Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

1. Depending on a given set of circumstances, or design optimizations, energy efficiency suddenly moves to the top of the customization choice.

2. Magnetic plasma wings.

3. Place the ramscoop in the rear to collect the expended heated particles.

 

[Sigtrygg]

The ramscoop thus generates yet more waste heat...

the one thing that isn't mentioned since it is hard science is a gravitics version of the magnetic heat sinks.

There is also a way to put energy into a gravitaional coupling that lowers temperature...

 

[Condottiere]

Shedding electrons.

Or maybe ions.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Could you perhaps explain in a way that makes sense?

 

[Condottiere]

1. Have a material that has lots of electrons, transfer the heat there, and trap the heat in the electrons; at some temperature point, they achieve escape velocity.

2. Presumably, a gravity heat sink works on black hole mechanics, so that means that there some event horizon gravitational pull that would suck that heat in.

 

[Sigtrygg]

1 - What happens when you transfer energy to electrons? They wiggle a bit or jump up an energy level. As they wiggle they generate electromagnetic radiation. When they drop down to their original energy level they radiate electromagnetic energy.

You would have to "boil" the energised electrons into space - which means you have a massive EM signature and heat bloom.

2 - gravitational orbits have a peculiar property, the closer you are to the object you orbit the faster you move - i.e. more kinetic energy than further away, average microscopic kinetic energy is temperature - so handwavium time, if gravitics can produce microscopic "artificial gravitational coupling" you could dump waste heat into this gravitaional heat sink, waste heat would actually become the artificial gravity of the ship

 

[Condottiere]

1. Between boiling alive and a location beacon, and I think I know what most crews will select.

2.
i. Unless it's a field effect, you're going to have to place additional plumbing underneath the floor grates.

ii. Or, instead of the outer hull turning to create gravity, you plate it with gravitational modules, and send the heat in liquid form to circulate around there.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: Dropships & Drop Pods

The ability to get a strike force anywhere and fast is of vast strategic value, and the future may dropships landing anywhere on a planet within minutes.

1. Survival factors.

2. Stealth, surprise, suppression.

3. Avoidance, armour, distraction, decoys, target rich environment.

4. Battle taxis or infantry fighting vehicles.

5. Landing ships.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Bridges and Redundancy

1. Traditionally, you just allocate money and space to a second bridge.

2. My belief is that since you're paying per hundred tonnes, it's mostly the cost of wiring up the spacecraft.

3. As such, you could pay for that again, and have redundancy, but a single bridge.

4. Or, if you do have two bridges, whether you could piggyback off the other's network.

5. Small bridges cost half as much, but must substract one from spacecraft operations carried out there.

6. That's just not a question of cramped quarters, but also latency.

7. Cockpits cost next to nothing, but currently have a cap of fifty tonnes.

8. Specialist control centres are based on small bridges, gain plus one bonus to one particular spacecraft function or component (type).

9. Full sized ones can additionally run the entire spacecraft, but outside of it's specialty, and assigned section, at minus two.

 

[Condottiere]

Inspiration: STARBARIANS - Episode 1

The Starbarians have landed.

1. Congratulations to Harry Partridge for coining the word before I thought of it.

2. Technically, Technobarbarians.

3. Barbie the Barebarian.

 

[Nelphine]

So I certainly dont claim to have read this whole thread, and I get confused by the format of numbered posts (because the numbers dont seem to refer to anything) but I have a question, and if its been answered, I'd love to be redirected.

In corridor, the economic power of the imperium is lower than usual. The economic power of even small vargr states, like Irrgh, actually matches relatively huge areas of nearby imperium space.

In addition, we know that broadly, the imperium maintains faulty equivalent types of fleets across its various sectors and domains. Some are much bigger than others, particularly with regard to reserve fleets, but the nature and structure is still the same, with large spinal weapons (and correspondingly large ships) as the main component of the fleet.

My question is this: given actual economies shown in neighboring vargr states, it's completely viable for them to sustain pirate corsair fleets of 1,000,000+ small 200-500 ton ships.

Given vargr mentality, it would even be easy for these to work in a fashion that appears to the imperium to be coordinated, even if they had no centralized government - namely, the sheer volume of raids would mean that every imperial system could be hit, multiple times per day, within 15 jumps of the border. And if there was a centralized government, large enough groups of such ships could threaten even the largest static defenses.

Given the existential nature of such a threat from the vargr, shouldn't the imperial order of battle adjust to consider it?

Which in turn, would provoke the zhodani into urging such undertaking by the vargr, specifically to make it much harder for the imperial forces to reinforce in the event of renewed hostilities with the imperium? (Because the nearest reinforcements would have a completely different - and therefore ineffective - order of battle)

 

[Condottiere]

1. I wouldn't worry about Traveller economics overmuch, unless you want a laugh.

2. With Vargr, things fall apart; you can't have a million Vargr starships, because they'd just kamikaze the Imperial Navy, and you need a sustained industrial base.

3. Vargr either kowtow to someone they feel is superior to themselves, or they loosely cooperate; when I made that joke about Alexander the Great Dane, it basically acknowledges great charisma and continuous success.

4. Other than that, if things work out well, they don't need to subordinate themselves to outsiders, but also won't feel a need to change the current leadership.

5. To reiterate, the Imperium Navy is short of spacecraft.

6. Politically, the Imperium spreads it's starwarships evenly across it's sectors to prevent a concentration that can be utilized by an ambitious sector admiral or politician.

7. Editorially, it's easier than specifically setting out the exact composition of each sector fleet.

8. The Vargr are meant to be a distraction, forcing the Imperium Navy to spread it's forces to protect the commerce lanes and the hinterland.

9. The Zhodani want to establish a Neutral Zone, to keep the Imperial sphere of influence away from their territories.

 

[Nelphine]

1. Unfortunately, not the way my brain works. If there's a population, they're going to do Something. Economy matters to me. Also, see 8 below.

2. I think they absolutely would do that - it's why I would like to see a different order of battle (same value, different types of ships) for the areas near the Vargr, to actually address the threat the Vargr pose, which is vastly different to most other navies.

3. Also my point. Obviously, most times there wont be a million corsairs from one entity threatening the imperium. But the imperium should at least take the possibility of such a threat seriously, specifically because of that possibility.

4. See 3.

5. Right, but that's, to me, why the usual order of battle (and the resources that takes) is a waste near the Vargr. They should replace every tigress with thousands of smaller ships.

6. This is exactly why I'm bringing it up. Strict adherence to the internal politics, should mean that the imperium simply ever controlled corridor in the first place. They simply cant deal with the volume of corsairs.

And then this leads to other internal realities, that heavily impact neighboring domains, and through them, other interstellar politics, particularly the zhodani.

7. Sure, but if we're doing a forum thread, I dont think we should allow ourselves to be limited by that.

8. The Vargr may be meant that way, but I think it's interesting to explore what a proper consideration of the realities would do to the imperial fleet choices, and how that influences wider politics. NOTE this also is why I'm considering my answer to 1 seriously even though I agree we should never be held closely to it.

9. And if the immediate imperial forces couldn'tbe effectively reinforced in case of hostilities, that would make a neutral zone much easier to create. So they would absolutely manipulate the vargr to do what they want, particularly if it was something like this which naturally appeals to the independent nature of the Vargr.

 

[Condottiere]

Dealing with Vargr are like herding cats.

There's some contention about their various political entities reaching technological level fifteen - I'll concede it's possible, but rather short lasting, and the industrial base get immediately cannibalized after the political collapse.

And that's I key issue, in my opinion, the Vargr can't sustain an advanced industrial base.

 

[Nelphine]

I dont see them ever sustaining large populations then. They would need to have max population around.. 6 on any given world.

Which both goes against what is present on the map, and goes against their ability to be a distracting threat.

If they can sustain populations of 9, at TL12, they have enough industrial base to churn out small corsairs. They dont need TL15, they dont need to have a mega military base to refit dreadnoughts. They just need to be able.. to build small tramp vessels, that can largely be maintained by their owners. And some scavenger family of mechanics does yearly maintenance.

 

[Condottiere]

I didn't say that the Vargr aren't resourceful, and in fact, I tend to view them as very.

What I do think is that their tendency is to artisanal, rather than mass, production.

And I have a feeling that the construction of jump drives is a lot more complex than it's hinted at.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: Free Traders, Pickups, and Technicals

1. Free Traders have nominally eighty tonnes of cargo space.

2. Exchange that for a fifty tonne bay.

3. Bays are free.

4. You could leave it open to vacuum.

5. You could then, in theory, over cargo it, and strap it down.

6. At some point you could install a fifty tonne sized weapon system in it.

7. I'd suggest a particle beam, since it has very long range.

8. You'd have to find a way to provie that thirty power points.

9. A missile bay would only need five power points.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: Free Traders, Pickups, and Technicals

A. I think there's usually a wastage of ten percent for anything stuffed into weapon bay areas.

B. Also, not sure exactly have weapon bays are configured.

C. As I recall, it is one to one with ground vehicles.

D. However, you could stuff in one, or more, containers that are specifically designed to fit there.

E. If you only have to lift one forty five container, it would speed up transshipment.

F. Especially, directly out of the hull, than through the cargo hold (hatches).

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: How cruise ships got so big

Today’s cruise ships are several times as big as the Titanic.

Cruise ships are freaking big. They’re the biggest passenger vessels humans have ever built. In size and appearance, they look nothing like almost any other boat. So how did they get that way?

The predecessor of today’s cruise ships was the ocean liner: big, beautiful ships that sailed across the Atlantic. But ocean liners had a totally different purpose from cruise ships: They were for transportation. Everything about them was designed to facilitate an ocean voyage from one continent to another.

But air travel changed that. Planes eliminated the main reason to take a ship somewhere, and ocean liner business plummeted. So the industry pivoted and began selling a ship as the destination itself. The cruise ship was born. But the ocean liners, built for a voyage, weren’t ideal for the purposes of a cruise, and over the next few decades, the cruise ship began its evolution. And it has culminated in the behemoths we see today.

1. Love Boat.

2. Forget the environment.

3. Expand until the hull bursts.

4. Minimize operating costs.

5. Kitsch, rather than luxury.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: Free Traders, Pickups, and Technicals

G. Switching out bay weapon systems would be considered a minor refit at ten percent additional cost.

H. I think that means you have to remove the roof.

I. The roof (hull) could be part of the forty five tonne container.

J. All it has to be is secured down, and then lifted out.

K. So outside of labour and equipment overhead, no refit costs.