i have always been weak to something akin to BSG's launch tubes, but that only works with a more dedicated carrier design but it would allow 'crash launches' without losing shit loads of atmo in the hangar bay.

for a less 'dedicated' carrier(assuming fighter craft are an important part of the fleet) I'd go with external docking clamps and a internal 'dry dock' for maintenance, allows for more fighters to be carried at a minimum loss of internal volume at the cost of rearm/maintain speed, just my thoughts on the subject.

My idea can be used something akin to that, in that the fighter dock could easily be left zero atmosphere when maintenance is not required, but the issue that really applies is offloading transports.
Do you do so without atmosphere and be forced to wear comparitively immobile spacesuits for bodily protection, having to be careful not to damage the suit and such, or do you go for a plan B: Full atmosphere with less than 10% losses of gas thanks to evacuating as much as you could, and then utilising two chambers of similar size (extract 80-90%, open section two (halving the pressure), move through the door, close door, open access to space (losing half of your remaining 10-5% of the original)

After all, storing tons of air is not difficult, many gas cylinders hold a few hundred times their own volume. The main issue is the energy and time cost required to evacuate the gasses, as pumping gasses is never particularly fast nor efficient.

Launching fighters forward is completely unnecessary. Loroi ships constantly maneuver during battle, so bays will rarely be directly facing the enemy; in fact, Arioch has said that turning a ship 180 degrees to obtain a weapons solution isn't a big issue. Further, fighters have a much higher acceleration than capital ships, so the speed boost they'd get from that is quite minor. Also, see the paragraph at the bottom of this post.


The Loroi use skinsuits. In that design of spacesuit, the pressure required by the body is provided by an elastic suit directly in contact with the skin. The version that NASA is working on will allow sweat to evaporate into space, so that you don't even need a conventional temperature control system (though I actually worry about dehydration). The flexibility of these suits is actually quite good (the flexibility of normal suits inside Earth's atmosphere is actually decent too, the only real problem is the pressure differential in space, so if you get rid of that...). If you worry about damage to the suit, then you just add some padding to the outside (ordinary athletic padding would probably even work, or denim).

As for the bay, I would honestly have it mostly be in vacuum when the ship was likely to enter combat. That allows you to easily deploy & retrieve craft, while saving the space/mass of a proper two-stage airlock. Also, depending on the materials, performing some repairs in an atmosphere could be a no-no. If you need the capability to move people into a vehicle while the bay is under a vacuum, then simply have boarding hatches/tubes for the shuttles (fighter crew wear liquid-breathing vacuum suits while in the fighter, so they always have the relevant equipment when going to/coming from their vessels).


As someone who works with pallets, I'm not impressed with the difficulty of unloading shuttles. With a cargo crew that's serious about the loading/unloading, pallet jacks that can work in the environment/are large enough for the pallet, & level surfaces, 1 person could get 1 food pallet off of a shuttle in 15-30 seconds. For more high-mass loads maybe 1 minute, less with more people to get it going. That's with unpowered equipment, so if you're using motorized equipment it'll be closer to the ideal. It wouldn't even be difficult for most loads to be automatically unloaded by robotic powered pallet jacks. After you've got the pallets in a temp spot you can load your outgoing materials into the shuttle in a similar period of time, judging from the size of the shuttles I'm going to guess maybe 18 pallets each, but if the pilot's station & other areas that physically block pallets are smaller than I'm thinking, perhaps as much as 36 pallets for each shuttle, divided across two rows. Assuming that you have the space to unload two pallets at one time, unloading a fully loaded shuttle with powered pallet jacks would take maybe 9-15 minutes for a focused crew. The paperwork and refueling/other between-flights maintenance might even take more time than that. The pallet jacks can be winched up to rest against the wall when not in use.

However, if the Loroi never adopted standardized cargo transportation systems (e.g. pallets) then you'd be dealing with loose materials, which likely takes that estimate up to at least a day. But they're close-enough to being guaranteed to have standardized cargo transportation techniques.


At any rate, most Loroi vessels are NOT primarily carrier craft (the fighters they carry are apparently used mostly as a form of remote point-defense, for use against missiles & gunboats), and we've seen no indications that the fighters are carried externally, so most likely they launch & land using a single hangar bay. The design of carriers may well be different (I'd go with a BSG/B5 approach for launches too, specifically with a relatively small number of actual launchers, since their cycle time shouldn't be too long). For carriers, forward-facing fighter-launchers might make sense (though they'd certainly be vulnerable), since a dedicated platform could afford the space & mass required by the launchers.

I'm not really sure about that. I was watching a gulf war 1 doc about marine pilots ( AV-8's harriers) and when each pilot is a 2nd LT's. He/She goes through through a rough infantry man's course in order to forge a link between the mariners in the air and on the ground when doing close support.

The SAAB example of small 6 fighter units squadron "could" work out in future for space/ground ops, if the cost is high. but I understand now its was a plot exposition method ( small team = following the characters easier). Thought in reality SAAB could have work out if the characters we're part of a larger fight wing/combined arms group ( ground and air/space assets together). argh, but i still loved that show

@saint of M: agreed for the small cast, but i found that as the series process through the seasons ( and tech got better), more character we're introduced. Now i look at Transforms Prime (the recent all CGI TV series) and I'm just amazed how things have come ( and really enjoy the new series and its mix of the transforms animated and movie style).

I can't say I'm sold on the separate launch/recover spaces. i can see the pro for such a system ( quick and easy launches with prepare ships, with a dedicated landing area for the various craft ( and big enough to take on cargo ships). but I always wonder about the in-between part of getting the landed craft back into the launch tubes. the BSG example is a simple and good design that I find would work well, but it take a lot of interior space, if applied to a full forward/rear setup of today's carriers. its would also be a critical weaken if say you took a hit in the hanger and get a chain series of explosion ( IE high energy drive, AM warheads etc).

Tempest isn't a dedicated carrier, so there isn't room for launch tubes or an airlock for the main door, especially one that would accomodate the 50m-long Highland. The hangar would be kept in vacuum whenever small craft operations were being conducted, with boarding/loading done through pressurized causeways. The design isn't finalized, but the idea is that most of the standard-sized (30m) craft are stored in bays that can be sealed off behind a pressurized canopy for servicing. The Highland is too big to fit in such a bay, so anything that can't be done in pressure suits will require pressurization of the whole hangar.

The facing of the ships being stored is irrelevant; space is at a premium, so they'll be stored however they fit. The Tempest hangar has to fit twelve standard-sized craft (yes, there's a thirteenth -- the fifth shuttle, but that's a spare that's kept in storage and not ready-to-fly) plus the Highland, so there's no doubt a lot of shuffling and jockeying to get craft in and out of the door (and the various vanes and fins are folded to save space). Launching and recovering craft will be a delicate procedure that will place restraints on the maneuvering of the mother ship, and the launching fighter or shuttle will be limited to maneuvering thrusters during the process; it's not like a fighter can light its main engines in the hangar or close to the ship.


Of course pilots have to go through basic training as well, but that doesn't make them infantry. They're academy- or college-educated officers who then have to go through a long and very expensive training regime to learn to fly combat aircraft. In Above & Beyond, the characters were infantry grunts -- still in training to be infantry grunts (assuming that I remember it correctly) -- and the first time there was any mention of the starfighters was when the grunts hopped in and flew them into combat. That's absurd no matter what the setting.

@Arioch and Nomad

In the Distraction thread I continued to discuss mechanised magnetic clamping as a system that could easily allow automation of launching and re-capturing units, basically a pair of magnetic clamps that attach to a set (opposing magnetism) component on the fighter/shuttle/cargo hauler, then drags it in through the aforementioned bay system.

Also: at half atmospheric pressure a human would collapse, but not die :p

This is a benefit compared to evacuating the entire hanger space, not to mention the moment the doors are closed to the 'access way' air can be pumped back in.

when i think about it ariochs idea is probably pretty optimal, leave main hangar without atmo, 'docking slip' atmo tent if you need to do any major external work, and boarding/cargo handling done through docking tube, flexible, simple and keeps the main hangar mostly without atmo to lose.

could easily be combined with external hard points with docking umbilicals for 'storage' of ready fighters, since reloading munitions is not really that difficult as far as 'maintenance' goes.
yup sounds about optimal.

@Fotiadis

Yes, I'm certain they read that.

The magnetic clamp system might be of interest, but it's ultimately just a type of catapult system (being able to use it for retrievals doesn't change that). Also, it's of limited relevance, since fighters aren't kinetic weapons, and thus don't need all the speed they can get: they just need enough speed to maneuver & maintain their distance from the fleet: thus, a catapult system won't provide a large benefit, and likely won't be equipped on non-carrier vessels, such as the Tempest. Additionally, for a ship with as few fighters as the Tempest, a single mag catapult would most likely be all that was needed.

Arioch has already said that the bay is brought to a vacuum for small craft operations, with causeways & pressure canopies used to provide atmosphere, thus the air-dock system that you're suggesting does not exist on the Tempest. Such things may exist as maintenance spaces within carriers & battlestations, but I don't see how that's relevant to the Tempest or it's battlegroup.

The hangar is actually NOT likely to be a massively open space, since the Tempest is not a carrier. At most times, a 'central' portion of the bay is likely to be kept clear for emergency purposes, leaving most of the actual work to the edges of the bay. Thus, the layout is more likely to be similar to a bunch of small caves branching off of a single large one, than a massive cave with a bunch of pedestals/columns.

Personally, I imagine that the 'perfect' layout for an actual carrier hangar would be to have causeways running through the fighter bay, with fighter workspaces strung all along them (with the fighters potentially attached to the causeways). Between causeways you'd have the feed system for the launchers, so that fighters would just have to move a short distance to reach the launcher systems. This entire bay (with the exception of the causeway itself) would be depressurized at all times (fighters needing extra repair would be taken to a dedicated bay).

The idea of only having 3 small vessel designs in the fleet strikes me as excessive. A large degree of commonality in major components is almost assured (e.g. there might be 4-5 designs of engines in use for all fighter/attack craft in the fleet, including those used for outdated fighters that have been shuffled to minor duty stations), having maybe 2 (or 3 if they're in the middle of a procurement/replacement schedule) unique designs of standard utility shuttle, with numerous customizations of those, seems quite likely. However, having only 3 small-craft designs in the entire fleet, even if you assume that those are base designs that get modified for different purposes, is excessive.

How can having "only" three types be "excessive?" Excessive means "more than is necessary."

Especially when it comes to small craft, I'm sure there are hundreds of varieties in use. I've listed the major types that make sense to me, which is already overkill in terms of the needs of the story.

Would you really lose atmosphere if you were to pump all the air, with compressor, into air tank?

If you could actually pump everything out and behind adequate seals, no.
However, you can't do so effectively. One can get most of the atmosphere out, but not everything.

You could, theoretically, suck almost all of the air out. However it would be difficult to suck out ALL of it, meaning there would always be a loss. Additionally doing so would require a fair amount of time, not a problem when you're just out on a pleasure cruise but in combat operations the time it would take to cycle a hangar of any significant size would be crippling.

By being excessively minimalist (the "excessive" applies to the "only", not to the "3": having that strong of a constraint on the variety of small vessels is excessive, even if you apply the constraint to basic designs instead of design variants), I was depending on context. I was arguing that 3 types of small craft is far too few (at one point, I even mentioned the possibility of having 3 types of standard utility shuttles if you're in the middle of replacing a design).

actually, you want some kind of 'launch system' it does not however need to be very powerful but you want the small craft well away from carrier before it lights up the drives, anything that can accelerate probably a few dozen metric tons or so at 40g is a high energy event, read explosive.

i do not want that exhaust ruining MY paintjob.

Has anyone thought of the effects on a shuttle/fighter craft when it clears the hangar hatch while the Tempest is under acceleration?
I have the impression that a "scratched paintjob" is the least of the craft's concerns under those circumstances.

well considering that a combustion engine (let say 2 Liter engine) can "consume" about 18l per rotation (average atmospheric compression ratio 9:1 x liter) and can run at average of 2500 RPM (for ease of calculation normally is around 2750)

So it consume 45000 liter per minute of air. Surely to empty a room it would be quite fast. And it a normal engine under normal use. Vacuum pump of that technology erra could be that efficient or even more.

As Florence once said: in space if there one thing you dont want to loose it atmosphere!

That's...not what the compression ratio is. The compression ratio is how compressed the air is after the piston goes up. So that engine would take roughly 2l worth of fuel-air mixture and compress it to .22l.

Also as the pressure drops in the hangar the vacuum pumps would get less and less efficient.

Little math. 3 m x 3 m x 5 m room has ordinary athmospere.
You have pump, which take 20l air per rotation with 3000 RPM.

So in each rotation, it takes 1/1500 of air. Then, after 1 minute there is left (1-1/1500)^3000 of air, which is 13,5%. That means you lose over 6000 liter of air, if you open the hatch now.

Also, the pressure will push the door on 135 kg/m^2, so it may not be the easy or safe to open it.

Right, which is why launching or recovering small craft is something that should be done only under minimal (or, ideally zero) acceleration.

I'm imagining coordinated micro-second burns for a short period of time.

For launches:
1) The bay's inertial control & gravity are turned off (may happen as part of 2),
2) The fighter/whatever uses maneuvering thrusters (or whatever other option) to leave the bay (probably the launching ship will make a quick burn at this point to accelerate the process),
3) The fighter orients it's thrust axis ~90 degrees to the launching ship's thrust axis (so that the thrust won't approach the launching ship),
4) Both fighter & launching ship make brief burns of their main engines (timed such that neither will encounter exhaust),
5) After a sufficient (and for the fighter, presumably brief) coasting period both reorient themselves so that they can restart their main engines unimpeded.

For retrievals:
1) Bay inertial control & gravity are turned off,
2) Both fighter & retrieval ship accelerate towards roughly the same point for a collision course (this is presumably a low-velocity operation, performed by vessels already flying in tight formation),
3) At predetermined points, both start decelerating,
4) The retrieval ship stops it's deceleration early, so that it 'overshoots',
5) The fighter stops it's decelerating burn,
6) Fighter passes close enough to the retrieval ship's engines that they are no longer in it's exhaust cone, it completes it's deceleration, afterwards passing into the retrieval ship's bay,
7) The retrieval ship completes it's deceleration, the fighter is automatically restrained (probably by restoring inertial control, but maybe something else).

Both would have very delicate timing & thus be completely automated, but I expect that they'll be standard during combat operations to minimize vulnerability to enemy fire. Personally, if I were designing a combat ship I'd try using either elevators or a small 'ring bay' (ala BSG's launch nacelles) for launches & retrievals (both allow wave-offs & some limited maneuvering for both vessels during both operations).

If im understanding what Arioch has said right, then the hanger is an extremely haphazard place, i don't think it would be safe, or possible, to do what you're saying for the retrievals, especially if you need to get out of the combat zone quickly, i would imagine the equivalent of a....(screw it im gonna say it) Tractor beam, would be employed once the fighter is close enough and then dragged into the hanger bay its self, since the two vessels were moving at the same speed (or is it velocity? i can never remember) reactionary thrusters can be used to land in an available space of the hangar....would that work?

Keep in mind, that loroi pressure suits seem to take up a lot less space. Plus the pilots are always going to wear them anyway. So depressurisation (and lower risk of explosion) is usefull.

forgot about that

It's not only that. Keep in mind that a hangar will be usually a fairly large area. So harder to cordon off with bulkheads to create smaller compartments. So by having no atmosphere in there reduces a risk of decompression changing pressure in a fairly large segment of the ship. It also keeps the crewmembers safer.

Means explosions overall have less of an effect inside of this larger area. Denies fires, keeps toxic fumes at bay and last but not least makes it a lot easier to manage and keep the ships clean. Also air tends to be fairly corrosive. So if you can keep it away from your machines, you have no reason not to do it.