Posted by: welchbloke
« on: March 06, 2009, 01:02:39 PM »Quote from: "sloanjh"
Ah, it becomes clearQuote from: "welchbloke"Quote from: "Erik Luken"*SNIP*Even now a missile guidance system would be no more than about 100kg even for the largest missile. I would say that the standard package could be considered a negligible part of the missile mass.
1/20th of a hull space or 2.5 tons.
Just to clarify, I was using the missile guidance package (e.g. including things like steering system) "as an example". In other words, it seems like the components shouldn't be infinitely miniturizable - at some point a fixed cost will show up that will begin to kill efficiency. If nothing else, this will be the skin/framework which provides for the structural integrity of the missile. Essentially "guidance package" was technobabble for all of this fixed overhead, in the same way that the bridge of a starship accounts for all sorts of administrative overhead tonnage.
Where this fixed cost shows up is pretty much up to Steve - he can choose it to be so small as to be negligible, or he can make it significant. Note that even a 0.5 HS overhead (which I consider to be fairly high) had a fairly low (~16%) impact on the smallest (worst-case) missile cited in the example.
John