An ENTDECKER-class carrier from Perry Rhodan

[Luzifer's right hand]

I always enjoy reading detail about technology used in SF-verses I do not know much about, especially the WH40k stuff.
I hope there are some people here which feel the same and I wanted to post something about my favorite universe.
A ship from the German Perry Rhodan series, I hope I translated the stuff well enough. Im not good at calcs and thus post only official stuff from the issues.

A carrier of the ENTDECKER(discoverer)-class is a roughly spherical ship with a diameter of 1800 m and a mass of 5*10^12 kg.
A offical cross-section and a A fanmade picture based on the cross-section.

Crew complement:
The standard crew is made up of a core crew of 500, 300 planetfall troops and 3,200 persons for the boats. The robot complement consists of 2,500 multipurpose robots and 4,000 battle-robots.
There is also additional living space for 12,000 civilians or 23,000 military personnel.

Offensive Systems:
Weapons system are self supporting with their own reactors and in general do not need an external power source.

Transform-cannons are the main armament of most LFT ships, they teleport warheads instantly into the target, unless they are stopped by shields which prevent such things. They can emerge inside objects and ignore real-space obstacles, for example a ship can fire at another ship even if a planet is between them. Standard point-plank range for ships mounted versions is 15 Million kilometers, at and below point-blank range the warheads generally emerge directly where you want them, inside a 100 m ship for example, beyond point-blank range accuracy degrades rapidly.
A ENTDECKER-class ship has 8 super-heavy transform-cannons each with a maximum yield of 4 TT an 20 heavy transform-cannons with a maximum yield of 2 TT. Both types can of course teleport warheads with lower yields.
The maximum rate of fire is for one cannon is 10 shots per second.
Apart from fusion warheads there are also antimatter bombs(mostly used for tactical calibers), desintegrator-bombs which as they name suggests disintegrate matter via a technoabble effect, arkonbomb chain-reaction planetkillers, gravity bombs which throw targets which are not properly shielded into hyperspace, even whole planets(multiple warheads) and star-systems(you need a few 10k for that however). The most effective warhead in ship to ship battle is yet another kind of warhead, so called gravitraf-bombs store hyperspace-energy and release it when they detonate, the main effect is anti-shield but there is also a secondary realspace effect which can be quantified with TNT equivalent(up to 4 TT ).
A number of additional anti-shield upgrades like the so called FpF device have been added of the millennia.
A cross-section of such a cannon

The ship also has 60 MVH"("M"ulti-"V"ariable-"H"yperweaponsystem)-cannons.
This weapon system has different settings.
The KNK-mode: A thermobeam(infrared laser) or a interval-beam is fired through a FTL-tube with shield-weakening/penetrating properties.
This mode has range of 15 million kilometers.
Paralysis-beam: A non-lethal weapon system with a short range(about 500 km).
Disintegrator: A lightspeed weapon system which disintegrates matter. Such weapons can punch 100 km+ deep holes into planetary surfaces for example.

There are also Torpedos, one version is 20 meters long with a diameter of 3 meters. The maximum range of 100 lightyears. They can carry all warheads-types the transform-cannons can fire but 10 TT gravitraf-bombs are the most common.
ENTDECKER-class ships also carry mines, ECM-drones and other stuff but they never player an important role in the issues and are only mentioned from time to time.

Defensive Systems:
Armor: A 5 m thick composite material hull with a honeycomb structure. The main material is Ynkonit with a melting point of 100.000 K and a density of 33,500 kg/m³. The Armor is also strengthened by structural integrity fields to protect it against attacks which disintegrate matter.

There are many differnt shields-levels and layers. The outer shield layer of a ENTDECKER-class ships is about 10 km from the hull. Unlike for many other systems there are not many numbers for shields. There are numbers in two cross-sections(which are published in the issues), the lowest of those is 9,1*10^29W/m².

Backup and non-battle shield types:
Baselevel: So called "Semi-Manifestation" which removes the ship partially from realspace and fucks with realspace-effects. Is responsible for stuff like inertial dampening, artificial gravity and anti-gravity.
Schildlevel Ia: "Bounce"-shield, ionises "air" when the ship travels in an atmosphere and than repels the ionised gas. Such a shield is spherical and emits red to green colored light when it's heavily used
Schildlevel Ib: "conventional" shield typ b. Reflects or absorbs stuff like matter and normal radiation . A violet spherical shield.
Schildniveau Ic: "conventional" shield" type b. Repels matter. A blue-turquoise spherical shield with silver streaks when heavily used.

Main shield types:
Schildlevel II: High-energ-overload shield. A spherical shield type in 5-layers(between the shield layers of the next level). Shunts energy and matter into the so called linearspace. Green with black rifts when something is shunted away. Protects against hyperspace based attacks.
Schildlevel III: Paratron. A spherical shield type in 6-layers. Shunts energy and matter into hyperspace. Blue to red in color with black rifts when something is shunted away.

Schildlevel IV: Stealth fields. Virtual-imager a device which displaces 90% of the emissions of the ship to multiple points in space, the version used by the Entdecker class can also fake to emissions of other ships.

Power generation:
Hypertrop-Hypernergy-tabs which charge gravitraf-accumulators(devices which store energy massless) ensure that a ENTDECKER-class ship has access to 1*10^19 W when it goes into battle. Normally it's systems need much less power. There are back-up NUGAs reactors(matter-energy conversion) fusion reactors on board of a ENTDECKER.

STL/FTL-drives:
The main drive is the so called "Metagrav" which is used for both STL and FTL travel. In STL mode the ship is pulled by an artificial gravity source called the Hamiller-point can accelerate with up to 880 km/s2.
In FTL mode the Hamiller-Punkt is collapsed into a short lived singularity which pulls the ship into hyperspace and the so called Grigoroff-field prevents that the ship is destroyed. An ENTDECKER can reach up to 85 million times the speed of light, cruising speed for long voyages is 75 million times the speed of light with a range of 10 million lightyears. After 10 million lightyears the hypernergy-tabs need to recharge the gravitraf-accumulators.
The back-up STL drive, the impulse-drive a (cheating)reaction drive also allows 880 km/s2. The backup FTL-jump drive allows jumps up to 3,000 lightyears and has a maximum range of 15,000 lightyears.

Boats:
Standard boat loadout:

30*CERES-class light cruiser A pic
Spherical ship with a diameter of 100 meters
Crew: 50
STL:Metagrav 1230km/s²
FTL: Metagrav 78 million c
Weapons: 14 transform-cannons (14*3 TT, 15 million km point-blank range), 2 MVH-cannons (Thermo-beamer, Disintegrator, Paralysis-beamer), 4 Torpedo-launchers. 16 Disintegrator.
Shields: paratronshield(5 layers), high-energy-overload-shield(5 layers), "conventional" shields(number of layers unknown), Virtual-imager.

30*VESTA-class "MERZ" light cruiser A pic
Spherical ships with a diameter of 100 meters and a module slot
Crew: 50
STL:Metagrav 540-930 km/s² (depends on the module used.)
FTL: Metagrav 75 million c
Weapons: 14 transform-cannons (14*3 TT, 15 million km point-blank range). 16 Disintegrators.
Shields: paratronshield(5 layers), high-energy-overload-shield(5 layers), "conventional" shields(number of layers unknown), Virtual-imager.
These ships can carry 8 minor-discs(the small vehicle right next to the ship on the picture) and two flying tanks.
There are many module-types, laboratory-modules, exploration-modules, freight-modules...and so on. Battle modules for example carry 4 TT transform-cannon triplets(7 transform-cannons according to an older source). Grigoroff-Moduls carry a short ranged FTL drive which can reach 200 million times the speed of light, max. 5*30,000 lightyears.

100*MICRO-JET
Disk shaped ships(UFO style) with a diameter of 15 meters.
Crew: 2-5
STL: Metagrav 1100 km/s²
FTL: Metagrav 50 million c with 15,000 lightyears range.
Weapons: 2 MVH-cannons (Thermo-beamer, Disintegrator, Paralysis-beamer)
Shields: Paratronshield(3 layers), High-energy-overload-shield(1 layer), "conventional" shields.

200*SHIFT combat-glider SHOGUN-class
pic
12 meters long, max mass: 36,096 kg.
Crew: 2-10
Max. Fighting speed in an atmosphere 6400 km/h, travel speed in space 144000 km/s.
Weapons: 1 MVH-cannon (Thermo-beamer, Disintegrator) with Transform-cannon(unknown max. yield a similar had 5 MT however), 4 missile launchers with 10 missiles each.
Shields: Paratronshield(1 layer), High-energy-overload-shield(1 layer), "conventional" shields. Stealth systems. Virtual-imager.

The Hangars are normally only closed by forcefields, however it's also possible to close them with projected matter(think ST holograms that do not vanish when the power fails) which can last 5 years without external power. it takes only a short amount of time to turn multiple hangers for small fighters into one hanger for a 200 m ship(the biggest ship an Entdecker can carry) because the all walls and floors an the hangars are made out of the same projected matter.

[Batman]

I thought the H in MVH stood for Hochenergie (High Energy. D'oh)?

[Luzifer's right hand]

I thought the H in MVH stood for Hochenergie (High Energy. D'oh)?

That too, both "Multi-Variables-Hyperwaffensystem" and "Multivariables Hochenergie Geschütz" have been used in the issues.

[Batman]

Ah. Thanks.

[Vendetta]

What's the limiting factor on Transform Cannon yeild?

If they're shifting physical warheads, one would expect it to be something like mass or volume. Can they be used to transport things other than warheads?

[Raesene]

What's the limiting factor on Transform Cannon yeild?

If they're shifting physical warheads, one would expect it to be something like mass or volume. Can they be used to transport things other than warheads?

I'm sure living creatures do not survive the process, not sure about other nonliving materials.

[Jawawithagun]

What's the limiting factor on Transform Cannon yeild?

If they're shifting physical warheads, one would expect it to be something like mass or volume. Can they be used to transport things other than warheads?

I'm sure living creatures do not survive the process, not sure about other nonliving materials.

They're more or less based on failed attempts at recreating the Fiktivtransmitter. They're able to dematerialise and transfer matter but they fail at reconstituting it into its original form. Or in other words, they get all the stuff into about the right place they fail at reassembling the stuff correctly. IIRC

[Luzifer's right hand]

In a few issues it is mentioned that transform-cannons can only teleport standardized warheads with known properties, you can't even teleport warheads designed for a different kind of transform-cannon.
It took more than thousand years of research to develop transform-cannons which can teleport exotic warheads.
Also at least the more normal warheads are ignited by the rematerialization-shock, you can't put a bomb intact inside a hostile ship and ask them to surrender.

It was mentioned a few times that you can't teleport sentient beings with them. However Atlan was actually teleported with such a weapon in his spin-off series though...

[Raesene]

They're more or less based on failed attempts at recreating the Fiktivtransmitter.

IIRC, they were acquired from the Posbis (robots with biological components) while the Fiktivtransmitter was a gift from the super-intelligence (ghost-being) ES. The latter could also transport beings without problems.

[Enigma]

What is this ship's equal in the ST\SW universes?

[Gullible Jones]

In SW? Death Star, probably.

In ST? I really don't know. Q might count, but he isn't a ship.

Seriously, this is some crazy stuff.

[Ford Prefect]

In SW? Death Star, probably.

In ST? I really don't know. Q might count, but he isn't a ship.

Seriously, this is some crazy stuff.

The Entdecker is pretty cool, but this is nothing in comparison to some of the other stuff that floats around in the universe of Perry Rhodan. I mean, the Entdecker only has low teraton munitions.

[Batman]

In SW? Death Star, probably.

You gotta be fucking kidding me. Have you actually bothered to run the numbers?
An ISD easily outguns the ENTDECKER several times over (at least where raw quantifiable firepower is concerned).

In ST? I really don't know. Q might count, but he isn't a ship.
Seriously, this is some crazy stuff.

No it's not. It in fact pales compared to Star Wars, the Lenseverse, or the Culture.

[Ford Prefect]

No it's not. It in fact pales compared to Star Wars, the Lenseverse, or the Culture.

It's not exactly the best example of Perry Rhodan nuttery, no. That glactic scale swarm thing, though ...

[Batman]

No it's not. It in fact pales compared to Star Wars, the Lenseverse, or the Culture.

It's not exactly the best example of Perry Rhodan nuttery, no. That glactic scale swarm thing, though ...

I was talking about Gullible Jones comparing the ENTDECKER to the Death Star when a measly ISD outguns the ENTDECKER six ways from sunday.
And if you think the Swarm is bad you don't know Perry Rhodan.

[Gullible Jones]

Batman:Sorry, I was thinking of the planet-killer warheads. You do have a point, those are not indicative of raw firepower, so it would only be comparable to the Death Star in that it is able to destroy planets (or maybe not even that, a "planetkiller" might just wipe out all surface life). In terms of firepower against enemy ships it wouldn't come close.

(Mind chilling out a little, meanwhile? Fuck, I'll have to be careful about accidentally starting vs. threads here.)

I thought ISDs for the most part had medium gigaton range weapons, not low teraton? Argh, apparently I have forgotten the numbers, I'll see if I can find them again.

Let's see... the Entdecker has 8 4 TT (max yield) weapons and 20 2 TT ones, firing up to 10 rounds/sec., so that's a maximum of 720 TT/sec. If the cannons are studded around the surface of the ship and can only teleport something linearly in the direction they're pointing (I'll assume such is the case, why else would they be called cannons?), then that will be severely limited in combat against a single ship.

Whereas an ISD... Umm... According to sd.net's turbolaser pages, the lower limit for turbolasers is about a a gigaton, and the blueprint specifications say there are 200 of them... No wait, 220 if I'm reading that right - 162 heavy, 26 light, and 32 60mm (point defense?) cannons. This blueprint has problems though, from what I'm reading, the final design was revised...* ugh. The hell with it, I'll say there are 200 turbolasers averaging 1.9 GT/sec. as indicated on the turbolaser page...So that's 380 GT/sec. for the whole ship.

Hmm, that does sound a little low, I'd expect at least a few teratons/sec. I don't see how it could be less than an order of magnitude below the firepower for the Entdecker though, unless I've seriously screwed up somewhere (feel free to point out).

(*That's not all. The blueprint refers to 20 and 100 MT space-to-surface missiles - those I can believe, for, uh, "precision strikes" - but also 2 MT mines, and I can't see a 2 MT bomb making more than a dent in any SW ship of significant size. That sounds quite puny by the standards of the SW universe, so it might not be reliable for other stuff either.)

[fusion]

About a petaton fire power from Link to Technical Commentaries of Saxton. This is the recognized fire power of a destroyer and that is the low end. Higher can go into tens of petatons/second fire power, so yeah....

[Ford Prefect]

And if you think the Swarm is bad you don't know Perry Rhodan.

I used to recall al arger number of tidbits, but that was from a while ago. The only other thing I can recall offhand apart from the TARAs, the ENTDECKER and the Swarm is the Chaotarchs.

[Gullible Jones]

About a petaton fire power from Link to Technical Commentaries of Saxton. This is the recognized fire power of a destroyer and that is the low end. Higher can go into tens of petatons/second fire power, so yeah....

Right, BDZ and all. That sounds more like it, in which case Batman was right and the ISD does have tremendously superior firepower. My bad.

[Luzifer's right hand]

Let's see... the Entdecker has 8 4 TT (max yield) weapons and 20 2 TT ones, firing up to 10 rounds/sec., so that's a maximum of 720 TT/sec. If the cannons are studded around the surface of the ship and can only teleport something linearly in the direction they're pointing (I'll assume such is the case, why else would they be called cannons?), then that will be severely limited in combat against a single ship.

Spherical Terran ships apart from some light cruisers and corvettes are designed in a way that allows them to hit one target with 50% of their firepower at once.
It's a carrier though and most of it's firepower is on board of the light cruisers, which can fire their weapons even when they are on board of the mother ship.

[HRogge]

I see no reason why the ship should block the line of sight of it's own transform cannons in Perry Rhodan.

[Luzifer's right hand]

I see no reason why the ship should block the line of sight of it's own transform cannons in Perry Rhodan.

It has recently been mentioned when the JULES VERNE was introduced that it can only use 50% of is transfromcannons against a single target. It was never explicitly mentioned that a ENTDECKER has the same limitations but the two battleship modules of the JULES VERNE got everything you can fit inside a LFT ship apart from the stuff you can't mount on 800 m hulls, that ship has an ATG and can attack while it's active which should give you an idea just how much better than an ENTDECKER it is, and it outguns an ENTDECKER when just look at the transformcannon firepower(but even battlecruisers do that).
If you somehow wanted to degrade an ENTDECKER significantly you could certainly mount much more transfromcannons on it.
The only LFT ships that have used all of their transformcannons at once against one target are light cruisers of the VESTA-class(which are only 100 m big) and PAVO-cogs(which are wedge shaped).
It has been suggested that transformcannon fire has negative effects on 5D Systems when they pass trough them, a ship is not a more or less 5-D inert thing like a planet after all.

[Jawawithagun]

They're more or less based on failed attempts at recreating the Fiktivtransmitter.

IIRC, they were acquired from the Posbis (robots with biological components) while the Fiktivtransmitter was a gift from the super-intelligence (ghost-being) ES. The latter could also transport beings without problems.

You're right. I misremembered.

On another note, regarding the firepower of ships in the Rhodanverse. It's far lower than SW firepower, mostly because the weapons rely more on fanciful hyperdimensional physics and tricks to exploit weaknesses than purely bashing through shields by brute force.

One good example here might be the arkonbomb planetbuster, part of the standard arsenal of all larger warships. Barring some restrictions (no use against shielded targets without some other way of overcoming the shields, time the effect takes) it gives smaller, less powerful ships a similar ability to the one the deathstar boasts - complete destruction of an earth-like planet with a single application of a single weapon.

[Raesene]

They're more or less based on failed attempts at recreating the Fiktivtransmitter.

IIRC, they were acquired from the Posbis (robots with biological components) while the Fiktivtransmitter was a gift from the super-intelligence (ghost-being) ES. The latter could also transport beings without problems.

You're right. I misremembered.

On another note, regarding the firepower of ships in the Rhodanverse. It's far lower than SW firepower, mostly because the weapons rely more on fanciful hyperdimensional physics and tricks to exploit weaknesses than purely bashing through shields by brute force.

One good example here might be the arkonbomb planetbuster, part of the standard arsenal of all larger warships. Barring some restrictions (no use against shielded targets without some other way of overcoming the shields, time the effect takes) it gives smaller, less powerful ships a similar ability to the one the deathstar boasts - complete destruction of an earth-like planet with a single application of a single weapon.

and unstoppable too... although the process takes more time than a Death Star application.

I've always been fond of the 'Gravitationsbomben' - open a rift to hyperspace, target is sucked into it, problem solved .
The latter higher-dimensional shields nullified this weapon, but in the first few story arcs it was the ultimate weapon in space.

[Luzifer's right hand]

I actually fucked the mass of the ship up....it's only 5*10^11 kg.

For something different a low-end Terran tech ship, it's in fact much more "advanced" than the ENTDECKER-class. :p
The Cosmocrats and of the two main powers of the perryverse have made it more difficult to use high technology by fucking with the laws of nature(post issue 2211), because of this most technology used by the Terrans(and many other races) was either degraded or has stopped working completly.

A carrier of the ENTDECKER II(aka SATURN)-class is a roughly spherical ship with a diameter of 1800 m, a ring around the equator and a mass of 6.2*10^11 kg.


Crew complement:
The standard crew is made up of a core crew of 1,500 , 930 planetfall troops and 4,670 persons for the boats. The robot complement is unknown.

Offensive Systems:
30 Transform-cannons with a point-plank range of ship 1 Million, each with a maximum yield of 500 MT. No teleportion of exotic warheads.

2 Paratron-rift generators with a point-plank range of 750,000 km, max. rift diameter 20 km, rift duration is about one microsecond. One rift can shunt up to 1,22 x 10^25 J into hyperspace. Used both of for offense and for point-defense.

50 "MVH"-cannons. FTL(40)- and STL(10)-versions need different emitters now.
FTL:
The KNK-mode: A thermobeam(infrared laser) or a interval-beam is fired through a FTL-tube with shield-weakening/penetrating properties.
This mode has range of 1 million kilometers.
STL:
Paralysis-beamers: (500 km)
Thermobeamers and Desintegrator: Generally used in the one light-second range and below.
Torpedos with unknown yields an stats.

20 Impulse-cannons, near lightspeed technoabble particle weapons, conventional max. yield 500 MT per shot.

Defensive Systems:
Armor and the back-up shields layers are also more or less identical.
There are many different shields-levels and layers.
Main shields are single layer paratron/high-energ-overload shields.

There is one new kind of back-up shield designed to deal with meteorites and stuff at high velocities(0.5 is the standard speed) which is projected into openings of the main shield used because the main shield types can not be used at the same time anymore.

Power generation:
NUGAS(matter>energy conversion) and fusion reactors. In the very low 10^16 W range.

STL/FTL-drives:
STL: Impulse/Gravotron drive 100 km/s² (10197 g)
FTL: HAWK I Lineardrive: normal 500,000 c, max. 1 million c for with range of 9,200-10,000 lightyears, max. 50 lightyears at once.
Transtition-jump-drive( backup-drive) max. 5 lightyears per jump
The ship needs to travel with at least 0.5 c to use the FTL drives safely.

Boats:
30/30 x MERKUR- and DIANA-class light cruisers
Spherical ship with a diameter of 100 meters and a ring around the equator with 120 meters diameter
Crew: 70, 100 multipurpose robots 50 battle robots.
STL: STL: Impulse/Gravotron drive 100 km/s² (10197 g)
FTL: HAWK I Lineardrive: normal 500,000 c, max. 1 million c for with range of 4,600-5000-10,000 lightyears max. 50 lightyears at once. Transtition-jump-drive( backup-drive) max. 5 lightyears, max.
Weapons: 6 transform-cannons (6*10 Mt) however only three can fire at one target at once.
6 "MVH"-cannons: 2 FTL and 4 STL. 2 Impulse-cannons(50 Mt). Torpedoes, mines, space-ground-missiles. ECM-drones.
Shields: High-energy-overload-shield(1 layer), normal shields(1 layer).
These ships carry two "SHIFT" flying tanks.

30 corvettes, 30 Space-Jets those, 180 SHIFT. Stats for those are currently unknown.

and unstoppable too... although the process takes more time than a Death Star application.

I've always been fond of the 'Gravitationsbomben' - open a rift to hyperspace, target is sucked into it, problem solved .
The latter higher-dimensional shields nullified this weapon, but in the first few story arcs it was the ultimate weapon in space.

The use of arkon bombs is much less risky though. Ships have been destroyed by their own gravity bombs.
Gravity bombs are maybe better when you don't want that anyone escapes, but you can just let a small fleet use more conventional weapons if you want that.[/url]