Solomani Confederation (Military)

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Heinliner

G. Forgot, only a hundred kilotonnes are actually in play, one fifth being waste.

H. That means that maintenance division would be sixty seven for military, thirty three for civilian spacecraft.

I. Seven naval officers, or two merchant marine.

J. Three sensor operators per seventy five hundred tonnes of starwarships, in this case that would be fifty.

K. One per for civilian ships, so in theory sixteen, maybe seventeen.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Heinliner

L. Years ago, before the design rules changed, I thought it might be cute to have megafreighters with the same tonnage and configuration as battleships, in this case I was thinking spherical, used to act as decoys, and wedges would be unusual for merchantmen.

M. I always thought that what we need is a Heighliner to kickstart commerce rimward.

N. Planetoids give maximum bang for buck, if you keep performance within certain parameters.

O. Jump factor three is about the upper limit for that.

P. You still have half the volume left, and you could slip in a spinal mount, though that has to be integral to the hull during construction, so rather premeditated.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Heinliner

Q. Crew reductions can only be applied to the following roles: engineer, maintenance, gunner, administrators and sensor operators. Calculate officers and medics after reducing the other roles.

R. So revise that down to six sensor operators.

S. Gunners seems a bit more complex.

T. A twenty eight hundred tonne spinal mount crew would drop from twenty eight to ten.

U. But if you want to fight each hardpoint individually, you'd still have to allocate the full complement in order to efficiently use that weapon system.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: GINAS Is Not A Spacecraft

1. Five tonnes, technological level nine, self sealing, basic default/minimum half/quarter power point, quarter of a megastarbux, two hull points.

2. Non gravitated, one eighth of a megastarbux.

3. Dispersed structure hull configuration, one sixteenth megastarbux, one and fourth hull points.

4. Lightened hull, forty six and seven eighths kilostarbux, 1.62 hull points.

5. Single cockpit, one and a half tonnes, ten kilostarbux.

6. Basic sensors, computer/five, thirty kilostarbux.

7. Manoeuvre drive factor one, budget, energy inefficient, thirteen twentieths power points, seventy five kilostarbux; embedded vertically.

8. Early fusion reactor, budget, increased size, one eighth of a tonne, one power point output, thirty seven and a half kilostarbux.

9. Three acceleration benches, twelve personnel, three tonnes, thirty kilostarbux.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: GINAS Is Not A Spacecraft

A. An unofficial project by a bunch of bored junior naval officers, stationed on a joint military forces dirtside Confederation base.

B. Tired of the bureaucratic hurdles of applying for (personal) gravitational transport from the Army, they decided to build their own, using discarded and scrapped spacecraft components.

C. Successful beyond their wildest dreams, interest from fellow officers, and then demand from naval personnel wider afield, fueled a black market that soon exceeded the supply of more sophisticated components available, whether in the scrapyards, or even in the Navy stores.

D. As word trickled up the chain of command, plus reports of missing components in the logistics chain, a rather intensive internal investigation was initiated.

E. Once completed, rather than punish or censure those involved, the Grand Admiral himself ordered the investigation suppressed, and gave commendations to the original members of the cartel.

F. GINAS are now widely used in the Confederation Navy as people movers, and (very) light cargo transport.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: GINAS Is Not A Spacecraft

G. GINAS is comparatively very fragile, and with it's hull configuration, is not expected to be used in space.

H. But it has.

I. Under the correct circumstances, it could ascend to orbit.

J. But it would not survive atmospheric reentry, unless it's dead slow.

K. The Confederation Navy has since expanded the GINAS family, to include faster and/or more rugged models, to deal with extreme environments.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Armaments and Turret Configuration

1. The old combination of laser missile sandcaster was to give options to, let's say, adventure class spacecraft.

2. Barbettes have a homogenous culture, so far.

3. Once you have more hardpoints, this tends to apply to turrets, as well.

4. However, it becomes a more interesting question, when you have to ask yourself what exactly you plan to use the turrets against.

5. Especially, as part of an integrated fire plan.

6. The spinal mount is meant to take out cruisers and capitol ships at a distance.

7. The bayed weapons the escorts and annoy the cruisers.

8. The barbettes anything below two kilotonnes.

9. The turrets seem leftovers, at this scale.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Armaments and Turret Configuration

A. ... the sandcaster is primarily a defensive weapon used to protect ships from laser, energy and particle weapons.

B. While I'd think that a spinal mounted particle accelerator would liquidate any amount of sand, this sounds promising.

C. The damage dealt by a particle spinal mount is reduced by 3% per point of armour possessed by the target before applying the Damage Multiple.

D. In theory, twelve triple turrets of sandcasters would totally neutralize the effects of a particle accelerator spinal mount, if successfully gunneried.

E. The gunner must succeed at a Gunner (turret) check against a laser weapon and, if successful, will add 1D plus the Effect of the check to the ship’s armour against that laser attack only.

F. And if not, then there's no point in accumulating bonuses.

 

[wingsday]

C. The damage dealt by a particle spinal mount is reduced by 3% per point of armour possessed by the target before applying the Damage Multiple.

D. In theory, twelve triple turrets of sandcasters would totally neutralize the effects of a particle accelerator spinal mount, if successfully gunneried.

This is one of the weird things about the standard combat rules versus the fleet combat rules, in the standard rules screens and sand go before weapon size multiplier, while in the fleet rules they go after, colossally different situations lmao.

 

[Condottiere]

Adding sandcasters together might work for repelling boarders, but the way I see it, for adding armour value, only one sand canister really works against one attack:

existing armour factor + gunnery/turret + (1-6)+((2-12)-8)

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Armaments and Turret Configuration

G. Besides the fact that the gunner is reacting to a light speed weapon system, gunnery/turret might not be the correct specialization.

H. On one hand, manual point defence defaults to gunnery/turret.

I. But those are missiles and torpedoes.

J. Against energy weapons, it might be more appropriate gunnery/screens.

K. If it is, success just became difficult at ten plus, instead of eight plus.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Armaments and Turret Configuration

L. If multiple combined sandcasters incur no further benefit either to success and/or effect, then having only one per turret is about optimal, in regard to defence against energy weapon systems.

M. However, having a different gunner in a different turret aiming at that particular energy beam with his sandcaster, allows you to choose which is the better result.

N. So, you could have a half a dozen gunners in different turrets independently taking aim at the energy beam, to see which most successfully increases the existing armour factor.

O. It's about the same with laser point defence, with independent lasers each trying to shoot down a missile swarm.

P. Difference being, that actually would accumulate it's attritional effect.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Armaments and Turret Configuration

Q. The sandcaster as a whole is an odd fish.

R. The sandcutter description implies automatic success, and only requires one canister to cripple sand clouds.

S. Same with chaff, though I don't think one point more or less for electronic warfare matters that much.

T. Anti personnel implies that one canister has the area of effect of the entire spacecraft, though that may be an issue for something like a Tigress class.

U. You have to wonder why this doesn't work like a fragmentation missile against missiles.

 

[ColinD]

I'm learning the Fleet Rules on the Traveller Discord. We set up battles and try out the math. I'll have to try out the sandcaster on the next session.

 

[wingsday]

Adding sandcasters together might work for repelling boarders, but the way I see it, for adding armour value, only one sand canister really works against one attack:

existing armour factor + gunnery/turret + (1-6)+((2-12)-8)

Another way I've seen this kind of thing adjudicated is that for small amounts of duplicate attempts you take the highest of a couple die rolls and for larger amounts of tries you just take the max of the die

 

[Condottiere]

I think you can try any number of times you have independent turrets, on that turn, and pick your preferred result.

As opposed to point defence, where it would be attritional.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: GINAS Is Not A Spacecraft

L. Since we have a single factor one manoeuvre drive module, we need to centralize it in the centre of mass, pointed downwards, and construct everything around it.

M. Since we drive on the right side of the road, the single cockpit would be orientated to the left forward (with basic sensors and computer) with the manoeuvre drive embedded in the cockpit's right rearward corner.

N. On the right of the cockpit, is one tonne of folding benches, facing the cockpit, with a forward passenger hatch.

O. Directly behind the cockpit would the fusion power plant, fuel tank, and any cargo space, lined up with the forward tonne of folding benches.

P. And then, you have one tonne each of folding benches, the right one in line with the forward benches, facing left, and opposite them, the left tonne of folding benches behind the cockpit, facing right, and behind them, a large cargo hatch.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: DINGHY Is Not (a) Goddamn Hyper Yacht

1. Not to be confused with the Dingo fast attack craft.

2. Unlike the GINAS, the DINGHY is meant to be an aerospace connector.

3. So it hull configuration is streamlined instead of dispersed.

4. The hull is saucer shaped, with three tonnes of acceleration benches, plus a one and a half tonne single cockpit, facing inward to a central column.

5. The column contained engineering and the fuel tank.

7. Not sure where the passenger hatch(es) is(are).

8. Though you could have three ladders on the central column, leading to three hatches on the roof.

9. I considered a cone, but then decided I rather have the single cockpit integrated into the main cabin.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: DINGHY Is Not (a) Goddamn Hyper Yacht

A. Integrating the single cockpit with the main cabin sets life support of twenty four man hours, before requiring maintenance and/or regeneration.

B. In theory, this should be enough if there is a nearby planet with a suitable atmosphere for unsupported human habitation, or a spacecraft with sufficient life support, to transfer to.

C. There are probably more suitable, or better equipped, emergency or evacuation spacecraft.

D. The DINGHY being not exactly an ad hoc vehicle for such, but more as cheap and available option if for any reason that it's not possible to incorporate more suitable options in a spacecraft, military or civilian.

E. It's original function is to operate for short duration, short range spacecraft, usually in the immediate area around it's host spacecraft.

F. That would include a short excursion to local planetary bodies.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: DINGHY Is Not (a) Goddamn Hyper Yacht

Additional U.S. Coast Guard required and non-required items that should always be on a dinghy:[10] These are the U.S. Coast Guard's minimum requirements for recreational boats:

• Personal flotation devices for every occupant
• Spacesuit
• Bell, whistle
• Radio beacon
• Visual distress signals
• Signalling lamp
• Fire extinguisher
• Ventilation
• Extra oxygen bottles

These next items are not a Coast Guard requirement but should always be kept on board to maximize safety:

• Bucket
• Air sealant patches
• First aid kit
• Blanket
• Rope

This equipment should be in a bag made of water vacuum-resistant materials.

...

A small anchor can be used to allow the crew of the dinghy to fish or rest. Dinghy anchors are usually either a mushroom shape, a small folding grapple hook or the more modern and efficient Danforth type, with floating rope that will avoid being cut by snags on the bottom. The mushroom is used in locations where the bottom is very muddy, while the grapple works better in rocks. Some persons prefer a small Danforth or plow, because of their superior holding power in all but rocks, but these have sharp edges, and need to be set with a little care. Even a dinghy should have a length of chain attached to the anchor - the same length as the dinghy. The warp then attaches to the short chain with a wired shackle. This gives added weight and help in setting an anchor. It also stops the warp fraying on sharp rocks when the dinghy swings to and fro with the tide. Generally an anchor warp should be 4 times the depth of the water. In strong winds this can be extended to 8 times the depth but most dinghies are not seaworthy enough to be anchored securely in such storm conditions.

Umbical cord.

A dinghy should not be able to scratch the mother-boat's paint; therefore a fender made from a length of heavy rope (or a strip of polyurethane) can be tied loosely to the outside of the bulwarks. This also provides a handhold for launching, or for people overboard to climb into the boat. Many modern dinghies have a molded ridge of plastic to replace the rope. A fitted acrylic canvas cover can shed seas or act as a shade or storage cover. Traditionally it toggles to the fender-rope or is suspended from the gunter (small folding mast) but can also be tied to a few points and secured with snaps or Velcro. Depending on the design there may be a large locker under a thwart.