Sandcastors with no sand?

[Imeanunoharm]

In trillion credit squadron there are many ships with sandcasters but no Tons allocated to sand barrels. Sure some of them have cargo holds capable of holding enough sand, but others do not.
e.g.
Aeolus pg 63
Arges pg 86
Gygess pg 81

I'm sure there are more, but you get the gist.

A standard load out should be accounted for, so that you know off the cuff how many rounds you can defend for. Your construction spreadsheet is lacking.

 

[Condottiere]

I'll speculate that the ship designer(s) overlooked the issue of ammunition in general.

If you check out the Arges, it has no slugs for the spinally mounted railgun; so basically, unarmed.

 

[phavoc]

You always have that free shot (i.e. one in the chamber). After that I'm sure there's a break in combat for tea and crumpets. No need for pesky ammunition, let alone proper magazines set next to the weapon systems!

 

[Condottiere]

Maybe there's a separate magazine ship/cargo pod that is docked to the rear of the ship?

 

[Imeanunoharm]

Maybe there's a separate magazine ship/cargo pod that is docked to the rear of the ship?

It's official designation is Ammunition Caboose, OOOKKAAAYYY

 

[phavoc]

Maybe there's a separate magazine ship/cargo pod that is docked to the rear of the ship?

Since combat turns are 6min long, I suppose it would be possible to hump a sand cannister from one part of the ship to another and load it. If you turn the gravity plates down you could tow a few of them by yourself. It would justify some of the larger crews...

 

[Imeanunoharm]

On that note, what military ship in the real world has such small holds? I get that food etc is subsumed into the general dTons of staterooms etc, but you still need holds on ships for other cargo, even if your ship is purely military, and tended by backup lines of supply. You may still need to carry shit occasionally.

 

[wbnc]

What I have been playing around with is a basic auto loader/magazine options for vessels.

Autoloader:
tonnage: 0.5 ton per ammo using turret/bay/mount
Cost 0.05Mcr

This is the actual physical mechanism that moves ammo from storage to turret. including a half ton ready magazine under the turret itself.

Storage space for ammo is bought in 5 ton Blocks. It includes handling gear, safety systems and ammo management systems.

Each magazine takes up 6 tons and holds five tons of ammo.you can mix ammo for several turrets or systems and mix ammo types in each magazine. when combined the magazine/loader mechanism takes up about as much space as a two car garage on a ship which seems about right for a warship or large armed vessel.

if you use the loader without the ammo storage system it take 1 round to load a single ton of ammo, and you cant load while the turret is firing.The turret holds a single missile or sand caster so you have to have someone loading the weapon manually if no loader is attached.also you have to manually switch out ammo types which takes an action for the gunner, or a loader( extra crew slot per turret)

If you use the automated system and a connected Magazine it loads automatically as ammo is used and can switch between types of ammo on the fly. If one type of ammo is selected the system bypasses the ready magazine in the turret and loads a round of the selected ammo type.

For completeness you can designate a slot on the hit chart from cargo to ammo, if you want the chance of your magazine going KABOOM...one hit jams the loader or turret util it is cleared ( repair check) second hit destroys the loader and needs serious repair time turret useless f it needs ammo...third hit sets off ammo in the magazine if applicable....."There are things back there that react badly to gunfire."

This is one of the systems I was inspired by.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-unZOJEZjC4

 

[Condottiere]

Maybe there's a separate magazine ship/cargo pod that is docked to the rear of the ship?

Since combat turns are 6min long, I suppose it would be possible to hump a sand cannister from one part of the ship to another and load it. If you turn the gravity plates down you could tow a few of them by yourself. It would justify some of the larger crews...

That's why you have minions.

Staterooms - I'd assume adequate supplies for a month.

Magazines - I assume adequate automated handling equipment and secured/safe storage facility, as I believe that canisters and missiles about sixty percent in volume of given capacity.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

What happens if you put sand casters on a surface Naval Ship. Say on the USS Ronald Reagan for instance?

Somehow, I don't think sandcasters would be of much help in this situation.

 

[phavoc]

Well, if you have a spare Superdimensional Space Fortress (SDF) lying around, and a couple of spare carriers, you can always attach them to the SDF and use them as launching platforms.

It does help to provide structural reinforcement, however, when punching through large objects with the aforementioned carriers.