Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

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fredgiblet
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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by fredgiblet »

The firing rate for the heavy lasers is much lower, Our torpedoes only get something like 12 g so I highly doubt a warship, even a highly specialized one, will be capable of keeping up.

Rixic
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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Rixic »

Love the debate in this thread almost as much as I like the ship designs. Seems to me though that people are looking in the wrong place for humanity's relevance creating advantage in this conflict.

As races Loroi and Umiak have been fighting wars in space for generations. Hell there's probably evolutionary pressure by this point on top of the obvious war time philosophical focus. It's going to be hard to beat centuries of refined and battle tested methods for putting holes where your enemy doesn't want holes. Especially from the kind of waning military infrastructure TCA is working with.

So look to the frivolities, look to the trappings of peace. That's where humanity's hidden edge (if such a thing exists) could be found. For instance I might expect software to be a strong point from a healthy entertainment industry. It doesn't have to be as dramatic as being super hackers. Even something as simple as UI refinement can have more impact than you might think. If not for the Loroi then for the vassal races using hand me down technology. Stream-lining the bootstrapping process for not just humans but others would be a significant boost to the war effort.

On that topic, diplomacy and social sciences seem to be Loroi weak points. Human spin doctors and sociologists could stop entire races from ceding to the enemy.

And this might be a result of the elite nature of the scout corps but, Jardin is really darn competent as a lone agent. Were the tables reversed I question how effective a lone, random Loroi would be at first contact on a human vessel. They seem a great deal more specialized. It's just shy of trite but human generalism and adaptability might be surprising to other species.

All that considered, I expect future human ships to be relevant more for the culture bomb inside them than any external hardware. If I had any graphical skills I'd try to depict something like a spaceworthy newsvan crossed with an exotic caravan complete with neon holo-ads.

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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by fredgiblet »

Yeah, a lot of people want a silver bullet that will make us top dogs by the end of the story. Not going to lie I think of them too, but realistically it's not going to happen.

Our short-term value is a resupply base and potentially a backdoor to Umiak space, we can provide basics like foodstuffs, water and untrained manual labor for base construction and maintenance. Long-term our value will likely be as court magicians as someone else put it, our technological prowess apparently outstrips the other races significantly so once we're brought up to par we should be able to move things ahead with relatively high speed. Waning isn't exactly the right word, the military infrastructure of the TCA has likely increased significantly in the last 2 years, while nowhere near the level of the main combatants it's only likely to grow.

Social sciences is an interesting thought. I can totally see humans becoming the face of the Loroi Empire, with the Mizol moving to a more exclusive spying role. Not sure how they would like that though.

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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by RedDwarfIV »

IIRC, Arioch did say that humanity itself was not going to change the course of the war, although a 'turning point' will happen at some time in the story.

One thing humans could probably do is provide heavily armed transport craft. Fit a big cargo bay to a Mjolnir-equipped cruiser, and hey, you've got something that might just survive taking resources to the Loroi.
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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by fredgiblet »

We don't really have anything worth transporting 200 light-years. We have things where it's useful that the Loroi wouldn't have to transport them 200 light-years, but unless chocolate turns out to be a safe narcotic or something I don't think there's going to be significant trade for a LONG time.

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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by RedDwarfIV »

fredgiblet wrote:We don't really have anything worth transporting 200 light-years. We have things where it's useful that the Loroi wouldn't have to transport them 200 light-years, but unless chocolate turns out to be a safe narcotic or something I don't think there's going to be significant trade for a LONG time.
Note neccesarily trade. Hell, maybe we could provide ground troops, and the cruisers could act as transports for them. Arioch has said Umiak use chemical-kinetic weapons for small-arms fire. Not sure how common ground fights are, but every Loroi not fighting on the ground is a Loroi fighting in space, where they are both more needed and probably more useful.
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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

I think, in general, ground fights are very rare at this stage in the war. At least for the Loroi, that is. It is my understanding that most of the ground fighting took place earlier in the war, before it had turned into a war of annihilation. The Umiak use ground forces to invade their client states, and the Loroi had to retake planets, but in recent history, the Loroi have their territory and blasted everything else into a wasteland buffer. Perhaps with a potential new Umiak offensive in Loroi space though, they'll have more reason to fight on the ground, rather than bombarding the whole planet from orbit.

As for human troops, I hope they've got some big guns, because Umiak hardtroops sound terrifying. Three to four inch thick armor plating and who knows what kind of firearms. Chemical propellant doesn't necessarily mean that their guns are small. ;)

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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by RedDwarfIV »

Well yeah, I suppose 'small arms' would need to be scaled up for something the size of a Umiak. As for Hardtroops, I'd assume artillery, lasers or RPGs would be needed, depending on what countermeasures the Hardtroops can mount (Point defence against artillery, armour thick enough to stop an RPG having an effect, laser redirection... although laser redirection would suggest a technology that I don't think exists in Outsider, or the spacecraft would be able to be invisible.)
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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by fredgiblet »

Per a previous discussion the Loroi Army is still fully equipped and trained. I can see us being used as rear-echelon or late-war occupation troops in already pacified areas to free up regular units for actual fights, but I don't think the Loroi need the bulk.

Additionally any Umiak world is likely to be razed instead of invaded, client worlds may be invaded though.

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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Zakharra »

RedDwarfIV wrote:Well yeah, I suppose 'small arms' would need to be scaled up for something the size of a Umiak. As for Hardtroops, I'd assume artillery, lasers or RPGs would be needed, depending on what countermeasures the Hardtroops can mount (Point defence against artillery, armour thick enough to stop an RPG having an effect, laser redirection... although laser redirection would suggest a technology that I don't think exists in Outsider, or the spacecraft would be able to be invisible.)

Laser redirection should be fairly easy. Chaff specifically designed to degrade and disperse many lasers. Remember in space, unless the ship changes direction, any chaff it disperses would travel with it. Of course chaff would be a very short term solution for lasers anyways, but it might be enough to make most fairly ineffective for awhile. That might be one reason why torpedoes and missiles are still used.

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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by RedDwarfIV »

Zakharra wrote:
RedDwarfIV wrote:Well yeah, I suppose 'small arms' would need to be scaled up for something the size of a Umiak. As for Hardtroops, I'd assume artillery, lasers or RPGs would be needed, depending on what countermeasures the Hardtroops can mount (Point defence against artillery, armour thick enough to stop an RPG having an effect, laser redirection... although laser redirection would suggest a technology that I don't think exists in Outsider, or the spacecraft would be able to be invisible.)

Laser redirection should be fairly easy. Chaff specifically designed to degrade and disperse many lasers. Remember in space, unless the ship changes direction, any chaff it disperses would travel with it. Of course chaff would be a very short term solution for lasers anyways, but it might be enough to make most fairly ineffective for awhile. That might be one reason why torpedoes and missiles are still used.
You'd need a lot of chaff for that... but it wasn't what I was referencing anyway. An internet friend of mine linked me to some sites that talked about how light might be made to bend around objects, both rendering them nigh invulnerable to lasers, and providing a kind of cloaking system.
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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Zakharra »

A starship can carry a lot of chaff. As far as cloaking devices, Arioch has said no such thing exists in the universe. Certainly not for the current combatants. The Historians -might- have something like that, but they aren't sharing with anyone so it effectively is beyond the Loroi and the Umiak's industrial capability.

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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

When starships in the Outsider universe fight, they are accelerating almost constantly, at 20 to 30 Gs. Any chaff is going to be quickly left behind. And anyways, if you're going to be devoting mass to chaff, you might as well devote that mass to armor. At the power levels that starship grade weapons are projecting, a cloud of chaff is going to be lucky to disperse the first millisecond pulse.

As for bending light, you are either using a material that is going to be vaporized by the energy output of a laser, you're using intense gravity, or you're using pseudo science. In order to have cloaking in space, you either need a material with a specific heat several orders of magnitude higher than any known substance, or something that violates the laws of thermodynamics.

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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by RedDwarfIV »

icekatze wrote:As for bending light, you are either using a material that is going to be vaporized by the energy output of a laser, you're using intense gravity, or you're using pseudo science. In order to have cloaking in space, you either need a material with a specific heat several orders of magnitude higher than any known substance, or something that violates the laws of thermodynamics.
Not neccesarily.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/scie ... light.html

Its hardly infallible, but it does work - and visible light wasn't even the first thing the scientists tested on it, so it could potentially deflect infrared laser beams or RADAR.


But I have no problems with it not being in the Outsider universe if it serves the story for it to be absent. Same thing as how Outsider uses a fictional 'jump-drive' that will constrain logistics, make travel hazardous and exciting, and provide bottlenecks for tense battle scenes... instead of using the theoretically possible Alcubierre-White warp drive.

==================

Say, I wonder what sort of drive Terran ships would need to reach 25Gs accelleration? According to ProjectRho, the most powerful engine you can get is an Antimatter Beam thruster, with 10 meganewtons per 10 ton engine. Assuming the Terrans don't want to stuff their spacecraft full of antimatter, you can get 100 meganewtons per 1000 ton Inertial Confinement Fusion engine. If they wouldn't mind stuffing their spacecraft full of nukes, a 2nd gen ORION engine would be somewhat more effective, making 400 meganewtons per 3250 ton engine. It lists 8 meganewtons for an 8 ton engine as ORION's maximum capability.

Now all we need is a mass estimate for a Victory class cruiser so we can see how quick one of those babies can accellerate.

For reference, 25G is 245.25 m/s^2

RMS Queen Mary 2 is 345 metres in length, and masses 82,700 tons. 201 Victory is longer, but probably has more empty space around it given its shape. If there isn't a canon mass, then at least this might give something to work off.
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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Arioch »

I think torpedo guidance systems will have to be pretty sophisticated at this tech level; I don't think chaff alone would fool a torpedo. I think you'd need a pretty sophisticated decoy, with the ability to maneuver on its own, and offer both a radar signature and a powerful heat signature to simulate a starship drive.

120,000 tons is a good ballpark estimate for the Terran cruisers. Victory is probably a bit heavier than that, maybe pushing toward 150 kt. The Loroi Rapier is around 175 kt, and the larger Scimitar around 350 kt.

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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Karst45 »

Earlier in this discution people talked about using "space shotgun" to increase the chance of a kinetic kill on far ship. Knowing that umiak use lots of torpedo. How effective would those shotgun be when facing torpedo?

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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Arioch »

Karst45 wrote:Earlier in this discution people talked about using "space shotgun" to increase the chance of a kinetic kill on far ship. Knowing that umiak use lots of torpedo. How effective would those shotgun be when facing torpedo?

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Even at very close range, the distances and volumes of space combat are so great that I don't think the chances of a hit with a shotgun would be very good; or at least, not much better than with a conventional projectile weapon.

Maybe some kind of "flak" shell, which bursts near the target and throws shrapnel, might be viable. But such things would only be useful as close-in defense at very short range, and would not be any better than the Loroi alternatives (lasers, AMM's).

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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

If you read the article about the "invisibility cloak," you will see that:
The device uses thing[sic] panels of glass to make objects invisible by bending light around them.
Panels of glass will be vaporized by a laser. Refracting light necessarily generates waste heat. Even a fraction of a percent of a combat laser is going to vaporize solid materials. And it can bend infrared all it wants, but unless they have a place to sink that heat that is orders of magnitude more efficient than current materials, they will have to release detectable heat.

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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Mr Bojangles »

Not neccesarily.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/scie ... light.html

Its hardly infallible, but it does work - and visible light wasn't even the first thing the scientists tested on it, so it could potentially deflect infrared laser beams or RADAR.
The thing about invisibility cloaks is that they have to be tuned to energy and frequency of the incident EM radiation. So, an IR cloak wouldn't render you invisible to normal vision and vice versa. Similarly, the more energy you pump into it (e.g., a brighter light), the less effective your cloak will become.

All this gets to what Icekatze is saying. The invisibility material would not only have to redirect the EM field around the object, it would also have to handle the associated energy. Given that you're trying to bend military-grade beams meant to be used against warships, your cloak won't offer much protection or stealth.

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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by RedDwarfIV »

Interesting. I'll refer this to the Internet friend who told me about this. I was talking to him about how space combat would work in my webcomic's universe (no 25G accelleration there) and he brought light bending up. I didn't want stealth in the story, but if it fell into the ballpark of 'speculative fiction' then it would be something I might need to explore in the story.

[EDIT] Turns out, what he'd been proposing several months ago was not a stealth system, but a means of 'deflecting lasers fired at long ranges' with a system of small mirrored disks that would move across a hull to wherever a laser beam might be hitting.
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