How do you 'design' a ship in Outsider-verse

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GrandAdmiralFox
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Re: How do you 'design' a ship in Outsider-verse

Post by GrandAdmiralFox »

icekatze wrote:hi hi

In Outsider, I imagine it is a little bit easier, since ships tend to accelerate to their top "safe" velocity, then coast most of the way. Once you figure out the acceleration profile, you can tack that onto the front of the journey, then use the cruising velocity for the rest. (relativistic micrometeors can definitely ruin someone's day.)

Makes me wonder if the Umiak are more likely to use higher cruising velocities.

---

On the topic of number of guns, not only are there design considerations that prevent having too many guns -the aforementioned power/heat/ammo/etc. - there are also design considerations that favor a smaller number of guns.
• If armor is a major concern, a vehicle/craft as a weapons platform will generally want to have a smaller number of more powerful weapons rather than a larger number of less damaging weapons, so long as materials allow it.
• If accuracy is a major concern, whether due to light speed lag or primitive fire control systems, then maintaining a low target profile is also a major concern.
• Redundant weapon systems are nice to have, but they tend to come at the expense of peak combat effectiveness, so there's a balancing act in there somewhere. (Drop tanks may provide invaluable range, but when it is time to dog fight, you can believe they're going to get dropped.)
The system that I'm currently building puts more emphasis on volume than mass. Something like 20% of the vessel's volume is taken up on heat sinks (with hull and engine radiators being part of the hull and engines respectively) and power plants, another 20% of the volume on engines (including FTL) and fuel supplies. So there goes 2/5ths of the ship's volume right then and there.

GrandAdmiralFox
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Re: How do you 'design' a ship in Outsider-verse

Post by GrandAdmiralFox »

Well, the reason I've been asking about this is so I can work out what I can use for my in-universe ship builder that I've been working on... which is on it's ninth version. The primary value of a vessel is volume, with mass being planned to come into consideration during velocity calculations.

The universe I've been working on is basically the size of the Inner Sphere and Periphery of Battletech fame... so ~600+ light years at the minimum (460-550 light years is the 'border' between the Inner Sphere and the Periphery). Virtually all ships within this universe utilize some sort of inertia dampening (mostly to ensure that ships can move anywhere between 5 to 10 Gs in linear movement and hundreds of Gs for various snap non-linear maneuvers), but also utilize some sort of torch or thrust drive.
  1. Space combat has armor capable of sustaining hits... humans are really capable in this regard due to their use of various enhancements with rarely-used materials to their armor, lowering the overall mass for the same effectiveness. One of these enhancements is similar to Earth Alliance (of Babylon 5 fame) 'E-WEB' technology. To Quote:
    B5Wars, Kitchen Sink Edition; Page 77 wrote:In addition to their normal use as defensive weapons, interceptors also generate on energy web (similar to shields) that surrounds the ship. This web reduces the ship’s defensive rating in all directions covered by the arcs of active (and undestroyed) interceptors. Thus, any ship equipped with interceptors will have two defense ratings for each direction, as shown in the example here. The first of these is in force only if there are no active interceptors that bear on the incoming fire If, on the other hand, there is at least one interceptor facing the approaching shot, the second rating (in parenthesis) is used instead. Note that the second, interceptor‐enhanced defense rating affects all weapons, even lasers.
  2. Other races utilize their own racially-specific materials or sciences to allow their armor to sustain hits, to various degrees of success.
  3. In addition to armor, genuine shields do exist. They act similarly to shields from Nexus: The Jupiter Incident and Sword of the Stars in that they prevent damage from the user... with caveats. Like shields in Nexus: The Jupiter Incident, they can resist certain weapon types more than others, like some models of shields can stop weapons with shield bypass capability from harming the equipped vessel while others simply make it harder to batter the shields down. Like shields in Sword of the Stars, they have to shut down and disperse or risk exploding.
  4. Weapons require mounts to work, and the number of mounts is severely limited to how many weapon stations that the ship has. In addition, each mount can only support so many weapons; the more weapons you want to put on a mount, the larger the mount itself.
  5. Mounts come in a variety of sizes (PD, Small, Medium, Large, Leviathan) and types (Kinetic, Energy, Seeker). Most Kinetic and Energy weapons come in turrets while virtually all the 'Seeker' (aka 'missiles and torpedoes') are either in VLS or tube-mounts.
  6. Countermeasures of the Chaff-Flare and Electromagnetic kind exist to help minimize damage. Stealth tech does exist as well, but are generally energy and heat intensive to operate.
  7. Fleet actions in a system can take months due to the fact that any planetoid or planet can be used as a base for defensive purposes, and this is on top of planetary invasions ala Ground Control.
  8. Ground combat is extensive compared to most other sci-fi, as planetary shields and anti-orbital defenses capable of resisting even the mightiest of conventional warships and weapons exist... but once those are eliminated, there isn't much you can do but disperse or be bombed from orbit.

GrandAdmiralFox
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Re: How do you 'design' a ship in Outsider-verse

Post by GrandAdmiralFox »

Ok, I've buckled down on ship design, and well, I've been using GURPS to design things. It isn't the easiest of systems to start out with but it does have plenty of tools to make it fairly realistic.

For example, for an Outsider/A New World (one of the settings I'm working on) fanfic, I have a corvette all ready to go (used the ship stats that the comic uses for a quick comparison):

Class: Sword VIII
Classification: Corvette (CC)
Length: 287 meters
Fully Loaded Weight: 450,000t/450kT
Dry Weight: ~284,000/284kT
Crew: 323 (including passengers and prisoners)
Screens: EXOTIC*
Max Acceleration: 27.2G (~88.7Mm of DeltaV (water propellant), 30GN Fusion Torches (high efficiency type)), ~3,055,988.38G (Powerplant and Capacitor Reliant, Interplanetary Drive)
Armor Rating: EXOTIC/500**
ECM Rating: 0/52***
Endurance: 4 Years (Primary)/6 Years (Primary+Emergency)

Armament:
  • 32x1 2TW Interceptor**** Mk30 Pulse Weapon (500MJ/Bolt, ROF=30; maximum combat range=3Mm)
  • 12x1 45mm L/110 Autorail Cannon PD Railguns (13.5kg/round, 25km/s, ROF=20; maximum combat range=2Mm)
  • 8x1 100TW Light Energy Shell Cannon (25GJ per shot, Anti-Shield Only, ROF=2; maximum combat range=85Mm)
  • 8x1 30TW 3-barreled Ultra-Heavy UV Pulse Laser Cannon (7.5GJ/Pulse - 1 cycle has 4 pulses, ROF=30; maximum combat range=99Mm)
  • 16x1 40TW Ultra-Light Anti-Ship UV Pulse Laser Cannon (10GJ/Pulse - 1 cycle has 4 pulses, ROF=4; maximum combat range=112Mm)
  • 2x6 300mm Light Anti-Ship Missile Launchers (50-ton missiles, ROF=1/2)
  • 2x3 300mm Light Anti-Ship Missile Launchers (50-ton missiles, ROF=1/2)
  • 4x20 150mm Interceptor Missile Launchers (10-ton missiles, ROF=3)
Small Craft and Ordinance:
  • 4x Strikecraft
  • 2x Shuttles
  • 720x Star Javelin Mk9 Light Anti-Ship Missiles (5x Plasma Lance Warheads each, 100G, 15.7-second endurance)
  • 360x Star Javelin Mk9 Light Anti-Ship Missiles (5x Programmable Fusion Warheads (Multi-Megaton yield, standard config is casaba howitzer), 100G, 15.7-second endurance)
  • 300x Star Defender Mk9 Interceptor Missiles (27x Proximity-fused 'flak' warheads, 200G, 7.91-second endurance)
  • 300x Star Defender Mk9 Interceptor Missiles (27x nuclear warheads fitted with scattershot x-ray laser-head technology (lots of X-Ray lasers in a conical pattern), 200G, 7.91-second endurance)
Notes:
* When compared to Loroi and Umiak designs, shields of the A New World: A World of Conflict and Sorrow setting operate on different principles. The setting utilizes something akin to the shields of Nexus: The Jupiter Incident where it is more akin to ablative armor. It can be penetrated, if the beam is powerful enough that is. The various factions in the setting utilize 'energy shell' and 'energy torpedo' technology to disrupt the field that a shield generator generates.
** Armor in A New World: A World of Conflict and Sorrow is quite similar to Battletech armor, but with the caveat of having a required minimum to ablate. This is further complicated due to the fact that in-setting armor utilizes a dispersion component in their armor called 'ED-WEB'/'E-WEB', ED-WEB is short for Energy Dispersion WEBbing. In effect, this makes the armor harder to damage, especially with non-neutron particle beams. If a number had to be used, it'll be crazy like 500.
*** Lightspeed sensors of the setting use a combination of Cross-Spectrum LIDAR (basically a LIDAR array that uses the entire EM Spectrum) and 'Quantum Radar' (or, to put it in the simplest terms, radar that uses quantum superposition in its signals; this, essentially, ensures that any attempt to mess with the signal will be ignored as the radar set would recognize the change of superposition), making traditional ECM methods effectively unusable. The only way to get 'stealth' features is via metamaterials and the armor itself (which, due to being designed with DEWs in mind, scatters or otherwise disrupts most radar systems). These are used in conjunction with FTL sensors (usually the AU spanning in-system FTL sensors) and communication systems to create system-spanning sensor networks that make a system's sensor density quite literally 'yes'. HOWEVER, going active with these sensors you are basically putting a giant neon sign here saying "I'm right here" to anyone in-system. Against more conventional radar and sensor sets? It's not god-mode levels but it's quite effective.
**** Interceptors are an interesting defensive weapon in that they're designed to shoot down not only projectiles and physical objects but also any energy weapon that isn't lightspeed (like lasers) or is completely exotic (like 'quark' guns which are matter disruptors). When used in conjunction with ED-WEB, this makes ships rather hard to take out.
Last edited by GrandAdmiralFox on Sun Apr 25, 2021 10:43 am, edited 3 times in total.

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DevilDalek
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Re: How do you 'design' a ship in Outsider-verse

Post by DevilDalek »

Also as an artist, I have a great deal of interest in this! Normally I'd say have a look at the original Moo 2 sprites and design your aesthetics off of them, it's what I do!.

GrandAdmiralFox
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Re: How do you 'design' a ship in Outsider-verse

Post by GrandAdmiralFox »

DevilDalek wrote:
Tue Apr 20, 2021 12:47 pm
Also as an artist, I have a great deal of interest in this! Normally I'd say have a look at the original Moo 2 sprites and design your aesthetics off of them, it's what I do!.
Funny thing about that, I've asked around the harder-end of SciFi community and they agree that hexagons are the best shape for spaceships. Not cylinders, not bricks, but hexagons. I see this work out in the closest thing we've got to a hard-scifi space combat simulator Children of a Dead Earth. You get far more damage deflection with hexagons than any other shape. Especially if you use materials like metal foams, aerogels, and basically make a composite hull.

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Mithramuse
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Re: How do you 'design' a ship in Outsider-verse

Post by Mithramuse »

GrandAdmiralFox wrote:
Tue Apr 20, 2021 8:13 pm
DevilDalek wrote:
Tue Apr 20, 2021 12:47 pm
Also as an artist, I have a great deal of interest in this! Normally I'd say have a look at the original Moo 2 sprites and design your aesthetics off of them, it's what I do!.
Funny thing about that, I've asked around the harder-end of SciFi community and they agree that hexagons are the best shape for spaceships. Not cylinders, not bricks, but hexagons. I see this work out in the closest thing we've got to a hard-scifi space combat simulator Children of a Dead Earth. You get far more damage deflection with hexagons than any other shape. Especially if you use materials like metal foams, aerogels, and basically make a composite hull.
Huh. So Timothy Zahn was ahead of the curve with the Conquerors' trilogy? Or does this discussion go back to the early 1990s?

--Mithramuse

gaerzi
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Re: How do you 'design' a ship in Outsider-verse

Post by gaerzi »

Hexagons are the bestagons

GrandAdmiralFox
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Re: How do you 'design' a ship in Outsider-verse

Post by GrandAdmiralFox »

Mithramuse wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 1:35 pm
GrandAdmiralFox wrote:
Tue Apr 20, 2021 8:13 pm
DevilDalek wrote:
Tue Apr 20, 2021 12:47 pm
Also as an artist, I have a great deal of interest in this! Normally I'd say have a look at the original Moo 2 sprites and design your aesthetics off of them, it's what I do!.
Funny thing about that, I've asked around the harder-end of SciFi community and they agree that hexagons are the best shape for spaceships. Not cylinders, not bricks, but hexagons. I see this work out in the closest thing we've got to a hard-scifi space combat simulator Children of a Dead Earth. You get far more damage deflection with hexagons than any other shape. Especially if you use materials like metal foams, aerogels, and basically make a composite hull.
Huh. So Timothy Zahn was ahead of the curve with the Conquerors' trilogy? Or does this discussion go back to the early 1990s?

--Mithramuse
From what I understand, back in the '90s it was bricks and cylinders (bricks because slopes eat volume and cylinders because it's easier to fit a centrifugal grav-deck on) that dominated the 'iso human spaceship' trope. It really wasn't until the discovery of graphene and similar materials that people started to go 'hexagons make for better ship designs'... so it is likely that Zahn was ahead of the curve.
gaerzi wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 4:46 pm
Hexagons are the bestagons
He and I might disagree in the political arena but he is right about hexagons.

tpkc_klick
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Re: How do you 'design' a ship in Outsider-verse

Post by tpkc_klick »

GrandAdmiralFox wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 7:09 pm
Mithramuse wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 1:35 pm
GrandAdmiralFox wrote:
Tue Apr 20, 2021 8:13 pm

Funny thing about that, I've asked around the harder-end of SciFi community and they agree that hexagons are the best shape for spaceships. Not cylinders, not bricks, but hexagons. I see this work out in the closest thing we've got to a hard-scifi space combat simulator Children of a Dead Earth. You get far more damage deflection with hexagons than any other shape. Especially if you use materials like metal foams, aerogels, and basically make a composite hull.
Huh. So Timothy Zahn was ahead of the curve with the Conquerors' trilogy? Or does this discussion go back to the early 1990s?

--Mithramuse
From what I understand, back in the '90s it was bricks and cylinders (bricks because slopes eat volume and cylinders because it's easier to fit a centrifugal grav-deck on) that dominated the 'iso human spaceship' trope. It really wasn't until the discovery of graphene and similar materials that people started to go 'hexagons make for better ship designs'... so it is likely that Zahn was ahead of the curve.
gaerzi wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 4:46 pm
Hexagons are the bestagons
He and I might disagree in the political arena but he is right about hexagons.
Eh, I think a lot of these design concepts suffer from the same sort of "we're going to be engaging targets in all directions" mindset that affected inter-war tank design in the the twenties and thirties and resulted in a lot of designs that were unwieldy, overly heavy, underarmored, and wholly unsuitable for the battlefields they were supposed to fight on. Many of the designs that you see developing immediately before and during the war started prioritizing being able to withstand fire from a particular facing, at the expense of the sides of the vehicle. Training and battle doctrine with then built around keeping the hardened end of the vehicle (or turret) pointed towards the enemy.

I think a similar sort of development would occur for spaceborne warships, with each design iteration optimized more and more towards receiving a dishing-out firepower from a particular direction. I think designs would ultimately converge on an elongated, roughly tetrahedral shape, with the longer pointy end being the hardened facing, the drive array being on the flat portion at the other end, and the weapons largely arranged in superfiring emplacement along the three spines between the two. This would allow a ship to present its best protection, smallest target profile, and all of its firepower at the same time, while still allowing comprehensive weapons coverage over all the other fire arcs except for due aft. Tactics and doctrine would revolve around oblique approaches to enemy formations to keep the armored end pointed into oncoming fire, and seeking to flank the enemy and hit him where his armor is thinner.
Last edited by tpkc_klick on Thu Apr 22, 2021 10:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

GrandAdmiralFox
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Re: How do you 'design' a ship in Outsider-verse

Post by GrandAdmiralFox »

tpkc_klick wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 9:47 pm
Eh, I think a lot of these design concepts suffer from the same sort of "we're going to be engaging targets in all directions" mindset that affected inter-war tank design in the the twenties and thirties and resulted in a lot of designs that were unwieldy, overly heavy, underarmored, and wholly unsuitable for the battlefields they were supposed to fight on. Many of the designs that you see developing immediately before and during the war started prioritizing being able to withstand fire from a particular facing, at the expense of the sides of the vehicle. Training and battle doctrine with then built around keeping the hardened end of the vehicle (or turret) pointed towards the enemy.

I think a similar sort of development would occur for spaceborne warships, with each design iteration optimized more and more towards receiving a dishing-out firepower from a particular direction. I think designs would ultimately converge on an elongated, roughly tetrahedral shape, with the longer pointy end being the hardened facing, the drive array being on the flat portion at the other end, and the weapons largely arranged in superfiring emplacement along the three spines. This would allow a ship to present its best armor, smallest target profile, and all of its firepower at the same time, while still allowing comprehensive weapons coverage over all the other fire arcs except for due aft. Tactics and doctrine would revolve around oblique approaches to enemy formations to keep the armored end pointed into oncoming fire, and seeking to flank the enemy and hit him where his armor is thinner.
The thing is, that isn't going to be the case per se. What people forget is that space combat is more akin to submarine combat than anything, especially around planets where this thing called sensor shadows exists. The most likely scenario is that a lot of submarine and blue-water conventions will be used because it's the only closest equivalent to space combat.

tpkc_klick
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Re: How do you 'design' a ship in Outsider-verse

Post by tpkc_klick »

GrandAdmiralFox wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 10:03 pm
tpkc_klick wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 9:47 pm
Eh, I think a lot of these design concepts suffer from the same sort of "we're going to be engaging targets in all directions" mindset that affected inter-war tank design in the the twenties and thirties and resulted in a lot of designs that were unwieldy, overly heavy, underarmored, and wholly unsuitable for the battlefields they were supposed to fight on. Many of the designs that you see developing immediately before and during the war started prioritizing being able to withstand fire from a particular facing, at the expense of the sides of the vehicle. Training and battle doctrine with then built around keeping the hardened end of the vehicle (or turret) pointed towards the enemy.

I think a similar sort of development would occur for spaceborne warships, with each design iteration optimized more and more towards receiving a dishing-out firepower from a particular direction. I think designs would ultimately converge on an elongated, roughly tetrahedral shape, with the longer pointy end being the hardened facing, the drive array being on the flat portion at the other end, and the weapons largely arranged in superfiring emplacement along the three spines. This would allow a ship to present its best armor, smallest target profile, and all of its firepower at the same time, while still allowing comprehensive weapons coverage over all the other fire arcs except for due aft. Tactics and doctrine would revolve around oblique approaches to enemy formations to keep the armored end pointed into oncoming fire, and seeking to flank the enemy and hit him where his armor is thinner.
The thing is, that isn't going to be the case per se. What people forget is that space combat is more akin to submarine combat than anything, especially around planets where this thing called sensor shadows exists. The most likely scenario is that a lot of submarine and blue-water conventions will be used because it's the only closest equivalent to space combat.
The reason I brought up tank design is that even with the reality that tanks fight in cluttered battlefields where an attack could suddenly come from almost any angle, the advantage of optimizing protection against fire from a particular direction won decisively over trying to protect equally from all possible fire angles.

Additionally, if space combat is a game of stealth, a long, pointy, angular hull plan would allow a ship to be heavily optimized for stealth along a key facing, and do reasonably well on most other facings. Combine that with a "keep the stealthy end pointed where the enemy is likely to be trying to see you from" doctrine, and I think such a ship would have a decisive advantage less directionally optimized hull designs, such as a cylinder, a sphere, or a hex-ship.

GrandAdmiralFox
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Re: How do you 'design' a ship in Outsider-verse

Post by GrandAdmiralFox »

tpkc_klick wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 10:52 pm
GrandAdmiralFox wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 10:03 pm
tpkc_klick wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 9:47 pm
Eh, I think a lot of these design concepts suffer from the same sort of "we're going to be engaging targets in all directions" mindset that affected inter-war tank design in the the twenties and thirties and resulted in a lot of designs that were unwieldy, overly heavy, underarmored, and wholly unsuitable for the battlefields they were supposed to fight on. Many of the designs that you see developing immediately before and during the war started prioritizing being able to withstand fire from a particular facing, at the expense of the sides of the vehicle. Training and battle doctrine with then built around keeping the hardened end of the vehicle (or turret) pointed towards the enemy.

I think a similar sort of development would occur for spaceborne warships, with each design iteration optimized more and more towards receiving a dishing-out firepower from a particular direction. I think designs would ultimately converge on an elongated, roughly tetrahedral shape, with the longer pointy end being the hardened facing, the drive array being on the flat portion at the other end, and the weapons largely arranged in superfiring emplacement along the three spines. This would allow a ship to present its best armor, smallest target profile, and all of its firepower at the same time, while still allowing comprehensive weapons coverage over all the other fire arcs except for due aft. Tactics and doctrine would revolve around oblique approaches to enemy formations to keep the armored end pointed into oncoming fire, and seeking to flank the enemy and hit him where his armor is thinner.
The thing is, that isn't going to be the case per se. What people forget is that space combat is more akin to submarine combat than anything, especially around planets where this thing called sensor shadows exists. The most likely scenario is that a lot of submarine and blue-water conventions will be used because it's the only closest equivalent to space combat.
The reason I brought up tank design is that even with the reality that tanks fight in cluttered battlefields where an attack could suddenly come from almost any angle, the advantage of optimizing protection against fire from a particular direction won decisively over trying to protect equally from all possible fire angles.

Additionally, if space combat is a game of stealth, a long, pointy, angular hull plan would allow a ship to be heavily optimized for stealth along a key facing, and do reasonably well on most other facings. Combine that with a "keep the stealthy end pointed where the enemy is likely to be trying to see you from" doctrine, and I think such a ship would have a decisive advantage less directionally optimized hull designs, such as a cylinder, a sphere, or a hex-ship.
Stealth won't be possible unless you do some really exotic stuff, I'm afraid. As in 'out of phase of reality or in another dimension' levels of exotic, especially with stuff like quantum radar (basically, take a radar set, add quantum superposition to the waves, and boom you've got something that tells stealth features and electronic warfare to stuff it, at least from the material I've seen). Add in LIDAR (which requires some rather specific metamaterials to even hope to have 'stealth' with, and even then it's a losing proposition) and sensor fusion, and boom you've got nowhere to hide.

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Jagged
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Re: How do you 'design' a ship in Outsider-verse

Post by Jagged »

I would not be surprised if "real" space battles were effectively fought on a square grid because/if they were fought at extreme range.

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Re: How do you 'design' a ship in Outsider-verse

Post by Krulle »

I wouldn't be surprised if in the end spaceships design will be heavily influenced by whatever physics allow as FTL...


Some settings have the creation of a "wormhole" or other transition gate between dimensions, and the size of opening this gate is likely to be dependent on distance to a central point. If you fly through this "gate" (gate position specific in point in space), then ship design will likely by cylindrical (to fit as much volume inside the gate surface), if the ship generates a kind of transition field, chances are spherical ships will be most efficient volume/transfer energy wise.

Until we get to any suitable inter-system flight system, ship design may be whatever. Once we fly between the stars, design will change.

(And if we stay below light speed, a long needle to reduce impact chances in transit will likely remain important.)

So, best ship design will depend on a lot more than just the fight/war abilities.
(Infra-system this may be different, but ships that need to fight, also need to be fast as a force-multiplier, and if FTL is infra-system possible, then the ship design will heavily depend on the physics for that.)

So, not going to participate in guessings when not knowing the other parameters.
Vote for Outsider on TWC: Image
charred steppes, borders of territories: page 59,
jump-map of local stars: page 121, larger map in Loroi: page 118,
System view Leido Crossroads: page 123, after the battle page 195

GrandAdmiralFox
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Re: How do you 'design' a ship in Outsider-verse

Post by GrandAdmiralFox »

Jagged wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 10:16 am
I would not be surprised if "real" space battles were effectively fought on a square grid because/if they were fought at extreme range.
Eh, depends on various conditions, especially how large the target is, how speedy the projectiles are (for cannons/railguns/coilguns), how massive the projectiles are, armor composition and capabilities, what wavelength the laser is with mirror and power output (IR is, frankly, shit due to its quick dispersion rate; visual lasers do far better than IR lasers while UV lasers make visual lasers look like IR lasers, and with X-Ray lasers having a dispersion rate measured in light seconds...), how fast the target is, FCS capabilities, turret training capability, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Krulle wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 12:45 pm
I wouldn't be surprised if in the end spaceships design will be heavily influenced by whatever physics allow as FTL...


Some settings have the creation of a "wormhole" or other transition gate between dimensions, and the size of opening this gate is likely to be dependent on distance to a central point. If you fly through this "gate" (gate position specific in point in space), then ship design will likely by cylindrical (to fit as much volume inside the gate surface), if the ship generates a kind of transition field, chances are spherical ships will be most efficient volume/transfer energy wise.

Until we get to any suitable inter-system flight system, ship design may be whatever. Once we fly between the stars, design will change.

(And if we stay below light speed, a long needle to reduce impact chances in transit will likely remain important.)

So, best ship design will depend on a lot more than just the fight/war abilities.
(Infra-system this may be different, but ships that need to fight, also need to be fast as a force-multiplier, and if FTL is infra-system possible, then the ship design will heavily depend on the physics for that.)

So, not going to participate in guessings when not knowing the other parameters.
Actually, not really, unless the FTL is specific (i.e. Star Trek warp engines, Battletech KF Drives, Sword of the Stars's Node Drive, the like) in construction, you can use any shape you deem necessary. Also, as stated before even having 5Gs means you're getting to Jupiter from the Sun in less than half a day (~10 hours if I did the math right), but I wouldn't be surprised that it'll take immense amounts of deltaV to do so.

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