Solomani Confederation (Military)

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Tenzing Class Exploration Vessel

1. Named for the supporting cast of famous explorers.

2. Flared cylinder configuration; implied are a collection of multiple cylinders, though hard to distinguish that from either illustration nor deckplan.

3. Careful balancing of available power when transitioning; jump dimming appears to have been adopted from the Vilani, making the best of an unavoidable situation.

4. This one is interesting: apparently, you can control a two kilotonne hull, without penalty, from a dual cockpit, which is a step up from two hundred tonnes. Naturally, this is meant to be incorporated, at least in two kilotonne and below spacecraft.

5. Multipurpose areas.

6. Possible use as a high-jump patrol vessel.

7. Crew can dispense with most gunners, and have more living space.

8. Unfortunately, they tend to get replaced by mission specialists, and support personnel.

 

[Condottiere]

Vehicles: FAMAT Twelve

1. Frontier Articulated Multipurpose All Terrain family of flexible vehicles?

2. Implied widespread Solomani variant for generic all terrain vehicles?

3. Each section has six powered and independently steerable wheels ...

4. Caterpillar is the term that comes to me.

5. You could think of it as chick and hen, instead of just prime mover and trailer.

6. The rear section can be any number of specialized functions.

7. I wonder if you just can't attach a longer section, with more wheels, which would increase capacity, or even just a flatbed.

8. The first thing that actually came to mind was an articulated bus, and trams.

9. It seems to me without some form of computer assistance, you might want someone with at least vehicle/wheeled one driving it.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Standard One Hundred Ninety Nine Tonne Spherical Hull


Tonnage - one hundred ninety nine tonnes

Volume - 2'786 cubic metres

Radius - 8.72899 metres

Circumference - 54.84588 metres

Armament - one hardpoint, three firmpoints


Planetoided nickel iron hull

Usable tonnage - 159.2 tonnes

Internal volume - 2'228.8 cubic metres

Internal radius - 8.03 metres

Hull cost - 796'000 starbux

Bridge - navigation: dual cockpit, 15'000 starbux; jump: specialist control centre, plus one bonus, 500'000 starbux

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Standard One Hundred Ninety Nine Tonne Spherical Hull

Since it's been confirmed that the six tonne bridge for a hundred tonne spacecraft is a mistaken typographical error, and we're back to ten tonnes (not that has much of an effect on cost, rather volume), might as well max it out, and see if we can create a similarly priced and performing starships, targets being generic scoutship at thirty six megastarbux, and free trader at forty five megastarbux.

Categories would be cheapest conceivable, more or less matching, and exceeding expectations.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Standard One Hundred Ninety Nine Tonne Spherical Hull


Technological level - nine

Hull - Planetoided nickel iron hull, self sealing, light

Hull points - 71.64

Tonnage - one hundred ninety nine tonnes

Armour - natural armour class/two

Volume - 2'786 cubic metres

Radius - 8.72899 metres

Circumference - 54.84588 metres

Usable tonnage - 159.2 tonnes

Internal volume - 2'228.8 cubic metres

Internal radius - 8.03 metres

Hull cost - 597'000 starbux

Engineering - manoeuvre drive/one, two tonnes, 4'000'000 starbux; jump drive/one, ten tonnes, 15'000'000 starbux; early fusion power plant, six tonnes, sixty power points, 3'000'000 starbux

Fuel tanks - 19.9 tonnes, one parsec; 0.6 tonnes, four weeks ship operations; twenty and a half tonnes

Bridge - navigation: dual cockpit, 15'000 starbux; jump: specialist control centre, plus one bonus, 500'000 starbux

Electronics - basic sensors; computer/five, 30'000 starbux

Armament - one hardpoint, three firmpoints

Systems - fuel processor, one tonne, one power point, 50'000 starbux; airlock, two tonnes, 200'000 starbux; cargo hatch

Software - manoeuvre/zero; library; jump control/one, 100'000 starbux

Staterooms - one, four tonnes, 500'000 starbux

Common areas - none

Cargo - 113.7 tonnes

Crew - commander, pilot, astrogator, engineer, mechanic; commander/pilot/astrogator, engineer/mechanic

Running costs - maintenance; purchase 23'962'000 starbux

Power requirements - manoeuvre drive 19.9; basic ship systems 19.9/39.8; jump drive 19.9

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Standard One Hundred Ninety Nine Tonne Spherical Hull

As demonstrated, engineering are the big ticket items.

Engineering - manoeuvre drive/one, two tonnes, 4'000'000 starbux; jump drive/one, ten tonnes, 15'000'000 starbux; early fusion power plant, six tonnes, sixty power points, 3'000'000 starbux

manoeuvre drive - two hundred thrust tonnes, budget, disadvantage one hundred thirty percent energy inefficient, two tonnes, 3'000'000 starbux

jump drive - two hundred parsec tonnes, budget, disadvantage one hundred thirty percent energy inefficient, ten tonnes, 11'250'000 starbux

power plant - sixty six power points, early fusion, six and three fifths tonnes, 3'300'000 starbux


Cargo - 113.1 tonnes

Running costs - maintenance 1'626 starbux per month; purchase 19'512'000 starbux

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Standard One Hundred Ninety Nine Tonne Spherical Hull


Standard design - ten percent cost reductions

Running costs - maintenance 1,463.40 starbux per month; purchase 17'560'800 starbux

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Standard One Hundred Ninety Nine Tonne Spherical Hull


Technological level - nine

Hull - Planetoided nickel iron hull, self sealing, light

Hull points - 71.64


Technological level - nine

Hull - Planetoided nickel iron hull, self sealing, light

Hull points - 89.55 [((5/4)(199/2.5))/(9/10)]


Iron nickel hull - ironick hull

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Bridging the Cockpit Gap

1. It's now canon that dual cockpits can control spacecraft upto two kilotonnes, without penalty.

2. As to the rational, I have no idea.

3. It's a great way to make dual cockpits the defacto primary navigation station for all Confederation Navy spacecraft, upto two kilotonnes.

4. You could call it the wheelhouse.

5. The one unclear aspect is whether you can coordinate a jump transition from a cockpit.

6. I'm inclined to say no.

7. In theory, there are four possible solutions to this.

8. It's also an interesting question whether a space station bridge can conduct jump transitions, though probably not.

9. Or if it can conduct operations at greater acceleration that thrust factor zero.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Bridging the Cockpit Gap

10. If navigation controls are all using the same control layout, from smallcraft to frigates, training and certification of pilots is simplified.

11. You don't gave to worry about three, six, ten, twenty or forty tonne bridges.

12. What's left would be either sixty tonnes, assuming that you can't control larger vessels with a dual cockpit, or eighty tonne command bridges.

13. An additional sensor station takes up one tonne, so I'll assume that extra half a tonne for single cockpits would be avionics and basic sensors.

14. I do wonder if you pop the canopy to get out or in?

15. So the problem does come down to jump controls.

16. Transitions should be able to be controlled directly from engineering.

17. Like a sensor station, jumps could be astrogated and coordinated from a one tonne workstation.

18. You could have a specialist control centre for jumping, which gives the benefit of a plus one bonus.

19. And a smaller bridge, at half the cost and a minus one penalty for all spacecraft operations.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Bridging the Cockpit Gap

20. If cockpits are the go to solution the Confederation has for spacecraft control, that would be the reason there's the cruiser gap between frigates and battleships.

21. Ironically, the same era this has been discovered, the gap is being narrowed.

22. You could develop a triple cockpit, with the one and a half tonne pilot workstation, the one tonne copilot workstation, and a one tonne jump control station.

23. Though I guess you could have multiple dual cockpits.

24. Space station bridges are five times cheaper than those of spaceships.

25. Presumably, minus the necessary navigation controls that a spaceship would require, outside basic ones for orbital correction or adjustment.

26. And jump controls, though nothing stops a space station from going where it's needed, on it's own; I would, include more point defence and fighter screens.

27. In theory, a dual cockpit should be able to handle space stations upto two kilotonnes.

28. It's not to say that single cockpits are useless, more that they don't quite fit in my vision of system integration.

29. Their cut off point is fifty tonnes, and if you're trying for the smallest possible spaceship, they'd be the primary candidate.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Standard Smallcraft Tonnage


Ninety nine - I've decided to drop this, since however you slice it, a popup turret starts off from the standpoint of total tonnage, and when depopped, drops to ninety nine from hundred, not increases from ninety nine to a hundred when popupped; the ninety nine tonnes should have allowed a bonus to manoeuverability, and basically was the largest sized spacecraft that could have used a dual cockpit, though now that isn't the case anymore, which is why the ante for large sized utility transports move to one hundred ninety nine tonnes.

Forty nine - still a viable volume with a single cockpit and a slight advantage to manoeuverability, it would be used more by commercial entities and more system bound militaries; it's one reason I tweaked the docking clamps to one and three quarter tonnes, in order to keep it within that capacity range.

Thirty five - so far, still the best tonnage for more or less being able to stuff considerable capability and performance in a reasonably sized package.

Fifteen - standard light smallcraft tonnage, whether fighter craft or shuttlepod; upper limit of the half tone docking clamps.

Six - smallest volume that can pack a spaceship sized weapon system; you could probably design smaller sized spacecraft, but I think that most of the utility would have been squeezed out, and if you want ships to have standard docking spaces, you have to decide on something that's at least marginally useful.

Reconnaissance drones - I'm not sure the default ones actually can work out for the military, so that might be about as small as can go, and likely be stored in the cargo hold.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Antebellum Ecks Boats

1. I's probably a Secretariat mandated policy to dismantle the Imperium established ecks boat system, but politically inexpedient to do so openly.

2. So it's likely done with less than benign neglect, probably not authorizing any new courier construction or purchase.

3. They do probably have to budget for maintenance and repairs, the most expensive being the jump drive, which accounts for two thirds of the bill of materials.

4. And then there's the supporting infrastructure and personnel, probably minimal.

5. I suspect that there's probably a regular schedule, rather than passing the baton, to optimize, or minimize, operational overhead.

6. The Confederation Navy runs a parallel network of fleet couriers, that doesn't necessarily compete with the ecks boat network, but is designed to be subordinate to the needs of the Navy, and my take being that they're jump factor five on a hub and spoke model, with smaller feeder craft connecting worlds that aren't on the hub routes.

7. It's likely that the less important routes are allowed to die off, as the working equipment gets allocated to replace failed equipment along the more important routes.

8. I'm not sure how the Navy feels about this, as their own organic courier system probably more than meets their requirements, as to whether it's a waste of their resources.

9. It's possible that they have agents buying up surplus and written off equipment from sources inside the Imperium.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Antebellum Ecks Boats

10. Going by the Ecks Boat in High Guard, it has a cargo capacity of twenty six and a half tonnes.

11. Exchange the ten tonne bridge for a six tonne specialist control centre, at half the cost.

12. Exchange the fifteen tonne jump factor four drive for a seventeen and a half tonne jump factor five upgrade.

13. Fuel now takes up half the volume, plus an allocation for the power plant.

14. Since there's no manoeuvre drive, you might not need the double cockpit.

15. Upgrade the battery to sixty power points per tonne.

16. Jump factor four programme appears to be free; would the jump factor five programme be free as well?

17. You could replace the two tonne early fusion power plant with a one and one tenth tonne highly technologized variant of standard fusion reactor.

18. That leaves eighteen and nine tenths tonnes for cargo.

19. And that should only increase the cost by 6.575 megastarbux.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: The Solomani Expedition

Paragraph

1. Solomani are curious, so they go exploring.

2. ... additional secrets of gravitational manipulation to be unlocked ...

3. Exploration group of nine ships, presumably all two kilotonnes plus one support ship, likely twenty five kilotonnes.

4. Research Star Ship.

5. Expedition Personnel - ... exploration is carried out by private companies or the Confederation Navy ...; contracted, vetted, mission specialists.

6. One political commissar per starship?

7. Ratification or veto.

8. Chaplain and ship's counselor.

9. Superiority complex.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Pictures of Homes

Paragraph

10. New Arrivals - ... power levels increase ...: so it's either a question of what's externally detectable, or you can regulate the power plant, which would have implications, or should, on fuel consumption.

21. Lieutenant Carstairs Commanding - There is no protocol for the removal of a political officer in Solomani service – only a superior Solomani Security officer can remove or relieve a political officer whereas the political officer can relieve anyone aboard the ship of duty.

36. A Possible Solution - ... long-term drive deterioration ...


The Expedition's Agenda - The expedition’s personnel will not reveal much about their mission to outsiders ... which I somehow doubt, since being Solomani, and being on a five year mission to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, boldly.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Phoenix Project


The project was said to have consisted of two distinct parts:

1. Prepositioned caches of military goods to supply the rising and...

2. A continuing program for the training of guerrillas.

The caches were concealed in many different places on Terra, in areas calculated to preclude accidental discovery over the years. Each cache contained large quantities of munitions, weapons, vehicles, and medical supplies, all of varying technological levels so as to be of use regardless of the technical knowledge of the users. Each cache was hidden with its location entrusted to a single local family. These families were to form the core of the guerrilla forces when the rising was to take place.

A massive Imperial counter-guerrilla effort in 1040 to 1045 was directed at the discovery and destruction of the caches and the arrest of the families entrusted with their secrets.

History & Background (Dossier) - Imperial intelligence reported penetration of the project command in 1045, with subsequent compromise of its basic plans and dismantling of its structure.

The Phoenix Project was supposedly born in the final years of the Solomani Rim War (990 to 1002) as Solomani leaders saw the possibility of their defeat and the loss of the homeworld to the invading Imperials.

Persistent rumors of two additional aspects of the project:

Lambda (a codeword to trigger the rising) and...
Omega (the reinforcement of the uprising by off-world Solomani)
...have been dismissed as baseless by Imperial officials.

Many historians believe that the extent of the plot was greatly exaggerated by Imperial authorities, holding that it was little more than an extreme example of wishful thinking on the part of the Solomani leadership. At any rate, the Phoenix Project no longer threatens the security of the Imperium, if indeed it ever did.

Some believe that the Solomani Rimward Expedition may be related to this project.


Omicron - Prepositioning hibernating starwarships near strategic solar systems that would have to be taken in the course of liberating occupied Confederation territory.

The starwarships would be powered down, ensuring that minimal resources would be utilized by onboard personnel in maintaining them.

Stealthed solar panelling and secondary mini fission reactors would be utilized to provide minimal power to life support and ship systems, sufficient to energize low berths accommodating their respective crews, sensors to to scan nearby space and the ship's computer, regulating sleep schedules to wake up essential crew to maintain the starwarship.

A pre-arranged signal, prior to military operations, will be sent to wake up the crew, and manoeuvre the starwarship into their respective staging areas.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Heavy Battle Riders

1. Murat class confirms that technological level fifteen starwarships are available for the Confederation Navy.

2. However, as far as I know, there are only two systems rated as technological level fifteen within the Solomani Confederation.

3. One of them is run by pacifists, if I recall reading about that particular system, correctly.

4. Which means, optimally, dual use ship systems, such as computers, electronics and sensors, the most likely products that can be extracted from them.

5. Going by the logical course of action, the most powerful weapon system would be a sixty kiloton factor ten meson spinal mount.

6. Which means that you would build a starwarship around it, like the Imperium Navy Tigress class.

7. At minimum, that would be a one hundred twenty kilotonne hull.

8. Which is somewhat more than the aimed for hundred kilotonnes, to to optimize hull points.

9. So, we'll have to figure out the next optimum hull volume after hundred kilotonnes.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Heavy Battle Riders

10. We know the final result we will arrive at is sixty kilotonnes, and by extension one hundred twentyish kilotonne hull respectively.

11. A factor nine technological level fourteen meson spinal mount would be fifty seven thousand three hundred seventy five tonnes.

12. A factor ten meson spinal mount of the same vintage would be sixty three and three quarters kilotonnes.

13. A factor nine technological level thirteen spinal mount would be sixty and three quarters kilotonnes.

14. A factor eight technological level twelve spinal mount would be sixty kilotonnes.

15. In theory, you could use the same tonnage, one hundred twenty seven and a half kilotonnes, and pack more or less the same sized spinal mount.

16. The difference would be that at technological level twelve you'd devote fifteen percent of volume to factor twelve armour.

17. At technological level thirteen it would be seventeen and a half percent volume to factor thirteen armour.

18. At technological level fourteen it would be eleven and one fifth percent volume to factor fourteen armour.

19. And finally, at technological level fifteen, it would be twelve percent volume to factor fifteen armour.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Heavy Battle Riders

20. Fighting Ships list the Victory class battle cruisers as weighing in at one hundred thirty kilotonnes and a wedge configuration.

21. If we standardize the hull size, it could be one hundred twenty eight kilotonnes, which should suit our purposes.

22. Standardizing hull volume and configuration, while not covered by Traveller rules, would simplify construction and repairs at suitably sized space docks and/or yards.

23. Probably more important for mobile docks.

24. Major components (for the heavy battle rider) would be a factor fifteen bonded superdense armoured skin, a pair of thirty one and a half hundred tonne manoeuvre drives, maybe another pair of thirty one and a half hundred tonne power plants.

25. A command bridge, and three specialized bridges, flight, meson and laser.

26. Breakaway seems unlikely, considering the two percent requirement.

27. Considering the fifty percent requirement for the spinal mount, only sixty five hundred tonnes could be allocated to podularization.

28. The wedgie starwarships could be considered the high end of a hi lo mix.

29. The low end could be utilizing ironick planetoids as the base hull.