Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

Starships: Engineering and the Venture Drive

G. How widespread are the Venture drives?

H . Being manufactured at the dawn of Terran interstellar exploration, they certainly spread into Vilani space, but outside of bargain hunters, probably were mostly ignored in favour of the default ten tonne jump drive.

I. Almost certainly, extensive use of those by the Syleans ensured the virtual eclipse of the Venture drive within the Third Imperium.

J. However, Solomani settlers certainly took along the blueprints, so it's possible that the Sword Worlds built up a production line, considering how closely their systems resemble tram lines.

K. However, hobbyists in the Imperium can't find a more cheaper jump drive, and so there's a small enthusiast community that will build hundred tonnish starships powered by the Venture drive.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Engineering and the Venture Drive

L. Another assumption to deal with is if production is limited to a single shift of forty hours per week.

M. Or a continuous twenty four hour assembly line.

N. We could also have another facility make jump capacitors, which could be used in several, or most, other manufactured jump drive models.

O. The five tonne overhead (not really in this case, but thrown in for consideration for default jump drives), might also be able to be constructed separately.

P. Then the three parts of the jump drive assembled, as convenient.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Why would robots only work 40 hours?

 

[Condottiere]

 

[Condottiere]

Also, apparently a lot of crewing is involved on space station industrial facilities.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Lifeboatship

1. Thirty five tonnes streamlined, twenty six and one quarter tonne pod, two seven and a half tonne drop tanks.

2. Lifeboatship pod: streamlined, six tonne (small) bridge, ten tonne Venture (budget) jump drive, half tonne battery, sixty kilogramme drop tank fittings, two one and three quarter tonne docking clamps.

3. Primary hull, eight and three quarters tonnes: two and a half tonne dual cockpit, one tonne manoeuvre drive, two tonne early fusion power plant, one tonne fuel tank, two tonne airlock, quarter tonne fresher; computer/five, manoeuvre, library; sensors, basic; fixed mount.

4. Modular pod: streamlined, nineteen and a half tonne module, two tonne stateroom plus fresher, two tonne airlock, five acceleration seats, quarter tonne cargo.

Sort of use this configuration for the short range light patrol ship, what I envisioned would be more a Catalina that could be used for search and rescue, as well anti stealth warfare platforms.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and ORBITAL STRIKE MISSILE BAY

1. A missile driver bay specifically intended for precise attacks against targets close to population centres or supporting ground forces.

2. They carry and fire the same number of missiles as other missile bays but cannot use ordinary missiles, instead using unguided kinetic missiles that cost Cr150000 for 12, have Thrust 6 and inflict 3D damage per missile.

3. Orbital Strike Missile Bay 10 Medium 5 3D MCr16 Orbital Strike

4. Orbital Strike Missile Bay 10 Medium 15 5D MCr20 Orbital Strike

5. Orbital Strike Missile Bay 10 Medium 25 8D MCr24 Orbital Strike

6. Presumably, bigger warheads.

7. Ortillery 7 6 1DD Cr300000 Orbital Strike

8. Missile Bay 7 Special 5 4D MCr12 Smart

9. Hard to figure out, though twelve and a half kilostarbux per eight dice dumb rocket seems a bargain.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and ORBITAL STRIKE MISSILE BAY

A. Missiles can't increase yield - they're all the same size.

B. Despite having the same magazine capacity and rate of fire for equivalent sized bays, it's possible that orbital strike dumb rockets are larger or smaller than default generic Traveller missile size.

C. Otherwise, why not fire them out of ordinary missile bays?

D. Or tubes, since that would make them eligible for turrets.

E. Not sure why they need three technological levels higher for something that doesn't have a guidance system

F. Or seems to need more power to function.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and ORBITAL STRIKE MISSILE BAY

G. Another aspect to consider is the range.

H. Spacecraft missiles are limited by time, not distance.

I. By default, it's one hour of constant acceleration, before it (supposedly) self destructs.

J. After half an hour, half the missile salvo loses target lock, and presumably self destructs.

K. Medium range at thrust six requires seven to twelve minutes.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Sandcasting

1. I might have missed it, and I haven't really bothered to include it any starwarship armament for quite a while, but how do you customize it?

2. It's guesswork as to range, beyond a passive defence, which presumably would be adjacent by default.

3. Yields work on damage dice rolls, usually anti personnel.

4. If you add longer range, you have to know what that actually is.

5. Accuracy (and lack thereof) would apply to the gunnery check, which would be basically when you turn the sand dispenser in the direction of the target.

6. Sandcutter mentions upto close range (ten klix), so presumably that should apply to the other canisters as well.

7. Against personnel, and presumably thin skinned vehicles, it works as a cluster bomb.

8. For that, you do need to know the area of effect.

9. Assuming these are mini mass drivers, hard to believe it doesn't need energy, even fractional.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Sandcasting

A. Since I'm back to ground combat, I wonder what I can do with the sandcaster.

B. I'll assume that the default range is close, ten klix.

C. Long range it to short, and you have twelve hundred fifty klix.

D. Doesn't make much difference in space, except if it's firmpointed.

E. Though that depends on whether you apply range increase customization before firmpointing, or after.

F. Though you'd assume that the turret weapons are manufactured firmpointed, rather than hardpointed default weapons that automatically downgrade if fitted into firmpoints.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Sandcasting

A. What I would do would be to pack gunpowder into the 0.7 cubic metres of a sand canister and see how much of a bang that made.

B. Even if it's only as a freefalling dumb bomb.

C. Chaff canister being the most useful of the munitions, since you need only one to obfuscate the sensors.

D. Rather than the laser drill, we use the sand caster as a recoilless cannon.

E. Or a mortar/howitzer.

F. Though if you really can increase the range to twelve hundred and a half hundred klix, that's a medium range missile, though unguided.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Sandcasting

G. Presumably, you could have a close escort coat a cluster of escortees within range with chaff.

H. That's where the actual range of sandcasters becomes a rather vital question.

I. Also, for sandcutting, where you have an actual range mentioned.

J. A sandcutter canister may be targeted against an enemy ship within Adjacent or Close range and a successful attack halves the protection given by any sand canisters the enemy uses that round.

K. For the hardpointed variant, customized longer ranged would push that to short.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Sandcasting

L. Sandcasters have been compared to giant shotguns.

M. I guess anti personnel 0.3 dice is birdshot.

N. Default sand/crystals 0.8 dice is buckshot.

O. Pebbles is 1DD damage, would be grapeshot.

P. Next would be a solid slug.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Sandcasting

Q. Railgun and mass driver weapon systems sort of correspond in terms of damage and cost.

R. For a mass driver, we could assume that a slug costs ten kilostarbux per tonne.

S. One tonne divided by twenty would be five hundred starbux per sandcaster slug.

T. Outside of the hundred tonne bay blip, a sandcaster slug should have the same damage as a railgun salvo, basically at the turret scale, two dice damage.

U. While range could could be short, that should require an input of three power points, and since we have none, range would be confined to at best close.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Sandcasting

V. A very short-ranged weapon, the sandcutter fires a hail of electromagnets into the midst of an enemy sand cloud.

W. These magnets cause the sand to coagulate, reducing its effective protection.

X. So sand/crystals are somehow magnetically endowed.

Y. Which explains why they would coalesce around the hull while it's accelerating away.

Z. I assume that the magnetic field is self contained, rather than relying on any iron contained in the hull materials.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Sandcasting

1. Since there's no power requirement, tweaking this is at once pointless, and could be viewed as cheating, if taken as a disadvantage.

2. Since it's a turret weapon, couldn't be utilized.

3. Which leaves us with inaccuracy and increased size.

4. Inaccuracy would stack the odds against being successfully defending against energy weapons.

5. Since that includes particle accelerator spinal mounts, I wonder if sand works as as virtual armour against that?

6. Which sort of leaves us with increased size.

7. With energy weapons it's simple, but ordnance based ones you have two basic components, the ammunition and the weapon itself.

8. How far customization effects both or either.

9. Especially, when they differ in technological levels.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Sandcasting

A. Yield depends on whether you consider a canister either a missile or torpedo.

B. At this point, I tend to think of it an unguided and unmotivated ordnance.

C. Since both tend to have a payload/warhead, you might consider them family.

D. Speaking of which, long range would be the push from the caster.

E. Which leaves accuracy as the last of the viable options.

F. You don't actually have to aim chaff.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Armaments and Weapon Systems


Model: Tonnage - Input - Technological Level - range - damage - default cost/megastarbux

1-0-9 - t/120 - c - * - 0.1875

* 0.05-0-8 - blast - 0.3 - 0.002 birdshot
* 0.05-0-7 - blast, energy weapon armour+d6+effect - 0.8 - 0.00125 buckshot
* 0.05-0-7 - blast - 1.0 - 0.00125 grapeshot
* 0.05-0-8 - minus/one (electronics/comms.sensors.remote missiles) - 0.0 - 0.0015 chaff
* 0.05-0-8 - halves sand protection - 0.0 - 0.00175 cutter
{* 0.05-0-8 - / - 2 - 0.0005 slug}


features: a/-.+ [accuracy/minus.plus#], a/# [armour piercing/factor], e/% [energy/percentage], e/r.# [easy/repair.number], h [hardened], i [ion], i/f [intense/focus], l/r [longer/ranged], m/# [missile/number], o/b.s [orbital/bombardment.strike], p/d [point/defense], r [radiation], r/# [resilient/number], s [smart], t/# [torpedo/number], t/% [tonnage/percentage], u/# [automatic/number], y/h.v [yield/high.very]

It's an interesting question whether size increases or deductions effect ordnance, whether canisters, missiles, torpedoes, or projectiles from railguns and mass drivers.

If it does, or it's a requirement of the customization, than the cost would be effected, and the ordnance couldn't only be used in the weapon systems specific to their actual size.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Sandcasting

G. If you do consider sandcasters, missiles and torpedoes family, than range restrictions wouldn't apply if firmpointed.

H. Which leaves us with the railguns.

I. You could justify range restriction due to the twenty five percent energy reduction.

H. They carry and fire the same number of missiles as other missile bays but cannot use ordinary missiles, instead using unguided kinetic missiles that cost Cr150000 for 12, have Thrust 6 and inflict 3D damage per missile.

K. So dumb bombs from sandcasters could optimistically have orbital strike modifiers to attack, or at worst, orbital bombardment.