Let's assume that's a good number for safe distance. Starting velocity is irrelevant, because it will be the same for the engine and the rest of the hull; only acceleration matters. Let's say you have two seconds after separation to reach minimum safe distance of 1,000 km. That would require an acceleration of:dragoongfa wrote:At the speeds involved even when 'stationary' the maneuvering thrusters should be enough to be able to move away from the ejected nacelle. The distance that should be covered would be depended on the yield of the explosion but I think that 1000 kilometers should be more than sufficient for a safety distance.
s = 1/2 at^2
t = 2*60 sec
s = 1,000,000m
a = 2s/t^2 = 2,000,000/14400 = 138.88 m/s^2 = 14.17 g
14g is almost half of the maximum acceleration for most Loroi ships with two working main engines. I don't think I've ever specified what the maximum acceleration of the maneuvering thrusters is, but it's certainly less than 5g (and probably less than 1g). So a ship with one working engine might be able to get away, but one with no engines probably couldn't. Winter Tide was without main power at the time of the reactor failure, and so being able to cut the engine loose would probably not have saved her.
Well, that's the thing: it has to be easy, or it doesn't make economic sense. You've outlined a whole set of new classes of ships which would be very expensive to build and maintain (and the increased logistics and lower speed of which would add significant new restrictions on fleet movement); unless the value of salvaged hulls exceeds the cost of this system, then it's a waste of resources. Since the Loroi engage primarily in hit and run warfare, in most situations they do not "hold the field" to allow such salvage operations to take place. For example, such a system would not have been able to salvage Winter Tide and Thunderbolt.dragoongfa wrote:I never said it would be easy, dedicated salvaging should be part of the operational and procurement doctrine of the navy in question.
It may be significant that no modern navy on Earth has ever had such a system.
If you mean the engine nacelles, they tend to be about 30% the length of the ship, not including the thrust vanes.Hālian wrote:How big is a loroi warship engine?
If you mean the reactors and drives themselves, they take up a large portion of the nacelle. You can get a rough sense of the relative size from this schematic: