Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

In theory, you don't need artificial gravity, so that's another energy requirement you could skip.

And you could have actual hamsters turn those hamster cages, making them a source of renewable energy.

 

[wbnc]

In theory, you don't need artificial gravity, so that's another energy requirement you could skip.

And you could have actual hamsters turn those hamster cages, making them a source of renewable energy.

Giant space hamsters.....

 

[AndrewW]

In theory, you don't need artificial gravity, so that's another energy requirement you could skip.

Yes, that is a possibility.

And you could have actual hamsters turn those hamster cages, making them a source of renewable energy.

There is a hamster cage hull configuration option... Both 2300AD and Space Stations have it available.

 

[Condottiere]

If you huddle the staterooms and the bridge together, you can optimize life support, the exception being engineering, which most tend to situate at the other end of the ship. You know, minimizing radiation and noise.

You have to power the jump drive, the ship's computer and the bridge ship monitoring systems, though not external sensors.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: The Azhanti Skyscraper and no Artificial Gravity

While I'm not saying you have to have a sixty kay tonne hull, a cheap commercial variant could pull this off with a one gee acceleration, pressing the crew and passengers to the right angled floor.

Of course, three things should be considered.

1. Commercial ships generally transition at zero velocity, and I don't know if you can accelerate in hyperspace, though it doesn't seem to make much difference, at least in terms of getting there faster; so possibly no gee force from acceleration.

2. Psychologically, do the crew and passengers mind floating around continuously for a week?

3. Do the margins justify it?

 

[wbnc]

Spaceships: The Azhanti Skyscraper and no Artificial Gravity

While I'm not saying you have to have a sixty kay tonne hull, a cheap commercial variant could pull this off with a one gee acceleration, pressing the crew and passengers to the right angled floor.

Of course, three things should be considered.

1. Commercial ships generally transition at zero velocity, and I don't know if you can accelerate in hyperspace, though it doesn't seem to make much difference, at least in terms of getting there faster; so possibly no gee force from acceleration.

2. Psychologically, do the crew and passengers mind floating around continuously for a week?

3. Do the margins justify it?

By TL-12 I think the cost of grav plates is so slight that there is no savings from dropping them...and only when the ship needs every watt of power to operate weapons drives, and other systems would killing grav plates be worth the effort.

 

[Condottiere]

Depends on whether the new edition will give a breakdown on the exact cost and energy usage of basic systems.

On that note whereas, computers don't take up space, more powerful ones should use more energy.

 

[AndrewW]

Depends on whether the new edition will give a breakdown on the exact cost and energy usage of basic systems.

Nope, the desire was to keep things simpler without having to worry about the power of each individual system.

On that note whereas, computers don't take up space, more powerful ones should use more energy.

Bridge and computers fall under basic systems.

 

[wbnc]

Depends on whether the new edition will give a breakdown on the exact cost and energy usage of basic systems.

Nope, the desire was to keep things simpler without having to worry about the power of each individual system.

On that note whereas, computers don't take up space, more powerful ones should use more energy.

Bridge and computers fall under basic systems.

that's sort of the price of light weight rules. Sometimes it's left to the Ref/GM to make a call and set the numbers for a particular issue.

Of course if someone wanted to work up that sort of detail, and offer it to the publisher then they might just put it out as an optional supplement to the rules...never know till ya try. it's not like they are going to send a hit squad to your door for offering...hey why are those guys with guns and the Mongoose logo outside my ..........

 

[Condottiere]

Military reserve power.

In theory, inertial compensation requires far more power than artificial gravity, especially in surges, when compensating for missiles impacts and sudden changes in course.

You could compare the differences in power between that required for tech level seven (no grav), tech level eight (artificial gravity), and tech level nine (inertial compensators) spaceships.

Speaking of tech level seven, are the radioactive still overpriced?

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Multi-Weapon Platforms Turret

Or the hat-trick.

If you can only fire one type of weapon platform per turret per turn, what you could do is have three different weapon systems optimized for long, medium and short range.

For example, a pulse laser for short, sandcaster for really short, and a missile launcher for long, or even very long.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Sandcasters

While we're at short range, I'm thinking that the sandcaster could be used as a recoilless cannon, which would give it the capability of a high explosive warhead, or shaped charge anti-armour one.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Sandcasters

Sandcasters have a range defined as close, which is upto ten klicks in zero gee vacuum of space.

So I wonder what's the actual range if the ship is parked on Terra firma; also, the muzzle veloity would determine if the canister acts like a mortar round, a howitzer, possibly a cannon.

I think at a minimum you could angle the launcher upwards and have an ad hoc mortar.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Hulls and Planetoids

In theory, you shouldn't be able to get a precise volume with a planetoid, more of a rounding off to the next nearest standard tonne. Also, the hull might be subject to more ablation than a normal hull, so that means it has a rate of shrinkage.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Character Generation Default

If this were a video game, the default ship would be an empty hull that depending on you budget, you can just add components to.

It's one of the reasons that envisioned the Solomani just building two, four and six hundred tonne hulls, so that options and add-ons are basic but comprehensive, since a great deal of the components and the construction are modular.

The problem is that it requires financing, and either a character has earned it during the course of their career(s), or you have a patron, whether a private individual, corporation or official agency.

Or you get an old clunker, and have some fun randomly rolling dice that individualizes it, and establishes any performance quirks.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Character Generation

If you consider spaceships as an integral part of any story or team, it might be worth it to generate a starship much like you would a character, allowing it to acquire quirks, at the cost of structural degradation, much like any human character.

Starship terms should be in five year blocks. There can be rolls for proper maintenance, and upgrades could the equivalent of promotions.

A life event might be capture by corsairs, which might given an automatic combat upgrade, or getting stripped and sold. Plus acquiring a smell that reminds you of wet dog.

Mortgages of old ships are actually the cost of repairs and upgrades, that the current team is liable for.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Alphabet Drives

So I hear that the alphabet drives are going to get discarded in the next edition, and that implies the alphabet hulls as well.

That doesn't necessarily mean that standard templates that have been established over the past millenia would be, since you'd want the same spare parts to repair your ship, wherever you happen to be, cheaply as possible, since the other alternative would be they would be recreated with a three dee printer, ala Star Trek.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Engineering and Fuel Consumption

Since the fuel consumption for power plants is being tinkered with, another option that should be considered for both power plants and jump drives is efficiency.

If you factor in quality of engines in to how much fuel they consume, you could balance out initial costs of acquiring a ship with running it. While one or two percentage points of efficiency might not seem that much, seen in a larger perspective a free trader that has an inefficient jump drive that needs fifteen percent fuel for a one parsec jump, but costs half as much is something that can be considered, much as a jump six courier might be quite happy with a fuel consumption of fifty five or even fifty four percent of volume, even if the jump drive costs double.

 

[wbnc]

from experience most players are not usually wanting that level of detail, and most often ships are pushing the upper edge of the tolerance for paperwork( for the average player)

As optional, rules or a simple upkeep/fuel use modifier it could be useful.

 

[Condottiere]

I'm still purs(u)ing the goal of trying to build the cheapest possible examples of starships.