Has Anyone Made a Million Ton Ship?

[WistfulD]

I wonder how many tons the Star Wars' Death Star would be?

Well, if we agree on starting assumptions, it's just simple math with big numbers. Starwars.com gives the first death star a diameter of 120 km, or a 60,000m radius (this is apparently controversial within the fan community, one more reason to avoid that community as far as I'm concerned). The volume of a sphere is (4/3)*pi*r^3. The volume of a dton is 14 m^3.

Thus to two significant digits, we have [(4/3) * 3.14 *(60,000)^3]/14 = 65 trillion dTons.

The second death star is supposedly 160 km, or 150 trillion dTons, although it is hard to say how much of that was completed before it was destroyed.

Not that it matters, since those numbers are largely arbitrary, and it was in fact simply big enough to be impressive.

 

[Matt123]

Thus to two significant digits, we have [(4/3) * 3.14 *(60,000)^3]/14 = 65 trillion dTons.

To put that into perspective, my tiny 5 million ton colony ship carries 1.6 million sophonts in low berths. It could empty New Zealand in three trips. Using the same ratio, the Death Star might hold 20 Trillion sophonts in low berths, enough to hold the population of some 2950 Earths.

 

[Kaeto]

I once built a 6 million tonne Battle Rider Carrier and it's 5, 1 million tonne Battle Riders.

The Carrier was known as the IISN Armageddon.

 

[TheDS]

I remember only two facts about the one I made:

I did it with Megatraveller (before TNE came out).
It had 3 spinal mounts.

I mean, really, at that size, they're just another gun. FFS bore me out, but by then I had bigger fish to fry. Namely, a 10MDTn ship built with FFS, about which I remember that you didn't want to be the target of its spinal weapon. (Why yes, the weapon itself WAS bigger than a 1 MDTn ship.)

 

[aramis]

I built a 10MTd ship in one game... more as a macguffin... j4, 4g, 10 meson gun spinals, under HG (ignoring the spinal limit), with robot crew (needing 1 Td each), and a robot factory.

 

[robject]

I made a million-ton tender for Cleon-class (50kt) battle riders.

And, I once tried to stat out (partly) the Leoskalth planetoid (50 biiillllion tons).

 

[savage]

I've created many over the years. IMO deep space exploration to core requires more than an old AHL. I had a battleship version with multiple spinal mounts, other Million/Billion Dton ships as well. All we're in D20.


http://www.angelfire.com/empire2/savage/1WorldOrder/My_Savage_Designs/Columbus_Mobile_Starport.html

 

[Brian Smaller]

My first thought was "who hasn't?"

But reality is only one - back in the 80s with HG2. It was even a Needle/Wedge configuration. Not sure where the inspiration came from

Man you can pack a lot of sub craft into a ship that big.

 

[mike wightman]

I have a 10 million ton jump 6 tender designed to ferry 1 million ton jump 4 battle tenders from the reserve to the front staging area.

They have drop tank capability so can make rapid jump 6 progress, and can be re-tasked to become drop tank carriers to provide mobile deep space refuelling for fleets.

 

[kilemall]

If you want a good inspiration, can't go wrong with LoGH's Iserlohn Fortress and Thor's Hammer-

http://gineipaedia.com/wiki/Iserlohn_Fortress

 

[Spartan159]

I wonder how many tons the Imperial palace is.

 

[SanDragon]

It was a 1 kilometer diameter sphere, floating a half kilometer above the park.

You have fun with the math.

But, I did just bang out some numbers... 523,598,775.6 cubic meters... /13.5 = 38,785,094.49 tons.

 

[Daidoji Dave]

I did a million ton dreadnaught, back in 1982 IIRC; I do not remember the specifics, other than I put ten spinal mounts on it (I KNOW that's breaking the rules). I basically said they would all share the same to hit and damage rolls. I don't recall there being a huge advantage.

More recently, I realized HGS 2.0 did not enforce the Mega dton limit, so created a small moon... o:

Ship: DS1
Class: Death Star
Type: Battle Station
Architect: Ballard Designs
Tech Level: 15

USP
BX-Z5424JZ-F99949-99T99-Y TCr 9,604.211 10,000 MTons
Bat Bear [see below] Crew: 67647768 TL: 15

Cargo: 245,808 Passengers: 90000 Fuel: 5,800,010,000 EP: 400,000,000 Agility: 1 Marines: 1,000,000 Drop Capsules: 50,000 (plus 200,000 Ready) Fitted as Flagship: Accommodation for Admiral and ten staff with Flag Bridge and Model/8fib Flag Computer
Craft: 1,000 x 50T FHes, 5,000 x 50T Cutters, 20 x 400T Patrol Cruisers, 40 x 400T Fleet Couriers, 5,000 x 8T Astrin G-Carriers, 4 x 60000T Azhanti High Lightnings, 40 50T Launch Tubes, 2 400T Launch Tubes
Fuel Treatment: Fuel Scoops and On Board Fuel Purification
Backups: 1 x 1G Maneuver Drive 1 x Jump 1 Drive 1 x Factor 1 Power Plant 4 x Model/9fib Computers 1 x Bridge 3 x Factor 9 Nuclear Dampers 3 x Factor 9 Meson Screens 1 x Factor 4 Black Globe
Architects Fee: MCr 96,037,368.923 Cost in Quantity: MCr 7,683,463,513.840

COMMENTS
The Death Star is a large military city that is capable of jump-4.
At 10 billion dtons, it is a massive structure, a sphere 62 km in diameter.

It has a staggering 800,000 Factor-9 beam laser batteries, 500,000
100-ton missile bays, and 100,000 100-ton meson bays.

It carries 1,000,000 marines who can be landed in 4 waves of the station's
5,000 cutters, and supported by 1,000 heavy fighters.

It has a crew of 45,000,000, and carries up to a year's supplies for them.
Life support alone runs 2.34 billion annually.
It's cost was 9 Quadrillion, 6 Hundred Trillion credits (9.6x10^15 Cr).

... Fuel scoops, you say. o:

 

[boomslang]

... Fuel scoops, you say. o:

I think there is a miscalculation, though.

At 62km in diameter, such a construct is on the order of 10 trillion dtons displacement (maybe 9 and a quarter or so), not 10 billion.

4/3 x pi x r^3 and all that.

But it gets worse. In what passes for reverse-engineered Star Wars canon, the first Death Star was more on the order of 160km in diameter (or 100 "miles", whatever those are), and the second was supposedly 900km across.

The later would be slightly more than 28 quadrillion dtons in displacement, once completed.

I think a large part of the station's ability to destroy a planet comes would come from the economic impact of its operational overhead; the big gun is relatively superfluous...