Fighter Carrier?

[AnotherDilbert]

Too much detail!

Temporary combat repair is well defined, permanent repair needs shipyard.

UNREP equipment is defined.

Flight crew is notable for its absence.

 

[phavoc]

Too much detail!

Temporary combat repair is well defined, permanent repair needs shipyard.

UNREP equipment is defined.

Flight crew is notable for its absence.

What does taking on supplies while underway have to do with any of that?

So if those questions are "too much detail", to paraphrase Goldilocks, what is the "right amount of detail"?

 

[Condottiere]

I've always been in f(l)avour of flight decks.

Might even include catapults, instead of a launch tube.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

So if those questions are "too much detail", to paraphrase Goldilocks, what is the "right amount of detail"?

X tons of hangar can carry Y tons of craft requiring Z crew. You can squeeze in Y*1.5 tons of craft, but then no maintenance or repair can be performed.
You can launch L tons of craft from X tons of hangar every round. You can recover M tons of craft to X tons of hangar every round.
It takes N crew to refuel and rearm a craft in one round in a non-squeezed hangar. With half the crew you can do it in twice the time, and so on. If the craft is unarmed it takes half the crew.

Something very simple that we can agree is not completely wrong. But that is just my opinion.

Write up a complete proposal for Matt in one (or three) paragraphs!

 

[phavoc]

I never said it couldn't be that easy. Though I would hope it would not be. Not the formulas But the writeup.

I like game systems that provide character and explanation around the rules. Which is why supplements sell. As I mentioned upthread, small craft rules really do deserve their own expansion just for things like this. In the day of electronic publishing thete is no excuse to shortchange customers in content. Printed books are 50 to 60 dollars for core rules, and some of them are very very good about providing that flavor in the hundreds of pages of content they offer. T5 offered lots but sadly it was mostly tables of schlock. Things like that turn me off to a publisher for any future revenue.

I've bitches a lot about MGT and the errors, both real and in my opinion, bit actually replacing a book that was so riddled with errors means I'm willing to buy their stuff. I just won't stop offering my opinions on where it could be BETTER....

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Sorry, I'm lazy.

Headline the simple rules and follow with the details, and you can get the rest of us with you.

Yes the rules can always be better, but the Core book is released and Matt wants to stop big changes to HG soon. We only have a few days to get these systems in place.

A small craft supplement, something like the Starship Operator's Manual, sound interesting. I would buy it.

 

[Nerhesi]

A small craft supplement, something like the Starship Operator's Manual, sound interesting. I would buy it.

Good to know

 

[phavoc]

So if those questions are "too much detail", to paraphrase Goldilocks, what is the "right amount of detail"?

X tons of hangar can carry Y tons of craft requiring Z crew. You can squeeze in Y*1.5 tons of craft, but then no maintenance or repair can be performed.
You can launch L tons of craft from X tons of hangar every round. You can recover M tons of craft to X tons of hangar every round.
It takes N crew to refuel and rearm a craft in one round in a non-squeezed hangar. With half the crew you can do it in twice the time, and so on. If the craft is unarmed it takes half the crew.

Something very simple that we can agree is not completely wrong. But that is just my opinion.

Write up a complete proposal for Matt in one (or three) paragraphs!

I have to dig it up.

 

[phavoc]

Haven't found my other stuff, but did find how I was defining bays:

Docking clamp - Requires mass of the clamp (book rules) plus two tons. Includes an airlock and fuel/atmo/water connections.

Conformal hanger - 110% of the displacement of the craft being docked. Includes an airlock and outer doors to seal the conformal hangar.

Hangar - 130% of the displacement for the stored craft. Includes an airlock to access the bay and outer doors to seal the bay. Allows for basic maintenance to be performed. Heavy maintenance typically requires 1 craft to be removed for 1 to be maintained.

Hangar Bay - 150% of the displacement for the stored craft. Includes an airlock to access the bay and an observation area which typically doubles as a flight deck operations station for military vessels and busy commercial ones. Allows small craft to be maintained, fueled and armed. Includes external doors.

Docking Bay - 300% of the displacement for the stored craft. Includes an airlock to access the bay. Craft may be maintained, fueled, armed, loaded or unloaded. Includes external doors, internal overhead crane.

Vehicle bays - for small craft like air raft or G-Carrier. No airlock, it is essentially a cargo bay where the vehicle is stored. Rule of thumb is to add 10% to the displacement of the stored vehicle for cramped conditions, 30% for easy access to the vehicle.

Battle Rider clamps - Extremely specialized and engineered to support mega-tons of small craft through acceleration and maneuvers. A battle rider clamp requires 5% of the tonnage of the rider it is to carry. Riders may launch in a single turn, but require two turns to dock. Nearly all rider/carriers are designed to launch/recover all riders simultaneously. Riders that are docking may not use spinal mount weapons, and their off/def fire is reduced to 25% of normal. Rider/carriers may utilize their full defensive capabilities (Anti-fighter, anti-missile), but may perform no offensive attacks while performing docking operations. This is due to the emphasis on placing the defensive emplacements where they are not blocked by docking riders.

Somewhere are my notes on flight crew ratio's, arming/fueling times, how much spares they have to carry, additional machinery shops, etc to support small craft. I took a lot from the concepts of the USN, and increased some ratios. But you still have the basics - stuff breaks, so you rip out entire pieces of machinery and replace it whole. In the Army the mechanics could replace the engine in my MLRS launcher in 30 min - by removing the engine completely and replacing it with another whole engine. The bad engine gets shipped back to a depot for maintenance. Fighter craft are kind of the same way today. Entire engines get pulled and replaced and then techs work on the bad engine outside the craft. Star fighters should follow that same logic because the mission is exactly the same. It's far faster to do that and get that craft back out then to try and tear it down. So the need for spares (to be somewhat realistic) is going to be quite higher for small craft than starships. Then again your small craft are going to appear to miraculously repair battle damage over what a starship does during combat.

 

[wbnc]

looks good to me.. I would suggest a few add ons, and expansions to what you have

Haven't found my other stuff, but did find how I was defining bays:

Docking clamp - Requires mass of the clamp (book rules) plus two tons. Includes an airlock and fuel/atmo/water connections.

Clamped craft/vessels can launch in 1 round, with all clamped craft able to be released at once. Clamped craft fire turret, or barbette weapons, but not bays or other heavy emplacements..No maintenance or rearm except by EVA. carrier craft loses streamlining, and clamped craft subject to being hit by incoming fire based on the percentage of the carrier vessels tonnage the clamped vessel takes up. Clamped vessels not protected y carrier vessels armor or other hull modifications.

Conformal hanger - 110% of the displacement of the craft being docked. Includes an airlock and outer doors to seal the conformal hangar.

refuel, passenger/crew transfer only no maintenance, cargo transfer, or rearming. Obviously craft can't fire weapons while in their hanger[/quote]

Hangar - 130% of the displacement for the stored craft. Includes an airlock to access the bay and outer doors to seal the bay. Allows for basic maintenance to be performed. Heavy maintenance typically requires 1 craft to be removed for 1 to be maintained.

Hangar Bay - 150% of the displacement for the stored craft. Includes an airlock to access the bay and an observation area which typically doubles as a flight deck operations station for military vessels and busy commercial ones. Allows small craft to be maintained, fueled and armed. Includes external doors.

need some sort of reason why one is better than the other......such as improved launch time for hanger bay. perhaps allowing multiple hangers to be attached to a hanger bay, allowing for rapid launch of multiple craft.
add tonnage equal to 20% of each hanger attached to the bay to allow rapid launch of multiple craft through bay. craft in adjoining hanger may launch one after another. but only if carrier is not maneuvering at high thrusts( over 1 gee) Compared to a launch tube which allows craft to be launched while carrier vessel is maneuvering rapidly.

Docking Bay - 300% of the displacement for the stored craft. Includes an airlock to access the bay. Craft may be maintained, fueled, armed, loaded or unloaded. Includes external doors, internal overhead crane.

a bit large for the same effect as a hanger bay...allow for multiple craft to use the bay up to maximum tonnage the bay is rated for, and perhaps have a built in version of the UNREP system, or loading belts

Somewhere are my notes on flight crew ratio's, arming/fueling times, how much spares they have to carry, additional machinery shops, etc to support small craft. I took a lot from the concepts of the USN, and increased some ratios. But you still have the basics - stuff breaks, so you rip out entire pieces of machinery and replace it whole. In the Army the mechanics could replace the engine in my MLRS launcher in 30 min - by removing the engine completely and replacing it with another whole engine. The bad engine gets shipped back to a depot for maintenance. Fighter craft are kind of the same way today. Entire engines get pulled and replaced and then techs work on the bad engine outside the craft. Star fighters should follow that same logic because the mission is exactly the same. It's far faster to do that and get that craft back out then to try and tear it down. So the need for spares (to be somewhat realistic) is going to be quite higher for small craft than starships. Then again your small craft are going to appear to miraculously repair battle damage over what a starship does during combat.

I think you have the right idea for small craft repair...modular systems that are pulled and replaced by prepackaged units...while the damaged or destroyed systems are shelved for later repair or rebuild.

ground crew can replace damaged system in 1 hour....destroyed systems take 1d6 due to replacing attached hardware, rebuilding mounts, cutting away fused items etc.


would these guidelines work as a general suggestion to designers.... not hard rules but sort of a best practice suggestion.
1 full hanger per 5 small craft
1 workshop per 2 hangers
1 engineer per 5 hangers
2 mechanics per hanger
1 ton repair drones per 100 tons of small craft berthed.



or completely replace mechanics by using automated repair systems
1 ton repair drones, and computer capable of running self repair software per hanger.

required maintenance times per small craft
1 hour per 10 hours flight tie ( casual operations)
1 Hour per 4 hours ( heavy operation)
1 hour per 1 hour of flight (combat operations)

missed maintenance increases severity of critical damage by 1 step per week. or random chance of system failure of 5% +1% per hour of missed maintenance ( treat as random critical hit)

I would also suggest that each five hangers have a connected fabrication plant such as construction deck, or manufacturing spaces (from space station options) capable of constructing 1 displacement ton of advanced components per day minimum...of course this would be on a ship dedicated to carrying a LOT of small craft and not just a cargo ship carrying a few cargo shuttles. replacing a damaged system completely from raw materials and base components would be easy to figure up...it would take the fabrication shop a number of days based on the displacement tonnage of the destroyed, or damaged component.

of course the fabrication shop would have to have a number of tons of advanced manufactured goods,or spare parts, available per ton of system it replaced.( basically a stock of prepackaged base bits and pieces)

 

[phavoc]

Good ideas. There obviously should be some local 'printing' of parts onboard. But I think certain things should/would be pre-built and simply stored. Widgets, gaskets, and #3 screws could easily be made and stored locally to be used as needed. Yay for 52nd century parts bins! But your 3D holographic gunner displays, your G&T 4000 24G engines and such would need to be pre-built and ready to rock for when the damaged ships started coming in - or when the parts needed to be replaced as part of general maintenance (moreso when cheapskates aren't paying their full monthly maintenance fee!). Then the question becomes is it possible to print the whole part, or does it first require assembly of OTHER pre-printed parts? Oh, the supply lines of the future.

 

[wbnc]

Good ideas. There obviously should be some local 'printing' of parts onboard. But I think certain things should/would be pre-built and simply stored. Widgets, gaskets, and #3 screws could easily be made and stored locally to be used as needed. Yay for 52nd century parts bins! But your 3D holographic gunner displays, your G&T 4000 24G engines and such would need to be pre-built and ready to rock for when the damaged ships started coming in - or when the parts needed to be replaced as part of general maintenance (moreso when cheapskates aren't paying their full monthly maintenance fee!). Then the question becomes is it possible to print the whole part, or does it first require assembly of OTHER pre-printed parts? Oh, the supply lines of the future.

I imagine by the time of the Third Imperium you can print anything from circuit, boards to plasma screens. All you need is the right mix of materials. and rare earths. A carrier could carry several displacement tons each of basic materials, rare earths, radioactives, superconductors etc etc..and just print, or ill what was needed.

Id imagine as they gear up for a fight they would print or manufacture a stock of engines, weapons, and hull plates for rapid refit..then manufacture less commonly needed parts as needed....the easiest way to represent that is purchase several extra small craft you want to have parts for on hand...each extra is actually enough spare parts to rebuild the entire fighter broken down and stuffed into the bins. having a bin full of spares would be a matter of making not of how many spare lasers, drives, cockpits etc..paying the book prices and saying Okay I have this many spares on hand...and this many tons of raw materials for production. It's a little more book keeping than generalized "spare parts units" but not anything serious.

 

[phavoc]

Good ideas. There obviously should be some local 'printing' of parts onboard. But I think certain things should/would be pre-built and simply stored. Widgets, gaskets, and #3 screws could easily be made and stored locally to be used as needed. Yay for 52nd century parts bins! But your 3D holographic gunner displays, your G&T 4000 24G engines and such would need to be pre-built and ready to rock for when the damaged ships started coming in - or when the parts needed to be replaced as part of general maintenance (moreso when cheapskates aren't paying their full monthly maintenance fee!). Then the question becomes is it possible to print the whole part, or does it first require assembly of OTHER pre-printed parts? Oh, the supply lines of the future.

I imagine by the time of the Third Imperium you can print anything from circuit, boards to plasma screens. All you need is the right mix of materials. and rare earths. A carrier could carry several displacement tons each of basic materials, rare earths, radioactives, superconductors etc etc..and just print, or ill what was needed.

Id imagine as they gear up for a fight they would print or manufacture a stock of engines, weapons, and hull plates for rapid refit..then manufacture less commonly needed parts as needed....the easiest way to represent that is purchase several extra small craft you want to have parts for on hand...each extra is actually enough spare parts to rebuild the entire fighter broken down and stuffed into the bins. having a bin full of spares would be a matter of making not of how many spare lasers, drives, cockpits etc..paying the book prices and saying Okay I have this many spares on hand...and this many tons of raw materials for production. It's a little more book keeping than generalized "spare parts units" but not anything serious.

Sure, maybe. But that might take time. And some things, as we have discovered today, don't take well to printing. Plus, if you are into exotic things, you simply cannot print them. There are some metals that actually require explosive charges to force them together (though I guess in the future you'd have magnetic force fields to do that). That sort of material printing may someday come to fruition, but I think we still need some time to determine if conventional manufacturing can be supplemented fully by 3D printing.

In any event you would want that bin full of your printed parts when your little pilots come limping home after a bad buy shot them up. And then you send them right back out, with like new parts, more ammo... and pudding!

 

[wbnc]

Good ideas. There obviously should be some local 'printing' of parts onboard. But I think certain things should/would be pre-built and simply stored. Widgets, gaskets, and #3 screws could easily be made and stored locally to be used as needed. Yay for 52nd century parts bins! But your 3D holographic gunner displays, your G&T 4000 24G engines and such would need to be pre-built and ready to rock for when the damaged ships started coming in - or when the parts needed to be replaced as part of general maintenance (moreso when cheapskates aren't paying their full monthly maintenance fee!). Then the question becomes is it possible to print the whole part, or does it first require assembly of OTHER pre-printed parts? Oh, the supply lines of the future.

I imagine by the time of the Third Imperium you can print anything from circuit, boards to plasma screens. All you need is the right mix of materials. and rare earths. A carrier could carry several displacement tons each of basic materials, rare earths, radioactives, superconductors etc etc..and just print, or ill what was needed.

Id imagine as they gear up for a fight they would print or manufacture a stock of engines, weapons, and hull plates for rapid refit..then manufacture less commonly needed parts as needed....the easiest way to represent that is purchase several extra small craft you want to have parts for on hand...each extra is actually enough spare parts to rebuild the entire fighter broken down and stuffed into the bins. having a bin full of spares would be a matter of making not of how many spare lasers, drives, cockpits etc..paying the book prices and saying Okay I have this many spares on hand...and this many tons of raw materials for production. It's a little more book keeping than generalized "spare parts units" but not anything serious.

Sure, maybe. But that might take time. And some things, as we have discovered today, don't take well to printing. Plus, if you are into exotic things, you simply cannot print them. There are some metals that actually require explosive charges to force them together (though I guess in the future you'd have magnetic force fields to do that). That sort of material printing may someday come to fruition, but I think we still need some time to determine if conventional manufacturing can be supplemented fully by 3D printing.

In any event you would want that bin full of your printed parts when your little pilots come limping home after a bad buy shot them up. And then you send them right back out, with like new parts, more ammo... and pudding!

Oh definitely.....I hate to think what printed pudding tastes like.

think they would definitely have a large amount of prepacked and pre-built spares around. since you dont have time to run off a few dozen m-drives, 5 tons of missiles, and a half ton of new underwear (for the new pilots who just got shot at for the first time.)