Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: Star Wars: BT-7 Thunderclap Assault Ship | Ship Breakdown

Spacedock heads to the days of the Old Republic for a look at the BT-7 Thunderclap. #StarWars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O90i6w0nt8o


1. Interstellar capable deployment shuttle.

2. Usually a great way to have a mobile base.

3. I think the problem is when you have to fight your way in, or out, and damage your transport.

4. At this point, stealth is a rather expensive, but probably necessary, investment.

5. Our basis would probably be the Broadsword class mercenary cruiser, though without modular cutters.

6. Performance, whether acceleration or range, effects the size of the hull, with, in my opinion, a kilotonne being the upper limit of practicality, and two hundred tonnes, about as small as you should go.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: Having (Re)fits

1. You cannot alter the armour factor of a spaceship, nor change fundamental aspects of the hull, such as configuration, or structural integrity.

2. It's not mentioned if you can remove armour.

3. It's not mentioned if you can replace the armour, replicating the same armour factor, but using a different material.

4. It's not mentioned, that when something punches a hole through the hull, can you patch up it up with different materials?

5. While it's not explicitly mentioned, you cannot add a spinal mount, presumably being rather integral to the hull, being a spine and all.

6. Closest to bein an actual rule, would be the inability to increase the size of an existing spinal mount.

7. So, having zero tonnage of spinal mount to begin with, would tend to strangle such a notion in it's infancy.

8. However, nothing is mentioned, like bay installations, designating tonnage, presumably along the spine of the hull, as fitting for (a spinal mount) but not with.

9. Presumably, this would cost actual money, but not specifying how much, presumably based on the cost of the actual weapon system, not as multiple of the cost of the hull built.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: Having (Re)fits

10. Placing stuff in ordinary, reduces costs by a factor of ten.

11. Can you place individual systems onboard a working hull, in ordinary?

12. In other words, you decommission the spinal mount on a starwarship, which means it costs one ten thousandths maintenance cost, instead of an in service one thousandth, but leave the rest of the ship systems functioning normally.

13. You could also have it removed and warehoused, together with factory new ones, at one hundredth hundredths of the manufactured cost, plus storage.

14. In fact, I would suppose that unless they are expected to be used soon, most expensive spare parts would be placed in ordinary, lowering operating costs.

15. Of course, as we're currently experiencing, just in time logistics requires some leeway and foresight.

16. It's hard to say how this mechanism would affect dirtside equipment, as we only are concerned with spacecrafts and their systems.

17. Major changes are listed as requiring one fourth the time, a complete new spacecraft would nominally require for construction.

18. Minor changes would be one tenth the time.

19. Warehousing could be quasi vacuum packed.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: Having (Re)fits

20. Refitting, or replacing, a major system costs fifty percent of the item for removal.

21. Installing a new major system in place of the original costs one hundred fifty percent, presumably the extra fifty percent being the cost of installation, labour and so on.

22. If you want to save time and that fifty percent, you have the spinal mount pre installed.

23. That's where the question of whether you can place an installed system in ordinary comes from.

24. Maintenance costs collapse to one tenth normal, but reactivation would require yard facilities, costs a tenth of the cost of the item, an requires one tenth of the time of actual construction.

25. Even deactivated, not every commercial spaceport would want a starship with a spinal mount docking there.

26. You might be wondering why the sudden interest in ordinarying starwarships.

27. I started thinking about armed merchant cruisers, and if a six inch battery qualifies as a bunch of large bays or a spinal mount.

28. Given a choice, I'd prefer a factor one spinal mount to seven large bays.

29. And bays and spinal mounts need to be integral, or at least provisioned to be, to the original design and ship construction.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacestations: How Do Starbases Work? (Star Trek Science)

CORRECTION AT 00:55: The first manned space station was the Soviet Union's Salyut-1. Skylab was launched in 1973. This was purely an oversight, but as I do care about the accuracy of information, I have felt the need to address it in a Community post and pinned comment. I will aim to be more careful with fact-checking from here forward.

Humans have dreamed of living and working in space for centuries. We've had a semi-permanent presence in low Earth orbit for decades. But when it comes to the humongous space stations in Star Trek like Earth Spacedock, how do they work exactly? And could we build one IRL?

--CHAPTERS--
00:00 Intro
00:52 Background
02:06 Size
03:14 Propulsion
05:10 Layout
06:32 Designations
07:53 Gravity
11:20 Final Thoughts
12:07 Outro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wJdHSqFBMw


1. Cheapest option still seems ironick planetoid plus mining drones.

2. Expansion could be like coral, except instead of calcium carbonates, something excretes nickel iron on the surface.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: Having (Re)fits

30. Refitting an existing hull, or fitting out an empty one, seems rather extravagant.

31. I think at this point you move from just in time, to warehoused modular.

32. Since the components are pre-existing, but placed in ordinary, maintenance cost is one hundredth hundredths of the construction cost.

33. Reactivation would be prior to and concurrent during construction and installation.

34. Construction time is usually divided by a default million starbux per day, so in theory it would be actual costs incurred during construction itself, including reactivation costs, but those specifically could be divided by a quarter and ten respectively, for major and minor systems.

35. I don't think the bridge, or electronics, are categorized.

36. Electronics could be classified as minor systems, so ten percent installation costs seem reasonable.

37. The bridge seems rather integral to the ship, though not necessarily to the hull itself.

38. The actual costs incurred would be rewiring the hull, since bridges come in standard sizes.

39. Or, if modular, the costs would be just installing the bridge tonnage, and linking the bridge systems to the existing wiring in the hull.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: (Ultra) Light Fighters and The Caudron-Renault C.714 Cyclone; French Feather Weight

In the run up to World War Two, the French decided to develop a light weight fighter both to replace their older aircraft and for potential supply to allies.

This ended up as the C.714 - a fighter built of wood and powered by a measly 500hp engine!

Despite this - and the fact no one wanted to fly it - it ended up fighting in the last desperate days of the Battle of France.

NOTE: I could only find two pictures of the aircraft in Polish service, so had to use some of the C.714 in French service to illustrate.

And yes, at 8:50 I screwed up my script.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-fla2i-8yc


1. The Mossie is one of my favourite aircraft, and as such, a fighter constructed of wood isn't necessarily a deal breaker.

2. However, Renault isn't de Haviland, nor Rolls Royce.

3. Presumably, our version is between six to fifteenish tonnes, with my guess that below ten tonnes it's ultralite.

4. The problem becomes two fold: you're going to run out of space for stuff like sensors that have a fixed volume, and it's hard to justify installing increasingly sophisticated, thus expensive, computers.

5. In terms to construction time, maybe the computer, especially for smallcraft, shouldn't be included.

6. In theory, quantity has a quality of it's own; and then you have guided missiles.

7. Sadly, you cannot construct spaceship wooden hulls.

8. Not that it matters, except in terms of cost per tonne, since performance is dependent on volume.

9. The only way to get some real combat capability out of a six tonne hull might be as either a weapons module or breakaway hull.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Heavy Fighters and Messerschmitt Bf 110 - Night Fighter Destroyer

As the world transitioned from biplane to monoplane, many new developments propelled aviation forward, and Hermann Göring himself fantasized with the idea of a fleet of brand new Zerstörers, or destroyers, that could take over the enemies of the Reich.

A revolutionary aircraft concept was then born in the form of a heavy fighter destroyer, a vehicle that was compared to an impenetrable fortress back in the day.

The Messerschmitt Bf 110 came out victorious after a hard-fought competition, primarily because of its long-range and stout airframe capable of penetrating the opponents’ air defenses and protecting bombers along the way.

However, its design also showed several shortcomings, and it is rumored that it ultimately won because of a petty fight between aviation leaders and the desire to embarrass Messerschmitt.

Still, this powerful destroyer would eventually become one of the most emblematic aircraft out of Nazi Germany, and it would take the Royal Air Force almost a year to figure out the secret weapon behind an aircraft that was shooting down all of its tail gunners...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPR-EAXTfAI


1. If a heavy fighter is characterized by a larger armament and an increase in sluggish, that would start them off respectively seventy and fifty tonnes.

2. It would have to be able sustain heavy damage.

3. But all that extra tonnage does allow the inclusion of afterburners at sustained rates, so acceleration would be less of an issue in dogfights.

4. Also, space for more electronics.

5. Fixed mounts at odd angles is probably more in terms of Hercules gunships broadsides.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: Having (Re)fits

40. On the whole, there is very little incentive for placing starwarships into ordinary.

41. Annual maintenance is one thousandths of the construction cost, and ordinary one hundredths one hundredths.

42. Recommissioning of a starwarship in ordinary is one tenth's of the construction cost.

43. That would be one hundred years worth of a commissioned starwarship's annual maintenance.

44. That's a tad under one hundred twelve years of ordinary, so to make it worthwhile on that basis alone, you have to switch off the starwarship for the next century, probably two.

45. You lose the potential utility of that starwarship during that period.

46. This would be countered by overheads, basically the costs operating the starwarship, and the costs of the infrastructure supporting it's operations.

47. Striker, I think, had a menu of costs for personnel, rank and quality.

48. This isn't the same as salary scales, but includes the overall expense of board and lodging, plus training and services; probably excludes pensions.

49. And then, of course, the bureaucracy and the starbases slices that can be assigned as costs.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: Having (Re)fits

50. Perusing some Classical literature, specifically Adventure Five, maintenance is listed at ten percent per annum based on the construction cost.

51. This may have been a typographical error, or specific to a Navy campaign.

52. Ten percent is a hundred times more that one tenth of a percent.

53. Ordinary is still one tenth maintenance cost, but recommissioning is ten percent, which is basically a year's worth of maintenance.

54. So the break even point is eleven years.

55. I wonder how much it costs to break up a hull, and recycling the internal components?

56. Probably cheaper than actually refitting.

57. It would seem that the only starwarships worth refitting, extensively, would be those with expensive hulls.

58. That would those with heavy armour and/or coatings.

59. So for major components, like with some computers, future proof (though, not something I'd invest in by default).

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Alien: USCSS Prometheus | Ship Breakdown

Spacedock returns to the #Alien universe for a look at the USCSS Prometheus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0PHrjkJHDk


1. Pivotably pylon engines.

2. Slightly higher at back, allowing simultaneously use.

3. Exploration ship.

4. Of course, owner aboard has set up a luxury suite onboard the life boat.

5. Soft gel suits.

6. Drones, you'll want drones.

7. I'm beginning to suspect the Solomani Expedition is based on this film.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: NEBULOUS: FLEET COMMAND | Sci-Fi Space Combat Gameplay & Details - Tactical / Strategy Game 2022

Nebulous: Fleet Command is a new sci-fi space combat strategy and tactics game set to release into early access in early 2022. Today we dive into some gameplay and details from Nebulous: Fleet Command to see exactly what makes this upcoming sci-fi strategy game worth keeping an eye on. With a focus on hard sci-fi and a grounded approach to the topic of space combat, you'll find yourself in charge of fleets of varying sizes, with customized ships built using a variety of modules, each giving a different kind of tactical edge in battle. If you're a fan of combat in shows like The Expanse, or you'd just like your sci-fi battles to feel a bit more grounded and realistic, Nebulous Fleet Command is looking like a very interesting sci-fi strategy game with some extremely interesting ideas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ent4u3JrM8Y


1. Six degrees of freedom: pitch, yaw and roll.

2. Reaction control system for steering.

3. Customization.

4. Flipping.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: This is How Navy Refuels Ships at Sea

Understand the intricacies of Underway Replenishment, or what many nations call Replenishment At Sea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7nI1n7Udhw


1. Shuttle replenishment.

2. Side by side aligned replenishment.

3. Multi dimensional aligned replenishment should be possible.

4. Astern replenishment.

 

[Condottiere]

Star Wars: Imperial March x Carol of The Bells | EPIC VERSION (Epic Christmas Music)

All copyright belongs to their respective owners.
Artwork by Jake Bartok

Imperial March by John Williams
Carol of the Bells by Mykola Leontovych
Arranged & Orchestrated by Samuel Kim

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66M8NwkRmew


Merry Bellerophon

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: Star Wars: The Immense Size of the Executor-Class Star Destroyer

Here is a technical 3D animation for the Executor-Class Star Destroyer, or Super Star Destroyer. Enjoy!

The Executor-class Star Dreadnought, also known as the Executor-class Super Star Destroyer, Super Star Destroyer were some of the largest and most powerful Imperial starships ever created. Along with other classes of massive Imperial capital ships, they were also referred to as Super Star Destroyers, although they were technically classified as Star Dreadnoughts. The most notable Super Star Destroyer was the Executor, flagship of Darth Vader.

Vessels of the Executor-class Dreadnought line measured at 19,000 meters in length, and utilizing its thirteen Executor-50.x engines, could reach speeds of 100 kilometers per hour.

These starships were crewed by thousands and were outfitted with a class 2 hyperdrive, a titanium-reinforced hull, over 5,000 turbolaser and ion cannon batteries, and concussion missile tubes.

A bridge deflector shield was also included as a layer of defense and maintained a complement of thousands of starships including TIE/ln space superiority starfighters, TIE/sa bombers, and TIE/IN interceptors. Vessels of the Executor-class also had at least one hangar bay and escape pods.

The Executor-class's bridge was 285 meters wide and contained shield generators, briefing rooms, and escape pods. However, it was relatively exposed, making it vulnerable to enemy attack.

The Super-class Star Destroyer was manufactured by Kuat Drive Yards during the reign of the Galactic Empire. In addition, The Star Destroyers that the Imperials use don't have any landing gear. The way they transfer the soldiers and equipment down to planets are by shuttles, frigates, or any Imperial ship designed to transport such cargo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItRIPN5x6bE


1. The question does come up, do you want an all in one starwarship, or ones specialized for specific missions?

2. For flagships commanding large or multiple fleets, probably.

3. Not in the sense that it's tasked with planetary bombardment and assault, more that it's large troop complement acts as shipboard security for the commander and his staff, repels attempts to board the vessel, and provides an escort for the commander off the vessel.

4. Organic fighter group would be to screen the flagship, and act as a reserve.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Engineering and Inertial damper in real world

Countering the effect of inertial forces requires a force that compensates them. For example, a pilot of a rapidly accelerating fighter aircraft is acted upon by his seat, which compensates the inertial force, which would otherwise make him fall through the seat. However, the distribution of the compensating force throughout his body is different from that of the inertial force, and thus a deformation of his body occurs (such as swelling of the legs and insufficient blood supply to the brain).

To avoid the deformation, the distributions have to match. The gravitational field discussed above is a theoretical possibility to achieve this perfectly. For bodies with homogeneous density there is also the possibility of surrounding them with a fluid of the same density. The resulting buoyant force compensates the inertial forces. It is distributed across the body surface and transferred to its interior in such a way that no deformation stress occurs. Fighter pilots often wear a liquid-filled g-suit for this purpose. However, as the human body is not entirely homogeneous (bones are denser, air in the cavities is lighter than the rest of the body), some deformation stress remains.


1. I started getting interested in acceleration tanks.

2. Not an option in the MongoVerse.


Multi-Environment Space

The environment of this designated area can be modified to a wide range of conditions including salt water, extreme temperatures, or unusual atmospheres, all to suit the needs of the occupant, usually an alien, animal, or exotic plant.

One tonne of environmental equipment is needed for every twenty tonnes of space designated as multi-environment, at a cost of MCr0.5 per tonne of equipment. Each tonne of environmental equipment requires one Power.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Engineering and Inertia Negation

... is a hypothetical process causing physical objects with mass to act as if they were of lower mass or were massless. The effect is the opposite of adding ballast. No such process is known to exist in the real world: if current understanding of physics is correct, such a process would be impossible. There is currently no known material or technology that is able to eliminate or negate the effects of inertia that all objects with mass possess.

Overview

According to Newton's first law, "A body will continue in its state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight line, unless compelled to change that state by a net force." Inertia is the resistance against changes in the motion of an object. Objects within objects each possess their own inertia, and will collide with each other when the containing object is moved.

A device that would be capable of inertia negation is described as being capable of reducing the inertia of both the larger containing object, and of all contained objects within, so as to make changes in motion easier, and to reduce or prevent damage due to internal collisions. The inertia is not absorbed or redirected but simply ceases to have a physical effect.

Antimatter, while being the opposite of matter, has the same kind of inertia, with the forces oriented in the same direction, as normal matter. Thus, storing antimatter on board a vehicle made of matter would not achieve any kind of inertia negation.

Inertia negation in fiction

Inertia negation is a commonplace technology in numerous science fiction series. It is used as an explanation as to why the crew of starships can withstand complex manoeuvres or acceleration to FTL speeds.

The first Sci-fi series to explicitly mention inertial dampening technology include the Star Trek, Stargate and the Alien franchises. However, the technology is depicted implicitly in many more movies and TV shows where the crew inside a spaceship are not affected by acceleration of the ship itself.

...

Inertial damper as shock absorber

Inertia negation is used to counter the effects of sudden acceleration that would impart structural stresses on star ships when suddenly accelerating to or decelerating with the impulse drive, and which would cause passengers to be thrown against walls and crushed by the inertial effects of the vehicle suddenly accelerating or slowing.

Such a device does not need to negate or alter inertia – a similar effect can be achieved by creating a gravitational field opposing the acceleration of the vessel. Such technology, while still nonexistent at the present time and considered unlikely to be achieved in the foreseeable future, is by far more realistic than manipulating inertial mass.


So, basically, an inertial negation field is more plausible than trying to embed thousands or millions of graviton projectors in the floorboards.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Engineering and Inertia Negation

1. Acceleration tanks, or gee tanks, appear to have different values for the crew and passenger variants.

2. Assuming you can't, or isn't practical to, turn the entire spacecraft into an aquarium.

3. The cost of the acceleration tank would include workstation for a crew position, or just an acceleration couch, for the passenger.

4. The volume given is two tonnes, which would include the workstation or couch.

5. As I recall, either workstation or couch takes up half a tonne; one just has more buttons.

6. While I'm a tad sceptical about flooding engineering, doing so for the bridge seems feasible.

7. To gain maximum benefit, you have to be strapped in to the workstation or couch.

8. Strapping in would account for one gravity, the tank for another.

9. Evasion appears to imply violent jinking about, so short of that, when artificial gravity is switched off, one gravity is tolerable, for a total of three gravities for sustained acceleration.

 

[Garran]

Looking at those last two posts, it occurs to me to wonder: does the (gravitic) M-Drive in Traveller create its effect only on/in itself (and, by being attached, push the ship around), or does it affect the ship as a whole (a field-generator)? If it's the latter then you'd have much less to worry about since everything in the ship would be accelerating (or decelerating) uniformly rather than some things pushing other things forward/holding them back.

 

[Condottiere]

I think it's edition dependent, possibly author dependent.

If I recall correctly, Tee Five has gone with the field effect for inertial negation; so has the Honorverse and I think Star Trek.

With Tee Five, it seems to originate from the manoeuvre drive, though if that applies to all gravitic derived propulsion, or specific to the default thrusters, I don't know.

With the MongoVerse, doubling the cost of the default hull seems to imply the mechanism is part of the artificial gravity projectors, which are embedded in the floorboards.

Though it should be no secret I tend to use ironick planetoids, which apparently come with artificial gravity projectors preinstalled, at four kilostarbux per tonne total, compared to fifty kilostarbux per tonne for a default standard hull.