Just pasting the image over, so that we all know what you're talking about:


Indeed, looks very nifty.
So we can expect more space-view in the near future?

So, page 120 comes out, then this "blaze it".

Nice design of the frigate.

Now I wonder if we're going to see a spacewalk or if the Highland will mate with the frigate at arrival.
Assuming Alex' VIP shuttle won't fit in the hangar bay of course.

Most probably an umbilical connection, at that tech level it should be a day to day affair.

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The insider information on the frigate says that it carries two standard shuttles. Maybe if they launched the two shuttles and sent them to someone else, they could squeeze the Highland in?

I think the Highland will only need to fit in the shuttle bay if it isn't going back to Tempest, which strikes me as unlikely. More likely it'll use a docking port of the appropriate size.

Edit: square-bracket key is giving me trouble.

Probably and that means we will probably loose the teams newest additions, Talon and Spiral unless the Highlander get's an replacement crew to take it back to Tempest. one reason to do so could be for security. Perhaps Stillstorm wan't everyone that has been in contact with Alex of her ship. Another reason to keep Talon and Spiral around would be if Stillstorms fleet just cannot wait for their return, probably due to the recent invasion, and as such they will have to ditch the Highlander shuttle for later retrieval.

Aren't Talon and Spiral getting pulled off the line to keep their experience alive? Hopping off and changing out for a fresher, greener crew. Figures they'd stay with them. The capital is likely the direction they're heading anyway, if they're going to be installed as flight instructors or something.

I think that they are intended by Stillstorm to train and acclimate the raw replacements of the 51st, not as rear line instructors. I don't think that they will stay with Alex and Co.

The Leido flash message issued a code four for all Union vessels.

I reckon the 51st doesn't have time then to wait for the return of the Highland shuttle, but need to move to Sala-128 ASAP.

The thing is an umbilical cable will invariably be a weakness that can be exploited on any warship. Unless you add a retractable layer of armor or something. But at that point you're just adding more and more moving parts that go from the soft inner guts of the ship to the hardened shell meant to keep bad stuff out.

There may be an umbilical connection, but keep in mind that the amount of space needed to have one is essentially the same amount you'd need for another weapon mount.

I don't believe that it would be that demanding in terms of space or even that much of a weakness in terms of armor and complexity. Not in those tech levels at least.

I think that a ship with several hundred crew members is bound to have the ability to deploy several umbilical connections for logistics alone, to quickly transport new personnel and equipment small enough to be transportable via hand/personal trolleys (see food crates and other small consumables that need to be transported in bulk); this would mean that the limited space in the shuttle bay would be used for the moving of far heavier and bulkier equipment.

Also an umbilical is the best way to quickly transfer crew from one ship to an other in a pinch.



Stillstorm won't leave her two best pilots behind and I don't think that the distance involved is too great for the shuttle to reach Tempest before the strike group jumps out, transiting a system to reach a jump point should take a significant amount of time.

Also, the umbilical can be stowed away, and you won't use it when in a combat situation.
Docking while being under fire is simply stupid, as you limit your possibility of evasion maneuvers.

Depends on how soon and at what acceleration 51st starts moving again. At top acceleration even the Tempest is half faster then the Highland.

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I suspect that the Tempest is either not at high acceleration, in order to rendezvous with the supply convoy already in system. That, or they are already starting to accelerate back the way they came and expecting the supply convoy to catch up with them, since they were going to try to get back into the fight as soon as possible, even before the emergency message came through.

The Clearbrook is on outbound vector, but is clearly not very far away yet, possibly because it was part of the supply convoy or resupplied with them recently. I know a Solon is not exactly the same as a second, and I forget the conversion rate, but treating a Solon as a second, the Highwind can travel about .24 AU at full acceleration for that time. (If my math is right.) So it might not be too big of a wait for the Tempest to let the Highwind catch up.

Well, if the next page at some panel (and without a 'x time later' marker) already shows the Clearbrook on screen, the distance is definitely negligible. The Highland has barely departed.

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I double checked the conversion from Solon to Second. 1 Solon is 1.092 seconds. I'm inclined to believe that when Beryl says "We will rendezvous in approximately 19,200 solon," even if there is no text involved, that the journey took about 5.82 hours. We've already had a few mini montages where people were going over lessons on human measurements and loroi writing.

Certainly they are not on opposite sides of the solar system.

Thanks for the reminder. I totally forgot the comic already mentioned transit time to the escort vessel.
So yeah, a 12 hour flight to Clearbrook and back to Tempest should definitely be possible.
I can't imagine 51st would be reprovisioned in that short timespan.

I don't think they'd be chosen as flight instructors at the capital without much more experience, that's the sort of gig you'd get in your 30s or older. If they're being pulled from Tempest to be flight instructors, then probably they'd get posted at a citadel station to be assistant instructors, helping the primaries to deal with the numbers of fighter cadets flowing out to the ships based out of that location.


Umbilical connections will presumably be rarely used away from port, so it's quite possible that they consist entirely of external airlocks for moving crew at port (this should be considered a virtual necessity), and a mixture of conveyor systems, hose connections, and power connections that are located entirely inside of the landing bay. They won't pose any more weakness than the bay (and it's fuel and armaments) already pose, and you can tether the actual connecting infrastructure out of the way on the outside of the ships so that it doesn't go flapping around everywhere.

I'd even be more worried about battle-damage flash-welding the armor hatches to the hull.

I'd guess a large umbilical for bulk crew/dolly transport with internal dividers to create "lanes", some limited power & liquified air supply integrated into it for ships under heavy maintenance or whatever, based on a standard hallway size (so maybe matched to the interior halls of the Tempest). Then some additional umbilicals for "keg autoloaders" (x1) (anything big enough to fit in a standard "crew portable" container can be autoloaded, including torpedoes), Tiamat (x2, one for each, + however many for auxiliary materials like liquefied emergency coolant) (might also be "kegified", but I bet each would still have their own umbilical), "station power supply" (x1), and a few smaller crew umbilicals (multiple locations, ~2 crew wide, narrowing to 1 crew wide at the ends for optimized airlock size) (possibly also with auxiliary power & air connections integrated).

Even if Talon and Spiral are moving off Tempest, then the 51st may be receiving replacement pilots via the Highland. In that case, the strike group will wait at least long enough to pick up the Highland, or perhaps have one of the faster ships take a detour to pick it up.

I can. Particularly if materials are provisioned via autoloader (reducing the crew attention required for e.g. high explosives), but even just with e.g. forklifts, you can move a lot of materials very fast, especially the stuff that you can sort & store later (e.g. foodstuffs, not missiles or small arms). I imagine that the slowest material is the Tiamat, and that probably has it's own time-and-safety-efficient dedicated refueling system.

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I do have to wonder about Tiamat storage. If I were transferring a substance that explodes if not kept at super cool temperatures, I would either store it in fuel cells/honeycombs that are removed entirely and replaced with fresh cells, or I would use an umbilical that never goes anywhere near pressurized habitat. When even a thin residue can explode with a force of about 20 some kilotons per gram, it is something to handle with care, to say the least.

The 51st is supposedly being resupplied by a convoy. I would think that the time it takes for them to get underway would depend on how big the convoy is, and how long it takes for them to rendezvous. The Highland may only take 6 hours to reach the Clearbrook, but the resupply ships could just as well be on the opposite side of the system, just finishing up resupplying someone else. Or they might be resupplying the 51st right now, I don't think it's been said yet.

That is the big resupply-technology question, isn't it? If they use "hoses" instead of "autoloaders", I bet the "hose fittings" incorporate self-cleaning systems to clean up any spilled Tiamat before the fittings completely separate, precisely to prevent the sort of "only half the corpse is gone, so it was a minor accident" incidents that you're probably thinking of.

True, but I suspect that a convoy probably has enough ships to resupply all the ships of an average strike group in parallel, so whenever the resupply begins I bet it ends fast, a fast job can probably be finished in less than 3 hours (or less than 1 hour) after rendezvous.

Nice.
A Barsam courier, if I interpret the text correctly.
Is that the ship our party is going to?

With a close-up view of the anti-collision defence system....

It reminds me a little of the human ships from the sword of the stars games.

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The group is going to meet up with the frigate Clearbrook. The previous ship sketch, the Blaze class frigate, is that kind of ship.

One of my favorite ways to make sci-fi ships look distinct, without throwing on random greebles, is to use cutaway shapes. So here, where the shape of a ring is implied, but half cut away, makes for a nice and distinct look. At least, that's my opinion.

The 'wings' of the Barsam courier remind me of the America class cruisers.
That ring structure on the courier, is it part of the shield generators, Arioch? At least, those blue 'windows' on the ring remind of a similar feature on the prongs of Loroi ships.