Thats a fair point.
Usually there are all kinds of unanticipated needs, especially for longer deployments. Having flexibility is a wonderful thing to have. Its a very nice luxury to have if you can afford it
Gionetti class Light Cruiser
- Thread starter mavikfelna
- Start date
I suppose you COULD install airlock between sections, but that can be controlled through simple compartmentalization. Each compartment becomes a defacto airlock. Less cost and maintenance. Having fewer things to maintain lowers costs - though sailors need something to do...I've always assumed the extra airlocks on big ships were really internal bulkheads or sturdier hatchways to help compartmentalize the ship. So I just sort of default to maxing them out on most designs. But I don't design much over 2000 tons normally so it's not really a big issue.
Capt and Flag Officer have High staterooms, All officers have single staterooms. But I did put all the gunners and Maintenance in barracks with te marines.
I'll fiddle more and post it later.
Most crew will get barracks, but they will most likely be much more comfy than today's. Ensigns should get shared rooms, as they are the privates of the officer corps.
Im sure many people dont care about these sorts of nuances, but I like to see them. The enjoyment is in the design process (without wiring, life support and waste management diagrams) for a lot of people. That and giving the ship character and bringing it to life on the page.
I really like Moon Toad designs because the ships are more than just ship plans and stats. Same goes for independence games. Would be interesting if MGT did, outside of core book, a PDF with similar writeup for the basic ships that exist, giving them more background and descriptions to bring them to life. Rarely will you have page count in the core books, but pdf and supplements exist just for this kind of thing.
The Starship Operator's Manual does a walk-through of these important areas of the ship for the Type K, Type S and Type A2:
Two pages on each area, with text and pictures.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
The Valiant class appears to have succeeded the Gionetti, both thirty kilotonnes.
Primary difference range four parsecs, and factor/fifteen armour.
Primary difference range four parsecs, and factor/fifteen armour.
AnotherDilbert
Emperor Mongoose
Reality? Are we talking about the same imaginary spaceships in an imaginary far future?
If 20th century destroyers had lasers capable of cutting unarmoured cruisers in half with a single hit, I guess cruisers would look quite different.
That is what 57th century destroyers have, weapons capable of destroying unarmoured ships in a single hit, hence armour is a requirement to be a warship...
We have something much better, the actual rules of combat.
Canon says mesons were the superweapon that the Terrans used to crush the First Imperium.
The rules say mesons are THE ship-killer (once you have armoured ships enough to survive nukes).
There are fairly effective meson defences, between agility, configuration, and screens most meson attacks fails. But when they do succeed ships die...
Nukes are just as effective against unarmoured ships, but simple passive armour reduces nukes to attritional nuisances.
Both nuke and meson defences are vital to high tech warships, nuke defences are just cheaper and easier.
They were experimental in 1105 in the original 3I setting, the first ones being recovered Ancients tech, of course they were not in old deployed ships.
In the rules they have more down-sides than up-sides, they protect the enemy as well as you, and makes you a sitting duck to e.g. nukes.
All the GDW designers in the 70's were wargame designers first, as far as I know...
But they designed playable games (mostly...), not theoretically perfect games.
HG is such a remarkably well designed wargame that we are discussing it here, 45 years later...
Physics and economics permitting...
Where is the defence against nukes, after nearly a century of existence?
To say the least, but that is what we have...
Sure.
Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
The subcommand centers are in Element Class Cruisers. @MongooseMatt says the build products in that book are still valid.
mavikfelna
Emperor Mongoose
I keep forgetting Effect adds to damage, and effect is really easy to generate in ship combat. So while I was considering 6 armor to be sufficient against turret weapons, I see now that is definitely not the case. There's no way I'm getting the Gionetti to 30 armor without crippling her firepower, but maybe 15 is doable? I'll play around for a bit and see what I can do. In the mean time, anyone else have suggestions?
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
If you really want a five parsec cruiser, try updating the Azhanti class.
mavikfelna
Emperor Mongoose
Ok, I can get to 10 armor by dropping a Large Bay and all the Armored Bulkheads and a little cargo. But that really cuts down on my long range firepower. So do you all think going back to the unarmored design with multiple Large Bays is better or stay with 1 Large Bay and 10 armor?
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Depends on what your intent is.
If it's just to update the Gionetti, you could make an assumption that when a Mongooser tried it, they decided just to substitute the Valiant for it.
Figure out exactly what role you think, or want, the Gionetti to play within the context of the milieu you're setting up, and optimize it for that.
If it's just to update the Gionetti, you could make an assumption that when a Mongooser tried it, they decided just to substitute the Valiant for it.
Figure out exactly what role you think, or want, the Gionetti to play within the context of the milieu you're setting up, and optimize it for that.
mavikfelna
Emperor Mongoose
Well, the role the ship is said to be for is squadron/taskforce lead and raider. But with it's spinal and missile armament that's not what it's useful for. That's the whole point of this thread.
If you look at the role of light cruisers (when we actually had them), their job was scouting, leading destroyer groups, or as escorts to larger battlegroups. Usually tin cans (DD's) had the outermost ring for escorting, with light cruisers sprinkled in or detached for scouting where it's better weapons could provide some protection against the other sides scouts.
As squadron leaders they led group(s) of destroyers for attack, scouting and escorting. Not all had extra command capabilities, but that was found to be more efficient as a ships captain was responsible for his ship and not the group/flotilla/fleet.
So if you built some J-5 destroyers and your light cruiser sacrificed some longer-range equipment to be armed like a destroyer, that's within historical context of their design use. You could also change up the tonnage of your ship and have fewer laser turrets and add in some (not a lot) heavier-hitting bays that smaller ships wouldn't normally have tonnage to carry.
I have the original SOM, but have not picked up the 2nd one.
Unless it's stating that the Valiant is superseding the Gionetti, it's not at all unreasonable to have multiple variations of a 30k Dton light cruiser where one class is simply sharing the same hull size. If the Valiant are J-4 that makes them Imperial fleet standard, so that would make it a different class entirely.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
If I had to sort out the narrative, I'd say that the Imperium Navy has roughly three hull sizes for cruisers: light, medium, and heavy.
The equivalent for the medium category would be the ten kilotonne Treaty cruisers.
Initially, light cruisers were used to make up the lack of numbers for eight inchers, and due to, I suspect, a deliberate loophole, you could designate the same sized hulls that the eight inchers used, by just arming it with six inchers, and allocating light cruiser tonnage for it, instead of heavy cruiser.
Light cruisers are cost cutters in the naval budget sheets.
How true that is three millenia later, who knows?
The equivalent for the medium category would be the ten kilotonne Treaty cruisers.
Initially, light cruisers were used to make up the lack of numbers for eight inchers, and due to, I suspect, a deliberate loophole, you could designate the same sized hulls that the eight inchers used, by just arming it with six inchers, and allocating light cruiser tonnage for it, instead of heavy cruiser.
Light cruisers are cost cutters in the naval budget sheets.
How true that is three millenia later, who knows?
Yes, the only limitation that the Washington Naval treaty stipulated was that for non-capital ships (BC and BB) and carriers, the numbers were unlimited, but the tonnage was capped at 10k tons and a maximum gun size of 8". That also happened to be the sweet spot for heavy (but not light) cruisers). At least with the powers that didn't cheat.
The follow-up London Treaty differed in that it established caliber and total ship limits for heavy cruisers (those armed with guns bigger than 6", and lighter cruisers (those armed with 6" or below). Total tonnage was limited for light cruisers and total numbers was limited for heavy cruisers. Destroyers also finally got tonnage and gun size limits (though hull sizes also dictated what size gun you could mount).
At the follow-on 2nd London Treaty the nations that weren't cheating, used the escalation clauses to build their ships. This is why the US built the lightly-armored North Carolina 16" BB class, and fixed the armor issue in the follow-up South Dakota class. The Iowa class was an improvement to the South Dakota class.
The Imperium won't have to abide by treaty limitations, so their designs would be less hampered by such reasonings. Instead I think they would have multiple designs deployed, depending on which set of neighbors they were fighthing. Ships along the Vargr border wouldn't need to be as heavy, and having the ability to engage more and smaller targets would be more advantageous against say the Solomani who would be fighting in a similar manner to the Imperium. Zhodani would also, I think, follow similar characteristics as they are also humans. Aslan (who I always think of as either the Kziniti or the Khanate of Orion from Starfire) would also fight less similar to humans since they aren't human and wouldn't necessarily have the same racial though process patterns - not to say that humans are uniform. But they would tend to follow somewhat similar protocols fo the most part.
Light cruisers had a different mission than heavy cruisers. And, depending on the navy, some also were faster. Light cruisers were cheaper to build as well, which meant you could get more hulls for same dollars. Players don't deal with such things, so they min/max their designs. They don't have to think about costs, or tradeoffs such as longer endurance/range (or jump radius) for heavier armor. Unless you had specific rules governing designs then this issue is one that will never be resolved.
In some instances, it suffices to support some of the odd designs in the books - i.e. these ships were built for reasons other than min/max operations. But in other instances that may be too charitable. I think Mavikfelna and AnotherDilbert are on to something by trying to redesign the cruisers to make more sense - even if their approach differs.
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Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
I tend to think that light cruisers followed the pattern of the cruiser type they succeeded, the protected cruiser.
Essentially, protection is the minimum required to initially survive an encounter with a similarly armed counterpart.
Better living through metallurgy ensured that their armour scheme improved, and mission creep ended up with actual large light cruisers, by the time the Great Patriotic War was kickstarted.
The Battle of the River Plate sort of demonstrates the doctrine that had developed, in that cruisers protected commerce by chasing down surface raiders, in this case a rather large one, but risked combat before the rest of the pack turned up, to even up the difference in armament.
The Gionetti class, in the current edition, is unbalanced, considering that the initial one had a one kilotonne meson gun, with acceleration factor/five, and five parsec range.
Almost Deutschlandesque.
Essentially, protection is the minimum required to initially survive an encounter with a similarly armed counterpart.
Better living through metallurgy ensured that their armour scheme improved, and mission creep ended up with actual large light cruisers, by the time the Great Patriotic War was kickstarted.
The Battle of the River Plate sort of demonstrates the doctrine that had developed, in that cruisers protected commerce by chasing down surface raiders, in this case a rather large one, but risked combat before the rest of the pack turned up, to even up the difference in armament.
The Gionetti class, in the current edition, is unbalanced, considering that the initial one had a one kilotonne meson gun, with acceleration factor/five, and five parsec range.
Almost Deutschlandesque.
tomfreshwater
Banded Mongoose
Maybe make the gionetti a light strike cruiser? With a J-3 or J-4 drive but with fuel for 5 parsec jump. It can jump in and out very quickly if it encounters resistance it cannot handle.
mavikfelna
Emperor Mongoose
Honestly, I'm trying to make logical changes to existing designs within the current assumptions of the setting and rules. the Imperium has been TL15 for something like 300 years, they should have worked out the kinks on "newer" designs like this a long time ago.
The design rules from Mongoose change alot of the assumptions that went into older designs like this one, so I think it's fare to update them but I don't want to get too far away from the old design unless it's completely unworkable.
Changing the spinal to large bay is something that makes sense with the change in rules. But as I think about it, I may go back the missile armament because while it seems bad for a raider it was a fundamental part of the design in older canon and while sub-par, it isn't unworkable.
The design rules from Mongoose change alot of the assumptions that went into older designs like this one, so I think it's fare to update them but I don't want to get too far away from the old design unless it's completely unworkable.
Changing the spinal to large bay is something that makes sense with the change in rules. But as I think about it, I may go back the missile armament because while it seems bad for a raider it was a fundamental part of the design in older canon and while sub-par, it isn't unworkable.
