Sindalian warships?

[Condottiere]

Bottleneck likely jump drive manufacture, in size and number.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I think that a 65000 tons ship might be too large, but then, it was an aggressive empire.

That was their flagship. They had one of those. They only had 4 warships bigger than 13,800 tons, and 3 of them are the 20,000-ton Assault Cruisers, which is what they probably used for planetary bombardment.

 

[RYXlord]

I wrote a JTAS article not long ago about the Wyvern that had me doing a lot of similar research.

We know from the Drinaxian Companion's Rorix write-up that the empire preferred small ships for a variety of reasons. Note this line: "Having many captains of small ships meant that none commanded a vessel that could take on one of the few large warships the empire operated, making a rebellion by the fleet easy to crush providing the handful of heavy-ship captains remained loyal."

That says, first, that a lot of fleet doctrine was based around the emperor's paranoia and the despotic tone everything took in the latter years. The conclusion I came to for my article was that the sindal fleets were tightly regulated in terms of size and scale. The emperors wouldn't want any duke to get so powerful that they could rebel without getting taken down by all the others, so each fleet had a very limited number of ships at any given size category.

It also says they only had a 'handful' of heavy ships. My headcanon is that the 50,000dton warship currently scrapped out by Thebus was the emperor's own flagship. I figure each duke probably had a ducal capital ship in the 20,000 range, and then maybe 4-6, 'major' battle ships at the 10,000t level. Most of the real work was being done by sub-1,000t, or more likely sub-500 vessels, and that these small ships were more severely restricted operationally than you'd see in the third imperium. The Rorix only has a jump 2, for example, so I assume that was fairly standard for the smaller craft.

Of course, theses grander ships would be much major prestige postings and would need to be designed accordingly. I figure they'd have lavish accommodations more suited to luxury yachts then battle craft and decorated accordingly, and gosh, can't you just picture each duke trying to outdo the others for who has the nicest ships? Just imagine: ships that make the harrier look pedestrian! I stated out a few of them for my own campaign, it was a lot of fun.

I'm looking forward to this adventure you're writing, Morgoth!

 

[Morgoth99]

Yeah. I mean, with no peer power, a battleship is honestly just wasted tonnage and coup waiting to happen if 90 percent of your combat is fighting upgunned merchants and bombarding worlds.

I doubt the Sindalians would hand a battleship to a robot, and Doylist, a functional ship like that would be far beyond most groups.

So my idea is a twin design: 1,000-5,000 ton landing and bombardment ships, that deploy the robotic combat units, teamed up with a 20,000 ton "support ship" which can keep them topped up with unfeeling legions of doom. How many actually exist is left open to the referee, the first product i'm starting with is a few Mercenary cruisers that were taken and refitted with an AI. to learn more...

The AI's aren't necessarily hostile to the players. Their overriding charge was loyalty to the Empire, but over the centuries, the Empire has vanished and now that they're back, their smart enough to ask the question: "If the Empire destroyed itself and is long gone, what does loyalty mean?"

 

[Condottiere]

It's like a graphic card.

If you buy a [1]5090(000), that's still cutting edge, if maintained, to the present, and associated components to max out performance.

You can give the kids the newest Chromebooks, and MacBooks when they go to college.

Some may save their allowance, and either buy a better computer on sale, or get it second hand.

 

[Ragnar60]

TL is a bit of a catch all term for what may be a very varied group of TL! The Sindal Empire was nominally TL14, but naval and robot technology could be as high as TL 15, and AI computer technology had nominally reached TL 16 (Makergod)! Likely also many worlds in the Sindalian Empire did not reach TL 14, much like the 3rd Imperium of 1105!

The Drinaxian Companion certainly suggests that most of the Sindalian navy was in the sub 1000 ton range. 3 Harriers and a Rorix equipped with Ortillery Missiles and / or nuclear torpedoes could certainly devastate a world very quickly. On a side note, I am hoping that a revised POD will have the Harrier with a triple missile turret and the Rorix with Advanced Stealth to make more sense for Sindalian / Drinaxian naval doctrine!

If you want an idea for what the Sandalian flagship was probably like, look no further than the Yinsha Fleet Cruiser from War Fleets of the Fifth Frontier War. Use the Pe’chiaievl Fleet Security Vessal for the handful of Sindalian Light Cruisers / Carriers, and the Sedapl Fleet Destroyer for the couple of handfuls of Sindalian Destroyers. The Rasputin class Destroyer Escort from "the Mystery of BT SHT 365 would probably be the command element of 2-4 Rorix / Harrier squadrons. The Jump-4 of the Rasputin allows it to quickly jump to support / command its disparate Rorix / Harrier squadrons!

 

[MasterGwydion]

TL is a bit of a catch all term for what may be a very varied group of TL! The Sindal Empire was nominally TL14, but naval and robot technology could be as high as TL 15, and AI computer technology had nominally reached TL 16 (Makergod)! Likely also many worlds in the Sindalian Empire did not reach TL 14, much like the 3rd Imperium of 1105!

The Drinaxian Companion certainly suggests that most of the Sindalian navy was in the sub 1000 ton range. 3 Harriers and a Rorix equipped with Ortillery Missiles and / or nuclear torpedoes could certainly devastate a world very quickly. On a side note, I am hoping that a revised POD will have the Harrier with a triple missile turret and the Rorix with Advanced Stealth to make more sense for Sindalian / Drinaxian naval doctrine!

If you want an idea for what the Sandalian flagship was probably like, look no further than the Yinsha Fleet Cruiser from War Fleets of the Fifth Frontier War. Use the Pe’chiaievl Fleet Security Vessal for the handful of Sindalian Light Cruisers / Carriers, and the Sedapl Fleet Destroyer for the couple of handfuls of Sindalian Destroyers. The Rasputin class Destroyer Escort from "the Mystery of BT SHT 365 would probably be the command element of 2-4 Rorix / Harrier squadrons. The Jump-4 of the Rasputin allows it to quickly jump to support / command its disparate Rorix / Harrier squadrons!

Where do you get that the Empire of Sindal was nominally TL-14? I cannot find that.

 

[Sarkoptesmilbe]

Where do you get that the Empire of Sindal was nominally TL-14? I cannot find that.

Pretty much none of the information here is supported by canon, except the references to Makergod, the preference for smaller vessels and the fact that we have examples of TL15 relics.

The impressive battleship armada with its Chinese sounding names in the wiki is not mentioned in any source book I could find, new or old. I'd wager it's someone's headcanon that is suddenly taken as gospel for want of any tidbits about old Sindal. I therefore disregard it entirely. The same also goes for the fleet listed in the Strend Navy article, which is frankly ridiculous.