Need help Designing A Sub-Light Ship [Updated Again]

[Solomani666]

The black globe will cut your ship in half when you turn it on (See CT adv 12 secrets of the ancients where a globe cut a researcher in half).

The globe will have to surround the entire ship and then you can't see out and can't accelerate. Black globes are for stealth or for a warship, why is an STL vessel carrying one?

Cheers
Richard

The black globe absorbs energy.
The field is probably 150 degrees C as soon as it's turned on.
This would instantly kill a person.
Not sure it would simply slice through BSD however.

If it does, then I'll start equipping my TL16 race with them as stealth drone warheads.
Get within X distance of a capital ship.
Turn on black globe generator.
Sheer away an entire hull section instantly destroying the ship.
Better yet, just flicker it and drive right through the capital ship.

Think of the damage one of these could do as an ortillery shell.
A disintegration device and a nuke rolled into one.


Anyone else have any idea if a black globe field would act as a disintegration device to any matter caught within its field when switched on?


.

 

[rust]

In my view to spend 100.00 MCr for a black globe generator would be a
rather expensive way to create a single hole in a hostile starship ...

 

[hdan]

Maybe TL-17 can bring us other spherical harmonics of "black" instead of just the globe. The second order harmonic would be perfect, since it would give you a black globe on one side and a "white" globe on the other to radiate the energy. Just don't get surrounded. The third order harmonic might be even better, with coverage on two sides.

Here's what I'm talking about:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_harmonics

I suppose you might still have trouble at the "origin" if you can't find a way to project the globe away from the ship though.

(PS, you can ignore the math and just look at the pictures in that link.)

 

[barnest2]

The black globe absorbs energy.
The field is probably 150 degrees C as soon as it's turned on.
This would instantly kill a person.
Not sure it would simply slice through BSD however.

it's not about the heat. It simply slices through whatever is on the edge of its field.

If it does, then I'll start equipping my TL16 race with them as stealth drone warheads.
Get within X distance of a capital ship.
Turn on black globe generator.
Sheer away an entire hull section instantly destroying the ship.
Better yet, just flicker it and drive right through the capital ship.

That would be hilarious, but it would be a big and hideously expensive drone. It's much easier to just fit a bomb-pumped laser warhead to lots of little drones, than making one big globe generating drone that might make it too its target, which will be under fire for at least a few thousand kilometres (hint. Stealth coatings still wont hide a drone when it's close)

nyone else have any idea if a black globe field would act as a disintegration device to any matter caught within its field when switched on?

Nope, just on the edge of the ball.

 

[DFW]

Anyone else have any idea if a black globe field would act as a disintegration device to any matter caught within its field when switched on?


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According to everything written, yes. At least the plane intersecting the globes sphere. That's why you can't stick it on a boom.

 

[Solomani666]

Solar sails aren't a bad plan once you arrive in a system; once down to orbital speed you can coast for a bit. Pretty irrelevant at a system's edge or beyond, of course.

Solar panels are different than solar sails.

This ship has twice the normal number of solar panels thus allowing it to maneuver or refine fuel within system.

Without knowing what exactly the hydrogen processor is processing for, my default reaction would be to say no, but on the other hand you're not processing fuel for a jump drive, only a power reactor.
H-1 to H-1 fusion works - albeit not so well as some of the isotope combinations. I'm not convinced the hydrogen density in interstellar space is enough to provide meaningful power for a 6G gravetic ship, though. And if you use a j-drive, you will need a fuel processor.

It's never been said what a fuel processor is processing for - chemical impurities, isotropic impurities or for all we know bloody quantum state impurities. Without any clarification, smile, nod and fit the things.

A Gas Giant atmosphere usually contains hydrogen and helium, with traces of water, methane, ammonia. The fuel processors are used to separate the hydrogen from the other stuff. Or in the case of a water fueling, separating the waters hydrogen from its oxygen.

Interstellar hydrogen will be pure so it will not have to be refined.

Note that multiple manouvre-1s may not combine in the same way. Multiple reaction-1s obviously stack - double the rocket's impulse, double the momentum gain. But when dealing with a device designed to project an induced gravetic field, focusing two on the same point may or may not stack their effects in a linear fashion.

The capital ship drive volume, for example, is not a linear progression.
On the other hand, six M-1s are twice the volume of 1 M-6 so it's not a bad fudge to make.

I'll probably just split the Maneuver drive into 2 parts.

The original idea was that the dual solar panels could simply power just 1 pod, but I will just state that the additional panel can support any single additional activity: refine fuel, maneuver 1, use sensors, etc.

The main issue is that they be mounted in pods so that the ship does not have to turn around to decelerate.

If you need an emergency jump you will need hydrogen fuel tankage.

I never got around to even determining how big it needs to be yet.



Thanks for you help

P.S. Definitely going to start working on some ideas for weaponized versions of black globe generators in another thread.

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[AndrewW]

P.S. Definitely going to start working on some ideas for weaponized versions of black globe generators in another thread.

.

The Darrians have started to make some use of this with drone torpedoes.

 

[locarno24]

If it does, then I'll start equipping my TL16 race with them as stealth drone warheads.
Get within X distance of a capital ship.
Turn on black globe generator.
Sheer away an entire hull section instantly destroying the ship.
Better yet, just flicker it and drive right through the capital ship.

Observation.

Weaponized black globes are definitely a lethal device, if a bloody expensive one (although, as noted, you have always said money is not an object in your designs).

Yes, the black globe will slice and dice a ship - even bonded superdense. It is, literally, a shaped event horizon so far as it has been explained. Whether matter and energy that intersects it is annihalated, shunted into another universe, or whatever, is unknown (and unknowable), but it's gone, it's not coming back, and energy appears in the capacitors so Mr. Hawking and friends don't have their maths screwed up.

The problems, of course, are:

1) getting within distance X of said ship. Even a stealth ship is 'hard to lock onto' not normally 'impossible to see', and if it's carrying a BGG it's either going to be a pretty vulnerable target or be capital ship sized itself.

2) Powering a BGG requires a power plant, much like screens. One unambiguous statement in High Guard is that you can't start drawing on the BGG's stored power until you switch the BGG itself off. Of course, for a design like this, an emergency power plant equivalent (10% volume) should be good enough, as it's not like it's going to be switched on for long. Or twice.

3) Flickering it and driving through the enemy ship definitely won't work. As soon as the globe contacts the armour, it'll annihalate the plate it intersects with and - unless you're carrying one hell of a lot of capacitors - that's probably enough to overload and blow it right there and then. Snapping the field to 'on' when it intersects with the hull of the ship is better - it'll still overload and explode instantly, but at least it can potentially bisect the target in the process.

 

[Solomani666]

In my view to spend 100.00 MCr for a black globe generator would be a
rather expensive way to create a single hole in a hostile starship ...

If you destroy 1 or more sections of say a battleship then the ship is D-E-A-D.
100 MCr is a small price to pay for killing a Plankwell or a Tigress.


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[rust]

If you destroy 1 or more sections of say a battleship then the ship is D-E-A-D.
100 MCr is a small price to pay for killing a Plankwell or a Tigress.

And if the point defence kills your black globe drone, which is quite likely,
you have thrown away the annual tax income of a small colony ...

Besides, the black globe will of course not destroy an entire section of a
warship, because the capacitors of the drone will overload and explode
almost instantly when the black globe field transfers the energy from the
disintegration of the hull into them. In the end the result will probably be
even less impressive than what a normal nuke would have done.

 

[Solomani666]

Observation.

Weaponized black globes are definitely a lethal device, if a bloody expensive one (although, as noted, you have always said money is not an object in your designs)...

Thank you Locarno24.

Money is only no object for one pocket empire that I have that is located several sectors Spinward of the Marches. (Thanks for remembering!)

I thought up their history and their physiology myself and they bare a striking resemblance to the Darrians. (This was even before I read a book on them.)

They are derived from a lost colony, been enslaved twice, and have interbred with another colony of humans 'Alphas', so there are some differences due to natural selection and selective breeding (sometimes forced).

I have recently considered the idea of making them a lost Darrian colony from before the Mensk.

That would explain their TL16 culture and many of their physical traits.

What is your opinion on this?



Also Please see this thread and feel free to cut/past any of your answers here to there.

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=47996


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[Ishmael]

It seems to me that a black globe might be a nifty device for capturing energy to power the ship's drive. Turn it on...charge caps...run off the caps...repeat. Even a hydrogen atom can pack a whollop if its moving at relativistic speeds.

 

[RichardP]

Re the black globe drone, it is correct the capacitors will overload when you cut a large hole in a hull with the screen.

CT Traveller News Serive for the Rebellion has rebels crashing 20dtn drone fighters into Dulinor's black globe ships to overload their globe and cause an internal explosion.

 

[Solomani666]

Re the black globe drone, it is correct the capacitors will overload when you cut a large hole in a hull with the screen.

CT Traveller News Serive for the Rebellion has rebels crashing 20dtn drone fighters into Dulinor's black globe ships to overload their globe and cause an internal explosion.

Thanks for the info.

Can you provide a link for the source please.

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[Rick]

I'm thinking rather of the magnetic mines that the Italian mini-subs attached to British shipping during ww2. If you can find some way of sneaking up to a big ship and maybe attaching it near the drives - that might work. Just set it to detonate after 1 or 2 jumps!! :twisted:

 

[rust]

If you can find some way of sneaking up to a big ship and maybe attaching it near the drives - that might work. Just set it to detonate after 1 or 2 jumps!! :twisted:

Yep, but a normal nuke would do the same, and could be smaller because
it would not require any capacitors - and you would save more than 90 MCr ...

 

[RichardP]

Solomani666

It is in one of the TNE News entries towards the end of the rebellion. They were published in the Challenge Magazine (I will check which one later). The Verge Confederation split from Dulinor, Dulinor sent in the warships to show them the error of their ways, and they responded with the large drones.

Don't think the info is online anywhere - but I will check.

 

[locarno24]

If you can find some way of sneaking up to a big ship and maybe attaching it near the drives - that might work. Just set it to detonate after 1 or 2 jumps!!

If you plan the design properly, the black globe might actually help with that. After all, whilst active it doesn't radiate in the slightest.

 

[RichardP]

Yes, but as it gets close it will blank out the stars and anything else behind the globe. Eventually a significant portion of the sky as viewed by the target ship goes completely black, automated sensors will spot that.

 

[RichardP]

Finally found that info on STL speeds, time dilation etc. This info is for a 12 parsec flight and ignores acceleration / deceleration.

Velocity C Velocity km/hr Time Dilation
0.1 107000000 0.995 32.6 32.44
0.2 214000000 0.98 16.3 15.97
0.3 321000000 0.954 10.87 10.37
0.4 428000000 0.917 8.15 7.47
0.5 535000000 0.866 6.52 5.65
0.6 642000000 0.8 5.43 4.35
0.7 749000000 0.714 4.66 3.33
0.8 856000000 0.6 4.075 2.45
0.9 963000000 0.436 3.62 1.58
0.95 1016500000 0.312 3.43 1.07
0.99 1059300000 0.141 3.29 0.46
0.999 1069800000 0.045 3.263 .146

The last two columns are the actual time it takes to make the journey and the time the crew feels the journey has taken.

Also if you are using a Busard ram you need to get up to a high speed for the RAM to work (you have to go through a lot of space to pick up those few atoms of hydrogen). So you need internal fuel supplies to accelerate and decelerate at the end. It is suggested that fuel is in drop tanks which can be jettisoned when empty, and that the taks are located at the front of the ship to acts a shielding vs radiation and the fields from the ram itself. Also apparently they are limited to 0.8C, above that the ram field becomes unstable.

ALL THE ABOVE FROM STL ARTICLE IN WHITE DWARF 32 BY MARCUS L ROWLAND