Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Ultralight Fighters

G. You have to wonder what's considered fast and slow.

H. Though, usually in context of the primary role, and the prevailing technological level.

I. If a lot of time will be spent in atmosphere, factor/three acceleration seems the maximum.

J. Likely closer to factor/two, acceleration minus local gravitational field.

K. Anything close to a whole factor would pretty much be hypersonic.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Ultralight Fighters

L. Five tonnes defaults to two hull points.

M. Odds are, a successful hit destroys the ultralight hull.

N. Which sort of makes it irrelevant if you reinforce, or lighten, the hull.

O. So, you save twenty five percent, and lighten it to one and four fifths hull points.

P. Ironically, you might be better off with high factored hull armour and protection.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Ultralight Fighters

Q. Quadrupling that, for titanium steel is ten to forty five percent.

R. Crystaliron, five to sixty five percent.

S. Bonded, three and one fifth to forty eight percent.

T. Then, it's modified by the spacecraft hull configuration.

U. At some point, you'll just send an armed drone, and won't worry if it's on a one way mission.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Ultralight Fighters

V. If the planetoid hull configuration option is chosen, you have an organic two hull armour factors for twenty percent.

W. That's about the same as two factors of titanium steel, also at twenty percent.

X. Buffered planetoid at organic hull factor four is thirty five percent.

Y. Titanium steel factor four would be forty percent.

Z. Crystaliron factor four would be twenty percent.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: Armaments and Big Deadly Laser Weapons of Every Frequency

Spacedock delves into all the frequency variations of beam weapons.

Beam me forward, Spotty.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Ultralight Fighters

1. Speaking of crippling, any firmpointed, predominantly energy based weapon system has a maximum range of ten klix.

2. For the generous reduction of a quarter power input.

3. Still costs the same as the original hardpointed variant.

4. And takes up the same volume.

5. One firmpoint for a five tonne smallcraft means only one spacecraft weapon system can be installed.

6. Small weapons with a mass of more than 250 kilograms consume an amount of space equal to their mass, to a minimum of one ton.

7. These must be mounted in turrets (if they mass one ton or less) or fixed mounts and consume no Power.

8. Which, for a smallcraft with a single firmpoint, becomes an either/or situation.

9. The firmpoint has to be in a state where groundscale weapon systems can be installed/attached to.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Ultralight Fighters

A. If turretted, it defaults to one tonne volume available, for either a turretted sized weapon system, plus, presumably, any smaller weapons.

B, Though, we could presume, that that single descriptor only caps the amount of spacecraft weapon systems, not, any other weapon system that could be installed.

C. In theory, that would be four times a quarter tonnes, which results in maximum four small weapons less than a quarter tonne each, minus whatever volume the spacecraft weapon system takes up.

D. Which, has never been stated.

E. And, then you have potentially another tonne each of missiles, canisters, and/or railgun slugs.

F. I know, isn't modern technology fascinating in it's ability to squeeze everything in?

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Ultralight Fighters

G. Investing in a single turret ensures that the smallcraft can't really be outmanoeuvred into a tactical blindspot.

H. The question might not be as to how many small weapon systems you can cram onboard, but rather how effectively you can use an optimal number.

I. How long do you expect the ultralight fighter to remain engaged?

J. There are limits to the fire output of spacecraft weapon systems, in both in terms of time and space.

K. Groundscale weapon systems, apparently, regenerate their energy pools every six seconds, compared to six minutes for spacecraft weapon systems.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Ultralight Fighters

L. Groundscale weapon systems have one more major advantage over firmpointed spacecraft.

M. Besides energy pool regeneration.

N. Is that their ranges aren't crippled with a seventy five percent power input.

O. Add to that, what these ranges increase to in microgravity.

P. And/or vacuum.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Ultralight Fighters

Q. Can you improve and/or customize groundscale weapon system models like spacecraft ones?

R. Apparently not.

S. The most effective, in terms of cost, volume, and effect, would be the fusion gun, man portable.

T. Though, rather wasteful for requiring that quarter tonne, since it's just twelve kilogrammes.

U. You could mount them externally on pintle mounts.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Ultralight Fighters

Q. Fighter pilots need, in theory, one hundred eighty hours of actual flight time, per annum.

R. Commercial pilot license would appear to require fifteen hundred hours.

S. Interesting question would be, if the ultralight fighter would be considered a basic, or an advanced trainer.

T. In either case, you probably need to have a double cockpit, for the instructor to be onboard.

U. Though, a study period is eight hours daily, presumably times a continuous forty two days.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Ultralight Fighters

V. I would think that advanced training would be familiarizing yourself with the actual spacecraft that you would go to combat with.

W. I suppose that for the flight and operations aspect, you could boil it down to having similar characteristics.

X. Which would mean that as long as it's an under fifty tonne smallcraft, with acceleration factor/eight, you could use it to train and maintain fighter pilot flight hours.

Y. Large sensor arrays being rather tough to fit into a five tonne hull.

Z. Also, parking and flybys might not accurately reflect flying medium fighters.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Ultralight Fighters

1. Though, if you use the Airbus one size fits all concept, most cockpits tend to be mostly the same.

2. You control acceleration, and the sensor and engineering data could be channelled through one or two screens.

3. Hull placement and alignment of the drives would affect manoeuvring, to some degree.

4. In theory, spacecraft between fifty one to ninety nine tonnes could be termed mediumcraft.

5. The variables would be the technological level that the cockpit was constructed at.

6. And, you could add the sensor suite and computer.

7. Though those would be more spatial awareness, and the complexity of programmes that can be run.

8. Odds are, hull configuration might actually be more important.

9. Especially, if atmospheric reentry is an issue.

 

[Condottiere]

Inspiration: This TIE variant is absurdly HUGE

The classic Marvel Star Wars comic is full of really interesting forgotten designs! Among those designs is a fascinating huge TIE fighter-style transport that has a lot of unintentional connections with Darth Maul's Sith Infiltrator. Come explore my interpretation and lore for this ship!

Inflating smallcraft designs.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Ultralight Fighters

A. Specific to smallcraft interceptors, they would either be hybrids, or specialized variants.

B. Specialized variants would concentrate on one aspect of interception.

C. You could optimize interceptors for dogfighting.

D. That would be a combination of heavy armour, self regenerating weapon systems, and/or very high acceleration.

E. Or, over the horizon interceptors, made as undetectable as possible.

F. With the weapon system remaining uncastrated would be missiles.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Hulls and Buffered Planetoids

1. When is thirty five percent wastage too much of a good thing?

2. When what's it's platforming is worth more being protected by actual hull armour.

3. The exception would be gigantic spacestations.

4. The volume of the buffered planetoid being far greater, than that required to host all the spacecstation facilities.

5. For actual spacecraft, definitely if installing a spinal mount.

6. To make it mobile, you have to compensate for the desired acceleration factor by increasing the size of the manoeuvre drive by fifty percent.

7. And considering the cost of the spinal mount, you'll want to add additional hull armour, and not rely on just soldiering on on organic armour factor/four.

8. The only advantages are that organic armour factor, cheapness of hull, and speed of construction.

9. So, I'd say the upper limit would be twenty five kilotonnes, to take advantage of additional hull points, and lower personnel requirements.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Or alternatively a sci fi version of these concepts:

 

[Condottiere]

A dogfight missile is a smaller version of the standard anti-shipping missile, optimised for fast response at close range. Dogfight missiles can be carried on a rail aboard a fighter or small craft rather than in standard missile launchers, with two missiles carried per firmpoint. Dogfight missiles have a maximum range of Close, but gain an additional DM+4 to attack within this range. Damage is 1D, making the missile ineffective against anything larger than a fighter or missile. This is not a drawback; dogfight missiles are often used to intercept incoming missiles and torpedoes or deal with small craft.

If carried as anti-missile or anti-small craft weapons by a vessel with conventional hardpoints, four dogfight missiles take up the same amount of space as one standard missile. They can only be launched at the same rate as normal, however, so a double missile rack turret can still only fire two missiles at once whether they are ship-killers or dogfight missiles. Dogfight missiles used in this manner are sometimes termed point-defence missiles but are essentially the same weapons as carried by fighters, just on a larger mount.

The use of dogfight missiles allows an incoming salvo or flight of fighters to be engaged and thinned out before point defence fire.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Hulls and Buffered Planetoids

A. Large buffered planetoid hulls can absorb a lot of damage, which must be comforting to the crew, that their vessel isn't going to disintegrate under them the moment enemy fire damages their spacecraft.

B. In theory, you could install a twelve and a half kilotonne spinal mount in a twenty five kilotonne hull.

C. But that would be a substantial investment in volume and money, to be partially exposed without additional armouring.

D. Might as well just build a standard hull, to act as a platform, but fully armoured with no wastage.

E. One or more large bays, would shrink optimum volume to a tad above five kilotonnes.

F. Usable volume would be three and a quarter kilotonnes.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Hulls and Buffered Planetoids

G. At around five hundred tonnes, you have the usual size for system defence boats.

H. Pretty easy to select a floating asteroid, and drill it, especially if you plan not to add extra armour, and use it to surprise guests.

I. For that, you'll only need the necessary innards, plus that bay weapon system, and point defence.

J. In theory, you could also invest in stealthifying the hull.

K. So, even if detected, odds are no emissions will be forthcoming.