What about DN(P)s for the GA?

lyonheart wrote:Hi EagleEye,

For an early post, I think it was well above average.

By the time the SEM starts building SDP's again, I suspect they will incorporate the Streak Drive and be based on the 'Medusa B' design that RFC posted ten years ago with over 2000 pods.

I'd suspect that's half right. When the RMN gets around to build SD(P)s again, they will incorporate streak drive. But they won't be based on the Medusa-B; I believe RFC has posted since then that post-Apollo the RMN has done some serious rethinking on the offense/defense balance in its future designs and is almost certainly going to building something based on the Medusa-B and move on to a '4th generation' design that should be survive against an opponent with Apollo-ish tech.

The bigger you build a ship, the more combat power you get per:
1. Crew
2. Tonnage
3. Construction time spent
4. Raw material cost
5. Monetary cost
6. Shipyard work hours

Of course there´s always other considerations, but for wallers? Building smaller would not be a good idea until you hit the "wall" for the compensators.
Up to that point, build as large as possible.

drothgery wrote:I'd suspect that's half right. When the RMN gets around to build SD(P)s again, they will incorporate streak drive. But they won't be based on the Medusa-B; I believe RFC has posted since then that post-Apollo the RMN has done some serious rethinking on the offense/defense balance in its future designs and is almost certainly going to building something based on the Medusa-B and move on to a '4th generation' design that should be survive against an opponent with Apollo-ish tech.

It turned out that "running out of ammo" wasn't the problem. It was having an average combat lifetime of 10 minutes in high intensity combat.

So yeah, this is likely to require some rather different design compromises than the Medusa-B had.

Tenshinai wrote:The bigger you build a ship, the more combat power you get per:
1. Crew
2. Tonnage
3. Construction time spent
4. Raw material cost
5. Monetary cost
6. Shipyard work hours

Of course there´s always other considerations, but for wallers? Building smaller would not be a good idea until you hit the "wall" for the compensators.
Up to that point, build as large as possible.

I believe there is a logic some are using that follows that a smaller design is needed for some roles. and that just isn't the case currently.

In Previous times...

Manticore's DNs were built mainly due to limited defense budgets - Where someone was thinking something along the lines of "if I am given $18B dollars for capital ships, I can build 3 x $5B SDs or 2 x $5B SDs and 2 x $4B DNs - how can I best spend my money? Originally the Gryphon SD and Bellerophon DNs (the 2 designs being built on the outset of the 1st war) were laid out so for every 2 SDs, there would be 3 DNs (To maximize hull #s per dollars spent). Overnight, as the war started, the build #s were reverse and finally, they stopped building Bellerophons all together, even though the Bellerophon design itself was a better warship than the first ~50 SDs Manticore built and fielded during the 1st war.

Havens's BBs massive collection were intended for pacification of their conquests, not for the conquest itself. They were designed not to fight other Capitol ships, but to overwhelm any remaining resistance by the conquered planets and their former (small) navies. They were intended to smash any BC-FG that remained loyal to the previous governments and sit in the orbitals as a massive ever-present reminder of who was now in charge, with large marine units capable of being dropped anywhere at the drop of a hat.

Due to many of the conquests unruliness, it was seen as necessary to field a ship which could overpower any opposition - the Havenite Navy's pre-war thinking was "Win with the first Salvo" - So everything they did followed the game plan of bullies and muggers everywhere -No finesse, just bully them and overpower them - and the Havenite BB was the poster child of this Bully mentality.

Currently, there is no economic limitation - nor is there a doctrinal need for a smaller capital warship. In fact the combatants's recent experiences have taught them that those previous ideas were folly, and probably will not repeat them anytime soon if they can avoid it.

My understanding is that even at the start of the 1st war the Peep BBs were considered old. The had apparently been built quite a few years ago. This is probably in the old Jaynes, but I don't have that handy.

Hi KZT,

Yup, that was my impression too, that the BB's were considered obsolete, then they were great for keeping hostile systems' populations in line, rather than build expensive new orbital space stations when the peeps didn't have the cash, or system raiders that could overwhelm any system defense with only BC's.

But thee have been hints that the BB's went from energy weapons heavy to missile heavy over the course of their construction and service, despite missiles not being very effective until well after the Battleship era was over, and even some indication the peeps continued to build missile heavy BB's until relatively recently.

The 374 BB's in the first war ranged from 3.15 MT to 4.5 MT, the latter close to the smallest DN's of around 4.72 MT if I remember the figuring from the SVW appendix charts, given the average and the largest.

L

kzt wrote:My understanding is that even at the start of the 1st war the Peep BBs were considered old. The had apparently been built quite a few years ago. This is probably in the old Jaynes, but I don't have that handy.

Theemile wrote:I believe there is a logic some are using that follows that a smaller design is needed for some roles. and that just isn't the case currently.
...

For wallers, the primary requirement is combat power, sure you need enough of them, but it´s simply not economical in any way to build small for wallers.

For light ships, where numbers and speed are more important, being able to have a ship everywhere where they are needed, of course it´s another matter, but those are definitely not wallers.

You might be able to have 10% more DNs than SDs, but each SD is probably 25-35% more effective than the DNs, making it a really bad tradeoff to choose.

Tenshinai wrote:You might be able to have 10% more DNs than SDs, but each SD is probably 25-35% more effective than the DNs, making it a really bad tradeoff to choose.

This is a really bad handwavium.

TO start with, what are we really saying by the word "DN" verses "SD"?

1st haven war had DN's the same size as SD's or nearly so. Compensator margins have increased by 40% at a minimum. From this we see that RMN is already NOT building as large of an SD hull as they COULD if they were willing to limit the acceleration of their hulls. So, lets not go too deep into hubris here. Manticore is already making the REAL choice of #hulls compared to maximum destruction power.

The correct analysis would be, what sized hull can carry the necessary offensive equipment, active defenses, passive defenses(armor schemes for capital MK-23 missiles), and ECM? Only after this is calculated can one then add the secondary necessity of combat endurance.

Offensive missile loadout is approximately 25% of the hull volume. Total pod #'s is the single largest determining factor in ship total tonnage. If we wanted to take this to the extreme, we could take an Invictus, eliminate the pod core and its core armor, leaving all of its defensive suites etc for a hull tonnage of a mere 6.0M ton if one eliminated pods entirely and loaded up from freighters before crossing the hyper limit. Likewise we could argue for the need for a 10M ton Invictus equivalent carrying around a tidy 2500 pods. Somewhere in between these two extremes reside, DN, SD. Note, that 10Mton is probably a bit low. Depends on how much one wishes to cut into acceleration/tonnage advantages.

But we have serious considerations regarding tactics:

Offensive combat endurance as a critical issue vanished with the addition of limpetted pods. Why? Limpetted pods reside inside the sidewalls where admirals do not run the risk of use them or lose them. We will not see a 2000 pod Medusa-B for instance. Why? Medusa-B was the response to the severely limited combat endurance of the Harrington-A who could shoot itself dry in a mere 15 minutes if one adds predeployment into the mix. 500pods/30/min ~= sub 17 minutes. Due to new pods, now has around 700 pods, or 24minutes whereas Invictus has around 1500 or nearly an hour of constant fire.

Due to nature of Apollo FTL, no true viable defense in proportion to the additional offensive capabilities, combined with the the overwhelming advantage of alpha strike due to pods with tractors or donkies, makes combat offensive endurance a tertiary consideration in ship design. Maybe even forth on the itemized deduction list. The only time offensive combat endurance becomes a truly critical issue is if there is a defensive capability on the horizon to match Apollo FTL + tractored pods or you as a designer have the hubris to believe that due to your current overwhelming combat advantage you can now fight 1 SDP against many and survive for the next 'x' years and this is considered cost effective. Trading short term necessities for long term hull platform effectiveness.

A very good reason for a much larger ship, is the introduction of the MK-23E/G etc and further missile laser head development in throughput. How to quantify this additional power throughput is a complete unknown. Does this offset the need for combat endurance determining hull size? Will we see much longer legged(Larger) counter missiles using pseudo FTL via the use of RD's? If pseudo CM FTL is introduced would a more viable option being FAR more numerous CM tubes? How many tubes can one actually place on a ship before the CM's in question actually kill each other off when launched? Invictus already has 84/Broadside firing every 8s on a hull length of only 1500m and we know missile wedges are 10,000m. With advancements in missile tech, one would assume the CM wedges will grow even larger. This would indicate the need for either CM pods, something DW has categorically said will not happen, or more numerous CM point sources to achieve higher CM throw weight to match the capability of offensive alpha strike.

Having the ability to throw defensive CM's for an hour makes little sense if one is only able to throw a couple hundred CM's at an incoming wave of 10,000.

So, 3 major considerations for optimal ship hull size

FTL + tractors = alpha strike = decreased hull size
Volume of pods required is a MAJOR driving factor for hull size.

MK-23E/G = more damage/hit = increased hull size
--> Maybe not as maybe one just needs twice as strong sidewalls as this is the MAIN armor.

CM alpha strike countermeasures = increased hull size, same hull size, or need for vastly more numerous hulls. The more numerous hulls has already happened via LAC's but with severely limited CM endurance. IS there an intrinsic need for a longer lasting CM endurance from more powerful hulls? If so, this would indicate a need for more numerous Capital ship hulls and would weigh heavily on the overall design criteria.

Anyways, lots of unknowns and never will be known, so throwing a blowhard number of 25% more effective with no framework is laughable.

NIT alert
Invictus with NO offense capability:

1500 pods tonnage approx =

1500*10*135ton + 1500*Structural + 1500*Tractor + 1500*power+launch

A rough structural weight for limited # of uses + drivers etc should be around 1/10th that of thrown weight.

10*135 = 1350tons/pod = Approx 150tons structural

Power(approx a missile), drivers, tractor(approx a missile), misc = another = 300-500tons

1pod = about 2000tons

1500*2000 = 3Mtons

3Mtons + 500,000tons for pod core armor gets an "Invictus" down to around 5M tons, not the 6 you stated.
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Baring a major breakthrough in CM capability(FTL or go home), an Invictus with 1500 pods is a waste of $$$. Said ship against its own weapons will be dead in a mere 10 minutes "burning" through a mere 20% of its ammo capacity. May as well build "Invictus's" at a mere 6Mtons instead of 8.9Mtons.

So, yea, currently, DN's rule. Currently there is no viable SD class.

Relax wrote:Baring a major breakthrough in CM capability(FTL or go home), an Invictus with 1500 pods is a waste of $$$. Said ship against its own weapons will be dead in a mere 10 minutes "burning" through a mere 20% of its ammo capacity. May as well build "Invictus's" at a mere 6Mtons instead of 8.9Mtons.

So, yea, currently, DN's rule. Currently there is no viable SD class.

Except Manticore is constantly researching better tech, especially methods to defeat their OWN tech (because sooner or later, someone else is gonna have it too).

The most recent thing we've heard (but not seen really used yet) are Lorelai platforms, which are drones that can pretend to be full up warships, including maneuvering independently of the ships they're protecting (something decoy drones haven't been able to do before and still maintain their disguise).

But really, that's beside the point. When you're hugely outnumbered (and Manticore is ALWAYS hugely outnumbered), extra ammo capacity means you can kill more ships before running dry. It also means they can go longer before needing to return to base or supply ship to reload, a not minor tactical and strategic consideration.

Oh, and it's also important if you get your missile manufacturing base blown out from under you again. While that's being rebuilt, what you're carrying in your holds is pretty much all you have.