The 'sail' on the Terran carrier

[mr.WHO]

One neat idea for the future, would be to have fold in / fold out animation for the sail, so that whenever you like it or hate it you would be happy.

[Newinger]

The point is not, that ship has a "sail", but that the "sail" exactly looks like a sail.
With the pole, ropes and the sail itself.

There are many examples of how solar sails could look.
With a real solar sail ist would really be a cool thing,but this one looks like a child kitbashed a pirate ship and a half cut star destroyer...

But who says that it is really a solar sail (in the sense that it is uses solar winds to move the ship, like in that one DS9 episode). In my headcanon, I still think it is a sensor platform. Like the ugly AWACS devices on top of airplanes. Only that this X4 ship is not ugly.

[Wehrwolf_10]

https://i.ibb.co/zPPS5J6/no-sail.png

fixed it! (sorry i used paint)

I would like the developers to add a variation of the ship without a sail. Even if a ship without a sail will have the worst performance.

[Dj_FRedy]

Query results for: Honshu

Spoiler

Show

<t id="63401">Honshu</t>
<t id="63411">This auxiliary ship, the Honshu(same as {20101, 63401}), is noticeably slower than competitors' supply ships. While other ships of this type are usually aimed at providing immediate, short-term support for a fleet, this ship is designed to take part in long-distance operations that often lead Terran Protectorate fleets far away from Sol, and far also from allied harbours. For this reason, the design sacrifices speed for an exceptionally large storage capacity. However, this is not the only part of the ship that is engineered for long-range travel. Its most distinctive visual feature is its solar sail, which generates additional energy that can be made available to the ship's systems during extended journeys into hostile space.</t>

[Bastelfred]

Egosoft is just screwing with us here!!!

If this were a ship on the water, this sail would be almost useless. Because much too small for the size of the ship. In space, it would simply have no use at all.

haha @Egosoft nice try, what's next? A water based life form in spaceships? Oh wait... this is a spoiler for the next DLC. Boron DLC confirmed for 2022!!!

[|K.O.S.H.]

Egosoft is just screwing with us here!!!

If this were a ship on the water, this sail would be almost useless. Because much too small for the size of the ship. In space, it would simply have no use at all.

haha @Egosoft nice try, what's next? A water based life form in spaceships? Oh wait...

Its not useless, because its purpose is to harvest sun energy and convert it into energy cells, bute its... ugly. It does not have the shape of a solar sail or solar panels.
Look at current satelits or the ISS, how solar panels/sails look.

[Waltz99]

If you look closely you see that the sail complety stretches underneath the ship.
I think its a weird design and personally I hate it.
But I'm not going to judge yet before I know its function. Still I hope Egosoft will consider its design because so far I been amazed by everything I saw except that one ship.

[Waltz99]

Query results for: Honshu

Spoiler

Show

<t id="63401">Honshu</t>
<t id="63411">This auxiliary ship, the Honshu(same as {20101, 63401}), is noticeably slower than competitors' supply ships. While other ships of this type are usually aimed at providing immediate, short-term support for a fleet, this ship is designed to take part in long-distance operations that often lead Terran Protectorate fleets far away from Sol, and far also from allied harbours. For this reason, the design sacrifices speed for an exceptionally large storage capacity. However, this is not the only part of the ship that is engineered for long-range travel. Its most distinctive visual feature is its solar sail, which generates additional energy that can be made available to the ship's systems during extended journeys into hostile space.</t>

Thx for the discription but this doesn't make sense at all.
If the ship is designed to gather energy outside of a solarsystem. then why having solarpanels ? there is no sun.

[japie1979]

The solar sail is a very viable idea for the Honshu. But I think a different type of solar sail would have been more "pleasing" on the eyes. And in its current form? It would only make more sense as a means to cool the ships or as a (slapped on) power source. "Slapped on" As in they couldn't fix the power generator and build this as a "fix" to get the power back on.

[Bastelfred]

Its not useless, because its purpose is to harvest sun energy and convert it into energy cells, bute its... ugly. It does not have the shape of a solar sail or solar panels.
Look at current satelits or the ISS, how solar panels/sails look.

But it would be useless there too, because even as a solar panel, the area is much too small. That would hardly be enough for the interior lighting.

[Newinger]

Query results for: Honshu

Spoiler

Show

<t id="63401">Honshu</t>
<t id="63411">This auxiliary ship, the Honshu(same as {20101, 63401}), is noticeably slower than competitors' supply ships. While other ships of this type are usually aimed at providing immediate, short-term support for a fleet, this ship is designed to take part in long-distance operations that often lead Terran Protectorate fleets far away from Sol, and far also from allied harbours. For this reason, the design sacrifices speed for an exceptionally large storage capacity. However, this is not the only part of the ship that is engineered for long-range travel. Its most distinctive visual feature is its solar sail, which generates additional energy that can be made available to the ship's systems during extended journeys into hostile space.</t>

Thx for the discription but this doesn't make sense at all.
If the ship is designed to gather energy outside of a solarsystem. then why having solarpanels ? there is no sun.

It uses the solar panels while it is near sunlight, basically it charges its energy resources then. Later, when it is farer away, it uses the stored energy.

[mr.WHO]

Its not useless, because its purpose is to harvest sun energy and convert it into energy cells, bute its... ugly. It does not have the shape of a solar sail or solar panels.
Look at current satelits or the ISS, how solar panels/sails look.

But it would be useless there too, because even as a solar panel, the area is much too small. That would hardly be enough for the interior lighting.

The size doesn't matter.

Here on Earth, the biggest problem is not how much power you can get from Solar Panel or what it's performance is, but the fact that you cannot store this energy in any economically viable way.
X-universe has perfect solution for this in for of Energy Cell which is 100% efficiency energy storage device. Even tiny solar sail will generate constant supply of ECells for emergency use when you will need it.
For supply ship far from any friendly stations it's rather good idea as you can free the rest of space for non energy components like missile or hull parts.

[Bastelfred]

The size doesn't matter.

If you can store energy without loss, why lug around a large mass in the form of a sail and not just a few energy cells in storage? Since it's barely enough for lighting anyway, you can easily store the few energy cells you need somewhere. And if you just strap them onto the roof rack. And that wouldn't even look as ...... look like the sail.

By the way Störtebecker called, he wants his sail back!

[mr.WHO]

The size doesn't matter.

If you can store energy without loss, why lug around a large mass in the form of a sail and not just a few energy cells in storage? Since it's barely enough for lighting anyway, you can easily store the few energy cells you need somewhere. And if you just strap them onto the roof rack. And that wouldn't even look as ...... look like the sail.

By the way Störtebecker called, he wants his sail back!

Because "a few" Energy cells takes limited cargo space, while sail can fill potentially unlimited amounts of Energy cells which you can use to empty and refill (not in the game, but I assume the cell is 100% reusable, that's why you don't need any additional resources for Solar Power plants).

[Bastelfred]

Because "a few" Energy cells takes limited cargo space, while sail can fill potentially unlimited amounts of Energy cells which you can use to empty and refill (not in the game, but I assume the cell is 100% reusable, that's why you don't need any additional resources for Solar Power plants).

You are ignoring a very important point in your way of looking at things....

Do you know the value of the gold donkey from the fairy tale? One can calculate it simply, even if he spits theoretically infinitely much gold is his value nevertheless only very limited.

[mr.WHO]

Because "a few" Energy cells takes limited cargo space, while sail can fill potentially unlimited amounts of Energy cells which you can use to empty and refill (not in the game, but I assume the cell is 100% reusable, that's why you don't need any additional resources for Solar Power plants).

You are ignoring a very important point in your way of looking at things....

Do you know the value of the gold donkey from the fairy tale? One can calculate it simply, even if he spits theoretically infinitely much gold is his value nevertheless only very limited.

What a load of BS.

Current Auxilary ships have co carry all the components they need, including EC.

Lets say a missile need 1 EC and 1 missile component and ship has 200 storage space.

Vanilla Auxilary ship would have to carry 100 EC and 100 missile components to make 100 missiles.
Terran ship could carry 199 missile components and 1 EC, to make 199 missiles with the same storage space.

That makes Solar Sail an very viable item as it extend your actual capacity.

[Bastelfred]

What a load of BS.

What you don't understand is BS... I get it...

Adding objects to your ship that support 0.000001% of your total energy consumption, and towing a mass that requires 0.000002% more energy to move it is BS.

Dragging an energy generator that weighs more than the energy cells it replaces on a trip to a destination where you can easily replenish the energy is BS.

Using light-dependent power generators on ships that are to make long voyages where efficiency decreases with distance from the sun is BS.

Equipping a sail with solar cells that cannot turn completely into the sun is BS.

In a universe where there are ships and engines that never need any kind of fuel, a sail that generates a minimal amount of energy is basically BS.

Shall I continue the BS list? Do you want calculations?

The only BS I see is the sail, and the attempts to justify it.

[chew-ie]

How about drawing the artistic license joker here? Its a crazy little component and beyond speculation we don't know anything about this completely new ship. AFAIK we never had that kind of crazieness in X series so far - so this is really a new situation

Still like the idea

[Bastelfred]

Still like the idea

And I hope this is just some kind of April Fool's joke with the sail. And a spoiler for the next DCL... Sail -> Ships -> Water = Boron

[Jeraal]

https://i.ibb.co/zPPS5J6/no-sail.png

fixed it! (sorry i used paint)

That looks a lot better.