SWM wrote:[quote="kzt"quote="SWM"There is no reason to believe that Mycroft is more expensive than a half-dozen LACS.[/quote
Hugely complex cutting-edge FTL based systems that require tens of thousands of tons of honorverse computers and can't be minimized to fit on a 2.5 million ton ship seems likely to be pretty damn expensive to me. Likely 10 percent or more of the cost of a SD(P) and weapon loadout.[/quote
And a LAC with cutting-edge fission generator, cutting-edge inertial compensator, cutting-edge beta-squared nodes, Viper missiles, and LERM missiles (in Skimper's plan) isn't expensive? I think you overestimate the cost of Mycroft--it is only a little bit more than Keyhole. It is not 10% of an SD(P) (which has 2 Keyholes!) plus weapon loadout.
As noted Mk23 pods cost much more than Mk16's loaded into a Nike and a Roland with Mk16's weapon load is much more expensive than the LERM in a wolfhound. Putting 12 LERM pods in a system is significantly cheaper than putting however many super expensive Mk25 pods in a system. As for the LAC. They are based on older designs of scaled down warships. No expensive Graser no expensive CLAC they have a fast freighter, of which there are many including 40 or so free ones recently were given to the SEM. Plus several hundred more that could be made or salvaged from recent warships that arrived as a gift to Manticore. Only need a freighter wonder if the SEM can get a hold of any of those, if only there were a bunch under employed right now.
Cost of LAC with modern tech but no fancy weapons outside the LERM is tiny compared to the sensor suite on Mycroft.
One would venture a dozen system pods cost more than half a dozen LAC. Let alone the FTL control systems on Mycroft the Apollo missiles themselves are hugely expensive.
One FF plus 24 Highlander-2 with the 576 LERM missiles. Add another 576 reloads on the FF and compared that to a Mycroft which is 10% of a SD(P) cost, plus system defense pods.
Mycroft has to be bigger than a KH2 platform as it needs crew quarters and the ability to pickup and deploy big system pods. Plus dock LAC unless you going to tell me Mycroft is my Tower system. Which is something which Manticore would never deploy and which had pods that needed to be restarted every month. Only now they don't need be restarted every month.
So funny, you can't have it both ways, so which is it?
The LAC and UMC (unarmed merchant CLAC) "Q" Fast Freighter. 24 modules for carrying LAC. 24 Additional modules, 6 for crew quarters, 6 for repairing LAC 6 for reloading LERM, 6 for consumables. 48 modular transport sections that take up less than half a freighter's cargo hold. Cheap, easy to make, even dirt side. And take no slips to make. LAC can be made Dirtside too if need be.
Could use the free Cataphract missiles too if you want. Only a couple million of them floating about. Makes a good export version. Meyers and the other newly "Acquired" systems would love a fully loaded UMC. Affordable system defense, plus they get a freighter for hauling cargo about.
Remember the Wolfhound can launch 10 missiles off bore plus stacking. The Highlander-2 can launch 24 LERM each. No stacking. Off bore. 24 Highlander-2 give an initial launch of more than all the Wolfhounds. Compared to a Roland barage, 24 Highlander-2 can launch, albeit less effective, 2.25 times the total number of missiles the Roland carries and 12 times as many missiles as a quad stacked off bore launch.
Compared to 24 Shrike, well they have even less range do even less damage and can only fire 1/6 the total missiles. Sure they have grasers but the Honorverse has moved out of energy range engagements.
One wonders how many MB cells could fit on a SD (aka Oburos... Infamous missile ship). Plus LAC Missile tubes. Add in a hundredViper tubes and you have a killer of smaller ships and all the MB cells for killing larger ships. Could have limited internal reloads of the cells. Hmm.