Ship Design Philosophy

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Starwarships: Battle Breakdown - The Expanse Season 6 Finale

A detailed breakdown of the three battles we saw in the glorious show finale of the Expanse. Please enjoy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9joUxFK9qhU


1. It was obvious that the Free Navy would have a trick up its sleeve, though I was thinking a fourth column of stealthed vessels.

2. Fifteen gravities of deceleration.

3. A densitometer at short range might have been able to detect the deception.

 

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Starwarships: Armaments and Railguns in The Expanse | The Expanse Lore

No only do railguns play a crucial role within space combat in The Expanse, they also are a key part of planetary defense. With Marco's array of railguns beyond the ring gearing up to play a major role in the series finale, today we'll take a look at how railguns work and the role they play within The Expanse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t01gpzQlTIY


1. Effective range one kiloklick.

2. Sniper.

3. Armour tends to suck.

4. Turret and mounted fixtures.

 

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Starships: Interstellar: Endurance | Ship Breakdown

Spacedock delves into Christopher Nolan's #Interstellar with a look at NASA's Endurance Spacecraft.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idXEOFSR6Bg


1. Reminds me of the lab ship.

2. Interesting way to connect modules, circular.

3. If you go the podular route, you could interconnect engineering, or centralize the controls; implied that the auxiliary craft, Rangers or Landers, would be breakaway hulls.

4. I suppose the Ranger is a lifting body.

5. Not too sure about the thruster, seems a two stage design.

6. I think I would have placed the second airlock on the roof, rather than on the floor.

7. The Lander reenters atmospheres upside down, to protect the external payload.

8. Rotational orientating seating.

9. Manoeuvring thrusters.

 

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Spaceships: Accommodations and How does the submarine produce oxygen

Hello everyone, you are watching another episode of Military TV. In today’s session, we will take a look at How does the submarine produce oxygen. If you are curious to the answer, stayed tunned only at this channel!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kETjidGU5kg


1. Oxygen released anytime sensors detect a (significant) reduction of the oxygen level.

2. Generally, lower level than norm of oxygen, to reduce risk of fire.

3. Sodium hydroxide and calcium hydroxide, ingredients for carbon dioxide scrubbing.

4. You could use the waste carbon dioxide to carbonize cold beverages, or pump it into the fuel tanks.

 

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Starwarships: The Scirocco-Class Assault Cruiser | The Expanse Lore

During the MCR-UN war, the Scirocco-Class Assault Cruiser formed the backbone of many MCRN fleets. Filling a variety of roles from Command ships to troop transports, the Scirocco-Class could be seen all across the system. Today we'll take a look at the design and history of this remarkable class of warships.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tQag4K0ajk


1. Bombardment.

2. Assault carrier.

3. Command ship.

4. Marine company.

5. Multi purpose, probably multi role.

 

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Inspiration: Miller Lite 1993 Classic Space Commercial 1993

"Did someone say, 'Salsa'?" This commercial comes from the first commercial break of the last episode of Cheers, originally aired May 20th, 1993

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ptq-SQRhFUU


Space runs on beer.

 

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Starcargoship

1. Escargoship

2. Starcargobarge

3. Starcargobark

4. Starcargoknarr

5. Starknarr

6. Imperial Snailmail Starknarr

7. Starcarrack

8. Starcaravel

9. Starcaravan

 

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Spaceships: Russian UFO or Tarielka (EKIP) - story of its creation

This is an interview with one of the designers of the EKIP aircraft (or Tarielka) - Edward Isaev, for one of the Russian news channels in 2002. This video is freely available for download from the aircraft designer's web site:
http://www.ekip-aviation-concern.com/

It consists of two parts:
1st - actual news segment (it's about 3 minutes long), and
2nd - behind the scenes footage of the interview with Edward Isaev (this part is not complete because that's how it appears on the aircraft designer's site)

Note:
Sharashka - was an informal name for secret research and development laboratories in the Soviet Gulag labor camp system in 1940-1950's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharashka

The latest news that I could find about EKIP date back to 2003-2004 when the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) was going to co-partner further developments and building of this aircraft. Apparently the test flights were tentatively scheduled for 2007 at Webster Field, near Patuxent River.
http://www.wired.com/science/discover...

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


So that's why Merrill Lynch went bankrupt.

 

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Starships: Or Skipships

1. Or, specifically in this case, since it's a planetoid, stone skipships.

2. Because you can skip stones across water.

3. Or skim them, or skiff them.

4. The commander of a skipship could be called the skipper.

5. Well, you could call the spaceship with a jump drive a skipper as well.

6. I would suppose it's implied it's a small starship, since skipping a dreadnought sounds somewhat implausible.

7. Good thing that we do have a small ship universe.

8. Last I looked, the boundary seems to be five kilotonnes, or less.

9. Also known as the adventure class ships.

 

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Starships: Or Skipships

10. The distinguishing feature of skipships would be affordable interstellar travel.

11. Cheap as chips.

12. That would make it skipchipships.

13. Since one size doesn't fit all, it would require a certain modular nature for components.

14. Unfortunately, the rather solid nature of a planetoid makes this somewhat uncertain as to the extent possible for modulation.

15. And we would need to kickstart this off with a planetoid hull, since it's both the cheapest hull by volume by a wide margin, and has inherent artificial gravitation.

16. True, you can write off twenty percent of volume for structural integrity.

17. But you have an organic armour factor of two.

18. And in theory, no lower technological level limit.

19. Except in terms of the tools you need to tunnel and/or hollow it out.

 

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Starships: Or Skipships

20. Planetoid hulls cost a default four thousand schmuckers per tonne.

21. When you adjust for optimum usable volume, that would come to five kiloschmuckers per tonne.

22. That twenty percent wastage does give a bonus twenty five percent extra hull points.

23. Regardless what you do to the planetoid hull, it rates as unstreamlined, which would make it a pain to fly into, through, and out of an atmosphered planet.

24. Since we're cutting corners, we'll be aerating the planetoid a tad, to give it a lighter hull.

25. While the volume penalty remains the same, it does make it cheaper per tonne to three thousand schmuckers per tonne with a twenty five percent discount.

26. That adjusts the cost optimum volume usage to three and three quarters kiloschmuckers per tonne.

27. And that hull point bonus drops by ten percent to fifteen percent.

28. Planetoid hull construction would need to be done by a shipyard operating in a technological level nine industrial base, to qualify for self sealing.

29. It's hard to say if manufacturing lower teched items in higher teched facilities translates into a cheaper cost, as it's not mentioned in High Guard.

 

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Starships: Or Skipships

30. Next up would be the jump drive, something that commercial ships would be built round.

31. The cheapest variant at the moment would be the one shot model.

32. Unfortunately, it can only be used a couple of times before a misjump is triggered which likely would be fatal.

33. And it's not cheap enough to justify mass production, besides the installation and replacement costs in addition.

34. The default minimum size of a jump drive is ten tonnes, though it's not specified exactly the make up of the subcomponents.

35. The simplest and cheapest model would be a budgetted jump factor one technological level nine ten tonner, at eleven and a quarter megaschmuckers.

36. There are two possible penalties, either increased size or inefficient one hundred thirty percent power requirement.

37. Generally speaking, you should opt for power inefficiency to maintain the original two hundred parsec tonne performance.

38. Especially in light of being able to source the energy from practically anywhere, except directly from solar panelling.

39. And the fact that you only need that energy once in order to trigger the rabbit hole, after which the jump drive shuts down.

 

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Starships: Or Skipships

40. And then we have the possibility of screwing around with the weights.

41. There are circumstances that favour specific upgrades through the tech tree, but besides the minimum technological level of the industrial base, they also tend to be more expensive, which isn't the point of getting the least expensive jump drive.

42. You can shrink the jump drive and leverage the fact that prices are calculated against actual volume, but when you're squeezing out an extra three tonnes for a highly technologized variant at one hundred fifty percent cost, it's no longer about buck banging.

43. Again, no mention is ever made that building a lower technologized drive is cheaper, or that it has a lower operating cost.

44. It should allow any planet that has reached technological level nine to service and repair it, possibly even to manufacture one.

45. If you go for the twenty five percent size increase penalty, the fact that at twelve and a half tonne jump drive is priced at a per tonne cost, even at one and one eighth megaschmuckers per tonne instead of one and a half, you come to a total of 14.0625 megaschmuckers, a tad less than a megaschmucker in savings for a loss of two and a half tonnes in volume.

46. So, it only makes sense if you kept the volume to ten tonnes, and you're not inclined to supercharge it at one hundred thirty percent.

47. Since the jump drive has two components, the fixed overhead and the variable core, you have to remember that the fixed overhead remains at six and a quarter tonnes.

48. That would leave three and three quarter tonnes for the variable core, which is now twenty five percent less capable.

49. So three and three quarters divided by six and a quarter times two hundred parsec tonnes is one hundred twenty parsec tonnes.

 

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Starships: Or Skipships

50. In a way, one hundred twenty parsec tonnes confines the starship on monojumps, so in a way it simplifies the issue.

51. Two hundred parsec tonnes gives the option for a two parsec range, which requires the jump drive to be manufactured at technological level eleven.

52. And it's at this point you have to be wondering if customized drives need customized parts for servicing and repairs, and for me, it's unclear how far commonality would extend.

53. Anyway, increased size does spark the curiousity if you can change the percentage of subcomponents, to squeeze out more performance by eliminating unnecessary ones.

54. Black globes basically states that jump drives consist of twenty percent compensators, which have a basic buffer of fifty power points.

55. And at three megaschmuckers per tonne, the most expensive subcomponent identified in the jump drive.

56. Assumption has to be made that an absorbed black globe damaged power point is equivalent to an organic power point generated by other shipboard power sources, considering that's how the energy reclamation programme works when the black globe is switched off.

57. That also means, that the five tonne overhead has one tonne of capacitors, and the core has one tonne of capacitors for every five tonnes.

58. At default, the ten tonne drive jump drive has a buffer of one hundred power points worth of capacitors, against a power draw of twenty power points.

59. So even accounting for power spikes, that's more capacitation that one reasonably could need.

 

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Starships: Or Skipships

60. The volume required to make a successful transit is a hundred tonnes.

61. In theory, the default size of a minimal jump drive is five tonnes overhead, plus two and a half tonne core variable, for a total of seven and a half tonnes.

62. If you only had to pay for the seven and a half tonnes, but still be subject to a ten tonne minimum volume, you probably could live with it.

63. But it's hard to discern whether you could take that option.

64. So much emphasis has been placed on the minimum default volume being ten tonnes, that it's specifically mentioned for the decreased size advantage that it's the only way to have a jump drive below stated default minimum.

65. So you can't have empty space, as the universe wants that void filled.

66. So far, we've only identified four subcomponents of a jump drive.

67. Overhead, capacitors, core and jump governor.

68. Classic High Guard mentions that the add on jump governor is technological level ten, costs three hundred thousand schmuckers, and masses one tonne.

69. Supposedly inherent in standard designed jump drives, missing in prototypes.

 

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Starships: Or Skipships

70. Unfortunately, much like a prototype would fill that empty hole, six hundred percent cost dampens any enthusiasm for it.

71. And you can't double budget.

72. Otherwise you could have a hundred parsec tonne jump drive at basically eleven and a half tonnes at basically half price, total 8.4375 megaschmuckers.

73. Or thirty power power point inefficiently energized two hundred parsec tonners.

74. The third option for penalties, which in the vast majority of cases isn't worth mentioning, is late jump.

75. In theory, I wouldn't mind going one hundred fifty times further from Terran diameter to jump.

76. However, the elephant in the room is that the Sun's jump shadow extends fifty percent further, which cuts off the inner planets completely.

77. The only advantage it would give you is if you like using precipitous precipitation as your principal means of exiting jumpspace.

78. So if you can't leave a vacuum, you need a filler material.

79. Unfortunately, the only thing that comes to mind are capacitors.

 

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Starships: Or Skipships

80. Unfortunately, capacitors are the most expensive subcomponent in a jump drive.

81. If you deduct that from a jump drive, default overhead and core costs the same at one and one eighth megaschmuckers per tonne.

82. At twenty five percent discount, 843'750 schmuckers per tonne for an energy inefficient jump drive's naked core and overhead tonnage.

83. Capacitors from energy inefficient retain their original buffers of fifty power points at seventy five percent cost, the increased cost basically pushed to the increased power input, from whatever source it's pulled from, at two and a quarter megaschmuckers per tonne.

84. Whereas increased size would spread fifty points over one and a quarter tonnes, so basically forty power points per tonne, at one and four eighths megaschmuckers per tonne.

85. Default cost of capacitors are sixty kiloschmuckers per power point, energy inefficient and late jumpers forty five kiloschmuckers per point point, and increased size forty five kiloschmuckers per power point.

86. So if you could mix and match, specific in regard to maintaining a minimum volume of ten tonnes, I'd use increased size capacitors.

87. So five tonnes of naked increased size overhead, two and a half tonnes of naked increased size core (hundred parsec tonnes, ten power points), half a tonne of increased size capacitors (sixteen power point buffer), leaving a balance of two tonnes.

88. If you could fill that void with batteries, it would also control power spikes, assuming they exist.

89. Technological level ten batteries cost a hundred kiloschmuckers per tonne and have forty power points, and you could have two tonnes worth, which could be used as emergency power, assuming you're allowed to fill the balance that way, and the jump drive remains undamaged, essentially giving the jump drive an inherent power source.

 

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Starships: Or Skipships

90. Besides triple decreased size jump drives, triple efficient jump drives would lower energy requirement to twenty five percent from default.

91. Energy requirement has never been a real hindrance in Mongoose Second, as you can source the power from anywhere except solar panelling.

92. You could shut down basic power in the starship o everywhere except the jump drive, power plant, and bridge.

93. Or just channel it over time into a battery, which would then be the primary source.

94. Especially since the jump drive is only activated just before transition, and a turn later shut down, not requiring to be switched on during transition.

95. Early jump only brings a marginal benefit.

96. Stealth tends to only benefit clandestine and military operators.

97. Decreased fuel is overall a half a percent decrease in volume for the starship, per jump factor, per application.

98. At it's optimum at technological level fifteen, triple application at jump factor three is four and a half percent extra volume, double application at jump factor four is four percent, and single application at jump factor five, is two and a half percent.

99. Decreased size jump drive, triple application at jump factor three is two and a quarter percent (and one and a half tonnes), double application at jump factor four is two percent (and half tonne), and one application at jump factor five is one and a quarter percent (and a half tonne).

 

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Starships: Or Skipships

100. Having established that in terms of cost you're better off with an Aldi vanilla jump drive, and an interstellar rock, next up would be the optimal volume.

101. At the scale we're looking at, there are three general categories, sub hundred tonners, hundred tonne plus, and two hundred tonne minus.

102. Sub hundred tonners would be taking engineering, the bridge, fuel tanks and minimal accommodation, and add pods, external cargo, and clamped containers as required, to a minimum of hundred tonnes, and to a maximum of jump drive potential.

103. Hundred tonners already meet the minimum requirement, plus would be either an increased hull size, and/or external attachments.

104. Two hundred tonne minus takes the position to use a hull based on the optimum potential of the jump drive.

105. Since in this specific case, it's probably better to have everything under one roof.

106. Even if you have to sacrifice twenty percent of volume, since the point is maximizing the minimum requirements.

107. So therefore, it's a ten tonne technological level nine budgetted energy inefficient jump drive in a technological level ten constructed two hundred tonne planetoid.

108. We'll use the free trader as benchmark.

109. Going on the assumption you're unlikely to have a full cargo load or passengers.

 

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Starships: Or Skipships

110. On to the rest of the engineering compartment.

111. The cheapest source of power is the local star.

112. At two hundred tonnes, that's a requirement of a default forty power points for basic systems, and another twenty power points for a monogravitational manoeuvre drive, for a total of sixty power points.

113. If we base it on a default early fusion reactor at technological level eight, that's three fifths of a tonne of solar panelling, a tad above the minimum half a tonne.

114. Three fifths of a tonne of solar panelling is sixty kiloschmuckers, and consumes no fuel.

115. You're still going to need a fusion reactor to supply power for basic systems during transition, since you can't use solar panelling while in a jump bubble.

116. Default basic systems for a two hundred hull is forty power points, minimum twenty.

117. However, I rather doubt that twenty percent of a planetoid needs basic systems, nor likely the fuel tanks, or at least the ones dedicated to the jump drive.

118. That leaves one hundred forty tonnes, at twenty eight power points, fourteen minimum.

119. So that's a two and four fifths tonne technological level eight early fusion reactor, or at least, one and two fifth tonnes.