Missile Pods?

[metzger4 (OP)]

First off hello everyone! First post. 

Second, I'm a huge fan of the Honor Harrington book series and I noticed something about their tactics that I am curious whether or not it can work in Aurora.  The larger ships in their fleets ie.  Dreadnaughts, Super Dreadnaughts, etc.  Have what are called missile pods that they tow with their Ships of the Wall.  They deploy these single use pods that have 5-6 missile tubes with one missile in each tube.  The purpose is to increase the size of their full broadsides.  I was wondering if this tactic could be employed in-game.

I apologize if there is a topic on this subject in the forums however I did a quick search and could find nothing similar.  Thanks in advance!

[iceball3]

If you do not plan to move the pods any distance away from your ship and bring them back, just use reduced size launchers, and/or multi stage missiles or mines. Otherwise, Box Launcher missile fighters seems to be what you want.

[metzger4 (OP)]

Awesome thank you, I'll check that out!

[Barkhorn]

I remember reading an AAR that someone had a totally modular fleet.  His ships were all tugs, and they simply towed mission modules to fulfill their role.  So you'd have one kind of ship, and tons of mission modules.  One ship could pick up a missile module, fire off all the missiles, drop it and go pick up a laser module and fry some dudes, then pick up a troop transport module, and invade the enemy homeworld.

[Jorgen_CAB]

This is totally doable by placing a Tractor Beam on your larger ships and design a Pod that only contain Box Launched or Reduce Size missile launchers.

However, you will need to have at least one missile fire-control on the missile pod. You can't use the actual ships fire-control system to fire the missile. The missile pod would essentially be a ship with no engines.

[Viridia]

This is something I've been thinking on for a while. While you can go the route of using tractor beams, which I think are limited to one per ship, I'm now wondering if they can be instead fitted inside a hanger bay. Could be a nice way to make a Medusa-class SD(P).

[83athom]

You could use hangars, however, you would need to remain stationary while the pods are deployed or go back to pick them up after you drop them off. With tractor beams, the module can work like normal on the move.

[linkxsc]

Never actually used tugs at all. Just curious, does the speed of a ship tugging something scale down by a proportionate manner to the added mass?
ie. Could you build say a "stealth" ship made up of a engine/tractor main section thats fairly small. Tow a fuel tank section, a weapons section, maybe even some active sensor "sonar buoys". Whereby the ship would be fairly slow but also small and built up of several 1000t (save on the bridge and all) sections (each has its own small cross-section rather than 1 big 1 for the whole ship).
Then if coming under attack you could dump spent missile launcher sections to lighten the load (a la stark jegan gundam unicorn ep 1)

Could be nifty. Youd also be able to target specific sections of ships (could also heavily armor certain important sections and save weight elsewhere) also a single "ship" could be built fairly quick.


heck the dumbest thought of all. Tote around 2 engine/tractor sections. 1 loaded with efficient "long range" engines. And another with high power factor combat engines.

[83athom]

Never actually used tugs at all. Just curious, does the speed of a ship tugging something scale down by a proportionate manner to the added mass?

It calculates the speed as if it was one ship using the fastest engines of the grouping (not combined).

ie. Could you build say a "stealth" ship made up of a engine/tractor main section thats fairly small. Tow a fuel tank section, a weapons section, maybe even some active sensor "sonar buoys". Whereby the ship would be fairly slow but also small and built up of several 1000t (save on the bridge and all) sections (each has its own small cross-section rather than 1 big 1 for the whole ship).
Then if coming under attack you could dump spent missile launcher sections to lighten the load (a la stark jegan gundam unicorn ep 1)

I guess it would work, but that kind of ship would be inefficient.

heck the dumbest thought of all. Tote around 2 engine/tractor sections. 1 loaded with efficient "long range" engines. And another with high power factor combat engines.

It would only factor one of the engine groupings/section. Adding more will do nothing but add available fuel. As I said earlier, it will only use the section that will make the ship the fastest. So If you would want to do that, you would have to pull the other "mode" in a hangar and switch out the engine sections. That actually doesn't sound all that bad, doing that might work. However, I think doing this would be mainly for RP purposes at low tech level.

[linkxsc]

Dont forget the lulz. Thats the most important part.

So I cant get on a computer to play around for a bit.
Can 1 tractor module tow multiple parts, our would each part need its own tractor?

[Bremen]

Box launchers are missile launchers that can only be reloaded in a hangar or maintenance facility, but are much smaller than normal. So in theory, sure, you could do something like this; a ship with a hangar full of pods with nothing but a huge number of box launchers and a fire control.

In practice? The only advantage you get over just mounting the box launchers on your ship is you can return the missile pods to your hangar and reload them, which is not how missile pods work in the Honorverse. You'd also have to carry magazines with the extra missiles to reload the pods, and the reload time would be very long; probably measured in hours. You'd probably be better off just mounting hundreds of box launchers all over your ship. You'd just have to return to a base whenever you wanted to reload, but you'd have more individual launchers.

[iceball3]

Box launchers are missile launchers that can only be reloaded in a hangar or maintenance facility, but are much smaller than normal. So in theory, sure, you could do something like this; a ship with a hangar full of pods with nothing but a huge number of box launchers and a fire control.

In practice? The only advantage you get over just mounting the box launchers on your ship is you can return the missile pods to your hangar and reload them, which is not how missile pods work in the Honorverse. You'd also have to carry magazines with the extra missiles to reload the pods, and the reload time would be very long; probably measured in hours. You'd probably be better off just mounting hundreds of box launchers all over your ship. You'd just have to return to a base whenever you wanted to reload, but you'd have more individual launchers.

You could also keep your main ship further away to avoid detection, and move your fighters closer without worry of detection, all while keeping your salvo launch location away from your main task group. This can allow you to carry out an engagement without worrying about your important and slower ships getting caught in active sensor range, unable to flee.

[83athom]

Can 1 tractor module tow multiple parts, our would each part need its own tractor?

A ship can only have 1 tractor and can only tractor 1 ship,, however, a ship tractoring something can be tractored. If you want more you will have to train the modules you wish to tractor.
M<-T<-T<-T<-S
M= Module with/without tractor. T= Module with tractor. S=Main ship module (with tractor). <-=Tractor direction (< direction is ship being tractored)

[linkxsc]

Still cant get to a computer for a while, so sorry about this. But how big is the tractor module (tons or hs, either works)

Edit, checked, 500t/10hs each tractor unit

[MehMuffin]

You could make an extremely fast lead ship with fuel and sensors that could drop missile pods from the chain as they're depleted, with non of the pods having engines or sensors and the lead ship having no armament.