Re: Is "BattleCruiser" a relative size? -- discussion
 

I to have to agree with SJ. The cost should go up dramatically for larger ship hulls.

I also feel that Carriers are under used, under valued, and under powered. In a real NAVY a carrier is the key to the fleet, not the Dreadnought.

SEIV currently does not use Carries in the way that they should be used. You encounter fleets of carriers and a baseships and it should be one or two carriers to a fleet of Battle Cruisers.

Re: Is "BattleCruiser" a relative size? -- discussion
 

In 1805, battleships were still called 'ships of the line' and displaced roughly 2,000 tons. In 1916 the average displacement was roughly 25,000 tons and by 1945 there were battleships displacing almost 80,000 tons. To an SE4 race that's only discovered 200kT ships, 200kT probably looks like a battleship, not a frigate.

There's no reason to say "600kt = battlecruiser".

On the other hand, the ascending size scale isn't really accurate either - the terms sloop, frigate, destroyer, cruiser, battleship etc. indicate a role not a size. The size of the ship tended to reflect it's designed role. If you want to mod the game, feel free to give your hull sizes completely different names or even call them by their size and the let the players work it out. I admit "1000kT hull" is a bit bland and uninspiring.

On a third hand (since we're dealing with alien races), does it really matter?

Personally I'm a fan of giving a wide range of hull sizes, and some form of quasi-Newtonian propulsion system - let the players decide how they want to approach ship design!

<HR>
SJ/Erax/Big Cat. Like that idea. A lot http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif .

<HR>
Some notes/additions to Thermodyne's post. Gets back on-topic in places! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

The light cruiser/heavy cruiser distinction based on armament was prevalent during WWII. Generally 6" guns and smaller meant light, 8" guns meant heavy.

During WWI, the classes were light cruiser (fast, no armour, used for scouting) and armoured cruiser (bigger, much slower, larger weapons and... armoured). In some naval listings, you'll see light cruiser given the letters CL and heavy cruiser CA for this reason.

Note that the original design aim of the battleship-cruiser (a.k.a. battlecruiser) was to build a ship with the speed and weaponry to dispose of cruisers whilst staying away from battleships. From the British point of view it did make sense to have ships capable of hunting and killing commerce raiders. Generally, they were comparable in size with contemporary battleships - despite having much thinner armour they needed the space for engines.

As an aside, Lord Fisher was demanding ever stranger designs, to the point whereby the ships didn't even have the armour to keep out the shells from cruisers (i.e. any justification of their construction by saying they were designed to hunt commerce raiders was rendered void). The Furious was built with two 18" guns which were rarely fired as they buckled her weakened hull. Fortunately, she didn't see combat before being converted into an aircraft carrier.

The Germans took the battlecruiser concept and immediately reduced the armament and speed to fit more armour. Their designs were more balanced, and fit more neatly into the 'marginally smaller, faster, lightly-armed battleship' concept we see in SE4.

One point I think Thermo got wrong:
The two sets of battlecruisers were both used as 'heavy scouts' (both sides had light crusiers scouting ahead) during Jutland. They fought a running battle, each trying to draw the other onto the guns of their own battleships.

Other than later German designs, most battlecruisers proposed after WWI were larger and faster than the battleships of the time and nearly as well armoured. Very few were actually built, due to the various naval treaties and cost-cutting.

<HR>
Mmmmmm. I'll stop there as I'm hungry.

Re: Is "BattleCruiser" a relative size? -- discussion
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">But it is all because of completly different medium ships and aircraft are moving through. In space there is no difference whatsoever between large and bulky ship and small crats. Except Newton's laws of cource. Translating Navy carriers into interstellar battles is an utterly ludicurious idea, IMHO. The closest we can get from the naval history is small and agile torpedo boats and their carriers. It was a fashionable idea at the end of XIX centuary.

Re: Is "BattleCruiser" a relative size? -- discussion
 

As I predicted, noone is arguing that BC has to be 600 kT. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Is "BattleCruiser" a relative size? -- discussion
 

I suppose that technically the size is arbitrary rather than relative.

Re: Is "BattleCruiser" a relative size? -- discussion
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think you're challenging someone to argue that fact. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Is "BattleCruiser" a relative size? -- discussion
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Wow... in 140 years, what was called a "battleship" got 40 times bigger... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

That said, I like Soulfisher's original suggestion of ships getting gradually bigger over time - something like this stripped-down Version of the tech tree might work:

Tech Level 1
Escort I - 100 kT
Cruiser I - 400 kT
Battleship I - 1000 kT

Tech Level 2
Escort II - 120 kT
Cruiser II - 480 kT
Battleship II - 1200 kT

Tech Level 3
Escort III - 150 kT
Cruiser III - 600 kT
Battleship III - 1500 kT

etc.

where each hull size would maintain its maximum engines and other characteristics even as it gets larger and larger...

Oh, and I like SJ's proposal for maintenance costs... now all we have to do is bug Aaron to make maintenance independent of construction cost in SE5! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Is "BattleCruiser" a relative size? -- discussion
 

Too bad you can't make vehicle sizes obselete. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Is "BattleCruiser" a relative size? -- discussion
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'm sure that's been posted in the wish list for SEV then, right? If not it should be. This would open up some more modding possibilities.

Re: Is "BattleCruiser" a relative size? -- discussion
 

The reason why aircraft carriers have ruled the seas since WWII is that seagoing ships are vulnerable to torpedoes.

Before the carrier battles in the Pacific, the rationale for building bigger ships was that a bigger ship could carry bigger guns, which would have a longer range and therefore be able to destroy a smaller ship before its guns were able to fire. Torpedo boats changed all that, because they could harm a large ship and were too manoeuverable to be tracked by the big guns.

So a battleship would be surrounded by destroyers, which would fire at any incoming torpedo boats before they could attack the main ship.

Airplanes were a new variation on the torpedo boat concept, and they were so successful that they rendered the battleship obsolete. The modern counter for them is the Aegis cruiser.

So if you want a game universe in which carriers rule the spacelanes, you need a sci-fi equivalent for torpedoes, which is small enough to be carried aboard your starfighters. The Star Wars universe has this, which is not surprising since the concept behind SW space battles has always been 'WWII in space'.