Originally posted by rancke:
You mean the reverse of what you write here, right? A dispersed structure assumes the carried craft are external and carrying them internally allows the core ship to be streamlined?
No, I meant what I said, but didn't word it clearly.
In T20, you've got several options for designing a battlerider tender. Each has different benefts.
1) Conventional (per HG and T20): the mothership carries the riders in internal bays. Each bay requires 110% of the volume of the carried craft and costs Cr2000 per ton of craft carried. THe ship can launch only one rider for each 10,000 tons of hull in a turn (not a limit on rider tenders, really). Ths design can be SL or PSL, deoending on configuration. The mothership's effective displacement is the same with or without riders aboard.
2) Dispersed Structure (per HG and T20): the mothership carries riders in an extrnal frameowrk of some sort. Ruleswise, this is basically the same as above, except it can launch all carried craft at once, the hull is cheaper, and you can't add any armor. This design is always USL. Displacement remains the same even when the riders are dropped.
3) External Docking Mount (new for T20). Craft are carried externally. They require internal space in the mother ship equal to 30% of the carried craft's volume and cost Cr 4000 per ton of craft carried. The mothership can be SL, PSL or even USL, depending on the hull type chosen. But the standard external docking mounts reduce the streamlining of the mother ship by one step while the subordinate craft are docked (SL to PSL, PSL to USL, etc.). This penalty can be eliminated by doubling the cost to reflect a tighter design. The great benefit here is that the ship's effective displacment changes depending on whether the subcraft are attached or not. Thus, this is the only design that gets faster when it drops its riders.
If I had a little time I'd design the three alternatives and see which one is best.