Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

This bridge design can be ejected from the ship in an emergency to become a lifeboat for the command crew. The bridge has two weeks of life support and battery power, while emergency thrusters give it basic manoeuvring capabilities, equivalent to Thrust 0. A detachable bridge is even capable of soft-landing on a planetary surface.


This bridge design can be ejected from the ship in an emergency to become a lifeboat for the command crew. The bridge has two weeks of life support and battery power, while emergency thrusters give it basic manoeuvring capabilities, equivalent to Thrust 0. A detachable bridge is even capable of soft–landing on a planetary surface. See the Detachable Bridges table for costs and tonnage.


Speaking of copying and pasting, I see that we can still do planetary, and presumably atmospheric, reentry at thrust factor zero.

Though I wonder that with only one paddle, this might be more of a life raft: in theory, you can't get very far on thrust zero, though apparently, it will get you down safely at seven klix per second, while burning up.

 

[Condottiere]

Now, can a space station make a soft planetary landing (and atmospheric reentry) with thrust factor zero drives?

That would be fascinating to find out.

 

[Condottiere]

Militarily, you can use them as drop pods.

Commercially, drop pods if it turns out that dropping stuff for home delivery is cheaper than sending down a shuttle or a drone.

 

[Condottiere]

Ships are typically equipped with enough gravitic compensation to counter whatever Thrust score the ship has.


So I would guess no field effect, but that you have to build the gravitic compensators into the hull, and/or decks, ceiling and walls.

You can turn down the gravitic compensation for de gravitated hulls, giving them some form of gravity towards the manoeuvre drives, while they are functioning.

 

[Sigtrygg]

If it isn't a field effect then something has to be physically touching. You can think of forces as being contact or non-contact - non-contact forces require force fields to explain them.

 

[Condottiere]

Field effect would be easier to explain, in the sense that the reason the manoeuvre drives are in the back, that a counter force could be a natural expression of the creation of gravitic thrust in the other direction.

But you try to work with what you're given.

In this case, an internal "lanthanum grid" that counter acts created directional gravitation.

 

[Condottiere]

If you build in an internal gravitational compensators, you have to pay for it.

Reaction drives are similar to manoeuvre drives but instead act as giant thrusters, exhausting gases that push the ship forward like today’s rockets.

No mention is made that gravitational compensation is possible with rockets.

In theory, you could install both, say factor threes, and then burn the rockets and turn off the manoeuvre drive.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Minimum Viable

Back to solar energy.

You can't accelerate if the solar panels are unfurled; presumably it takes six minutes to furl or unfurl them.

At best, technological level twelve gives you two power points per turn in the goldilocks zone, per tonne, at two fifths megastarbux, which seems kinda expensive, especially compared to the previous edition.

This seems like biospheres, where you really have to think long term for any potential savings.

There seems to be a one turn latency between solar input, and power point output.

On the bright side, you could directly power the jump drive from either the coating or panelling.

 

[Sigtrygg]

If a ship has no grav plates or acceleration compensation does the m-drive acceleration cause the crew to experience a force?

Artifical gravity floor plates appear to be able to generate a variable gravitational force effect that is perpendicular to the engine thrust - if the answer to question 1 is yes then how does the floor plate generate a gravity like field and yet negates the engine thrust perceived force.

Finally we come to the acceleration compensation generation which negates the effects of acceleration apart from the artificial gravity plates.

 

[Condottiere]

Educated speculation.

Let's simplify it and say we're dealing with a tail sitter.

Because I think it's possible to angle gravitational force/fields, but I'm not yet quite prepared to think about that, yet.

So we have ye tailsitter, with both factor three rockets and manoeuvre drive.

The hull is degravitated.

In theory, using only the manoeuvre drive, in space, the gravitational compensators would negate any felt gravitation, upto three gravities, from using the manoeuvre drive.

Without additional artificial gravity floor plates, the crew would be floating.

You tone down the gravity compensators by one gravity, you have created a gravity effect of one standard Terran gravity, that makes the crew fall towards the floor at one gravity.

 

[Condottiere]

So, here comes the other part.

If the gravitational compensators are built in, then it shouldn't matter the source of the, directed gravitational force.

You turn off the manoeuvre drive, and you won't feel anything from the reactionaries, upto three gravities.

Or, if that's not possible/allowed, you switch on the manoeuvre drive partially, whether fractional or factor one, and burn the rockets for two gravities.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Minimum Viable

However you look at it, a starship is going to need a functioning fission or fusion power plant, because at a minimum, you need energy for basic systems, for that one week trip down the rabbit hole.

Solar isn't going to work in jumpspace, if you tried to cram it into the batteries, there won't be much space left for anything else.

Optionally, you could shut down the starship except for accommodations and the bridge; not to sure what that does for engineering.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: How Did Your Average Clone Wars Venator Crew Actually Work?

0:00 Intro
0:45 Command Structure
2:41 Making it Fly
4:49 The Guns
6:08 The Hangars
7:34 Totals
8:34 Outro

 

[Condottiere]

A hundred kilotonnes is too large for most cruiser concepts, and too small for capitol starwarships, at least modern ones.

Fifty kilotonnes seems to be the start for heavy, possibly medium, cruiser concepts, with a fifty percent crew bonus.

Twenty five kilotonnes is usually considered the minimum size for cruisers, specifically light ones, as it has a strengthened hull and a third off crew.

Five kilotonnes gives you off a quarter crew; that one tonne difference makes them more likely to be hit by spinal mounts.

I'd say nineteen hundred ninety nine tonnes is the next tier, since since they are spinal immune, and somewhat harder to hit by bay weapon systems.

 

[Condottiere]

It's now a question of how far the High Guard additions and expansion from Deepnight Revelation, are still valid

Amongst them is whether you can still control the two kilotonne Tenzig class exploration vessel from a dual cockpit.

The implication being, dual cockpits are then not capped at fifty tonne smallcraft.

There are other dual cockpit designs, but the Tenzig is the largest, so far.

 

[Condottiere]

You can still ignore criticals from turrets and barbettes if the hull is at least two thousand and one (tonnes), a space oddity.

So back to the two pop up turrets, which would transform a two kilotonne {plus one) below the two kilotonne threshold, when ensuring the other side has a harder time targetting the hull by sacrificing two turrets.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: Hulls and Modularization

1. I was flipping past the Armoured Cruiser entry.

2. Something seemed off.

3. I identified it as it now having modularized hull.

4. Strange, I thought, and found out the writer meant that as podular hull.

5. Since, as I recall, modularization is an internalized process.

6. Pods, are definitely external.

7. Up to 75% of a ship’s internal tonnage can be designated as modular. This tonnage cannot include the bridge, power plant, drives or any structure or armour options.

8. Definitely did not misremember.

9. Especially since pods do include bridges, power plants, armouring, and possibly drives.

A. This is newly invented for this book.

B. So, just to be sure I did a search on pod.

C. This is literally, a canon mistake by the editorial staff, not a typographical error, or an omission.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: Hulls and Modularization

D. So I got curious, and decided to see what the modular cutter had to say on the subject.

E. With no module installed, the modular cutter is unstreamlined and capable of Thrust 6.

F. Again, the big debate for the past five or six years, which abated a couple of years ago, was whether modularization had any effect on the external hull, and thereby total tonnage.

 

[Condottiere]

Speaking of modularization:

At the Referee’s discretion, very large ships can be built in a modular fashion allowing simultaneous construction. This means the total construction time can be reduced by up to 90%. This is typically done only on ships exceeding 50,000 tons.

You could takeaway from this that you could divide the work into ten ten percent parcels of around five kilotonnes each, that are then assembled at a centralized facility.

Though, I suspect that mass fabricators of fighters might have a different view.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: Armaments, Spinal Mounts, and Coming Thru'

1. I was looking for a cheap spinal mount.

2. No, actually I noticed that bay weapon sizes distinguished themselves that each tier had a longer range.

3. Large bayed particle accelerators had a range of distant.

4. I think the idea is poking the bear.

5. Anyway, it seems that the larger the attacking ship, the closer it gets to the target, the harder it is to score.

6. Sort of makes sense, but makes a mess of using a mass driver in ship to ship combat, since range is rated at short.

7. The inverse would, or should, be, that the larger the target, the more likely it is that the spinal mount will hit it.

8. That's the point of line of battle, you close in and blow the crap out of the other side's battleships.

9. If you get a railgun, you're going to have to dance around at medium range.

A. Or a strafing run and quick flyby.