Retry
02/15/15 04:34 AM
76.7.225.145
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Long-story short, I'm interested in the feasability of a new vehicle construction rule for large combat naval vessels which could be used to create respectable wet navy warships such as cruisers, battleships, aircraft carriers, and attack submarines.
I am aware that support vehicle construction rules do exist for such ships. However, I feel that they are inadequate for creating a wide, varied number of classes as with Battlemech and Combat Vehicle construction rules, and also put large naval vessels on the weaker side; the Luftenberg has less than 1% of it's tonnage devoted to armor protection, and will likely be sunk by a hull breach well before that point anyways. The rules are also more complicated for creating such vessels than a tank or a mech. Some sort of new construction ruleset or simplification of the current one, especially to be more similar to the current combat vee and mech construction rules, would be beneficial for variety.
A couple random ideas I had about theoretical new rules, clearly nowhere NEAR complete...
Organize the weights in terms of kilotons. Vessels will generally be around the 5-100 kiloton area, similar to how tanks and mechs are around the 5-100 metric tons.
Use a new system for armoring, that makes the maximum armor a ship can carry increase over current naval support vehicle construction rules while also making it much heavier so a more acceptable percentage of the ship can be used as armor. With current construction rules it is almost impossible to hit a point where you have to sacrifice armor for weaponry or speed, because there's just so little of it in the first place.
Conflict between the balance of armor, weapons, and speed is needed for the sake of variety, and this is achieved by balancing critical slots and tonnage. We can see this in Mechs and Tanks, where one design might need to be a bit faster for it's role and so loses out on armor or weapons to achieve a larger engine. If mechs all of the sudden could only dedicate 1% of it's tonnage to armor, yet said armor became super efficient (Say, 1 ton of armor becomes 300 points), you'd notice that there'd be very few mechs that would take less than maximum armor because the risk of losing that armor protection is far too great to sacrifice for any gain in weapons, speed, or equipment. All mechs would have similar armor coverage and, for a given weight class, would differ only in speed or armament loadout, leading to considerably less variety.
In order to ensure such varieties and numerous design scenarios (Such as "Should I make this size carrier's armor lighter to carry a lot of fighters, or armor the flight deck and stuff to protect those I have?"), I suggest that after such a theoretical revamp of Large Naval Combat Vessel Construction Rules is carried out, the new maximum armor of LNCVs (let's just call them that now) should be around 20% of their total mass. Obviously the same rate of armor points per ton should be decreased to some extent, otherwise you'd see a Jormungand with nearly 200k armor points.
Instead of acquiring stuff like weapons directly, tonnage and crit slots should go to structures. Structures could include control tower infrastructure, helipads, runways, and especially turrets. Such structures themselves should act like relatively independent entities that don't render the entire ship inert if destroyed (with exceptions being command towers, I suppose.) and should have some customization options themselves. I believe the turrets should be separated by size and weapon load.
Example:
20 ton kiloton vessel A spends 5 kilotons on a small artillery turret assembly.
This turret assembly has, say, 500 tons (picked random numbers, make it more or less if necessary) and 300 crits to go into this turret assembly. The turret would be restricted to artillery-style weapons, and some tonnage would have to be dedicated to the armor. Perhaps some tonnage could be burned to add fire control systems and turret traverse elevation to be able to aim at aircraft or outer space Warships. These factors could create variety within ship turrets themselves. (Do I expect my Arrow IV turret to be heavily targeted, and armor it heavily as such and sacrifice some ammo or maybe a launcher? Do I want to invest extra tonnage in the turret to give the Arrow IV anti-air targeting capabilities, reducing my ammo capacity and maybe a launcher with the trade-off of allowing my remaining Arrow IVs to be dual-purpose offshore bombardment tools AND anti-air weapons?)
Turrets could come in small, medium, and large varieties for point-blank(standard vehicle scale) defensive arrays, standard artillery guns(Long Tom, Arrow IV), Sub-Capital Weapons, and maybe even capital weapons for the largest of LNCVs. Each type of turret would have a different tonnage and maybe crit slot cost, with large capital turrets being the most costly and small point-defense systems being the easiest to fit.
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His_Most_Royal_Highass_Donkey
02/15/15 09:58 AM
172.56.30.132
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I have thought on this my self and I was thinking in terms of converting dropship and or warship rules to make large naval ships.
I liked the idea of a 2.5 mil ton floating island as an movable Command and Control center to protect a planet from invasion. Do you know how hard it would be to scan a billion square kilometers of water from orbit for a naval ship. And if you can find it how can you attack something that can maneuver to avoid being hit by orbiting warships and can fire back.
Why argue if the glass is half full or half empty, when you know someone is going to knock it over and spill it anyways.
I was a Major *pain* before
But I got a promotion.
I am now a General *pain*
Yay for promotions!!!
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Retry
03/15/15 10:39 PM
76.7.225.145
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Tonnage:
The largest of naval vessels(battleships, cruisers, fleet aircraft carriers) are built to the nearest 5 kilotons. They range from 10 to 100 kilotons. Smaller ones(Destroyers, frigates, patrol boats) are built to the nearest 500 kilograms. They range from 1k kilograms to 10k kilograms.
CAPITAL NAVAL VESSELS
Crits:
Capital Naval vessels do not have traditional crit slots. They use "naval vessel" crit slots which is proportional to the size of the vessel. For every hex slot that a capital naval vessel takes up on a normal mapsheet, one naval crit is given to the vessel. The vessel can spend naval crits on stuff such as turrets, flight decks, and conning towers.
Ultralight Conning/Command Tower:
0 Crits
.1 kiloton(100,000kg)
Only valid on light naval combat vessels in the 1 to 10 kiloton range, the ultralight conning tower represents the bare minimum equipment required for a long-endurance naval combat vessel, and is a necessary component for a legal combat naval vessel design. Anything much larger than a destroyer, however, requires a bigger conning tower.
Standard Conning/Command Tower:
1 Crit
1 Kiloton
Valid on light or capital naval vessels from 1 to 100 kilotons, this structure towers over the entire vessel. Although the standard conning tower takes up a crit slot and so can be individually targeted like a turret, the tower can also support various electronics and communications-related measures such as a vehicle-scale cockpit control module, electronic countermeasure suites, and HPGs.
30 internal structure
300 armor(maximum) (All normal battlemech scale armors are valid)
25 Free Tons
Free tons can be spent on armor protection or certain pieces of equipment. In this case, valid equipment can include the following:Ground Mobile HPG(12 tons), AECM, GECM, Communication Equipment, Beagle and Bloodhound Probes, AMS and it's heat sinks and ammunition required. Small C3 suites such as C3 Masters and C3i can be installed theoretically, but individual turrets also need to be connected to the same C3 network to gain any benefits.
Advanced Conning/Command Tower:
2 Crits
5 kilotons
Common on the largest and most independent of naval vessels, the Advanced Command Tower is even grander than the standard command tower. The advanced command tower is better protected and has space for superior electronics suites.
120 internal structure
1200 armor(maximum)
100 Free Tons
Some additional equipment that can be installed here that can't be placed on a standard conning tower, including 50 ton-version mobile HPG, or a fixed 25 ton NC3 system that operates similarly to spaceship NC3, which can be connected to other naval vessels or spacecraft.
Helipad
1 crit
.5 kilotons (+.5 per armor treatment, max of 3 treatments)
The Helipad is so light that even small destroyers can carry them. VTOLs aren't quite as effective in ship-to-ship combat as aerospace fighters, but it's a very lightweight solution for both small naval craft and huge battleships that don't want to dedicate the same amount of tonnage for air support like a carrier's flight decks.
10 internal structure
30 armor(+50 per armor treatment)
Light Flight Deck
3 crits
10 kilotons (+1 per armor treatment, max of 5 treatments.)
Light Flight Decks are suitable for launching conventional fighters or aerospace fighters. Fighters can be launched or recovered at the rate of 1 per minute. Alternatively, 3 VTOLs can be recovered or launched per minute.
20 internal structure
50 armor(+100 per armor treatment)
Reinforced Flight Deck
4 crits
25 kilotons (+1 per armor treatment, max of 10 treatments)
Reinforced Flight Decks are improved versions of the light flight decks. They can recover and launch fighters at a faster rate, and can even handle small craft such as the Ares Landing Craft or the NL-42 "Battle Taxi". Shrewd captains have used the ability of the Reinforced Flight Deck to transport medium/heavy tanks and mechs, as well as other battle implements, to other battlefields on the planet to turn the tide of a battle.
50 internal structure
100 armor(+100 per armor treatment)
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Retry
04/11/15 12:04 AM
76.7.225.145
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TURRETS:
All Modification Tonnage Requirements Are Additive
Modularity-For 5% of a turret's free tonnage, it's possible to make a turret "modular" and very easy to refit with a different armament with the proper equipment.
AntiAir-For 5% of a turret's free tonnage, it's possible to increase a turret's positive elevation angle to fire at aircraft. Doesn't cancel the to-hit penalty present on any capital weapons against small targets though.
AntiSpace-For 5% of a turret's free tonnage, it's possible to increase a turret's positive angle to 90*s and fire at orbiting spacecraft. AntiAir modification is a prerequisite. Obviously useless when used with noncapital weapons that can't fire into space.
EWE-For 5% of a turret's free tonnage, it's possible to install a basic electronic suite into the turret. Comes with GECM and a C3 slave. Also includes a fully sinked laser AMS system even if one normally cannot be mounted.
iEWE-For 7.5% of a turret's free tonnage, it's possible to install an advanced electronic suite into the turret. Comes with AECM and your choice of a C3 boosted slave, C3 boosted master, C3 master, or C3i system. Alternatively, both can be replaced with a Nova CEWs system if available. Also includes two fully sinked laser AMS systems even if they normally cannot be mounted.
Capital Blue Shield Particle Field Damper-For 2.5% of a turret's free tonnage, gives the turret an upgraded version of the Blue Shield Particle Field Damper that can operate without error. Halves all PPC damage, including capital PPC weaponry.
Rapid Reloading System-For 2.5% of a turret's free tonnage, gives the turret the ability to draw ammunition from the ship's cargo hold if available. The reloading process takes three minutes per magazine, and is extremely useful for small magazine weapons like capital missile launchers or cruise missiles.
Reactive Armor-For 7.5% of a turret's free tonnage, apply reactive armor special effects to the turret armor. Useful against common missiles, bombs, and artillery.
Capital Scale-
Capital scale turrets carry capital or sub-capital weaponry. To support the armor for these massive turrets, more tonnage needs to be dedicated per ton. 1 capital-scale point is earned for every 50 free tons spent.
Large Capital Turret
20 kilotons
1 crit
15,000 free tons
20 internal structure(capital)
150 armor(capital-scale, maximum)
A maximum of 4 capital weapons can be mounted on a large capital turret.
Medium Capital Turret
15 kilotons
1 crit
10,000 free tons
15 internal structure(capital)
100 armor(capital-scale, maximum)
A maximum of 3 capital weapons can be mounted on a medium capital turret.
Light Capital Turret
10 kilotons
1 crit
5,000 free tons
15 internal structure(capital)
50 armor(capital-scale, maximum)
A maximum of 2 capital weapons can be mounted on a medium capital turret.
Edited by Retry (04/11/15 11:23 PM)
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ghostrider
04/11/15 03:46 AM
76.89.120.217
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You might want to figure out what weapons weigh. This could very well determine a few things like IF a weapon can fit in a light turret or if you have to have a medium turret for such a weapon. Criticals are another thing that might change weapons allowed.
Also, I would suggest adding extra weight to things like turret motors if you use heavier weapons. But this depends on just how detailed and complex you want to get. You could add this into the weapons themselves.
There is another thing that isn't listed yet, and the would be power usage for things like movement, supplying power to weapons and turrets, as well as just running the ship. Would you require a large central power supply, or use smaller ones scattered over the ship?
You may have to add in there shots destroying power/coolant lines to the turrets. As well as possible fixing them in combat.
Heat sinks are another issue, since you are talking about possible capital weapons. You could very well heat up the water around the ship firing off those very weapons. which complexity might require heat exchange deficiencies the longer the ship sits in one area and heats up the water around it.
Another suggestion is compartmentalization to prevent hull breeches from sinking the vessel. Maybe add extra tonnage, and I know you would want to add the harjel. Maybe think about ballast pumps to keep water from getting to deep in the ship.
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Retry
04/11/15 11:22 PM
76.7.225.145
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Quote:
You might want to figure out what weapons weigh. This could very well determine a few things like IF a weapon can fit in a light turret or if you have to have a medium turret for such a weapon. Criticals are another thing that might change weapons allowed.
Did take that into account to some extent. Made sure that the heaviest naval weapon(Other than the obviously-not-appliable-here Mass Drivers, the 7000 ton Heavy Naval Gauss) could fit in the largest capital turret comfortably, although no more than one.
Quote:
Also, I would suggest adding extra weight to things like turret motors if you use heavier weapons. But this depends on just how detailed and complex you want to get. You could add this into the weapons themselves.
I want that to fall under "everything that's not considered 'free weight'."
Quote:
There is another thing that isn't listed yet, and the would be power usage for things like movement, supplying power to weapons and turrets, as well as just running the ship. Would you require a large central power supply, or use smaller ones scattered over the ship?
You may have to add in there shots destroying power/coolant lines to the turrets. As well as possible fixing them in combat.
I believe I'm going with a large central power supply system, such as a nuclear reactor. Turrets will probably take some of the properties of the central power supply. Energy weapons of all types will require power amplifiers if the central power station is a fuel cell engine or a steam turbine, and ten free heat sinks are allowed for turret installations if the power station consists of some sort of fusion. I'm deciding whether to have the engine installation take up capital crits(and thus be a targetable installation) or not. As for destroying power or coolant lines... I haven't actually given much thought to critical hits yet.
Quote:
Heat sinks are another issue, since you are talking about possible capital weapons. You could very well heat up the water around the ship firing off those very weapons. which complexity might require heat exchange deficiencies the longer the ship sits in one area and heats up the water around it.
I think I'll just say that the heat sinks will be able to take care of the output well enough themselves. Shouldn't be necessary for the players to have to worry about accidentally roasting wildlife near their vessel.
Quote:
Another suggestion is compartmentalization to prevent hull breeches from sinking the vessel. Maybe add extra tonnage, and I know you would want to add the harjel. Maybe think about ballast pumps to keep water from getting to deep in the ship.
Harjel is definitely an option I'd like to give. Haven't heard of ballast pumps though.
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ghostrider
04/12/15 12:03 AM
76.89.120.217
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Current naval vessels tend to have ballast pumps. It is essential for submarines, as they pump water into the ship to keep it steady. They add or take away water from storage tanks to keep a ship at a stable height in the water.
I think I actually wanted sump pumps, so they would pump any water out of the ship to help it stay afloat. Bilge pumps.. I knew I would think of it.
You will have fun trying to figure out how or even if there is going to be a motive system and how they work. And a side note, I believe a fusion reactor puts out more power then a nuclear one, but that is something you will have to fiddle with.
I know you said you haven't figured out crits yet, but I will remind you now that people will ask if the capital crits can be exchanged for regular and vise versa. The exchange rate will be interesting.
Also one other aspect. Can they submerge?
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Retry
04/14/15 06:46 PM
76.7.225.145
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LCNVs can only submerge if built as a submarine. Submerging equipment takes... 10% of your tonnage, right?
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ghostrider
04/14/15 09:29 PM
76.89.120.217
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If you are going to use some of the current rules for your large craft. You do have a little control over how things are done. I would think there should be some limit to how much weight is put to things like submerging equipment, since something this size is going to have more internal space then external. But it is just an idea.
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Retry
05/23/15 07:11 PM
76.7.238.104
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Quote:
Smaller ones(Destroyers, frigates, patrol boats) are built to the nearest 500 kilograms. They range from 1k kilograms to 10k kilograms.
Looks like I have no sense of scale. I didn't mean to have Destroyers weigh as little as a piano. I meant tons, not kilograms.
Modification to the Reinforced Flight Deck.
Reinforced Flight Deck
4 crits
15 kilotons (+1 per armor treatment, max of 10 treatments)
Reinforced Flight Decks are improved versions of the light flight decks. Being slightly longer, a reinforced flight deck can launch or recover fighters more safely in a rush, and can even handle small craft such as the Ares Landing Craft or the NL-42 "Battle Taxi". However, it takes a full 2 minutes to recover such small craft.
50 internal structure
100 armor(+100 per armor treatment)
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