[Ship Design] Mercenary Transport & Dropship x2

[AnotherDilbert]

I’ll interpolate an “in-between” version to serve as the weapon. Max weight: 250 kg each.

Less than 250 kg is basically man-portable weapons in this system, e.g. HMG or PGMP. Anything from a 20 mm autocannon is 250 kg or more.

A HMG with APDS ammo will occasionally damage BD troops.


A couple of HMGs and a couple of PGMPs will take 1 Dt and provide a combination of autofire and pure destruction.

 

[Old School]

I played around with a similar exercise this morning. Bottom line: it is damned expensive to quickly put troops on the ground from space.

My scenario was an mechanized (grav) infantry company. 140 head, 11 grav Armored Personnel Carriers, plus three support vehicles. Basic organization was based on that of a US Army Heavy Infantry (Bradley) company, with the one change that the APCs were designed to hold a 9 man squad plus crew, so you don't have to split three squads into four vehicles as you do with the Bradley. APCs were just over MCr10 a piece, plus about MCr3 for a grav ambulance and MCr2 for a supply vehicle. Throw in the air raft for free at that point. Big cost is getting them to the ground: four 95 dton armored, fast shuttles (with another 12-16 crew) were MCr 48-51 each depending on the configuration. Total came in at over MCr310 to put a 140 person fighting force from space to the ground.

That doesn't include equipping the troops, although that's a comparatively minor expense. Can probably do that for Cr100,000 a man, including Cr88,000 for combat armor. so MCr14 for their kit brings you up to MCr325 all in. At that point your cost per man is so high you should probably go all in with battle dress and PMPGs, except you don't have room for battle dress in the shuttles or in the APCs.

Not to mention all this is going to take up at least 800 dtons in whatever ship brought them there.
--------------------------------
Trying to take it down a notch, if you wanted to do this a bargain rate, you cut your shuttle expense in more than half by using three slower, less armored shuttles. Vehicle expense you can reduce drastically by switching from grav to ground vehicles, although this greatly reduces your fighting capabilities as well. You also lose the ability to operate in vacuum, asteroids, etc. Vehicle expense drops from MCr116 to call it MCr5. Keeping your combat armor kit the same at MCr14, your all in is now MCr108, or 1/3 the cost of a high tech grav vehicle fighting force. And you only need 700 dtons in your carrier, not 800.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

You could possibly squeeze two sets of seats into 1 Dton, but remember you only have 1.5m of depth ...

1 Dt is 14 m³. With a deck height of 3 m that is 4.7 m² or over 1 m² per person in acc. benches, that is more than trice the area of cattle class. That is plenty of space...

With cattle-class seating it would be 2 rows of 5 seats wide + aisle in a single Dt, if we assumed 3 m deck height.

And let's not forget the old pre-cursor wheeled transport - the 2 1/2 ton utility truck. It's delivered a lot of troops to battle. And lemme tell you... they are as uncomfortable to ride in as you can imagine.

I don't have to imagine, I went through basic training at an armoured regiment (P10).

 

[Annatar Giftbringer]

I was thinking of adding a pair of belly-mounted, custom-designed VRF gauss weapons for covering fire during landings. The rules cover small weapon mounts, but the gauss weapons I’ve seen in the books are either too large or too small. I’ll interpolate an “in-between” version to serve as the weapon. Max weight: 250 kg each.

Anyone want to pitch stats for those?

As for the seating, perhaps a new chair design is warranted, one that serves the soldier’s needs.

Referee’s Briefing 4: mercenary forces actually has rules for VRF Gauss guns. 250 kg, compared to autocannons they have lower damage but vastly superior auto rating and AP. they can use special ammo.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I played around with a similar exercise this morning. Bottom line: it is damned expensive to quickly put troops on the ground from space.

My scenario was an mechanized (grav) infantry company. 140 head, 11 grav Armored Personnel Carriers, plus three support vehicles. Basic organization was based on that of a US Army Heavy Infantry (Bradley) company, with the one change that the APCs were designed to hold a 9 man squad plus crew, so you don't have to split three squads into four vehicles as you do with the Bradley.

Replace the grav vehicles with 10 Dt small craft. They can easily carry 10 troopers and have superior mobility. They can get anywhere on the planet (or moon) in an hour or so.

14 SpaceAPCs is only 140 Dt.

 

[Old School]

That's mainly a function of the vehicle rules requiring too much space per person, as well as the ridiculous armor rule for small spacecraft vs the more realistic rules for vehicles.

I am not at all a fan of going through multiple rule books to figure out how to exploit the breaks in the system. You're essentially invalidating the vehicle design system.

I do support the ideas of grav vehicles, property sealed and equipped, to descend directly from orbit without the shuttles, but it should take much longer.

 

[paltrysum]

Trying to take it down a notch, if you wanted to do this a bargain rate, you cut your shuttle expense in more than half by using three slower, less armored shuttles. Vehicle expense you can reduce drastically by switching from grav to ground vehicles, although this greatly reduces your fighting capabilities as well. You also lose the ability to operate in vacuum, asteroids, etc. Vehicle expense drops from MCr116 to call it MCr5. Keeping your combat armor kit the same at MCr14, your all in is now MCr108, or 1/3 the cost of a high tech grav vehicle fighting force. And you only need 700 dtons in your carrier, not 800.

Another way to take it down a notch on the shuttles is to get rid of the maneuver drives and install reaction drives with enough fuel to get to and from the planet's 100-diameter limit, which I would assume, would be about the maximum desired operational limit. So taking the worst-case scenario, a planet with size A has a maximum diameter of about 17,000km, making the 100-diameter limit about 1,700,000km. Using the Core Rulebook's estimated travel times, if you have a dropship that you want to get to and from the planet on one tank of gas, it will need about 6 hours of thrust. Reaction drives eat up a lot of space with their fuel requirements so it might be impractical to fit one into a 30-ton dropship, but it's worth the exercise.

The 30-ton limit on dropship size is to take advantage of the docking clamp classifications. Type I can attach to a ship of up to 30 tons. Moving up to the next size clamp quintuples the size and doubles the cost.

Referee’s Briefing 4: mercenary forces actually has rules for VRF Gauss guns. 250 kg, compared to autocannons they have lower damage but vastly superior auto rating and AP. they can use special ammo.

Great find! I'd forgotten that little book had some weapons in it. Since it's blessed as canon, I'll just use that.

Okay, here's take 2 of the dropship:

You get the cargo up to 3.25 tons, enough to carry the much-needed extra gear, up to 6G of acceleration at a reduced cost: 4G M-drive + 2G R-drive. When you have to get the hell out of there, you can haul at 6G, or save the gas if you just want to "cruise" at 4G. Dorsal and ventral small mount gauss guns to "clear the LZ" of hostiles. Acceleration benches for 36 soldiers (if we go with a more generous acceptance of how much volume that provides). Line up the benches so the troops can rush out the doors and voila! Dropship! As for vehicles, those are going to have to get to the ground aboard another ship. Just too expensive to carry them and the troops on one spacecraft—OR, use the "fold-up" ability of the seats and cram a 9-ton APC in there and bring it down on a separate trip.

As I compare the above with just a straight maneuver drive, the cost difference is negligible, maybe about Cr500,000. Probably go with just a 6G maneuver drive and maybe a retractable wall between the cargo and the fold-up bench region to enable the ship to carry an APC of up to 15 tons. So many choices!

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Another way to take it down a notch on the shuttles is to get rid of the maneuver drives and install reaction drives with enough fuel to get to and from the planet's 100-diameter limit, ...

Very space ineffective...

A 30 Dt craft with 1 g needs 0.3 Dt M-drive + 0.2 Dt P-Plant = 0.5 Dt.
Or 0.6 Dt R-drive + 0.75 Dt fuel for a single hour = 1.35 Dt.

The R-drive is slightly cheaper, but that is almost insignificant compared to the total cost of the craft.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

That's mainly a function of the vehicle rules requiring too much space per person, as well as the ridiculous armor rule for small spacecraft vs the more realistic rules for vehicles.

The main problem is the bizarre conversion between vehicles and spacecraft. A 5 tonne vehicle (20 Spaces) takes 10 Dt storage space, same as a 10 Dt (perhaps 100 tonne) small craft.

The aforementioned M113 is ~12.3 tonnes = 49 Spaces, so takes 24.5 Dt shipboard. Real size is 4.9 × 2.7 ≈ 13.3 m² ≈ 2.8 Dt with 3 m deck height. 24.5 Dt is just ridiculous.

You're essentially invalidating the vehicle design system.

Yes, because it is way too simplified and often gives ridiculous results.

 

[Condottiere]

There are two approaches:

1. You build the ship around the expected payload, in this case troops and their equipment, or

2. You get the ship and pro rata the troops and their equipment into that.

You probably should consult with the Dungeon Master about the going rate for Mercenary tickets, and their availability, because you still have to pay overheads during the off season.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Okay, here's take 2 of the dropship:

The R-drive is just a waste of space.

Note that the 250 kg gauss weapons take 1 Dt each.

You really need Radiation Shielding.

I might do something like this:

12.5 Dt cargo/passenger/fuel space, up to 50 passengers.
Airlock, Autodoc, Fresher, Snack bar.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

As for vehicles, those are going to have to get to the ground aboard another ship. Just too expensive to carry them and the troops on one spacecraft—OR, use the "fold-up" ability of the seats and cram a 9-ton APC in there and bring it down on a separate trip.

Load the troops into the APC, load the APC into the Drop Ship.

You can even drop the Grav APC in the air, barely even slowing down.

 

[paltrysum]

Budget drives would save tens of MCr, if you want to bother with tech advantages.

This results in a phenomenal cost reduction. It's easy to ameliorate by just adding more power plant. Seems like a no brainer. Why wouldn't you always do this with ship designs, really? Yes, you have to add a few tons to the power plant, taking away from cargo space and other things, but for the reduction in cost, it seems like it would be worth it most of the time.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

This results in a phenomenal cost reduction. It's easy to ameliorate by just adding more power plant. Seems like a no brainer. Why wouldn't you always do this with ship designs, really?

A) You don't do tech advantages.

B) You want to pack in as much payload as possible in high performance ships, so use Reduced Size/Fuel/Energy instead, e.g. warships.


Budget drives should be a standard consideration for civilian designs.

 

[Old School]

If your m drive rating is higher than your j drive then pick which way to go: either lower the cost via budget jump drives, since you have the excess power anyway, or use energy efficient m drives, which allow you to decrease your power plant to save space (and absorb means st of the added cost to the m drive).

While part of the vehicle system may be broken, its armor system is a whole heck of a lot more realistic than the broken armor system for small spaceships.

 

[phavoc]

You could possibly squeeze two sets of seats into 1 Dton, but remember you only have 1.5m of depth ...

1 Dt is 14 m³. With a deck height of 3 m that is 4.7 m² or over 1 m² per person in acc. benches, that is more than trice the area of cattle class. That is plenty of space...

With cattle-class seating it would be 2 rows of 5 seats wide + aisle in a single Dt, if we assumed 3 m deck height.

And let's not forget the old pre-cursor wheeled transport - the 2 1/2 ton utility truck. It's delivered a lot of troops to battle. And lemme tell you... they are as uncomfortable to ride in as you can imagine.

I don't have to imagine, I went through basic training at an armoured regiment (P10).

(shrug) I can't say how the book is calculating things. I'm just using a real-world example. Unless you are stacking your people vertically, that's not going to happen. The reality is something different than what the book is saying, so I prefer reality because I can get players to visualize that far easier. A nine foot deck height isn't enough to stack em two high unless they are midgets. Just means you have some ceiling or floor to run ducting, power cables, environmental, etc. Last time I was flying I thought I WAS in cattle class, err, economy class.

Ah, if you were armored you know some of the same joys (and pains) that I do. What was your job in the regiment?

 

[paltrysum]

You really need Radiation Shielding.

Not sure I see the point. With its 12 hull points, if this ship gets hit by a missile or a particle beam, radiation is the least of its worries.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

You really need Radiation Shielding.

Not sure I see the point. With its 12 hull points, if this ship gets hit by a missile or a particle beam, radiation is the least of its worries.

A particle or fusion weapon does not even have to hit to kill off the crew, it just have to be fired in the general direction of the vehicle.

Radiation: When a Radiation weapon is fired, anyone close to the firer, target and the line of fire in-between the two will receive 2D x 20 rads, multiplied by 5 for Spacecraft scale weapons. This effect extends from the firer, target and line of fire a distance in metres equal to the number of dice the weapon rolls for damage.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I'm just using a real-world example.

No, not really. You are comparing airliner cattle class to much roomier acc. benches.

No-one is talking about stacking people vertically?

One Dt is 4.7 m² with a standard 3 m deck height. With a real-world seat pitch of 80 cm, two rows, one in front of the other, is 1.6 m. So a Dt is 4.7 / 1.6 = 2.9 m wide (approximating two 1.5 m squares). With a real-world seat width of 45 cm that is 6.4 seats, side by side, or 5 seats plus an aisle.

So the four people in a Dt of acc. benches takes approximately the same floor area as 10 people in cattle class. Hence acc. benches are much roomier than cattle class.

Ah, if you were armored you know some of the same joys (and pains) that I do. What was your job in the regiment?

I transferred out after basic training. I did get to experience the pleasure of e.g. riding a flat-bed truck in terrain.

 

[phavoc]

I guess we can agree to disagree here. I've ridden in a lot of aircraft, especially the 737. It's cramped, but seats six crossways. I've never sat in an acceleration bench so I cannot say how that one works. But the standard eco omy seat with legroom is about, realistically, three feet in depth. 1.5m rounded up is five feet. As I said it's cutting things damn close, if not going over. And a soldier equipped with his gear cannot easily get out of that seat with so little room. Hence I am citing what I've seen and touches as reality, not what's written in the book.

Cubic space means nothing for seating, it's width and depth.