Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Big Gun Turrets on Sci-Fi Warships

Spacedock delves into gun turret emplacements on sci-fi warships.

1. Fields of fire.

2. Arm turret.

3. Focussing laser mirror.

4. Phased array laser.

5. We actually do have that option.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

G. Going by deckplans, jump drives tend to be split up.

H. Would this effect the configuration of the jump bubble?

I. The original Star Trek warp drive mandate insisted on two separate pylons, that could see each other.

J. This would allow the creation of the warp field.

K. High Guard design sequence seems to indicate a preference for a monolithic jump drive block.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Nuclear Thermal Rockets in Sci-Fi Spacecraft

Spacedock delves into nuclear thermal rockets in sci-fi spacecraft design.

1. Hydrogen most efficient fuel.

2. Generates a lot of heat.

3. Radioisotope thruster Poodle.

4. Passive decay, constant heat.

5. Solid core nuclear (fission) reactor.

6. Rotating drums.

7. Takes time.

8. Fuel rods - which we don't have.

9. Dual purpose power plant.

A. Electrical second stage - re exhaust.

B. Liquid oxygen afterburner.

C. Radiation causes brittleness.

D. Inverse square law.

E. We actually could afford lead shielding.

F. Shadow shield.

G. Starport docking discouraged.

H. Limited lifespan - possibly ten times reactionary rockets.

I. Temperature limitations circumvented with gas core reactor.

J. Melted down fuel, or gaseous uranium hexafluoride.

K. Neon (gas?) buffer zone?

L. Nuclear light bulb.

M. Have the hydrogen flow around the core, direct heat transfer.

N. Vortex, centrifugally, magnetically, electrostatically - maybe that can apply to an actual fusion magnetic bottle.

O. Nuclear salt water rocket.

P. Water mixed with uranium salt.

Q. Thin tubes in a nuclear damper.

R. Continuous nuclear explosion.

S. Technological level seven available.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

G. As the sublight missions crawled out towards Alpha Centauri and other nearby star systems, jump-capable ships began reliable operations between parts of the solar system too distant for manoeuvre drive vessels.

H. Shorter trips were more efficiently made by conventional ships and for a time the jump drive seemed like something of a dead end.

I. Possessing only a one-parsec jump range and with the nearest systems beyond that, the nations of Terra did not at first comprehend how much the jump drive would change their view of the universe.

J. Seems to indicate, that we're past the prototype stage.

K. Muskrat may be already manufacturing production Model Twos, and cornered the market for the small sized starships.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

L. Some one is manufacturing default ten tonne jump drives.

M. Since it still is restricted to one parsec range, you're going to have considerable numbers of two hundred tonne hulled starships.

N. You still utilize a ten tonne bridge, the smallest sized jump drive, and you pay only an extra semimegastarbux for the bridge.

O. That being about the optimal size, considering costs versus payload.

P. Starbus by the Europeans, and I'll assume Boeing in some form.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Engineering and We Have Lift Off

1. Vectored thrust doesn't become viable for hovering until manoeuvre drive factor/five.

2. Being twenty five percent efficient at ninety degrees.

3. I'm not sure how much thrust has to be applied at what degree, to turn a belly lander into a tail sitter.

4. Though, I suppose a dockside crane will also work.

5. If lifters only work at one diameter, you're not landing on any mountains.

6. I don't know how we got orbital range at twelve and a half hundred klix.

7. Assuming gravitational motors are based on diameter.

8. We could leave that as a double disadvantage, but also as an add on to the primary manoeuvre drive.

9. Or a separate auxiliary drive, that can operate simultaneously with the manoeuvre drive.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

Q. The engineering aspects, jump, manoeuvre and power are production models.

R. But the Venture remains a research vessel.

S. What's new is the mating of the ramscoops with the jump drive (fuel tanks).

T. The RV Venture is a modified flea trader.

U. Possibly, it's now a star/raft, but I'm not sure.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

1. If it were named Kon Tiki, probably would have needed to find some convoluted, low energy of propulsion.

2. However, I assume that the hull would weigh less, if ten percent structural integrity is removed.

3. If you aren't planning on an atmospheric reentry, or one that's dead slow, you could replace the titanium steel hull with carbon fibre.

4. I don't think there's any pressure in space, so implosion shouldn't be an issue.

5. Boats are built of fibreglass, and they seem to be able to keep floating, so we could assume that's an airtight solution.

6. At $3 per lb that makes a 4,000 lb boat $12,000 for the bare fiberglass boat. It would seem that is pretty high when you consider you can buy a brand new powerboat with trailer and motor for $32,000. And that is from a dealer who adds his margin to all the other costs. So it can't be to much above $3 / lb if you're going to make money - maybe $4 / lb ???

7. I suppose, we could have a try at building a boat, or ship in Vehicles, and then installing a manoeuvre drive, a jump drive, and a power plant.

8. If I recall correctly, submarines tend to have cost overruns.

9. Maybe submersible, to ensure an overall air seal.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

A. Those options aren't mentioned, currently, in Traveller.

B. But we still have iron nickel planetoids.

C. Or, ironic hulls.

D. We're past the prototype stage, so now it's net profits and squeezed margins.

E. Hundred tonne ironic hull is four tenths megastarbux.

F. Non gravitated dispersed light hull configuration at a hundred tonnes is nine and three eighths hundred kilostarbux.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

G. Since structural integrity requires twenty percent of an iron nickel material to be unutilized, only eighty percent of a given volume is available.

H. That works out to about five kilostarbux per tonne.

I. For a non interstellar spacecraft, which doesn't need all that reserved volume for jump fuel tanks, this actually is quite cheap.

J. Even moreso, for a space station.

K. You can park an asteroid in orbit, and excavate as needed.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

L. I always thought, artificial planetoids for smaller sized hulls, might be easier.

M. You gather all the waste nickel iron, and cast it spherically.

N. After all, once you hollow out the planetoid, you have all that, essentially free, byproduct.

O. So you take that to a foundry, and say in an crystaliron mold, cast an appropriate sized hull.

P. To avoid bubbles, maybe microgravity environment?

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

Q. Considering the potential complexity of, I'll assume, mega casting, there is another option.

R. We could melt down the nickel iron, and cast them as (rather thick) sheets.

S. Instead of a spherical configuration, we assemble the metal sheets together, into a rectangular box.

T. The resemblance to a container is coincidental, but probably inevitable.

U. I considered a cylinder, but welding four sides together is easier.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

V. Assuming a requirement of twenty percent volume, the sheets would be thick enough, if only as filler.

W. Giving it a squarish cross section, two decks seems the most sensible arrangement.

X. I'm thinking five primary sheets of the same dimensions, which would be the outside hull and deck separation.

Y. Front and back would be mostly open, considering we need cargo hatches, airlocks, thruster mounts, and so.

Z. It's the organic gravitational tile cost that should be interesting.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

1. I considered a single deck, but the squarish cross section for anything but smallcraft tends to squeeze out extra layers.

2. You could make it a tailsitter, but that requires multiplying the decks.

3. The decks themselves require tunnelling, to allow transit between them.

4. That tends to alter the twenty percent required for structural integrity.

5. Which, conceivably, you could use for either end.

6. We could use floating grill flooring, to make decks.

7. Which wouldn't appear to lend itself to gravitational tiling.

8. Whatever that would be.

9. And of course, if it extends beyond three metres.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

A. Anyway, megacasting could also apply to manufactured hulls.

B. With armour factor/zero, at the presumed manufacturing technological levels, in microgravity, a mostly complete hundred tonne hull skin should be doable.

C. Cube root of fourteen hundred is 11.1868894208.

D. Times six, times one centimetre thickness, 7.508789694792418 cubic metres.

E. Which I think is 0.5363421210566013 tonnes.

F. Eleven metres should be three decks.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

G. Obviously, a cube is unlikely to be aerodynamic.

H. It's not close structure.

I. Which leaves us with standard and sphere.

J. In either case, partially streamlined.

K. And since I don't think a cube would be very expensive to construct, that makes it more standard than spherical.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: The Cube

1. Actually, I always thought it odd and uncharismatic.

2. If you want to optimize volume and thickness of armour plating, you pick a sphere.

3. Spheres are cool.

4. However, hull configuration doesn't really matter if you don't plan to land.

5. And if you do, a manoeuvre drive resolves all issues, with atmospheric reentry.

6. If you want to make an entrance, and maintain equilibrium, a pyramid would be more impressive

7.

8. Might even be a breakaway hull.

9. But it's a pain to remember angles when drawing deckplans.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: The Cube

A. The cube has a flat bottom, which should making landing fairly easy.

B. Well, not for those underneath it.

C. Landing gear might not be required.

D. A central well could be the engineering compartment.

E. The bottom being the manoeuvre drive.

F. The centre, the jump drive.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Armaments and CONTAINER-LAUNCHERS

1. The container-launcher system costs Cr50000 plus the cost of weapons (for standard missiles this is Cr250000 each) and can be used aboard any ship that has other missile weapons such as a turret-mounted missile rack.

2. Divided by three, in that storage configuration.

3. Ships that do not have such weaponry lack the requisite electronics for arming and guidance, which must be fitted at a cost of Cr150000.

4. Duly noted.

5. Container-launchers are used on some military ships to create a surge capacity for missile combat, or to carry additional interceptor or dogfight missiles.

6. As usual, one standard missile can be replaced with two interceptors or four dogfight missiles and can be launched all at once if desired.

7. A container-launcher can be fitted on a hardpoint (not a firmpoint) and contains four missiles or one torpedo in a ready-to-launch configuration.

8. My feeling is that the original author is somewhat thoughtless, since storage configuration would differ between one torpedo, four default missiles, and sixteen dogfight missiles.

9. As written, there are tactical possibilities, if it weren't for the hard point requirement, such as Multiple Launch Rocket System.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Armaments and TORPEDO PYLON

1. A torpedo pylon is a simple fixed mounting designed for use aboard small craft.

2. It takes up one firmpoint and holds a single torpedo.

3. A firmpoint mounting of this kind consumes no power and costs Cr100000.

4. Tonnage is the same as for any other fixed mount: 0.1 tons.

5. I looked it up to be sure - High Guard lists not tonnage requirement for fixed mount, but a cost of one tenth of a megastarbux.

6. Torpedoes must be bought separately, at a cost of Cr150000 for a standard warhead.

7. Divided by three.

8. Pylon mounts are inefficient for larger craft but are sometimes encountered.

9. A pylon suitable for hardpoint mounting costs Cr100000 and holds two torpedoes.