Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Armaments and Carronades

L. There are reasons in smallarms design to draw the line at around four dice of damage.

M. After that, the round starts to be considered destructive.

N. Possibly, in violation of any number of conventions, Geneva or otherwise.

O. Advanced missiles have a damage potential of five dice.

P. Not that far off from a standard torpedo's of six dice.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: Armaments and The Complete Guide to Sci-Fi Weapons - SUPERCUT

In our first Supercut, Spacedock compiles our various analyses of spacecraft weapons in science fiction.

0:00 Intro
1:22 Kinetic Weapons
12:26 Missile Weapons
21:36 Nuclear Weapons
31:28 Superweapons
40:40 Laser Weapons
51:12 Particle Weapons
1:02:27 Macron Weapons
1:11:15 Plasma Weapons
1:19:51 Top Ten Firearms
1:28:56 Point Defence Weapons
1:38:27 Electronic Warfare
1:48:01 Advanced Laser Weapons
1:56:44 Electromagnetic Weapons
2:05:56 Mines
2:13:58 Turretted Weapons
2:22:05 Radiation Weapons
2:29:20 Kinetic vs Energy Weapons
2:38:34 Range in Space Combat
2:47:14 Surface to Space Weapons

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Armaments and Carronades

Q. You can't fit a standard torpedo warhead (and guidance package) onto a missile chassis.

R. Assumption would be hundred kilogrammes, onto eighty three and a third kilogrammes.

S. So, turning torpedoes into missiles is out.

T. Halving the torpedo gives us forty percent propulsion and fuel tanks, instead of seventy percent.

U. Default acceleration factor/ten, forty eight minutes of fuel.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Armaments and Carronades

V. If you're aiming for an immediate effect, you only need six minutes worth of fuel.

W. Which sort of ties in neatly with the carronade effect.

X. Carronades have the same damage potential as default cannons, but less range.

Y. Achievable, by minimizing the fuel tank.

Z. And changing missile/torpedo doctrine, to closing with the enemy.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Armaments and Carronades

1. The thing about missile (and torpedo) combat, tends to be damage, acceleration, and duration.

2. Customizing missiles tends to have unwanted consequences.

3. Hence, kinetic kills.

4. Let's stuff a warhead with depleted uranium, and kamikaze it towards a battleship.

5. I'm inclined to believe Mongoose would prefer to stay with known outcomes, and we'll never have customized ordnance.

6. My reading of the High Guard customization for weapon systems, is that inflation and deflation options revolves around the launching mechanism, not the actual ordnance.

7. Well, the Imperium might have standardized their load outs.

8. Others, might have copied them, for convenience.

9. But, the Confederation doesn't have to, and is large (and cohesive) enough to set up their own standards.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Cargo

1. Built into the ceiling of a cargo hold, this overhead gantry crane is designed to shift cargo containers in and out of the ship.

2. The crane’s mechanism moves about the bay on a sliding jig and can extend beyond the cargo door on a gibbet to deposit freight directly onto a dockside or vehicle.

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

4. I believe previous iterations specified also, thirty two tonne containers.

5. Not that it really matters, since I don't see how they'd quite fit (in).

6. They two volumes that would be interesting, would be thirty five and fifty tonnes.

7. After that, seventy and hundred tonnes.

8. Also scaled down, to five tonne forty foot containers.

9. Trying to standardize is going to be interesting.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Cargo

A. Instead of cargo, you could use it as a people mover.

B. I don't think we have lifts.

C. Now, we do.

D. It also depends on the speed of the crane's movement.

E. If it his hundred to hundred fifty kilometres per hour, we could have a train.

F. Or, tram, if less.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Cargo

G. Let's say that a passenger car is three metres, by three metres, by thirty metres.

H. Which should be twenty tonnes.

I. For simplicity, let's say that there's no discernible difference in the hull tube volume this would be moving in.

J. You're paying one megastarbux per three hundred tonnes (plus overhead), so that's a one hundred fifty metre long tunnel.

K. Kilometre plus tunnel, seven megastarbux for the gantry, fifty two and a half megastarbux for the tunnel, at standard gravitated hull volume.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Cargo

L. But, let's place the crane externally, on the hull.

M. You'd calculate cost on how much surface it would have access to.

N. However, you could keep it isolated on a very narrow track (the same, if specifically stated for the internal cargo hull).

O. You need the hull, external or internal, to anchor the crane.

P. But what can be discussed, is how much of the hull.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Cargo

Q. If the crane is overhead, let's go for an overhead tram line.

R. The volume of hull material required to anchor the crane, per metre, is suspended overhead.

S. What do they call them, vaults, arches?

T. The hull strip is attached underneath a series of vaults, and the crane to the hull strip.

U. Maximum size of passenger car, sixty five tonnes.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Cargo

V. You can, of course, use them to move actual cargo (containers).

W. When the new Vehicles book is published, it would be interesting to see how much railways will cost.

X. Who knows, maybe my variant will be more cost effective.

Y. And, you can have more than one crane running along a track.

Z. With sidetracks, possibly double lines, to allow traffic in either direction.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: Military Historians Review Star Wars Empire Fleet Ships | May 4th Special

Did The Empire Have a Good Military? Hot Takes Incoming - May The Forth Be With You.

1. Point defence.

2. Fighter screens.

3. Layered defences.

4. Battleship carrier.

5. Discrete life support.

6. Weapon system placement.

7. Hull configuration.

8. Mothership strategic movement.

9. Cowabunga.

A. Ramming is underappreciated.

B. Guns everywhere.

C. Bureaucratically inefficient.

D. Evil space wizard, whose motivation is to become more evil.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Cargo

1. I don't recall if it's ever mentioned how spacecraft are moved around in the hangars.

2. Maybe, they have a wheeled landing undercarriage, and you just push them.

3. Though, a crane seems to be the most practical.

4. Though, I would think a typical crane tends to rely somewhat on a gravitational field, for the cable and hook to work as intended.

5. Mobile docking clamp, seems the other alternative.

6. Which, being somewhat rigid, wouldn't need a gravitational field.

7. Though, the mobile aspect doesn't appear to be an option.

8. You could use a passenger car inside a launch tube as a people mover, or cargo.

9. Though, that feels kinda expensive, and I'm not sure the passengers will appreciate that acceleration.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Cargo

A. You could also use the crane to launch a smallcraft.

B. The crane picks up the smallcraft, and moves it, let's say, to the rear of the primary hull.

C. A cargo hatch opens, and the gantry extends beyond the primary hull.

D. The crane then drops the smallcraft, and we'll presume it drifts backwards.

E. Or forwards, if it's facing the rear.

F. A smallcraft could also drift to the crane, and be roped in.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Cargo

G. At the lower end, you could have two and ten tonne containers.

H. In case you're wondering, it's the capacity of the standard and heavy grappling arms.

I. They have a reach of two hundred fifty metres.

J. Which is, pretty good for a crane.

K. And, you don't have to wire up the entirety of the cargo hold in order to move the cargo.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Cargo

L. One issue that has to be addressed are going to be the dimensions of any container set.

M. Our premise would be, that they should compliment each other, like Lego bricks.

N. By sheer coincidence, five tonnes about overlaps a forty foot container.

O. But, two tonnes isn't half of five tonnes.

P. Ten tonnes seems more like the crane grabbing two forty foot containers at the same time.

 

[Condottiere]

Inspiration: Stellaris: The British Empire in Space

When Paradox first asked us whether we'd be interested in making a Stellaris video, we were sceptical, as it's the one game of theirs we couldn't be the British Empire for... or so we thought.

1. Free them, and then reenslave them with the Albion dream ideology.

2. Issue credit cards, to keep the economy growing.

3. One trick is, adopt local names, and then anglicize them.

4. At some point in the future, have some populist leader recolonize these names.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Cargo

Q. Containers are meant as a convenience, to efficiently move cargo around.

R. In three millenia, would we need anything substantially bigger, that would make worthwhile creating new standards.

S. Pretty sure, if you do have an unusually shaped or volumed item, they can customize a container, and neatly pack it.

T. Much, like we can with pallets and wooden boxes.

U. Three dee printers would advance that to plastics and metals.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Fuel and The Malacca Straits: The Most Pirate-Infested Waters in the World

Pirates, fuel thefts, and phantom ships—welcome to the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, where centuries of piracy meet modern maritime crime in the world’s most dangerous waters for merchant crews.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Fuel and Autocracies

1. If you control fuel, you control travel.

2. You can jump in any time, but you can never leave.

3. Only certified starships can refuel, and jump out.

4. It's likely, interplanetary travel is restricted, as well.

5. This would create a black market for fuel, refined and unrefined.

6. And unsanctioned spacecraft, that can manage to outrun and/or evade the authorities.

7. All human waste products must be deposited in controlled and monitored lavatories.

8. Water will be rationed out, in accordance to perceived need.

9. And should be accounted for, requiring lavatorial reconciliation.