Fleet sizes

[Kaye]

I'm away from my sources right now, but something just dawned on me:
Missiles have ALWAYS been warp capable machines. So, the issue of having to assemble missile drives has ALWAYS been part of the procedure for EEEEEEEEEVER! (Lights go out, jackets starts to flash :rofl

So, how was this resolved in canon?

 

[McPerth]

I'm away from my sources right now, but something just dawned on me:
Missiles have ALWAYS been warp capable machines. So, the issue of having to assemble missile drives has ALWAYS been part of the procedure for EEEEEEEEEVER! (Lights go out, jackets starts to flash :rofl

So, how was this resolved in canon?

Very simple:

If the missiles are made with tantalum coils, they can travel as far as a starship (7.7 LY) withtout problems, counting both the time into the ship and when launched, but they rearely (if ever) travel enough distance alone for this to be a problem.

What we're discussing here is the possibility for them to carry hafnium coils, that emit hard radiation when they begin to accumulate charge, and, as they also acumulate it when inside the ship, that may be a problem.

 

[shaunhilburn]

So, the issue of having to assemble missile drives has ALWAYS been part of the procedure for EEEEEEEEEVER! (Lights go out, jackets starts to flash :rofl

So, how was this resolved in canon?

Bayern had two tandem drives; four drive units total. She worked fine without her drives being dismantled for transit.

This "offline" drive business was never an issue until 2nd edition, then came all the nonsense about offline contamination, magnetic suspension, tugs as so on.

 

[LemnOc]

This "offline" drive business was never an issue until 2nd edition, then came all the nonsense about offline contamination, magnetic suspension, tugs as so on.

I can understand how some of this helps "enforce the genre" and keep the general shapes of the Arms. Going beyond the 7.7 ly limit should be difficult. But it seems like a lot of the thought on this thread pushes to make it next to impossible... or beyond.

Likewise the extreme limits on stutterwarp materiél, pushing down the numbers of possible ships by an order of magnitude (and at the same time rendering the game economics untenable...) I mean, you're really going to ferry crops around in ships driven by the rarest and most expensive material in the galaxy? You're going to go to war in these ships?

Ultimately, its an RPG and its assumptions should facilitate that. My 2¢.

 

[LemnOc]

I'm away from my sources right now, but something just dawned on me:
Missiles have ALWAYS been warp capable machines. So, the issue of having to assemble missile drives has ALWAYS been part of the procedure for EEEEEEEEEVER! (Lights go out, jackets starts to flash :rofl

So, how was this resolved in canon?

Seems like a ship not at its 7.7 ly limit should be able to carry missiles ready to fire, and they will go 7.7 ly minus the charge the ship holds without problem. No assembly/disassembly required.

It suggests the missiles also need to be discharged at each well the ship discharges, so argues in favor of a not terribly impossible procedure for discharge.

Unless it is canonically disallowed, or breaks the Arms, one way to resolve this might be to decide that only engines on and running have elaborate discharges. Offline engines discharge along with the rest of the ship.

 

[McPerth]

Seems like a ship not at its 7.7 ly limit should be able to carry missiles ready to fire, and they will go 7.7 ly minus the charge the ship holds without problem. No assembly/disassembly required.

How many missiles have the endurance for that to matter? most have only a cuple hours of endurance after leaving the ship, and they won't go far enough to accumulate sensible charge.

It suggests the missiles also need to be discharged at each well the ship discharges, so argues in favor of a not terribly impossible procedure for discharge.

Unless it is canonically disallowed, or breaks the Arms, one way to resolve this might be to decide that only engines on and running have elaborate discharges. Offline engines discharge along with the rest of the ship.

That's how I understand it, when the ship is discharging any carried missile (or fighter, for what's worth, as they would have the same problems), being also at 0.1G threshold, discharges too.

 

[rgrove0172]

Hmm, that sounds as if discharging is an automatic passive process, simply the result of being in a gravity well. I always thought it was an active process, something the crew had to manage and only possible in a gravity well. I would think that each coil requireing discharge would have to be worked on separately.

Honestly the fact that their coils would be accumulating charge even while stored and simply being carried along never crossed my mind, but its certainly canon. The various commentary about tugs and such make that very clear. Actually though, when one thinks about it, even if a commander warps in to a system at 7.699 with his coils 'screaming' his missiles wont accumulate that last percentage on a typical run, nor his fighters for the most part, in a few short minutes of combat.

 

[LemnOc]

Hmm, that sounds as if discharging is an automatic passive process, simply the result of being in a gravity well. I always thought it was an active process, something the crew had to manage and only possible in a gravity well. I would think that each coil requireing discharge would have to be worked on separately.

Honestly the fact that their coils would be accumulating charge even while stored and simply being carried along never crossed my mind, but its certainly canon. The various commentary about tugs and such make that very clear. Actually though, when one thinks about it, even if a commander warps in to a system at 7.699 with his coils 'screaming' his missiles wont accumulate that last percentage on a typical run, nor his fighters for the most part, in a few short minutes of combat.

Reason being (more than just canon) you could just pack along extra stutterwarp drives and ditch them in series along the way, thereby "breaking" the Arms. Having to partially dismantle them to keep them from building a charge enforces the "geography" of the near star map.

But consider that a stutterwarp drive has three states: Off. On, inactive [disengaged]. On, active [engaged]. Consider also that you cannot turn off a charged drive w/o it exploding/instantly releasing its charge. If a stutterwarp missile is in its bay with its drive off, it will accumulate a charge as it is towed along. But IMO I don't really see any "gamey" purpose to have to physically mess around with every single towed [off] drive, well to well, while never exceeding 7.7. Other than to just annoy players, slow your game way down, and possibly kill them all with a single blown dice roll.

On something like the Kennedy that would almost be cruel.

 

[BMonnery]

But consider that a stutterwarp drive has three states: Off. On, inactive [disengaged]. On, active [engaged]. Consider also that you cannot turn off a charged drive w/o it exploding/instantly releasing its charge.

You can (formidable task, ship drive engineering) but mishaps involve everyone dying.

It could be useful as a plot device - a fully balanced off but charged stutterwarp engine used as a WMD smuggled into an orbital (say L-5) on the basis of it being off but awaiting startup (at which point it relaxes and blows the station).

 

[rgrove0172]

But IMO I don't really see any "gamey" purpose to have to physically mess around with every single towed [off] drive, well to well, while never exceeding 7.7. Other than to just annoy players, slow your game way down, and possibly kill them all with a single blown dice roll.

On something like the Kennedy that would almost be cruel.

Unless it were a major element in the current plot or something I would just let them take all the time they needed and make the roll automatic. Its hard to imagine such a risky venture taking place daily all over known space without news reports of ships popping like fireworks regularly. The entire coil-charge/7.7 LY max is, as you said, a mechanism to enforce the map. It should be a hindrance, a nuisance, and a necessary evil of space travel but not a life or death occurance at the end of every warp.

 

[LemnOc]

Unless it were a major element in the current plot or something I would just let them take all the time they needed and make the roll automatic.

So the Kennedy Fast becomes the Kennedy Very Slow and Tedious unless you carry an advanced class stutterwarp engineering team for each of the (20) missiles it carries so they can all be drained at the same rate/time as the main engine? Or it runs with its submunitions disassembled?

Gah. Just assume that, if an engine started off and arrived off and was never on at any time during the journey, it drains its charge along with everything else on the ship.

Look: It makes sense that if an unused engine can pick up an incidental charge without ever operating, just for being near an operating engine, it can lose an incidental charge without ever operating, just for being near an operating engine that is discharging in a gravity well. It is reciprocal.

Save the engineering tinkering for engines that actually get used.

 

[McPerth]

I keep thinking that if the missiles (or fighters, since now I'll englobe them as subcrafts) accumulate charge while travelling, they sill also discharge it whith the ship, either because is an automatic thing or because they're somewhat wired to the discharging device when inside the ship.

So, the subcrafts will have the same accumulated charge than the ship if they have not moved independently, and if they do they accumulate their own charge, that will rarely matter due to the small (relative) distances they use to travel outside the ship. No need then to carry their drives dismantled.

Asside from that, would it not be posible to have just the coils disassembled (and stored in such isolation as not to accumulate charge) and assemble them as you can assmeble a battery to a celular pone or hand radio? Such a way, it could be posible to use those told hafnium coils (only for the disposable missiles, as they are unmanned) and not accumulate charge unless they are armed (after all, I guess the nukes from the missiles have some safety sytem that also ned to be armed quickly before launching them).

Again the problem would be to recover them if not detonated, but most space battles occur near enough from a discharge point to allow them to be discharged before recovering them.

 

[rgrove0172]

Thats a good idea... that the discharge process can be extended, linking the various coils in some manner. It still requires a tech and some time but doesnt require specific attention to each drive.

Im also becoming enamored with the idea of hafnium or some other element powering missiles specifically. The trade off there is that they can be brought online as needed, dont accumulate a charge when offline, and therefore never have to be discharged unless by some odd chance are launched and never reach their target or are intercepted - against their relative instability and anything else you might want to plug in. Perhaps they accumulate their own charge when operating at 10,000x that of a normal drive - so they only last a few minutes before failing. Maybe they emit a currently unshielded form of radiation once they are activated.

The goal here, as I see it, is to remove them from concern. Managing ships and fighters is enough. Missiles should be loaded, stored, maintained and inspected regularly, then keyed up when about to be launched. I dont know if the added hassle of having to worry about discharging them really adds anything to the game. Surely there is a simply way around it?

 

[McPerth]

Of course this could not be used for ships itselves, as the coils are too large (keeping with the analogy with batteries, it would be as subamrines', so not so easy and quick to change), so the thug issue keeps more or less the same.

What will change is for communications, as a ship could travel just 3.8 LY and release a communications torpedo (long range missile) to travel 7.7 LY more with information or small priority charges (let's say an urgent medicines or vaccines pack), extending this communication range to about 11.5 LY. Those communication missiles will carry tantalum coils to avoid the radiation affect its cargo and to allow earlier recovrey for them and the cargo carried.

 

[rancke]

Asside from that, would it not be posible to have just the coils disassembled (and stored in such isolation as not to accumulate charge) and assemble them as you can assmeble a battery to a celular pone or hand radio? SUch a way, it could be posible to use those told hafnium coils (only for the disposavle missiles, as they are unmanned) and not accumulate charge unless they are armed (after all, I guess the nukes from the missiles have some safety sytem that also ned to be armed quickly before launching them).

I assume the whole rigmarole about everything accumulating charge no matter what is to prevent ships from carrying along a spare drive and doubling its range, thus nullifying (if that's the word I want) the concept of the arms.

(Personally I don't see why you couldn't allow something like that. If the material for drives are as rare as I understand, a double-drive ship would be a very expensive way to extend range. The arms would still be very important for regular traffic even if a few such "scout" vessels existed.)


Hans

 

[McPerth]

I assume the whole rigmarole about everything accumulating charge no matter what is to prevent ships from carrying along a spare drive and doubling its range, thus nullifying (if that's the word I want) the concept of the arms.

In fact, this can be done (if you carry your spare drives disassembled and have the crew to assemble them), but you must trow away your used drive to do so, using it in fact as the individual stages of a multiple stage rocket, just that those stages are the more expensive part of your whole ship.

IIRC, Bayern Project instructions allowed the ship to do that once on the forward trip and once on the return one (so losing 2 whole drives), but it's an exceptional case where costs are already quite high.

 

[ben51]

I always assumed stutterwarp drives had essentially three "settings".

1. completely off - drives that were completely off did not accumulate any charge and could be carried around at will. But they needed to be calibrated and spun up in order to provide propulsion. Spinning up a drive required a very expensive and delicate machine (including perhaps a very rare quantum computer) which is almost always located aboard a space station. The only known star ship to carry the necessary equipment to bring a drive online is the Bayern.

2. idle, neutral - these are drives that are spinning and calibrated but are not being fed enough power to create a quantum jump. This of course includes carried small craft and missiles. Idle drives automatically begin to discharge as they enter a gravity well and thus so long as the parent vessel discharges normally idle drives will as well.

3. active - active drives are those that are not only spun up but are also being fed enough power to induce quantum jumps. Active drives need to be prompted to discharge by de-powering them to idle mode while in a gravity well of 0.1 G.

In my game I allowed for additional technology for ships to create a electro-magnetic realignment field that reduced the amount of time that discharge took. Called drive washers, they were cutting edge technology.

Benjamin

 

[LemnOc]

I keep thinking that if the missiles (or fighters, since now I'll englobe them as subcrafts) accumulate charge while travelling, they sill also discharge it whith the ship, either because is an automatic thing or because they're somewhat wired to the discharging device when inside the ship.

...

Asside from that, would it not be posible to have just the coils disassembled (and stored in such isolation as not to accumulate charge) and assemble them as you can assmeble a battery to a celular pone or hand radio?

Agree with the first part.

As to the second, if assembly/disassembly becomes too easy, then you reap the problem of players setting out for distant systems with disassembled stutterwarps and assembling them along the way, thereby breaking the near star map. But you know this.

Moreover, why introduce a difficulty into a game if it is just going to be easily overcome without difficulty? Don’t see the point, in other words. </rhetorical question>

I always assumed stutterwarp drives had essentially three "settings"

...

In my game I allowed for additional technology for ships to create a electro-magnetic realignment field that reduced the amount of time that discharge took. Called drive washers, they were cutting edge technology.

I like the way you think, Benjamin. For me, the differences between states 2 and 3 are essentially a wash. But, like you, I don’t think towed, inert drives should cause much trouble just trucking them around from place to place, never breaking 7.7. The point (IMO) is to prevent players from inventing ways to blow through or past the topography of near space (which offers a “gamey” kind of geopolitical and strategic value). Enforcing the map is really at the heart of the 2300 milieu; making it especially difficult to cart stuff around said map, not so much.

 

[LemnOc]

IIRC, Bayern Project instructions allowed the ship to do that once on the forward trip and once on the return one (so losing 2 whole drives), but it's an exceptional case where costs are already quite high.

The maths on the Bayern never made a lot of sense to me. They were headed to the Pleiades without a hell of a lot of information on distances between discharge points. The first time you went past a +7.7 gap you essentially set the clock on your trip. The very next +7.7 gap you encounter, you'd have to turn around and head for home because your capacity to push further and also return home is ruined at that point. If you guessed wrong at any point along the way, you were stranded.

Seems like the Bayern would optimally carry seven ejectable drives. You could go a long way on seven drives. Not four.

 

[shaunhilburn]

The maths on the Bayern never made a lot of sense to me. They were headed to the Pleiades without a hell of a lot of information on distances between discharge points. The first time you went past a +7.7 gap you essentially set the clock on your trip. The very next +7.7 gap you encounter, you'd have to turn around and head for home because your capacity to push further and also return home is ruined at that point. If you guessed wrong at any point along the way, you were stranded.

Seems like the Bayern would optimally carry seven ejectable drives. You could go a long way on seven drives. Not four.

The book says: "The purpose for multiple stutterwarps is twofold. First, it prevents the failure of a single unit from crippling the ship. Second, it allows the ship to make a single run of up to 15.4 light-years between stars on the outbound and inbound legs of its voyage."

It never mentions anything about ejecting them.