#External Drop Tanks

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

graceful perch
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Could we get some type of external fuel tank? These have been used anytime a vessel needed to go further than it could on its standard fuel tank and has seen both civilian and military use.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop_tank

Drop tank

In aviation, a drop tank (external tank, wing tank or belly tank) is used to describe auxiliary fuel tanks externally carried by aircraft. A drop tank is expendable and often capable of being jettisoned. External tanks are commonplace on modern military aircraft and occasionally found in civilian ones, although the latter are less likely to be d...

limber bridge
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You could pretty easily make it a variant of cargo container.

void goblet
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One full cargo container would have 90Mgs of pure h2o lol

dim pasture
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You can already buy a Fuel Tank with more Fuel than it is even remotely practical to use, not seeing the Use Case.

carmine sparrow
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Well, one used case woould be the pirates.
Just replace that H2O with something a bit more nasty and you can have a bomb.
Now what type would be useful?
Termite? maybe not.
Some explosive missed in with iron particules? well that can be used to diffuse lasers and absorb microwaves.
another option is to just fill them with water and use as shield against balistics.

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Or... hear me out, exploding some stuff.

graceful perch
# dim pasture You can already buy a Fuel Tank with more Fuel than it is even remotely practica...

The larger fuel tanks weigh more than their smaller variants and this is deadweight you cannot remove mid-flight. If you dont know how delta V works, shedding this exta weight Mid flight will greatly extend the normal operational range beyond what you would have otherwise been able to achieve

This allows you to dive deeper into the rings of saturn, mining more valuable ores, and encountering greater danger

dim pasture
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Would this be something you use getting to the Rings? Not Equipment you equip? Cause that would make more sense, but at the same time, you can take a larger Fuel Tank and use your Main Drive to fly to the Rings, sure the tank is heavier, but if you balance the size of the tank and have an MPU then you can refill in the rings with fuel you find

graceful perch
dim pasture
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True

amber canyon
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I'll say the weight of the tank itself is not significant. By the time it's empty you won't gain anything by ejecting them and you'll loose the cost of the tank which, regardless of material, will have to be vacum-proofed so the cost will offset whatever advantage it has against an internal fuel tank.

valid scroll
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Maybe it can have RCS like containers do? So it can just return to station like usual

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Or that if you are entering combat, you can drop it and tell it to stay in place, so you get higher mobility and can pick it up after that

limber bridge
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I feel it'd be a type of container.

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Also, it'd be good for using high speed transfers, then dropping it off once you arrive in the rings.

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Or as a way to make sure you've got a transit reserve for the way home.

valid scroll
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Yep

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Like, go to your mining beacon, drop the tank off near it and go mine