Why would one build very large Capital ships?

[DFW]

In real life there were lots of factors which influenced the design of any
major warship and of its armament, financial ones, political ones (e.g. in-
ternational treaties limiting displacement and armament),

Yep, I learned a lot about this from a close friend of mine, who's uncle was Admiral Reinhard Scheer...

 

[barnest2]

Yep, I learned a lot about this from a close friend of mine, who's uncle was Admiral Reinhard Scheer...

You lucky bar steward...

 

[BFalcon]

Doing a small craft spreadsheet the other night, I came across one reason for a larger ship...

Each ton of capacitors allows the ship's Black Globe Generators allows the ship to soak up another 36 points of damage. This is in addition to the extra capacity that a larger ship would have in their jump drives (20% of the jump drive tonnage is capacitors). In addition you can add more capacitors at just 3MCr per ton... imagine adding 2,000 extra capacitors... at 72,000 extra damage soaking capacity, are you still sure that a larger ship isn't a good idea?

 

[rust]

... are you still sure that a larger ship isn't a good idea?

Well, yes. Apart from the financial side, 2,000 capacitors at 3 MCr each
are 6,000 MCr and the equivalent of 333,333 bomb-pumped torpedoes,
this rather expensive ship can only be at one location at a time. It can
serve as a monitor for the protection of the home world or as the core
of one squadron, but for a normal fleet more and different ships are a
lot more useful than one single monster.

Moreover, little is known about the interaction of black globes, so a ho-
stile nation could try to find out what happens when a ship with an acti-
vated black globe hits another ship with an activated black globe - and
with a little bad luck your expensive monster ship could be gone in an
instant ...

 

[BFalcon]

rust: As said elsewhere, I prefer small ships, but just pointing out that, as a capital ship (ie the centre of a fleet), it might be worth looking at... capital ships never (or should never) operate on their own and a ship that big would definitely be in the line of battle - probably with other cap-ships as an escort and smaller ships escorting them...

I'd also expect a DAMNED good reason for the ship too...

I happen to agree with you, Rust, but every so often, some Naval tactician gets control and gets hooked on the idea of the super-capital ship and well...

As for the BGG being a threat, I think a fleet that large would be able to stop any cap ships from getting that close - especially given the weapons systems such a large ship would be packing... and would almost certainly be a carrier for some pretty large defensive craft...