Modular Spinal Mount?

[AnotherDilbert]

Today we can technically build a modular ship where the offensive weaponry is in a module and switch between a spinal mount or the same tonnage of bays. Since ships are generally considered to be built around their spinal mount, I would consider that an abuse of the system.

Should spinal mounts be specifically excluded from components that can be included in a module [HG. p37]?

 

[phavoc]

Today we can technically build a modular ship where the offensive weaponry is in a module and switch between a spinal mount or the same tonnage of bays. Since ships are generally considered to be built around their spinal mount, I would consider that an abuse of the system.

Should spinal mounts be specifically excluded from components that can be included in a module [HG. p37]?

I think the easy answer to that is yes. Remember the entire point of a spinal mount weapon is that it is built into the spine of the ship. While I suppose you could modularize it, the additional costs in building in the capability to swap out such a massive installation should not be cheap at all. Which makes the whole idea of mission-specific weaponry in modules pointless.

On paper the modular weapon systems concept seems great. But the reality thus far, has proven it to be anything but. There have been successful refits of craft, but that's not quite the same as a module.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

What kind of abuse? Which players are doing it?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

What kind of abuse?

Remember the entire point of a spinal mount weapon is that it is built into the spine of the ship.

Which players are doing it?

I am!

 

[Nerhesi]

Would it not be proper to think about this as a drives,bridge,computer,spinal with everything else being "modular?"

So basically, the skeleton is set but the remaining whatever is dynamic?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Would it not be proper to think about this as a drives,bridge,computer,spinal with everything else being "modular?"

Exactly! And the rules should say that.

 

[Condottiere]

Once spinal mounts became multiple options and decoupled from the spine, it opened the door to being emplaced in modules. Multiple times.

 

[Chas]

Heh. I had an interesting thought with the modular stuff last night that you guys will see soon enough.

I'm not entirely sold on the modular systems though. They need a very specific use case to be feasible. Having modules assumes that the replacement modules are manufactured and sitting around available to be used. Which is not practical in many fleet arrangements.

 

[AndrewW]

Note modular hull hasn't really changed from the one in the current High Guard.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I'm not entirely sold on the modular systems though. They need a very specific use case to be feasible. Having modules assumes that the replacement modules are manufactured and sitting around available to be used. Which is not practical in many fleet arrangements.

Note that for my modular fighters I bought more modules than fighters and gave them space in the carriers, I even had extra crew for the modules lounging around the carrier.

On my modular cruiser the defensive modules cost less than 1/10 of the basic airframe, I can buy say 150% as many modules as ships and not completely break the bank. It would allow me to match the right defences to the right enemy, with a few days in the shipyard?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Note modular hull hasn't really changed from the one in the current High Guard.

Perhaps you should have had more abusive beta testers back then to do nasty things to poor defenceless ships?

 

[Chas]

I'm not entirely sold on the modular systems though. They need a very specific use case to be feasible. Having modules assumes that the replacement modules are manufactured and sitting around available to be used. Which is not practical in many fleet arrangements.

Note that for my modular fighters I bought more modules than fighters and gave them space in the carriers, I even had extra crew for the modules lounging around the carrier.

On my modular cruiser the defensive modules cost less than 1/10 of the basic airframe, I can buy say 150% as many modules as ships and not completely break the bank. It would allow me to match the right defences to the right enemy, with a few days in the shipyard?

I would say that is a specific use case where modules work. An inexpensive large vessel that would be based in a star port and really not be doing much except wait for the next major conflict, an excellent part of the fleet-in-port strategy where the placement of the unit forces the enemy to counter with an equivalent force. And with the modules the enemy can't, for either offense or defence, put in a single optimized simple cheap solution to counter to it.

 

[phavoc]

Modular sounds cool on paper, but you are glossing over the aspect that makes a weapon system useful - training. A crew trains and trains and trains on their specific weapon system until it become instinctual. Swapping out the modules means you would never be able to have anything but less-than-average crews and pilots. That's not how militaries work. In a game you can do anything you want, but reality is a nasty bitch and happily comes to bite you on the ass when things like this come up.

It's no different than politicians trying to say "you don't need live fire exercises, you can simulate everything!" - except they aren't there, they don't have to have confidence in the weapons systems, they don't put their lives on the line expecting everything to work the way it does from a computer screen.

So I would have to add a hearty 'no' to that level of modularity.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Modular sounds cool on paper, but you are glossing over the aspect that makes a weapon system useful - training. A crew trains and trains and trains on their specific weapon system until it become instinctual. Swapping out the modules means you would never be able to have anything but less-than-average crews and pilots. That's not how militaries work. In a game you can do anything you want, but reality is a nasty bitch and happily comes to bite you on the ass when things like this come up.

Quite. It's problematical, but not impossible...

One solution could be to provide the modules with their own crew. If you swap a Meson Screen Module for a Nuclear Damper Module you also swap the gunners responsible. That should be possible, if perhaps not optimal.

If you swap main weapon system is probably much worse? The command crew get a different tactical problem to handle.

 

[phavoc]

Yeah, that's still not optimal. Why? Because you would put an inordinate amount of stress on your primary vehicle carrying around all the different modules.

Say you had four module variations. Your modular carrier would take 400% use stress by trying to rotate through the various weapon crews. That means your maintenance costs would 4x because of increased ops tempo.

Like I said, it sounds cool on paper but has lots of limitations in reality.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The world's airforces are doing modules with missiles, bombs, and e.g. ECM pods on standardised hardpoints, and have for decades. They seem to think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, in some cases at least.

 

[phavoc]

The world's airforces are doing modules with missiles, bombs, and e.g. ECM pods on standardised hardpoints, and have for decades. They seem to think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, in some cases at least.

That is not at all the same analogy. An ECM pod takes up a hardpoint, but doesn't require the pilot to do anything. You go talk to the guys who fly F-15E's vs F-15C's and ask them are they both equal aircraft for air/ground combat... and they are going to tell you no. Pilots who practice ground attacks as their primary activity are able to do much more with their aircraft than those who focus on air superiority. Nowadays more and more munitions are either self-guiding, or they can be lased into the target by a ground person or the aircraft itself.

But that's not universal. It depends on the type of munitions you are going to use. A practice that fell out of favor, but is coming back is the that of lobbing your munitions in a ballistic arc so that you can fly low and make it harder to be intercepted with SAM's, but at the right point you pop up, release your bomb/missile and let physics take it into an arc to deliver death from above - all without having to fly at a higher altitude to do so. It's called toss bombing and it take a bit of practice. It's a ground-attack only sort of thing, so the air drivers like those in F-22 never bother to practice it. Their mission is pure air combat.

A more equivalent example would be the new LCS ships that are "supposed" to be equipped for modular weapon changes. Thus far, everything I've read has been less than positive about the proposed changeouts. None of them have actually tried to go to sea, then come back and do a change out. The class is still new, but the LCS overall is having a lot of teething pains. Only time will tell if the new designs will work out anywhere near what their proposed usefulness was sold as. They, too, sounded great on paper, being able to swap out modules instead of having entire ships dedicated to something. I suspect, based on what they have shown thus far, the hype will far exceed their capabilities.

 

[Condottiere]

The LCS seems to have been a badly thought out design, possibly more equivalent to a jet "street" fighter, than a warship, or quasi warship, since maintenance appears to overwhelm the mandated onboard crew.

Also, the module appears to be permanently emplaced.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

That is not at all the same analogy. An ECM pod takes up a hardpoint, but doesn't require the pilot to do anything.

I do not think we disagree all that much.

If you look at the designs I have posted in the "Fighters!" and "Cruisers!" threads I swap out "ECM pods" (bays?) on the cruisers, and swap between the primary weapon, ECM, and Recon pods on the fighters. Nothing stranger than swapping AAMs for an ECM pod on a jet. I have not done anything as drastic as trying to reconfigure a fighter to ground attack or the LCS. I have argued against changing primary systems, like spinals.

The ultimate modular warship is of course the carrier. It does not fight itself, but uses small exchangeable modules (aircraft) with their own specifically trained crew for a wide variety of missions, from air combat, to ground attack, naval attack, sub hunting, or AWACS.

I'm an engineer, I see modules everywhere. Every piece of complex technology you can buy today is modular, whether the manufacturer tells you or not. A friend of mine works for Scania, a truck manufacturer. They basically make modules that they can assemble to a truck on request. They would not have any great technical difficulty in selling engine modules, where you could swap to a higher capacity engine or a smaller more fuel efficient engine, in a few hours in a workshop.