Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Periscopes

Very passive sensor, and could have both actual and computer magnified image enhancement; it should be stealthier than normal, since it just collects visual images with almost no actual power usage.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Stealth and the Peltier Effect

So on one side you have subzero space, and on other other, a great deal of waste heat that you want to get rid off.

So you turn part of the hull into a thermoelectric generator, and pass the heat continuously over those sections, which might bleed off the heat, power enough ship systems and a small put put motor to push the ship along.

 

[wbnc]

Spaceships: Stealth and the Peltier Effect

So on one side you have subzero space, and on other other, a great deal of waste heat that you want to get rid off.

So you turn part of the hull into a thermoelectric generator, and pass the heat continuously over those sections, which might bleed off the heat, power enough ship systems and a small put put motor to push the ship along.

There is one example of that i can think of..The SR1/SR2 Normandy from Mass Effect explained dthat it's ull was coooled, and excess heat was stored in internal storage sinks...it doesnt explain how..but thermoelectric coolers seem a likely method.

Along with the Tantalus Drive Core, the Normandy is able to temporarily sink her heat within the hull. Combined with refrigeration of the exterior hull, the ship can travel undetected for hours, or drift passively for days of covert observation. This is not without risk. The stored heat must eventually be radiated, or it will build to levels capable of cooking the crew alive. This stealth system apparently does not fool the scanners of Collector ships, though the means by which the Collectors are able to circumvent the Normandy's stealth measures and detect the ship are unknown.

I looked at Peltier Effect cooling recently, seems that the Peltier effect has one serious limitation...If you use it to generate power it does that fairly well..but it doesn't. cool nearly as effectively as when you use the effect as a cooling system.

That's not to say it wouldn't work it would just require a bit more engineering, and hull volume to work.which explains why there was only one prototype available to certain fictional powers..and it cost them as much as a cruiser...

 

[Condottiere]

That could be part of the submarine aesthetic, not so much surfacing, but venting that heat now and then.

 

[Condottiere]

Inspiration: Dan Dare

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSCC31pTbJk

The Annie, the perfect smallcraft for that pilot who just has to get to (hotspots) and get away (from enemies).

You have to appreciate the retro lines, though pretty hard to convince a more modern audience that these represent the SOTA of a bygone generation's concept of what we should have been using by now.

 

[Condottiere]

Inspiration: Dan Dare

The Terran spacecraft tend towards a no nonsense cylindrical streamlined aesthetic, with the major difference being the nose; they seem strangely alluring, and ironically, without a groundswell of enthusiasm.

Now, as i understand it, it comes from the art deco Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon series:

Notice the wheels, you now have landing gear and ground transport.

There should be some advantage for cylindrical configurations, maybe like spheres, they should have more inherent structural strength, but at small tonnages, a little awkward to fit in machinery.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Hull

So there I was, pretty much clapping myself on the back for having worked out the perfect capital ship hull size, seven thousand five hundred tonnes, when I suddenly realized that under Space Stations, I could have a bisectional hull at any point below ten thousand tonnes, like nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine.

So I investigated further, and discovered that Space Station hulls, despite being significantly weaker than spaceship ones, were trisectional at forty nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine, quadsectional at one hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninety tonnes, compared to spaceships hulls at what I presumed were capped at respectively thirty thousand and hundred thousand.

What are the implications?

Hard to say, since I assumed the Solomani would max out their assault carriers, fleet carriers and battlecruisers at a hundred thousand tonnes, taking the conservative that anything above that needed five sections, while at the lower end of the scale, making me wonder if one thousand tonnes was actually correct for the largest Space Station unisectional hull, if I could boost up the intermediate size to nine thousand plus tonnes and if the largest unisectional hull is two thousand nine hundred ninety nine tonnes.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Stealth and Solar Panels

How stealthy are those, in space? Can they be like a solar radiation blackhole?

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Hangar Facilities

If you run out of space in the hangar, slide open one of the walls and park one of the smallcraft outside the hull.

 

[wbnc]

Spaceships: Hangar Facilities

If you run out of space in the hangar, slide open one of the walls and park one of the smallcraft outside the hull.

They call those docking clamps

O have one design I am working on..(cant quite get the bugs out of it...though)Basically a pocket carrier/micro battle rider set up...

1000 ton hull with drives, power plant set up for 2000 tons, and a collection of docking clamps...for 10 and 20 ton fighter/drones instead of hangers/launch tubes...only real advantage is launch time...without lunch tubes which eat up a lot of space the launch time for a drone or fighter is looonnnngggggggg. ( 30 Minutes)

Not t all sure if the speed of launch versus lack of support facilities from a full hanger are make the idea practical...Although being able to launch 90 drones in one round is impressive...when they come back you have to manually refuel and rearm them through EVA which means you need ot carry some sort of work pods....

 

[Anonymous]

Who says docking clamps have to be on the outside?

Why not have your hanger space and mount the docking clamps there?

The hanger is huge cos its big enough for x fighters, it doesn't have one door per fighter, it's one large door which opens the hanger to space. You might organise your hangers by flights or squadrons. When it's closed the door provides armour, when it's open your fighters get to launch unhindered. The battle tender/carrier shouldn't be anywhere near the battle.

Launch control would be each ships autopilot slaved to the launching ship's computer so it coordinates the launch with no collisions.

The cost and space of the hanger includes the machinery to open the door.

Your ramp crews are going to be machines or in vacc suits, no need to pressurise the hanger as the fighters come back to rearm/fuel.

 

[Anonymous]

And, HG doesn't specify if the docking clamp has an airlock. You may need to add an airlock for each clamp or subsume it within the ship's hull design.

 

[Condottiere]

You cycle the drones through your onboard full hangar, mostly to reload armament, since it should have enough fuel to operate for a week.

The problem is that smallcraft launch facilities aren't listed separately, but rather assumed to be both inherent and singular on a hull.

 

[Anonymous]

I think you're assuming more than needs to be assumed :mrgreen:

Many Traveller rules are brief or poorly written, depending on how you want to view them. Their brevity allows us to interpret them as we choose. Sometimes their vagueness drives me up the wall, sometimes it's a good source of creativity.

Within the framework of the rules, our interpretations are all good. That the interpretation may vary between GMs and/or player groups makes it harder to transition between groups.

This thread kinda makes me laugh, it's how many pages of pretty much one persons view of an important but relatively small part of the game?

 

[Condottiere]

As regards docking clamps and airlocks, since you assume there is an atmosphere on either side, not that much of an issue, though I tend to specify that there is an airlock in addition to the docking clamp, and it's supposed size.

 

[Anonymous]

I certainly didn't assume, see that part above where I say the hanger door opens, it opens to space where last I checked, or last I was told, there is pretty much only vacuum

 

[Condottiere]

You in the general sense.

For my customized half-tonne docking clamp specifically intended for ten tonnes and below, that access door tends to be optimized for a slim athletic type.

 

[Anonymous]

Me? :wink:

OK, point taken.

I'm gonna add a docking clamp that holds 50-200 dT or thereabouts. I've drawn up a couple of small ships in the last few days designed as general purpose system ships that have clamps so they can act as a tug for disabled ships. The 10dT clamp I'm ruling is too big for ships below 100dT but the 5 dT clamp won't hold a 100dT ship safely. The goldilocks clamp...

 

[Condottiere]

The five and ten tonne clamps don't work for what I have in mind, outside of which the ratio of eighteen to one seems very inefficient.

 

[Anonymous]

Agreed