Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

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Mjolnir
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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Mjolnir »

Sacrificing mobility for protection in something specialized as an immobile defense would make sense if you had a weapon with longer range than that of the enemy, but even with major improvements, mass drivers are drastically shorter in range...leading to the enemy bypassing you completely or pounding you into scrap from outside your effective range. Heavily armoring one side doesn't work, the enemy can come at you from multiple directions...putting the ship on the side of an asteroid just doesn't work. A thick rock layer all around the ship/station might offer protection for interior sections against plasma weapons at extreme range, but it does little to prevent your weapons and engines from being taken out...they need to be exposed to enemy fire to do their job. Such an approach just means there might be survivors to helplessly watch the Umiak cruise past after wrecking all opposing weapons and propulsion.

The only variation I can think of that makes any sense at all would be heavily armored, non-maneuvering orbital torpedo launchers. Such a thing might have enough armor to withstand enemy fire at extreme range for a considerable amount of time, while retaining the capability to launch torpedos protected in its interior. Unfortunately, if humans can construct competitive torpedos at all, they can't mass produce them in any useful quantity, and the Loroi don't appear to have a whole lot to spare.

TrashMan
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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by TrashMan »

I was talking about 1 vs 1 engagements.

The only way a Umiak ship could expose the defending terran ship is to come in close...very close.
Otherwise...yes, it could stay at range and fire..

but any ship will have a problem with that for 2 reasons:
1) heat managment
2) ammo

Just blasting your way trough such a huge asteroids would take many, many shots, regardless of the weapon you use.

Terrnas would have the same heat problems, but their lasers and mass drivers wouldn't "waste" shots.
IMHO, human laser range has been nerfed for the purposes of the story :ugeek:
We could hit hte moon with the laser in the 1960's (1m end radius)


I would also like to point out that Umiak don't know anything about human tech. They don't know how dangeroud they are or how fast, so they could ill-affor to let them behind their lines.

So they would msot likely do exactly what they did in this comic with the Loroi ships holding a line - charge at it.

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Mjolnir
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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Mjolnir »

TrashMan wrote:I was talking about 1 vs 1 engagements.
Humans should invest in defenses consisting of thousands of heavily armed, extremely massive, nearly immobile ships that will fail totally if the enemy known for swarm tactics sends two or more ships? You don't see a problem with this?

TrashMan wrote:The only way a Umiak ship could expose the defending terran ship is to come in close...very close.
Or work with another ship.

TrashMan wrote:Terrnas would have the same heat problems, but their lasers and mass drivers wouldn't "waste" shots.
The low projectile velocity of their mass drivers means precisely that the vast majority of their shots will be wasted. The only way they can land a single hit at typical Umiak weapon ranges would be sheer luck. The short range of their lasers means that every shot fired will be wasted.

TrashMan wrote:IMHO, human laser range has been nerfed for the purposes of the story :ugeek:
We could hit hte moon with the laser in the 1960's (1m end radius)
Are you serious? I could hit the moon with a pen laser. It's 385000 km away, but it's 3500 km across! Pointing accuracy of within half a degree is nothing to brag about. The beam from Apache Point is 6.5 km wide when it reaches the moon, and far too dim to see...we can only detect the reflection with photon counters.

Effective range with lasers isn't just a matter of hitting a stationary target anyway. You need optics that maintain their properties while handling very high powers, with large apertures due to diffraction limits, and accurate fire control systems capable of tracking a maneuvering opponent. Bigger optics (lower power density, tighter beam) will not only be more expensive to build, they'll be bigger targets for enemy fire to damage. Terrans don't have these weapons, their ships are designed to engage an enemy at much shorter range, probably an internal threat from a planet they're already orbiting within Terran weapon range of. They might be able to simply scale up existing systems to get something with some degree of effectiveness at longer ranges, but that'll take new tooling and possibly entirely new manufacturing processes, and it'll take time.

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Rosen_Ritter_1
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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Rosen_Ritter_1 »

TrashMan wrote:I was talking about 1 vs 1 engagements.

The only way a Umiak ship could expose the defending terran ship is to come in close...very close.
Otherwise...yes, it could stay at range and fire..
Why would the Umiak only send in a single capitol ship to attack humanity? What with their ship building capability and that a single ship wouldn't be able to meaningfully take advantage of the Terran systems once they were militarily defeated. Terran space is big. The Umiak would need at least a task force of vessels to be able to patrol the surrounding systems and the colonies. They'd also need ground troop garrisons on each of the six major worlds to provide first hand control over the population. And that's not even counting all the administration/infrastructure/logistics they'd need to build up in order to have a permenant base of operations in human space.


Regardless, the 1 VS 1 engagement is unrealistic due to the fact that all but the smallest Umiak capitol ships carry Gunboats.*


*There's also the fact that the Umiak could just fire a torpedo rather than risk close combat against railguns.
TrashMan wrote: IMHO, human laser range has been nerfed for the purposes of the story :ugeek:
We could hit hte moon with the laser in the 1960's (1m end radius)
Human weapons aren't nerfed. They're less advanced than aliens with tech generations ahead of what we have.

It's also not a matter of how far out your laser can hit something. It's how far out it can hit something and do meaningful damage due to defraction of the beam.
TrashMan wrote: I would also like to point out that Umiak don't know anything about human tech. They don't know how dangeroud they are or how fast, so they could ill-affor to let them behind their lines.

So they would msot likely do exactly what they did in this comic with the Loroi ships holding a line - charge at it.
Not knowing the enemies capabilities and charging in maniacally aren't' they connected strategies for logical beings like the Umiak. The Umiak charge against the Loroi because the Loroi have weapons with higher effective range. Because they can't survive a standoff fight against them.

The Umiak aren't going to try to dice it up in close qaurters with a good reason (note the encounter between the bell and the UFO). It's dangerious. Unless the humans provide some kind of a threat to draw them in, they're not going to suicidally come charging in.

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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by TrashMan »

Mjolnir wrote:
TrashMan wrote:I was talking about 1 vs 1 engagements.
Humans should invest in defenses consisting of thousands of heavily armed, extremely massive, nearly immobile ships that will fail totally if the enemy known for swarm tactics sends two or more ships? You don't see a problem with this?
I said it's the only way I can think of a human ship can put up a fight against a Umiak equalent. Nothing more. Don't read into this what I haven't said.

I enver said it's the way to go or that Terrans should mass-pruduce them.

TrashMan wrote:The only way a Umiak ship could expose the defending terran ship is to come in close...very close.
Or work with another ship.
What part of "one on one" escapes you? :lol:

TrashMan wrote:Terrnas would have the same heat problems, but their lasers and mass drivers wouldn't "waste" shots.
The low projectile velocity of their mass drivers means precisely that the vast majority of their shots will be wasted. The only way they can land a single hit at typical Umiak weapon ranges would be sheer luck. The short range of their lasers means that every shot fired will be wasted.
Moot, as no shots would be fired by hte terran untill the umiak ships is within range. Only then would the ship turn, exposing it'self to Umiak fire and vice-versa.

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Trantor
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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Trantor »

You assume that Umiak will play nice to your tactics. But they won´t. That´s why your argument doesn´t work.
sapere aude.

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bunnyboy
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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by bunnyboy »

For clarification, I am talking about non moving gunned asteroids on langrangian points for planetary defence, because starship pushing an asteroid around and using it as shield is just crazy.

My point was that even effective (to hit) range for human weapons are small, they are no less dangerous in longer distances.
If effective range is 30,000 km, any umiak ship coming to 90,000 km from earth is soon destroyed in good hit or from being in crossfire.
Over that range they cant make any damage on ship with any armor close of earth.
Mjolnir wrote:
bunnyboy wrote:(Escape velocity from sun system is only 525 km/s)
I don't know why you think solar escape velocity matters, but your figure is wildly wrong. Solar escape velocity at the distance of Earth and the moon is only 42 km/s.
I mean that we could shoot at umiak home planet without using solar sling. This still takes millions of years and will probably miss.
Rosen_Ritter_1 wrote:The problem is that requires the Umiak to not bother moving for an hour after the humans fire at them.
The secret is aim to advance.

And...

Okey. I didn't see that last time.
Max range: range at which weapon may inflict at least 1 point of damage.
My mistake.

H6-Mass driver 6kps
...
Does that means 6 km per seconds?

Forgot everything I said. I surrender.
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Mjolnir
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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Mjolnir »

TrashMan wrote:I said it's the only way I can think of a human ship can put up a fight against a Umiak equalent. Nothing more. Don't read into this what I haven't said.
And the conclusion: they can't put up a fight.

TrashMan wrote:What part of "one on one" escapes you? :lol:
Why do you persist in thinking such a thing will ever happen?

TrashMan wrote:Moot, as no shots would be fired by hte terran untill the umiak ships is within range. Only then would the ship turn, exposing it'self to Umiak fire and vice-versa.
The Terran ship will be scrap by then. The other ships will have pulverized it. Or the torpedos.

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Mjolnir
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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Mjolnir »

bunnyboy wrote:For clarification, I am talking about non moving gunned asteroids on langrangian points for planetary defence, because starship pushing an asteroid around and using it as shield is just crazy.

My point was that even effective (to hit) range for human weapons are small, they are no less dangerous in longer distances.
If effective range is 30,000 km, any umiak ship coming to 90,000 km from earth is soon destroyed in good hit or from being in crossfire.
Over that range they cant make any damage on ship with any armor close of earth.
Just how does that work? If effective range is 30000 km, effective range is 30000 km, Umiak ships aren't going to be reliably destroyed at 3 times the effective range. Earth and the moon (and the reach of the Umiak plasma weapons) are over ten times that distance from the Earth-Moon L3, L4 and L5 points, L2's on the far side of the moon and out of range of it, L1 is slightly better positioned for attacking the moon but still hopeless at defense with such short ranged weaponry.

bunnyboy wrote:The secret is aim to advance.
You mean lead the target? You can only do that if the enemy doesn't change their acceleration during the minutes to hours it takes your projectiles to reach them. And yes, that means 6 km/s, just short of 14 hours to cross 1 light second.

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Trantor
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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Trantor »

bunnyboy wrote:For clarification, I am talking about non moving gunned asteroids on langrangian points for planetary defence,
I understood.
But 30000km is nothing for defending the Earth-Moon-System. Distance Earth-Moon ist 380000Km. Lagrange Points are in the planetary plane, and L1 and L2 are 1,5 million Km apart from Earth EACH.
That leaves a huge gap. ;)

So Asteroids are of no use.

Another thing is Moon. Moon has to be armed, otherwise attackers could use it as a shield or even as a base.
sapere aude.

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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by bunnyboy »

I'm already lost, but there are some things , which needs explanation or correction.
Mjolnir wrote:Just how does that work? If effective range is X km, effective range is X km, Umiak ships aren't going to be reliably destroyed at 3 times the effective range.
Unlike laser or any other energy charge, the projectile don't disperse, disappear or stop after effective range. The damage it will do on hit, stay same.

Long list of arguments deleted because of disunderstanding of wikipedia, my mistakes and headache.
I go home now.
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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Voitan »

I wonder if it's possible to make a short jump within a system so long as the enemy is between you and the system's star?

You could turn your ship into an FTL torpedo.


[star] ---- [Umiak] <---- [Hyumahn]

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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Arioch »

Objects in hyperspace are affected by the gravitational pull of objects in realspace, but they do not otherwise directly interact with those objects while in hyperspace. The jumping ship would not collide with the target.

Voitan
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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Voitan »

Arioch wrote:Objects in hyperspace are affected by the gravitational pull of objects in realspace, but they do not otherwise directly interact with those objects while in hyperspace. The jumping ship would not collide with the target.
Not in passing, but exiting hyperspace right on "top" or inside the Umiak ship.

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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by dfacto »

Voitan wrote:
Arioch wrote:Objects in hyperspace are affected by the gravitational pull of objects in realspace, but they do not otherwise directly interact with those objects while in hyperspace. The jumping ship would not collide with the target.
Not in passing, but exiting hyperspace right on "top" or inside the Umiak ship.
You can't choose your exit point though. It's entirely gravity dependent.

But could you make an FTL torpedo that throws its target into hyperspace upon impact?

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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Voitan »

dfacto wrote:
Voitan wrote:
Arioch wrote:Objects in hyperspace are affected by the gravitational pull of objects in realspace, but they do not otherwise directly interact with those objects while in hyperspace. The jumping ship would not collide with the target.
Not in passing, but exiting hyperspace right on "top" or inside the Umiak ship.
You can't choose your exit point though. It's entirely gravity dependent.
Of course you couldn't freely choose your exit point outside of the vector that is pulling you into the star in hyperspace. It would be limited, but by that fact alone, you can plan ahead to draw your oppenent in to be in the proper vector for the hyperspace exit.

If not a direct hit though, perhaps you may be in close enough range by then to at least fire all weapons before being turned into hot plasma and slagged metal by the Umiak weaponry.

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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Arioch »

If you jump on a vector pointed at a star from inside that star's gravity well, the exit point from hyperspace is going to be very close to the star's center of mass. Most likely inside the star itself.
dfacto wrote:But could you make an FTL torpedo that throws its target into hyperspace upon impact?
In theory, if the jump field generator has enough power and is close enough, it can draw another object into hyperspace. But if you can get a torpedo that close, there are much more straightforward means of destroying a ship.

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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Voitan »

Arioch wrote:If you jump on a vector pointed at a star from inside that star's gravity well, the exit point from hyperspace is going to be very close to the star's center of mass. Most likely inside the star itself.
Then would you have to be as far back, as say, the kuiper belt to make this kamikaze gambit possible?

Or just brilliant personnel/AI capable of planning the jump as desired?

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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Rosen_Ritter_1 »

Arioch wrote:In theory, if the jump field generator has enough power and is close enough, it can draw another object into hyperspace. But if you can get a torpedo that close, there are much more straightforward means of destroying a ship.
Have it transmit the funniest joke in the world over the short wave radio translated into Umiak?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gpjk_MaCGM

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Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by dex drako »

Voitan wrote:
Arioch wrote:If you jump on a vector pointed at a star from inside that star's gravity well, the exit point from hyperspace is going to be very close to the star's center of mass. Most likely inside the star itself.
Then would you have to be as far back, as say, the kuiper belt to make this kamikaze gambit possible?

Or just brilliant personnel/AI capable of planning the jump as desired?
rule of thumb is if you see something that orbts a star in anyway you are still in the stars gravity well. so the kuiper belt or even the far more distant Oort cloud are still within the stars gravity well which still leaves you with the problem of ending up inside the star.

the A.I. doesn't matter because for most races all jumps would be done by computer anyway, but this parts just my guess.
Last edited by dex drako on Wed May 18, 2011 7:04 am, edited 1 time in total.

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