Learning design by copying sci fi: UNSC Infinity Supercarrier, Halo

[nuclearslurpee]

It might be horribly impractical, but I want to see a 900,000,000 ton ship in Aurora.

Absolutely. I just opened up Iceranger's ship optimizer and choose some likely sounding techs at random (Inertial confinement engines, max engine boost 2.0×, max engine size 400, etc) and put in 907000000t for the mass, 5000 km/s for the speed, and 100 bkm for range. Kinda slow, but it's a start. It'll need 8,398 size-400 engines with a boost of 1.35× and 65.5bl of fuel, but that's only 26.94% of the ship's mass. Not bad!

We could double the speed, but then we need 13,742 size-400 engines with a boost of 1.65× and 111.4bl of fuel, which is 43.59% of the ship's mass. Perhaps somewhere in the middle is better.

Glances at UNSC Infinity specs

Code: [Select]

One primary, two secondary repulsor engines
Our little project here may not be a perfect facsimile...

Maximum possible (photonic w/ 3.0x boost) EP is 300 per HS, and max engine size is 400 for a total 120,000 HS/engine. Three of those could move a 900,000,000-ton supercarrier at a whopping 0.13 km/s.

I think your way is probably better.    Really, I think not even 5,000 km/s is necessary for something this large, it can take as long as you like to get somewhere because once it's there the battle is basically over. If you really need to chase someone down you can always open your hangars and deploy those ten 1,100,000-ton frigates (!!) and slap all the engines on those instead.

Okay, okay, but to be more serious here... we could actually place an upper limit on the Aurora Size™of the Infinity based on jump drive tech. The maximum size of a military jump drive component is 1000 HS and for the low, low price of one million RPs we can have as much as Jump Drive Efficiency 25 which would support transit of a 25,000-HS megaship. That puts an upper size limit at "only" about 1,250,000 tons. Still needs more than three max-size engines though.

I thought my 4 megatonne Nemesis was ridiculous.

FYI, you won't be able to make the Infinity jump capable. You also may find that you can't actually fill 900 megatonnes; Aurora weapons and whatnot don't actually get all that big, so if you are trying to hit lore #s for various components and crew count, you might end up way under.

Ninja'd...

[db48x]

I think your way is probably better.    Really, I think not even 5,000 km/s is necessary for something this large, it can take as long as you like to get somewhere because once it's there the battle is basically over. If you really need to chase someone down you can always open your hangars and deploy those ten 1,100,000-ton frigates (!!) and slap all the engines on those instead.

True, it could be a lot slower and just have a really long deployment time. A ship that size could have lots of room for recreation spaces, civilian visitors, etc. At 50km/s and 1000bkm range, you'd only need 206 size-400 engines at 0.55× boost (or 6,298 size-24 engines at 0.30× boost if you want to save half a million tons!) That's only about 8% of the mass.

Okay, okay, but to be more serious here... we could actually place an upper limit on the Aurora Size™of the Infinity based on jump drive tech. The maximum size of a military jump drive component is 1000 HS and for the low, low price of one million RPs we can have as much as Jump Drive Efficiency 25 which would support transit of a 25,000-HS megaship. That puts an upper size limit at "only" about 1,250,000 tons. Still needs more than three max-size engines though.

Yes, but only 8 which is an entirely reasonable number. We could ask Steve to allow a larger maximum size…

[Garfunkel]

I couldn't find the old thread where people found out the upper limits of ship design, ie stuff that brings up errors, not to mention that the errors might be different now in C# than what they were with VB6. Anyway, this thread has some good ideas on how to actually build and operate a gigantic ship:

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=9854.0

Note that it's 2,000,000 tons, not 900,000,000.

[db48x]

Baconholic pointed out that technically, only one thing can fail in a 5-day increment, so once I approached 100% IFR, I could just lean-into it, and mitigate by having lots of MSP storage and lots of small parts.

Now there's an idea worth testing.

[nuclearslurpee]

That space would be much better used by having a huge unguarded exaust port that leads directly into your unstable reactor core
edit.: extra points if it can fit a small freighter

I knew we were all forgetting something...

[xenoscepter]

 - This is a link to a 300,000 Ton Assault Ship that I did, along with it's support fleet:

    http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=11929.msg141201#msg141201

 - That's about a third of what you're going for here, so it might be of assistance when designing your UNSC Infinity. The mothership forms the jump ship core, using a military jump drive station inside of a commercial hangar to create the means to jump the military ships too. Ground support fighters and a Regimental Combat Team round out it's capabilities, while light scouts and strike fighters give the fleet some extra flexibility.

[Iestwyn (OP)]

So hey guys, funny story. I was about to get started on that rework for the Infinity. However, it looks like I didn't actually save any of the ship designs---not even the missiles. I don't know if I'm ready for the emotional commitment of starting over again... the heart can only take so much...

[db48x]

Ouch. Pain is temporary; time will heal these wounds. I'm sure you'll feel up to it in the morning

[nuclearslurpee]

So hey guys, funny story. I was about to get started on that rework for the Infinity. However, it looks like I didn't actually save any of the ship designs---not even the missiles. I don't know if I'm ready for the emotional commitment of starting over again... the heart can only take so much...

That sucks. Hope it doesn't kill your enthusiasm though!

If it helps, I looked at the missiles to try and figure out what could possibly make three different anti-ship missiles distinct enough for Aurora, and I noticed the following:

350× 24 M42 Archer[2]
250× 30 M75 Rapier[2]
500× 20 M96 Howler[2]

The pod sizes for the missiles work out to the same total size of missiles per pod if you assign masses of Archer = 5 MSP, Rapier = 4 MSP, and Howler = 6 MSP, which incidentally correlates the suggestion I saw elsewhere that Howlers are the strongest of these missiles by a fair margin.

Based on that and using the tech levels in the OP (inertial CF engines plus at the described tech level 160 agility per MSP and 12 warhead strength per MSP) I drew up these designs, which could probably be made more distinctive from one another but you get the idea.

Code: [Select]

M42 Archer: 1.333334 MSP warhead, 1.001041 MSP fuel, 1.215625 MSP agility, 1.45 MSP engine
Missile Size: 5.000000 MSP  (12.5000000 Tons)     Warhead: 16    Radiation Damage: 16    Manoeuvre Rating: 49
Speed: 55,680 km/s     Fuel: 2,502     Flight Time: 8 minutes     Range: 27.83m km
Cost Per Missile: 14.850002     Development Cost: 1,485
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 2728.3%   3k km/s 909.4%   5k km/s 545.7%   10k km/s 272.8%

M75 Rapier: 0.75 MSP warhead, 1.003125 MSP fuel, 0.996875 MSP agility, 1.25 MSP engine
Missile Size: 4.000000 MSP  (10.0000000 Tons)     Warhead: 9    Radiation Damage: 9    Manoeuvre Rating: 50
Speed: 60,000 km/s     Fuel: 2,507     Flight Time: 9 minutes     Range: 32.36m km
Cost Per Missile: 11.440000     Development Cost: 1,144
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 3000%   3k km/s 1000%   5k km/s 600%   10k km/s 300%

M96 Howler: 2.083334 MSP warhead, 1.002291 MSP fuel, 1.234375 MSP agility, 1.68 MSP engine
Missile Size: 6.000000 MSP  (15.0000000 Tons)     Warhead: 25    Radiation Damage: 25    Manoeuvre Rating: 43
Speed: 53,767 km/s     Fuel: 2,505     Flight Time: 8 minutes     Range: 25m km
Cost Per Missile: 18.260002     Development Cost: 1,826
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 2312.0%   3k km/s 770.7%   5k km/s 462.4%   10k km/s 231.2%

M97 Lance: 0.083334 MSP warhead, 0.102291 MSP fuel, 0.384375 MSP agility, 0.43 MSP engine
Missile Size: 1.000000 MSP  (2.5000000 Tons)     Warhead: 1    Radiation Damage: 1    Manoeuvre Rating: 72
Speed: 82,600 km/s     Fuel: 255     Flight Time: 93.5 seconds     Range: 7,723,100 km
Cost Per Missile: 3.540002     Development Cost: 354
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 5947.2%   3k km/s 1982.4%   5k km/s 1189.4%   10k km/s 594.7%

Threw in the AMM while I was at it. This gives you a standard missile (Archer), a fast missile for killing smaller ships (Rapier), and a heavy missile (Howler) for people you really, really hate. I should note in fairness that I would probably never, ever build a ship that fires four different kinds of combat missiles, but I also would never, ever build a 907-million ton supercarrier. At that size, you can afford a few frivolities.

[Iestwyn (OP)]

Huh... that's interesting. I think I may stick with your previous suggestion of having the three missiles be AMM, AFM, and ASM, but I'll have to keep those designs in mind; I might just steal them, drop the 4 MSP design, and shuffle the names around.

[Iestwyn (OP)]

Decided that if I'm going to do this, I might as well do it right.

BEHOLD.

Code: [Select]

Infinity class Supercarrier      750,000 tons       20,500 Crew       317,710.4 BP       TCS 15,000    TH 150,000    EM 100,650
10000 km/s    JR 6-250      Armour 15-735       Shields 3355-671       HTK 4556      Sensors 1600/1600/0/0      DCR 1501      PPV 908
Maint Life 1.32 Years     MSP 597,402    AFR 2998%    IFR 41.6%    1YR 365,168    5YR 5,477,515    Max Repair 119548.7 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 50,000 tons     Troop Capacity 100,000 tons     Magazine 3,208   
Captain    Control Rating 6   BRG   AUX   ENG   CIC   FLG   PFC   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Flight Crew Berths 1,000    Morale Check Required   

Mark X Macedon Slipspace Drive J750000(6-250)     Max Ship Size 750000 tons    Distance 250k km     Squadron Size 6

XR2 Boglin Fields Repulsor Engine EP1000.00 (150)    Power 150000.0    Fuel Use 27.62%    Signature 1000.00    Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 54,983,000 Litres    Range 47.8 billion km (55 days at full power)
Misrah Armory's Heavy Dispersal Field Generator S671 / R671 (5)     Recharge Time 671 seconds (5 per second)

Series-8 MAC (4)    Range 500,000km     TS: 10,000 km/s     Power 100-10    ROF 50       
Onager MAC (8)    Range 500,000km     TS: 10,000 km/s     Power 40-10    ROF 20       
Fortress Point Defense Cannon R600-100 (50x6)    Range 60,000km     TS: 40000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 60,000 km    ROF 5       
MAC Targeting System R600-TS10000 (50%) (4)     Max Range: 600,000 km   TS: 10,000 km/s     98 97 95 93 92 90 88 87 85 83
Point Defense Targeting Suite R300-TS40000 (50%) (2)     Max Range: 300,000 km   TS: 40,000 km/s     97 93 90 87 83 80 77 73 70 67
Deuterium Fusion Reactor R60 (2)     Total Power Output 120    Exp 5%

M96 Howler Launcher (20)     Missile Size: 6.00    Rate of Fire 10
M75 Rapier Launcher (80)     Missile Size: 1    Rate of Fire 5
M42 Archer Launcher (40)     Missile Size: 3.0    Rate of Fire 10
Lancer ASM Guidance System FC1622-R100 (50%) (2)     Range 1,622.8m km    Resolution 100
Lancer AFM Guidance System FC753-R10 (50%) (2)     Range 753.2m km    Resolution 10
Lancer AMM Guidance System FC349-R1 (50%) (2)     Range 349.6m km    Resolution 1
M75 Rapier Anti-Missile Missile (802)    Speed: 56,000 km/s    End: 14.9m     Range: 50.1m km    WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 1306/784/392
M42 Archer Anti-Fighter Missile (400)    Speed: 43,867 km/s    End: 114.6m     Range: 301.7m km    WH: 4    Size: 3.0000    TH: 979/587/293
M96 Howler Anti-Ship Missile (201)    Speed: 26,667 km/s    End: 500.9m     Range: 801.4m km    WH: 25    Size: 6.0000    TH: 391/234/117

Ship Sensor AS811-R100 (50%) (2)     GPS 300000     Range 811.4m km    Resolution 100
Missile Sensor AS174-R1 (50%) (2)     GPS 3000     Range 174.8m km    MCR 15.7m km    Resolution 1
Fighter Sensor AS376-R10 (50%) (2)     GPS 30000     Range 376.6m km    Resolution 10
High-Powered EM Sensor EM50-1600 (50%) (2)     Sensitivity 1600     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  316.2m km
High-Powered Thermal Sensor EM50-1600 (50%) (2)     Sensitivity 1600     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  316.2m km

ECCM-6 (2)         ECM 60

Strike Group
25x F-41E Broadsword Escort Fighter   Speed: 1 km/s    Size: 9.99
25x D76-TC Pelican Dropship   Speed: 1 km/s    Size: 9.99
50x GA-TL1 Longsword Strikefighter   Speed: 1 km/s    Size: 9.99

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Are there problems? Absolutely. Do I care at the moment? Nuh-uh. (Feel free to tell me what they are, though---I tried so hard to get the maintenance/engineering issues sorted out, for example.)

And I did try to stick the Strident-class heavy frigates in its hangar. Looks like a craft actually has to be classified as a fighter to go in a hangar. Which is what I assumed, but I've never had the chance to test it before.

So here we are: the absolute biggest thing that this level of technology's jump drives can handle. May God have mercy on my soul.

[nuclearslurpee]

It's a thing of beauty. 

I'd probably have gone for a couple more of the power reactors, Maybe even double up as they're fairly cheap components (relatively) and it gives you redundancy if one or two get taken out.

I'd suggest having a lot more MFCs especially for the Archers and Rapiers. The Archers really only need to launch a handful of missiles per fighter target so I'd go with 8-10 MFCs for them, similar for the Rapier AMMs I'd probably do about 20. It would be a PITA to configure manually but the Auto FC button might just get it right the first time, and if not you've only gotta do it once anyways.

Not sure what you're actually doing, but if you have Engineering Spaces I'd take them all off and use only Damage Control modules to get that high of a DC. Otherwise let your IFR go over 100% and load up on MSPs. If you're using a default build phase time of 400,000 seconds you'll get a guaranteed failure once every five days (ish - you can cheese this by playing with the build phase time, actually, but let's not) and immediately fix it with MSPs. Probably cheaper than using a lot of engineering spaces overall, but worth playing around with it.

I'm surprised by this discovery about hangars, I thought any craft could go in a hangar as long as it had enough space. But I've never tried fitting a whole frigate into a hangar, so I wouldn't know.

[Iestwyn (OP)]

Couldn't tell you how I forgot that damage control was a thing, but I did. I have 1500 engineering spaces on this bad boy.

I was going to post the revised version since the adjustments you suggested wouldn't take too long, but I had a bit of a surprise: when I added damage controls (basic, improved, or advanced, I tried them all), the failure rates went up. I don't... know how that happened. But then I don't quite know how DC works.

[nuclearslurpee]

Damage Control gives you DCR (damage control rating) which helps you make combat repairs, but it doesn't help the failure rates.

You want a >100% IFR on this bad boy, because one of the things that happens when you build a really big ship that breaks the game is that it's IFR goes way over 100%, but the game only lets you have one failure per increment (same as your construction increment). So instead of adding 1,500 Engineering Spaces to get the IFR below 100%, you just let that IFR go up to maximum and load up on MSPs to fix the guaranteed failure every 5 days. Should be cheaper in the long run especially since those 1,500 engineering modules still leave you with a failure every 2-3 increments anyways.

...assuming this wasn't changed between VB6 and C#, of course. I'd ask around, but I'm guessing nobody's tested that given the size of ship you'd need to do so.

[Borealis4x]

I noticed something comparing your design with the official wiki specs. According to sources, the Infinity is almost 1 billion tons while your design is only 150 thousand. while I think the ship you build here is far too small to reflect the real Infinity, apparently even the frigates inside it are over a million tons which I do not believe matches with Aurora numbers. Tho I heard somewhere that the tons represented in game aren't metric tons or long tons but something else, perhaps it represents displacement.