One Ship Military?

[381654729 (OP)]

And it has to be one ship, not a bunch of ships tractor-beamed together.

What would that one ship look like? What if that one ship had to fit in an arbitrary tonnage limit (50k, 100k, 200k tons)?

You decide an arbitrary tech and tonnage level. I am interested in what people come up with. I only request one thing: that if you wish to post a design, don't peek at other people's designs before you do.

I will post what I think of, once I think of something...

[Theodidactus]

Really if you want to get EXCESSIVE I think you pretty much have to default to railguns.
like sure lasers push harder but nothing screams KABOOM like 20 50cm railguns each firing 4 times every tick.

...and then you still have room for 20 single barreled 10cm laser turrets and 20 CIWS and 20 size 20 missile launchers and 20 Ultra long range, low damage particle beemz

[TheDeadlyShoe]

I built a Command Carrier design for a faction a while back and it was basically all they used.  It had anti-missiles, heavy CIWS, thick armor, large hangar bays, troops transport modules, a reasonable array of heavy lasers, size 10 passive sensors, and large active sensors.  The only downside was low speeds of 1500-2000 km/s.    I suppose it depends on whether you count fighters as violating the one-ship rule...

[Sharp]

Speed is going to be a trade-off for sure, and with that it means tons more PD needed, a decent amount of redundant systems as well to counter mesons and a fairly large shield. Would definitely need support vessels or it would really be a behemoth which would be possible to kill by missiles. And with that it would be pretty hard to close in on anything so would need lots of missiles as well.

[Theodidactus]

I was experimenting with a very strange campaign a while back where the only "warship" was a 1,000 kps 80,000 ton behemoth that used ultra long ranged droned missiles. Speed doesn't matter if you have overwhelming range.

[CharonJr]

Lots of missiles with tons of PD would be best I think, beam weapons simply dont have the range to deal with enemy missile ships.

[xeryon]

Everyone is going big.  With enough tech can a small~ish ship move fast enough in Aurora that it is untargetable?  It wouldn't need to outrun missiles per-se, just outrun the ability of fire control to track it or to escape missile endurance range.

[Sharp]

It's going to be hard to to get a small ship to have a big enough payload to both be able to destroy another ship at range as well as escape any missiles fired at it although it depends more on the missile/propulsion tech.

I suppose the main thing is for having a one ship military is that the ship should be able to take on a fleet of other ships, would a fast moving small ship be able to take out a whole fleet? Also wouldn't be able to survive any guarded jump points without armour and redundant systems.

[xeryon]

I just made a game with a silly amount of starting tech to see if it was conceivable.  Rather than make a ton of systems for an example I just slapped a standard cargo hold on it for weight to see if a warship can move fast enough.  Range is a little low but I chose 3x engine power just for example.  At 65000 km/s 46,000 tons is nothing to shake a stick at.  I could outfit a pretty substantial warship even with early technology at that size.  Obviously, some missiles can and will go over 65000 but you have space to work with.

Code: [Select]

Tribal class Cruiser    46,150 tons     615 Crew     30760.5 BP      TCS 923  TH 60000  EM 0
65005 km/s     Armour 1-114     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 417    AFR 17038%    IFR 236.6%    1YR 249215    5YR 3738222    Max Repair 1500 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 2    
Cargo 25000    

3000 EP Photonic Drive (20)    Power 3000    Fuel Use 140.3%    Signature 3000    Exp 30%
Fuel Capacity 10,000,000 Litres    Range 27.8 billion km   (4 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

For argument sake here is the same gig with a smaller ballast weight.  

Code: [Select]

Tribal class Cruiser    21,100 tons     612 Crew     30476.5 BP      TCS 422  TH 60000  EM 0
142180 km/s     Armour 1-68     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Maint Life 0.02 Years     MSP 903    AFR 3561%    IFR 49.5%    1YR 50519    5YR 757783    Max Repair 1500 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 1    
Cargo 5000    

3000 EP Photonic Drive (20)    Power 3000    Fuel Use 140.3%    Signature 3000    Exp 30%
Fuel Capacity 5,000,000 Litres    Range 30.4 billion km   (59 hours at full power)

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

edit: I know, it is an unrealistic technology level.  It's just a concept.  Since I am on the absurd topic beam FC tracking speed maxes out at 100,000 so the latter example would be impervious to anything sporting beam FC.  AT this tech level I should see what kind of speeds an AMM can pull...

[xeryon]

lol  Apparently missile speeds are capped at 299.  Who knew? 

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Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 1    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 299000 km/s    Engine Endurance: 7 minutes   Range: 131.3m km
Cost Per Missile: 4
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 2990%   3k km/s 990%   5k km/s 598%   10k km/s 299%
Materials Required:    0.25x Tritanium   3.75x Gallicite   Fuel x1166.5

Development Cost for Project: 400RP

[CharonJr]

Hard for anything with mass even getting this close to the speed of light And with e=mc^2 in place it would probably take the energy of a sun to get there

[Sharp]

Since I am on the absurd topic beam FC tracking speed maxes out at 100,000 so the latter example would be impervious to anything sporting beam FC. 

Not necessarily, top speed is capped, the chance to hit something going 300,000 kms with even the most basic beam fire control and laser (although 4x range and 4x tracking speed so 5kms TS) still has an accuracy of 1% at 30k, so 100 beam weapons still have a 1% chance to hit, and this is basic tech, get more advanced and your still going to be able to hit very fast things much more easily, although range is still an issue but you can't really have an invincible ship at any level, you can still have an incredibly hard to kill ship (whether by speed, shields or armour) but it can still be hit and can still die.

[xeryon]

The thought of crossing someones entire missile range envelope in matter of seconds is rather amusing.

[NihilRex]

IF there is no tonnage limit, Id just design Dahak.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutineers'_Moon If you dont get the reference.

[sloanjh]

IF there is no tonnage limit, Id just design Dahak.

Hmmmm - I wonder how many build points he is.  And how long it would take to expand the SY so he could be built

John