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Tech Levels at the start of next series

This fascinating series is a combination of historical seafaring, swashbuckling adventure, and high technological science-fiction. Join us in a discussion!
Re: Tech Levels at the start of next series
Post by Keith_w   » Thu Aug 24, 2017 8:45 am

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mhicks wrote:The tech level of Safehold will always be limited until the platform is brought down. And that got me thinking. OWL is a only a small computer in comparison to what Langhorn had at his disposal. IIRC OWL is a targeting computer with a huge info dump to hold all the info Shan-Wei was able to sneak off the ships. I was under the impression that OWL was not up to the task to take on the GBABA without expanding to a much larger computer. This being said I think it might be important to have the bombardment platform saved and the systems used to update and expand OWL's potential vs. shoot it from the sky and blow it up. I see the next arch series being on how to get the orbital platform to stand down and let them back in and dismantle it and use it to rebuild the fleet for battle. It is good to have plans and blueprints, it is another thing to have a fully functional model to go off of.

The mention of steampunk did get me excited and worried all at the same time. It would be cool but I feel it would distract from the goal of getting Humans back into space and taking back Earth, even total destruction of the Gbaba. :x (I want them DEAD! :twisted: they pissed me off taking my home world [yes I know it is just a story but it still made me very mad]). to much focus on the steam punk and the details going into it would distract from the story IMHO.

I see a stalling of inventions and progression without electricity and radios and internal combustion engines. Navigating the stars without the knowledge and understanding of magnetic fields and ions and radiation won't get them very far.


I don't believe that taking on the entire Gbaba navy with only OWL has been suggested, but rather that it be the starting point for an entirely new safeholdian technological boom which will allow, when Safehold has sufficient resources, both from its own location and from its daughter colonies, including pre-hidden ones, the death of the Gbaba.
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Re: Tech Levels at the start of next series
Post by Randomiser   » Thu Aug 24, 2017 9:01 am

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NO the Gbabba are NOT coming. There was a thread long ago about it and Himself was very firm that the Gbabba have a 'home' space region that they only leave in pursuit of other races they have become aware of by an encroachment on the home region. Too bad for anyone else they stumble across during the pursuit, of course. They eliminate the interlopers' race and patrol enough to satisfy themselves they have caught all outposts, but then they go home. You remember, that the TF found evidence of the Gbabba's depredations long before they ever attracted their attention.

Hence the planned 500 year lo-tech period. By that time it was calculated, with a good safety margin, I'm sure, that the Gbabba would have gone away so reverting to a TF industrial society would be safe from detection, in the region of Safehold, at least. The danger is that Humanity will return to interstellar travel and, some long time later, unwittingly encroach on Gbabba space again. Langhorne thought that could be prevented indefinitely. The original planners and Shan-Wei knew it couldn't so they wanted their descendants to be forearmed. Literally that is. Let's be honest there is also the feeling that humans should go get the Gbabba as soon as they are able and do some vermin extermination.

Unfortunately the textev for all this is such a while ago that I can't can't remember where it is to point you at it.
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Re: Tech Levels at the start of next series
Post by Randomiser   » Thu Aug 24, 2017 9:11 am

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Keith_w wrote:I don't believe that taking on the entire Gbaba navy with only OWL has been suggested, but rather that it be the starting point for an entirely new safeholdian technological boom which will allow, when Safehold has sufficient resources, both from its own location and from its daughter colonies, including pre-hidden ones, the death of the Gbaba.


Quite right Keith. In the interim though, 20 years or so ought to be plenty of time to build some more and better computers than OWL and put them in their own hardened independent locations, even if OWL has to fabricate some mining bots first to get the materials. OWL is way too much a single critical point of failure at the moment to risk taking on the OBS or the Thing under the Temple before building some backups.

Oh and next thing on the list after the first backup , is fabbing capacity for it - ideally more and bigger than OWL has. (You want to have just one shuttle forever???)

BTW, mhicks, When we are talking about nano-fabricating molecular circuitry, I think having blueprints and and instructions is way better that having a working model to peer at. If they can capture the OBS risk-free, good luck to them. Otherwise blow it out of space, without a second thought.
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Re: Tech Levels at the start of next series
Post by n7axw   » Sat Aug 26, 2017 9:31 pm

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I think it would be fun to see some fixed wing aircraft along with zeps. Prior to breaking the proscriptions possibilities would be steam powered or diesel powered. After prescriptions no longer apply, the possibilities broaden immensely, presuming the OBS is dealt with. Wouldn't a Safeholden Orville and Wilber Wright be fun?

Don

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When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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Re: Tech Levels at the start of next series
Post by Keith_w   » Sun Aug 27, 2017 9:16 am

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n7axw wrote:I think it would be fun to see some fixed wing aircraft along with zeps. Prior to breaking the proscriptions possibilities would be steam powered or diesel powered. After prescriptions no longer apply, the possibilities broaden immensely, presuming the OBS is dealt with. Wouldn't a Safeholden Orville and Wilber Wright be fun?

Don

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Ah, but think of all those poor long distance wyvern trainers whose wyverns would no longer be required for airmail! Talk about killing the golden wyvern!
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A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
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Re: Tech Levels at the start of next series
Post by n7axw   » Sun Aug 27, 2017 2:54 pm

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Keith_w wrote:
n7axw wrote:I think it would be fun to see some fixed wing aircraft along with zeps. Prior to breaking the proscriptions possibilities would be steam powered or diesel powered. After prescriptions no longer apply, the possibilities broaden immensely, presuming the OBS is dealt with. Wouldn't a Safeholden Orville and Wilber Wright be fun?

Don

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Ah, but think of all those poor long distance wyvern trainers whose wyverns would no longer be required for airmail! Talk about killing the golden wyvern!


Sort of like the poor guys who made a living shoeing horses after the advent of the automobile... :lol:

Don

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When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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Re: Tech Levels at the start of next series
Post by Jonathan_S   » Tue Sep 05, 2017 3:34 pm

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Erls wrote:
Flight is known - but via Zeppelin:
1- Without the internal combustion engine, Charis (and Safehold) develop highly advanced Zeppelins. Capable of multi-thousand mile flights at high speeds (when compared to ships), they are used for military and high-income transit. Thus, with stops along the way you can go from Tellesburg to Cherayth in less than 2-five days.
2- Zeppelins are being used as pseudo-bombers, with a minimal capability (basically, .50 cal machine gun) of anti-air combat. They can carry, however, a couple thousand tons of bombs and drop them far behind enemy lines.
3- This has also led to an early version of the aircraft carrier (in final production during the first books) which is designed around carrying a couple dozen armed Zeppelins to engage fleets far out of sight.

phillies wrote:Readers who have seen an airship hangar -- a few of them remain -- will realize that a CV that can carry a couple dozen zeppelins would be enormous. As a general statement, rigid airships are not very practical.
I had that same immediate through [G].

Without internal combustion engines I can't see zepplins having the 2,000 - 3,000 mile ranges that the historic ones did. And their, presumably, steam propulsion would cut heavily into their cargo or bomb capacity.

Oh, and an aircraft carrier capable of carrying "a couple dozen armed zepplins" would be an impressive feat.

An early WWI M-class Zepplin was 163.37 m (536 ft) long and 18.7 m (61 ft 4 in) across.

With extreme squeezing you could just barely tie 6 of them down on the immense deck of the 100,000 ton supercarrier USS Nimitz length 332.8 m (1,092 ft), width 76.8 m( 252 ft) (and you'd need heavily braced outriggers to tie down to since only the widest part of the ship, at the forward part of the angled deck, is that wide. And that'd ignore that you'd probably break the Zepplins backs if they were lashed to the ship in rough weather.


Now a carrier capable of carrying and deploying more reasonable numbers of smaller, and flexible, blimps is a possibility. There would be significant weather restrictions on takeoff and landing, but without a rigid frame you can pump out their helium and roll up the inflatable balloon envelope. With only the deflated bag and the gondola to strike below deck it becomes practical to store a reasonable number in a hanger deck of some sort. Your limiting factor for numbers carried probably isn't the number that can fit in a hanger deck, but the volume of helium you could safely store to reinflate them. Cryogenic storage is beyond Safehold's tech, but you can only store some much helium at the pressures their metallurgy can manage for large tanks...
(And of course blimps tend to be much smaller, lower payload, and shorter ranged that rigid Zeppelins. But at least you could carry and deploy them (one or two at a time) from a large ship in calm weather.

PeterZ wrote:Cruisers the size of a King Haarald. Smaller cruisers like the cities don't have the range that merchants will likely develop with the victory ships. So KHs are the heavy cruisers and the battle wagons will be in the 20k -30k ton range with 1 or 2 pushing that limit higher.

Slightly smaller ships can get good range as well. Those would be the light cruisers or destroyers. I suspect there is a size minimum for naval ships using coal that have the necessary range to match merchies. Once they get oil burners, smaller destroyers with the requisite range get more viable.

Until the RCN gets the naval bases spread all over Safehold, they simply have to design long ranges into their naval ships.

Historically the Royal Navy didn't deploy steam cruisers with the same range as merchant ships -- it would have made them too large and expensive to afford the necessary numbers. Instead they set up their wide network of naval bases and coaling stations - so there were cruisers patrolling sea lanes traveled by merchants, but not attempting to escort any given merchantman.

It's easier (and cheaper) to arrange and supply coaling / fuel bases than it is to design and build all your cruisers for several thousand miles unrefueled range. I'm sure they can put a naval station in Sidemark - and they've got the little islands they've captured and used during the war in the Gulf of Dolhar; plus of course basing in their home islands and the conquered island nations. You don't need too many more to cover the major trade routes with shorter ranged cruisers.
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Re: Tech Levels at the start of next series
Post by PeterZ   » Tue Sep 05, 2017 9:00 pm

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I can see building naval bases in the Gulf of Dohlar from Dragon Island all the way up north near Dairnyth, in the Sea of Harchong (Claw Island and on one or two more islands Eastward) and on Greentree Island, Windbreak Island and Sampson's Land along the South Howard coast. Build serious naval bases, not just refueling stations.

Even with those bases, I would focus on the KH VIIs as the battle/heavy cruiser size ship. Sure build light cruisers too with shorter legs. I would still build the majority of the RCN with the sort of range the Haraalds have. It's just another reminder that in order to compete, all nations have to innovate and keep innovating.
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Re: Tech Levels at the start of next series
Post by Weird Harold   » Tue Sep 05, 2017 9:16 pm

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PeterZ wrote:...I would still build the majority of the RCN with the sort of range the Haraalds have. ...


As long as they are coal fired, to get the range of a KH, you'll need the size of the KHs. That's sinking a LOT of resources into each hull that could be used to build several hulls with shorter legs.

Charis either needs to convert to a more space efficient fuel (oil or gas) or build smaller ships to station at dispersed coaling bases. They can still pack smaller ships with technological advances for "shock and awe" missions.
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Re: Tech Levels at the start of next series
Post by PeterZ   » Tue Sep 05, 2017 10:02 pm

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Not just the Haraalds. Build a few super dreadnoughts for showing the flag and waving the big stick. I can see using smaller hulls with oil fired boilers as test beds for turbines. Trying to design ships that have that Safehold spanning range is an unspoken gauntlet laid before the feet of any competing nation. That and derigibles ought to be challenge enough for the interim period between story arcs.
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