Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Missile Launchers

1. Fixed mount costs a hundred kilostarbux, and three missile racks two and a quarter megastarbux, total two million, three and a half hundred thousand starbux.

2. Or 783'333.34 per missile rack, no power points, no tonnage.

3. Missile magazine, however, is one tonne per twelve missiles.

4. Presumably, if a missile is loaded on the launcher, it doesn't count towards volume.

5. Triple turretted missile rack(s) would be three and a quarter megastarbux, 1,083,333.34 starbux per missile rack.

6. Takes up a tonne, requires a power point, but you get to squeeze in twelve missiles, as ready reloads.

7. Presumably fifteen, with one in each chamber.

8. You're not allowed to shrink them, which I presume includes the turret.

9. You can enlarge them, and presumably, the turret.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Missile Launchers

A. Each turret with one or more missile racks holds 12 missiles ...

B. ...(missile racks on Firmpoints hold four missiles).

C. Which doesn't quite sound right.

D. A single one tonne turret should actually have more room, which can be converted for extra reloads beyond twelve.

E. With fixed mounts, magazines would still have the same ratio of twelve missiles per tonne.

F. Unless, it isn't.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Missile Launchers

G. At five tonnes, the missile barbette costs four megastarbux, and surprisingly, requires no power points.

H. You get five launchers and space for twenty five missiles.

I. That's four fifths of a megastarbux for a launcher and five missiles, at a tonne per launcher.

J. If you install a missile barbette on a smallcraft, that requires the full allocation of all three firmpoints.

K. All things being equal, it's hard to understand why firmpointed torpedo and missile barbettes require an additional two tonnes, since even other firmpointed barbettes don't require that.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Missile Launchers

L. All bays have four and one sixth tonne allocated for a missile launcher and twelve missiles.

M. Small bays cost one megastarbux per launcher, and require 0.4167 power points.

N. Medium bays five sixths of a megastarbux per launcher, and require 0.4167 power points.

O. Large bays 208'333.34 starbux per launcher, and require 0.1667 power points.

P. No restrictions on enlarging or shrinking these bays.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Engineering, Launch Tubes, and Solar Sailing

1. You have a big enough launch tube.

2. You launch spaceship, mostly unmotivated, likely at a large planetary object.

3. Of course, we'd need to know muzzle velocity.

4. Unfurl solar sail, like a parachute, when you need to decelerate.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Missile Launchers

Q. Inbetween a triple missile launcher turret and a pentalauncher barbette, we have the quad turret.

R. So that's three megastarbux for four missile launchers, two for the quad turret, total five megastarbux.

S. Two power points, and presumably, twelve missile ready reloads.

T. That's one and a quarter megastarbux per launcher, three missiles, and a half power point, as well.

U. In theory, increased chance for a breakdown; in practice, it's never occurred.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Missile Launchers

V. In terms of density, the medium and large bays have twenty four launchers per hundred tonnes, but require the entirety of that .

W. At default standard missile, that's a half a megastarbux investment per twenty four launchers.

X. Large bays at 208'333.34 starbux per launcher would appear to have the maximum bang for (star)buck.

Y. But you have to include default five megastarbux for hundred tonnes of gravitated hull, over twenty four launchers, pretty much doubles the cost to 514'666.68 per launcher.

Z. Compared to a one tonne triple turret, plus fifty kilostarbux, equals one and tenth megastarbux per missile rack.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Torpedo Launchers

1. The two basic examples are small bay and barbettes, both with three launchers.

2. They cost the same, and need the same amount of power.

3. One is ten times smaller.

4. To compensate, the small bay holds thirty six torpedoes.

5. Essentially, that's twelve tonnes.

6. So, an equivalent barbette would be five tonnes, with chambers loaded, plus twelve tonne magazine, so eleven tonnes total.

7. That would be five and two third tonnes per torpedo launcher, each launcher one megastarbux, plus 183'333.34 starbux for the hull.

8. For the small bay, also one megastarbux per launcher, but plus sixteen and two thirds tonnes at five sixths megastarbux per.

9. Unless there's some advantage a small bay has over a barbette, I don't see anyone preferring that for installing torpedo launchers.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Torpedo Launchers

A. Medium bay has six torpedo launchers, needs five power points and costs six megastarbux.

B. Large bay has thirty torpedo launchers, needs ten power points, and costs ten megastarbux.

C. At this scale, a couple of megastarbux is actually peanuts, when comparing weapon systems.

D. It becomes a question of whether the weapon system can critically damage the target.

E. At default, that's fifty kilostarbux per torpedo at six dice.

F. Versus twenty and one twelfth kilostarbux per missile at four dice.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Torpedo Launchers

G. The Confederation Navy does have that option.

H. Nominally, you could assign assign something like half or one megastarbux per torpedo launcher, we don't actually know.

I. The Harrier has to option to convert a one tonne turret to two. presumably fixed mounts, torpedo launchers, at presumably, half a tonne each.

J. Going by the rules, you probably could have made that to three, at one and a half tonnes allocated.

K. And since the missile magazine gets converted to torpedo storage, we can safely assume they are reloaded internally.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Torpedo Launchers

L. The Confederation Combination Missile/Torpedo Launcher, requires an additional one tonne, needs no power, but costs two megastarbux.

M. Presumably, restricted to triple turrets, which leaves out quadruple turrets.

N. Could be interesting if you mix and match, especially in terms of those twelve missile reloads.

O. Missiles and torpedoes are the same size as default, but are specifically manufactured for the CoCoMisTer, and can't be substituted.

P. Since they fit in the same magazine, it could be that the torpedo is slimmer, and the missiles are fatter, so that they have the same diameter, and the missiles are one quarter the length of the missile.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Barbette Cost

1. Minimum two megastarbux (beam laser).

2. Five missile launchers would be three and three quarters megastarbux.

3. Missile barbette at four megastarbux minus three and three quarters would be a quarter megastarbux.

4. Three torpedo launchers would be two and three thirds megastarbux, or 916'666.67 starbux each.

5. Since a small torpedo bay costs three megastarbux, in theory, the raw cost of a small bay would also be a quarter of a megastarbux.

6. A medium bay, listed as six megastarbux for torpedoes, would have a raw cost of half a megastarbux.

7. A large bay, listed as ten megastarbux, minus thirty launchers at twenty seven and a half megastarbux, would be essentially paying to be installed.

8. Or, you get a substantial discount on torpedo launchers in batches of thirty.

9. But, if that were the case, I'd buy a large torpedo bay, then disassemble it, and use the torpedo tubes in other smaller weapon slots.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Barbette Cost

A. A triple turret takes up one tonne and costs a megastarbux.

B. At five tonnes, you'd think a barbette costs more, not accounting for it's internals.

C. Also, a turret needs one power point to orientate itself.

D. A missile barbette has no power requirements.

E. One turretted railgun barrel (two to twelve/short) needs two power points, three (six to sixteen/short) probably six plus one from the turret.

F. A barbette railgun (nine to fifty four/medium) only five power points.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Anti Fighter Missiles

1. Well, anti drone ones.

2. It took me a while to figure them out.

3. Anti-fighter missiles are smaller versions of standard anti-ship missiles.

4. Munitions of this type have a much shorter range than standard missiles but their warhead has an additional manoeuvring system to increase the chance of an intercept.

5. Short range and attack bonus.

6. Two variants of the concept exist; one is carried aboard a standard missile as a submunition, the other is delivered directly and may be termed a dogfight missile.

7. The submunition type replaces the missile’s standard warhead with a group of three anti-fighter missiles.

8. After manoeuvring as close as possible the weapon breaks apart, launching its payload of three submunitions.

9. Variant of multi warhead, increasingly more accurate and faster.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Anti Fighter Missiles

A. These are almost identical in performance to dogfight missiles but are incompatible with their launchers, as a dogfight missile has an additional ‘bus’ segment to carry it close to the target.

B. Basically speaking, the three submunition payload is split into it's individual components, and a booster attached to each.

C. Hence, the reduction to short range and single impact.

D. With three submunitions, depending on technological level, inflicting 1-4 to 6-9 damage points, each, I'd be worried if I were a very lightly armoured smallcraft.

E. It sort of reminds me of a Starstreak.

F. But, let's see if we can make sense of this.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Anti Fighter Missiles

G. Dogfight missiles are usually carried on the firmpoints of small craft.

H. A launch rail capable of carrying two missiles occupies one firmpoint, uses no significant power and takes up 0.1 tons.

I. And at this point, I started getting the feeling that the concept fell apart, because it didn't offer a solution to any perceived shortcomings in missile selection.

J. It might have been a half hearted attempt to reintroduce the point defense missiles from Companion.

K. If so, it has to be done in a holistic approach, or custom solutions that each faction has in trying to resolve their needs regarding their perceived threats and available resources

 

[wingsday]

Yeah idk what the dogfight missiles are for, the interceptors are at least ok for swapping your missile based anti-torp fleet escort over to missile duty in a pinch. Something to buy instead of you're skimming cash as a logistics officer and not that worried about getting caught?

 

[Condottiere]

Filling the fuel tank with water (unrefined fuel), which in theory should work with reactionary rockets.

Sensor package, you could probably substitute something civilian off the shelf.

The problem would be the warhead, since a certain sized bang would be expected.

I guess what you could do, if the Captain is in with the scam, is to fire them off at something that takes more than five turns to intercept, wander off and self destruct.

Which reminds me of a story from one of the volunteers in Ukraine - the recruits were learning how handle a Javelin anti tank missile, and something broke through mishandling; the officer instructor turned pale, and called in the quartermaster, who, after examining it, said, he'll put it way in the back of the warehouse.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Hulls and Junkers

1. You probably have to account for labour, and miscellaneous, costs, even if you got the hull sections for free.

2. Hull armour is an interesting issue, though you could treat that like with breakaways.

3. However, hull points do not transfer or get distributed.

4. You could keep the hull sections isolated, as if using docking clamps; but if not, you need to connect the wiring and plumbing.

5. Doing so, the bridge cost(s) come into play, since my take on it, is that the half a megastarbux per hundred tonnes is the cost of installing said control wiring.

6. If you don't hook up the hull sections to the bridge, you can't directly control it, or it's components, nor have a direct surveillance.

7. Which brings us to bridge size/cost, hull volume, and jumping.

8. You can take along other separate hulls when you transition, most notably battle tenders.

9. If the bridge does not match the requisite size for the total volume, you either consider it a small bridge, or institute a negative modifier to the jump sequence.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Hulls and Junkers

A. The smallest practical bridge (size) is six tonnes.

B. It can substitute for a ten tonne bridge, but at a penalty.

C. In theory, that gives us upto two hundred tonnes that can about be controlled by it.

D. For jumping; if it's more than that, might want to switch to a workstation directly attached to the jump drive.

E. Considering that the double cockpit has been listed to control a two kilotonne hull, with no penalty mentioned, has turned up again.

F. Tenzing class Exploration Vessel.