Charted Space Capital Warships are under gunned.

[Condottiere]

If we're moving back to military ships, currently there is a tension between automation and redundancy, or as I heard one French historian explain the Royal Navy, expendability.

Crew comfort being an issue gaining greater priority.

However, going back to a previous point, the larger the hull, the less crew per tonne you need.

If you leave damage control to the droids, you probably can sacrifice some redundancy.

 

[tytalan]

If we're moving back to military ships, currently there is a tension between automation and redundancy, or as I heard one French historian explain the Royal Navy, expendability.

Crew comfort being an issue gaining greater priority.

However, going back to a previous point, the larger the hull, the less crew per tonne you need.

If you leave damage control to the droids, you probably can sacrifice some redundancy.

Military ships generally have less automation not more. There’s a lot of reasons including but not limited to the human ability to be creative when fixing a issue, greater redundancy (one human can and usually are crossed trained in multiple roles while automation/robots are most efficient if built for a specific role). As for less crew for larger hulls that’s not even a part of the equation. As for using Droids they are vastly more expensive in most cases.

This has never been a talk about how many crew members a ship requires it’s about a more realistic way for quartering them and the effects of the privilege of rank.

 

[Condottiere]

It's sort of connected.

Accommodations dictate how many crew life support supports onboard.

 

[ross]

Crew comfort being an issue gaining greater priority.

Which is a huge reason why IMTU ships are not all constructed for a solely human crew, nor like WW2 submarines. Decks are commonly 5m each. 4m providing ample height for a varied sophont crew with an additional meter for access, plumbing, bulkheads, and sundry. I have even redefined that dton as 20m3 or 2x2x5m to assist with this.

If you leave damage control to the droids, you probably can sacrifice some redundancy.

Droids and automated systems are redundancies.

 

[rinku]

Which is a huge reason why IMTU ships are not all constructed for a solely human crew, nor like WW2 submarines. Decks are commonly 5m each. 4m providing ample height for a varied sophont crew with an additional meter for access, plumbing, bulkheads, and sundry. I have even redefined that dton as 20m3 or 2x2x5m to assist with this.

Droids and automated systems are redundancies.

4m clearance? Are your ships crewed by Green Martians? Or elephants? (not being facetious - genuinely curious).

 

[Condottiere]

Green Orions.

They're like onions: they have layers.

 

[swordtart]

Military ships generally have less automation not more. There’s a lot of reasons including but not limited to the human ability to be creative when fixing a issue, greater redundancy (one human can and usually are crossed trained in multiple roles while automation/robots are most efficient if built for a specific role). As for less crew for larger hulls that’s not even a part of the equation. As for using Droids they are vastly more expensive in most cases.

This has never been a talk about how many crew members a ship requires it’s about a more realistic way for quartering them and the effects of the privilege of rank.

Droids can be dirt cheap of you only need single function ones (like most crew seem to be). A gunner droid doesn't even need locomotion unless it also has to do the physical loading. You can buy an extremely competent one one for less than 6 months wages for a single gunner and their ongoing maintenance burden is very low. It depends on how good you expect your gunners to be of course but a basic brain can get you a Gunner-3 at minimal cost. Shooting things down doesn't need a great deal of creativity and that is required will be found in the officers in any case.

Humans are normally cross-trained because they have to be as you can't afford to carry enough to have "spares". Spare flesh-bags take up more space and resources than spare robots. Spare robots do not require maintenance, even low watch require power and some life support expenditure plus medics to revive them. You can repair a droid more quickly and more cheaply than you can repair a flesh-bag and with less space and additional resource allocation.

You need 2-3 flesh bags for each role if you are operating in shifts. Droids do not need to take breaks or sleep or need entertainment and can recharge in situ (or might get away with 1 hour per week to fast charge). 2-3 droids gives you 1-2 complete spares and they can live in a cupboard stacked like cordwood until you need them.

There are plenty of arguments for not using droids, the expense needn't be one of them.

 

[Condottiere]

I would suppose you have to look out for electro magnetic pulses.

 

[ross]

4m clearance? Are your ships crewed by Green Martians? Or elephants? (not being facetious - genuinely curious).

Dolphins in grav assist, K’Kree, Orcas, and Humaniti with common heights between 1m and 3m. Plus the hundreds of other races of varying heights in the Imperium.

 

[MarcusIII]

So here the thing it makes no sense for every enlisted crew member in a warship to share a stateroom. That’s just not how it’s done in real life and ignores the privilege of rank.

In a nuc submarines (one of the most expensive warships in existence) and closest in design to a spaceship, Only the C.O. has his own tiny stateroom. All others (including officers) having racks in shared spaces.

 

[Terry Mixon]

I would suppose you have to look out for electro magnetic pulses.

Hardened brains. Not a problem anymore.

 

[ross]

In a nuc submarines (one of the most expensive warships in existence) and closest in design to a spaceship, Only the C.O. has his own tiny stateroom. All others (including officers) having racks in shared spaces.

As previously reported, as society increases in sophistication personal space needs become more complex. There is also the psychological dimension. As career Submarine sailors have noticed, long term crewmen have some eccentricity. There is evidence that a more generous personal allowance could have great effect on crew morale. There are also some sophonts that require more, others that require significantly less. Just a huge amount of variables in an interstellar polity with hundreds of different races.

 

[swordtart]

I would suppose you have to look out for electro magnetic pulses.

Hardened brains. Not a problem anymore.

That only prevents criticals to the brain, other systems can still be destroyed.

But...

If your ship has been boarded then you have bigger problems. Robots are vulnerable to EMP weapons, but no more than flesh bags are vulnerable to kinetic damage, or energy or toxins... etc. The majority of the stun weapons that cause permanent damage to a robot also stun sophonts and in boarding actions a stunned crewman needs to be captured and immobilised. Managing prisoners isn't normally top of the priorities for boarders and lethal force is just more pragmatic. Robots can also be damaged by the same weapons that damage flesh-bags, so I can't see many cases where anyone would bother bringing special anti-robot weapons when heavy kinetics will work on both robots and flesh-bags.

 

[Terry Mixon]

That only prevents criticals to the brain, other systems can still be destroyed.

But...

If your ship has been boarded then you have bigger problems. Robots are vulnerable to EMP weapons, but no more than flesh bags are vulnerable to kinetic damage, or energy or toxins... etc. The majority of the stun weapons that cause permanent damage to a robot also stun sophonts and in boarding actions a stunned crewman needs to be captured and immobilised. Managing prisoners isn't normally top of the priorities for boarders and lethal force is just more pragmatic. Robots can also be damaged by the same weapons that damage flesh-bags, so I can't see many cases where anyone would bother bringing special anti-robot weapons when heavy kinetics will work on both robots and flesh-bags.

True enough.

 

[MarcusIII]

As previously reported, as society increases in sophistication personal space needs become more complex.

Naw, I see no basis in fact for that between today and into the future as far as would concern this type of situation.

 

[rinku]

I would suppose you have to look out for electro magnetic pulses.

Faraday cage takes care of that

 

[rinku]

That only prevents criticals to the brain, other systems can still be destroyed.

But...

If your ship has been boarded then you have bigger problems. Robots are vulnerable to EMP weapons, but no more than flesh bags are vulnerable to kinetic damage, or energy or toxins... etc. The majority of the stun weapons that cause permanent damage to a robot also stun sophonts and in boarding actions a stunned crewman needs to be captured and immobilised. Managing prisoners isn't normally top of the priorities for boarders and lethal force is just more pragmatic. Robots can also be damaged by the same weapons that damage flesh-bags, so I can't see many cases where anyone would bother bringing special anti-robot weapons when heavy kinetics will work on both robots and flesh-bags.

The only time you might load up on special anti-bot gear is if you're expecting to face combat bots, especially armoured and hardened ones. Likely a consideration when fighting Hivers or Zho. Regular crew bots might even be more fragile than breathers.

 

[tytalan]

Robots are also limited to their programming. You can’t talk a robot through shutting down a fusion power plant that’s going critical you can at least attempt to with a living crew member. Also while they are not illegal in the Charted space setting there is a bias against using military robots in the third imperium.

In general I’m not a big fan of turning CS into Star Wars light. While I do use robots in my charted space universe they tend to be purpose built and kept under human supervision, for example a robotic fork left for loading and unloading cargo ships. And the military is even more bias if not phobic about using robots. The reasons given are fairly simple which would you rather have targeting something with nuclear missiles rather it’s true or not people trust the human operator over a machine.

 

[AndrewW]

The reasons given are fairly simple which would you rather have targeting something with nuclear missiles rather it’s true or not people trust the human operator over a machine.

Depends on the person, I would trust Colossus (from the Forbin Project) over some humans.

 

[rinku]

Dolphins in grav assist, K’Kree, Orcas, and Humaniti with common heights between 1m and 3m. Plus the hundreds of other races of varying heights in the Imperium.

Orcas I'll pay. They are indeed elephant sized. K'Kree are so rare outside of their space that I really doubt they'd be catered for except on specialist diplomatic ships. But it is fair that on ships that are catering for them they will want unusually high ceilings.

Dolphins in grav assists float more or less horizontally, and in any case, would have to be standing on their tail to find the ceiling an issue. A normal 2.5m deck is okay there.