KEYHOLE REFIT

kzt wrote:

cthia wrote:Personally I appreciate this thread because I never understood the big deal when refitting for Keyhole, and even less for Keyhole II. They are simply platforms, so I thought, simply bolt them to the exterior of the hull, somewhere. And why did the upgrade come at the expense of pods, or anything else if the platforms were mounted to the hull?

Mine eyes have been opened.

But surely they would be upgraded before mothballs claimed them?

You could, you know, just tow them. Or pack them in a freighter and unload them before combat.

But it's hard to plan when everyone is always sprinting between the computer room and the vacuum tube repair shop.

That was an idea I was advocating for old SD conversions and fort conversions awhile back. Keyholes are only held in their side bays during travel and downtime - during alert periods or battle, they are tractored along outside the mothership's wedge (or moving under their own power). Let's face it - the bay is just a recharge base/travel rack for the Keyhole.

If the unit is strategically stationary, ie a fort or an SD used for system defense, the Keyhole can dock in an external structure, and be grabbed by the Fort/SD when required - as mentioned, a ship in orbit only needs to use the Keyhole when it is on alert or during a battle - the rest of the time it can just float in space or sit in a tender.

If the unit is strategically mobile, a "Keyhole Tender ship" can carry a squadron's Keyholes to the hyperlimit, eject them, then leave the system with the rest of the fleet train (Ammo ships which dropped extra pods, Fleet carriers which dropped their LACS, etc). The Refitted SDs just grab their dropped off Keyholes and tractor them, just like the ships with integrated Keyholes are doing. The tender can even carry some spares if the Keyholes are lost in battle - just in case.

Yes, the ships would still need refitted to use the Keyholes - com emitters will need to be added to each broadside, and the backside of a magazine or 2 would need to be scooped out for the extra computer room and Pod extension cord storage.

If I were in the Dynamic Duo's spot, I'd also look to see what parts of Keyhole I could fit in a Ferret LAC sized drone (~20Ktons). They could be carried by LAC carriers and dropped off with Heavy Cruisers and older BCs to give them limited capability with rolled wedges. That way they could be carried with anything that can carry a LAC, uses standard LAC parts, be overall inexpensive, and be quick to develop. I call it my "Keyhole Minus" concept.

Theemile wrote:That was an idea I was advocating for old SD conversions and fort conversions awhile back. Keyholes are only held in their side bays during travel and downtime - during alert periods or battle, they are tractored along outside the mothership's wedge (or moving under their own power). Let's face it - the bay is just a recharge base/travel rack for the Keyhole.

If the unit is strategically stationary, ie a fort or an SD used for system defense, the Keyhole can dock in an external structure, and be grabbed by the Fort/SD when required - as mentioned, a ship in orbit only needs to use the Keyhole when it is on alert or during a battle - the rest of the time it can just float in space or sit in a tender.

If the unit is strategically mobile, a "Keyhole Tender ship" can carry a squadron's Keyholes to the hyperlimit, eject them, then leave the system with the rest of the fleet train (Ammo ships which dropped extra pods, Fleet carriers which dropped their LACS, etc). The Refitted SDs just grab their dropped off Keyholes and tractor them, just like the ships with integrated Keyholes are doing. The tender can even carry some spares if the Keyholes are lost in battle - just in case.

Yes, the ships would still need refitted to use the Keyholes - com emitters will need to be added to each broadside, and the backside of a magazine or 2 would need to be scooped out for the extra computer room and Pod extension cord storage.

If I were in the Dynamic Duo's spot, I'd also look to see what parts of Keyhole I could fit in a Ferret LAC sized drone (~20Ktons). They could be carried by LAC carriers and dropped off with Heavy Cruisers and older BCs to give them limited capability with rolled wedges. That way they could be carried with anything that can carry a LAC, uses standard LAC parts, be overall inexpensive, and be quick to develop. I call it my "Keyhole Minus" concept.

I like it. But playing Devil's advocate even if you gave each cruiser just 1 of your 'Keyhole Minus' a CLAC accompanying a CruRon or BatRon is going to cut fairly deeply into its LAC numbers.

IIRC a CruRon is 4 divisions, each of 4 cruisers; so 16 ships. Deploying 16 LAC sized platforms means 13% of more of the CLAC's bays are carrying 'Keyhole Minus' rather than Shrikes, Ferrets, or Katanas.

IIRC a BatCruRon is smaller, just 2 divisions, each of 4 battlecruisers, so 'only' 8 ships. (Same as the size of the old BatRons before they got downsized to only 6 ships). 6.5% or more of the CLACs bays isn't as bad; though BCs normally have some cruisers around to help out; so if you provided 'Keyhole Minus' to all BCs and CAs in a raid that'd cut more deeply into your LAC stowage than just a cruiser raid.

That's a pretty steep price to pay, in the offensive and defensive capabilities of the CLAC, to give some keyhole capabilities to your CAs and BCs. OTOH the CLAC could use those itself which would up its survivability if it got caught in direct combat.


However making these something carried in, and deployed from, a module for the (Tardis like) FSV might be a better fit. Those are already designed explicitly to support BC raids, and they've got a fair bit of cubage -- despite being half the tonnage of a RMN/GSN CLAC. (And then you wouldn't be wasting space with the ammo access ports for the LACs; whatever armor exits between LAC bays, etc. You could pack the platforms in tightly to a dedicated quarter hull section module)

Jonathan_S wrote:
However making these something carried in, and deployed from, a module for the (Tardis like) FSV might be a better fit. Those are already designed explicitly to support BC raids, and they've got a fair bit of cubage -- despite being half the tonnage of a RMN/GSN CLAC. (And then you wouldn't be wasting space with the ammo access ports for the LACs; whatever armor exits between LAC bays, etc. You could pack the platforms in tightly to a dedicated quarter hull section module)

Realistically, given the range advantage, you could do this all on an auxiliary freighter. It carries modules in the bay along with the KH2s. It won't work when people start getting that kind of range to return fire, but until then?

It will be bad if you end up in energy range, but any Apollo TF that ends up in energy range has really messed up.

kzt wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:
However making these something carried in, and deployed from, a module for the (Tardis like) FSV might be a better fit. Those are already designed explicitly to support BC raids, and they've got a fair bit of cubage -- despite being half the tonnage of a RMN/GSN CLAC. (And then you wouldn't be wasting space with the ammo access ports for the LACs; whatever armor exits between LAC bays, etc. You could pack the platforms in tightly to a dedicated quarter hull section module)

Realistically, given the range advantage, you could do this all on an auxiliary freighter. It carries modules in the bay along with the KH2s. It won't work when people start getting that kind of range to return fire, but until then?

It will be bad if you end up in energy range, but any Apollo TF that ends up in energy range has really messed up.

You could. There are a few other possible disadvantages to that; at least if you use a bone stock freighter.

Most freighters don't mount military drives, compensators, or hyperdrives. That means a cruiser or battlecruiser force traveling in company with one is slower strategically (takes longer between star systems) and that lack of acceleration may make it harder to achieve rendezvous to hand back the Keyholes -- especially if retreating from a superior enemy.
Though unless in a grav wave the cruisers could presumably hyper out with them still under tow and hand them back later. (And in extremis you can always scuttle the platforms just before you hyper out. Expensive; but still better than having lost more ships due to not having them)

Even the 'fast' JNMTC freighters Honor was escorting in IEH still had civilian wedges, compensators (and IIRC particle shielding) -- and while they had uprated hyper generators they were still restricted to a band lower than proper warships (Eta vs Theta).

Though there's nothing except cost (and concern about someone getting a look at the tech) stopping you from building a freighter, or other unarmed support/supply ship, with a full military propulsion suite. And if you did it'd be about as fast strategically and operationally as an FSV (depending on its tonnage relative to one).

Jonathan_S wrote:

Theemile wrote:That was an idea I was advocating for old SD conversions and fort conversions awhile back. Keyholes are only held in their side bays during travel and downtime - during alert periods or battle, they are tractored along outside the mothership's wedge (or moving under their own power). Let's face it - the bay is just a recharge base/travel rack for the Keyhole.

If the unit is strategically stationary, ie a fort or an SD used for system defense, the Keyhole can dock in an external structure, and be grabbed by the Fort/SD when required - as mentioned, a ship in orbit only needs to use the Keyhole when it is on alert or during a battle - the rest of the time it can just float in space or sit in a tender.

If the unit is strategically mobile, a "Keyhole Tender ship" can carry a squadron's Keyholes to the hyperlimit, eject them, then leave the system with the rest of the fleet train (Ammo ships which dropped extra pods, Fleet carriers which dropped their LACS, etc). The Refitted SDs just grab their dropped off Keyholes and tractor them, just like the ships with integrated Keyholes are doing. The tender can even carry some spares if the Keyholes are lost in battle - just in case.

Yes, the ships would still need refitted to use the Keyholes - com emitters will need to be added to each broadside, and the backside of a magazine or 2 would need to be scooped out for the extra computer room and Pod extension cord storage.

If I were in the Dynamic Duo's spot, I'd also look to see what parts of Keyhole I could fit in a Ferret LAC sized drone (~20Ktons). They could be carried by LAC carriers and dropped off with Heavy Cruisers and older BCs to give them limited capability with rolled wedges. That way they could be carried with anything that can carry a LAC, uses standard LAC parts, be overall inexpensive, and be quick to develop. I call it my "Keyhole Minus" concept.

I like it. But playing Devil's advocate even if you gave each cruiser just 1 of your 'Keyhole Minus' a CLAC accompanying a CruRon or BatRon is going to cut fairly deeply into its LAC numbers.

IIRC a CruRon is 4 divisions, each of 4 cruisers; so 16 ships. Deploying 16 LAC sized platforms means 13% of more of the CLAC's bays are carrying 'Keyhole Minus' rather than Shrikes, Ferrets, or Katanas.

IIRC a BatCruRon is smaller, just 2 divisions, each of 4 battlecruisers, so 'only' 8 ships. (Same as the size of the old BatRons before they got downsized to only 6 ships). 6.5% or more of the CLACs bays isn't as bad; though BCs normally have some cruisers around to help out; so if you provided 'Keyhole Minus' to all BCs and CAs in a raid that'd cut more deeply into your LAC stowage than just a cruiser raid.

That's a pretty steep price to pay, in the offensive and defensive capabilities of the CLAC, to give some keyhole capabilities to your CAs and BCs. OTOH the CLAC could use those itself which would up its survivability if it got caught in direct combat.


However making these something carried in, and deployed from, a module for the (Tardis like) FSV might be a better fit. Those are already designed explicitly to support BC raids, and they've got a fair bit of cubage -- despite being half the tonnage of a RMN/GSN CLAC. (And then you wouldn't be wasting space with the ammo access ports for the LACs; whatever armor exits between LAC bays, etc. You could pack the platforms in tightly to a dedicated quarter hull section module)

Notice I didn't sat CLAC? I said LAC carrier. Any ship with a LAC bay would do, and FSV, CLAC, or Merchie conversion. by building it on the standard frame, you have standard alternatives to move them.

Theemile wrote:Notice I didn't sat CLAC? I said LAC carrier. Any ship with a LAC bay would do, and FSV, CLAC, or Merchie conversion. by building it on the standard frame, you have standard alternatives to move them.

Ah - I misunderstood because CLAC is just shorthand for their official name of LAC carrier; just like BC is shorthand for battlecruiser (e.g. "Hydra-class LAC carrier (Flight II)", "Minotaur-class LAC carrier", or "Covington-class LAC carrier"). That's why the section names in House of Steel are "BATTLECRUISERS (BC)", or "LAC CARRIERS (CLAC)".


So I didn't realize you meant it generically as in, any ship equipped to carry some LACs; rather than using it as the proper full name for CLACs.

Since SDP go nowhere without CLAC's, one would think that if KH2 is ~120,000t it would make more sense to instead turn that into 6 20,000t "LAC" sized objects.

Erm, way back in HotQ, BC's were carrying multiple LAC's via tractors so... with a little engineering, it seems a far preferable solution would be to tractor the KH2's behind the SDP with the CLAC's being the maintenance solution for the KH2 modules which just "miraculously" happen to mate up to a LAC rack in a CLAC for service.

This has a side benefit in that 120,000t object is not OBVIOUS it is a KH2 screaming into the solar wind, "KILL ME FIRST!!!" instead of a pretending to be a LAC.

Oh yea, side benefit, all the assembly lines making LAC's can now make KH2 and more than likely would have identical propulsion systems/structure.

Redundancy Win, "Stealth" Win, Manufacturing Win

Oh yea, and BC's can also carry them as well so no different assembly lines. And if you just happen to have a FSV along carrying a couple of them for an entire squadron of CA's at say... oh I don't know, a JUNCTION or some such.... How about another couple of WIN's to add to the list above.

Oh yea and <<COUGH>> <<COUGH>> we also now get a drone LAC for missile defense Say it ain't so... Or a forward deployed drone FTL tranceiver for CM's... <<Cough>> <<cough>>

Relax wrote:Since SDP go nowhere without CLAC's, one would think that if KH2 is ~120,000t it would make more sense to instead turn that into 6 20,000t "LAC" sized objects.

Just how do you propose to divide it by 6 in volume/mass and still make it useful?

The post by RFC above makes it clear that it the size is not because they could make it big. It was because it needed to be that big. Giving it 1/6th the volume means each one could carry less than 1/10th the number of CMs. It's also a matter of how much computing power can be condensed: if you split it into 6, then you must add interconnections between them and with the mothership, which means that the overall computing is also less than what it had before. The Keyholes are also self-powered, not using beamed power, so the energy density for a platform 1/6th the size is could be smaller too.

There's also added complexity to the ship too, because it must have the necessary transceivers to have the high-speed communication with those platforms.

Erm, way back in HotQ, BC's were carrying multiple LAC's via tractors so... with a little engineering, it seems a far preferable solution would be to tractor the KH2's behind the SDP with the CLAC's being the maintenance solution for the KH2 modules which just "miraculously" happen to mate up to a LAC rack in a CLAC for service.

Tractoring something outside your compensator field means it affects your overall acceleration. Considering the SDs already occupy all the internal volume inside the compensator volume, with all the limpeted external pods, you'll have to remove something to tractor those platforms the way you're describing.

In any case, I think you've described how they're carried right now. They're attached to the hull during high-acceleration manoeuvres, tractored out when in defensive formation. So, how would your proposal differ?

Keyholes are tranceivers bud. Computers? No. Doesn't matter what DW said in his post. Same reason he has the ECM done by mama ship and sent to Lorelie or other platforms. CM's? None. PDLC, yes. They have multitude of FTL "channels"... so divide them up; hurts nothing. Same as used on RD's/Hermes buoy. Why one can use RD's/Hermes as "poor mans" Keyhole as shown in books.

Uh, why would they need to talk to each other? Mama ship tells them what to say and where to go. And even if they did, why the Hell would this be a problem?

If you can't figure out how to divide total information to be sent by 6... Uh sorry, shall we go back to preschool to learn how to do this?

Lets see, acceleration does not matter other than in N space and there said Keyholes are being Used...

Oh yea, and DW completely screwed the pooch in his justification saying size was needed for the telemetry links.... Uh, 6 objects have vastly more surface area than 1 object. Therefore have the ability to have vastly MORE/LARGER antennas than the singular object.

And lets just say your structure/power/propulsion take up more volume... SO? Built a 7th. Still cheaper and more redundant.

Relax wrote:Keyholes are tranceivers bud. Computers? No. Doesn't matter what DW said in his post. Same reason he has the ECM done by mama ship and sent to Lorelie or other platforms. CM's? None. PDLC, yes. They have multitude of FTL "channels"... so divide them up; hurts nothing. Same as used on RD's/Hermes buoy. Why one can use RD's/Hermes as "poor mans" Keyhole as shown in books.

Uh, why would they need to talk to each other? Mama ship tells them what to say and where to go. And even if they did, why the Hell would this be a problem?

If you can't figure out how to divide total information to be sent by 6... Uh sorry, shall we go back to preschool to learn how to do this?

Lets see, acceleration does not matter other than in N space and there said Keyholes are being Used...

Oh yea, and DW completely screwed the pooch in his justification saying size was needed for the telemetry links.... Uh, 6 objects have vastly more surface area than 1 object. Therefore have the ability to have vastly MORE/LARGER antennas than the singular object.

And lets just say your structure/power/propulsion take up more volume... SO? Built a 7th. Still cheaper and more redundant.

The only problem is if you need 1 honking big antenna/item.

But, we've already been told that the original Keyhole (with ton o fire control links) was a 20Kton drone, it just grew to fit in everyone's grocery list of what they wanted it to do.

Keyhole II is a whole other beast and might require the big honking antenna, So I don't know about breaking that into 6 parts. maybe / maybe not.

But Keyhole 1 could be as long as you accept certain limitations - it might not be able to have 128 missile control links, it might not be able to have a bazillion cm links, or built in PDLC s.

But we know a Ferret/Shrike could control 20 missiles and at least as many CMs, and had a dozen DD/CL pdlcs. Scoop out the people spaces, the cm launchers, the weapons and magazines, and then start to add features back in and see what you can get.