The Warmonger-Class Battle Tender

[Terry Mixon]

I was browsing the ships in High Guard 2022 Update and was reading about the Hadrian-Class Battle Rider. It mentions it is most often carried by the one-million-ton Warmonger-Class Battle Tender. Sadly, the latter doesn't seem to have been published anywhere.

Are there plans to do so? It would be nice to have the official writeup as I can imagine it might play a roll in the upcoming war.

EDIT: For those not reading further, I made the design (and several battle riders and a gunboat to go with it) and am posting them here.

The Warmonger can carry 16 Hadrian-Class Battle Riders, 50 Crossbow-Class Battle Riders, 666 Hornet-Class Battle Riders (or 800 High Automation Hornet-Class Battle Riders if you use them), or a mixture of the three. It also carries 40 400-ton Wasp Gunboats (inspired by the Fiery-Class Gunships) for protection.

The high automation version of the Hornet gets a +2 to all shipboard task rolls which makes it a deadly combatant for its size. It's worth a look on its own.

The Hadrian has been reworked, so it is a lot tougher and not the default one in High Guard 2022 Update. This one has 30 large meson bays and more weapons. I added Marines to the larger battle riders and a means to deploy them as well.

Enjoy.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I was browsing the ships in High Guard 2022 Update and was reading about the Hadrian-Class Battle Rider. It mentions it is most often carried by the one-million-ton Warmonger-Class Battle Tender. Sadly, the latter doesn't seem to have been published anywhere.

Are there plans to do so? It would be nice to have the official writeup as I can imagine it might play a roll in the upcoming war.

Write it up and submit it for a JTAS article. That would be awesome!

 

[Terry Mixon]

Write it up and submit it for a JTAS article. That would be awesome!

I might just do that. Thanks for the idea.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I'd appreciate feedback ...

It needs to refuel... Either add fuel shuttles aplenty or make it streamlined?
Edit: Sorry, you already did. Partial is enough.

I would use more than a single docking clamp per battle rider, say one per 10000 Dt of rider? Not necessary by the rules, but using the same clamp from 2000 Dt to 1000000 Dt seems a little too cute to me.

A TL-12 reduced size power plant would be smaller and same price?

You could save some cash with an Energy Efficient manoeuvre drive and a smaller power plant (and perhaps a slightly larger hull)?

Perhaps consider one rider (and some fraction of small craft) in a Full Hangar or even Construction Deck, so we can do maintenance or even battle damage repairs while in jump?

You could do the same for the small craft: hang most of them externally in clamps with perhaps 10% in Full Hangars for maintenance. Saves some space and makes the small craft load-out flexible.

Extra fuel and UNREP to refuel the carried craft?

I would not bother with Reinforced Hull or armour on a non-combatant.

 

[Terry Mixon]

It needs to refuel... Either add fuel shuttles aplenty or make it streamlined?
Edit: Sorry, you already did. Partial is enough.

I would use more than a single docking clamp per battle rider, say one per 10000 Dt of rider? Not necessary by the rules, but using the same clamp from 2000 Dt to 1000000 Dt seems a little too cute to me.

A TL-12 reduced size power plant would be smaller and same price?

You could save some cash with an Energy Efficient manoeuvre drive and a smaller power plant (and perhaps a slightly larger hull)?

Perhaps consider one rider (and some fraction of small craft) in a Full Hangar or even Construction Deck, so we can do maintenance or even battle damage repairs while in jump?

As for the docking clamps, the rules, cute as they are, cover it so I’m disinclined to add extras for no rules-based reasons.

I thought about making the maneuver drives energy efficient. I’ll look at them both ways when I get back home.

I’m not sure they’d be working battle damage in jump and a 50,000 ton hanger is a big ask.

I’ll post the comparison on the energy efficient/smaller check soon.

 

[J. L. Brown]

I cut he size down to 550 kdTons, and added a full-hangar for 1x 50k dTon battle-rider. The 'additional fuel' kept giving me errors, so I zeroed it. It was a 'close structure', which I do not think can be partially streamlined; and it increased the tonnage of the armor -- I swapped it to 'standard' configuration. Added 6675 dTons of TL-12 batteries for the J-drive, made the M-drive 'Energy Efficient', and cut back the Power Plant to 280000 points. Adjusted the crew, and added 'Biosphere' to reduce monthly life-support costs. Still have 30k dTons for 'Cargo' -- maybe some recreation & training areas for the crew & marines would make sense?

[Edit: But a 1M dTon Battle Tender carrying up to 5M dTons of Battle Riders might have been the original intention of the class. /Edit]

 

[Terry Mixon]

I cut he size down to 550 kdTons, and added a full-hangar for 1x 50k dTon battle-rider. The 'additional fuel' kept giving me errors, so I zeroed it. It was a 'close structure', which I do not think can be partially streamlined; and it increased the tonnage of the armor -- I swapped it to 'standard' configuration. Added 6675 dTons of TL-12 batteries for the J-drive, made the M-drive 'Energy Efficient', and cut back the Power Plant to 280000 points. Adjusted the crew, and added 'Biosphere' to reduce monthly life-support costs. Still have 30k dTons for 'Cargo' -- maybe some recreation & training areas for the crew & marines would make sense?

[Edit: But a 1M dTon Battle Tender carrying up to 5M dTons of Battle Riders might have been the original intention of the class. /Edit]

The additional fuel was because the of the full load of battle riders. You need that extra fuel or no jump. High Guard 2022 indicates Close Structure is partially streamlined.

Why select 280,000 power? Admittedly, me cutting only maneuver power for jump was something of a guess. What are the criteria? I screwed up the power and just reset it to

They'd have to tell me what the intent is as I'm just guessing.

 

[Terry Mixon]

You could save some cash with an Energy Efficient manoeuvre drive and a smaller power plant (and perhaps a slightly larger hull)?

All changing that did was add tonnage as the maneuver power was being cut anyway. The power plant stayed the same size.

 

[MasterGwydion]

The additional fuel was because the of the full load of battle riders. You need that extra fuel or no jump. High Guard 2022 indicates Close Structure is partially streamlined.

Why select 280,000 power? Admittedly, me cutting only maneuver power for jump was something of a guess. What are the criteria?

As two people like the idea of a full hanger, I'll put it in.

They'd have to tell me what the intent is as I'm just guessing.

I doubt a Battle Tender would have a hangar. That isn't their job. They are basically the interstellar equivalent of WWII amphibious landing craft. They take "the troops" to "the beach". Or in this case, the non-jump ships to the combat area. Basically an unarmored bathtub with every possible scrap of space filled with troops, or in this case, 50,000-ton Battle Riders. So, since you can't make it as small as possible, since you already have the canon displacement, strip everything out that is not absolutely required, tech everything up to be as efficient as possible, and use all of the remaining tonnage for more Battle Riders.

 

[Condottiere]

Depends on how barebones it is.

 

[Terry Mixon]

I had the power screwed up which is easy to do since I'm powering oversized drives and the sheet doesn't auto calculate that. With the upsized jump drive it should be 294,746.

 

[Terry Mixon]

I doubt a Battle Tender would have a hangar. That isn't their job. They are basically the interstellar equivalent of WWII amphibious landing craft. They take "the troops" to "the beach". Or in this case, the non-jump ships to the combat area. Basically an unarmored bathtub with every possible scrap of space filled with troops, or in this case, 50,000-ton Battle Riders. So, since you can't make it as small as possible, since you already have the canon displacement, strip everything out that is not absolutely required, tech everything up to be as efficient as possible, and use all of the remaining tonnage for more Battle Riders.

The problem is that barebonesing it doesn't get me all the way to one more battle rider. I could strip the armor and likely make it. That and reduce the size. I'll look now.

 

[J. L. Brown]

The additional fuel was because the of the full load of battle riders. You need that extra fuel or no jump. High Guard 2022 indicates Close Structure is partially streamlined.

I checked the box 'Use Modified Tonnage' box on the 'Drives' tab, and set the 'Modified Tonnage' to 1000000 dTons.

My mistake on the streamlining -- but 'Standard' still significantly reduces the tonnage needed for the armor. Armor 3 is sort of trivial, but it is not a combat craft, so I suppose it is alright. Honestly, I would cut the M-drive back from 6G -- this is NOT intended to be a dogfighter. This should drop in at the outer edge of a system, far from the enemy, and slowly move away from them while dropping toothy & fast battle-riders between itself & the enemy.

Why select 280,000 power? Admittedly, me cutting only maneuver power for jump was something of a guess. What are the criteria?

I left the full power to the M-drive during run up to Jump. Full power consumption (including J-Drive) was 678000 power; but the J-drive uses 400000 power, supplied by the 6675 dTons of TL-12 batteries -- so I just trimmed the Powerplant back to what I needed.

As two people like the idea of a full hanger, I'll put it in.

They'd have to tell me what the intent is as I'm just guessing.

I suppose the suggestion was just thinking along the lines of being able to do repairs to a battle-rider which was picked up from an engagement. It is a nice line of reasoning, but I really do not see it being useful -- the repaired Battle-Rider is unlikely to be 'battle-ready' in a week, and jumping from one engagement to another is exactly the weak point of a Battle Tender. Far better to simply evacuate & shut down a damaged rider after it docks, and carry it back to a dedicated repair yard -- and quickly pick up a replacement for the next engagement.

 

[Terry Mixon]

I checked the box 'Use Modified Tonnage' box on the 'Drives' tab, and set the 'Modified Tonnage' to 1000000 dTons.

My mistake on the streamlining -- but 'Standard' still significantly reduces the tonnage needed for the armor. Armor 3 is sort of trivial, but it is not a combat craft, so I suppose it is alright. Honestly, I would cut the M-drive back from 6G -- this is NOT intended to be a dogfighter. This should drop in at the outer edge of a system, far from the enemy, and slowly move away from them while dropping toothy & fast battle-riders between itself & the enemy.


I left the full power to the M-drive during run up to Jump. Full power consumption (including J-Drive) was 678000 power; but the J-drive uses 400000 power, supplied by the 6675 dTons of TL-12 batteries -- so I just trimmed the Powerplant back to what I needed.


I suppose the suggestion was just thinking along the lines of being able to do repairs to a battle-rider which was picked up from an engagement. It is a nice line of reasoning, but I really do not see it being useful -- the repaired Battle-Rider is unlikely to be 'battle-ready' in a week, and jumping from one engagement to another is exactly the weak point of a Battle Tender. Far better to simply evacuate & shut down a damaged rider after it docks, and carry it back to a dedicated repair yard -- and quickly pick up a replacement for the next engagement.

I didn't see the place for adjusted tonnage. That'll make my life easier.

I'm cutting the armor and seeing if I can squeeze in another battle rider or two.

What thrust do you think? 2? 3?

I'll add the batteries and see how that changes the mix.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

All changing that did was add tonnage as the maneuver power was being cut anyway. The power plant stayed the same size.

Reduced Size:


Energy efficient:

You only need combat power for the 150 000 Power MD or jump power for the 400 000 Power JD, instead of combat power plus the 600 000 Power normal MD. You lose a few thousand Dt, but save GCr 20. Make the ship slightly larger to regain the lost tonnage it's still cheaper.

Hm, I just realised you can save another GCr 30 by using a Very Advanced (2 Adv) instead of a High Tech (3 Adv) M drive:
Still plenty of power for combat (~100 000 Power) plus the M drive.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Using the adjusted tonnage doesn't change the required jump fuel. I'll put a change request in on that, but I'll have to keep doing it manually until then.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Added 6675 dTons of TL-12 batteries for the J-drive, made the M-drive 'Energy Efficient', and cut back the Power Plant to 280000 points.

Yes, of course, that's the way to do it:

Slightly more expensive, but frees up some space.

 

[J. L. Brown]

Here is my 1M dTon version; I am still tweaking it a bit. Should carry 60x Hadrians at J-4, and 460x Hadrians at J-1. Comes in at a bit less than a Tera-Credit; Hadrians sold separately, offer void where prohibited, some house rules may apply.

Warhound maybe?

docs.google.com

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I’m not sure they’d be working battle damage in jump and a 50,000 ton hanger is a big ask.

OK, that is silly expensive...

I had to make it an even 1 MDt, but it can carry ten Hadrians (plus one in the internal hangar) and up to 200 of a mix of any 50 Dt small craft.
At J-3 it can carry 20 Hadrians, or any other combination of up to 1 MDt ships.
Can carry one Tigress at J-4, or ten Hadrians plus a Tigress at J-3.


At about TCr 1 including ten Hadrians, it's about 16% more expensive per Hadrian than the hangar-less tender.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Here is my 1M dTon version; I am still tweaking it a bit. Should carry 60x Hadrians at J-4, and 460x Hadrians at J-1.

60 Hadrians is 3 MDt. That would require ~1.5 MDt jump fuel, somewhat difficult to fit in the 1 MDt carrier?