CarpWheel Development Internal Memos

CarpWheel Development Preliminary Design Review (PDR)

Engineering - It's a matter of some pride here at Core Corp that we've never under-engineered anything.* That isn't to say that all products must be over-engineered, of course. Merely that it's better to be safe than sorry. In regards to the inclusion of a third engine, there are a number of reasons for this: propulsive symmetry, Bussard coverage, and acceleration. You can't prove that these ships won't be used in evasion.

*Almost certainly untrue, but Core Corp has been around for a very long time. Even corporation historians can't agree on Core Corp's product lineup of the past hundred years, to say nothing of the thousand years before that.

Business Development - Talk of symmetry doesn't answer for the cost of an additional engine. And I actually pulled up the latest drawings this morning (I'm in the repository, in case you've forgotten), and I couldn't help but notice that your people have spec'd Type R engines for this thing instead of the standard Type N? Who are you trying to outrun?? The engineering team in charge of the Pursuant corvettes are only using ONE Type R and advertising it as the fastest tank-classed prototype in history! Why would a low-level planetary transport that masses barely twice as much need THREE Type R's?

Engineering - Planetary piracy is a thing that happens. Making the ship viable in private sector space as well as public sector space requires the ability to avoid looting at all costs.

Design - I'll pipe in and point out that the tri-engine design is fairly heavily patented by The Chef Boy Ardee Conglomerate, esp. in regards to placing landing strut enclosures in the bottom two engines. FYI - The lateral twin-engine design patent is held by yours truly*, and it's a beautiful match of form and function if I do say so myself.

*The patent for "A Lateral Twin-Engine Post Atmospheric Layout" was co-filed by Daymy Sherrin and Kilmoot Drastisist on behalf of Core Corp. It differs from most lateral twin-engine designs based on the inclusion of vestigial wings.

Business Development - "Avoid looting at all costs?" I can promise that nobody wants the cost of this thing just to avoid the remote possibility of looting. Get rid of the third engine and go with whatever that lateral-twin thing is. And make the engines Type N, there is NO market for a planetary transport packing the stats and PRICE those engines bring with them, and we are NOT eating the margins on them for the sake of whatever misplaced pride your engineering team thinks they have. If nothing else will convince you, the patent thing from CBAC is sorta non-negotiable. Mainly because A) we will NOT be eating a licensing fee on this ship, and B) I won't negotiate it.

Engineering - We're not violating CBAC's patent. Daymy, you're either looking at old drawings or you've got your screen upside down. The twin engines are on the top.

Design - Oh lordy... I'm not styling this thing. You folks are on your own.

CarpWheel Development Critical Design Review (CDR)

Business Development: Having multiple decks is important. We're trying to create a vehicle that will be suitable for many uses. Ferrying passengers, carrying cargo, whatever. You're the engineers, you figure out how to make it work, but the decks are a must in both cases. And I don't really care where you put the engine room, stick it in the top with all the control systems. I don't think anybody would have a problem with flying the ship from the engine room. I mean, wouldn't that be like super convenient?*

*This arrangement is far less convenient than conventional thinking might dictate, and not just for aesthetic reasons.

Design: For the record, the aesthetic appeal of an engine room is very different than a control center. We can put them on the same level, but I'm going to keep poking the agenda that they at least be separate rooms.

Engineering: Making the decking removable and configurable makes more sense than just insisting that there be decks. For carrying passengers having decks would obviously be preferable. But hauling cargo would be much better if we had a giant open space with gravity trackers. If we make the entire nose of the ship a set of doors, it should be simple to allow for the installation of decks on a separate production line after the main hull has been assembled.

Business Development: Nobody wants their ship-to-ship transfers through a pair of giant doors! You wouldn't be able to dock at any ports unless they were outfitted for a battlehulk! Beyond that, unloading passengers at a terminal would require a terminal port size that doesn't currently exist outside of your own ridiculous insecurities. We're also not going to eat the cost* of having to tool up three separate production lines to make two different configurations of one light frigate cargo ship, the margins aren't there for that kind of work, eh? Just make the decks permanent fixtures and put a normal sized door on the nose of the ship! Is that really so hard?

*Historically, Core Corp did have to eat a lot of the cost on the CarpWheel class. It wasn't profitable and was quickly disbanded.

Engineering: Fixed decks and a small hatch will make unloading cargo a lengthy and manual process. But we can pretty easily add a door off the back of the top deck that would be perfect for unloading passengers at stations and terminals on the ground, leaving the big doors in the nose for cargo configurations. Simple.

Design: Ah, sending passengers out through a hatch at the back of the engine room isn't a great user experience. I'd advocate for pretty much any other solution.

Business Development: See? That's a great reason. Another brain-blast! Manual labor is cheap in a galaxy with a population of trillions. Fixed decks, door in the nose. Problem bloody solved.

Engineering: We can put the hatch above the engine room if we turn the engine room on its side.

Business Development: Are you #@$%&ing me right now?

CarpWheel Development Pre-Release Review (PRR)

Engineering: We've finished the power conduits, fixed the deck gravity issues, and settled on the final connection for the power supply. The new standard should allow the connection of several types of singularity batt as well as the new QVCs, assuming Vac-Tech ever manages to finish them. Everything on the prototype has been passing every quality test, and I think we'll finish on schedule. As for the rest, it's outside of my jurisdiction. All I know is that I would buy one, and I frankly don't really care what you call it.

Design: I've got something of a vested interest, considering this is going to end up on my resume whether I like it or not. It's not a remarkably striking ship, but it's got good lines* and a classic design. Can't we give it a solid name to match?

*This observation was somewhat prophetic, since the year after its introduction the CarpWheel class won a design award specifically titled "Good Lines" from the Galactic Advent Commerce Design Awards Commission (GAC DAC).

Business Development: For the record, I'm leaving the corporation. I tried my best, and you idiots have given me a completely unsellable ship to sell. So stop copying me on your memos. And I didn't pick the name, but what the heck, since you lot have been stonewalling me everywhere for more than two years, I'm going to defend it. I can't think of a better way to describe this whole debacle than a wheel of fish.

Engineering: I'd like to point out that our "stonewalling" was largely ineffectual in regards to the deck layout, since you got your fixed decks with a small door at the nose.

Business Development: Oh. My apologies, a#%-hat. I got my fixed decks. Decks made with exorbitantly expensive gravity plating matched to twenty individual controllers in a density that is frankly ridiculous in a ship with power conduits and connections that are engineered to support military-grade hardware (a ship with no weapons or military use case, I might add) and which is carrying three of the most sophisticated fusion engines ever developed to fly from one hemisphere of a planet to another and that's been outfitted for Benders at no small expense despite the fact that everybody stopped using Benders three years before we started development on the product. But yes, I got my fixed decks.

Engineering: All of those features are highly desirable and should make the ship appealing to a wide range of customers. The design is unmatched in its class for versatility*, and we didn't cut any corners aside from the fixed decks. If you can't sell unmatched versatility, maybe you're just not the right marketer for the ship.

* This is a verifiable truth, no other ship in the light frigate mass class has ever approached the CarpWheel ships in the number of different professions it's been used for. On the used spaceship market, the CarpWheel has held its value remarkably well.

Business Development: Do you have any idea what goes into selling a spaceship? The market research, the surveys, the profiling? Give me a ship that does one thing better than everything else and I'll sell hundreds of them. Give me a ship that does one thing really well and costs less than its competitors, and I'll sell thousands of them. Give me a ship that does a bunch of things pretty well and is easy to configure, and I'll sell millions. And I can prove that, since I've literally sold millions of variations on the Hypercat class. But give me a ship that does a bunch of stuff pretty well, but costs twice what anything else in its class costs and requires three doctorates to configure, and divine intervention won't make it sell*. That's the "wheel of fish" you've given me, that last one right there.

*This is also a verifiable truth, considering the abysmal sales and rapid discontinuation of the CarpWheel class are matters of public record. They were too expensive to be bought for single use purposes, and the multi-use audience for a light frigate just isn't that large.

Engineering: I don't see what the big problem is. Just describe it honestly. I've done that and a few of my friends off-world agree it's a great design and well worth the money.

Business Development: J@#$% the k%&-*#@, all of you.

Design: Um, you know what? It's cool. CarpWheel is a perfectly serviceable name.