Ship Design Philosophy

[wbnc]

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.

Strangely his opinion of Japanese pilots was rather high. even at the end of the war when they were barely trained. Anyone who can land on a football pitch that moves in strong winds, and rain is a dern fine pilot....same would go for someone hitting a barn door sized opening with a ship the size of a small house.

by the way there is a story that on several occasions Japanese pilots tried to land on American carriers.....you can guess how that ended.

 

[Condottiere]

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Engineering and Modular Jump Drives

Fundamentally, I think it's a bad idea to split apart the thing whose exact synchronization with the multiverse ensures that you arrive at your destination, safe, sound, and on time.

Having said that, if you do want a more modular concept, you could add in an extra half a percentage point for each module you do install to a starship after the first module, being the overhead for extra bracings, controls and cables connecting them to each other and the power plant.

For example, your brand new battleship HMS Titanic has been designed with four jump drive modules, to minimize the effect that battle damage might have on the possibility of it's captain deciding that a tactical withdrawal to another star system might be opportune.

That means a jump four drive would require six and a half percentage points of volume, though the advantage would be that as long enough modules are functional, you can jump that many parsecs, barring a fuel tank rupture. And an operating computer.

 

[wbnc]

something like that. although they usually ended up in the water...

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Emergency Braking and Drogue Parachutes

You deploy a solar sail to create drag.

You'll slow down quicker.

Well, relatively.

 

[Condottiere]

Trillion Credit Squadron: Unseen Costs

In terms of resource allocation and costs, TCS always seemed somewhat simplistic, because navies need to maintain quite a lot of infrastructure to maintain their fleets, personnel does need to be paid, and they need access to an industrial base, their own or someone else's.

Now, I'm not too sure about the progress of material sciences, but a zero point one percent ship maintenance fee seems a tad low, especially for a warship.

 

[wbnc]

Trillion Credit Squadron: Unseen Costs

In terms of resource allocation and costs, TCS always seemed somewhat simplistic, because navies need to maintain quite a lot of infrastructure to maintain their fleets, personnel does need to be paid, and they need access to an industrial base, their own or someone else's.

Now, I'm not too sure about the progress of material sciences, but a zero point one percent ship maintenance fee seems a tad low, especially for a warship.

your right, those costs exist..but does anyone but congress/parliament want to keep up with all that paperwork..its totally outside the scope of a role playing game.

 

[Condottiere]

It would be within the scope of the Trillion Credit Squadron campaign.

Not to mention army upkeep for the peacekeeping forces you deploy on allied planets.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Stellar Battleships

Beyond large sized monitors armed with spinal mounts, some planetary navies, especially those with aspirations to power project, with integrate an organic hyperspace mono-jump system, that would allow them to deploy interstellar distances, albeit within one parsec.

This makes establishing a nearby staging area for any aggressor force a great deal riskier, due to the increased uncertainty of the location of mobile warships with capital class weapon systems.

It's also useful for circulating assets within a pocket empire.

 

[wbnc]

It would be within the scope of the Trillion Credit Squadron campaign.

Not to mention army upkeep for the peacekeeping forces you deploy on allied planets.

I've tried including those in some scenarios with friends..but not many people are into the sort of bookkeeping it adds..

now a set of optionals that add that touch for players who want it might be good.I wouldn't even know where to start to tell yo the truth. the upkeep costs per ship, ground crew/facilities, supplies, ordnance, and fuel allocations etc depend a lot on the individual situation.

And, some of it there is no way to even guess at considering how advanced tech would affect workforce requirements. for instance,do dock facilities use robots/automation,..or hungry mouths, idle hands, and warm bodies?

if it's metal and tech. requirements for supplies alter,cheaper but requires more advanced support. if it's meat..you need a lot more support structure but it tends to be self maintaining.

 

[Condottiere]

Book-keeping being the keyword, since it can just come down to how much resources/credits the player is willing to allocate to maintain garrisons and facilities, without going into vast details of the TO&E for the occupying forces, or quality of naval bases and shipyards.

As regards automation, likelihood of quality failure and sabotage increases.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Redefining (or Narrowing Down) Capital Ships

In the Mongoose sense, a capital ship hull would be defined as requiring more than one section to maintain structural integrity.

If this gets upped to five kay tonnes, you may want to do a little re-adjsting on the rest of the tonnages.

This has a knock on effect on the size of bridges, which I always thought depended more on the number of work stations it has to support, not the general size of the ship, and by the nature of that size, makes having back up bridges a rather either/or proposition.

Tech level nine Core/3 computer fits in with a five kay hull, and may indicate that at tech level nine, the dawn of the interstellar age, five kay is about as large as could be managed.

 

[AndrewW]

In the Mongoose sense, a capital ship hull would be defined as requiring more than one section to maintain structural integrity.

Sections have been done away with in the new edition.

This has a knock on effect on the size of bridges, which I always thought depended more on the number of work stations it has to support, not the general size of the ship, and by the nature of that size, makes having back up bridges a rather either/or proposition.

Bridges have been redone as well.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Jump Drives and Complexity

Discovering the scientific principles behind the jump drive, creating the necessary technical base to construct it and getting it to work, hopefully successfully for the crew concerned, is a major achievement for any civilization, if they did it all on their own.

Having passed that threshold, it's not that hard to figure out how to design and build a factor two jump drive, but it seems rather more complex to build one that manages to transition three parsecs in one go. The Vilani never did, or at least, not before the Solomani managed to.

This may indicate a lack of intelligence or imagination on the part of the Vilani, or the complexity of constructing a drive that can jump three parsecs is more than just having a tech level twelve industrial base, but requires a more careful finessing of components than a jump factor two drive, or once you've figured out how to make a factor one drive, which the Vilani intelligence services managed to suppress their colonial minions from progressing beyond, and/or is just that much of the same degree of complexity to successfully manufacture, much as that of a factor three jump drive was from a factor two.

That would mean that jump factor four drives would be even more complex to manufacture and maintain, making most commercial entities shy away from trying to for their commercial shipping, leaving most starships with factor four jump drives in the hands of interstellar navies and rather rich individuals.

That's why a lot of starships, even those built in tech level eleven and above yards, tend to have jump drive factor ones, which are easy to operate and maintain. And that more advanced jump drives tend to be manufactured in high tech tech worlds with specialized factories and experienced engineers.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Jump Drives and combining modules

Not exactly a fan of this, despite it being demonstrably shown on a lot of starship blueprints.

Let's say that we take two hundred tonne tech level nine Warrior modules, capable of jump factor one, and install them in a ten thousand tonne hull.

You're going to need some form of coupling mechanism, to coordinate the activation and the continuous synchronicity of both modules, since if one fails or even hiccups during the hyperjump operation, there's a chance of a misjump, or just an unscheduled early drop out of hyperspace.

This coupling mechanism would be sized at a quarter percent of the hull, and would be required for each additional module.

Coupling mechanisms need to be manufactured at the minimum tech level that jump engines
can transition the wished for distance, much as the jump drive modules themselves would need to satisfy that requirement.

As such, if you were using Warrior modules to propel a ten thousand tonne hull two parsecs, you need three manufactured at tech level eleven, plus two tech level eleven coupling mechanisms.

 

[wbnc]

Starships: Jump Drives and Complexity

Discovering the scientific principles behind the jump drive, creating the necessary technical base to construct it and getting it to work, hopefully successfully for the crew concerned, is a major achievement for any civilization, if they did it all on their own.

Having passed that threshold, it's not that hard to figure out how to design and build a factor two jump drive, but it seems rather more complex to build one that manages to transition three parsecs in one go. The Vilani never did, or at least, not before the Solomani managed to.

This may indicate a lack of intelligence or imagination on the part of the Vilani, or the complexity of constructing a drive that can jump three parsecs is more than just having a tech level twelve industrial base, but requires a more careful finessing of components than a jump factor two drive, or once you've figured out how to make a factor one drive, which the Vilani intelligence services managed to suppress their colonial minions from progressing beyond, and/or is just that much of the same degree of complexity to successfully manufacture, much as that of a factor three jump drive was from a factor two.

That would mean that jump factor four drives would be even more complex to manufacture and maintain, making most commercial entities shy away from trying to for their commercial shipping, leaving most starships with factor four jump drives in the hands of interstellar navies and rather rich individuals.

That's why a lot of starships, even those built in tech level eleven and above yards, tend to have jump drive factor ones, which are easy to operate and maintain. And that more advanced jump drives tend to be manufactured in high tech tech worlds with specialized factories and experienced engineers.

I think it comes down to the fact that technology doesn't advance in a smooth line, or curve. It takes radical leaps at odd points...In the first fifty thousand years of human advancement we managed to build stone tools and a few basic tools..however in the last 2000 years we have went fro bronze, to iron, to steal, to carbon fiber composites.

In the past 200 we have gone from the steam engine to nuclear fission powered vessels...and hit a small stumbling block as we work on fusion.

perhaps at some point a Vilani researcher uncovered the secrets of longer range jump drives and didn't put the pieces together...after all an ancient Greek did have all the parts developed to build a steam engine...but never pursued it further..after building few parlor trick devices for the local temple.

 

[phavoc]

There's also the need/drive for innovation. The Vilani were not being pressured by anyone/anything to develop faster. Therefore as long as the existing technology was sufficient there was no impetus to move further.

You see that today with corporations in a lot of sectors. Unless there is competition threatening to take away business they don't innovate very fast. We would still be using copper trunks for phone lines if MCI hadn't come along to threaten Bell's monopoly on phone traffic. If the Vilani Megacorps acted like cartels or the trusts of the early 1900s, then they would divvy up worlds and sectors and not be threatened by competition, thus they had no need to change things.

 

[Condottiere]

Vilani Intelligence may have corrupted all the scientific and technical databases, if you follow the CoDominium script.

Though the intent of the observation is to make lower factor jump drives a way more attractive proposition.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Open Plan Naval Architecture

You eliminate any subdivisions, except those for engineering, bridge, hangars, cargo holds and airlocks.

That leaves you with the passenger and crew areas, basically staterooms, offices, common areas and the galley.

The question is whether you need to install floors/ceilings. The answer is yes, if you embed the essential plumbing along the hull, and you can sort of adjust livings spaces to taste, though actual plumbing, connecting toilets and faucets, seems very much fixed, and you'd have to be careful not to block ventilation. I guess this includes the mains, though you could draw power through an extension.

You can use steel grid flooring with one centimetre thickness, filled with a sound dampening compound.

The walls could be thirty millimetre modular fabric panels with honeycomb cores, also optimized for sound dampening.

If the ship isn't equipped with WiFi, a skinny fibre optic cable should be enough.

Anything larger than, say five hundredish tonnes, may need additional bulkhead separations in the passenger areas, if only for safety reasons.

 

[Condottiere]

Inspiration: The Expanse

http://www.syfy.com/theexpanse/videos/the-expanse-trailer-1

Very ambitious, with three probably interlocking story arcs, impressive sets, and despite cramped quarters, a lack of claustrophobia that bedevils most television scifi series.

Covers a wide range of subgenres associated with scifi.

Slow moving, it gets more exciting towards the fourth episode.

Feels very Travellerish.