Loroi Ship Design

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Mjolnir
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Re: Loroi Ship Design

Post by Mjolnir »

As I recall, decoys/dummies are impractical in the Outsider universe for the basic reasons given on Atomic Rockets...you need most of a spacecraft to make something look like a spacecraft, and they're expensive enough that you're better off turning them into real ships capable of participating fully in combat, plus massive enough to make carrying them impractical.

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bunnyboy
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Re: Loroi Ship Design

Post by bunnyboy »

Solution:
Image
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Trantor
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Re: Loroi Ship Design

Post by Trantor »

Fusebox wrote:Has anyone here ever considered WW1 tank style co-axle thrusters at the fore of a ship? I'd imagine such a feature as a couple thrusters on either side of a vessel capable of rotating 180 degrees would increase maneuverability a great deal.
Can definiteley help internal statics.
Mjolnir wrote:As I recall, decoys/dummies are impractical in the Outsider universe for the basic reasons given on Atomic Rockets...you need most of a spacecraft to make something look like a spacecraft, and they're expensive enough that you're better off turning them into real ships capable of participating fully in combat, plus massive enough to make carrying them impractical.
Nah, warheads are heavy and expensive. Acceleration is a matter of weight/power-ratio, so you can use cheaper thrusters as well, and lower reliability-rating necessary and sheer mass-production makes them even cheaper.

The intention is to flood the enemies´ defence sytem. With dozens of types of warheads/dummies/jammers in gazillion different configurations you effectively cripple their system due to overload. They can´t tell the difference in that short time.
sapere aude.

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Trantor
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Re: Loroi Ship Design

Post by Trantor »

bunnyboy wrote:Solution:
Image
"Blow it up" to blow it up. :mrgreen:

They´re maybe a bit too primitive for a top-notch defence system, but they look definitely cool.
I´d like to put one of them in my garden to annoy my neighbours. :D
sapere aude.

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bunnyboy
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Re: Loroi Ship Design

Post by bunnyboy »

Trantor wrote:I´d like to put one of them in my garden to annoy my neighbours. :D
Just give them call and ask price.
I don't know if that guy is part of decoy or if it's sturdy enough to climb on, but that's my favourite.
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Trantor
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Re: Loroi Ship Design

Post by Trantor »

bunnyboy wrote:
Trantor wrote:I´d like to put one of them in my garden to annoy my neighbours. :D
Just give them call and ask price.
Thx for the link, request for price is sent.
Also i did some googlesearch; a T-80 capable of mimicking heat-signature and exhaustgas (!) is around 6000$ plus tax and shipping (russian company), a simple, raw-looking model in 1:2 (sherman) for paintballfields from a chinese sweatshop is as low as 20$, and a simple, but quite good looking sherman in original size is 160$ (plus tax and shipping each). Not too bad.
sapere aude.

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Mjolnir
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Re: Loroi Ship Design

Post by Mjolnir »

Trantor wrote:Nah, warheads are heavy and expensive. Acceleration is a matter of weight/power-ratio, so you can use cheaper thrusters as well, and lower reliability-rating necessary and sheer mass-production makes them even cheaper.

The intention is to flood the enemies´ defence sytem. With dozens of types of warheads/dummies/jammers in gazillion different configurations you effectively cripple their system due to overload. They can´t tell the difference in that short time.
I had the impression you were talking about ship decoys to throw off enemy targeting. Dummy torpedos are more reasonable.

Not by much, though. An effective torpedo needs high acceleration and a high overall delta-v capability. Much of the cost and mass will be in the propulsion system. I strongly doubt removing the warhead will save that much money or reduce the size substantially, and those dummies will take up room in the magazines that could be used for weapons that can actually cause damage. Every dummy fired is a live weapon that isn't fired.

I also think you're being extremely over-optimistic in thinking you'll be able to overwhelm the computer that's tracking and identifying the incoming projectiles...the current Outsider Terrans can likely build computers capable of handling billions if not trillions of targets. It would be a simple matter to prioritize projectiles with large drive plumes for their acceleration, indicating a heavy payload. The bottleneck is going to be pointing and firing point defense guns, not identifying targets, and firing dummies only reduces your rate of fire of weapons the enemy PD guns have to prioritize.

Of course, a "dummy" is actually a kinetic kill missile, given a target it can hit. Such weapons might be carried for use against fixed defenses and ships with damaged propulsion. However, it seems completely impractical to use them to overwhelm point defenses.

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Re: Loroi Ship Design

Post by Solemn »

I was under the impression that Outsider's torpedoes didn't have dedicated warheads, but rather merely detonated their propellant. Their antimatter propellant.

So there isn't any mass tied up in a warhead, but as something of a tradeoff the power of the burst is proportional to the delta-v dedicated to the torpedo.

So there's no warhead to get rid of and no cheaper thrusters to get by with.

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Trantor
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Re: Loroi Ship Design

Post by Trantor »

Solemn wrote:I was under the impression that Outsider's torpedoes didn't have dedicated warheads, but rather merely detonated their propellant. Their antimatter propellant.

So there isn't any mass tied up in a warhead, but as something of a tradeoff the power of the burst is proportional to the delta-v dedicated to the torpedo.
Hm. In that case my dummy-scenario is pointless.

My initial thought was that war is a matter of economics, too. Fooling the enemy into spending money would be smart.
Now we have to find another way to do that. ;)
sapere aude.

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Mjolnir
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Re: Loroi Ship Design

Post by Mjolnir »

Solemn wrote:I was under the impression that Outsider's torpedoes didn't have dedicated warheads, but rather merely detonated their propellant. Their antimatter propellant.
Well, we were talking about Terran systems...though looking back, equivalent tech was a basic assumption, so they'd probably be using a very similar system, if not producing identical weapons that the Loroi can use.

Still, the Terrans may have stocks of suitably large warheads sitting around, but want to dedicate their fuel production to supplying Terran and Loroi ships instead of blowing it up in torpedos. Torpedos with warheads might exist as an intermediate step, to reduce usage of starship fuel.

LegioCI
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Re: Loroi Ship Design

Post by LegioCI »

Honestly, at the speeds we're talking about, the Matter-Antimatter explosion isn't nearly as effective as just hitting them with the kinetic energy, Though I suppose if the fuel is kept behind the warhead, the detonation might add an addition kick to a kinetic warhead just before impact, but the explosion really wouldn't do that much damage unless it was either A) Really close or B) Spreading shrapnel. (Somehow I think that with the Umiaks' capships' heavy armor, shrapnel would not be a huge problem for them.)
"But notice how the Human thinks. 'Interesting... how can I use this as a weapon?'" - Arioch

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Mjolnir
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Re: Loroi Ship Design

Post by Mjolnir »

LegioCI wrote:Honestly, at the speeds we're talking about, the Matter-Antimatter explosion isn't nearly as effective as just hitting them with the kinetic energy, Though I suppose if the fuel is kept behind the warhead, the detonation might add an addition kick to a kinetic warhead just before impact, but the explosion really wouldn't do that much damage unless it was either A) Really close or B) Spreading shrapnel. (Somehow I think that with the Umiaks' capships' heavy armor, shrapnel would not be a huge problem for them.)
The explosions are very large...hundreds of megatons to gigaton range, to achieve the needed range in a vacuum. There's likely no surviving shrapnel, and even if there were, odds of it hitting a ship are low.

Kinetic missiles would cause far more damage, making human mass drivers look like pop guns, but must make a direct hit on the target. Apparently the Loroi and Umiak aren't capable of achieving this reliably...possibly because their point defense systems are just too effective. A kinetic missile that has its engines or sensors disabled late and just misses an evading target does no damage, and disabling propulsion and sensors is probably much easier than completely destroying an incoming torpedo. Explosive weapons effectively have a much larger target and must be disabled sooner to keep them at a safe distance, or destroyed entirely.

Paragon
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Re: Loroi Ship Design

Post by Paragon »

Karst45 wrote:
Paragon wrote:You want open space? Fuck your open spaces, this ain't no yacht. That's room you could be using to hold a bigger reactor, more hull plating, or (my personal favorite) guns. Lot's of guns.
Stargate: the great race: (roughly quoted)

With you auxiliary Ox tank you should be able to hold up until rescue arrive.
Douche: Yeah i removed those so i could put more weapon.
Okay, two things in my defence:
1. I'm pretty sure it was space for smuggling weapons in that episode.
2. You know I didn't say "RIP OUT THE LIFE SUPPORT THIS IS A GOOD IDEA". I was joking about how the wide open spaces on the Loroi ship are kind of silly (if very pretty and understandable from an art standpoint).

Anyways, I've always wondered about the potential efficacy of a carrier in space. I mean, running a carrier isn't the same as running other ships. It would be hugely complicate running the ship normally (and that's already pretty damn complicated), and I can't even imagine the world of hurt you'd be in if the ship actually ended up taking fire.

Let's see: the space needed to store, service, and launch the fighters/bombers would take up a huge portion of the ship, which would severely limit it's ability to do anything else (so they'd better be able to deliver). It would take up more supplies than another ship of similar size. You'd have to either be able to quickly and safely compress and decompress the ships in and out of the launch and recovery areas (or have the whole fighter area be in vacuum all the time which is a whole other level of insane).
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LegioCI
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Re: Loroi Ship Design

Post by LegioCI »

I still think an explosion alone like that would be a terribly inefficient weapon in a vacuum...

What about a two-stage warhead? As the missile approaches a certain range, it fires a kinetic warhead (Or big chunk of shotgun-like directed shrapnel) using either a conventional charge or a smaller MAM detonation. The remainder of the missile continues maneuvering to get within range and detonate what remains of it's MAM payload. Actually, a hit with the kinetic shrapnel could allow the main warhead to do even better, by pre-fracturing the armor, creating craters and pockmarks that allow the target ship to soak up more of that delicious radiated heat and high-energy EMR.
"But notice how the Human thinks. 'Interesting... how can I use this as a weapon?'" - Arioch

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Mjolnir
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Re: Loroi Ship Design

Post by Mjolnir »

LegioCI wrote:I still think an explosion alone like that would be a terribly inefficient weapon in a vacuum...
Well, it is. But being able to inflict damage is more important than efficiency.

LegioCI wrote:What about a two-stage warhead? As the missile approaches a certain range, it fires a kinetic warhead (Or big chunk of shotgun-like directed shrapnel) using either a conventional charge or a smaller MAM detonation. The remainder of the missile continues maneuvering to get within range and detonate what remains of it's MAM payload. Actually, a hit with the kinetic shrapnel could allow the main warhead to do even better, by pre-fracturing the armor, creating craters and pockmarks that allow the target ship to soak up more of that delicious radiated heat and high-energy EMR.
You've got to get close enough that the shrapnel has a reasonable chance of hitting, and the shrapnel has the same problem as a kinetic missile with its guidance/propulsion disabled...it can't track the target's evasive actions, or itself evade point defenses. You don't really gain anything by the explosive launch...how much extra velocity do you expect to get out of the explosion without the kinetic sub-projectiles vaporizing, 10-20 km/s? Closing velocity is likely to be hundreds or thousands of km/s...the ships will have been accelerating toward each other prior to the encounter, and their relative velocity will be far greater than the delta-v of the torpedo. If they're jousting at a crossing velocity that gives them an encounter every 20 minutes, with an average acceleration of 20 g, that's 10 minutes acceleration from a dead halt on each side, and a total of around 240 km/s closing velocity for the torpedos. If you can hit them with ballistic projectiles, you can hit them with a maneuvering warhead and cause more damage.

That closing speed also means you haven't really got time for warhead stages to separate to a safe distance for one to do what you suggest. They need to separate far enough from the target that the explosive warhead doesn't get damaged by the kinetic projectile's launch, and close enough that it doesn't reach detonation range before the kinetic projectile reaches the target. Launching them as separate weapons would give a lot more freedom in relative timing and physical spacing, as well as allowing you to assign each to the targets that it is more suited for.

Also note that an explosive weapon isn't necessarily isotropic, identical in all directions. The propulsion charges drawn up for Orion were designed to produce highly directional plasma jets to increase efficiency. Something similar may well be doable with Outsider torpedos.

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Re: Loroi Ship Design

Post by Mjolnir »

Paragon wrote:Okay, two things in my defence:
1. I'm pretty sure it was space for smuggling weapons in that episode.
2. You know I didn't say "RIP OUT THE LIFE SUPPORT THIS IS A GOOD IDEA". I was joking about how the wide open spaces on the Loroi ship are kind of silly (if very pretty and understandable from an art standpoint).
Going by the Insider, the Tempest is 750 m long, mounting class III screens, a wave loom device, 4 heavy blasters, 8 pulse cannons, 12 laser autocannons, an anti-missile launcher, 8 interceptors, and a warhead launcher, with drives capable of pushing its 1200 kt mass at 30 g. Those wide open spaces we've seen may be small in relation to the necessary spaces around and between the various pieces of equipment responsible for propulsion, gravity, and weapons, they certainly don't mean the ship is mostly crew spaces. And as I've pointed out, there's several very good reasons to desire large air volumes in a closed system.

Paragon wrote:Anyways, I've always wondered about the potential efficacy of a carrier in space. I mean, running a carrier isn't the same as running other ships. It would be hugely complicate running the ship normally (and that's already pretty damn complicated), and I can't even imagine the world of hurt you'd be in if the ship actually ended up taking fire.
This largely goes for today's sea-going aircraft carriers, as well.

Paragon wrote:Let's see: the space needed to store, service, and launch the fighters/bombers would take up a huge portion of the ship, which would severely limit it's ability to do anything else (so they'd better be able to deliver). It would take up more supplies than another ship of similar size. You'd have to either be able to quickly and safely compress and decompress the ships in and out of the launch and recovery areas (or have the whole fighter area be in vacuum all the time which is a whole other level of insane).
Just because things are done a certain way on aircraft carriers doesn't mean that spacecraft carriers must do things the same way. Parasite craft certainly could be docked externally or in an unpressurized hangar when not undergoing major work, this form of operation has already been well proven with the various spacecraft and space stations we've been using in reality...nothing insane about it. A shirt-sleeves hangar/drydock might be needed on occasion, but needn't be a permanent space, it could be an expandable compartment that is folded down when not in use. Or not...volume isn't a valuable commodity in space, there's as much of it available as you can use. It's silly to suggest that a carrier will be incapable of doing anything else because of the room taken up by the parasite craft they carry.

Their size would make them ideal for mounting larger, more powerful sensor equipment and longer-range torpedos than can be carried by smaller craft. They'd be good for resupply and other fleet servicing operations, carrying technical and medical facilities that smaller ships lack as well. They'd have a very high carrying capacity, and could take on the equivalent of air drops of heavy equipment and supplies instead of carrying fighters. And when freed of the burden of parasite vessels, they may be some of the fastest ships in the fleet, aside from the fighters they carry.

LegioCI
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Re: Loroi Ship Design

Post by LegioCI »

An MAM Shaped charge... Hmmm. My mad scientist senses are tingling with the possibilities.

What if behind the MAM warhead you put some sort of explosively pumped magnetic field generator that focuses the blast forward into a cone or beam rather than a sphere? Even if it lasted for only the barest fraction of a second, the amount of energy you could redirect with that could make it a substantially more effective weapon. It would be like the Yamato Cannon's big brother.
"But notice how the Human thinks. 'Interesting... how can I use this as a weapon?'" - Arioch

Majincarne
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Re: Loroi Ship Design

Post by Majincarne »

Thats getting rather close to being a bomb pumped laser. Its my though on the matter that a swarm of fired missiles that go bomb pumped at a 80% hit likely range would be far better bang for buck than whats being used in the comic atm. They could get in rather close and would have the advantage as its much harder to hit an evasive missile than it is for a laser at eh same ranger to hit a ship. And if its an X-ray - Gamma hell go exotic and AM it for protons if you have the tech, and thats gonna hurt a ship. Depending on teh shield tech it may be mitigated some though. Shield tech is probably not gonna do much if you can bomb pump with an AM charge though.

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Re: Loroi Ship Design

Post by discord »

majin: only downside is accuracy, missile is smaller more difficult target, true, but the missile has less accurate sensors and is a less stable firing platform, if hit rates are in favor of the missiles, sure it works just fine....but they might not be....i'll agree though, it's probably the best use of missiles....

although thinking on it, buckshot missiles might be nasty....

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Re: Loroi Ship Design

Post by manticore7 »

reading the insider I notice that the lighter Umiak Ships have veriations in their length, for example the Type-ks Missile Cruiser is between 300- 400 meters and the Light Destroyer is 120-180 meters long. I know the insider says that each vessel is unique but I wonder if this is done intentionally or by circumstance.
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