CT+ Ships
- Thread starter infojunky
- Start date
The problem is that CT combat isn't really damage point based, it's "hit" or "not hit", or, "each hit is 1 point" whether it's from a laser or a missile.
Outside of the Crits, HG works the same way. "1 hit == 1 damage" (i.e. roll on the damage table(s)).
Adding damage values and damage reduction certainly potentially gives more flexibility with scalable weapons, but makes the system more complex.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
My solution to armor…. It doesn’t go on CT ships, and if it did it would be rated like HG.
HG batteries with to hit, drop in energy/particle battery value with distance so reduced damage, battery value must exceed armor value to do damage, full damage if it does punch through.
Missiles the same except their pen and damage value only starts with battery value, relative vee adds or subtracts from battery value, so usually they do optimal pen/damage near the end of their runs.
Smaller ships get charged more volume for their armor, and big ships get a bonus.
HG batteries with to hit, drop in energy/particle battery value with distance so reduced damage, battery value must exceed armor value to do damage, full damage if it does punch through.
Missiles the same except their pen and damage value only starts with battery value, relative vee adds or subtracts from battery value, so usually they do optimal pen/damage near the end of their runs.
Smaller ships get charged more volume for their armor, and big ships get a bonus.
Note in Book2 Beam does 1 point of damage, Pulse does 2 points of Damage and missiles do 1d6 points of damage.
Also note that binary armored and unarmored hulls where a thing early on. So armor could be like Streamlining a ship is or not armored. with armor giving a 4+ damage save.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
The thing about armour piercing, is, that if there is no resistance, it could pass through one side of the ship through the other.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
Exactly what happens in my hybrid- second half of hit applies 50% of damage plus whatever was left from first half, if what gets destroyed is less then the total it just goes through.
In those scenarios I think of it more as a surface grazing hit.
But then again never was a fan of those 10D+ personal combat auto-vaporizer hits.
Every hundred to 1,000.
Every 500 to 5,000
Every thousand to 20,000
This gets us to the Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual's Dreadnought sized.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
One speculation is that the limit is two thousand metres for Star Trek starwarships, due to the viability of the number of large weapon systems on one platform, and becoming overly attractive as the primary target.
I worked out the tonnage on the DN and CA... 20 kTd is sufficient to do classic trek, and I really prefer the classic era...
I'm currently trying to open my SKPs and recalculating the SFTM ships. I'm using Sketchup models I made using tech manual scans, and treating the hull chunks other than the saucer as cone minus cone. decks 6-8 as a thin slice of a cone, and above and below as somple cones. Not great calculus... but good enough.
Refigured the SFTM DN using my SKPs, much more accurately than I did with a calculator and ruler in 1992...
11 kTd. And with better math knowledge. And using 14m³ per Td instead of 13.5.
SC & DD 5300 Td
CA 7800 Td
Tug 6400 or so.
All of these should probably add about 10% for the curves I completely didn't calculate for. (Doesn't seem to want to calculate enclosed volumes...)
I'd guess the reliant is a DN saucer, 2 nacelles, and the rollbar roughly equals the missing pylons, so
Components:
Warp Nacelle: 918.7 Td
CA/DN nacelle pylons 73.3 Td each pylon
"Neck" 140 Td - connects DN and CA Prime to Secondary, SC/DD primary to Nacelle, and Tug primary to tow-pad.
DN upper nacelle pylon 61 Td
DN Primary 5460 Td
DN Secondary 2381.6 Td
CA/TG/DD/SC Primary 4226.8 Td
Bridge module 50 Td. (roughly)
So 20K sounds like a really good margin now...
(I'm also pretty certain how I screwed up in '92 - divide by 2 after squaring the diameter. It's supposed to be divide diameter by 2 first, or divide by 4 after... and the 13.5 vs 14 adds 4%, and add measuring errors.
11 kTd. And with better math knowledge. And using 14m³ per Td instead of 13.5.
SC & DD 5300 Td
CA 7800 Td
Tug 6400 or so.
All of these should probably add about 10% for the curves I completely didn't calculate for. (Doesn't seem to want to calculate enclosed volumes...)
I'd guess the reliant is a DN saucer, 2 nacelles, and the rollbar roughly equals the missing pylons, so
Components:
Warp Nacelle: 918.7 Td
CA/DN nacelle pylons 73.3 Td each pylon
"Neck" 140 Td - connects DN and CA Prime to Secondary, SC/DD primary to Nacelle, and Tug primary to tow-pad.
DN upper nacelle pylon 61 Td
DN Primary 5460 Td
DN Secondary 2381.6 Td
CA/TG/DD/SC Primary 4226.8 Td
Bridge module 50 Td. (roughly)
So 20K sounds like a really good margin now...
(I'm also pretty certain how I screwed up in '92 - divide by 2 after squaring the diameter. It's supposed to be divide diameter by 2 first, or divide by 4 after... and the 13.5 vs 14 adds 4%, and add measuring errors.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Actually, the Miranda class is larger than the Constitutions.
And they have two swivel phasers and presumably a torpedo pod on top.
And they have two swivel phasers and presumably a torpedo pod on top.
Filming model isn't bigger.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
The Miranda class is more ... compact ... in terms of overall dimensions (no secondary hull will do that).
However, in terms of internal volume, I can easily believe that the Miranda class has more internal space available than the Constitution (old or new) because of how the primary hull is shaped. There is a LOT of extra volume in the aft end of that hull design!
Should have been more clear, I meant forms streamlined, close structure Etc. etc..Every hundred to 1,000.
Every 500 to 5,000
Every thousand to 20,000
This gets us to the Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual's Dreadnought sized.
It depends on what effects you want the hull shape to have in-game.
Back-porting LBB5 into LBB2 gives you streamlined, partially-streamlined, and unstreamlined.
I'd say "partially streamlined" ships can land if thrust>planetary gravity, but need to come to essentially a full stop before attempting atmospheric entry. "Unstreamlined" ships are specifically designed to take advantage of never having to interact with atmosphere, and thus have things like external antenna arrays and radiators that will be damaged by trying to enter an atmosphere.
That may be all you need. If you aren't using meson guns, the actual layout of the hull doesn't matter.
Then you get to weird edge cases. External cargo pods or drop tanks might (if not conformal) reduce a streamlined ship to partially-streamlined, or even totally unstreamlined in some cases. Or, could you shape an asteroid hull to at least partially streamline it?
And do you want "airframe" hulls that are designed to use aerodynamic lift? Seems like overkill with gravity drives available.
You could make a distinction between streamlined hulls that are capable of subsonic speed in atmosphere and those capable of super- or hyper-sonic speeds. This may affect how the ship does gas-giant skimming (parabolic orbit segment pass vs. hover).
Back-porting LBB5 into LBB2 gives you streamlined, partially-streamlined, and unstreamlined.
I'd say "partially streamlined" ships can land if thrust>planetary gravity, but need to come to essentially a full stop before attempting atmospheric entry. "Unstreamlined" ships are specifically designed to take advantage of never having to interact with atmosphere, and thus have things like external antenna arrays and radiators that will be damaged by trying to enter an atmosphere.
That may be all you need. If you aren't using meson guns, the actual layout of the hull doesn't matter.
Then you get to weird edge cases. External cargo pods or drop tanks might (if not conformal) reduce a streamlined ship to partially-streamlined, or even totally unstreamlined in some cases. Or, could you shape an asteroid hull to at least partially streamline it?
And do you want "airframe" hulls that are designed to use aerodynamic lift? Seems like overkill with gravity drives available.
You could make a distinction between streamlined hulls that are capable of subsonic speed in atmosphere and those capable of super- or hyper-sonic speeds. This may affect how the ship does gas-giant skimming (parabolic orbit segment pass vs. hover).
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kilemall
SOC-14 5K
Need to have that shape defined, for meson guns if nothing else.
Partially streamlined can do gas giant refueling, so I’d make all streamlined hypersonic and partially streamlined for hover.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Three broad categories - airframe, streamlined, un-streamlined.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
That opens some rather interesting corner cases if you go that direction.
It would mean that both streamlined and partially streamlined ships can aerobrake using an upper atmosphere. However, only a (fully) streamlined ship could perform orbital skimming of gas giants (hybersonic parabolic orbital path) while partially streamlined ships would be obliged to slow down to subsonic speeds (I'm thinking like 0.3 mach or below) relative to the atmosphere before descending deep enough to skim fuel (slow hover maneuver) and would need to descend lower down into the atmosphere (lack of hypersonic ram pressure intake).
For terrestrial worlds (with atmospheres and oceans), the streamlined ships can more efficiently aerobrake to wipe off orbital velocities for more rapid descents from low orbit to the surface through atmosphere. Partially streamlined ships would have reduced aerobraking capacity (have to stay higher, less velocity wipe off) and essentially be obliged to use maneuver drive power to slow to subsonic speeds (again, 0.3 mach or below) before descending deeper into the atmosphere towards the surface.
In both cases, the partially streamlined ship designs will require drive thrust in excess of local gravity and for "landings" can only do so in a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) fashion. Streamlined ships are aerodynamic enough to get "some" lift from their hulls such that they can achieve horizontal takeoffs and landings so long as local gravity is not more than (variable determined by atmosphere type) greater than maneuver drive capacity AND there are long runway facilities for takeoff runs and landing rollouts (CTOL).
- Very thin atmosphere or less: maneuver drive capacity must exceed local gravity
- Thin atmosphere: maneuver drive capacity can equal local gravity
- Standard atmosphere: local gravity can exceed maneuver drive capacity by up to 0.1G
- Dense atmosphere: local gravity can exceed maneuver drive capacity by up to 0.2G
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
Works for me.
