Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Hulls and Junkers

G. You do need to connect the fuel tanks to jump drive, the power plant, and if present, reactionary rockets.

H. However, direct bridge control might not be necessary for the tanks.

I. Just as you don't have direct bridge control over the drop tanks, just the plumbing and explosive rigging on the starship's side.

J. But, you do need to drill holes to install that plumbing.

K. However you look at it, you can't control the jump drive from a cockpit.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Escape Pods and Lifeboats in Science Fiction

Spacedock delves into the many variations of escape pod and lifeboat in science fiction.

1. Lifeboats have engines.

2. Low berth requirement.

3. Flying coffins.

4. Combined with an acceleration seat.

5. MOOSE - ablative foam.

6. Preference for shuttlecraft.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Hulls and Junkers

L. I don't see bridge (or cockpit) mentioned as either a minor or major refits.

M. If you have to rewire the entire hull for bridge controls, I tend to think that's a major refit.

N. If it's just plopping in a new bridge, and connecting up the wiring, I would take that as a minor refit.

O. Cockpits would be minor refits, since the construction cost is fixed.

P. Ship's computer, being virtual, would be minor.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Accommodations and Hatches

https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1400/1*24Wop7L-VqI67pFEfkmBUQ.gif

Central pivot door.

Optionally, as the weight of the hatch would be more balanced, and you could bolt it.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Accommodations and Hatches

Also, the the doors sides could be curved convex, which would allow a tight seal with concave curved door frame, the top and bottom, having some other methods to keep that vacuum tight.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Hulls and Junkers

Q. Outside of sensors, no other (separate) workstations have been mentioned.

R. Specialist control centres, equivalent to small bridges in cost and size, seems the only alternative.

S. Smallest bridge is currently three tonnes, in relationship to default full six tonner.

T. However, six tonnes is already considered a small bridge in relationship to a default ten tonner for one hundred tonne hull and upwards.

U. So, it would seem that the minimum jump drive specialist control centre would be six tonnes.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Hulls and Junkers

V. Let's say you use a modular cutter as the base for a junker.

W. You have a three tonne bridge.

X. If you connect the welded on sections, you could treat the three tonne bridge as a podular full bridge equivalent.

Y. That means, that any control or bridge function outside of the modular cutter, would have a minus two penalty.

Z. Does that include the jump drive? Who knows.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Hulls and Junkers

1. What you can do, is get hold of a two hundred tonne hull, with a small six tonne bridge.

2. A one hundred five tonne jump drive would give us forty hundred parsec tonnes, requiring four hundred power points.

3. Once you pass the two kilotonne threshold, you need a sixty tonne bridge.

4. Or a smaller forty tonne one.

5. Forty hundred parsec tonnes needs four hundred tonnes of fuel.

6. Place the fuel into attached drop tanks, and as far as we know, the default bridge isn't affected by that add on.

7. Pickup a thirty four hundred tonne hull, and that six tonne bridge still functions at minus one to ship operations.

8. As far as we know.

9. You make it a junker by welding the drop tanks and the thirty four hundred tonne hull section to the primary hull.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Hulls and Junkers

A. In theory, at a thousand starbux per tonne, it probably is easier to erect an external cargo cage.

B. However, what welding on (used) parts of hull sections does, is allow a sheltered volume that can be sub divided into other functions or equipped with ship components.

C. Also, if scrapped, potentially free, except for parts and labour.

D. If it's from a space station, you'd have possibly a twenty tonne control centre.

E. There is no smaller version for that.

F. But, cost per hundred tonnes is five times cheaper than a full bridge, and therefore, two and a half when compared to a smaller bridge.

 

[ProfGrizzlyJon]

1. While the Third Imperium doesn't have the military and political need to suppress dissidence and crush insurrection, than say, the Empire, a Star Destroyer/Imperial class wouldn't come amiss in showing the flag or ensuring good behaviour.

Alas, I fear a dose of economic reality probably splashed across the faces of such sponsors.

Taking a page from more recent events, I would have thought that someone would have considered the benefits of a class of warship that I will term an Assault Carrier. The principle task of an Assault Carrier is to act as a base for a brigade of Marines, with all attached support units, including grav tanks, APCs, assault shuttles, CAS that can double as space strike/CAP, and the usual miscellaneous craft that big ships find useful. It would also act as a tender to Jump capable stealth ships specialized for insertions, favoured by the Commando arm.

It's armament would be split between weapons optimized for planetary bombardment, and point defense with enough protection to ward off serious attentions from a low tech system defense force.

It wouldn't need to keep up with the fleet, but still have a J3 range, which would allow it to patrol a subsector. M3 should be sufficient to get it where it's most useful, weapon's range of an inhabited planet, and overall may indicate that the design is ancient stretching way back to the start of the Rule of Man.

It's also a token of goodwill, as it could be immediately sent as part of a disaster relief effort that may engulf planetary governments, as well as act as an intelligence asset, collecting and sifting through all the electronic data that's being transmitted insystem.

In the event of war, units could be dispatched to recently liberated planets, to assist Imperial administrators in restoring order.


2. It's pretty much confirmed that nothing under hundred tons enters Jumpspace, which explains the popularity of the Suleiman class Scout and it's variants, probably to ensure there are no jump capable torpedoes. Though I remember when the smallest Jdrive was 1 ton (not sure metric or hydrogen), and I designed either a twenty or twenty-five ton starship as a camper van.

That explains the viability and attractiveness of the Suleiman class Scout and it's variants. However, by this day and age, I would have expected the Scout Servoice to have upped the capability of their standard scouts to J3 or J4, if only to keep up with the Fleet.

I have always considered that there was an Improved Type-S, but that those are still in active service with the ISS. The version we see is the one that has been farmed out to the detached Scouts.

Lots of people are driving Jeeps (aka the ubiquitous Type-S), but the Ocelot (or JMTV) isn't out on the street in the same numbers...

 

[Condottiere]

If you look at it historically, technological level twelve would be considered cutting edge, so a lot of equipment would be technological level eleven, which would include most spacecraft in the Scouts.

A millenia later, the Scouts might have progressed to technological level fourteen, which should push the current Scoutships to jump factor three or four.

Three certainly, with manoeuvre drive factor three, which leaves enough volume for passengers and equipment.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Hulls and Junkers

G. The aspects of space stations that would concern us are bridge controls and manoeuvre drive.

H. The manoeuvre drive is by default factor zero, which by volume tends to indicate to me it would be distributed.

I. So we won't be relying on any motivational force from any hull sections sourced from space stations.

J. The difference in cost of control wiring indicates a certain incompatibility between spaceships and space stations.

K. However, the control centre on the space station can be used to relay commands and information from and to the primary hull.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Hulls and Junkers

L. You can have specialized hull types for space stations, considering, since they don't change the configuration.

M. Additional hull types might be more nuanced,

N. Double hull is a common trope.

O. Hamster cage is plausible.

P. And then we have breakaway, which could be considered modular, except in the case if it's a spaceship, because of control wiring incompatibility.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Hulls and Junkers

Q. One thing I noticed, that's not mentioned in spaceship design, is that manoeuvre drive factor zero only costs one megastarbux per tonne, compared to two for anything else.

R. Also, percentage requirement has dropped from half to a quarter.

S. This changes the calculus considerably, so it would be worthwhile installing it on a space station.

T. As regards reactionary rockets, it's not even given a nod.

U. So factor zero for them remains one percent of volume, at one fifth of a megastarbux per tonne.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Hulls and Junkers

V. This bridge design can be ejected from the ship in an emergency to become a lifeboat for the command crew. The bridge has two weeks of life support and battery power, while emergency thrusters give it basic manoeuvring capabilities, equivalent to Thrust 0. A detachable bridge is even capable of soft-landing on a planetary surface.

W. That probably needs a revision.

X. Otherwise, space station manoeuvre drive factor/zero can become drop ships.

Y. Though, now I'm curious as to the exact acceleration factor.

Z. I bet it could beat a solar sail.

 

[Condottiere]

A ship using a solar sail as its primary method of propulsion has effective Thrust 0 and requires several days to change course or speed.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Hulls and Junkers

1. The issue with bridges at the larger end, is not the volume, but the cost per hundred tonnes.

2. The largest percentage is that experienced at a hundred tonnes, ten percent, and two hundred and one tonnes, a tad under that.

3. With space stations, that would be ten percent upwards from hundred tonnes downwards.

4. The cheapest hull is a planetoid, at four kilostarbux per usable tonne, five overall.

5. Nine thirty one and a half jump drive modules at seventy percent shrinkage would be 1'618'200 parsec tonnes.

6. That would be a one and a half megatonne plus hull at factor one.

7. Or, 179'800 parsec tonnes per module.

8. If you highly technologize the jump drive, you'd have factor one at technological level twelve, and factor two at technological level fourteen.

9. You're not getting very far with a monoparsec jump drive, so I guess, two modules to double range.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Hulls and Junkers

A. Now you need a jump shuttle, or jump shuttlesque.

B. Ungravitated, light, dispersed hull configuration is about as cheap as it gets, and isn't a rock.

C. Fifty kilostarbux default, twenty five ungravitated, twelve and a half dispersed, 9'375.00 starbux per tonne lightened.

D. You need sixty three hundred tonnes for the jump drive, and thirty six kilotonnes fuel allocated for the jump.

E. At this point, the rest is just filler, since the payload is a hundred kilotonnes of anything.

F. Balance being thirty seven and a half kilotonnes.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Hulls and Junkers

G. Downgrading to very advanced technological level thirteen jump drive factor two

H. You drop to 157'300 tonnes per.

I. Sixty three hundred tonnes of jump drive, plus thirty one and a half kilotonnes of fuel.

J. Balance about nineteen and a half kilotonne.

K. Which is probably a large enough margin for the rest of engineering and other components.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Hulls and Junkers

L. Let's skip to the chase.

M. Three budgetted jump drive modules at technological level eleven, ninety four and a half hundred tonnes, 377'400 parsec tonnes, 188'700 tonnes at factor two, 10'631.25 megastarbux.

N. Two highly technologized jump drive modules at technological level fourteen, shrunken, sixty three hundred tonnes, 359'602 parsec tonnes, 179'801 at factor two, 14'175.00 megastarbux.

O. You add volume (and crew and hull volume), to save four gigastarbux.

P. If you assume hundred kilotonnes is the payload, plus motivation, the rest being filler.