Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

1. Refueling is not that much of an issue (unless you're really pressed for time), if the payload modules carry the appropriate smallcraft. Within internal and secure lines of communications, I see the ship popping off the drop tanks, and having them replaced with pre-fueled ones.

2. It's essentially my take on the LCS hybrided with the Mobile Landing Platform.

 

[Condottiere]

M5 - Central Section

1. Eight twenty ton docking clamps are one hundred sixty tons.

2. Drop tanks rating 10KT need four hundred tons of internal connectors.

3. 1.295% of 30KT is 388.5 tons.

4. It seems obvious that even at TL15, 30KT seems overly ambitious.

5. We'll drop the tonnage to 25KT, which means the primary components take up 1343.75 tons, that will give a total to 1903.75 tons.

 

[Condottiere]

1. Sectionalization - Minimums could be altered by using different materials to support the shell; going by hull options, TL7 might need to start sectionalizing at 1KT, while TL16 only at 4KT, and TL 15 at 2'857 tons.


2. Command Module - I'd like to reiterate that a case can be made that with the additions of add-ons like drop tanks and payload modules, bridge size need not necessarily account for components not under it's direct control.

3. Jump Bubble - continuing on the same theme, does the jump bubble take account of added modules that increase the size of the ship, and not just the basic hull it's occupying? It might be possible to control the diameter of the jump bubble.

 

[Condottiere]

Ship Missiles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cL46ifGQJE


Launcher

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq3WE14xSLU

 

[phavoc]

The Centurion system seems pretty cool.

The NLOS cannon is a great sales pitch. But having been in the US Artillery, I can tell you those tie-wearing guys pitching their slick sales pitch don't have a clue about the reality of the field. A two-man crew is insufficient to perform maintenance and support on the vehicle. And then there is the ammo/fuse/propellant storage and reloading. A two man crew would be hard-pressed to maintain the vehicle in the field.

I also noticed no camo nets (which two people CAN put up, as I learned), or any sort of external gear storage. And sneaking up on the enemy? Uh.... this is an artillery weapon guys, not meant to be on the front lines and I'm sure it does not carry any direct-fire weapons, so why bother with the added expense of lithium batteries? The only use they would be is for fire missions when the engine is off and you needed to immediately fire. Or maybe get moving prior to engine turning over... but if that was the case you'd probably be dead.

Some nice tech here, but I'd want to see it in person and abuse it some in the field before I'd fund it. (I like the SA 155 wheeled vehicle too. They use liquid propellant and it's a great gun system).

 

[Condottiere]

One of the selling points of the Centurion was it's agnosticism, anything that's more or less the correct dimensions can be attached; also, easy installation.

As for the NLOS, it reminds me of the packing crates that Traveller missiles were supposed to come in; Striker introduced the concept where crates were dropped around the place, so that counter-battery fire became less of an issue.

 

[Condottiere]

M5

1. By seperating the ship into different hulls, it allows the components to be interchangeable, giving it a plug and play appeal to the Navy that would allow deployment of assets with customized capabilities (though somewhat diminished from true warships), as long as the various modules are at hand.

2. You can easily exchange damaged propulsion units as well as the payload modules, which would simplify mainteanance and repair, as well as being able to employ components across a range of tech levels.

3. Smaller hulls could act as ferries to deliver payload modules to a staging area, or replacement propulsion units, or even drop tanks.

4. Armoured protection is partially sacrificed on the altar of cost and flexibility, and i suppose to a certain degree speed and strategic movement as well, unless the composite vessel is attached to less modules to allow the propulsions units to factor up.

5. Speaking of armoured protection the seven forward odules would presumably absorb all, if not most, of hostile fire assuming the helmsman manages to keep them between the central hull and the enemy.

6. Furthermore, it might be possible to uncouple the forward modules and dock them directly to the rear manoeuvre units which would improve performance and keep the jump unit out of harm's way.

 

[Condottiere]

M5 - Manoeuvre Section

1. Ideally, you'd want a factor one grav drive, or maybe one hundred and twenty five sK drives.

2. But let's go with a factor one fusion rocket at 0.75%/187.5 tons, and a 0.375%/93.75 tons high burn thruster factor five as an after burner, which burns 23.4375 tons of propellant in an hour.

3. Theoretically, you could install a factor six fusion rocket at 2.4375%, but you'd also need 15% of hull volume for an hour burn, which would exceed the section's 8% volume, but could be made up by attaching drop tanks.

4. My estimate would calculate the equivalent grav drive at double the tonnage, but space considerations would probably limit it to factor four since you'd need a factor four power plant. You'd have to scale down at a TL lower than fifteen.

5. Power plant factor one is 1.125%/281.25 tons.

6. Though at these modest sizes, you could construct a TL12 manoeuvre section, or even TL9.

7. Provision has to be made for power plant and fusion rocket fuel.

 

[Condottiere]

Bridges

1. While I continue to wonder if capital ship command modules might only require one example to to run any particular single section, meaning ten tons odd at 2KT and below, assigning twenty tons (two times ten) seems fairly safe, and doesn't adversely affect tonnage at 201 tons and up.

2. Not that there seems much point in trying to squeeze in even minimal capital ship drives into a two hundred ton ship, unless you can overdrive.

3. Even taken the time to look more closely at ship blueprints, it dawned on me that the computers have their own, (supposedly locked), compartments.

4. Do more powerful computers require more space? Is it alleviated by TL?

5. Hard to figure out where you'd stick a one, two or three ton compartment onto a smallcraft that has a 1.5 ton chaise lounge for a cockpit.

6. Perhaps, it can be divided into half a ton for the computer, and half a ton for the standard controls and sensors.

7. Also, hard to see that a factor one/TL15 computer would take up significant space; possibly a small safe welded to the bulkhead.

 

[Condottiere]

M5 - Payload Module: Smallcraft Carrier

1. I recall that dispersed structure configuration meant that all smallcraft can be launched at once since basically they were just directly docked to the superstructure.

2. That would mean that if I filled up a dispersed structure payload module, I'd have fifty forty-ton fighters, though not quite sure what they were attached to.

3. A launch tube for forty ton craft in a 2KT module makes little sense, as it would take up half the volume, and you'd be left, at best, with space for eleven fighters though that does sound vaguely what the QE carriers are likely to end up with. On the plus side, you'd launch all fighters in one round, since you'd want at least space to fully access one fighter during normal maintenance.

4. That leaves options like you see in the Clone Wars, where you open up to space the hangar, possibly with internal docking clamps, or just external docking clamps with attached fighters.

5. Problem with the external clamp option, is that I'm not quite sure that the central section's twenty ton clamp could handle the extra volume.

6. You could turn half the volume into two hundred five-ton docking clamps, which means that the carrier module suddenly weighs 10KT.

7. If you take the Clone Wars option, the fighters could be stored in garages, though with the addition of a central lane, you might just as well have a launch tube.

8. You could have garage/launch facilities turned externally, so that individually doors could be opened, allowing a sort of simultaneous launch. Assuming a 10-15% space requirements, you could have upto forty fighters.

 

[Condottiere]

Bridges

1. While looking up carriers to see how close a 25KT could come to a fleet carrier capability, I came across the Jump Carrier entry in M&C.

2. 1KT jump shuttle retains 20 ton bridge regardless how many tons of ship attached to docking clamp(s).

3. So that makes the fact that bridges need only be large enough to directly control their own hulls somewhat canon.

 

[Condottiere]

M5 - Power Plant(s)

1. It's a shame I couldn't figure out how to transfer megawatts of power between various hulls, and it would add a level of unprecedented redundancy.

2. However I am firmly of the belief you need to have the power plant next to the jump drive because of the power surge requirements.

3. However, one problem remains is that power plant factor is part of the formula for determining total number bays, which you could get away with in a 400 ton and below hull (since you couldn't fit in many in any case), and some what exasperating at 2K (if you wanted to keep costs down). Hence, why energy transfer from the middle section to the weaponized payload modules would have come in useful.

4. With passenger/cargo modules, this really isn't an issue, and having a separate power source might actually be an advantage, since I always envisioned them to be semi-mobile, allowing quick separations between the propulsion hulls and the payload modules.

5. At TL 15, and only at TL 15+, you can stuff a 1KT Meson spinal mount into a 2KT hull with it's own power plant factor two and dedicated bridge/computer for target acquisition. Imagine seven of them pointing at a heavy cruiser.

6. Power plant factor six permits twelve bays on a 2KT hull. However. more logical would be if actual energy requirements were the primary requisite, since then you could stuff in more missile bays with a lower power plant and less energy intensive weapons systems, such as a Meson A/TL15 in a 1500 ton hull powered by a twenty two ton fusion power plant factor two.

 

[Condottiere]

Tech Level & Drives

1. A thought occurred to me, that if and when you apply bonuses for higher TL construction to drives, you might lock in performance.

2. That means, that if I install a J3/TL15 drive I can't suddenly lower tonnage by whatever means, and try and squeeze out J4, J5 or J6, as J3 is TL12/75%, J4 is TL13/90%, J5 is TL14/95%, and J6 is TL15/0%.

3. Theoretically, you might be able get the drive to perform at J4 at two thirds tonnage, 52% at J5, and 42% at J6.

4. Could be a software or a jump governor solution. If transition is based on how much power output the jump drives produce.

 

[Condottiere]

Ship Size & Computers

1. Wondering if I could install a normal computer on a capital ship, I compared the two tables.

2. 7/TL15 had a rating of 35 while Core3/TL9 had one of 40.

3. This seems to imply that the answer would be no, if the hull is above 2KT.

4. There don't seem to be restrictions on tonnage and computer factor for Adventure class hulls, though there probably should be.

5. If the computer factor isn't the requisite minimum prescribed for that tonnage, ship performance should be degraded, much like crew strength.

6. As for the answer to my particular inquiry, dedicated computers for each major ship system?

 

[Condottiere]

Docking Clamps

1. As mentioned previously, rather clueless as to how much a fifty ton docking clamp would handle, though going by the preceding ratio, 5KT?

2. Having more than one point of contact with the clamped hull would seem to me far more stabilizing.

3. Multiples of docking clamps seem possible to hold tonnage upto their total rated weight.

4. That means, five twenty ton clamps could hold a ten thousand ton hull.

5. Dispersed structures would need clamps to hold subsidiary craft, especially battle-rider tenders.

6. The ratios look a little off to me; however, five ton clamp needed to hold ninety tons is really queer, since preceding and subsequent ratios are one to thirty, not counting hundredfold by the twenty tonners.

7. As such I'd rather use three one tonners to attach a ninety hull.

 

[Condottiere]

Payload Modules

1. Module size is very much based on either the weight capacity of the docking clamp, or minimal size of a specific capability (whose size reduction would contribute to the overall performance of the vessel as a whole).

2. It also depends on whether a larger than specified size can be handled by multiples of a lower rated clamp.

3. An interesting example is the Galactica, if you perceive the pylons connecting the primary hull to the carrier pods as permanent clamps.

4. I'm a little hesitant to extend this beyond 2KT limits, even if I do happen to have a class name in mind, Tiamat, that would be scaled up to dreadnought size. Or super-freighter.

5. I do have the outline for a 400 ton primary hull, that would be used to ferry around single 2KT modules, and could be a scaled down variant of the Hydra, currently tagged as Cerberus.

6. Payload modules for the Cerberus wouldn't exceed 300 tons, weapon pods built around 100 ton bays, since you'd only be able to fit one in each anyway, as the possibility of factor seven power plants isn't mentioned in HG.

7. Though the possibility through extrapolation exists for Adventure hulls.

 

[Condottiere]

Mass Drivers Ortillery

1. As I understand it, a hundred ton excretes a half ton ball of metal that causes a 12D6 dent on a ship, and feels like a tactical nuke with a successful reentry and three point landing.

2. Why not just load them up into a customized launch tube (whose secondary use could be for escape capsules), which would weight 12.5 tons, and shoots ten balls per turn?

3. If it's because the launch tube doesn't impart the same amount of acceleration, why not add on a High Burn Thruster kit?

 

[Condottiere]

Jump subParsec

1. A Parsec is defined as three and a quarter light years.

2. A fully factored one parsec jump drive can in theory cover six light years, from the extreme end of one region to the opposite end of a neighbouring region.

3. An interesting consideration is if either through damage or deliberate underpowerment, the onboard jump drive is rated below factor one for the starship's tonnage.

4. It's still useful for what we term micro-jumps, which are usually considered to be in-system.

5. However, if we fractionalize performance into increments of approximately ten or twenty percentiles, they could still be used for interstellar travel.

6. The question would be how far could they jump?

7. If only for gaming reasons, you couldn't permit 0.8 or 0.9 drives to fully stretch from one insystem to another.

8. Though, you could state them as the distance proportionate to a light year per micro-jump.

9. This doesn't lower the requisite TL of 9 that a factor one jump drive manufacture requires, though they might be early TL8 prototype models.

10. They could also be installed for long range insystem transports, who wouldn't need a full-rated jump drive.

 

[Condottiere]

Smallcraft Starships

1. On consideration, it might be possible to use a solar sail to envelope the required volume.

2. You could anchor it on the ship and fill it up with gas.

3. Or have a small laser continuously apply pressure on the interior lining so that it doesn't collapse.

 

[Condottiere]

M5 - Drop Tanks

1. One of the underlying fundamentals of the whole range of designs is to standardize hulls so that commanders can configure ships for their missions on a very much plug and play principle.

2. Drop tanks don't necessarily need to be larger than 2KT, as long as they can easily fit on the larger hull's exterior.

3. As such, it might be more practical to salami-slice the drop tanks for the M5, breaking them up into 50 ton slices, Since the rules never place any overhead on the weight of the tanks themselves, efficiency isn't impaired.