Why are warships built without armored bulkheads, EM hardening, and backup power?

[Condottiere]

Building up a missile stockpile is an expensive exercise.

Energy based weapon systems tend to be sunk costs.

 

[Terry Mixon]

I saw in my TL-15 design that I had enough spare space to upgrade the countermeasures suite to a military countermeasures suite and get an extra +2 to jam/EW. That'll make a difference.

 

[Terry Mixon]

I just added the updated Hornet designs to the Warmonger thread. They include upgrading the countermeasures suite to a military countermeasures suite and give them that additional +2 to jam/EW, making them even more of a threat at TL-15.

As requested, I made a TL-13 version, but it lost a lot of advantages and might not be as practical for the intended uses.

And, because I could, I designed a TL-16 version that Vincennes might use. My advice is to not attack Vincennes.

 

[Terry Mixon]

So, the baseline TL-15 High Automation Hornet now had 3 sensor stations and gets 3 sensor actions a turn.

As if that wasn't enough, I made an EW version that has no offensive weapons, 10 Type III-L point defense batteries, 3 sensor arrays, 3 enhanced signal processing suites, 3 military countermeasures suites, and 37 additional sensor stations and gets 38 sensor actions a turn.

If the latter is put into the mix at a 1/10 ratio, that really changes the dynamic.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Or have a dozen Sorcerer-Class EW Battle Riders and 234 sensor actions each per round. tossed in for fun.

I honestly have no clue if this is overkill. Maybe.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Sorry, a bit late, but: You could save some space with Sphere configuration, making the armour smaller?

 

[Terry Mixon]

Sorry, a bit late, but: You could save some space with Sphere configuration, making the armour smaller?

I might be able to but I’d expect they would be targets, so armor is needed. As it is a battle rider, standard might fit better against the battle tender, though. I’ll ponder it.

 

[Nelphine]

I think smaller meant 'less volume for the same armour value'.

I can't imagine any combat ship not being a sphere, unless it needs to be streamlined, or if it needs to be an ultra cheap asteroid.

 

[Sigtrygg]

What about if it needs more surface area for radiators, sensor arrays, weapon mounts and the like?

 

[MasterGwydion]

What about if it needs more surface area for radiators, sensor arrays, weapon mounts and the like?

If We still used surface area, this would be a very important thing.

 

[Sigtrygg]

If the design system was made a bit more "realistic" they would be parameters that would need tracking. At the very least the square cube law should inform number of hardpoints available.

 

[MasterGwydion]

If the design system was made a bit more "realistic" they would be parameters that would need tracking. At the very least the square cube law should inform number of hardpoints available.

My guess is that "realistic" was scrapped for "ease of play" and trying to not end up like FFS

 

[Sigtrygg]

The GT:ISW ship design system tracks surface area and is no more difficult to use then HG.
The surface area for hulls is given in a table and the configuration modifies this surface area.

At a stroke it make hardpoints follow the square cube law rather and all the work is done for you.

I used FF&S to do something similar which I posted to CotI many years ago, but the GT:ISW is much easier to take in

It's pretty easy - a spherical hull has a given surface are for each hull volume, this is then multiplied by a coefficient for the configuration of the hull. You can then decide how much surface area to use for drive exhaust ports/thruster plates, docking clamps, weapon hardpoints, weapon apertures, sensor arrays, comms arrays, solar panels, radiators etc.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The GT:ISW ship design system tracks surface area and is no more difficult to use then HG.
The surface area for hulls is given in a table and the configuration modifies this surface area.

At a stroke it make hardpoints follow the square cube law rather and all the work is done for you.

Just like FF&S, famed for its simplicity and user-friendliness.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I take it you guys don't use custom hull sizes? I know the math for surface area is pretty simple, for a sphere, but not for dispersed structures or some other hull types.

 

[Condottiere]

The Tigress class looks like a Pokemon ball, where someone drove a wedge up it's crack.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I take it you guys don't use custom hull sizes? I know the math for surface area is pretty simple, for a sphere, but not for dispersed structures or some other hull types.

Both TNE FF&S, T4 FF&S, and GT:ISW simplifies this down to a multiplier on the spherical hull surface:
E.g. TNE:

MVM modifies the MV from the hull size table.

Not even FF&S wants to deal with cube roots or actual geometry...

 

[Sigtrygg]

Just like FF&S, famed for its simplicity and user-friendliness.

No, GT ISW is a lot easier to use than FF&S, not that FF&S is difficult, it just takes time. I know people who can't use HG80 because they can't do percentages - I blame the English school system.

 

[Sigtrygg]

If you are lazy do what I do, ask the edge AI copilot to calculate it for me

 

[J. L. Brown]

No, GT ISW is a lot easier to use than FF&S, not that FF&S is difficult, it just takes time. I know people who can't use HG80 because they can't do percentages - I blame the English school system.

Yeah, I gotta say I find the 'Your character is designing a vehicle, roll for initiative!' mindset to be weird. Ship / Vehicle / Weapon / World design is not done during a session when time matters -- it happens between sessions. The referee should never be in a time crunch, with players anxiously looking over their shoulders for the next rounds actions, while making up designs. This is something to spend a leisure hour or two on, days or weeks before the session ever starts. Don't people ever do any prep work?