Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Lasers, and Drill, Baby, Drill!

1. So besides carving up asteroids, what can a laser drill do, in comparison with other energy weapons?

2. When used in smallcraft, or configured for smallcraft, and this is important, it doesn't lose it's range, since the rules limit it to adjacent in any event.

3. It's more than three times cheaper than a beam laser, and six times than a pulse laser.

4. Penalty is minus three to hit, but you can add to that plus one for close range, and plus one for accuracy, and if you win the dogfight, another plus two.

5. Compared to beam laser plus four inherent, plus one for close range, etcetera; pulse laser two inherent, plus one for close range, etcetera.

6. Since drilling requires some way to finely adjusting exactly where the beam cuts, it makes sense to have them in turrets; any that are in fixed mounts would indicate combat priority.

7. Default gunner/turret skill is eight, plus dexterity modifier.

8. Beam laser at close range is three, pulse is five, drill is ten.

9. Accuracy improvement would be beam at two, pulse at four, drill at nine.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Lasers, and Drill, Baby, Drill!

10. The firm pointed variant has it's energy draw reduced to three power points from four.

11. In theory, three levels of energy efficiency could reduce that to zero.

12. That seems unlikely, as most likely you'd interpret that as meaning seventy five percent time seventy five percent reduction, eighteen and three quarters percent of the original, hardpointed, energy draw.

13. Which would be rounded up to one power point in the normal course, so the other option would be a straight twenty five percent per, requiring one (fifty percent, two power points), or two (seventy five percent, one power point) slots.

14. Considering the combat performance deficits of the drill laser, size reduction doesn't make much sense.

15. The primary advantages are cost and four dice of damage, if it hits.

16. That's like a standard missile, every round, at a cost of sevenish missiles.

17. If I had to figure out how to create a carronade, this would be it, in a quadruple turret.

18. However, it remains pretty much hit or miss, more of a really nasty surprise if someone comes really close and the dice gods smile upon you.

19. Though that low accuracy rate makes using it as dual purpose point defence a rather desperate measure.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Lasers, and Drill, Baby, Drill!

20. For military utility, you'll want the highly technologized technological level eleven version.

21. Mix in some budgetting, you could increase the size by twenty percent, but cut the cost premium to one hundred twenty five percent.

22. The two advantage requirement cuts your option to value add the really useful advantages together.

23. However, cutting the power requirement by another twenty five percent is useful, for that spare slot.

24. Which leaves us with accuracy, longer range, and intense focus.

25. With yield, I'd rather take my chances with the dice.

26. Resilient and easy to repair might make more sense, if the concept wasn't disposability.

27. Intense focus might be more interesting for the commercial use of the laser drill, as it might increase the speed and/or quantity of mining.

28. The major deficit of the laser drill is accuracy, so the plus one modifier would be more useful.

29. The other interesting option is longer range, since the laser drill's range suddenly expands tenfold to ten klicks.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Lasers, and Drill, Baby, Drill!

30. The difference between a single turret and mounted fixtures is one tonne to none, one power point to none, and two to one hundred kilostarbux.

31. Two power point requirement is one hundred thirty three and a third kilogrammes of standard fusion power plant.

32. While I personally think the weapon system would overheat, if you get to the target and hug it close, switching to dogfight mode, in one round you could shoot it sixty times, which should require a power draw times sixty.

33. Not really feasible to install a power plant that large, so you'd keep the potential stored in a battery, let loose, and break off.

34. In a way, the smallcraft fighter would be the equivalent of laser pumped torpedo, except it would be continuous and reusable.

35. If you use a budgetted one tonne diesel power plant, you have four power points, that could be split between the hull and the drill.

36. Do I actually want one or two drills?

37. With one drill, the hull could be around ten tonnes, though it probably would be a tight fit.

38. With two, the minimum tonnage would be thirty five tonnes, though not necessarily three and a half times more expensive, as you basically are a platform for two weapon systems, so maybe a fifty percent premium.

39. Also, I would split the two between either one turret and one fixture, or two turrets, in order to target them independently.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Alien: USCSS Nostromo | Ship Breakdown

Spacedock delves into a 1980s Sci-Fi Icon. The USCSS Nostromo from Alien.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3Ph5gXCf6E


1. Read employment contracts, or get your lawyer to explain it.

2. Halting ageing by limiting cell replacement.

3. Smallcraft hangar retractable shield.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Lasers, and Drill, Baby, Drill!

40. Separating the drills allows two bites at the apple, rather than just enhance damage.

41. Damage potential would then be two times four to twenty four, rather than once eight to twenty eight.

42. It's not really a hit first doctrine.

43. It's shoot a lot and hope something sticks.

44. Which means that you have to emphasize the other two parts of the formula, protection, and speed.

45. The forth part is cost, and the fifth part is resources.

46. Cost in this case is trying to make it as cheap as possible.

47. Resources would be trying to leverage lower teched manufacturing infrastructure, not only to allow the cutting edge ones the capacity to make components more strategically vital, and work programmes.

48. While the drill has a default technological level of eight, and which the budgeted version would be one eighth of a megastarbux, on the military budget that twenty five percent savings might not mean much, especially at twenty five kilostarbux, for a mining start up it might.

49. It's also a cheap way to provide military aid.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: TIE Fighter Hyperdrive Ring (Fan Design/Lore)

Canonically, there is no hyperdrive ring design for the TIE fighter. So I took it upon myself to create one!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa5rfgH4yCY


1. One shot drives.

2. We'd have to add fuel tanks, or drop tanks.

3. I'd suggest jump tapes, but their price wasn't worth it, unless it's more a question of labour, plus computer depreciation.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: The Black Hole: USS Cygnus Analysis

An examination and anaylsis of the USS Cygnus from the classic Disney film, The Black Hole.

0:00
0:12 Overview
0:54 Visual Design
1:36 Stock Features
3:27 Modifications by Reinhardt
4:48 Conclusion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rca5s-GqXv8


1. Industrial design.

2. Transportation bypass.

3. Last scene: railgun spinal mount.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Engineering, Hull, and The Genius of 3D Printed Rockets

3D printed rockets save on up front tooling, enable rapid iteration, decrease part count, and facilitate radically new designs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz165f1g8-E


1. Reverse warp design.

2. Reducing number of parts.

3. Mars Needs Mechanics.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Economics and Why Low-Cost Airlines Make The Most Money

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kIGNHiEWPU


1. Ancillary fees.

2. Subcontract staff.

3. Tax haven.

4. Decentralize staff.

5. Minimize competition.

6. Squeeze destination authorities.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: The Havoc Marauder from Star Wars: The Bad Batch Analysis

The new Star Wars animated series The Bad Batch has an excellent protagonist ship, an Omicron Class Assault Shuttle called the Havoc Marauder. Let's do an in-depth analysis of this ships mission, strengths, and weaknesses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo8Gn0BAcrQ


1. Ion cannon sternchaser - could knock out engineering.

2. Likely two hundred tonnes.

3. Special forces - likely stealthed.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Accommodations, Life Support and The Future Of Vertical Farming

The future of agriculture may look very different? but how much is going to change and when is is likely to happen?

Traditional agriculture poses many global challenges, from food security to climate change. Can vertical farming improve the sustainability of our food production system? How big can the impact be? When will these changes happen?

There are many factors that help plant factories control their environment, from hydroponics and LED grow lights to CO2 regulation. However, indoor farming will have to boost it's yield significantly if its going to be able to grow key crops such as rice and wheat.

These staple crops take significant light energy to grow and will require an energy revolution to realize. But with huge growth in green technology, can solar and wind energy be used to improve the sustainability of vertical farming? Can the challenges of renewable energy be mitigated with battery storage?

When can we expect these changes to happen?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESuzrY2abAw


1. It's a complex subject, and this is just the summary.

2. Energy requirement in Traveller isn't an issue.

3. Even if you mix in economics, in a starship, all crops are valuable.

4. One would think multiplying harvests per annum, would tend to make the plant breathe more, so increase oxygen regeneration.

5. Starship volume is constrained, so vertical farming seems ideal; on the bright side, water and energy shouldn't be an issue.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Lasers, and Drill, Baby, Drill!

50. For engineering vehicles, the drill should be able to resolve most tactical problems, if you have the time.

51. If you give them the longer ranged variant, you could conduct sieges from about ten klicks out.

52. If it wasn't for the inaccuracy, you could snipe armoured fighting vehicles, so if you place it as a fixed mount, might be better described as infantry support.

53. In theory, if you decide to mount the drill on a dirtside vehicle, it's going to need one and a dedicated fusion plant.

54. How large will this fusion plant be? I'd be interested to know the answer, considering combat rounds are six seconds, and laser drills tend to imply a constant beam.

55. You could install the drill into a mech, drop it on the hull of an enemy warship, or just grapple it on your own hull.

56. It might be a good idea to place it in a turret, which is going to take another four space.

57. I assume that a dedicated fusion plant, advanced, means that the drill would require one sized to twenty percent of the vehicle platform, besides whatever power plant the vehicle itself would use, for what we would define as motivation and basic.

58. Though endurance would be a century, with no refuelling?

59. What happens if we started to coopt dirtside vehicles to power shipboard systems?

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: Are Star Destroyers Just World War 2 Battleships in Space? A Design Comparison!

The iconic space battleship of Star Wars - the Imperial Star Destroyer...how does it compare in design to real World War 2 battleships such as the Iowa Class? Lets dig into the design details and tactical analysis, using some footage from World of warships!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN-wZwrT-Lc


1. Well, consider the spinal mount as capital sized main armament, in a forward arc only.

2. Point defence and smallcraft defence sucked, specifically for star destroyers.

3. You pretty much have to carpet bomb or swarm our battleships.

4. Default, our armour plating is homogenous.

 

[Condottiere]

Inspiration: The Ten Ugliest Ships in Eve Online & Why They're Cool!

Eve has some AMAZING spaceships or starships, some are absolutely gorgeous, others scary looking, and a few are hilariously ugly!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWncO37XCcw


1. Problem with lopsided is balancing propulsion.

2. Succubus, more like horned beetle.

3. Problem with stick configuration is that it might stick outside the jump bubble; because the jump bubble diameter are more likely fixed by power output, than starship dimensions.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and the Express Boat Tender


Weaponry: The armament for the ship is unusual in that the types of turrets used are not standard. Forward, two tracked turrets are accessible through iris valves adjacent to the bridge. Once a gunner is inside, the turrets may be moved along tracks on the circumference of the hull. This arrangement allows positioning of the gunnery turrets for the best possible shot. Normally, such arrangements are not necessary, but this type of tender is often occupied with a mission to recover a specific ship or express boat, and cannot maneuver while doing so. Instead, the turrets themselves may maneuver.

Aft, a different arrangement dictates installation of a pop turret. Although the pop turret cannot maneuver, it can retract into an armoured citadel in the event of enemy fire, rising above the line of the hull only to deliver its own fire.

Peculiarities: The weaponry of express boat tenders varies wildly depending on what particular armament was available at the time of construction. Thus, it is difficult to predict what type of guns or launchers will be encountered on any specific tender. Further, although the tracked turrets are a reasonable idea for the situation they are intended to cope with, they are also poorly equipped to handle many other situations. As a result, any weapons on express boat tenders can be expected to fire at minus one at all times.

1. While working my way through another project, I was reminded of this rather unique take on armament.

2. Probably the origin of the pop up turret option.

3. I rather doubt that the rail tracks will ever be adapted to spacecraft design rules.

4. It's likely that configuration will be a reversed suspended railway, since the idea in null gravity is that the car/turrets don't float away, so the rollers or the wheels will be hooked in.

5. Suspended railway are supposedly monorail, but suspect you have dual rails for stability during firing.

6. A more advanced variant would be some form of electromagnetic levitation configuration.

7. And supposedly you could substitute that with anti gravitational motors.

8. You probably have to use some form of railway carriages, with spaceship weapons, to act as these mobile turrets.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: Battlestar Galactica: Raptors Variants of the First Cylon War | Ship Breakdown

Spacedock delves into two variants of the Colonial Raptor seen in use at the start and end of the First Cylon War.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNmnKqhYkEw


1. The problem with translating this to Traveller is that it's obviously less than a hundred tonnes, though you could say that of any number of fighter designs from Star Wars.

2. I rather have Vipers, but the game forces you to have utility squadrons.

3. If the option was to have it with a hyperdrive, and can act as forward reconnaissance and scouting, that would really screwed with your opponents (because our sensors in general are crap).

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Shipboard Systems and Coopting Dirtside Vehicles

1. There are a number of reasons I never bothered designing dirtside vehicles, mostly because despite it's incongruities I understand spacecraft design and I don't get the vehicle templates.

2. One reason I just came up with the Confederation's own Johnson-McConnell agreement that the Navy operates and controls all military spacecraft, and the Army all planetary vehicles, though circumstances can allow them to temporarily suspend it.

3. The exception would be wheeled vehicles.

4. To be fair, spacecraft are superior to grav vehicles, and can be designed small enough to fulfill light transport and communication roles.

5. Drones would be a gray area.

6. The rail rider option seems the logical answer to designing tracked turrets.

7. You can also use vehicles inside spaceships and space stations as transportation.

8. I suppose you could design spaceship hulls to act as internal transport modules.

9. I guess you could put those on rails, as well.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Hulls and Can The Human Body Handle Rotating Artificial Gravity?

Artificial gravity for spaceflight is a concept older than spaceflight itself, but we've only ever seen one small scale test ever flown in space. However decades of research have been performed to show that the human body can adapt to the conditions required for rotating artificial gravity. This shows that it's an engineering problem that likely solvable for interested parties who want to spend the time, effort and money creating the classic rotating space stations from Science Fiction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxeMoaxUpWk


1. So, would you get dizzy in a double hull and/or hamster cage?

2. Your aim is going to be off, for all sorts of physical activities we take for granted.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Shipboard Systems and Coopting Dirtside Vehicles

10. So, I'm going to have a go at this, and if I get it wrong, anyone can feel free to correct me.

11. Let's start with the Light Ground Vehicle template.

12. This is about as cheap as you can get, at three quarters of a kilostarbux per space.

13. I think a minibus would tap out the maximum number allowed, twenty spaces.

14. Which costs a default fifteen kilostarbux, and will take up onboard ten tonnes.

15. You need drive/wheel skill; that's the other reason I decided to concentrate transport on spacecraft, you only need pilot as a universal skill.

16. I'm going to select technological level eleven, which gets me the fifth band of fast speed and six hundred range.

17. If I reduce speed by four bands from fast to very slow, I recycle eight spaces and reduce cost by forty percent, twenty eight spaces at presumably nine kilostarbux (if calculated at the original twenty spaces) and or four hundred fifty starbux per space times twenty eight at twelve thousand six hundred starbux.

18. I would assume it becomes a trailer if you go under very slow, which would in theory cut the cost in half, though I would assume trailers are a lot cheaper.

19. We could decrease range by multiples of twenty five percent, which would allow harvesting two to eight extra spaces.