Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

I believe it's called Turbo.

Viper engines are designed to collect commonly occurring gases in planetary atmospheres and in space to power the ship's fusion reactor.

 

[wbnc]

Interesting tidbit of information

I had noticed that most of their vessels seemed to use some form of reaction drive, and there were no obvious hints that they used gravity control other than for internal gravity generation. although from the look of heir shuttles it seemed they did use if to landing and take offs as well.

A hybrid grav/reaction drive would be good for fighters and such. a low power grav drive for take off landing and casual movement. Then they switch to reaction drives for combat. If a fighter is on full burn for more than an hour our two,then it is in the wrong fight.

I know from conversations with pilots most of the time they are cruising, not pushing their engines until they sight a target, or are engaged by an enemy force. In space where they can sight the enemy at long distances and need to be able to make extremely fast dashes. they could measure their combat fuel in minutes, and often had to break off to retain enough fuel for the trip home.

either to cut down how long they are under fire, or give them power to maneuver fully. You might need to pack more fuel into the ship to give it enough fuel to fully employ it's more powerful reaction drives for longer periods.

 

[Condottiere]

I don't know where the current High Guard is going, but if they have firm points, those could be used for external weaponry, sensor pods and fuel tanks.

My bias would be to have lots of them available as an option, or the capability to have them manufactured in the spacecraft frame as an option.

In theory, the capability of trans-mach cruise should be inherent in the next generation fighters; next generation being the one that they are currently throwing an obscene amount of money at to get it operational.

 

[wbnc]

I don't know where the current High Guard is going, but if they have firm points, those could be used for external weaponry, sensor pods and fuel tanks.

My bias would be to have lots of them available as an option, or the capability to have them manufactured in the spacecraft frame as an option.

In theory, the capability of trans-mach cruise should be inherent in the next generation fighters; next generation being the one that they are currently throwing an obscene amount of money at to get it operational.

it would be easy enough to use an external cargo mount or docking clamp to simulate a weapon mount. Then build a smaller module as a separate vehicle. since you don't need drives, or a bridge, life support etc. you can add a power source, small fuel tank, and what ever weapon you want to add. A system link could be added to allow the crew to operate the weapons.

 

[Condottiere]

You need a bridge or a command module for that, and that could take up an inordinate amount of space and money, in relation to the payload.

 

[wbnc]

You need a bridge or a command module for that, and that could take up an inordinate amount of space and money, in relation to the payload.

Actually you can use a cockpit, 1.5 tons/or a drone control system( note in play test yet..as far as I can tell) to allow the pod to actually fire on it's own.

weapon pod:
hull non gravity
1.5 tons control system/cockpit....a system linkage added would allow remote operations..I seem to remember that's 2 tons..if it's installed you can use the carrier ships bridge to operate the pod....using a more advanced system linkage can reduce it's volume.

1 ton fire control

1 ton reactor and fuel ( smaller than this is possible if you use a fractional ton reactor to supply just enough power for the weapons)

weapon: a pulse lase/beam laser/etc....possible a barbette if you want a heavier weapon pod)
a 4.5 ton weapon pod... add 1/2 ton for ammo storage...

it's not cheap, but it increases the firepower of a small craft/small starship..which has a value all it's own.

add a small drive, and you have a detachable drone as well...all you need is thrust one, or zero to station keep and maneuver.

it reuces thrust for smaller craft, but on a larger ship you could pack on a few weapon pods without causing serious impact on thrust/jump...your not cheating you are building a separate vessel, with all the associated limitations and advantages.

 

[Condottiere]

Yes and no, having investigated this aspect.

But it really depends on how the new design rules are, before I will really have another go at it.

 

[wbnc]

Yes and no, having investigated this aspect.

But it really depends on how the new design rules are, before I will really have another go at it.

with a few exceptions so far it looks promising, building ships is no longer shoehorned into arbitrary hull sizes, so I am hoping it will be possible to build some of those nifty add-ons, and extras I want to do.

 

[AndrewW]

I don't know where the current High Guard is going, but if they have firm points, those could be used for external weaponry, sensor pods and fuel tanks.

Hardpoints haven't changed. Drop tanks anyways have their own mounting.

 

[AndrewW]

I'm thinking of the Old Battlestar Galactica, the vipers had a button on their control stick...they hit it and kicked in turbo boosters. They could either boost speed or slow rapidly ..which the Cylon raiders never seemed to be able to do.

sounds like they were fitted with those reaction drive boosters, which let them rapidly escape pursuit, intercept targets or execute a high gee braking maneuver to through off pursuers.

High Burn Thrusters can be used for this.

 

[Condottiere]

Scaled down drop tanks, for increased endurance for smallcraft.

So probably a firmpoint scale mechanism to hold the tank and suck the fuel.

 

[wbnc]

I'm thinking of the Old Battlestar Galactica, the vipers had a button on their control stick...they hit it and kicked in turbo boosters. They could either boost speed or slow rapidly ..which the Cylon raiders never seemed to be able to do.

sounds like they were fitted with those reaction drive boosters, which let them rapidly escape pursuit, intercept targets or execute a high gee braking maneuver to through off pursuers.

High Burn Thrusters can be used for this.

Yes, yes they can I look forward to using them.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Transitioning and Astrogation

For mono-jumping, astrogation should be either a piece of cake or a no-brainer.

Though, I'm told the cake is a lie.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Torpedoes

At two and a half tonnes, you could probably armour torpedoes; you could probably also cap them and make them armour piercing before they explode.

 

[Infojunky]

Starships: Transitioning and Astrogation

For mono-jumping, astrogation should be either a piece of cake or a no-brainer.

Why would you think that?

 

[Condottiere]

To give people and merchants a reason to hopalong, rather than really jump two parsecs.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Engineering and Jump Drives

The largest viable jump drives happen to be:

TL12 - four thousand tonnes

TL11 - fifteen hundred tonnes

TL10 - two hundred tonnes

TL09 - one hundred tonnes

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Launch Facilities

Real life carriers steam into the wind in order to assist with take-off of their aircraft, so that the wind over the deck allows a lower take off speed.

Since there's no wind in space, except for solar, which seems too slight for our purposes, the equivalent here would be for the carrier to slow down, though I like the concept of excreting the smallcraft through the rear.

 

[wbnc]

Spaceships: Launch Facilities

Real life carriers steam into the wind in order to assist with take-off of their aircraft, so that the wind over the deck allows a lower take off speed.

Since there's no wind in space, except for solar, which seems too slight for our purposes, the equivalent here would be for the carrier to slow down, though I like the concept of excreting the smallcraft through the rear.

not really an issue since the small craft would be moving at the same rate as the carrier. As long as the carrier did not accelerate it would be no problem for a small craft to get away from the ship in quick order.

anytime you try to put two ships in the same region of space you want them goign as close to the same speed as possible. the vehicle/vessel/ship with the better acceleration or maneuverability is the one that maneuvers to dock.

trust e looking up from a 90ft work boat to a god awful moving apartment block sizzed tanker you do not want it changing course.

a pilot who spoke at my Civil Air Patrol Squadron was a carrier pilot in WWII he told of making a landing on rough seas...the carrier dropped as it hit the trough of some serious waves...and instinctively he nosed over to catch it..unfortunately the carrier came up the other side and met him halfway...

so there he sat on the deck, flattened out like a dead seagull, with landing gear driven up through the wings...lucky for him he had almost no fuel on board, and had already disposed of his ordnance...

how much damage did he do to the carrier...NONE...NADA..NUNCA!!! ZIP.. not even cracked decking.

 

[Condottiere]

That depends on the approach speed, Japanese being terrible d(r)ivers.

And you might not always want smallcraft to accelerate off your tubes. Or have facilities that are military grade robust.