And now we see a very good reason for fake-military ships (like a typical Starfleet vessel) to have their captain's yacht fastened externally to the hull: they're huge.
Personally, assuming that:
1) the bay & spaces above were tall enough,
2) the bay could be de-gravitized (better wording?) or the shuttle would rarely be used, and
3) that most shuttles in that particular 'market segment' had (very) roughly the same outline:
then in that case, I think I would actually use overbuilt fasteners (or at least, overbuilt for that particular purpose) to hang the Highland from the ceiling, so that it was out of the way for ordinary flight-bay operations. Every time that you upgrade/update to a new VIP shuttle you remove the old boarding-adapter (that being the thing that customizes the floor of the VIP-shuttle bay to the actual shuttle), and insert one designed for the new shuttle before you actually move said shuttle in. The shuttle mounting brackets would be connected to the ship itself, so the boarding-adapter would have reduced physical requirements. All-in-all, it would work sort of like the fighter cockpits in Space: Above and Beyond, but with the entire vehicle.
WIP Discussion (Part 1!)
Moderator: Outsider Moderators
Re: WIP Discussion (Part 1!)
Yeah, the craft in the hangar are stored in three dimensions in cradles, rather than sitting on the floor. The diagram is just to check the sizes and the amount of room.
Re: WIP Discussion (Part 1!)
is it me or the ship seem like he wont fit through the door?
Also Space: above and beyond... what happened to that show?
Also Space: above and beyond... what happened to that show?
Re: WIP Discussion (Part 1!)
I think it would have too, the image is just for size comparison. The Highlander was originally 60 m in length (IIRC) now its 50m's and now fits inside the shuttle.Karst45 wrote:is it me or the ship seem like he wont fit through the door?
Also Space: above and beyond... what happened to that show?
as for Space: Above and Beyond ( or SAAB for short): sadly the show lasted just one season and was cancelled due to failing ratings and the large production costs (mostly CGI ships which was BIG back in the mid 1990's). I mean, heck even Reboot was expensive at the first and it was the first full CGI TV series. now look at any youth channels and you'll see ALOT more full CGI series. the cost of doing business went down ( easily to use software, more animators working in the field and affordable hardware, plus audience acceptance and demand for the series).
but argue, I wish SAAB:, original channel ( fox I think) gave us such a cliffhanger at the end.
I am a wander, going from place to place without a home I am a NOMAD
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saint of m
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Re: WIP Discussion (Part 1!)
NOMAD wrote:I think it would have too, the image is just for size comparison. The Highlander was originally 60 m in length (IIRC) now its 50m's and now fits inside the shuttle.Karst45 wrote:is it me or the ship seem like he wont fit through the door?
Also Space: above and beyond... what happened to that show?
as for Space: Above and Beyond ( or SAAB for short): sadly the show lasted just one season and was cancelled due to failing ratings and the large production costs (mostly CGI ships which was BIG back in the mid 1990's). I mean, heck even Reboot was expensive at the first and it was the first full CGI TV series. now look at any youth channels and you'll see ALOT more full CGI series. the cost of doing business went down ( easily to use software, more animators working in the field and affordable hardware, plus audience acceptance and demand for the series).
but argue, I wish SAAB:, original channel ( fox I think) gave us such a cliffhanger at the end.
True enough. It's why beast wars only had a small cast.
Re: WIP Discussion (Part 1!)
SAAB: interesting idea and not a single military man in sight when writing it.
Re: WIP Discussion (Part 1!)
Yeah, I had a good chuckle when the infantry trainees jumped into starfighters. Apparently the writer saw Officer and a Gentleman and didn't realize infantry and fighter pilots are not the same thing.discord wrote:SAAB: interesting idea and not a single military man in sight when writing it.
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Fotiadis_110
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Re: WIP Discussion (Part 1!)
Looking at your hanger, it appears rather... artificial in the manner you placed the craft.
I mean most of the time your opponents will come at you from the front, so arguably the fighters need to launch in a forwards direction, thus having them installed at 90o from the front seems awkward at best.
In fact given that hanger bays for fighters need to be able to deploy quickly and in the direction of travel, I would have installed them in small bays at the front of the 'engine supports' and kept the rest of the hangers separate because of their normal use outside of combat. (because normal hangers bays need to have proper armour, while fighters would find better utility in faster access hatches, and small ones to reduce the odds of a hit, and perhaps an armoured bay to minimise damage in the event they do)
Of course my suggestion would also probably have room to install fighters 2 layers high and deploy them all through the same 2 access ports thus giving twice the fighters compared to your fighter design <_< (unless you argue that only one of each pair is available to be flown at any given time, the other undergoing maintenance, which is often the case of most modern aircraft)
Hang the first set from the roof (magnetic clamping) and the floor (same)
But chances are you wanted a nice big singular hanger to show off your ship designs, so I will accept it as is :p
I mean most of the time your opponents will come at you from the front, so arguably the fighters need to launch in a forwards direction, thus having them installed at 90o from the front seems awkward at best.
In fact given that hanger bays for fighters need to be able to deploy quickly and in the direction of travel, I would have installed them in small bays at the front of the 'engine supports' and kept the rest of the hangers separate because of their normal use outside of combat. (because normal hangers bays need to have proper armour, while fighters would find better utility in faster access hatches, and small ones to reduce the odds of a hit, and perhaps an armoured bay to minimise damage in the event they do)
Of course my suggestion would also probably have room to install fighters 2 layers high and deploy them all through the same 2 access ports thus giving twice the fighters compared to your fighter design <_< (unless you argue that only one of each pair is available to be flown at any given time, the other undergoing maintenance, which is often the case of most modern aircraft)
Hang the first set from the roof (magnetic clamping) and the floor (same)
But chances are you wanted a nice big singular hanger to show off your ship designs, so I will accept it as is :p
Re: WIP Discussion (Part 1!)
The drawing was purely an exercise to compare the sizes of the craft with the dimensions of the hangar. It does not represent any kind of scheme as to how the craft are stored.
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Fotiadis_110
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Re: WIP Discussion (Part 1!)
Ooooh, so playing with dimensions does not equate to direct comparison with practical application.
Understandable, however in my experience I like to play with placements as well just to get an idea of how I would set out my interior given certain size constraints, what else might be nearby (such as fuelling systems for the fighters, and stockpiles of missiles or some access to them be it automated tube transport or manual labour) although from time to time such designs can be forced for a major redesign because the area I initially place them is displaced by the major project nearby them (such as the fuel cells being of a set design through multiple star-ships and my hanger being in the wrong spot and screwing up the design for a different ship).
I was slightly anticipating what you decided to show us might have been the final placement. As your statement shows it isn't then I am now curious what we get to learn next!
Understandable, however in my experience I like to play with placements as well just to get an idea of how I would set out my interior given certain size constraints, what else might be nearby (such as fuelling systems for the fighters, and stockpiles of missiles or some access to them be it automated tube transport or manual labour) although from time to time such designs can be forced for a major redesign because the area I initially place them is displaced by the major project nearby them (such as the fuel cells being of a set design through multiple star-ships and my hanger being in the wrong spot and screwing up the design for a different ship).
I was slightly anticipating what you decided to show us might have been the final placement. As your statement shows it isn't then I am now curious what we get to learn next!
Re: WIP Discussion (Part 1!)
i have always been weak to something akin to BSG's launch tubes, but that only works with a more dedicated carrier design but it would allow 'crash launches' without losing shit loads of atmo in the hangar bay.
for a less 'dedicated' carrier(assuming fighter craft are an important part of the fleet) I'd go with external docking clamps and a internal 'dry dock' for maintenance, allows for more fighters to be carried at a minimum loss of internal volume at the cost of rearm/maintain speed, just my thoughts on the subject.
for a less 'dedicated' carrier(assuming fighter craft are an important part of the fleet) I'd go with external docking clamps and a internal 'dry dock' for maintenance, allows for more fighters to be carried at a minimum loss of internal volume at the cost of rearm/maintain speed, just my thoughts on the subject.
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Fotiadis_110
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Re: WIP Discussion (Part 1!)
My idea can be used something akin to that, in that the fighter dock could easily be left zero atmosphere when maintenance is not required, but the issue that really applies is offloading transports.
Do you do so without atmosphere and be forced to wear comparitively immobile spacesuits for bodily protection, having to be careful not to damage the suit and such, or do you go for a plan B: Full atmosphere with less than 10% losses of gas thanks to evacuating as much as you could, and then utilising two chambers of similar size (extract 80-90%, open section two (halving the pressure), move through the door, close door, open access to space (losing half of your remaining 10-5% of the original)
After all, storing tons of air is not difficult, many gas cylinders hold a few hundred times their own volume. The main issue is the energy and time cost required to evacuate the gasses, as pumping gasses is never particularly fast nor efficient.
Do you do so without atmosphere and be forced to wear comparitively immobile spacesuits for bodily protection, having to be careful not to damage the suit and such, or do you go for a plan B: Full atmosphere with less than 10% losses of gas thanks to evacuating as much as you could, and then utilising two chambers of similar size (extract 80-90%, open section two (halving the pressure), move through the door, close door, open access to space (losing half of your remaining 10-5% of the original)
After all, storing tons of air is not difficult, many gas cylinders hold a few hundred times their own volume. The main issue is the energy and time cost required to evacuate the gasses, as pumping gasses is never particularly fast nor efficient.
Re: WIP Discussion (Part 1!)
Launching fighters forward is completely unnecessary. Loroi ships constantly maneuver during battle, so bays will rarely be directly facing the enemy; in fact, Arioch has said that turning a ship 180 degrees to obtain a weapons solution isn't a big issue. Further, fighters have a much higher acceleration than capital ships, so the speed boost they'd get from that is quite minor. Also, see the paragraph at the bottom of this post.
The Loroi use skinsuits. In that design of spacesuit, the pressure required by the body is provided by an elastic suit directly in contact with the skin. The version that NASA is working on will allow sweat to evaporate into space, so that you don't even need a conventional temperature control system (though I actually worry about dehydration). The flexibility of these suits is actually quite good (the flexibility of normal suits inside Earth's atmosphere is actually decent too, the only real problem is the pressure differential in space, so if you get rid of that...). If you worry about damage to the suit, then you just add some padding to the outside (ordinary athletic padding would probably even work, or denim).
As for the bay, I would honestly have it mostly be in vacuum when the ship was likely to enter combat. That allows you to easily deploy & retrieve craft, while saving the space/mass of a proper two-stage airlock. Also, depending on the materials, performing some repairs in an atmosphere could be a no-no. If you need the capability to move people into a vehicle while the bay is under a vacuum, then simply have boarding hatches/tubes for the shuttles (fighter crew wear liquid-breathing vacuum suits while in the fighter, so they always have the relevant equipment when going to/coming from their vessels).
As someone who works with pallets, I'm not impressed with the difficulty of unloading shuttles. With a cargo crew that's serious about the loading/unloading, pallet jacks that can work in the environment/are large enough for the pallet, & level surfaces, 1 person could get 1 food pallet off of a shuttle in 15-30 seconds. For more high-mass loads maybe 1 minute, less with more people to get it going. That's with unpowered equipment, so if you're using motorized equipment it'll be closer to the ideal. It wouldn't even be difficult for most loads to be automatically unloaded by robotic powered pallet jacks. After you've got the pallets in a temp spot you can load your outgoing materials into the shuttle in a similar period of time, judging from the size of the shuttles I'm going to guess maybe 18 pallets each, but if the pilot's station & other areas that physically block pallets are smaller than I'm thinking, perhaps as much as 36 pallets for each shuttle, divided across two rows. Assuming that you have the space to unload two pallets at one time, unloading a fully loaded shuttle with powered pallet jacks would take maybe 9-15 minutes for a focused crew. The paperwork and refueling/other between-flights maintenance might even take more time than that. The pallet jacks can be winched up to rest against the wall when not in use.
However, if the Loroi never adopted standardized cargo transportation systems (e.g. pallets) then you'd be dealing with loose materials, which likely takes that estimate up to at least a day. But they're close-enough to being guaranteed to have standardized cargo transportation techniques.
At any rate, most Loroi vessels are NOT primarily carrier craft (the fighters they carry are apparently used mostly as a form of remote point-defense, for use against missiles & gunboats), and we've seen no indications that the fighters are carried externally, so most likely they launch & land using a single hangar bay. The design of carriers may well be different (I'd go with a BSG/B5 approach for launches too, specifically with a relatively small number of actual launchers, since their cycle time shouldn't be too long). For carriers, forward-facing fighter-launchers might make sense (though they'd certainly be vulnerable), since a dedicated platform could afford the space & mass required by the launchers.
The Loroi use skinsuits. In that design of spacesuit, the pressure required by the body is provided by an elastic suit directly in contact with the skin. The version that NASA is working on will allow sweat to evaporate into space, so that you don't even need a conventional temperature control system (though I actually worry about dehydration). The flexibility of these suits is actually quite good (the flexibility of normal suits inside Earth's atmosphere is actually decent too, the only real problem is the pressure differential in space, so if you get rid of that...). If you worry about damage to the suit, then you just add some padding to the outside (ordinary athletic padding would probably even work, or denim).
As for the bay, I would honestly have it mostly be in vacuum when the ship was likely to enter combat. That allows you to easily deploy & retrieve craft, while saving the space/mass of a proper two-stage airlock. Also, depending on the materials, performing some repairs in an atmosphere could be a no-no. If you need the capability to move people into a vehicle while the bay is under a vacuum, then simply have boarding hatches/tubes for the shuttles (fighter crew wear liquid-breathing vacuum suits while in the fighter, so they always have the relevant equipment when going to/coming from their vessels).
As someone who works with pallets, I'm not impressed with the difficulty of unloading shuttles. With a cargo crew that's serious about the loading/unloading, pallet jacks that can work in the environment/are large enough for the pallet, & level surfaces, 1 person could get 1 food pallet off of a shuttle in 15-30 seconds. For more high-mass loads maybe 1 minute, less with more people to get it going. That's with unpowered equipment, so if you're using motorized equipment it'll be closer to the ideal. It wouldn't even be difficult for most loads to be automatically unloaded by robotic powered pallet jacks. After you've got the pallets in a temp spot you can load your outgoing materials into the shuttle in a similar period of time, judging from the size of the shuttles I'm going to guess maybe 18 pallets each, but if the pilot's station & other areas that physically block pallets are smaller than I'm thinking, perhaps as much as 36 pallets for each shuttle, divided across two rows. Assuming that you have the space to unload two pallets at one time, unloading a fully loaded shuttle with powered pallet jacks would take maybe 9-15 minutes for a focused crew. The paperwork and refueling/other between-flights maintenance might even take more time than that. The pallet jacks can be winched up to rest against the wall when not in use.
However, if the Loroi never adopted standardized cargo transportation systems (e.g. pallets) then you'd be dealing with loose materials, which likely takes that estimate up to at least a day. But they're close-enough to being guaranteed to have standardized cargo transportation techniques.
At any rate, most Loroi vessels are NOT primarily carrier craft (the fighters they carry are apparently used mostly as a form of remote point-defense, for use against missiles & gunboats), and we've seen no indications that the fighters are carried externally, so most likely they launch & land using a single hangar bay. The design of carriers may well be different (I'd go with a BSG/B5 approach for launches too, specifically with a relatively small number of actual launchers, since their cycle time shouldn't be too long). For carriers, forward-facing fighter-launchers might make sense (though they'd certainly be vulnerable), since a dedicated platform could afford the space & mass required by the launchers.
Re: WIP Discussion (Part 1!)
I'm not really sure about that. I was watching a gulf war 1 doc about marine pilots ( AV-8's harriers) and when each pilot is a 2nd LT's. He/She goes through through a rough infantry man's course in order to forge a link between the mariners in the air and on the ground when doing close support.Arioch wrote:Yeah, I had a good chuckle when the infantry trainees jumped into starfighters. Apparently the writer saw Officer and a Gentleman and didn't realize infantry and fighter pilots are not the same thing.discord wrote:SAAB: interesting idea and not a single military man in sight when writing it.
The SAAB example of small 6 fighter units squadron "could" work out in future for space/ground ops, if the cost is high. but I understand now its was a plot exposition method ( small team = following the characters easier). Thought in reality SAAB could have work out if the characters we're part of a larger fight wing/combined arms group ( ground and air/space assets together). argh, but i still loved that show
@saint of M: agreed for the small cast, but i found that as the series process through the seasons ( and tech got better), more character we're introduced. Now i look at Transforms Prime (the recent all CGI TV series) and I'm just amazed how things have come ( and really enjoy the new series and its mix of the transforms animated and movie style).
I am a wander, going from place to place without a home I am a NOMAD
Re: WIP Discussion (Part 1!)
I can't say I'm sold on the separate launch/recover spaces. i can see the pro for such a system ( quick and easy launches with prepare ships, with a dedicated landing area for the various craft ( and big enough to take on cargo ships). but I always wonder about the in-between part of getting the landed craft back into the launch tubes. the BSG example is a simple and good design that I find would work well, but it take a lot of interior space, if applied to a full forward/rear setup of today's carriers. its would also be a critical weaken if say you took a hit in the hanger and get a chain series of explosion ( IE high energy drive, AM warheads etc).Fotiadis_110 wrote:My idea can be used something akin to that, in that the fighter dock could easily be left zero atmosphere when maintenance is not required, but the issue that really applies is offloading transports.
Do you do so without atmosphere and be forced to wear comparitively immobile spacesuits for bodily protection, having to be careful not to damage the suit and such, or do you go for a plan B: Full atmosphere with less than 10% losses of gas thanks to evacuating as much as you could, and then utilising two chambers of similar size (extract 80-90%, open section two (halving the pressure), move through the door, close door, open access to space (losing half of your remaining 10-5% of the original)
After all, storing tons of air is not difficult, many gas cylinders hold a few hundred times their own volume. The main issue is the energy and time cost required to evacuate the gasses, as pumping gasses is never particularly fast nor efficient.
I am a wander, going from place to place without a home I am a NOMAD
Re: WIP Discussion (Part 1!)
Tempest isn't a dedicated carrier, so there isn't room for launch tubes or an airlock for the main door, especially one that would accomodate the 50m-long Highland. The hangar would be kept in vacuum whenever small craft operations were being conducted, with boarding/loading done through pressurized causeways. The design isn't finalized, but the idea is that most of the standard-sized (30m) craft are stored in bays that can be sealed off behind a pressurized canopy for servicing. The Highland is too big to fit in such a bay, so anything that can't be done in pressure suits will require pressurization of the whole hangar.
The facing of the ships being stored is irrelevant; space is at a premium, so they'll be stored however they fit. The Tempest hangar has to fit twelve standard-sized craft (yes, there's a thirteenth -- the fifth shuttle, but that's a spare that's kept in storage and not ready-to-fly) plus the Highland, so there's no doubt a lot of shuffling and jockeying to get craft in and out of the door (and the various vanes and fins are folded to save space). Launching and recovering craft will be a delicate procedure that will place restraints on the maneuvering of the mother ship, and the launching fighter or shuttle will be limited to maneuvering thrusters during the process; it's not like a fighter can light its main engines in the hangar or close to the ship.
Of course pilots have to go through basic training as well, but that doesn't make them infantry. They're academy- or college-educated officers who then have to go through a long and very expensive training regime to learn to fly combat aircraft. In Above & Beyond, the characters were infantry grunts -- still in training to be infantry grunts (assuming that I remember it correctly) -- and the first time there was any mention of the starfighters was when the grunts hopped in and flew them into combat. That's absurd no matter what the setting.
The facing of the ships being stored is irrelevant; space is at a premium, so they'll be stored however they fit. The Tempest hangar has to fit twelve standard-sized craft (yes, there's a thirteenth -- the fifth shuttle, but that's a spare that's kept in storage and not ready-to-fly) plus the Highland, so there's no doubt a lot of shuffling and jockeying to get craft in and out of the door (and the various vanes and fins are folded to save space). Launching and recovering craft will be a delicate procedure that will place restraints on the maneuvering of the mother ship, and the launching fighter or shuttle will be limited to maneuvering thrusters during the process; it's not like a fighter can light its main engines in the hangar or close to the ship.
NOMAD wrote: I'm not really sure about that. I was watching a gulf war 1 doc about marine pilots ( AV-8's harriers) and when each pilot is a 2nd LT's. He/She goes through through a rough infantry man's course in order to forge a link between the mariners in the air and on the ground when doing close support.
Of course pilots have to go through basic training as well, but that doesn't make them infantry. They're academy- or college-educated officers who then have to go through a long and very expensive training regime to learn to fly combat aircraft. In Above & Beyond, the characters were infantry grunts -- still in training to be infantry grunts (assuming that I remember it correctly) -- and the first time there was any mention of the starfighters was when the grunts hopped in and flew them into combat. That's absurd no matter what the setting.
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Fotiadis_110
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Re: WIP Discussion (Part 1!)
@Arioch and Nomad
In the Distraction thread I continued to discuss mechanised magnetic clamping as a system that could easily allow automation of launching and re-capturing units, basically a pair of magnetic clamps that attach to a set (opposing magnetism) component on the fighter/shuttle/cargo hauler, then drags it in through the aforementioned bay system.
Also: at half atmospheric pressure a human would collapse, but not die :p
This is a benefit compared to evacuating the entire hanger space, not to mention the moment the doors are closed to the 'access way' air can be pumped back in.
In the Distraction thread I continued to discuss mechanised magnetic clamping as a system that could easily allow automation of launching and re-capturing units, basically a pair of magnetic clamps that attach to a set (opposing magnetism) component on the fighter/shuttle/cargo hauler, then drags it in through the aforementioned bay system.
Also: at half atmospheric pressure a human would collapse, but not die :p
This is a benefit compared to evacuating the entire hanger space, not to mention the moment the doors are closed to the 'access way' air can be pumped back in.
Re: WIP Discussion (Part 1!)
when i think about it ariochs idea is probably pretty optimal, leave main hangar without atmo, 'docking slip' atmo tent if you need to do any major external work, and boarding/cargo handling done through docking tube, flexible, simple and keeps the main hangar mostly without atmo to lose.
could easily be combined with external hard points with docking umbilicals for 'storage' of ready fighters, since reloading munitions is not really that difficult as far as 'maintenance' goes.
yup sounds about optimal.
could easily be combined with external hard points with docking umbilicals for 'storage' of ready fighters, since reloading munitions is not really that difficult as far as 'maintenance' goes.
yup sounds about optimal.
Re: WIP Discussion (Part 1!)
@Fotiadis
Yes, I'm certain they read that.
The magnetic clamp system might be of interest, but it's ultimately just a type of catapult system (being able to use it for retrievals doesn't change that). Also, it's of limited relevance, since fighters aren't kinetic weapons, and thus don't need all the speed they can get: they just need enough speed to maneuver & maintain their distance from the fleet: thus, a catapult system won't provide a large benefit, and likely won't be equipped on non-carrier vessels, such as the Tempest. Additionally, for a ship with as few fighters as the Tempest, a single mag catapult would most likely be all that was needed.
Arioch has already said that the bay is brought to a vacuum for small craft operations, with causeways & pressure canopies used to provide atmosphere, thus the air-dock system that you're suggesting does not exist on the Tempest. Such things may exist as maintenance spaces within carriers & battlestations, but I don't see how that's relevant to the Tempest or it's battlegroup.
The hangar is actually NOT likely to be a massively open space, since the Tempest is not a carrier. At most times, a 'central' portion of the bay is likely to be kept clear for emergency purposes, leaving most of the actual work to the edges of the bay. Thus, the layout is more likely to be similar to a bunch of small caves branching off of a single large one, than a massive cave with a bunch of pedestals/columns.
Personally, I imagine that the 'perfect' layout for an actual carrier hangar would be to have causeways running through the fighter bay, with fighter workspaces strung all along them (with the fighters potentially attached to the causeways). Between causeways you'd have the feed system for the launchers, so that fighters would just have to move a short distance to reach the launcher systems. This entire bay (with the exception of the causeway itself) would be depressurized at all times (fighters needing extra repair would be taken to a dedicated bay).
The idea of only having 3 small vessel designs in the fleet strikes me as excessive. A large degree of commonality in major components is almost assured (e.g. there might be 4-5 designs of engines in use for all fighter/attack craft in the fleet, including those used for outdated fighters that have been shuffled to minor duty stations), having maybe 2 (or 3 if they're in the middle of a procurement/replacement schedule) unique designs of standard utility shuttle, with numerous customizations of those, seems quite likely. However, having only 3 small-craft designs in the entire fleet, even if you assume that those are base designs that get modified for different purposes, is excessive.
Yes, I'm certain they read that.
The magnetic clamp system might be of interest, but it's ultimately just a type of catapult system (being able to use it for retrievals doesn't change that). Also, it's of limited relevance, since fighters aren't kinetic weapons, and thus don't need all the speed they can get: they just need enough speed to maneuver & maintain their distance from the fleet: thus, a catapult system won't provide a large benefit, and likely won't be equipped on non-carrier vessels, such as the Tempest. Additionally, for a ship with as few fighters as the Tempest, a single mag catapult would most likely be all that was needed.
Arioch has already said that the bay is brought to a vacuum for small craft operations, with causeways & pressure canopies used to provide atmosphere, thus the air-dock system that you're suggesting does not exist on the Tempest. Such things may exist as maintenance spaces within carriers & battlestations, but I don't see how that's relevant to the Tempest or it's battlegroup.
The hangar is actually NOT likely to be a massively open space, since the Tempest is not a carrier. At most times, a 'central' portion of the bay is likely to be kept clear for emergency purposes, leaving most of the actual work to the edges of the bay. Thus, the layout is more likely to be similar to a bunch of small caves branching off of a single large one, than a massive cave with a bunch of pedestals/columns.
Personally, I imagine that the 'perfect' layout for an actual carrier hangar would be to have causeways running through the fighter bay, with fighter workspaces strung all along them (with the fighters potentially attached to the causeways). Between causeways you'd have the feed system for the launchers, so that fighters would just have to move a short distance to reach the launcher systems. This entire bay (with the exception of the causeway itself) would be depressurized at all times (fighters needing extra repair would be taken to a dedicated bay).
The idea of only having 3 small vessel designs in the fleet strikes me as excessive. A large degree of commonality in major components is almost assured (e.g. there might be 4-5 designs of engines in use for all fighter/attack craft in the fleet, including those used for outdated fighters that have been shuffled to minor duty stations), having maybe 2 (or 3 if they're in the middle of a procurement/replacement schedule) unique designs of standard utility shuttle, with numerous customizations of those, seems quite likely. However, having only 3 small-craft designs in the entire fleet, even if you assume that those are base designs that get modified for different purposes, is excessive.
Re: WIP Discussion (Part 1!)
How can having "only" three types be "excessive?" Excessive means "more than is necessary."
Especially when it comes to small craft, I'm sure there are hundreds of varieties in use. I've listed the major types that make sense to me, which is already overkill in terms of the needs of the story.
Especially when it comes to small craft, I'm sure there are hundreds of varieties in use. I've listed the major types that make sense to me, which is already overkill in terms of the needs of the story.