Imperial Navy: Elysium class 100k ton Battle Cruiser

[Chas]

Fluff

The Elysium class of 100kton battle cruisers, streamlined state-of-the-art rectangular crystal shaped vessels, based in the inner systems surrounding the Imperial Court. Captained by retired fleet admirals and served by an ultra elite crew: top graduates from the Imperial Naval Academy, hand picked promising officers from the Imperium’s active fleets being groomed for fast tracked careers, a posting aboard an Elysium almost guarantees promotion or a plum position at the end of a tour. The Elysiums fly the flag amongst local sectors, where these beautiful beautiful ships as they descend into the atmosphere above an awestruck populace are a potent symbol of the might of the Imperial Navy; the majesty of the Imperium re-enforced when some beribboned living legend comes forth to meet with national dignitaries. When the happy subjects of Imperium see these ships first hand, sliding across the sky in all their overwhelming grandeur, they know they are being protected by the best the Emperor has to offer (with the flip side a reminder that perhaps picking a fight with whoever has such vessels at their beck and call, is not the wisest move).

These ships serve as training platforms in ship management and Naval standards indoctrination. Called Flying Diamonds for their distinctive shape, their nickname is also a nod to their considerable expense. Which also serves to remind the universe at large that good things come to those near to the Emperor. For these ships are first and foremost protection of the Imperial Court. A powerful force of unquestioned loyalty to the Crown, ensuring past historical mistakes are not repeated. There may have been an occasional batron admiral who might have refused the honour of such a posting if they were able, but the duties are hardly onerous, and the admiral allowed to return to his native sector - once his devoted underlings were rotated out and the perhaps potential local warlord has had his wings well clipped.

 

[Chas]

Crunch

I’ll get the full build up eventually. It is a TL15 jump 4, maneuver 9, armor 15 design. This is the weapon spread I ended it up with and it should be approximately right in terms of weight and power, the guts of the rest of it not shown here I think won't be too far off, I’ve included crew and whatnot in the master sheet.

RF Spinal Gun: Particle C TL14+ HY	3300t
15  Meson Screens	300t	 
30  Nuclear Dampers	600t	
1   Large Torpedo Bays	500t
40  Medium Fusion Beam Bays LR HY	4000t
20  Small Tachyon Bays HY	1,000t
200 Particle Barbettes Accurate	1000t
100 Ion Cannon Barbettes LR	500t
100 triple pulse laser turrets accurate	100t
15  Point Defense III	300t
200 triple missile turrets	200t

Edit: dang, made a mistake with my particle spinal weapon. Since fixed

 

[Chas]

Right, so been working through this. Firstly it needs to be said that this design is weight constricted. You need to make choices and compromises. Which is good, it is in fact a battle cruiser, not a dreadnought – if you want Jump 4, Armor 15 and Manuever 9 you are paying for it. Bells and whistles such as reinforced hulls, or armored bulkheads are not there. Emissions Array Grids, which you can happily throw into small craft, don’t make it. That’s 2000 tons of pure firepower you give up there with that. The limitations by weight on offensive fire power guarantee plenty of point defense, lasers and sandcasters (should you want them), simply because there’s nothing better you can do.

Where the new rules go with bridges will be important. The 4 modular bridges plus bridge I have from the previous edition build rules are 2320 very useful tons.

Weapon-wise it will be worth seeing the final Ion Weapon balance. I’m liking the idea of having these to provide an offensive option, able to capture rather than kill. Or say if you had the battle cruiser facing say 3 light cruisers adding up to equivalent tonnage, it might be able to put a suppressing fire down on one of them while engaging another.

For the spinal mount forgetting everything else Meson weapons are pretty much off the menu just for weight reasons. You’ll see in the build I’ve gone for a weight/performance Type C, which frees up a lot of extra 100t bays. It’s definitely the optimum build for the structure I think even given the bays may get crimped in the next rules update. And the likely weapon of choice/TL build for many cruisers. I like the final balance where the spinal weapon has taken up 3300 tons, not 4000 which it could easily do in a slightly bigger dreadnought. This Elysium class did end up with a secondary weapon system with clout, which I was worried it wasn’t going to on first draft. It’s spinal weapon is a little down on optimum, but a good trade off. Once I'm done here, I'll play around and look at the heavy cruise/light cruiser paradigms.

Sandcasters got tossed. Trust in your armor and the extra weaponry to blast whoever is shooting you with lasers.

I’m still not entirely sure where torpedo bays sit in the mix. The reduced weight from the previous edition will certainly help, and if all the bays here were swapped out for torps it would be interesting to see how many get through the Elysium’s own defenses.

Who knows how screens are going to pan out in the final wash, heh. I’ve just stuck these in to say, hey, they are there. (though you only need to put in enough meson screens to make sure your particle accelerator is always doing better than the other guy’s spinal meson)

Aside from the actual weapon balances though I think in itself it’s kinda okay. It’s supposed to be a line of battle spinal weapon ship, and specialized in that role by weight at 100k, when there would be other fleet elements such as carriers, tenders and cruisers to round things out, which it does.

Conclusion: not so different from the previous paradigms in the fundamental ship build. The remainder will be determinant on the final weapons rules.

 

[Captain Jonah]

One thing about the new way power and drives work, Move 9 on a 100,000Dton ship

Can it pull 9G while powering all weapons and screens, if so that's one BIIIIG power plant.

Mongoose T2 is likely to have an increase in Move on many ships because of the disconnect between jump / power / move. A few extra tons and many of the player class ships can add 1G if they run on half power and with warships built to take advantage of the ability to go faster 6G isn't hard to achieve across the board. Or up the power plant a bit and add faster drives instead of those extra staterooms.

Though having battleships faster than your 6G fighter or small craft is a bit scary

 

[wbnc]

One thing about the new way power and drives work, Move 9 on a 100,000Dton ship

Can it pull 9G while powering all weapons and screens, if so that's one BIIIIG power plant.

Mongoose T2 is likely to have an increase in Move on many ships because of the disconnect between jump / power / move. A few extra tons and many of the player class ships can add 1G if they run on half power and with warships built to take advantage of the ability to go faster 6G isn't hard to achieve across the board. Or up the power plant a bit and add faster drives instead of those extra staterooms.

Though having battleships faster than your 6G fighter or small craft is a bit scary

If a fighter is 6 gee someone needs to get beat with a stick

But yeah fast capital ships are frightening. It was the entire idea behind the battle cruiser ..go very fast, hit very hard, and choose the terms of an engagement...it works..until you get into a slugging match with battleships...then it's "There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today"

 

[Nerhesi]

I think the paradigm is shifting to:

1) Everything military from fighter to battleship is 9G m-drive (or almost everything)

2) Military smallcraft packing Reaction drives to reach super-fast Gs (like 20+)

 

[Chas]

Yeah, and it looks like its heading in a worthwhile direction as well. Key will be per previous discussion Nerhesi if they one way or another get fighter or torpedo bomber small craft viable with the barbette fixed mount weapon or otherwise. I think everybody wants to see those fast fighter clouds leading the attack in fleet sized battles.

Starting to get a bit of an idea of the relative merits of designs and one ship I think will go the way of the dodo is the light cruiser. In the original Traveller designs the ships with a spinal mount but virtually no armor. As it stands just wrapping a spinal mount in tissue paper and sending it into space, just because you want more spinal mounts in space, isn't going to fly. Lightly armor a cruiser too much and it's not going to be able to fulfill any role. On a fleet scale fighters will just chew them up for starters, there's no way a 2 fighter = 1 hardpoint battle will be anything other than a massacre for the low armor cruiser. Meanwhile it's attracting the fire of all the other capital ships who have point defence lasers and missiles to burn. As a raider they'll be too vulnerable to smaller ships or any sort of system defense vessel of any tech level. Which is also good, it makes a genuine place for destroyers and frigates.

 

[wbnc]

Yeah, and it looks like its heading in a worthwhile direction as well. Key will be per previous discussion Nerhesi if they one way or another get fighter or torpedo bomber small craft viable with the barbette fixed mount weapon or otherwise. I think everybody wants to see those fast fighter clouds leading the attack in fleet sized battles.

Starting to get a bit of an idea of the relative merits of designs and one ship I think will go the way of the dodo is the light cruiser. In the original Traveller designs the ships with a spinal mount but virtually no armor. As it stands just wrapping a spinal mount in tissue paper and sending it into space, just because you want more spinal mounts in space, isn't going to fly. Lightly armor a cruiser too much and it's not going to be able to fulfill any role. On a fleet scale fighters will just chew them up for starters, there's no way a 2 fighter = 1 hardpoint battle will be anything other than a massacre for the low armor cruiser. Meanwhile it's attracting the fire of all the other capital ships who have point defence lasers and missiles to burn. As a raider they'll be too vulnerable to smaller ships or any sort of system defense vessel of any tech level. Which is also good, it makes a genuine place for destroyers and frigates.

it also makes fighters worthwhile as an investment..before they were mobile anti-missile screens, and cannon fodder...there only purpose mostly defensive...now they can go on the hunt.

I think lightly armored ships with high acceleration will still have a place. but they will have to be employed very, very carefully, and cant go trading punches with well armored vessels..as it should be.

At the level of a single ship on ship encounter a heavy offense, light defense high acceleration design is still going to be a pain in the butt. specifically for poorly armed/armored, slower moving vessels...they could be employed, as Hunter-killers, scout/raider hunters, and strike vessels deployed in formations of similar ships to hit an exposed formation/facility and retreat rapidly ahead of pursuit...

they wont be setting in the battle wall that's for sure, behind it, to one side, or in the next system over hunting tankers...but not in a slugging match.

 

[Chas]

Yeah, and it looks like its heading in a worthwhile direction as well. Key will be per previous discussion Nerhesi if they one way or another get fighter or torpedo bomber small craft viable with the barbette fixed mount weapon or otherwise. I think everybody wants to see those fast fighter clouds leading the attack in fleet sized battles.

Starting to get a bit of an idea of the relative merits of designs and one ship I think will go the way of the dodo is the light cruiser. In the original Traveller designs the ships with a spinal mount but virtually no armor. As it stands just wrapping a spinal mount in tissue paper and sending it into space, just because you want more spinal mounts in space, isn't going to fly. Lightly armor a cruiser too much and it's not going to be able to fulfill any role. On a fleet scale fighters will just chew them up for starters, there's no way a 2 fighter = 1 hardpoint battle will be anything other than a massacre for the low armor cruiser. Meanwhile it's attracting the fire of all the other capital ships who have point defence lasers and missiles to burn. As a raider they'll be too vulnerable to smaller ships or any sort of system defense vessel of any tech level. Which is also good, it makes a genuine place for destroyers and frigates.

it also makes fighters worthwhile as an investment..before they were mobile anti-missile screens, and cannon fodder...there only purpose mostly defensive...now they can go on the hunt.

More than worthwhile but actually critical to fleet balance I'm beginning to realize. I'll put out a separate thread on this with specific ship examples on how I'm figure the fleet paradigms are starting to separate out. A lot of this revolves around the tender builds as well.

A point on maneuver, the maneuver advantage currently available is very good. You could see the Imperial Navy standardizing all front line ships as having to do at least Maneuver 8 just like everything needs to be Jump 4, but that will allow battleships to swap out the top level M9 for the advantage - which is pretty much another 2% of hull tonnage as pure firepower when you take into account the M drive drop also, not insignificant.

 

[Chas]

And just to confirm what I'm seeing playing around a bit with the numbers.

The 75,000 ton heavy cruiser is still a heavy cruiser/battle cruiser equivalent still with full stats, just down on bay punch predominantly.

The 50,000 ton cruise is definitely a medium cruiser. Most things pretty much need to give somewhere.

Below that in size in my, current ( :lol: ), opinion you'll be sticking to armored bay builds i.e. heavy frigates, if you want anything to front up and fight with the big boys. Or for whatever strategic role reason you do something quite different with the build in terms of jump, maneuver or whatever.

(this of course all goes with the caveat that spinal weapons are balanced to be something you really want, not made redundant by powerful bays)

 

[AndrewW]

A point on maneuver, the maneuver advantage currently available is very good. You could see the Imperial Navy standardizing all front line ships as having to do at least Maneuver 8 just like everything needs to be Jump 4, but that will allow battleships to swap out the top level M9 for the advantage - which is pretty much another 2% of hull tonnage as pure firepower when you take into account the M drive drop also, not insignificant.

Not exactly pure firepower as you'll likely be upping the power plant as well to support the increased power needs of the weapons.

 

[wbnc]

A point on maneuver, the maneuver advantage currently available is very good. You could see the Imperial Navy standardizing all front line ships as having to do at least Maneuver 8 just like everything needs to be Jump 4, but that will allow battleships to swap out the top level M9 for the advantage - which is pretty much another 2% of hull tonnage as pure firepower when you take into account the M drive drop also, not insignificant.

Not exactly pure firepower as you'll likely be upping the power plant as well to support the increased power needs of the weapons.

which adds a new layer to thinking..do I spend the extra on a more advanced, smaller, power plant/drive... It gives me the ability to carry and use more weapons? But it's an extra (X) Mcr ...

its a small number individually..but as I have said before, the bean counters get a vote too.

 

[Chas]

In the bigger picture, particularly at TL15, the power requirements of weapons aren't that critical. You've got to get to around 25 medium bays of the worse case fusion weapons before you've got to give up a single 100t bay to compensate for the power add on. For cruiser builds you're just happy to get those 5, 10 or 20 extra bays in by tonnage.

 

[Chas]

Hey, I missed the decreased fuel jump drive advantage in that build, there's another 1200 t of weapons to go in.

 

[Chas]

Okay, here's the updated 100k ton Battle Cruiser. Hopefully be a good reference point for a now vs. next Beta version design. This ship has old edition bridge and crew numbers (which includes barrage numbers for gunners). Not claiming to be credit for credit perfect but the tonnages should be about right. I found a bit more weight from my original build.

Balance-wise I think the general weapon spread is a solid reference point except that I would hope with updated rules I'd drop off torpedo bays and put in a bigger spinal mount than a cruiser could expect to mount.