A little help, please?

[navanod]

I've been digesting T5 over the last few weeks (and having a blast with the various Makers...), I decided it was probably time to delve into a full blown ship. Since Tom Peters very nifty Warsprite-class Merc ship was a project I started a year ago, I wanted to get back to it with T5 stats and finishing off the model I started. (Relevant thread, here, original pic, design sketch)

So, what I know so far is that it's 800 tons, with 300 tons set aside for a swappable sub-hull for mission-specific modules. My question is, do I build it as a 500 ton hull (with an eye toward grapples and a 300 ton sub-hull), or build it as a straight 800 ton hull? The problem comes from the armament, in that the original pic shows a minimum of 6 turrets (and 2 more are inferred on the ventral hull) thus making it an invalid 500 ton build with too many turrets. I'm inclined to build it as an 800 ton hull, but with the mission module detached, you again end up with a 500 ton ship carrying 8 turrets.

Thoughts, opinions, ideas? I know in the end this is minor, but I'd rather not re-ignite the Gazelle issue if I can avoid it, and I'm positive somebody else will run into this issue sooner or later.

And before anyone asks, yes, this ship will be getting the Technical Manual treatment - stats, deckplans, renders, etc. , and it will be made available for free here.

 

[aramis]

both.

The drives and controls get built for the 800Td assembly (and performance recalc'ed for the 500Td), but you add the grapples and the separate, possibly uncontrolled, 300Td secondary hull.

 

[Murdoc]

I think that if there are 6 turrets on a 800 ton hull, 300 of which swaps out, then at least one of the turrets has to go on the pod. I always took this limitation to be a bit of a spacing issue in order to make sense, so unless the pod is armed (even if it can only fire while attached to the main body and its power plant), then 5 is as much as it can legally have, as I see it anyway.

 

[Reban]

First thoughts reading your description rather than the detail of the design is to design an 800ton hull with 300tons of internal payload set aside. Fit grapples inside this area and design a module as a 300ton barge.

This way the 300ton barge doesn't have to have extra armor layers that take up volume and internal carriage means it benefits from the main hulls armor.

This gets around your hardpoint problem. Maybe assign the two spare hardpoints as the "ports" the the weapons mounted in the pod fire through.

Is the design at all specific about how the module is carried or attached?

 

[pendragonman]

both.

The drives and controls get built for the 800Td assembly (and performance recalc'ed for the 500Td), but you add the grapples and the separate, possibly uncontrolled, 300Td secondary hull.

300 Td pod is more likely. Then you design your series of swappable pods.

If you are truly worried about the turret issue then put three of the turrets on your swappable pods (the grapples could have power couplings with them), then when no pod is attached it strictly adheres to the turret rule. Since it is unlikely to travel very often without a pod attached, it would still have the 8 turrets necessary.

Just don't forget to get performance ratings for when no pod is attached. Less hull for the same engines=high speed win!

However, Rob is the ship expert. Let's wait for his opinion.

 

[Bloo]

I like the look of that ship - hadn't seen it before that I recall.

Design wise, I'd do them separately, much easier for yourself and others to design additional submodules that way. I wouldn't worry about trying to match the number of turrets so much.

 

[navanod]

Pod/subhull arrangement

The mission module essentially slips between the aft extensions, connecting on both decks to the forward half of the ship. Moving 3 of the turrets to the pod is probably the route I'll use, just to keep everything street-legal. Most likely, I'll give the pod a bit of armor and a power plant as well so it can be left on its own as a base or orbital control facility.

 

[Bloo]

How is/should the modular cutter done? This is principally the same thing.

Are there more turrets on the bottom? Lot of overlapping fields of fire on the top.

 

[navanod]

As I currently have it modeled, yes, there is another pair of turrets on the bottom, plus two on top, one on each side of the engine nacelles, and one each on the upper surface of each docking rail, for a total of 8. If I move 3 to the pod, I'll most likely take one off the bottom (and upgrade to a bigger gun) and the pair off the docking rails. That makes the main ship a bit more vulnerable from the aft when the pod isn't attached, but thems the breaks.

I did have a rather inspired idea of making the 3 turrets on the pod deployable. With a fighter hangar and possibly flight control center, one pod can form the basis of a nifty orbital fighter base for extended operations...

 

[robject]

That is a sweet concept. We don't have enough clipper/modular designs out there, precisely because of the Gazelle Effect, I suppose.

When I wrote the Gazelle walk-thru for T5, I struggled with the 4-hardpoints-on-a-300-ton-frame problem. It's illegal, no matter how you look at it. Jim Kundert gave me the most elegant solution: bump up the volume of the main hull.

And so you see the answer: one hardpoint, maximum, is physically situated on the hull for every 100 tons of hull. If your hull is 800 tons and has 6 hardpoints, there's one hardpoint per 100 tons of contiguous hull.

Design your ship as a 500 ton hull, with enough grapples to handle several hundred tons of pods (sub-100t hulls) and/or barges (100 ton and larger hulls). With different grappled payloads, your ship becomes multi-role-capable. Otherwise, if you designed it as 800 tons, 3 of the 5 hardpoints go with the detachable barge hull... and you lose the multirole flexibility to some extent.

And, if need be, invoke the Gazelle Effect: When you need more hardpoints on the main hull than the main hull can support, bump up the main hull's volume.

 

[GypsyComet]

I am endlessly amused at the variations that one piece of MT art has led to.

 

[pendragonman]

Seconded!

I second Rob's remarks! That design is slick!

Also, that picture makes it way more clear that it really is a pod or barge that switches out.

If you armor the pod, I would go with the same factor as the hull for consistency. If you put in a PP, maybe stick a small G-drive in each pod to make them self-motile, at least in gravity wells.

 

[HG_B]

If you put in a PP, maybe stick a small G-drive in each pod to make them self-motile, at least in gravity wells.

Unless you are landed it doesn't make a difference. Orbit or deep space...

 

[navanod]

Hmmm...put in a G-drive, and use it for mobile barracks, hospitals, offices, etc on planetary surfaces. Interesting...now if I can get the idea to work in 3d...

 

[Reban]

You might get away with Lifters if you don't want lots of speed on the surface or if you don't require independent maneuver in the 10D limit, it is a module not a smallcraft after all.


After seeing your great illustrations my idea of internal carriage won't work because its obviously external to the mainhull.

 

[navanod]

First pass design

Here's the first draft of the Warsprite stats; I didnt have time to type everything out, so I just used Robs program to pop out a pdf. Have a look, let me know what I screwed up.

 

[pendragonman]

Unless you are landed it doesn't make a difference. Orbit or deep space...

To clear something up, the G drive I mention is an alternative maneuver drive. Works up to 10 D limit pretty well. Not just for dirtside.

See around p 338 of the Holy Tome (Monolith, BBB, you chose)

 

[Bloo]

Here's project for ship builders: the Nomad.
3 ships that link together/break apart around a ring.

 

[GRNDL]

That is a very cool design! Wish I had thought of it before working on my hauler design, but then mine had its roots in a different kind of idea. Its more Thunderbird 2 now.

Your design looks very functional, yet still retains a slick, stylistic look.

 

[PinkSplice]

Hmmm...put in a G-drive, and use it for mobile barracks, hospitals, offices, etc on planetary surfaces. Interesting...now if I can get the idea to work in 3d...

Much of this was done with GURPS Traveller Modular Cutters. It should be possible to convert between the two (now there is a project).