Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Armaments, Ordnance, and Newton's Third Law

A. Casters are probably the easiest weapon system to obtain.

B. Giving it a bigger bite would allow commercial spacecraft to deter opportunistic hijackings.

C. At a cheaper cost than either missiles or lasers.

D. Default defence against energy weapon systems.

E. You need an option against missiles.

F. And a way to attack, if only at close range.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Armaments, Ordnance, and Newton's Third Law

G. I think that a caster is a mass driver variant.

H. In theory, should have a lower muzzle velocity than a railgun.

I. Especially, since there is no discernible power requirement.

J. Based on quadruple turret configuration, the caster itself shouldn't be more than one eighth of a tonne.

K. As for ready rounds, your guess is as good as mine.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Armaments, Ordnance, and Newton's Third Law

L. There's also the option of solid shot.

M. Effect very much depends on mass and velocity, the part that we don't really know.

N. However, we know that the mass would be fifty kilogrammes, and going by mass driver ammunition, five hundred starbux.

O. Damage would be two dice, and, I suspect, orbital bombardment would be a feature.

P. Though, might be quite fun shooting solid shot through hulls.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Armaments, and Missiles, Torpedoes, Acceleration, and Cognitive Dissonance

1. Assuming that missiles and torpedoes use reactionary rockets as propulsion.

2. And if not, what do they use?

3. Since, I'd like that as an alternative to aforesaid reactionary rockets.

4. Their propulsion performance doesn't usually mirror the minimum required technological level.

5. Since, a standard missile is acceleration factor/ten, the missile is technological level seven, and the minimum required for that performance would be ten.

6. Unless, they're using early prototype, and that would seem prohibitively expensive.

7. Of course, this is all based on legacy rules.

8. As a compromise, I'd say that the warhead and guidance package is manufactured at the listed technological level.

9. But the propulsion unit, at a later one.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Engineering and Manoeuvre Drive Factor/Zero

1. The smallest canonical manoeuvre drive, default, would be factor/one for a five tonne spacecraft.

2. Fifty kilogrammes at a hundred kilostarbux, using half a power point.

3. Five thrust tonnes.

4. You add an external cargo cage and fill it with five tonnes, it suddenly doesn't become a manoeuvre drive factor/zero.

5. You half the acceleration to factor/point five, not factor/one milligravity.

6. If you install a factor/zero manoeuvre drive on a megatonne spacestation, with a semimegatonne of external cargo cage cargo, then explosively bolt them into infinity, and suddenly find you now have a factor/one manoeuvre drive.

7. Now, overclocking a manoeuvre drive factor/zero to factor/one for six minutes, is somewhat in a gray area.

8. There probably is a limit to how far you can stretch a manoeuvre drive given thrust, to push volume it, theoretically, wasn't designed for.

9. If we did spread that to one milligravity, that would mean that fifty kilogramme manoeuvre drive could push to five kilotonnes.

 

[Condottiere]

Apollo spacecraft used reaction control system (RCS) thrusters for maneuvering, specifically for attitude control and small translational adjustments. These jets were located on the Command and Service Module (CSM) and the Lunar Module (LM), and were used to maintain a desired orientation, change attitude, and make minor adjustments to the spacecraft's position.

Here's a more detailed breakdown:

CSM Reaction Control System (RCS):
The Service Module (SM) housed 16 RCS thrusters, grouped into four quads. These jets were used for attitude control (maintaining or changing orientation) and small translational maneuvers (adjusting position). The Apollo Guidance Computer could interface with these jets, either automatically or through pilot input, to perform these maneuvers.

LM Reaction Control System (RCS):
The Lunar Module also had its own set of RCS thrusters for similar purposes during lunar orbit and descent. The LM's descent engine was also gimbaled, allowing for thrust vectoring and control of the spacecraft's attitude during descent.

Maneuver Types:
The RCS thrusters were used for a variety of maneuvers, including:
Attitude Control: Maintaining a specific orientation or rotating the spacecraft.
Small Translation: Making minor adjustments to the spacecraft's position.
Rotational Maneuvers: Changing the spacecraft's orientation.

Major Propulsion:
While the RCS thrusters were used for smaller adjustments, major propulsive maneuvers (like orbital changes) were handled by the main SPS engine on the Service Module.

Example:
After docking with the Lunar Module, the Command and Service Module might use its RCS thrusters to make small adjustments to the combined spacecraft's attitude or position.

AI responses may include mistakes. Learn more

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Armaments and Concrete Bombs

A concrete bomb is an aerial bomb containing dense, inert material (typically concrete) instead of explosive. The target is destroyed using the kinetic energy of the falling bomb, making it a kinetic energy weapon. Such weapons can only practically be deployed when configured as a laser-guided bomb or other form of smart bomb, as a direct hit on a small target is required to cause significant damage. They are typically used to destroy military vehicles and artillery pieces in urban areas to minimize collateral damage and civilian casualties.[1]

Guided or unguided concrete bombs may also be used for training pilots and ground personnel, due to the advantages of cost (no explosives or fusing), ease of precise and accurate point of impact determination, minimized bombing range damage, and increased safety (when the bomb is deployed, it is inert).[2] Concrete bombs are also used in testing and evaluation of aircraft and bombs, such as the BDU-50.[3]

Concrete bombs have been used by the United States during the Iraqi no-fly zones conflict, and by France during the 2011 military intervention in Libya.[4][5]

Blocks from clods.

You just have to figure out how that translates into damage.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Armaments, and Missiles, Torpedoes, Acceleration, and Cognitive Dissonance

A. The advanced missile is about perfect in terms of making sense.

B. Technological level eleven rocket highly technologized to optimum fuel consumption by technological level fourteen.

C. At technological level eleven, default, thirty percent rockets, and thirty seven and a half percent fuel tank.

D. In practice, you could drop that down to twenty four minutes of acceleration, using the same fuel tank allocation.

E. In theory, one disadvantage could push that to nineteen minutes and twelve seconds.

F. Which, to be fair, would fall neatly within Confederation Navy missile doctrine.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Armaments, and Missiles, Torpedoes, Acceleration, and Cognitive Dissonance

G. For civilians, I wonder if there is a discernible change in performance for acceleration factor/nine, from ten?

H. You can drop that one technological level lower, from ten to nine.

I. I sort of suspect you'll run out of gas before you reach distant range.

J. Or, at least, be somewhere halfway through that range band.

I. If long range is five rounds, you wouldn't need to half that salvo until after that's passed.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Engineering, Jump Bubbles, and Acceleration

1. Can you accelerate in a jump bubble?

2. Since it's basically our universe, I tend to think you can.

3. You won't affect estimated time of arrival.

4. A manoeuvre drive won't have a large enough gravity well to latch onto.

5. Reactionary rockets would run out of gas, pretty soon.

6. However, a deep space drive recreates it's own local gravity well, that the manoeuvre drive can anchor itself to.

7. So, that combination can accelerate the entire way there.

8. Why would I want to accelerate in a jump bubble?

9. To create gravitic pressure.

 

[Sigtrygg]

T5 says yes but only with a reaction drive, and it only effects your real world vector upon arrival, no effect on the jump itself. No gravitic drives, including the deep space drive, work in jump space.

 

[Condottiere]

The question would be why, since it's our slice of the universe.

You might be able to change the angle of attack, and arrive ass backwards.

But other than that, I don't think anything else happens.

However, I think I'm correct on the deep space manoeuvre drive working in the jump bubble.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: The USS Defiant Sucks

In the year of our lord 2371 Sir Benjamin Lafayette "Ben" Sisko, the man who punched God, threatened to punch several other Gods, and then became one himself because the planet of religious nuts who all think beige is a 'spicy' colour realized very quickly who the better option was, decided to commission a flagship for his Holy Crusade across the stars as he pretty much solo'd the entire dominion.

This Chariot would not be like all the other boring and nerdy ships of the Star Trek universe, oh no, there would be no science done here, no totty nurses with Vaseline smeared over the camera to make them look prettier, no whimsical kids in scarfs learning important life lessons. No Sir.
There would only be blood, death, and enough firepower to delete whatever affronted the view of Ben Sisko as he personally pimp slapped the entire galaxy into behaving.

But is this tough "little" ship all its cracked up to be?

Taking a group of diplomats and science nerds used to building plush flying hotels, feeding them enough sugar to drown a horse and letting them off the chain to design a warship of which the only specifications were:

How many Cannons? yes

May have seemed like a good idea at the time, but reality, even TV reality, is not always its cracked up to be.

The point being ...

 

[Condottiere]

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Technically, interesting.