But they weren't doing less damage - You were putting really powerful spinals on smaller ships. You stated several times that a 7,000 ton spinal doing 10,000 damage sounds about right. That means a 15,000 ton battlerider or larger jump capable craft can easily mount a gun that will 3-shot a 50,000 tonner. That is why I revised to 3% per point armour reduction. If a 7,000 ton Spinal was doing 10000 after armour reduction then that would be a little crazy (no, not a little).Chas said:I'm making smaller spinals that do less damage as the bottom end of the paradigm which naturally allows them to go on smaller ships. What part of that is ironic or making it easier that they don't have to? There has to be a bottom end somewhere. Is there something wrong with suggesting about 7000 hull points in a 4000 ton ship should be the bottom line? Do you agree with this?
Chas said:Yes well, and so demonstrates the entire reason I went to % weight left in the design ... please build your 50K ship with the 9000 tons yourself and see how you go and then let's come back to it.
Okay, in that case all I'm stating is that my suggested base line build is a tweak less than that. I could be wrong. But kindly build an actual ship and show me thank you.
I have - but i'll put it in a list. Take your design and choose some of the following modifications to free up 2000 tons.
a) Take out emissions grid (1000 tons)
b) Use double occupancy staterooms - I haven't calculated your crew requirements, but I doubt they are actually 1000 crew? (If so, then we have a huge other problem).
b) Drop Thrust to 7 or 8. (500 tons each)
c) Remove all most barbettes. (600 tons)
e) Drop armour to 14 (400 tons)
f) get rid of the heavy cutter and boarding craft (400+ tons)
g) Screen's and dampeners - remove some (variable, I would take off more than 800 tons worth though) - also you can make reduce their weight using improved technology here.
etc etc etc...
The problem with your design Chas is that you're trying to do too much with it, then saying if you can't fit the 3DD spinal on there, so spinals needs to be smaller. You are operating on the assumption that every ship needs Armour 15, Thrust 9, a good amount of particle weaponry, support items (craft). That assumption is based on personal opinion not Naval Cannon and is actually counter intuitive to balance (you're saying a lot of things are essentials, which reduces variety because you're now designing in such a way to make sure that naval ships must all have these "essentials"). So unfortunately, this is not the ship to have all your "essentials" - This is clearly a strike cruiser. So you gotta give up more to give it such a deadly weapon.
I think you disagree with this position - but it really doesn't seem to be a worth discussing. The more I discuss it, the more I disagree with you because it is really no different than me wanting my Free trader to be able to have thrust 9, Jump 2, Armour 15, 2 small weapon bays AND 50 tons of cargo left. It does make me want to jack up the tonnage to even higher than 3000 tons per DD (at TL15) because not only does that make sense from the established Naval paradigm (which we aren't deviating from very much at all), but it also makes sense from a balance perspective.