dmccoy1693
Cosmic Mongoose
I'm trying something new with my ships. What are your thoughts on this? Feel free to be brutal. And please ignore the lack of labels.
New Ship Drawing, Thoughts?
- Thread starter dmccoy1693
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I'm trying something new with my ships. What are your thoughts on this? Feel free to be brutal. And please ignore the lack of labels.
Nice plans - would like to see external rendering.
I would say that a 75t fighter would have to be at least as good as its cost in 10t fighters and there's the transport issue too: a subsidised merchant can ferry between 7 and 10 fighters in its hold depending on degree of reassembly tolerated at destination; it can also act as a tanker and operational base in deep space for 3 or 4.
A 75t fighter is a big piece of kit to transport and with a single hardpoint, I'm not sure it pays for its keep. I can however see some advantages:
- you'd expect a much higher endurance so maybe one of these could patrol more than the same area that its equivalent in smaller ships could;
- the ship can accommodate more crew and reduced workload in combat always translates into superior capability;
- if the ship is a missile boat then its size gives it a good magazine.
However I'm also wondering whether the lessons of the battle of Britain pertain: I'm think Bf109 vs Bf110. Size means inertia and inertia means less agility.
You asked for some brutality - well rather than that I'll offer an opinion on ship construction based on contemporary design themes. Warships need to be as small as they can be subject to mission - this reduces weight and profile. Crews tend to come second to all other considerations including comfort. So I would expect the internal space within the vessel to be at an absolute minimum. Hotbunks for a military crew is perfectly acceptable and the bridge should be the size of two chairs plus access. I would get rid of all of the white space on the deck plans and devote it to fuel, drives, armour, avionics and weaponry. If the fighter is designed for endurance, I might be persuaded to give the crew a dedicated rec room and a galley, otherwise not.
reducing the size of the internal space also minimises the effects of explosive decompression - less force and easier to re-pressurise from tanks once repaired.
With your indulgence, I might have a go in MSPaint at an external view.
PS: I'm not precious about any of this - feel free to shout it down and offer alternative veiws. They are after all just my views.
I would say that a 75t fighter would have to be at least as good as its cost in 10t fighters and there's the transport issue too: a subsidised merchant can ferry between 7 and 10 fighters in its hold depending on degree of reassembly tolerated at destination; it can also act as a tanker and operational base in deep space for 3 or 4.
A 75t fighter is a big piece of kit to transport and with a single hardpoint, I'm not sure it pays for its keep. I can however see some advantages:
- you'd expect a much higher endurance so maybe one of these could patrol more than the same area that its equivalent in smaller ships could;
- the ship can accommodate more crew and reduced workload in combat always translates into superior capability;
- if the ship is a missile boat then its size gives it a good magazine.
However I'm also wondering whether the lessons of the battle of Britain pertain: I'm think Bf109 vs Bf110. Size means inertia and inertia means less agility.
You asked for some brutality - well rather than that I'll offer an opinion on ship construction based on contemporary design themes. Warships need to be as small as they can be subject to mission - this reduces weight and profile. Crews tend to come second to all other considerations including comfort. So I would expect the internal space within the vessel to be at an absolute minimum. Hotbunks for a military crew is perfectly acceptable and the bridge should be the size of two chairs plus access. I would get rid of all of the white space on the deck plans and devote it to fuel, drives, armour, avionics and weaponry. If the fighter is designed for endurance, I might be persuaded to give the crew a dedicated rec room and a galley, otherwise not.
reducing the size of the internal space also minimises the effects of explosive decompression - less force and easier to re-pressurise from tanks once repaired.
With your indulgence, I might have a go in MSPaint at an external view.
PS: I'm not precious about any of this - feel free to shout it down and offer alternative veiws. They are after all just my views.
dmccoy1693
Cosmic Mongoose
fthlagen said:
I haven't bought that artwork yet. But since the interior is done, the exterior is not far behind.
fthlagen said:
Another advantage is that a 10 ton fighter can only have a single weapon while a 75 ton can have up to 3. I'm not even sure that it is limited to 1 hardpoint. The Traveller Main Rulebook and High Guard (p 61) almost seem to disagree. It is not obvious until you get to the 90 ton fighters.
Thanks for the feedback.
AndrewW
Emperor Mongoose
dmccoy1693 said:
The Traveller Core Rulebook ship construction doesn't cover small craft use High Guard for that.
In a pure fighter action, I could see the 75t model being a serious pain in the backside for smaller craft. While I suppose some combats would take place at 6G and up close (and teh larger fighter might be vulnerable), I suspect a lot of actions would be joined at sensor range rather than visual.
A 75t craft with 10t radar would have good visibility and the radar would be strong enough to burn through jamming using brute force.
It also depends on doctrine. If a fighter is part of a weapon system with ground direction and so forth, its primary usefulness starts to become its ability to carry ordnance to target rather than its dog-fighting ability.
A 75t craft with 10t radar would have good visibility and the radar would be strong enough to burn through jamming using brute force.
It also depends on doctrine. If a fighter is part of a weapon system with ground direction and so forth, its primary usefulness starts to become its ability to carry ordnance to target rather than its dog-fighting ability.
dmccoy1693
Cosmic Mongoose
AndrewW said:
I know. The poster made reference that both 70 ton and 10 ton craft have only 1 hardpoint (since the TMB says that there can only be 1 hardpoint/100 tons). High Guard doesn't say anything about small craft and hardpoints. It talks about number of ship weapons that can be mounted to a small craft. It also says that there must be atleast 1 turret/3 ship weapons mounted on a small craft. From 10-80 tons, all weapons can be on a single turret so there is no problem there. But at 90 tons, a small craft can have 4 mounts, requiring a yet un-created quad mounted turret or more than 1 turret => more than 1 hardpoint. So High Guard and the Main book disagree.
In short, I was politely disagreeing with the poster.
dmccoy1693
Cosmic Mongoose
This was produced with Cosmographer. I tried making them in Photoshop and in Microsoft Visio. Both took far too long and I think I like the results of this better.lexx2503 said:
Without knowing the specifications not much can be said on the performance of your craft. While you can mount 3 weapons (in either fixed or a turret - both of which require 1 ton for turret fire control), your powerplant dictates the types of weaponry you can carry. With the right mix you could have a particle beam for offensive weaponry (takes two slots), and a sand caster for defense (takes ammo though). Or any number of combinations.
Also your heavy fighter has the potential firepower of a starship, but has the potential vulnerability of a small craft (i.e. you're an eggshell looking for a hammer to crack it). It looks like there is plenty of internal space for access to things, but that's not really necessary for a small craft that requires a mothership. And the amount of fuel you are carrying (by the illustration at least) seems excessive for a heavy fighter. With the craft's mass you aren't going to be able to be faster than a standard starship, so that means you'll need armor and evasiveness to survive your attack runs. And a craft that heavy is going to be an assault-style ship, so really having 12-24 hrs endurance is probably going to be enough for most combat. Freeing up displacement means you can mount other types of defenses (active or passive).
Also your heavy fighter has the potential firepower of a starship, but has the potential vulnerability of a small craft (i.e. you're an eggshell looking for a hammer to crack it). It looks like there is plenty of internal space for access to things, but that's not really necessary for a small craft that requires a mothership. And the amount of fuel you are carrying (by the illustration at least) seems excessive for a heavy fighter. With the craft's mass you aren't going to be able to be faster than a standard starship, so that means you'll need armor and evasiveness to survive your attack runs. And a craft that heavy is going to be an assault-style ship, so really having 12-24 hrs endurance is probably going to be enough for most combat. Freeing up displacement means you can mount other types of defenses (active or passive).
dmccoy1693 said:
You many only mount a maximum of three energy weapons in a small craft. And a 100ton small craft can potentially have 5 total starship-class weapons. However weapons 4-5 cannot be energy weapons, so that means they can only be a missile or torpedo.
In theory, our 100 ton fighter can mount 3 lasers and carry 2 torpedoes, with each torpedo still massing 2.5 tons but taking up a single weapon slot. One ton of fire control must be set aside for the fixed or turreted mounts.
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
Is it keeping that radar array in hammerspace?
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