Speculation: What can Humaniti offer the Loroi?

[Mr.Tucker]

hi hi
I'm also now curious to know what the cost of building the space shuttle is, minus labor and bureaucracy, to see how the components costs compare to the fuel costs, but I can't find anything.

Off NASA's site : ''The Space Shuttle Endeavour, the orbiter built to replace the Space Shuttle Challenger, cost approximately $1.7 billion''.

I'm guessing there's slight variation between each craft, but the ballpark seems right.

[Arioch]

hi hi

I would be curious to know what sort of parameters the designers of Umiak warships use to determine their various weight ratios. I'm assuming that fuel tanks need to be armored in hopes of preventing the same fate that the Winter Tide faced, which would probably also prevent them from being able to just strap on extra tanks on an exposed girder.

I'm also now curious to know what the cost of building the space shuttle is, minus labor and bureaucracy, to see how the components costs compare to the fuel costs, but I can't find anything.

I think the fuel mass ratio you choose for a ship is based on how long the unit needs to operate between refuelings to be effective; a scout will have a much higher fuel ratio than a battleship. My estimate is that a combat vessel needs 100 hours of full-burn acceleration to be effective. Fuel consumption is not determined by how far you go, but by how hard you work at it. A warship in combat might burn up 100 hours of fuel in less than a week, while a scout might make the same 100 hours last for many months (because it isn't constantly under acceleration).

The space shuttle may not be a good analogue; on the one hand, fuel accounts for 90% of its mass... but on the other, it's just liquid hydrogen and oxygen, which is comparatively inexpensive (ignoring for a moment the solid rocket boosters).

In naval vessels, the difference between deadweight (empty) mass and full-loaded mass tends to be 15% for WWII-era battleships & heavy cruisers, 20% for modern warships, and 30% for WWII-era destroyers. This mass also includes ammunition and supplies, but I'm guessing that the vast majority of it is fuel. So for the comparatively heavy Outsider starships, my estimate is that fuel accounts for no more than 15% of the total mass of the ship; this is sufficient (within a reasonable engine efficiency) to allow a cruiser to accelerate at 30g for the required 100 hours. Umiak have more efficient engines, but their ships are heavier, so their endurance is longer but probably in the same ballpark.

I'm not sure that the cost of the fuel is terribly relevant (unless it's exceptionally rare and expensive) to how much you carry; the designer sets a limit on the carrying capacity of the ship based on performance attributes, and in practice you carry as much as you can. Torpedoes are also very expensive, but that doesn't stop the Umiak from using a lot of them.

Antimatter is going to be incredibly expensive to produce, so its use is probably reserved for certain types of weapons. The idea behind the Taimat fuel is that it's not only easier to store than antimatter, but also cheaper to produce; presumably there is some process that you can put normal matter through that converts it into the excited state that allows for spontaneous annihilation. This might be something akin to an industrial-scale supercollider, or something as mundane as a catalytic reaction. It still requires significant infrastructure and energy to produce, and must be carefully stored and protected (it must be kept supercooled), but it shoudn't be prohibitively expensive.

[icekatze]

hi hi

Mr. Tucker, that figure also includes labor and bureaucracy, just like the 450 million per launch figure. It is beginning to look like some of the Umiak's greatest industrial achievements may have been in cutting down the costs of labor and bureaucracy.

At least the Umiak don't build torpedoes that go out, drop a payload, then come back to pick up another. (I know their engine is their payload, but still...)

15% and 30% does seem like a pretty significant difference. Perhaps that is also part of why the Loroi don't see very many Umiak super-heavies on the offensive?

[Mr.Tucker]

True, but I'm not sure if taking out the labor costs is a good way of looking at things. After all, you need people to work the smelter if you're gonna shape aluminium into a fuel tank .
I tend to look at the Umiak as a combination of WWII soviet industrial capacity (though their manufacturing process is more akin to how cars were built pre-Henry Ford), and a ''live light'' mentality akin to the ''horse peoples'' of ancient times (mostly space-based, living in their antimatter-powered wagons ).. Just given the size of their territory, I'm not surprised they can churn out ships on a grand scale. The more I think of it, the more the Loroi seem outmatched...

Also need to remember that Umiak are better adapted to working in 0G (and working in general). Their overhead labor costs might be significantly smaller. (what do these guys even eat?)

[GeoModder]

15% and 30% does seem like a pretty significant difference. Perhaps that is also part of why the Loroi don't see very many Umiak super-heavies on the offensive?

That's because WWII battleships 'carried' a significant percentage of their mass as armor, whereas WWII destroyers didn't even have that.

[JQBogus]

That, and a few other things.
1) Battleships tended to be slower, so less power as a percentage of size needed to achieve maximum speed.
2) Drag goes up geometrically as speed goes up linearly. Faster is less efficient than slower.
3) Size matters. A larger ship's frontal area (the amount of water it has to push out of the way) goes up by squares, as its volume (and mass) goes up by cubes. Ships designed for speed tend towards a high length to beam ratio for this reason.


Examples :

Iowa class BB : 55,000 tons, 32.5 knots, 158,000 kW. (draft 11 m, beam 33 m, length 262.5 m)
Fletcher class DD : 2500 tons, 36.5 knots, 45,000 kW. (draft 5.3 m, beam 12 m, length 114.8 m)
Liberty ship (cargo) : 14000 tons, 11 knots, 1,900 kW. (draft 8.5 m, beam 17.3 m, length 134.6 m)

[discord]

JQ: Funny detail on the subject of 'slow battleships' the Iowa class is equal or faster compared to everything else in the current US navy according to official specs(exception is the littoral combat ships) and fuel supply to run anything except the nuke powered into the....ground? sea? Whatever.

I find it funny that so many think 'battleships are big and slow!' which is only 50% true. Although it is also kinda sad that such falsehood is so widespread.

actually JQ it is the other way around, since volume increases faster compared to frontal area you have more space(and weight) to overcome that drag with the bigger you are, which is why you get those interesting numbers you posted, 22 times the weight, 3.5 times the engine power and not all that much slower.....

another funny detail, 3 out of 4 Iowa class managed 33kn, only Wisconsin drops the average with it's 30kn.

bottom line, they were called 'fast battleships' for a reason.

[JQBogus]

1) Yes, Iowa was unusually fast for a battleship. But still slower than its companion destroyers. Other late build US battleships (built and proposed) topped out at 28 knots, rather than 32-33, while the older ships still serving (built during or prior to WWI) went 20-21 knots maximum. Other navies of the era tended to similar speeds, under 30 knots for newer heavy ships, and around 20-23 for older ones.

2) Battleships built in the 30s & 40s weren't slow, but they were still slower than destroyers of the same vintage.

3) Yes, that is what I wrote. I think you misread something. Frontal area goes up by squares, while volume goes up by cubes. Two times the dimensions (2^1) = four times frontal area (2^2) = eight times volume (2^3). Bigger = faster because one has more ship vs front, all else being the same. Perhaps I should have separated the comment about length to beam into its own line, since it doesn't really have anything to do with ship size, though it does have a lot to do with ship speed, for the same front vs size reason.

Iowa, a fast battleship, has a pretty high ratio of length to beam. About 8 to 1 at the waterline. Bismarck was about 6.7 to 1. The South Dakotas (slower late build US BBs) about 6.3 to 1. KGVs (British late build) about 7.2 to 1. Lower length to beam, of course, makes it easier to armor the ship, even if it isn't so good for speed.

Oh, and just for comparison... A few WWII era destroyers length to beam:
Fletcher (US) 9.6 to 1 (36.5 kts)
Tribal (UK) : 10.4 to 1 (36 kts)
Fubuki (IJN) ; 11 to 1 (38 kts)

[icekatze]

hi hi

In space, there is no drag from water though.

Honestly, most contemporary naval vessels could be built to go faster, but there is a point at which that becomes dangerous. There is a reason why people stopped building aircraft carriers with 8 nuclear reactors after the CVN-65 Enterprise. Perhaps it is bad form to be able to out-accelerate your destroyer escorts.

[Karst45]

hi hi

In space, there is no drag from water though.

Honestly, most contemporary naval vessels could be built to go faster, but there is a point at which that becomes dangerous. There is a reason why people stopped building aircraft carriers with 8 nuclear reactors after the CVN-65 Enterprise. Perhaps it is bad form to be able to out-accelerate your destroyer escorts.

i tought that was because reactor became more efficient and less reactor mean more cargo, because you know, reactor are heavy

[JQBogus]

Yeah, none of this really applies to spacecraft, since they're moving through a medium largely devoid of matter. Space ship propulsion should more or less scale scale directly. A 100 meter ship that accelerates at 30G needs pretty much the same proportion of its mass devoted to engines as a 200 meter ship that accelerates at 30G, in the absence of any sci-fi phlebotinum reasons saying otherwise. The advantages size would confer on a larger ship would mostly come from not having to duplicate crew positions (Example : an 80,000 ton ship has one captain, one navigator, one helmsman, etc, whereas eight 10,000 ton ones would need 8 of each) and maybe (depending on armor/shield tech) from the fact that it has less surface area relative to volume.

As to why current naval vessels aren't faster... partly what you're saying, but also partly because speed just isn't as important as it used to be, I think. Designers would rather use the mass freed up by not absolutely maximizing speed to put in other systems that make the ship more capable of its mission overall. I think Karst45 is right also about the efficiency thing. B-52 had eight jet engines because the engines only developed so much thrust at the time it was designed. Similarly, I am pretty sure Enterprise's eight reactors generate less power combined than the two, larger, newer reactors on Nimitz.

[icekatze]

hi hi

Having less surface area relative to volume is a big deal for a warship. The Umiak do armor their warships, and armor is heavy. Being able to pack more stuff inside for a given square footage of surface area is very advantageous. (So long as your structural elements can support it. Cube square law works to the detriment of internal structure against acceleration.)

The Enterprise's reactors were smaller, but they still produced slightly more power, on a somewhat smaller ship. Officially, the Enterprise produced 210 megawatts to the Nimitz's 194 megawatts, while the Nimitz class was about 10% heavier, more or less depending on which one you're looking at.

(Also, while I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this account, as I heard it from a tour guide at the USS Midway museum in San Diego: apparently during the Enterprise's shakedown cruise, they eased back on the reactors because they found them to be excessive, for a ship that big, with that much momentum. Turning at very high speeds can be perilous, if the ship is not designed for it.)

[Grayhome]

You're both right. Loroi like Stillstorm do believe that tact is dishonest. They would agree with Achilles: "Him do I hate even as the gates of hell who says one thing while he hides another in his heart; therefore I will say what I mean."

*knock knock*

Yooohoooo! Herr Achilles? It is the Nazis! Du you have any Jews in your basement today? A company of storm troopers and I were wondering if you did. No lying now Achilles, we know you to be a man of honor, tee hee!

[Arioch]

That is the most bizarre analogy I think I have ever heard.

[fredgiblet]

I'm going to respond without reading the thread yet, because I'm lazy.

We offer a backdoor into Umiak space, a forward base with technologically limited (for now) industrial/agricultural capacity that will allow for easier resupply to start and gain more ground once our industry starts to catch up. Long-term we offer increased technological development and a significant industrial boost.

At present we don't have a LOT to offer, but it's enough to make us valuable.

[fredgiblet]

hi hi

In space, there is no drag from water though.

Honestly, most contemporary naval vessels could be built to go faster, but there is a point at which that becomes dangerous. There is a reason why people stopped building aircraft carriers with 8 nuclear reactors after the CVN-65 Enterprise. Perhaps it is bad form to be able to out-accelerate your destroyer escorts.

They built the Enterprise with 8 because they didn't know how many they would really need and the reactors they hadn't weren't that powerful. The rest of the nuke carriers were built with 2 because they had a better idea of how many they needed and they were much better.

[fredgiblet]

Turning at very high speeds can be perilous, if the ship is not designed for it.)

The Fast and The Furious 8: Pacific Drift

[Count Casimir]

Now I want a sci-fi race that pours immense amounts of wealth and resources into building giant spacecraft that they can race around the solar system. Who can slingshot orbit drift the best?




Also the soundtrack would be ballin

[Grayhome]

That is the most bizarre analogy I think I have ever heard.

Being honest and truthful has innumerable benefits over being deceitful; a society of dishonest people will find it difficult to create a harmonious atmosphere, either at home or abroad. In almost every situation being honest and truthful is the most advantageous thing a person/population can do. Unless you are in Nazi Germany during 1940, and the Nazis are knocking on your door asking if you are hiding Jews in your basement (and you are). There are situations which arise in which the only honorable, and indeed sane, option is to lie. I am assuming that the Loroi, when they are about to launch attacks upon the Umiak, do not announce the attack beforehand so as to give their opponent time to compose themselves for an honorable battle, as some warrior societies of Humanity were wont to.

The Loroi up until this point have acted with extreme hostility to Alex. He has every possible reason to perceive them as a hostile nation (and indeed, a very… schizophrenic and unpredictable one). He is under no obligation whatsoever to be truthful or honest with them, especially when they reacted so poorly to his honesty in the opening of chapter 1. To his credit Alex realizes this and chooses to omit the existence of the other scout vessels. This to my mind, is a wise course of action.

[CaptainChaos]

Turning at very high speeds can be perilous, if the ship is not designed for it.)

The Fast and The Furious 8: Pacific Drift

This movie must be made! Michael Bay can direct and write the script and at the climax of the film Vin Desel will drive a Murciélago LP-670 off of the carrier's jet catapult so he can get close enough to leap out of the car onto the villain's jet fighter and pull him out of the cockpit so they can have a fist fight while plummeting to the ocean.