Alien Ships

[Graham Kennedy]

Fighters can take down a battleship if there are enough of them, and if they are willing to accept the loss of a good many of them in the attempt.

But you couldn't sensibly have a fleet where you scrapped all the cap ships and replaced them with huge numbers of fighters. Battleships have advantages that fighters can't match. Range, and endurance, for instance. A big ship at maximum cruise can last over 20 days without refuelling. At lower speeds that extends even longer. If it dropped to normal space it can last as long as it has food, many months. Whereas fighters have an endurance measured in hours, and you couldn't expect a pilot to spend more than a day at maximum in one.

Sensors; battleships carry big long range sensor systems, fighters don't have them.

And I could go on and on.

[Monroe]

Well I assumed carriers could be used

[Graham Kennedy]

Battleships are carrier/big gun hybrids

[Bryan Moore]

I guess my issue with the first one is that if you had the resources to build that why would you need to. I guess the idea of "obsessed with size and power" makes sense, but that could house millions. It has that sorta Death Star too big for practicality bit to it

[Graham Kennedy]

That is a one off design, but comparable designs are not uncommon in the Zaketh fleet. They have thousands of ships in that range.

[Graham Kennedy]

Just for fun, I stuck a Coalition Kororra class battlehship on with a few things you might recognise...

[Monroe]

Nice comparison chart.
That reminds me: viewforum.php?f=46 you should join as one of the coalition guys.

[Graham Kennedy]

A Rinak warship.



This class of ships are the most common of the Rinak warships. Although lagging far behind the likes of the Gelch or the Coalition in sophistication and capability, these ships are effective craft which have served the Rinak very well. They are typically used in the Rinak's wars of conquest, campaigns which are always directed against those who lag the Rinak in technology. Their targets are therefore usually simpler lanshati sail vessels, lanshati ring ships, or even STL vessels. Against these sort of vessels the Rinak warships are all but invincible.

The design is unusual for a sail vessel; the ships forgo the usual leading pod arrangement designed to distance the bulk of the vessel from the radiation produced by the sails. Instead the sails are aft mounted, on an engine housing which also includes the repellor. This engine pod is attached to the main body of the ship on two extendible booms, which allow it to be separated from the hull by several hundred metres. For a Turgran or Human this would not be even close to sufficient, but the Rinak are relatively immune to radiation effects. Even so, long term service in their navy carries a risk of fatal effects which approaches 100%.

The ship is armed with a 100 GW Gamma ray laser cannon and 2 CIWS defence weapons. All are mounted on the ventral surface of the ship, resulting in poor firing arcs. The ship is also equipped with 120 missile silos. Three basic missiles are carried; a large heavyweight anti ship weapon which fires a single 1 GTon warhead; a short range multirole missile which carries four 25 MTon warheads and can be used in an anti ship or surface attack role; and a close range planetary attack missile which carries sixteen 100 kiloton warheads. The large silos can carry one anti ship missile, four of the multi role models, or eight of the planetary attack models. The smaller silos can carry a single multirole missile or two planetary attack models.

When equipped purely for planetary strike missions, then, one of these warships can carry a total of 384 missiles with 6,144 warheads of 100 kilotons each. This is more than enough to pacify the average low-interstellar or pre-interstellar planet, which is the typical Rinak target.

The sail gives a typical maximum speed of 200 x c, whilst the repellor sublight engine gives the ship an acceleration of 40 gees. It is 1,057 m long with the dail retracted, 298.5 m across the beam, and the main hull is 229 m tall with the overall height 761.5 m. The crew is approximately 1,200, with 3,800 troops. The typical unsupported endurance is 250 days, giving a range of 135 light years. The ships are designed to operate for several consecutive cruises with minimal refuelling and resupply.

[Mikey]

So, career service = slow death, huh? Tells one a lot about the Rinak.

[Graham Kennedy]

So, career service = slow death, huh? Tells one a lot about the Rinak.

Yup. I don't go in for "evil" races as such, and generally prefer opponents to be dictated by competing interests of some sort. But the Rinak are as close as any species comes to being actively evil. In terms of their general philosophy, they're somewhat akin to the Trek Mirror universe Empire, but nastier.

[Graham Kennedy]

A Generic alien ship. The kind of thing a regional power might build. This one comes in two variants; a Gun ship fitted with AMP cannon, and a Missile ship where the cannon are replaced with different sizes of missile. The idea of a Navy that builds ships in gun and missile variants is one that has interested me for a while; I imagine ships like this would be employed in pairs, each one covering for the other's weaknesses. As time goes on and ships get bigger, a more balanced armament would likely be fitted to each ship.

There are eight forcefield generators on the hull; I think this is the first time I've ever made forcefield generators an exterior hull feature rather than an internal component. It's also one of the few that have multiple repellor (sublight) engines. It's a midspace ship; speed would be in the region of 4,000 x c. Length overall is 774 metres, and the ship has 37 decks in the forward section. The ship does have a hangar deck, and can carry a small complement of auxiliary craft, but we're not talking about fighters and such here; think more like a ship's helicopters, functioning as scouts, search and rescue, and providing long range targeting data for the missiles in that variant.

[Teaos]

Whats the logic behind putting the shield generators on the outside appart from saving space. I'd rather them be safe and have less space inside myself.

[Graham Kennedy]

I'm thinking that if the projectors are on the hull with nothing in their way they can project a somewhat stronger forcefield than they can if they are buried deep. However, since they are on the hull they are more liable to take damage from whatever weapon does manage to burn through. So it's a trade off; stronger shields, but more liable to failure from battle damage.

[Mikey]

think more like a ship's helicopters, functioning as scouts, search and rescue, and providing long range targeting data for the missiles in that variant.

I like that idea a lot; too often in sci-fi, these important functions are handwaved or swept under the carpet of some magical "sensors" which is never either explained or believably limited.

[Graham Kennedy]

Sensors and scanners are a big deal in the Coalition universe, on whatever level. Typically the model I use for Coalition ships is submarine warfare, where it's mostly about being stealthy, limiting emissions as much as possible, whilst listening for an enemy emission; very "passive sonar" in nature. But they can go active as well, and then it's much more akin to using a radar, with all the benefits and drawbacks that has. Either way sensor range is far smaller than the range of subships, so scouts are useful things to have. There's a Coalition mini AEW/AWACS/EW?ELINT type platform called the Aravind which is basically an E2 Hawkeye OF THE FUTURE!!!! The little beasties on this, I haven't really done a proper design for but I had in mind those stumpy little Russian Hormone-B targeting helicopters. I love those things, largely because they're so ugly!