Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

100. Advanced - probably the missile that makes the most sense in terms of design rules, and fast paced combat.

101. Antimatter - too advanced for me.

102. Decoy - probably not worth it, besides the acceleration incongruity.

103. Fragmentation - again, acceleration incongruity, but swarm beater.

104. Jumpbreaker - considering their specific role, should be faster.

105. Long range - acceleration incongruity; this would be more to take out unarmoured targets at long range, like convoys.

106. Multi warhead - kinda expensive, but if you have a limited number of launchers, more than pays for itself against larger targets.

107. Nuclear - acceleration incongruity; an interesting question would be what would need to have a nuclear tactical missile to take out, that you wouldn't use a nuclear torpedo on, more like not having another option.

108. Ortillery - best bang for buck, for stationery targets.

109. Shockwave - specific use.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Lasers and What Happens to Lasers Underwater? (Total internal reflection) - Smarter Every Day 219

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUwVZUOSTvk


I wonder if we can bounce off a laser from an atmosphere?

It would tots surprise the target.

 

[Condottiere]

Inspiration: Battle Of Scarif (Space Battle) | Rogue One [4K HDR]

All footage in the video from the show is owned by Disney and Lucasfilm.

https://youtu.be/9q1Zc-0yq2U


You know, if we could knock out, if only temporarily, the motivational Force of a spaceship, we could ortillery it without penalty.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: HOW ROCKETS ARE MADE (Rocket Factory Tour - United Launch Alliance) - Smarter Every Day 231

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0fG_lnVhHw


1. Isogrid.

2. Isentropic properties and stress analysis.

3. Light hull?

4. Ten percent safety margin; might not be relevant in our case.

5. Hand crafted.

6. Material recycling; probably more relevant with planetoids.

7. Square webbing; wonder if the next development is hexagonal webbing?

8. Artificial aging of aluminum.

9. Anodize against corrosion.

10. Friction stir weld.

11. Stainless steel upper stage.



Explains why our hulls take up almost no volume, to the point of irrelevancy.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Tory Bruno talks about Rocket Engines and ULA's Business philosophy - Smarter Every Day

Tory Bruno is a Rocket Scientist's Rocket Scientist. He's the real deal. A guy that knows what he's talking about on multiple levels.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQaPOIQLEUo


1. Meteorology skill, or profession.

2. Keep them occupied, or co-opt them.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

110. Heavy missiles mentioned in Chartered Aliens Too, make no exception to the wandering off rule.

111. There's a clear distinction between torpedoes and missiles, torpedoes don't wander off, and are penalized against sub two kilotonne targets, and we don't know their supposed endurance.

112. A long lance version would have to be customized, but if endurance is supposedly ten rounds, in theory would surprise the enemy, if it hasn't been pointed out you can't hide stuff in space.

113. I suppose you'd have to invest in a stealth coating.

114. If you have stealthed missiles, it would make it more difficult for sensors to pick them up and point defence to take them out.

115. Stealth is a hundred kilostarbux per tonne, and emission grid forty.

116. That's a reasonable cost to spread among twelve missiles.

117. Superior stealth is a cool million, so in my opinion, only worth it for a surprise first strike.

118. My assumption is that point defence batteries use laser weapon systems, so if you coat a missile with reflec, it should increase their protection.

119. Ortillery is likely equipped with heat shielding.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

120. In terms of how the Confederation Navy would view missile usage, they probably could afford to mass launch them, and let God sort them out, since it's been mentioned currently that it's part of their doctrine.

121. Since the Confederation technological level is fourteen, if only for consistency, they could design their (advanced) missiles to that standard, and cheaper ones as throwaways.

122. My take would be optimization of available hardpoints, whether in the form of financial cost, damage effect, and/or volume.

123. Missiles can be launched from any direction, and once out of the launcher, can course correct.

124. That would make the most cost effective missile launcher one that is fixedly mounted, though that would limit it to three per hundred tonne per hard point, compared to four for quadruple turrets, five for barbettes, and twenty four for a medium bay, twelve for the small one.

125. According to the rules, fixedly mounted weapon systems don't have volume, though the missile magazine would.

126. Also, default costs are one tenth of a triple turret, and one twentieth of a quadruple turret, and no power requirement, compared to one and two respectively.

127. Turrets require a gunner each, but you could really wire the fixedly mounted missile launchers together like grand batteries, under the control of a single gunner, since they tend to get clumped together into salvoes.

128. One option might be to have ten tonne pods and firmpoint a missile launcher, which would give you about ten missile launchers per hundred tonnes.

129. Though that's basically the same as creating a bay, but with the possibility of much larger missile magazines.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

130. Top down, you start with a default acceleration fifteen, highly technologized, if applicable, at fourteen.

131. Distant range penalizes at minus six, though whether this is due to the actual range, or a by product of acceleration ten running out of gas, isn't established.

132. Taken at face value, you come to the conclusion not to launch missiles at distant, but move to very long range.

133. Very long range has a penalty of minus four, but two rounds at acceleration fifteen, three at acceleration twelve, and four at acceleration ten.

134. Acceleration six is listed as requiring four rounds at long range.

135. If and since, I'd be customizing missiles, four rounds would be in most cases the maximum endurance I'd design missiles for, due to their wandering off at five rounds.

136. Fuel tanks are free, but they can take up a substantial amount of volume, so it's worth figuring out if you can optimize results by compromising endurance.

137. The only way to improve reactionary rockets is by fuel efficiency, so in most cases, shrinking them doesn't work, except in terms of the entire weapon system.

138, At technology level eleven, acceleration fifteen requires thirty percent of volume, and would be the same at technology level fifteen.

139. However, fuel for ten rounds would start thirty seven and a half percent, and if highly technologized, improves to fifteen percent of volume.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

140. As presented, does an acceleration fifteen need four rounds?

141. As a precaution, in case it has to chase down the target.

142. While it's not a given, let's assume the technological fourteen advanced missile does take advantage of improved fuel consumption.

143. That would mean thirty percent reactionary rocket, and fifteen percent fuel tank, by volume.

144. Unimproved fuel consumption would give us four rounds for fifteen percent, which is kinda neat.

145. Budget variant would give you a twenty five percent fuel inefficiency, which is forty seven and seven eighths percent for ten rounds, thirty seven and a half for eight rounds, and eighteen and three quarters for four rounds; cost would be twenty five percent discount.

146. Prototype would be the same specifications, but six times more expensive.

147. Early prototype, you can basically double rocket size to sixty percent, at eleven times the cost; fifty percent fuel inefficiency, which would be fifty six and a quarter percent at ten rounds.

148. Arguably you could configure the early prototype to two rounds endurance, with eleven and a quarter percent fuel tankage, possibly twenty two and a half percent for four rounds.

149. Hard to justify, though.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Hulls, Blended Wing, and The Plane That Will Change Travel Forever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59A8-rKRs-0


1. Does fuel consumption in atmospheric flight matter to Traveller spacecraft?

2. However, minimizing drag does allow a smoother flight, and probably less dice rolls.

3. However, tubular stability has an inherent attraction, especially considering zero volume hull.

4. I'm going to speculate fly by wire less of an issue past technological level seven.

5. Interior space would be easier to configure.

6. Starport infrastructure might favour tubular hulls.

7. Pressure loading.

8. Carbon fibre composites; if not, armoured hull.

9. Sandwich, or secondary hull.

10. Less parts.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

150. At the other end of the scale, acceleration six missiles have a minus six penalty due to specifically this speed.

151. It's an interesting question as to why bother lumbering missiles with this performance.

152. Let's assume it's because they ran out of room after fitting in the payload.

153. The safe bet would be replacing the acceleration six reactionary rockets with acceleration tens.

154. Though I do wonder if we could make do with acceleration nine, as it would be technological level nine, but since it's not clear if you'd escape part or all of the penalty, you have to go with what's known.

155. Default acceleration six reactionary rockets would be twelve percent, plus ten round endurance fifteen percent fuel tankage.

156. Default acceleration ten is twenty percent, which with four round endurance would be ten percent fuel tankage, high technologized sixty percent fuel efficiency four percent.

157. In the best case, you have a reserve of three percent.

158. Any other configuration, and you have to start increasing the size of missile chassis, which you could by budgetting it to a twenty percent increase in size.

159. But then you chuck out the components, and nest inside the improved rockets, plus the original warhead, which arguably you could have improved in some other way, including shrinking it.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

160. Even at four round endurance, why keep a reserve.

161. Well, you do have the option of time on target.

162. Especially in the case where you don't use medium or large bays to swamp your opponent in missiles.

163. You could with acceleration fifteen at very long distance salvo the first wave at acceleration ten, the second wave at acceleration twelve, the third at acceleration fifteen, and if you're closing the range to long, the fourth wave at acceleration ten, and the fifth wave at acceleration twelve hits immediately.

164. Of course, you can do this with bays as well; I don't think there's a rule for fratricide.

165. Acceleration fifteen missile interception with a fleeing target against a four round endurance is basically two sets of very long range.

166. Assuming the target is at very long range when the acceleration fifteen missile is launched, as long as for the next four rounds the target remains within very long range of the point of departure from the time the missile is launched, the missile should hit.

167. With acceleration twelve, it would be very long range and long range.

168. With acceleration ten, if the target manages to get enough distance to qualify as short and below, the missile would run out of gas.

169. Though I'd say if the target manages one kilometre to move to over the close range band, they're probably out of range for acceleration ten.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Interstellar Commerce and The Fall of Neptune Orient Lines: Singapore's National Shipping Company

In December 2015, Singapore's investment fund Temasek agreed to sell its shares in Neptune Orient Lines or NOL to French shipping line CMA CGM. The board unanimously approved the transaction.

For nearly fifty years, NOL was Singapore's national shipping line. Rising up from nothing to a top 15 shipping line, NOL reflected Singapore's rise in the global economy.

But as the industry changed, the company's performance started to fall behind its competitors. Burdened with a high cost base and unable to invest in its future, NOL lost the ability to compete. And that would lead to its decline and eventual sale.

In this video, we are going to take a deep look back at what had been a Singaporean national champion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBNKgGxpHwY


1. Shipping cartel.

2. Containerization.

3, Government subsidized to ensure international access for domestic production.

4. Horizontal and vertical expansion.

5. Economies of scale.

6. Access to allied transport infrastructure.

7. I'm going to guess dirtside logistics.

8. Investment in more efficient transporters.

9. Sixty percent of shipping costs are fixed.

10. Establish routes.

11. Diversified portfolio.

12. Competition (subsidized, self interested nationalistic, and probably cut throat).

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

170. Weapon and Screen Disadvantages gives the option to increase the size of the weapon system by twenty percent, triggered by taking the budget option.

171. Missile weapon systems are basically dual based, the launcher and the ordnance.

172. The launcher is basically the framework that allows the missile to be used.

173. It creates an upper limit to the size of the missile that can be launched.

174. You can use it to launch a smaller missile.

175. You can't use it for a missile with a volume larger than it was designed for.

176. In terms of the turret aspect, you'd need one that's one point two tonnes, though in theory, yu wouldn't need that much space for single and dual variants.

177. Mounted fixtures only count virtual space, so in theory can be ignored.

178. So that's ten missiles per tonne, or hundred kilogrammes each.

179. Outside of cost factors, best way to justify it would be to value add to the default missile (load out).

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

180. You actually can't shrink reactionary rockets, you can only make them more fuel efficient.

181. Which by extension, is a form of shrinkage.

182. However, if you shrink a weapon missile system, you'd assume that shrinkage would be proportional.

183. Size reduction is up to thirty percent when highly technologized.

184. You can take the size reduced payload, and stuff it in the twenty percent increased missile chassis.

185. Or the size reduced reactionary rockets, and reconfigure the fuel tanks and/or warhead.

186. A little calculation seems to indicate that a thirty percent size reduced missile only takes up fifty eight and a third percent of a hundred kilogramme volume.

187. Warheads are a somewhat unknown aspects, so changing their performance cannot actually be done, so their description more or less stands as set out in High Guard.

188. On the other hand, reactionary rockets are fully described, so you can increase or decrease speed, and change their technology level to make them more or less efficient (or cheaper or more expensive).

189. Fuel tanks determine endurance, and with knowledge of the volume of the missile chassis, reactionary rockets, and the warhead, adjustable.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

190. In theory, the missile chassis should cost something.

191. We'll assume it's a miniature of a spaceship, so it should fall under hull costs.

192, I don't think the chassis would be gravitated, so we would use twenty five kilostarbux per tonne, of twenty five hundred starbux for a hundred kilogramme chassis.

193. Default chassis cost would be 2'083.34 starbux, assuming standard configuration.

194. Wait, since the hundred kilogramme version would be budgetted, that's 1'875.00 starbux.

194. It's an interesting question whether the missiles would be streamlined.

195. They could be, which would increase the chassis cost by twenty percent.

196. If light was am option, you could further decrease the chassis cost by twenty five percent.

197. You could, in theory, stick the warhead and reactionary rocket into a lump of nickel iron; launching it might be a bit finicky.

198. Wirth ortillery, it's almost certainly streamlined, in order not to burn up on reentry.

199. Arguably, the chassis might be armoured as well.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

200. In theory, the smallest missile would be the dogfight.

201. Technology level thirteen with thirty percent size reduction would be 29.7619047619048 kilogrammes.

202. Or a tad over sixty eight and a half of them stuffed into one tonne.

203. Assuming fifty percent requirement for the launcher, might be an interesting man portable weapon system.

204. However, when space is a luxury, the preference would be for more bang.

205. Unfortunately, I kinda suspect that even a thirty percent shrunken torpedo warhead is going to be over a hundred kilogrammes.

206. Almost all of the missile warheads can be shrunk by thirty percent, and the biggest bang is the ortillery.

207. Budgetted enlarged advanced missile would be thirty kilogramme reactionary rocket, fifteen kilogrammes of fuel, and fifty five kilogramme warhead.

208. Default advanced missile would be twenty five kilogramme reactionary rocket, twelve and a half kilogrammes of fuel, and 45.83 kilogramme warhead.

209. The proposed four round acceleration fifteen advanced missile would be thirty kilogramme reactionary rocket, six kilogrammes of fuel, and a 45.83 kilogramme warhead; balance 19.167 kilogrammes.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

210. Ortillery would be, default, ten kilogramme reactionary rocket, twelve and a half kilogrammes of fuel, and a 60.83 kilogramme warhead.

211. Thirty percent shrinkage would place the warhead at 42.583 kilogrammes.

212. Interesting, you could swap out the advanced missile warhead with the shrunken ortillery one and still have space to spare, in the default chassis.

213. Hundred kilogrammes: thirty kilogramme reactionary rocket, six kilogrammes of fuel, default ortillery 60.83 kilogramme warhead; balance 3.17 kilogrammes.

214. Technological level eleven default acceleration fifteen reactionary rocket. 9.17 kilogrammes of fuel, seven minutes twenty seconds of full thrust.

215. That would qualify for long range, though immediate.

216. Technological level ten default acceleration twelve reactionary rocket, 15.17 kilogrammes of fuel, fifteen minutes ten seconds of full thrust.

216. Qualifies for very long range, though it would take three rounds.

217. Still at technological level ten, default acceleration ten reactionary rocket, 29.17 kilogrammes of fuel, about eleven and a half rounds.

218. That would allow a launch from distant range, though that would allow the missile to wander off twice.

219. If you restrict fuel and rockets to under fifteen percent, you could stuff in a second shrunken ortillery warhead.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments, Zen, and the Art of Missile Maintenance

220. Just made the realization that since shrinkage is proportional, the reactionary rockets on the missiles (and torpedoes) suddenly don't have more thrust per volume.

221. Which put paid to my idea of coopting them as high burn thrusters.

222. The dogfight missile has a damage potential of one dice, and has close range, plus a bonus of plus four.

223. The launch system still costs three quarters of a megastarbux, but draws no power.

224. It's within short range, so that plus one bonus to hit would apply.

225. Not sure why the missile breaks tradition with acceleration fourteen, not that it should matter with point defence, since the target would be closing, even if the launcher is on a separate hull in close defence mode.

226. Technically speaking, acceleration fourteen on a technological level ten system would be prototype, with a twenty five percent fuel disadvantage, which for one round or less endurance is probably irrelevant.

227. Making the rocket six times more expensive should bite.

228. Compared to it's competitor, the beam laser, with a medium range, same damage, one third cheaper in direct costs, and a four power point draw which would require 0.2667 tonnes of standard fusion, which is basically 0.2667 megastarbux.

229. Volume would be 12.8 dogfight missiles, and the cost equivalent to one hundred seventy and two thirds dogfight missiles.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: How Do Starlink Satellites Navigate To Their Final Operational Orbits

When SpaceX deploy batches of Starlink satellites they drop them off in lower orbits and expect the satellites themselves to navigate towards their final operational orbits. This is quite a complex process and one that's worth discussing, the satellites need to be able to reach the target orbital plane, raise the orbit to operational altitude, and then finally maneuver to a specific slot within that plane before they become operational.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIQr1UyhwWk


1. Krypton gas is ten times cheaper than xenon.

2. Could be replaced with orbital lifter, which for repositioning wouldn't need even acceleration one.