Ship Design Philosophy

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Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

230. Firmpointed variant beam laser range reduction to adjacent, and power consumption to one fifth of a tonne standard fusion, at two hundred kilostarbux.

231. Volume would be 9.6 dogfight missiles, and cost equivalent to one hundred twenty eight.

232. Both weapon systems can be used for point defence, but rather suspect that in order to be effective in that role, the beam laser needs to be mounted in a one tonne turret, whether single, double, triple or quadruple.

233. The firmpointed one most likely in a single turret, which adds an additional power point and one tonne of volume.

234. It's too bad that the container-launch system cannot be firmpointed.

235. Though with a capacity of four standard sized missiles, it seems reloading costs that of the full twelve, plus fifty kilostarbux, which seems off by my reckoning, by two thirds.

236. We now know that missile guidance costs one hundred fifty kilostarbux, probably more an issue for when you paramilitarizey a civilian vessel.

237. I'm a little sceptical in terms of missile surging using default missiles, since even with a triple turret you launch three missiles, rinse, repeat.

238. Interceptor missiles would give you a salvo of eight, and dogfight missiles sixteen.

239. Sixteen dogfight missiles does seem the optimum use for a relatively cheap and fast solution against a missile swarm in point defence mode.

 

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Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

240. I suppose what you could do is increase capacity by budgetting the launcher container missile system.

241. However, it's no means a given that whether due to fire control issues, or rigid adherence to the rules, you can convert spare capacity to either more default sized missiles, or thirty percent shrunken ones.

242. Assuming you could, twenty percent increase in size of the container launcher won't be enough for an extra standard sized missile.

243. 6.857 thirty percent shrunken missiles, at one hundred twenty percent.

244. Considering the capability to control sixteen dogfight missiles, seems doable.

245. 13.7 interceptor missiles.

246. 27.4 dogfight missiles.

247. You don't actually need to launch all at once, just maybe maximum sixteen at a time, which would leave you with a second salvo of eleven.

248. Set up as a separate weapon system from a spaceship, you could have a network on mobile dirtside launch vehicles, like the Russian Triumph.

249. Supposedly to stay within the rules, the dirtside vehicle would have to have a volume of fourteen hundred cubic metres.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Why Can Civilians Own Armed Spaceships in Sci-Fi?

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Actually, the authorities, in whole or part, close an eye.

 

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Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

250. One way to deal with reloading, could be moving the launcher container onto a hardpoint that's in the centre of a cargo hatch elevator.

251. Whether having a hardpoint in the centre of a cargo hatch elevator is legal, is one of those unknowables.

252. However, there an integrated hardpoint in a pop up turret.

253. Of course, the point of the launcher container is to use a turretless hardpoint.

254. So what we want is a turretless pop up turret, where the launcher container would be attached to an unattached hardpoint.

255. By my yardstick of fifty percent plus for a launcher, the launcher container should be six standard missiles volume, or half a tonne.

256. The pop up slot could be disguised to be a normal part of the hull, which could surprise opponents.

257. Once all or some of the missiles are used up, the pop up elevator lowers itself, and the crew could fill up the empty cells.

258. Default turrets take up one tonne, so half a tonne launcher should be easily installed in the pop up mechanism.

259. Hard to say how fast the container launcher can be reloaded, but you probably can take reloading missiles in a turret as the starting point.

 

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Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

260. More recently, Chartered Aliens Too introduces, or updates the missile container/launcher.

261. One major difference is that these versions are one shot disposable lightweight boxes, with the requisite packing and electronics to make it and keep it in fireable condition.

262. While the singles and doubles can be affixed to firmpoints, and a hardpoint required for the quadruples.

263. It is mentioned that missiles can be replaced at cost plus a hundred kilostarbux, so not so disposable.

264. No mention is made if you can fit in a torpedo, dogfight or interceptor missiles.

265. Basic cost is half a megastarbux.

266. I'm a tad doubtful regarding the capability to surge especially considering reloading costs.

267. At best, you could attach a double capacity container/launcher per firmpoint.

268. And in theory, you podulate a bunch of ten tonne hulls.

269. But this is really starting to cost actual money.

 

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Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

270. Interestingly enough, the torpedo grapple doesn't require a reloading charge.

271. However, no idea how much space it takes, only the installation cost.

272. The firmpointed ones can take a double torpedo, and the hardpointed ones a quadruple mount.

273. You probably can't pull off the pop up trick with the default popper upper.

274. Assuming the torpedo cradles are still at half a tonne per, you could probably pull it off with a single mount on a firmpoint.

275. A double mount is one tonne, and did get switched for the missile turret in the Harrier, so it could still be feasible.

276. It's a tad puzzling why one hundred fifty kilostarbux is quoted for the replacement cost.

277. Does that mean that it costs the equivalent for three torpedoes to reload one torpedo?

278. Or do we divide by three and use the individual cost to reload each missile.

279. If so, another weapon system that isn't worth it.

 

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Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

280. On the surface the combination missile/torpedo launcher seems great.

281. Despite the twenty five percent premium, who wouldn't love launching a third tonne torpedo, or three, through a one tonne turret.

282. All it needs, one interprets, is an extra tonne per launcher configured for that.

283. For a quadruple turret, that would mean four launchers in five tonnes, compared to three launchers in a barbette.

284. Or more conventionally, three launchers, in four tonnes versus five tonne barbette.

285. One problem is the possibility of loading failures, whether torpedoes or missiles.

286. However, cannot find what the actual failure rate is, so you can't really calculate the actual advantages for using the combination missile/torpedo launcher.

287. The only circumstance that I can think of where this would be an advantage is if you have a single firmpoint, and you have a light torpedo bomber.

288. Twenty five percent premium tends to add up, and you can't use them in normal launchers.

289. Speaking of which, I'm not sure you could actually have a universal launcher for all the different configurations of missiles and torpedoes.

 

[Condottiere]

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However, I understand it's going to cost you an arm and a leg.

 

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Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

290. Interceptor missiles have acceleration twelve, two dice and a range of short.

291. Also, plus two bonus.

292. The pulse laser would be the natural comparison, having two dice, bonus plus two, but range is long.

293. Both can be used for point defence.

294. But the pulse laser requires 0.2667 tonnes of standard fusion, which is basically 0.2667 megastarbux.

295. Volume would be 6.4 interceptor missiles, and the cost equivalent to fifty one and one fifth interceptor missiles.

296. Interceptor missiles guarantee a kill against a missile, compared to sixty seven percent for the dogfight, and a fifty percent chance against a torpedo, compared to thirty three percent

297. In a way, it's more complex than just looking at statistics.

298. With lots of launchers, dogfight missiles might be a better bang for buck, since you could assign more than per target.

299. With few launchers, it might be preferable to have a guaranteed hit.

 

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Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

300. The primary advantage of missiles is the ability to throw a lot of dice at the target in a short time frame.

301. In theory, that means a large bay is the optimum use of resources with one gunner per hundred twenty five tonnes.

302. A medium bay allows more flexibility in being able to split the same number of launchers over several targets, with though with one gunner per fifty tonnes.

303. A small bay allows even further micromanagement, though it would still use one hardpoint.

304. While missile bays tend to scale, the small bay is about half a megastarbux cheaper.

305. A barbette requires zero power, compared to the default one for a turret.

306. Missile bays need five power points per fifty tonnes.

307. Barbettes can launch five missiles per turn, hardpointed ones have integral twenty five magazines, firmpointed ones eight.

308. It's nine hundred sixty kilostarbux per launcher for medium and large bays, an exact megastarbux for the small one.

309. It's eight hundred kilostarbux per launcher for barbettes, seven hundred fifty kilostarbux turrets plus two hundred kilostarbux per single, two fifty kilostarbux for double, one third megastarbux for triple; half a megastarbux per for a quadruple turret, plus two power points.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

310. I remember from somewhere that sandcasters and missile launchers have each three ready rounds per individual weapon system in the turret, though that probably violates physics.

311. I don't know how I missed that, but going by the descriptive text, each turret either has a missile rack with twelve missiles, or one missile rack per individual launcher.

312. As far as I can tell, in most ship designs the missile magazines are listed separately, which would be appropriate.

313. The assumption would be that the racks are external to the turret, but are limited to twelve missiles, that need one round to reload each time in batches of twelve.

314. Presumably you can choose from a selection of different types of missiles, though hard to figure out where there would be space for that mechanism, unless the mechanism is integral to the launcher in the turret.

315. Taking these hardpointed assumptions as valid, the firmpointed ones suddenly become more poignant.

316. The barbette has the same volume, yet the firmpointed one has only eight reloads ready for missiles, compared to twenty five, and two torpedoes compared to three, though it's always been clear this was supposed to be a game balancing sleight of hand.

317. For missile racks, again it's understood this is supposed to be a game balancing mechanism, but considering that the same volume is involved, twelve against four also has no logic.

318. The answer to this might be considered unnecessary complication, by having variable sized racks that can be used for both firm and hard pointed variants, just that the bigger and more sophisticated they become, the costs are exponentially increased.

319. There is sop given to the firmpointed missile variants such as the laser variants, since you could say that lack of range gets compensated by a decrease in power required.

 

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Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

320. I'm going to veer off here into sandcaster territory.

321. I lost interest in that weapon system when I couldn't figure out how to use them as missile launchers.

322. Basically, a cold launch that pushes out the missile, and then the rocket lights up.

323. So when I was examining turret weapons, I was surprised to note that that the firmpointed version isn't discriminated against.

324. So whatever qualifies as a rack for sandcasters, is the same for either the hard pointed or firmpointed versions.

325. So, besides the twelve reloads mistake, this was either deliberate or editorial oversight.

326. If it was deliberate, logic dictates the same requirements would be applied to missile racks.

327. As regards to my quest to missilize the sandcaster, it involved a lot of shrinking of the missiles, and a lot of budgetting the sandcaster.

328. And then bracketing the missile into sabots that correspond to the calibre of the sandcaster.

329. Speaking of which, like dogfight and interceptor missiles, there have never been mini variants of the canisters.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

330. Speaking of throwing a lot of dice at a target, especially with a limited number of launchers.

331. That would make the fragmentation and multi warhead missiles the most useful missiles in such cases.

332. Twelve multi warhead missiles costs three quarters of a megastarbux, divided by three, would make that a quarter of a megastarbux, or individually twenty and five sixths of a kilostarbux.

333. Standard missile costs the same, but has an additional dice, though quantitatively it's four dice against nine per missile.

334. In a mass strike, you probably get more of your money's worth using standard missiles.

335. On the other hand, the fragmentation missile may actually be the best bang for buck, under the right circumstances.

336. Meant to be used against swarm attacks, or anyone confident enough to bunch four of their spacecraft in adjacent range of each other.

337. Another usual function is for fragmentation missiles to be used in the counter missile role, though useless against torpedoes.

338. Descriptively, it's a guaranteed kill on a one to one basis, though you have to wonder if that's one target (per missile), or four targets (per fragmentation effect).

339. I'm inclined to think it's one missile, but that you can target the incoming missiles at a greater distance than that of point defence weapon systems.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

340. Looking at the oddballs, we have shockwave and jumbreaker.

341. Shockwave disperses sand clouds through a magnetic pulse.

342. Sandcutters have the same effective, though only fifty percent effective, and you have to get to close range.

343. I would suppose if you could get a larger warhead with an electromagnetic pulse.

344. Which I guess what the electromagnetic pulse torpedo would be for, so I wonder why that wouldn't disperse sand clouds?

345. I guess the most effective use is to launch one or two shockwave missiles against a warship every round, neutralizing their sandcaster defences in total.

346. Since this appears to be an area effect, that lasts two rounds.

347. The jumpbreaker is pretty expensive at eighty three and a third kilostarbux per, to penalize jumping for the next two rounds.

348. This would have been one missile that really benefitted from acceleration fifteen, instead of ten, because by the time it closes in on the target, if it didn't wonder off, or get shot down, the target may have already jumped.

349. It may be that the jumpbreaker is an entirely military missile, since I'm not sure how customs authorities are going to justify that cost.

 

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Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

350. Outside of ortillery, which in my opinion just needs a faster motor, nuclear has the highest damage potential with six dice.

351. Radiation is a nasty add on, but presumably having radiated areas swept with dampers cleanses the.

352. It appears that the Confederation Navy emphasizes heavy use of them against civilian spaceships and infrastructure.

353. That's the part that annoys me, since if you wanted to sledge hammer something, ortillery missile with a faster motor would be the better, not necessarily the more humane, choice.

354. Obviously, the torpedo multi warhead is the missile warhead, since they have the same damage, though the missiles cost thirty seven and a half kilostarbux each, compared to around sixty six and two thirds kilostarbux per warhead.

355. The advantage is no wandering off, and greater resiliency for the torpedo.

356. Even with default performance, you launch at very long range, and avoid the wandering off aspect.

357. A nuclear torpedo has eight dice at seventy five kilostarbux, compared to six dice for the missile, and costs double.

358. Ortillery torpedo at three deadly dice is probably the most destructive force outside of spinal mounts.

359. That would make it the Mother Of All Bombs.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

360. The decoy missile costs about half as much as the multi warhead, and is about as effective in avoiding counterfire.

361. However, the multi warhead triples it's offensive power, which sort of makes it better buck banged.

362. Instead of the decoy, a better choice might be High-speed Anti-Radiation missile.

363. Then, the target has the choice of switching off the sensors, or having a called shot hit that seeks out the largest sensor signature.

364. Of course, targetting is degraded if the sensors are switched off, but persistent memory will tell the HARM missile the general location of the target.

365. Long range costs double that of standard, and has a dice less damage.

366. On the other hand, it's not going to wander off.

367. Ironically, acceleration fifteen tends to ensure it would have needed only to make that wandering off check once.

368. I think if I had to use the, I would use them to fire a shot across the bow.

369. Increase endurance to fifteen rounds, shrink the warhead to one dice, and maybe make it small enough to be fired from a sandcaster.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

370. Which is where I guess the anti radiation torpedo comes in.

371. It can only home in on an active sensor, but gets a plus six bonus, and hits with six dice.

372. Since unlike dirtside radars, spaceships tend to move, persistent memory might not be that effective.

373. Once sensor lock has been lost, you could have the torpedo switchover to normal sensors and reacquire the target.

374. One reason that you'd want a high speed missile for this mission, is to narrow down the time that the enemy commander has to evaluate his options regarding the sensors, since he could always risk it, and just prioritize point defence against it.

375. And while we are on the electro magnetic spectrum, we have what I suppose you could have called the ion torpedo.

376. That's seventy six and two thirds for four dice, against six dice for a small bay, and eight dice against a medium bay, respectively fifteen and twenty five megastarbux each.

377. Bay default is medium range, but you could improve that to long.

378. But that's about one hundred ninety five (130 based on dice) and three hundred twenty six torpedoes (163 based on dice), respectively.

379. Barbette would launch three torpedoes, small bay three missiles, and medium bay six torpedoes, which might work on a surge, but requires coordination.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

380. I was curious what the production cost of missiles actually would be, well at least in an orbital factory.

381. I'm going with an advanced facility, available at technology level ten, which requires twenty five tonnes of plant to produce one tonne of advanced weapons per day, which probably includes missiles and torpedoes, half a crewman, and two power points, at a cost of four hundred kilostarbux.

382. My second thought was, how much does the raw material cost?

383. My first was, how do you create a budget variant, if cost is based solely on tonnage?

384. Since advanced manufacturing plants default to technological level ten, I'm not sure they would automatically qualify for doubling the amount of goods, that is twelve and a half tonnes of plant per tonne, with a quarter crewman keeping watch.

385. At technological level thirteen, tripling productivity means twenty five tonnes of raw materials are value added to three tonnes of goods, with one eighth of a crewmember supervising.

386. If you manage to set up shop in a system with a high technology trade code, you can increase productivity by another twenty five percent.

387. Basically, the missile has a chassis, motivation, fuel, sensors, and the warhead.

388. Chassis could be created using a spaceship hull, motivation a reactionary rocket, fuel tank is free (fuel is not), sensors is unknown, warhead is unknow, but presumably the cost for both can be deduced by deducting the rest of the components.

389. So far, the manufacturing plant has only given us the fixed costs, basically the capital investment of the plant, and how much labour is required, which you assume should be paid, whether the plant is producing or not, not accounting for administration, loan repayments, and so on.

 

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Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

390. I would guess you would get raw materials from the smelter.

391. You can process twenty percent into common and ten percent into uncommon raw materials, though no mention is made of the actual size of the smelter, so I'll assume it's part of the mineral refinery.

392. Trying to decipher how a mineral refinery works, at technological level thirteen, is that one tonne of refinery can produce two tonnes of ores in a day, at two megastarbux per tonne.

393. So one more step backwards, I now have to figure out the costs of belt mining.

394. And I'm going to admit I got lost at this point.

395. A warhead would be a trigger and a hunk of explosive materials.

396. If I bought it straight from the spot market, a tonne of uncommon ores is five kilostarbux.

397. Explosives would have undergone a manufacturing process.

398. So basically, I can't figure out how to manufacture missiles (or torpedoes), and would have to accept the default prices, and just order them from an established military industrial complex.

399. Maybe I'll have better luck with railgun ammunition.

 

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Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

400. Maybe I should try to reeaxamine the possibilities of coopting a sandcaster launcher for missiles.

401. You budget it and get sixteen and two thirds canisters per tonne, or sixty kilogrammes.

402. Thirty percent reduction of standard missile brings us to fifty eight and one third kilogrammes, or a tad over seventeen per tonne.

403. In theory, it should be enough to squeeze in a sandcaster launcher, but I rather doubt it.

404. I'm sure I'm wrong, and packaging for something like this would require less material, but let's say we use the same rule of thumb for the size of container launchers in general, one hundred fifty percent, and that would mean a budgetted sandcaster launcher could launch a missile container of sixty kilogrammes.

405. That would mean the maximum size of the missile would be forty kilogrammes.

406. By extension, a normal sandcaster would accommodate a thirty three and one third kilogramme missile, and a shrunken one, twenty three and one third kilogrammes.

407. Currently, the smallest missile is the dogfight, at a default twenty and five sixths kilogrammes, so doable.

408. Interceptor missile is double that forty one and two sixths kilogrammes, so not at default.

409. Thirty percent shrink would be twenty nine and one sixth kilogrammes, so normal sized sandcaster; ten percent shrink is thirty seven and three quarters kilogrammes, so doable for the budget variant.