Ship Design Philosophy

Spaceships: Manning Levels, Virtualization, and Crew Reduction(s)

1. Crew reductions can only be applied to the following roles: engineer, maintenance, gunner, administrators and sensor operators. Calculate officers and medics after reducing the other roles.

2. While ships are vastly complicated to run, requiring highly trained crews, relatively simple operations can be performed by this software package. Virtual Crew can replace up to five pilots, gunners or sensor operators on board a ship, potentially allowing the ship to act autonomously if all crew can be replaced in this way.

3. A Virtual Gunner package allows a ship’s computer to replace living gunnery crew in an efficient manner.

4. Which raises the question, does that include dividing the bandwidth by three onboard hundred kilotonne spacecraft?
 
Starship: The Tailsitter

G. Dropships can range in size, though pragmatically there probably is an upper limit.

H. Outside of bulk freight, passenger could be roll on roll off ferries.

I. That would assume independent transportation can, and would be, transported spatially.

J. Maybe you could go on holiday in your recreational vehicle.

K. Possibly, then you pay freight rates, rather than middle or high passages ones.
 
Spaceships: Engineering and Manoeuvre Drive

1. In theory, you can't have a variant of the manoeuvre drive as a high burn thruster.

2. If you add a second manoeuvre drive, where the total acceleration would exceed their respective caps, it would be treated as redundancy in case of damage, or for a tractor function.

3. What I had in mind for the GINAS transporter, was that the primary manoeuvre drive module was embedded vertically, basically erasing the local gravity, and if it's below Terran norm, the excess becomes propulsion.

4. The second manoeuvre drive module would be embedded horizontally, providing thrust.

5. Optionally, if that didn't work, then just a normal rocket for a short burst.

6. Pulse rocket engine, since it's more to push the GINAS in a specific direction, and then just drift.
 
Spaceships: Hull, Double Hulled, and Dual Purpose

1. This is a two-hulled cylinder where the outer hull (the whole, or at least a part) spins to create gravity and the inner hull does not.

2. The outer hull is kept at around 1G by the speed of its spinning and is used for any areas that will be inhabited for extended periods of time, such as crew quarters.

3. The outer, spun hull must be at least 60 tons.

4. Machinery to spin a double hull uses 0.1 ton for every ton of outer hull.

5. For each full percent of the total hull that is made part of the spun hull, the cost of the hull must be increased by +1%.

6. We armour the hull, and configure it as a perfect cylinder.

7. We balance the double hull across the spacecraft, whether as a single roller, double roller, and so on.

8. And thus, when you land, you now have a land vehicle.

9. And asphalt roller.
 
Spaceships: Hull, Double Hulled, and Dual Purpose

A. The wheel gets allocated sixty tonnes, though the inner hull volume has no minimum, except ...

B. You need to allocate a minimum of six tonnes for the machinery to spin the outer hull.

C. Only the hamster cage mentions it needs a minimum radius of fifteen metres.

D. Presumably, the outer hull is one deck high, which is (likely) three metres, including deck and ceiling.

E. Though if it's used primarily as a ground wheel, that probably wouldn't matter.

F. Though you might want to leave enough space for the hamsters.



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Starship: Grav Glider

1. Sort of grew out of my interest in an (one shot, cheap) assault glider.

2. Numbers never added up, but unlike drop ships, you could launch them over the horizon.

3. Way over the horizon.

4. Unlike drop ships, you'd need a streamlined hull, and preferably, aerofins.

5. In theory, could be undetectable if you had the engines powered off, plus stealth.

6. Problem is, I suspect that a spacecraft hull has substantial more mass than a default glider.

7. So you'd need that vertically embedded factor one manoeuvre drive, to neutralize the local gravity.

8. Less Terran norm, you'd get some propulsion.

9. Over Terran norm, altitude drop is going to be a lot less.
 
Spaceships: Hulls and Towing Cable

1. A simple device used to haul an attached derelict or unpowered ship behind the modified vessel.

2. The ship can potentially tow any size vessel provided it has the Thrust to do so.

3. A ship’s Thrust must be recalculated when it tows another ship or object, using the combined tonnage of both ships; therefore, the manoeuvre drive will be operating at a lower Thrust.

4. A ship towing an object in this fashion cannot jump.

5. Tow Cable 1% of ship tonnage ...

6. But which ship's tonnage?

7. Imagine a five tonne spacecraft towing a semimegatonne Tigress, with a fifty kilogramme cable.

8. Towers can jump, regardless of whether they are towing an object or not.

9. Difference is, if outside the jump bubble, whether the towing object's mass effects the local gravitational influence, or inside the jump bubble, the towed object's volume effects the jump drive's performance.
 
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Spaceships: Hull, Double Hulled, and Dual Purpose

A. The wheel gets allocated sixty tonnes, though the inner hull volume has no minimum, except ...

B. You need to allocate a minimum of six tonnes for the machinery to spin the outer hull.

C. Only the hamster cage mentions it needs a minimum radius of fifteen metres.

D. Presumably, the outer hull is one deck high, which is (likely) three metres, including deck and ceiling.

E. Though if it's used primarily as a ground wheel, that probably wouldn't matter.

F. Though you might want to leave enough space for the hamsters.



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This made me think of this blast from the past...
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Starship: The Tailsitter


Armaments
and Sandcasters

1. If sand can absorb the energy of a particle accelerator spinal mount, how about that of an atmospheric reentry?

2. As the spacecraft does the reentry, it launches a sand canister, that creates an ablative heatshield underneath it.

3. The question would be, how long that lasts?

4. Or like the Orion drive, do you have to continuously launch sand canister to form a continuous heat shield?
 
Depends on how you want it to work.
Once the sand becomes a plasma shield all you have to do it hold it between the ship and the atmosphere with a strong magnetic field.
 
1. There's a law of diminishing returns, and at tis tier under current design rules, I'd say it starts at a quarter of a million tonnes, which fits in with the Prometheus class.

2. It plateaus at a hundred kilotonnes, which would be why the Confederation Navy goes big.

3. I'm a little sceptical on the harpoon part, since I think a tractor beam seems more likely in our game.

4. Though more than happy to use it as a cheap alternative.

5. Also, how much you want to risk getting your ground troops destroyed before they are deployed.

6. Battleships can look after themselves, but large troop ships become strategic targets if the point of the operation is to get them onto the planet.

7. Modularity does allow reconfiguration, whether of troops, payload, and/or weapon systems.

8. I tend to think that the Confederation Marine Corps is quite enthusiastic about boarding capital and command starwarships, occasionally cruisers.

9. Leaving lesser prizes to allied, member, mercenary and/or CAVALRY forces.
 
Spaceships: Containerization

1. The crane is strong enough to lift fully loaded containers of up to 65 tons and can couple with most pallets and crates.

2. There probably are smaller containers, four and eight tonnes, and larger ones, whatever they are.

3. But this is specifically mentioned in High Guard.

4. The crane is strong enough to lift fully loaded 32 and 65 ton containers and can couple to most types of pallets or creates.

5. Though, the thirty twoer seems to have been dropped.

6. There's no indication as to whether we can decrease or increase loading capacity on the crane.

7. Also, I would think that coordinating infrastructure and transportation modes, such as modular cutters, maglev railways, and so on, have this/these standards.

8. If they are sixty five tonnes, you might want to design smallcraft to transport them.

9. Even with the modular cutter, assuming you use a cradle, the container would be below thirty tonnes.
 
Spaceships: Designator

1. Difference between a lander and a dropship?

2. Controlled crash versus barely controlled crash.

3. Basically, it would be the speed and maybe, the angle of approach.

4. With a dropship, you might want to get to the ground as quickly as possible, for whatever reason.

5. Or, more likely, this is more an involuntary effect of the configuration of designed configuration, whether hull or engineering.

6. Craft, pod and capsule implies something smaller than ship.

7. You also have descent and landing, each implying a somewhat gentle descend.

8. Glider, a very long descend.

9. Transport, transporter, and shuttle seem rather vanilla.
 
Spaceships: Designator

A. Landing ship tends to have a military connotation, and might be used for an unprepared area, as well as usual spaceport facilities; possibly jump capable.

B. Would be large enough to transport heavy vehicles.

C. Landing boat might have a vehicle, but the implication would be more troop orientated.

D. Landing craft could go either way, but likely without a jump drive.

E. Lander is likely civilian, or exploratory.

F. Probably, also more sophisticated than a landing boat.
 
Spaceships: Designator

G. A re-entry capsule consumes 0.5 tons and costs Cr20000.

H. Assault capsules consume 0.5 tons each and cost Cr50000. They grant the occupant Armour 20 and inflict DM-2 on any Electronics (sensors) checks made to detect them.

I. High survivability capsules consume 0.5 tons each and cost MCr0.1. They grant the occupant
Armour 30 and inflict DM-4 on any Electronics (sensors) checks made to detect them, and DM-2 against any attack rolls.


J. A re-entry pod is similar to a capsule but is built with a gliding surface and computer guidance, allowing it to avoid potentially dangerous terrain and deliver its two occupants safely to the planet’s surface. A skilled Traveller can take control of the pod’s descent using the Flyer (wing) skill. A re-entry pod consumes 1 ton and costs Cr150000.

K. Most likely a gravitational motor and batteries.
 
Spaceships: Designator

L. By implication, pods and capsules, and probes, seem subsmallcraft.

M. Funnily enough, current revision doesn't appear to mention pod or capsule launchers.

N. Anyway, five and a half tonnes is eleven capsules, and five plus pods.

P. However, for civilian purposes, a DINGHY has more utility.

Q. For the pod, a spacecraft defaults to pilot, rather than vehicular, skill.
 
In theory, particle accelerators can create micro black holes.

Double hull the particle accelerator spinal mount and get it to spin internally.
 
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