Pods?

[AnotherDilbert]

Pods. A way to customise a ship without any cost in either tonnage or money.

Properties:
A separate hull that is semipermanently attached to the main hull at no cost.
Has its own separate hull points?
Cumulative power plants, so presumably cumulative drives?
Fights as a part of the total ship, but can be locally controlled if needed?


Advantages:
Customisation.
No extra cost.
Presumably each pod can launch separate salvoes, so a ship can launch several separate salvoes against the same target simultaneously?


Disadvantages:
Less hull points per dT than the main hull, so the ship has less total hull points.
Can be targeted separately, so easy to destroy with damage that would be trivial to the total ship?
Needs additional Sub-Command Centres (trivial)?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Less hull points per dT than the main hull, so the ship has less total hull points.

As I look closer at the Element cruisers, it seems not. The pods appear to get more hull points when they are attached.

Can be targeted separately, so easy to destroy with damage that would be trivial to the total ship?

As the pods seems to be completely subsumed into the main ship, that is also probably wrong.

 

[Condottiere]

There has to be some minor cost in tonnage and money.

Any connections, freight, passenger, controls, plumbing, in addition.

There never was anything against the concept in principle, except how much acceleration it could or should tolerate.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

There has to be some minor cost in tonnage and money.

There does not appear to be, but I can't exactly recreate the Element cruisers so it is possible.

 

[arcador]

If there is a cost, it's lower than the modular hull (or it should be)

According to the text, it takes a few weeks to attach/detach the pod back to the cruiser.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

If I make a 50 kDt cruiser with four modules à 2600 Dt it would cost about MCr 1000.
If I make the same cruiser a breakaway design it would cost 1000 Dt and MCr 2000.
If I make a pod design it costs nothing, except possibly a few small bridges?

Unlike modules the pods can contain their own power plant so we do not need to dimension the main power plant for the highest possible power demand.

Unlike modules, pods are external and drive performance is recalculated when they are not carried.

The only real downside is that is takes longer to reconfigure the ship.

Hm, as pods are designed as their own hulls, they are probably limited to their own size in hardpoints, which we can abuse with tiny pods with firmpoints. 10 pods of 10 Dt would only be 100 Dt, yet could have 10 single PD turrets.

I think we have a new, overpowered, favourite way to build customisable ships...

 

[arcador]

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[AnotherDilbert]

Take a simple pod-ship, 10 kDt including 500 pods of 10 Dt with a firmpoint and a single laser turret.

It has 50 triple laser turrets and 500 single firmpoint laser turrets (controlled by Virtual Gunner).

50 turrets with optimised gunners kills 8 missiles each for 400 missiles.
500 small turrets (automated) kills average 2.3 missiles each for 1150 missiles.
Total kill 1550 missiles per round for GCr 7.

A simple missile boat for the same cost can launch about 500 missiles.

It would seem PD can now overpower any reasonable launch capacity...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

If I include optimised gunners I can only carry 350 pods for the same cost, but they would kill 6 missiles each for 2100 missiles per round.

Together with the regular turrets the missile kill capacity is over 2600 missiles per round for GCr 7.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Pod Free Trader

200 Dt, J-3, M-3, MCr 57.
Crew 4, Passengers 10, Low 9, Cargo 4 Dt.

Can carry up to four 100 Dt pods.
J-3: No pods.
J-2: One pod.
J-1: Four pods.

A 100 Dt cargo pod costs a little over MCr 3.

We have been able to do this with external cargo before, but now we can do it economically with internal cargo maintaining streamlining and capacity to land and refuel.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Generic warship fuel/PD pod:

5000 Dt pod that mostly consists of 400 10 Dt PD pods.

Contains 3500 Dt fuel, 10 hardpoint turrets, 400 firmpoint turrets (automated).
37 Crew, mostly gunners.

Note that most of the fuel is contained in the 10 Dt PD pods.

It's probably a silly idea, and too inefficient to use, but it can kill quite a few missiles...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Can a pod contain a spinal? Can we have several spinal pods?

Pod: 12 kDt, Meson (2DD), 3700 Dt fuel.

 

[Condottiere]

What's more interesting are podded spinal mounts.

 

[steve98052]

Are these a book rule I haven't noticed or a house rule offered for discussion?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Pods are introduced in the upcoming Element Class Cruiser. There is a preview available on Kickstart.