Miscellaneous Umiak/misc. races question-and-answer thread

[Jack]

As far as sensors and vessels with that much energy output go, one light minute is very close range.

The guidance system long-range missiles (AIM-120C) of aerial combat is arranged so.
http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/aim-120.htm

[Arioch]

As light destroyers with a small reserve of fuel operate in conjunction with a main ship?

The real dividing line between a light destroyer and a heavy gunboat is that the latter has a docking linkage, and the former doesn't. So a light destroyer needs to be able to carry enough fuel and supplies to operate on its own without a mothership.

Creating a new project of the ship - a difficult task. Umiak have so many resources that they spend to create an individual project for each ship?

Each engineering team within a shipyard will probably create successive versions of the same ship, reusing much of the previous design pattern, but with a slightly different team (some of them having joined the crew of the last ship and been replaced with new staff with new ideas), and perhaps slightly different requirements or parts availability or available space or available time. So a series of ships from team 10-255 may look very similar, but the ships from team 10-254 in the berth right next to them might look very different, even if they are of the same general size/role type. The smaller the vessel and the more mass-produced it is, the more likely it is to follow a preset pattern.

Assuming that the mindshare of the engineering team can handle it, I don't think this model would waste resources. Ships are mainly assembled from standardized components (although the Umiak idea of "standardized" looks a lot like our idea of "custom") pre-built in ground factories (engines, weapons, major systems), but due to the capabilities of the TL10 advancements to 3D printing and the advantages of zero-G materials fabrication, I think much of the hull structure and armor will be fabricated right there in the shipyard. So having ships that aren't necessarily the same shape or layout as the others shouldn't impact the parts that the ground factories have to produce.

[Jack]

Complex thought, I'll try to translate them correctly.

The real dividing line between a light destroyer and a heavy gunboat is that the latter has a docking linkage, and the former doesn't. So a light destroyer needs to be able to carry enough fuel and supplies to operate on its own without a mothership.

Why do they need? Two heavy gunboats have the same firepower with greater acceleration. They do not need a super-light engine, so they are cheaper.
Below: Soviet light rocket ships towed to the Mediterranean as part of the combat squadron.

Each engineering team within a shipyard will probably create successive versions of the same ship, reusing much of the previous design pattern, but with a slightly different team (some of them having joined the crew of the last ship and been replaced with new staff with new ideas), and perhaps slightly different requirements or parts availability or available space or available time.

The task of such standardization is very complicated.
Creating projects warships compared to the task - creating quadrocopters compared with supersonic fighters.

[joestej]

Complex thought, I'll try to translate them correctly.

The real dividing line between a light destroyer and a heavy gunboat is that the latter has a docking linkage, and the former doesn't. So a light destroyer needs to be able to carry enough fuel and supplies to operate on its own without a mothership.

Why do they need? Two heavy gunboats have the same firepower with greater acceleration. They do not need a super-light engine, so they are cheaper.

They are, but they can't operate on their own. To deploy the gunboats you'd need a light cruiser or other ship with tow points. So a light destroyer group would be useful for recon or other missions where deployment in force is not required.

Light destroyers are also more durable than heavy gunboats, and can be equipped with bolt-on torpedo racks.

Each engineering team within a shipyard will probably create successive versions of the same ship, reusing much of the previous design pattern, but with a slightly different team (some of them having joined the crew of the last ship and been replaced with new staff with new ideas), and perhaps slightly different requirements or parts availability or available space or available time.

The task of such standardization is very complicated.
Creating projects warships compared to the task - creating quadrocopters compared with supersonic fighters.

Perhaps, but perhaps not. We don't know if those same design principles would apply to building starships, or to an alien's logic. Either way it's obviously seemed to work for the Umiak so far, considering how many ships they have.

[icekatze]

hi hi

The guidance system long-range missiles (AIM-120C) of aerial combat is arranged so.

Ok, that's nice, I guess? Not sure how it is relevant to the discussion in any way.

Why do they need? Two heavy gunboats have the same firepower with greater acceleration. They do not need a super-light engine, so they are cheaper.

That is making some rather basic assumptions about the cost of various components. Heavy gunboats need a mothership. Motherships are expensive too.

[Jack]

They are, but they can't operate on their own. To deploy the gunboats you'd need a light cruiser or other ship with tow points. So a light destroyer group would be useful for recon or other missions where deployment in force is not required.

Light destroyers good reconnaissance missions. What do they do in battle with a lot of medium and heavy vehicles?

Light destroyers are also more durable than heavy gunboats, and can be equipped with bolt-on torpedo racks.

Light destroyers durable heavy gunboats, but not twice.
Efficiency torpedoes low.
Light Destroyer should bear FTL drive system and interstellar navigation. This increases their price. And reduces the volume and weight for useful systems onboard.
For scoutship rationally. But it is not rational to send the ships in the battle, when medium and heavy vehicles a lot, and they can bring the sub-ships.
Why light destroyers may not be the same sub-ships as gunboats? Why do they have with their own ships FTL drive?

Perhaps, but perhaps not. We don't know if those same design principles would apply to building starships, or to an alien's logic. Either way it's obviously seemed to work for the Umiak so far, considering how many ships they have.

The difficulty of combining different systems in the vehicle - it is not logic, but the physics. This means that Umiak spend on the development of projects of ships and weapons systems greater intellectual resources than Loroi.

[Jack]

Ok, that's nice, I guess? Not sure how it is relevant to the discussion in any way.

Umiak HXLR Torpedo. Max Acc. (g) - 50. Fuel Endurance at maximum thrust - 80 min. The distance traveled by the end of acceleration - 5760 Mm. It is the distance of firing without a pause in the engine. By accelerating target range will be less, but still more than 1000 Mm.
Speed at the end of acceleration - 2.4 Mm/sec, 144 Mm/sec. Loroi Laser Autocannon time to shoot twice.
And sending delivered.

That is making some rather basic assumptions about the cost of various components. Heavy gunboats need a mothership. Motherships are expensive too.

Interstellar navigation simple and cheap? FTL drive is cheap and publicly available? The author's right to set the properties of the universe.
Umiak gunboats worn by all medium and heavy ships.

[icekatze]

hi hi

Umiak HXLR Torpedo. >snip<

Yes, that is roughly the acceleration profile of an Umiak torpedo. I still fail to see how that is relevant to sensors and communication lag at the speed of light. At the end of a full burn, the HXLR torpedo has about 38.4 seconds of communication lag between the firing ship and the projectile.

Interstellar navigation simple and cheap?

Interstellar travel isn't simple. Whether it is cheap or expensive depends on what you are comparing it to. All of the other components on a space warship are also incredibly expensive.

Umiak small craft are often there for the sole purpose of distracting the Loroi until their larger craft get in range. Every gunboat that a medium or heavy craft carries will reduce that craft's own utility.

This means that Umiak spend on the development of projects of ships and weapons systems greater intellectual resources than Loroi.

This is like saying that a sword is superior to a rifle, because the sword does not expend resources every time it is used.

[Arioch]

Why do they need? Two heavy gunboats have the same firepower with greater acceleration. They do not need a super-light engine, so they are cheaper.

Because ships with their own jump drives can do things gunboats can't do, such as scout the next system or chase an enemy into the next system with other fleet elements (while the gunboats must rendezvous and dock with their tenders). The Umiak prefer to have both options. The Umiak like maximum flexibility and dislike overspecialization. Umiak fleets are deliberately heterogeneous.

Each engineering team within a shipyard will probably create successive versions of the same ship, reusing much of the previous design pattern, but with a slightly different team (some of them having joined the crew of the last ship and been replaced with new staff with new ideas), and perhaps slightly different requirements or parts availability or available space or available time.

The task of such standardization is very complicated.
Creating projects warships compared to the task - creating quadrocopters compared with supersonic fighters.

This is not a very apt analogy. Helicopters and jets are quite different units, built from different components, with completely different aerodynamics and performance envelopes. Any change in the shape of an atmospheric aircraft is critical and requires lots of simulation, testing and refinement, but change in the shape of a spacecraft is comparatively trivial. Two Type-H destroyers made from mostly the same components but perhaps with slightly different weapons and equipment and in a slightly different shape are not all that different from each other and use the same design principles. This is not like designing a new supersonic aircraft from scratch. It's assembling a customized version of same basic pattern that this team has built dozens of times before. And you wouldn't have a team switch from quadrocopters to supersonic fighters anyway; those would be different teams. You'd have each team continue to design and build versions of the things they know best.

Umiak engineers are obsessive-compulsive perfectionists; even if you tell them to make this new destroyer just like the last one and give them the same materials, they can't stop themselves from tweaking things and customizing this and that. This is part of why they send part of the engineering team with the crew of the ship when it launches; some of them just can't let it go, and continue to tweak the ship as part of its crew. And the new replacement members of the shipbuilding team have new ideas on how this destroyer design could be better, and so it continues...

Smaller items like torpedoes and small gunboats can be standardized to a greater extent because they are build like components on mostly-automated assembly lines, but even here different groups like to do things their own way.

[Argron]

Is this non-standarization something common in the umiak culture? and they just overcome with massive dedication to production and complete disregard to anything that may be an obstacle to it? sounds like a design phylosophy that wouldn't start at the highest level out of nowhere.

[Arioch]

Is this non-standarization something common in the umiak culture? and they just overcome with massive dedication to production and complete disregard to anything that may be an obstacle to it? sounds like a design phylosophy that wouldn't start at the highest level out of nowhere.

Yes. Decentralization, flexibility, and redundancy are all core elements of Umiak philosophy.

[Jack]

hi hi

Umiak HXLR Torpedo. >snip<

Yes, that is roughly the acceleration profile of an Umiak torpedo. I still fail to see how that is relevant to sensors and communication lag at the speed of light. At the end of a full burn, the HXLR torpedo has about 38.4 seconds of communication lag between the firing ship and the projectile.

As it is written in the article above.
Far away from vehicle and close to the target self-induced torpedo.
At the beginning and the middle portion of acceleration the torpedo guidance commands from the ship.
Delay for 40 seconds and search for targets at a distance of light-minutes is not so difficult task, as the FTL drive and acceleration of 30 g of the ship weight of 400 000 tons.

Interstellar navigation simple and cheap?

Interstellar travel isn't simple. Whether it is cheap or expensive depends on what you are comparing it to. All of the other components on a space warship are also incredibly expensive.

Other components have a light destroyer and two heavy gunboats are identical. Gunboats only two short-range navigation system required. Early warning purposes for them, as for the torpedoes, the carrier can perform.

Umiak small craft are often there for the sole purpose of distracting the Loroi until their larger craft get in range. Every gunboat that a medium or heavy craft carries will reduce that craft's own utility.

Umiak have no other sub-ships, except gunboats. Those functions that Loroi carry passengers, cargo and landing shuttles - at Umiak must fulfill "gunboats".
I do estimations on Frequency ships, it turned out.
Umiak superiority in space naval complex:
1 Type-KK Command Cruiser, 3С + 48 extra long-range torpedoes.
2 Type-K Heavy Cruiser, guidance system extra long-range torpedoes + 24 extra long-range torpedoes.
1 KTKh Strike Cruiser, group protection 48 blister "Rockeye" x 30 AMM "Gimlet" = 1460 AMM.
1 Type-KS Missile Cruiser, short range torpedo fire.
1 Type-HS Missile Destroyer, mid-range torpedo fire.
1 Type-Kh Light Cruiser, long range torpedo fire.
4 Type-H Heavy Destroyer, short range fire and immediate protection.
1 Type-Z Specialty Destroyer, distant early warning.
1 Type-G Gunboat Tender, support sub-ships.
Division gunboats:
4 Light Destroyer.
8 Heavy Gunboat.
8 Gunboat.

Common - 1
Very Common - 2
Ubiquitous - 4
Nightmarish - 8.

This means that Umiak spend on the development of projects of ships and weapons systems greater intellectual resources than Loroi.

This is like saying that a sword is superior to a rifle, because the sword does not expend resources every time it is used.

I do not understand you.

[Jack]

Why do they need? Two heavy gunboats have the same firepower with greater acceleration. They do not need a super-light engine, so they are cheaper.

Because ships with their own jump drives can do things gunboats can't do, such as scout the next system or chase an enemy into the next system with other fleet elements (while the gunboats must rendezvous and dock with their tenders). The Umiak prefer to have both options. The Umiak like maximum flexibility and dislike overspecialization. Umiak fleets are deliberately heterogeneous.

But here the battle of what to throw? Superluminal motion does not need, behind the fleet with 10 super heavy and heavy 30 ships, ships-carriers for gunboat in abundance.
Why use more expensive because of the FTL drive light destroyers, if it is possible to use a gunboat, and their capacity will be enough?
Maybe, though destroyers do not have a FTL drive, and then use them in the fight rationally?

This is not a very apt analogy. Helicopters and jets are quite different units, built from different components, with completely different aerodynamics and performance envelopes. Any change in the shape of an atmospheric aircraft is critical and requires lots of simulation, testing and refinement, but change in the shape of a spacecraft is comparatively trivial. Two Type-H destroyers made from mostly the same components but perhaps with slightly different weapons and equipment and in a slightly different shape are not all that different from each other and use the same design principles. This is not like designing a new supersonic aircraft from scratch. It's assembling a customized version of same basic pattern that this team has built dozens of times before. And you wouldn't have a team switch from quadrocopters to supersonic fighters anyway; those would be different teams. You'd have each team continue to design and build versions of the things they know best.

When China copied ground missile launcher Soviet SS-N-2B «Styx», they change the angle of the windshield. And when starting the windshield was flying shards.
The modern maritime combat ship - a hundred antennas. Move any one meter, and the need to check the correct operation of all the others. And the construction of superstructures and masts themselves, weapons systems and everything else, standing at the height of the antennas themselves - affect their work.
The spacecraft will be more difficult, its energy systems more. Therefore, collect the spaceship will be more difficult.
The standardization of all systems of the ship in all possible combinations of the problem of great complexity. For the sake of creating a battle fleet to solve it is not rational.

[Absalom]

Because ships with their own jump drives can do things gunboats can't do, such as scout the next system or chase an enemy into the next system with other fleet elements (while the gunboats must rendezvous and dock with their tenders). The Umiak prefer to have both options. The Umiak like maximum flexibility and dislike overspecialization. Umiak fleets are deliberately heterogeneous.

But here the battle of what to throw? Superluminal motion does not need, behind the fleet with 10 super heavy and heavy 30 ships, ships-carriers for gunboat in abundance.
Why use more expensive because of the FTL drive light destroyers, if it is possible to use a gunboat, and their capacity will be enough?
Maybe, though destroyers do not have a FTL drive, and then use them in the fight rationally?

You use light destroyers so that you can chase the enemy without slowing your medium and heavy ships. Gunboats require the medium and heavy ships to stop while the gunboats are docking.

Gunboats are like short-range drones. You can get a very large force very quickly when you use them, but if you need to go somewhere else you have to spend time collecting them first.

This is not a very apt analogy. Helicopters and jets are quite different units, built from different components, with completely different aerodynamics and performance envelopes. Any change in the shape of an atmospheric aircraft is critical and requires lots of simulation, testing and refinement, but change in the shape of a spacecraft is comparatively trivial. Two Type-H destroyers made from mostly the same components but perhaps with slightly different weapons and equipment and in a slightly different shape are not all that different from each other and use the same design principles. This is not like designing a new supersonic aircraft from scratch. It's assembling a customized version of same basic pattern that this team has built dozens of times before. And you wouldn't have a team switch from quadrocopters to supersonic fighters anyway; those would be different teams. You'd have each team continue to design and build versions of the things they know best.

When China copied ground missile launcher Soviet SS-N-2B «Styx», they change the angle of the windshield. And when starting the windshield was flying shards.
The modern maritime combat ship - a hundred antennas. Move any one meter, and the need to check the correct operation of all the others. And the construction of superstructures and masts themselves, weapons systems and everything else, standing at the height of the antennas themselves - affect their work.
The spacecraft will be more difficult, its energy systems more. Therefore, collect the spaceship will be more difficult.
The standardization of all systems of the ship in all possible combinations of the problem of great complexity. For the sake of creating a battle fleet to solve it is not rational.

Modern ships are semi-standardized, but almost none of them are identical. When you go beyond a certain scale, you're already spending enough resources that customization is not a big thing.

As for antennas, we invented computers for just such problems.

[icekatze]

hi hi

You don't get anything for free in space. If you want to bring along smaller ships that don't have engines, you have to build a bigger engine on the ship that is carrying them.

[Krulle]

We don't know if there are base resources necessary to be jump able, which do not increase linearly with size of the jumped matter.
It may well be that you need 10x (x=energy and/or ressources) for the first 10 tons jumpable shipmatter, but only 15x for 20 tons jumpable matter, and possibly only 20x for 40 tons jumpable matter. Then the limiting factor in ship size would be the sub-lightspeed engines, and materials needed to actually build the large ship, and possibly the control of the energy reactors and engines.

So it may well be cost-efficient to not build more smaller engines, but instead increase the size of the jumpengines for the capital tow ships.

We do not have sufficient data to do good guesses.
For tactical reasons alone I'd prefer to have jumpable gunboats, but I am not the admiral/tactician at work here.
And in different combat situations different solutions are preferable.

[GeoModder]

We don't know if there are base resources necessary to be jump able, which do not increase linearly with size of the jumped matter.
It may well be that you need 10x (x=energy and/or ressources) for the first 10 tons jumpable shipmatter, but only 15x for 20 tons jumpable matter, and possibly only 20x for 40 tons jumpable matter. Then the limiting factor in ship size would be the sub-lightspeed engines, and materials needed to actually build the large ship, and possibly the control of the energy reactors and engines.

So it may well be cost-efficient to not build more smaller engines, but instead increase the size of the jumpengines for the capital tow ships.

We do not have sufficient data to do good guesses.
For tactical reasons alone I'd prefer to have jumpable gunboats, but I am not the admiral/tactician at work here.
And in different combat situations different solutions are preferable.

Krulle, have you read this article in the Insider?

[Krulle]

Read it a while ago, did not have it in my mind anymore.

thanks.

The energy cost of a hyperspace jump is proportional to the mass of the ship.

So, in this respect I was wrong.

Still, that may refer to the energy converted and available to the jump.
There may be additional requirements to make the energy jump-available.
(E.g. converting power plant output to jump energy. This may lead to a base-loss per jump engine. Just the theoretical energy needed for the jump is mass-linear - but the practical may not be, depending on jump drive efficiency.
The mentioned light flashes may be indicative of base losses.)

[Jack]

You use light destroyers so that you can chase the enemy without slowing your medium and heavy ships. Gunboats require the medium and heavy ships to stop while the gunboats are docking.

Gunboats are like short-range drones. You can get a very large force very quickly when you use them, but if you need to go somewhere else you have to spend time collecting them first.

Modern ships are semi-standardized, but almost none of them are identical. When you go beyond a certain scale, you're already spending enough resources that customization is not a big thing.

As for antennas, we invented computers for just such problems.

What is the amount of fuel on board the gunboat? If it is comparable with the supply of fuel HXLR torpedoes, it is a few hours on full power acceleration, up to percent of the speed of light, up to ten thousand Mm traveled during acceleration. To fight for half an hour a stock has a sufficient reserve for the prosecution, it seems to me?

Modern ships are not identical, because the pace of construction is very slow compared to the pace of technological progress. List of new ship systems made in Russia for the last 30 years will be long. In the world of comics in the 30 years of war created two new types of weapons: impulse cannons, medium-range plasma focus. So it is natural that each of our ship carries its own set of systems. But why such a situation with the Umiak ships?

The computer can check the configuration of systems. The first rule of working with computers: "Garbage in - garbage out." So it must be the one who will make the configuration of systems to verify the computer.

[Jack]

hi hi

You don't get anything for free in space. If you want to bring along smaller ships that don't have engines, you have to build a bigger engine on the ship that is carrying them.

Big ship torpedo carries only a few thousand tons. If the ship has a mass of 300 000 - 500 000 tonnes, its maximum load supplies 100 000 - 150 000 tons, while the normal 20-30% less, almost always any ship could take a few gunboats in tow.