Some capital ships, critique them!

[fgalkin]

Here's suggestion instead of a lot of gun make few big ones, it would look better (and make more sense).

I hate to break it to you but... those are the big guns you're seeing

Holy Crap, even your guns have guns.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Kuja]

Here's suggestion instead of a lot of gun make few big ones, it would look better (and make more sense).

I hate to break it to you but... those are the big guns you're seeing

Holy Crap, even your guns have guns.

But the big question is...do the guns' guns have guns?

[Thirdfain]

I hate to say, but I really don't like your warship designs. The only really appealing one is the rail driver, the capital ships are all bland and ridiculous-looking, with their surfaces completely covered in weapons. It just doesn't look good, and it seems ridiculous. Where are the docking ports, the sensors, the ECM bays?

Also, using "warship" to designate the largest vessel doesn't sit well with me. All those guys are warships...

[NoXion]

I have taken some of your suggestions on board, and here is the result:



I increased the space between the guns so they have more room, added larger fuel tanks (That tapering section near the engine you see), kept the forrard sensor pods the same size so that the ships have more forward firepower, added more landing bays, Added cargo modules and a larger engine to the recon ship, decreased the size of the habitat ring and gave it more wires giving it a "bicycle wheel" look, and added two transfer tubes to the ring.
Also, I added a new class: the Scout.

The GCS and the ISD are staring to look very small indeed

Seriously dudes, that's an impractical number of guns on your ships! The designs and things are cool, but there's just WAY too many guns!

I disagree, you can never have too many guns. But I suppose the auxillary guns on the turrets are unnecessary.



Removed some auxillary guns and improved the detail.

Due to size increases engendered by recent improvements, I have had to move the Mass Driver and the Rail Driver to their own pictures.
It also gave me a chance to design two more examples of space artillery; the Multi Driver which is basically an MLRS and a titanic shotgun combined, and the Super Heavy Laser, a huge fin-cooled pulse laser.

BTW have you been reading my notes? Some of your stuff is spot on for a race I have created for a story I am writing.

I don't think so. Can you provide a link?

Also, using "warship" to designate the largest vessel doesn't sit well with me. All those guys are warships...

Well, my line of reasoning went like this: "I want something bigger than a battleship... Hey, why not Warship? Wars are bigger than battles!"
However, a more suitable name is more than welcome.

[Thirdfain]

Dreadnought, Superdreadnought, Superbattleship, Monitor, hell, even Heavy Battleship all do the job. Warship means ANY ship of war, from a fleet carrier to a minesweeper.

[Glimmervoid]

Do they have FTL drives. If not a lot of things start to make sence (and some other stuff stops making since as well).

[Glimmervoid]

Dreadnought, Superdreadnought, Superbattleship, Monitor, hell, even Heavy Battleship all do the job. Warship means ANY ship of war, from a fleet carrier to a minesweeper.

Monitors were small heavily armoured ships that could not go out to sea (had to stay near the coast) not some thing to call your supership.

[NoXion]

Dreadnought, Superdreadnought, Superbattleship, Monitor, hell, even Heavy Battleship all do the job. Warship means ANY ship of war, from a fleet carrier to a minesweeper.

Curse this turgid brain of mine. It's now a Heavy Battleship. Thank you.

Do they have FTL drives. If not a lot of things start to make sence.

Nominally, they do. Even the tiny unlabled ones. (A more detailed picture of I will release later) But if you had something in mind, please tell.

[Thirdfain]

Dreadnought, Superdreadnought, Superbattleship, Monitor, hell, even Heavy Battleship all do the job. Warship means ANY ship of war, from a fleet carrier to a minesweeper.

Monitors were small heavily armoured ships that could not go out to sea (had to stay near the coast) not some thing to call your supership.

And the Dreadnought was a warship with guns all of either very large or small calibre and heavy armor- doesn't really describe any of these, but it's still a good name for a huge warship.

[Hotfoot]

I disagree. Move the guns back a bit, and provide enough empty space below, and the flat turret allows just as much elevation as the ball design; plus, it's got less exposed surface, thus less armor, resulting in less weight you've got to move for aiming.

As no surprise, I disagree wholeheartedly. You simply cannot get the range and ease of movement from a ball design that you can from the flat design. The only good thing about the flat design is that it presents more focus to firing within a specific arc.

Consider, for a moment, how turrets were designed in bombers circa World War 2. The reason for a ball design is that it gives you a much larger angle with which to effectively fire at an enemy target. Flat turrets are a holdover from the days of naval battles, in which certain designs were useful for certain things. Since the main guns of a battleship almost never had to fire straight up, and designing them to do so would increase the target profile, they kept them low so they could do the job that was needed. Tanks face a similar restriction. These vehicles fight largely with a two-dimensional frame of reference, that is to say, enemies will not commonly come at them from far "above" or "below", but rather from the front, sides, and rear. However, in space, especially with ships that large in the first place, a flat turret becomes a liability, because you need something that can traverse a wide angle quickly and accurately.

[AMX]

Uh-huh...

Can you show me where the ball shape is superior?

[Antares]

Go on turning the barrel more than 90°
Then you will see, that the flat turret has to turn 180°
and the ball turret wont have to.

I have used the sphere like turret for one of my space ships:
http://www.thirdwave.de/pics/3wcruiser.jpg

However, in that case the entire turret is moving and not just barrels.

[AMX]

Go on turning the barrel more than 90°
Then you will see, that the flat turret has to turn 180°
and the ball turret wont have to.

That'll be rather hard on the ammo feed, I'd think.
Also, modern AA can do that 180° turn pretty quickly, I've heard.

Finally, please address the issue of mounting multiple guns in a single turret with non-constant cross-section.

BTW, good night.

[Rogue 9]

Dreadnought, Superdreadnought, Superbattleship, Monitor, hell, even Heavy Battleship all do the job. Warship means ANY ship of war, from a fleet carrier to a minesweeper.

I use heavy battleship myself, simply because I'm uncomfortable with calling something a dreadnought when it... isn't. Too aware of the proper definition, I suppose.

[NoXion]

Here's a cross section of one my ships firing laterally:



How's that?

The secret is having good fire coordination.

[Hotfoot]

Uh-huh...

Can you show me where the ball shape is superior?

See, what you forget is that the natural firing position of the ball turret is perpenticular to the hull, wheras the flat turret is parrallel. Translation? You need to move it 90 degrees in any direction to get to a point the flat turret needs to turn 180 degrees to get to. It offers better fire coordination as a result, and also offers more guns to any particular target, as fully half the guns on the ship (as shown) can fire at one target at any given time.

Another thing to consider: What is the shortest distance between two points?
Answer: a straight line

A ball turret can move in a straight line from target to target, while a flat turret must first rotate, then elevate. Both can have the same arc of fire, if you design them right, but strictly on the math alone, a ball turret will be able to sight in a given target faster.

[Hotfoot]

Go on turning the barrel more than 90°
Then you will see, that the flat turret has to turn 180°
and the ball turret wont have to.

I have used the sphere like turret for one of my space ships:
http://www.thirdwave.de/pics/3wcruiser.jpg

However, in that case the entire turret is moving and not just barrels.

Very nice ship. I especially like the turrets, though my personal favorite design is the gun-port type sphere, with two "lids" protecting the inner mechanisms. What program did you use to make that?

[Antares]

Very nice ship. I especially like the turrets, though my personal favorite design is the gun-port type sphere, with two "lids" protecting the inner mechanisms. What program did you use to make that?

Thanx
i used Blender to do it.
It's open source.

[NoXion]

See, what you forget is that the natural firing position of the ball turret is perpenticular to the hull, wheras the flat turret is parrallel. Translation? You need to move it 90 degrees in any direction to get to a point the flat turret needs to turn 180 degrees to get to. It offers better fire coordination as a result, and also offers more guns to any particular target, as fully half the guns on the ship (as shown) can fire at one target at any given time.

That's why there are two sets of turrets facing different directions.

A ball turret can move in a straight line from target to target, while a flat turret must first rotate, then elevate. Both can have the same arc of fire, if you design them right, but strictly on the math alone, a ball turret will be able to sight in a given target faster.

Not true, even today we have flat turrets that can rotate and elevate at the same time.

[Gil Hamilton]

Human ships are often outnumbered by Fang ships 10,000 to 1, but the firepower wielded by human ships evens this out.
Humans go for quality because they aren't particularly militaristic, and want to get the best out of the best. Fang commanders, because their species is highly expansionist and reproduces and develops rapidly, have to go with quantity - most of their tactics consist of variations on the "wave of meat" theme. It's worked for them before, so they'll continue to use it until they have a very convincing reason not to. But it will be very hard for them to change tack as most of their society revolves around the idea of Fang superiority, and such mentality does not engender rapid change.

Giant ships aren't really effective though if you want alot of fire power, just by simple geometric measure.

Say you have a set amount of materials to build ships out of.

You could build one cylindrical ship with this material that is 10km long and 2km across. Now say, you can also build 10 ships with the same ratio of length to width, but a tenth the volume.

The first ship has an internal volume of 125.66 km³ and a surface area of 125.66 km².

The 10 ships you could build with the same amount of materials. The internal volume of the small ship is a 10th the big ship is 12.566 km³ and the surface area of each is 27.054 km². However, you've got ten of them, meaning the total surface area of your 10 ships is 270.54 km² - more than double of that of the big ship.

That means more area for guns and equipment and plus, not all your eggs are in one basket. Since you've got 10 ships with greater total firepower, you've got alot more flexibility and can put down more fire in a larger volume of space, which is critical against swarms of foes. Plus, you can split it into two battle groups, each potentially with more firepower than the single ship, covering two volumes of space.

All of this is a thought exercise, but the point is that building huge isn't always the most effective way to go. Really, if I was in the situation described, I'd build as many ships as my ability to produce space drives (most likely the most expensive part of a ship) stands but build modestly per ship. Just have a hell of alot of ships.

[Elheru Aran]

Well, Gil, one presumes that with that many classes of ships, and that much range in size, he's got the material to compensate for all that expedienture...

[NoXion]

Gil,

You're forgetting about powerplants (The bigger the more power, and thus destructive potential and stronger shields) Crew (Each ship is going to need a trained bridge crew and Humans can't simply throw them into teeth of battle like the Fang can) and sheer mass (Harder to destroy a large object than a smaller one)

Think of it this way - Imagine a huge open plain. On one side you have a million soldiers armed with LMGs and RPGs (Fang fleet) and on the other you have 100,000 Apache gunships (Human fleet), with their 30mm cannons, minimissile launcher and missile launchers. Both have parity in terms of weaponry (Pound for pound) but the soldiers have to rely on their strengths in numbers to win the day.
All of the civilisations the Fang have so far conquered and subjugated have been smaller than them, so while the conquered civ's might have had the tactical, organisational, or even a moderate tech advantage, the sheer numbers of the Fang fleet swallowed them up (total number of fang capital ships is estimated to be in tens of billions)
Humans are the first species they've come across where swarming tactics are not immediately effective.

Aside from all this rationalisation, the idea of large ships of civilised human society breaking waves of barbaric alien ships appeals to me.

Here's a little preliminary picture I drew of the two most important Fang ship classes:



It's on the same scale as the last drawing.

Attack ships form the backbone of the Fang fleet - This mass-produced tin bucket of a ship is found anywhere in the Fang empire, from invading virgin territory to pacifying territory held for centuries.
It has 13 dual heavy laser cannons, each barrel yielding a 500Gt blast.
It also has 79 missile tubes and 12 launch bays for drop pods.
It has approximately 3m of layered titanium armour and a single particle shield.

The Stinger Ship is used in roles for which the Attack ship would be unwieldy - mainly fighter defense, star system patrols, and scouting.
It has 11 laser cannons each with a yield of 200Gts.
It only has a navigational shield and half a metre of armour.

[Enigma]

Nice ships. I've made a few of my own. I've drawn three "carriers" but they are more like battleships with lots of fighters. These ships will be used in my novel (whenever I get the chance to finish it.)

That is the small battleship at 17.5km length, 5km width and 3.67km height.


That is the medium size battlesip at 760km in length, 160km in width and 120 in height.


This beast is the Large size battleship with the length at 10,000km, 1500km in width and 2000km in height. If you can see from this pic the size of this ship in comparison to the rough dimensions of the FCM (medium), the FCS (small) battleships and the GCS Fed ship.

Oh and disregard the weapons stats on those. They need to be redone.

[NoXion]

You do realise that with a length of 10,000km you've got to take into account gravitational effects? Your ship will keep trying to form itself into a sphere.

1000km is the maximum size a ship can be before spheres become a good design philosphy.

And people said MY ships were big...

[Gil Hamilton]

Gil,

You're forgetting about powerplants (The bigger the more power, and thus destructive potential and stronger shields) Crew (Each ship is going to need a trained bridge crew and Humans can't simply throw them into teeth of battle like the Fang can) and sheer mass (Harder to destroy a large object than a smaller one)

I'd thing with huge massive weapons, like you are talking about, sheer mass would be a disadvantage, since it would require significantly more delta-vs to manuever and thus would be less likely to avoid getting blown up. One well placed bomb of significant size will take a big ship as much as a small ship and a big ship will be easier to target from range.

And each ship will need a crew, sure, but is a big ship going to have just as much of a crew as a group of small ships of similar volume and but all their eggs are in one basket.

Sure a bigger ship can have a bigger powerplant, but a smaller ship doesn't need as big a powerplant/drive motor, since it has vastly less mass to shove around. Also, it since a much smaller force field would be necessary to have the same field intensity, merely because it covers a vastly smaller surface area. Multiple targets means less firepower used against a given ship in your fleet as well, so it's not just one target getting bombarded by a large amount. Finally, a big powerplant will have no effect on the yield of your missiles, which are by far the most useful space weapon possible.