Fanwanking

[McAvoy]

Magic. Along with mana draining technology.

Yeah, this isn't Warhammer so there's no reason for magic powered ships.

If the 14 kilometer vessel was the largest then I agree with you however the ship is considered small in comparison. So the transport probably would be as proportionally as hard to destroy as would any other transport perhaps maybe slightly harder to kill due to sheer size.

Then the problem isn't that there is a ship that is 14km long. The problem is there is a 14km ship in SG. Though do remember that in ST, things of that size have been built.

Agreed. It is a combination of SG and ST with magic. But like I said the largest is a 90 kilometer super-battleship with 100 million troops....

[Deepcrush]

Agreed. It is a combination of SG and ST with magic.

This here being the only problem I can see. But often enough, fanwanking is just that. A single issue that breaks the reliability of the proposed idea.

But like I said the largest is a 90 kilometer super-battleship with 100 million troops....

This part doesn't really bother me. Even if this ship were a simple block shape and using a 1/10 rule of height/width of length. You'd still be left with a ship a cubic space of 7,290km. Now if each level is treated as a cargo sized space as we see often in Warhammer or Farscape etc at about 100m. You have 656,100 square km of ground space open for use. 100 million troops isn't really a stretch.

[Mikey]

But wouldn't it be far wiser to have 100 ships with 1 million troops apiece?

[Deepcrush]

Depends on the mission and the threat against you in transit and the cargo, that being just for the troops being transported. Now figure the range, materials needed for service and operation and ability to defend said cargo. There's a reason that our Carriers are so large at sea. While spreading out your resources can sometimes be a wise idea. It also makes each part of your force in transit easier to destroy. Its a give and take matter, not something that can be set in stone.

[McAvoy]

There are alot of reasons why US carriers are so large. One of them focused power. The other is cost, it's cheaper to have one single carrier than have two smaller carriers. Crew size, number of planes are not directly proportional to the size of the carrier.

A single 14 kilometer troop transport though is still a single target and can be focused on as opposed to having 100 targets to deal with. Even with the sheer size and presumably powerful defensive and offensive the ship may carry, it is still a single target that enemy weapons fire can focus on. Whereas 100 ships can come from any direction seperated into groups so the enemy is more spread out.

Not to mention the logistics of getting the troops actually out of the ship once the ship has reached it's destination. Does it land? Does it have plenty of transporters (since it has ST and SG tech) to transport millions within a short timeframe?

I also would ask if 90 kilometer ship is actually worthwhile. You still need a certain amount of energy to even protect it to the standards of let's say a 9 kilometer ship. Which means either larger power sources or more of them in direct relation to the amount of energy to cover a ship 90 kilometers long vs. 9 kilometers. But to give the ship additional energy to make the ship worthwhile than having a bunch of 9 kilometer ships, you would have to have a shield capable of withstanding much more. Not to mention the increased multitude of weapons needed to give some degree of weapon coverage similar to a 9 kilometer vessel, and possibly have more powerful weapons. Then to have a 90 kilometer ship actually move around would require more energy as well.

[Deepcrush]

There are alot of reasons why US carriers are so large. One of them focused power. The other is cost, it's cheaper to have one single carrier than have two smaller carriers. Crew size, number of planes are not directly proportional to the size of the carrier.

A single 14 kilometer troop transport though is still a single target and can be focused on as opposed to having 100 targets to deal with. Even with the sheer size and presumably powerful defensive and offensive the ship may carry, it is still a single target that enemy weapons fire can focus on. Whereas 100 ships can come from any direction seperated into groups so the enemy is more spread out.

You largely answered your own statement in this. There's a reason that we don't build a hundred five plane carriers. Simply because they can't carry out the mission assigned to them. What it boils down to is the needs of the mission. A single target is easier to target, but being larger and more powerful means its a lot harder to destroy. If you are going to be trying to board a station or move small numbers from a lot of places to a single place, then numbers is important. If you're going to be trying to siege a heavily defended planet or lead an invasion against a large scale PDW system then size and power is more important. Its all about the needs.

Not to mention the logistics of getting the troops actually out of the ship once the ship has reached it's destination. Does it land? Does it have plenty of transporters (since it has ST and SG tech) to transport millions within a short timeframe?

Transporters of some form aren't out of the question, though a ship that size could carry several hundred cruise liner sized landing craft with ease. Deployment from these would no doubt allow for a rapid force application.

I also would ask if 90 kilometer ship is actually worthwhile. You still need a certain amount of energy to even protect it to the standards of let's say a 9 kilometer ship. Which means either larger power sources or more of them in direct relation to the amount of energy to cover a ship 90 kilometers long vs. 9 kilometers. But to give the ship additional energy to make the ship worthwhile than having a bunch of 9 kilometer ships, you would have to have a shield capable of withstanding much more. Not to mention the increased multitude of weapons needed to give some degree of weapon coverage similar to a 9 kilometer vessel, and possibly have more powerful weapons. Then to have a 90 kilometer ship actually move around would require more energy as well.

The answer to this is the same as above. It is worth or not by the mission, judging by the size and size alone is meaningless. Bias doesn't control the needs of a mission, so size and power and number of ships involved should only be judged by the mission as a whole.

[Tholian_Avenger]

Honestly, it never seemed right that so much technology could be packed into such little systems as a Constitution. I would expect something more on the order of several km.

[Deepcrush]

Since we don't truly know the basis of the technology its hard to judge. As we saw with the Defiant (DS9), the size of UFP ships is based largely on comfort and not the minimal needs of the intended design.

[GrahamKennedy]

The size of any ship is going to be dictated by a multitude of factors. Having multiple hulls for redundancy is certain one of them, but only one. After all there's a reason the US built eight 40,000 ton Wasp Class amphibious transports that can carry 1800 troops each, rather than eight hundred 400 ton ships that can carry 18 troops each. One big ship can bring capabilities that many small ones lack - try operating an AV-8B or F-35 off one of those 400 tonners, or mounting decent radars and SAMs on them.

And bear in mind the potential scale of a sci-fi military operation. If the Dominion had wanted to invade and occupy Earth, how many troops would it take to control a 9 billion population? I did some googling to try and get a handle on the sort of numbers you might need. Police forces run about 1 cop for every 450 people in the UK, matching that for 9 billion people would require twenty million troops - and police forces are only really able to govern because the majority cooperate with them. Meanwhile there are half a million troops in Afghanistan, to control a population of thirty million, and it's not exactly the most stable situation in the world. On that scale you would need to land no less than 150,000,000 troops on Earth even to have partial control over it.

If you imagine a war where a thousand planets are fighting, then you're going to need to move armies around in the tens of billions, at least. So yeah, some pretty big ships might well come in handy.

What often annoys me about big ships is that people don't get the "rule of cube". People make ships miles long and basically treat them as if they are dinky little things. But if you scaled an Arleigh Burke class destroyer up to 1 mile long, say, it should have a crew of around 300,000 people and carry upwards of 95,000 missiles (or the same number of missiles but a thousand times the size...) Running it would be like being the mayor of a city.

The only time I ever saw anything in sci fi that resembled how big ships should be treated was the way command of Babylon 5 was dealt with.

[Mikey]

I saw (once) in a WH40k novel how a huge troop transport was handled... complete with "lower decks" analogous to the seedier districts of a city with casinos, drug dens, brothels, dive bars and restaurants, etc. It was well-done, and made sense not just form a ship-size standpoint but from a cargo standpoint - you can't have that many troops stuffed into a barracks for that long. It'll become a tinderbox.

[GrahamKennedy]

That sounds pretty cool.

[Mikey]

That sounds pretty cool.

It was a Dan Abnett novel - which author, if you've ever read any of his military SF, 40k or otherwise, is easy to recognize as one of if not the best current SF war authors around - so it really understood the way such details add to the setting of a story. The ship's naval personnel in the form of armsmen, along with the Guard commissars (combination MP's, command advisors, and political officers) had to function as an erstwhile police force for the "city" of the lower decks. There was even a re-training (read: administrative punishment) facility in the form of a small academy, complete with armory, ranges, exercise yards, etc.

[McAvoy]

The size of any ship is going to be dictated by a multitude of factors. Having multiple hulls for redundancy is certain one of them, but only one. After all there's a reason the US built eight 40,000 ton Wasp Class amphibious transports that can carry 1800 troops each, rather than eight hundred 400 ton ships that can carry 18 troops each. One big ship can bring capabilities that many small ones lack - try operating an AV-8B or F-35 off one of those 400 tonners, or mounting decent radars and SAMs on them.

And bear in mind the potential scale of a sci-fi military operation. If the Dominion had wanted to invade and occupy Earth, how many troops would it take to control a 9 billion population? I did some googling to try and get a handle on the sort of numbers you might need. Police forces run about 1 cop for every 450 people in the UK, matching that for 9 billion people would require twenty million troops - and police forces are only really able to govern because the majority cooperate with them. Meanwhile there are half a million troops in Afghanistan, to control a population of thirty million, and it's not exactly the most stable situation in the world. On that scale you would need to land no less than 150,000,000 troops on Earth even to have partial control over it.

If you imagine a war where a thousand planets are fighting, then you're going to need to move armies around in the tens of billions, at least. So yeah, some pretty big ships might well come in handy.

What often annoys me about big ships is that people don't get the "rule of cube". People make ships miles long and basically treat them as if they are dinky little things. But if you scaled an Arleigh Burke class destroyer up to 1 mile long, say, it should have a crew of around 300,000 people and carry upwards of 95,000 missiles (or the same number of missiles but a thousand times the size...) Running it would be like being the mayor of a city.

The only time I ever saw anything in sci fi that resembled how big ships should be treated was the way command of Babylon 5 was dealt with.

The only way a 14 kilometer troop transport would work is if she had the resources and the manpower to build such large ships. From what I understand she controls a handful of planets and they are sparsely populated because the bulk of her faction's population is on board these vessels.

I also forgot to mention the transport also carries tens of thousands of support craft such as landing craft, fighters, bombers, smaller transports etc. I personally don't mind that because it would be useful as a assualt ship to attack planets.

The rule of cube also applies to the structural strength of the ship too. Since she would be using ST and SG tech then she is limited to the structural strength of materials from those two universes.

I personally don't have a problem with 14 kilometer ships if there was a reason for it, but she clearly doesn't have one. I mean if there was a technological limitation such as the 14 kilometer ship is taken up with 13.5 kilometers worth of fuel and engines plus other equipment for example, then I would have been intrigued by it as being imaginative. But no she is angry because I am 'bashing' her because I don't appreciate her imagination and being realistic with her design.

[Deepcrush]

Well, as you say it comes down to the materials. 14km isn't out of the question for ST or SG, however the examples of objects this large are space stations. A factor to consider is her resource gathering ability. What is her tech base, population, cultural dispersion and lastly construction methods?

[McAvoy]

Well, as you say it comes down to the materials. 14km isn't out of the question for ST or SG, however the examples of objects this large are space stations. A factor to consider is her resource gathering ability. What is her tech base, population, cultural dispersion and lastly construction methods?

I asked her and she never answered back. But I gathered that her population on the few planets she controls are sparse because majority of her poulation is onboard these ships and other such ships. Her tech base is based on 2012 Stargate (Daedalus with Asgard computer core, plasma cannons) and ST 24th century Federation technology. Contruction methods are the same as SG and ST.

Resource gathering I have no idea.