Starting a Starship...

[Sgt Whiskey Swiper]

I'm building a civilian starship converted into a light carrier for operations against the bugs. It will carry 4 Vikings, 2 Skyhooks, 2 TAC fighters, 77 Crew inc 25 MI.

Its designed primarily to carry cargo and ward off pirates so...

Since this 'mutha' is gonna be around... 1 - 1.5m long *drools* what armament would you see it boasting if any?

Cheers.

 

[Cliff]

Since its a cargo ship, I don't see there being any armament on the ship... Unless you want it to carry a Sarissa Space Combat Missile (SSCM) and/or a Flamberg Heavy Ground Attack Missile (FHGAM)

 

[Sgt Whiskey Swiper]

Thats what I was mulling over - or would it have a few large rotary cannon turrets to ward of marauding raiders/skinnies?

As if it would... it affects the whole project design!

 

[JoseDominguez]

more armament: bigger target.
Going by our history, converted civilian ships were very lightly armed, no point having heavy weaponry when you don't have the armour to match, you can't stand and fight so every extra ammo magazine is less storage/fuel space.
So, probably a couple of rotary cannons as you say, just to put off small raiding forces, anything bigger is going to take you apart anyway.
A lightly armed vessel can run and the enemy will try to catch it (giving you a chance), a heavilly armed conversion is too dangerous to board, so you just blow it to pieces from range.

Also, isn't it carrying a lot of transport vessels for that small a crew/MI complement?

 

[Sgt Whiskey Swiper]

The Crew and MI compliment is for manning/defensive purposes only.

It would carry around 200 MI in a standard drop in the Vikings/Skyhooks.

Also does anyone have 'fluff' refences to these ships being used in the general SST universe?

A faint hope of suggestions again

Cheers so far guys!

 

[Kaenei]

I don't believe in any of the media forms of SST, have we seen any capital ships other than the Roger Young class, off the top of my head. Perhaps someone else can prove me wrong ...

 

[BuShips]

The original book describes the Rodger Young as a "transport corvette", more in line with the size of the ship in the CGI series. Although I like the ship model used in the 1st movie quite a lot, it isn't as "true" to the novel. The book mentions that there are many classes of ships in the fleet, so there should be room for many designs. For a converted merchantman, I would keep any turreted guns toward a few guns of a smaller size, meant to indicate the limitations inherent in the design of such a ship. This doesn't mean that the ship's armament needs to be designed with regard to just the Arachnid threat, as rogue humans and Skinnie raiders would pose a threat as well. In my mind's eye I see just a few light cruiser or destroyer guns (maybe only two forward and one aft), with several box-type missile launchers tossed in amidships. Of course the ship might look a bit toward the "ugly" side when compared to main fleet units, due to the utilitarian nature of its past duties. One design that comes to mind is from the classic Star Trek series. The DY-100 was a bit of a submarine-looking shape in general with a central clutch of cargo container storage units attached.

 

[dyssnowman]

Briefly here are the descriptions of the various capital ships used by the Fleet.

Dreadnought (360 crew) Designed for space superiority. Equipped with more than three dozen primary weapons systems including heavy cannons and torpedo launchers.

Corvette Transport (218 crew) This is the most common starship class in the Fleet and used to transport the Mobile Infantry en masse. (This is want the Rodger Young was in the movie).

Frigate (162 crew) Smaller than the corvette transport, these have been the mainstay of the Fleet for centuries (?). It is common for a vessel of this class to be modular, letting Fleet re-equip and redeploy them within a few days.

Heavy transports (90+ crew) These are large vessels nearly the size of a frigate and almost as fast. They lack the maneuverability, firepower, and defensive capabilities of the other capital ships, but they are modular and easy to repair. Generally within 24 hours a heavy transport can be re-equipped to fit any role that may be required, from fire support to communications, carrier to command.

Hope this helps.

 

[Sgt Whiskey Swiper]

Cheers, I'm thinking of small turrets, a few missiles and...

I'll update this as the project starts and progresses

 

[Darkghost]

I like the book version Roger Young. A small Corvette that carries only 1 platoon, probably has a crew of 10 Naval personel.

 

[Lorcan Nagle]

I'd say it'd carry a handful of light weapons for point defence - along the lines of the heavier cannons and lasers carried by MI, but not that many. given that the idea is to have it as a dragooned and refitted civillian ship, they probably would have had problems adding hardpoints and upgrading the ship's computers to fire them.

 

[Carloss]

I would like a ship that can provide space to surface support for the MI on the ground...

 

[Gauntlet-]

dyssnowman- I gotta ask, what are you basing that info on?

 

[BuShips]

Gauntlet, while we are waiting for dyssnowman to spot your question, I found this tidbit on Bob Meyer's site (he's PlayWithBob you know)-

---

Ship size and complement

Dreadnoughts TFD (360 crew) Super Heavy
Space superiority
36 main battle weapons and Heavy armor
1 company of cap troopers (TUCF pg70)

Corvette TFCT (218 crew) Heavy
Most common class today
Reserve ships used to move troops in mass
Primary: 1 battalion of Light MI
Secondary: 1 company of Cap
Secondary: 1 platoon of marauder

Frigate TFF (162 crew) Medium
Modular design
Ship to ship combat
Oldest class
Primary: 1 company of Cap
Secondary: 1 platoon of Marauders

Heavy Transports TFHT (90+ crew) Medium
Modular 24 hour to refit
Primary: 1 platoon of cap
Secondary: 1 squad of marauder

Hauler (40+ crew) Light
Cargo ships
Light armor and weapons

Light Transports (10+ crew) Light
Orbit system ships

Fighters and Shuttles (1-2 crew) Ultra Light

---

Unless I am mistaken, he placed it there today. I believe it to be a well-researched bit of data mining (of the good kind, heh). While there is a limited amount of canon data from the book, the rest appears to be what can be gleaned from the Mongoose RPG books like Boot Camp.

My own theory is that since Bob is running an RPG campaign called "B Company, A Starship Troopers Campaign" http://www.playwithbob.com/sstwiki/ he might be the source of the data. Bob also dropped a note (today) with the same info that is on his website/forum. Since PlayWithBob has been checking in on the forums, maybe he can say where he got his source info from.

Here is the link to the other Mongoose forum discussion- http://www.playwithbob.com/sstwiki/