Ship Design Philosophy

[phavoc]

I vaguely recall that sandcasters and missile had three rounds in the can, before you needed to reload them. Can't find any mention of that in Mongoose.

Loading the large calibre capital ship guns was an involved process, since you had to try to insulate the powder from any possible fires before sending up the load to the turrets. Since it came in bags, probably simpler than trying to manoeuvre a complete missile into a tube.

Artillery shells (larger ones at least) have the same issue that naval guns do - you have to add bags of powder after you add the shell. Take note of that order...it's rather important!

Navy shells came onboard in just the shell form, and the powder was brought aboard in cannisters. Here's a link to a good description of how they resupplied ammo on the larger surface combatants - http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/battleships-board/41283-resupplying-ammo-while-sea.html

 

[Condottiere]

Checking up on a vague memory it seems the Germans used brass cartridge cases, supplemented by silk bags.

As with other German large-calibre naval rifles, these guns were designed by Krupp and featured sliding wedge breech blocks, which required brass cartridge cases for the propellant charges. Under optimal conditions, the rate of fire was one shot every 18 seconds, or three per minute. The gun turrets were electrically trained and the guns were hydraulically elevated. Gun elevation was controlled remotely. The turrets required each gun to return to 2.5° elevation for loading.

 

[darue]

hello o/

you know, in this tech/environment, I can't really "believe" in fighters. Why launch men in tiny little spaceships at all? A far more effective use of a ten ton fighter would be to mount a drone control in the cockpit and just have it run at 9g out a couple minutes and then back in at 9g for a couple minutes. Then ram the enemy. The kinetic energy would be massive, even with no warhead. Now optimize that. Armor around a pplant/Mdrive and a computer, fuel for an hour or two of max output. It comes in not on a direct course, so the enemy can't be sure which ship it's going to go for. starts erratic maneuvering inside medium range (or earlier), and goes for a target. Stealth'ed with reflec under the paint.

your best bet would be to run away from them. They're cheap as dirt. They're faster and more maneuverable than any piloted craft could be. They come in a variety of sizes. Some would even have their own point-defense lasers. The armor is the warhead.

You could even disguise them as space rocks and scatter them throughout a system decades in advance of hostilities.

Now at last we can have peace.

 

[Condottiere]

1. Actually, they've thought of that, which is why there are now limitations on kinetic kill missiles to prevent sticking large fusion rocket at one end, an armoured warhead on the other end, and letting it catch up with the target. The current version is a suicide drone with a nuclear pumped laser warhead, which you'll find in Traders and Gunboats.


2. I've gone over the Smallcraft gravitics drive, trying to figure out the best configuration for an economic insystem container carrier. The values are out of sync.

In theory, one ton of gravitics should be able to push 25.26 tons of displacement at one gee, which means sZ maxes out at 80 tons with six gee, and 4.8 gee at one hundred tons.

My maths may be wrong, so feel free to correct it.

 

[darue]

well, the math is doomed from the get go, the dTon really should be dropped. Just give us cubic meters and kilograms for components. Tech level and can then adjust the Volume, Mass and Cost for standardized Performance ratings of components directly. baseline at TL9 (for gravitic M drive), then as tech goes up, various things are possible, say at TL10 Volume is reduced 10%, at TL12 Mass goes down 10%, etc.

J drive performance is volume governed, while M drives performance should be governed by mass.

 

[F33D]

hello o/

you know, in this tech/environment, I can't really "believe" in fighters. Why launch men in tiny little spaceships at all? A far more effective use of a ten ton fighter would be to mount a drone control in the cockpit and just have it run at 9g out a couple minutes and then back in at 9g for a couple minutes. Then ram the enemy. The kinetic energy would be massive, even with no warhead. Now optimize that. Armor around a pplant/Mdrive and a computer, fuel for an hour or two of max output. It comes in not on a direct course, so the enemy can't be sure which ship it's going to go for. starts erratic maneuvering inside medium range (or earlier), and goes for a target. Stealth'ed with reflec under the paint.

That would probably be a good use for them. However, there is no stealth in space.

 

[darue]

crossing over from another thread...

... I think that much acceleration (hundreds or more g) would overwhelm the inertial compensation. Your pilot would be jelly in a vac-suit. IIRC, there is no 'official' word on upper limits of artificial gravity, but I can't believe they intend it to be above the 9-15 range. Then again, maybe it HAS to be much higher... a 6g ship (or less) could probably pull curves that would generate a LOT of apparent g to the ship and contents. One way around that would be if the Mdrives were moving the entire reference frame so everything inside it's "bubble" is accelerated equally, but as written, it seems they just provide a reaction-less thrust.

 

[Condottiere]

Acceleration is capped at six gees for ships seventy tons and over.

An acceleration tank plus one gee will allow pilots to operate more or less normally at eight gee.

There are manned fighters rated at twelve gee.

You'd have to source a medical opinion on how many gees a normal human can withstand on an acceleration couch for any prolonged period from six minutes and onwards.

 

[locarno24]

Turret's store a single round onmount. Nothing in the description of missile or torpedo bay's says anything about onmount ammunition storage. The torps would be handled in the same way the missiles are. In some ways though, the missile possibly would require more tonnage, as you have to have 12 feed mechanisms to the three of the torpedo. And while the torpedo is physically larger, you can turn off gravity in the turret area so you only have to worry about mass - which the machinery should be able to easily handle without being overly large.

Torpedo Barbettes, bizzarrely, however, include two rounds internal storage. Go figure.

 

[F33D]

crossing over from another thread...

... I think that much acceleration (hundreds or more g) would overwhelm the inertial compensation. Your pilot would be jelly in a vac-suit. IIRC, there is no 'official' word on upper limits of artificial gravity, but I can't believe they intend it to be above the 9-15 range. Then again, maybe it HAS to be much higher... a 6g ship (or less) could probably pull curves that would generate a LOT of apparent g to the ship and contents. One way around that would be if the Mdrives were moving the entire reference frame so everything inside it's "bubble" is accelerated equally, but as written, it seems they just provide a reaction-less thrust.

It would be the limit of the G rating of the ship. Ships in space can't "pull curves that would generate a LOT of apparent g to the ship and contents". They can only pull to the G limit of their drive. So, launch tubes are pretty useless except for cinematic scenes to show at the local recruit office in order to weed out the uneducated rubes who are trying to become pilots...

 

[Condottiere]

Barbettes are supposed to take up five tons, which assuming the torpedoes are at the standard 2.5 tons, makes that a rather tight fit. Also, not sure how you'd reload.

 

[phavoc]

Torpedo Barbettes, bizzarrely, however, include two rounds internal storage. Go figure.

Yes, another bizarre thing that should be added to the clean-up list.

 

[darue]

crossing over from another thread...

... I think that much acceleration (hundreds or more g) would overwhelm the inertial compensation. Your pilot would be jelly in a vac-suit. IIRC, there is no 'official' word on upper limits of artificial gravity, but I can't believe they intend it to be above the 9-15 range. Then again, maybe it HAS to be much higher... a 6g ship (or less) could probably pull curves that would generate a LOT of apparent g to the ship and contents. One way around that would be if the Mdrives were moving the entire reference frame so everything inside it's "bubble" is accelerated equally, but as written, it seems they just provide a reaction-less thrust.

It would be the limit of the G rating of the ship. Ships in space can't "pull curves that would generate a LOT of apparent g to the ship and contents". They can only pull to the G limit of their drive. So, launch tubes are pretty useless except for cinematic scenes to show at the local recruit office in order to weed out the uneducated rubes who are trying to become pilots...

eh, I'm not so sure about that can't. I don't mean real Gs but inertia in a change of vector, aka "g-forces" - which is determined by velocity. so a ship moving at say 5,000 km/sec turns 90deg off that vector and activates it's m-drive at say 6g, the inertial dampers will have a lot of work to do. Without them, the contents of the ship would feel more than 6g of g-forces, wouldn't they?

My physics is deeply rusty though, so I'm not sure about this.

 

[darue]

The definitive guide to Traveller technology is probably Fire Fusion and Steel.

true I just got out my old paper copy and sure 'nuff it takes mass and tech level into proper consideration. I hate to say it but I'm now a little disappointed in the new high guard (and the missing things like electronics/mechanical shops, sick bays, communications systems.) OTOH, FF&S doesn't have any combat rules, and so no barrage attacks to speed up resolution. Someone needs to breed the two books together a bit.

Anyone given any thought to using FF&S designs in MgT?

 

[F33D]

eh, I'm not so sure about that can't. I don't mean real Gs but inertia in a change of vector, aka "g-forces" - which is determined by velocity. so a ship moving at say 5,000 km/sec turns 90deg off that vector and activates it's m-drive at say 6g, the inertial dampers will have a lot of work to do. Without them, the contents of the ship would feel more than 6g of g-forces, wouldn't they?

My physics is deeply rusty though, so I'm not sure about this.

Nope. They can't pull more than 6 Gs in that case. The ONLY reason aircraft can is due to aeronautical forces during change in direction. In space that doesn't apply. You aren't doing 90 degree turns as such. You are simply applying "thrust" from the drive is a different direction. There is no Star Wars type space maneuvering.

Find an old copy of Space Wars (originally from ~1964) and play it on your computer. It will give you a good feel for Newtonian movement in space.

 

[darue]

eh, I'm not so sure about that can't. I don't mean real Gs but inertia in a change of vector, aka "g-forces" - which is determined by velocity. so a ship moving at say 5,000 km/sec turns 90deg off that vector and activates it's m-drive at say 6g, the inertial dampers will have a lot of work to do. Without them, the contents of the ship would feel more than 6g of g-forces, wouldn't they?

My physics is deeply rusty though, so I'm not sure about this.

Nope. They can't pull more than 6 Gs in that case. The ONLY reason aircraft can is due to aeronautical forces during change in direction. In space that doesn't apply. You aren't doing 90 degree turns as such. You are simply applying "thrust" from the drive is a different direction. There is no Star Wars type space maneuvering.

Find an old copy of Space Wars (originally from ~1964) and play it on your computer. It will give you a good feel for Newtonian movement in space.

ok, (I did space war on the atari 2600) but if you change attitude while under acceleration (as is likely during evasive maneuvering)? At this point I'm thinking about what the crew would feel in the absence of grav-plating/inertial dampening.

I think a key issue here is: Do M-drives produce Coordinate Acceleration or Proper Acceleration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-force

but I'm leaning toward "you're right" in that a 6g m-drive in deep space could only ever subject crew to 6g g-forces, though the direction of that felt force is not necessarily "backward"

grav plates must do some fancy and rapid alteration of their field vectors, so it seems likely some small sense of motion is still felt, though it may be no worse than you feel in a typical car turning.

 

[F33D]

I think a key issue here is: Do M-drives produce Coordinate Acceleration or Proper Acceleration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-force

The actual issue is Newton's 2nd Law of motion.

 

[darue]

ok, imagine the Type-S is way out in space (not in a gravitationally bound system like an orbit)

it gives itself a little rotation to the left, say starting out at 1 degree per sec, then kicks in the M-drive (thrust vectored to aft) at some acceleration. some rate of rotation to the left will match Speed such that it's able to go in a circle. but the acceleration keeps the speed going up, so the rate of rotation to the left has to go up to keep the motion circular and of constant radius, but eventually the centripetal acceleration will be greater than the thrust, and the radius will start slipping, getting bigger as the thrust isn't enough to compensate. and in a type-s that would be at 2gs. So ok, I think I now agree that loose non-inertialcompensated crew would only ever feel 2gs, since there's nothing to constrain it's motion. Now if you tied the same type-s to an immovable object with an unbreakable string, the same crew could be smeared onto the wall once the speed gets fast enough.

thanks for helping me get that off my mind :lol:

 

[phavoc]

ok, imagine the Type-S is way out in space (not in a gravitationally bound system like an orbit)

it gives itself a little rotation to the left, say starting out at 1 degree per sec, then kicks in the M-drive (thrust vectored to aft) at some acceleration. some rate of rotation to the left will match Speed such that it's able to go in a circle. but the acceleration keeps the speed going up, so the rate of rotation to the left has to go up to keep the motion circular and of constant radius, but eventually the centripetal acceleration will be greater than the thrust, and the radius will start slipping, getting bigger as the thrust isn't enough to compensate. and in a type-s that would be at 2gs. So ok, I think I now agree that loose non-inertialcompensated crew would only ever feel 2gs, since there's nothing to constrain it's motion. Now if you tied the same type-s to an immovable object with an unbreakable string, the same crew could be smeared onto the wall once the speed gets fast enough.

thanks for helping me get that off my mind :lol:

Starship grav plating eliminates the g-forces inside the ship. That's always been true. It used to be the law of the Trav universe that 6G's continual acceleration was the maximum. MgT has sub-100 ton ships being able to do up to 14G's (16 with afterburners), and starships can also now temporarily increase their G-rating beyond 6. I don't recall if the rules were adjusted to handle this. AFAIK there is no penalty to crew on a 14G ship as far as acceleration penalties go.

 

[Condottiere]

Acceleration, G Forces and Human Tolerances


1. A little research shows that a trained, fit fighter pilot in a G-suit can remain conscious at upto 9 gees.

2. Rollercoasters usually don't exceed three gees.

3. You could blackout between four to six gees.

4. Fifteen gees might kill you.