seeing as it needs 1 power point for 1 gate section and the necessary fission reactor weighs as much as the gate, needs 1 ton of nuclear power for each ton of gate, then we need 30 tons of uranium reactor for a 30 ton Stargate. 30/5 = 6 power points. One naquada reactor, 6 power points. It's still more than a Total Conversion drive, but much closer to it. And there's still the fuel issue, to tweak the points per ton to wherever seems useful.
Some numbers would have to be invented.
Also, what are the hazards of naquada power? How does it do its thing?
Same with arc reactor power. The arc reactor has more numbers attached, even if they are made up numbers. It can provide a little power for a long time, or a lot of power for a short time. There's nothing in the Reactors rules that allows you to change the power available by as much as he does; reactors can be adjusted for longer life and less power, but the change is like 25% longer, not lifetimes vs weeks. GURPS rules in this book can't model arc reactors.
GURPS rules in this book can't model many sorts of power.
BUT!
Solar panel array: $500K
5 tons gives you one SM+6 power point. ... in space, where you don't have to worry about clouds and weather; though since I'm thinking the mining planet is desert, solar should still work very well. And it seems more likely than getting hold of enough nuclear reactors to power their mining operation. However it has an obvious drawback for mining, in that you have to leave it in the actual sunlight. So I'd have to figure out the relation between power making structures and mines, and how they stick them together. Cables would add up, in terms of weight. Maybe the factories are for making cables from stuff they mine so the cables can reach further into the mines...
Solar panels are exposed systems not protected by armour. So if any got hit you'd have to repair them. If you brought the right factories, and mined the right materials, to even try it. But it's much preferable to what happens if there's a hit on a nuclear power supply...
Re: Power!
Date: 2014-02-14 07:34 am (UTC)Power Array powers 'a whole household', $25,000 , 1200lbs, LC4. So if each and every container had sufficient solar panels, and 1200lbs is easily in the wiggle room for weight that I left built in to my assumptions so I can ignore it and consider 5*SM+6 the internal limit, then everything that doesn't have a [!] is powered by solar power.
However, in any environment dim enough to give even a -1 Vision penalty, they produce
no power. So, either the colony only needs power in the daytime, or it needs something for night and evenings.
GURPS lists a lot of batteries, but it assumes we're interested in carrying them around. But a couple of batteries suitable for powering a golf cart, that is in GURPS terms VL batteries, seem like they could keep a house going overnight. But, rechargeable batteries only have a few hundred recharge cycles, says the same rules. So, you couldn't last a year on them. Which seems odd. How often do modern electric vehicle batteries need replacing?
Modern, though, is bordering on ultra-tech. Some prototypes pretty much are TL9.
Ultra tech assumes fuel cells, not batteries; fuel cells are listed in High Tech too as TL8.
Portable Methanol Fuel Cell (TL8). A suitcase-sized generator. It uses 1 gallon of methanol every 3 days.
$5,000, 13 lbs. LC4.
Semi-Portable Hydrogen Fuel Cell (TL8). A large cart capable of powering a whole household on a single hydrogen cylinder for 5 hours (extra cylinders are $100, 65 lbs.).
$6,000, 100 lbs. LC4.
TL9 fuel cells are just one of the assumptions about power cells:
Fuel cells combine hydrogen or methanol with oxygen (often in the form of water, which contains oxygen) in an electrochemical reaction. Fuel cells are more complex than batteries, incorporating a fuel tank and microelectronics to control fuel flow.
F cell: These power medium or large vehicles and cannon-sized beam weapons. They’re about the size of a compact car engine. $20,000, 200 lbs. LC4.
They're assumed to be rechargeable, with no limit on number of cycles.
So if you combine solar panels and fuel cells it looks like you have all day, every day, regular power. But fuel cells are full of methanol or hydrogen, so look a bit kaboom. There's rules for exploding power cells, but they list for TL9. REF is 1/8, for an amount of explosive equal to the weight of the power cell. 200lbs of explosive seems like a lot, but 0.125 REF is much lower than pre-1600 gunpowder.
Explosive damage is 6d * square root of (weight of explosive in lbs. * 4 * REF).
6d * square root of (200*4*0.125) = 6d * square root of 100 = 6d*10
If every living are had one 6d*10 explosive block strapped to it... hmmm. Not popular.
Of course the next level up on power, the generators, starts with fission. To use GURPS rules you can choose between potentially explosive and nuclear. Lovely.
TL9 nuclear generators are $100K per 1000lb (or 0.5 short ton like Spaceships uses). They provide power for 5 years.
Not enough power for a mining machine ala Spaceships, but plenty to drive around the truck they're on, yes?
I'd need GURPS Vehicles 4e rules.
aha, I'd skipped Power Plants: Chemical Energy in GURPS Spaceships, because they'd need refueling a lot. $50K at SM+6 . This power plant is a high-efficiency chemical energy closed-cycle power plant using hydrogen and liquid oxygen fuel (much like a chemical rocket). There are two variations:
Fuel Cell (TL7): Each system provides one Power Point. It can operate for three hours (TL7), six hours (TL8), 12 hours (TL9), on internal fuel. Endurance can be extended: each fuel tank of hydrogenoxygen rocket fuel consumed by the power plant operates it for 4* that duration.
So Solar Panel, Power Plant: Chemical Energy Fuel Cell TL8, Fuel Tank, together make up a long lasting and efficient power generation system IF you use the TL9 Power Cell rule that fuel cells are rechargeable. Which feels a bit like cheating, but, stargate, there's no way not to cheat the power requirements (though see Cosmic Power Cells in Ultra tech for possible Naquada rules :eyeroll: ). Power plant would last 6*4=24 hours. Then the solar arrays could recharge it. So you wouldn't have to carry the solar panels around on the trucks, you could power the mining vehicles for 24 hours off internal power cell and fuel, and have them return to base for recharge. ... if the planet has a non-24 rotation, remember that doesn't mean 'all day'.
I can't see where it has rules for how long it takes to recharge a thing. If you could only go out mining on alternate days, that would be annoying. Or if you had to leave it plugged in all night. Or swap out your giant power cells.
What exactly is the 'mining' equipment? ... exactly don't matter, I won't be poking it.
TL9 solar power array covers 400 square feet. If containers are 8 ft wide they'd need to be 50 feet long to have the roof be sufficient space, or maybe have fold out awnings; yeah, I like that idea. $10K , 500lbs. That's a lot lighter than the TL8 array for a household. So would the other array need more area? Because then a container couldn't be long enough to power itself. Or is it just higher TL gets lighter? TL9 arrays deploy in 1 minute. I'm having pretty thoughts of solar power flowering at the first touch of day. Then it would protect itself at night.
Most of the rules assume adventurers happen in vehicles or on foot. They're not really for building and powering a fortress / installation / colony.