The feasability of point defense missiles in T4 using FF&S II

[aramis]

Yes standard fusion power plants. TL 13 can do these too but their minimum volume for the fusion pp is 1 m3 so they end up with their minimum missile size at 1.3 m3 + fuel, guidance, hull, communications and payload. Perhaps 1.5 to 1.6 cubic meters for a 12 minute sprint missile, with a cost of in the neighborhood of 250k. Not exactly cheap enough or fast enough for the point defense role.

The next development for these is to see how stealthy of a sensor drone you can get. Parameters are surface area <9 square meters, power less than 9 M/W, minimum passive ems array, IR masking, ultra black coating, meson communicator, secondary power system so the fusion plant can be shut down to reduce the IR signature even further, and a couple of hundred gturns of fuel.

lowest SA per volume is a sphere. I get r=0.8462843753216345m radius using 4πr²=9, giving a volume of v=(4/3)πr³=2.5388531259649034m³

So a roughly 2.54m³ sphere of about 1.7m diameter. My FF&S I/II are buried... someone else can go from there. But it's big enough for a fusion plant...

 

[warwizard]

lowest SA per volume is a sphere. I get r=0.8462843753216345m radius using 4πr²=9, giving a volume of v=(4/3)πr³=2.5388531259649034m³

So a roughly 2.54m³ sphere of about 1.7m diameter. My FF&S I/II are buried... someone else can go from there. But it's big enough for a fusion plant...

ok got it done, it's a bit pricey, that extreme thermal masking is a killer cost wize.

TL 15 drone .2 tons displacement (2.4422 cubic meters) MCr 20.59 in quantity
Visable signature -3 (1000 times closer than a painted 100 ton hull for same detection chance)
IR Signature -2.5 (500 times closer than a typical 100 ton starship)
Active Signature -0.5 (ok the jig is up, he went active to find us)
Passive scan 13
156 Gturns @12g
500,000 Km Laser communicator (mason was not viable)
battery power for ten hours with power plant shut down, no maneuvering allowed. Battery recharges in 54 seconds when the power plant is at full power but the drone is not maneuvering, and 6.5 hours when it is maneuvering.

the sensor package is a 13.0 sensitivy passive EMS (doubles the detection range vs a 12.5 sensitivy sensor)

Note the drone is not capable of throttling it's maneuver drive, it's either on or off (the HEPLAR is minimum size, will not operate at reduced power levels)
IR signature is when not thrusting, add 2 or 4 to this rateing when thrusting.
battery only mode is at IR signature -4.0.

 

[warwizard]

Drop the PEMS to 12.5 and the Thermal masking to merely advanced drops the price to MCr 2.06 and ups the performance to 240g turns at 15 g's
signatures -3,-2, -.5 Pscan 12.5 (2.417 cubic meters).