Making fighters more realistic.

[Barnacle Bill]

I believe that kT is actually a unit of volume, not mass.

In real life, the volume of a ship is expressed in "tons" of "displacement", where 1 ton of displacement is the volume occupied by 1 ton (mass) of seawater. "Displacement" means only the part of the hull below the water line counts - it "displaces" the water that would otherwise fill the volume of its hull below the water line.

Numerous science fiction backgrounds assume that this ancient nautical tradition will continue to be used with space ships. Examples include David Weber's "Honor Harrington" novels (which actually use the "kT" terminology) and the RPG "Traveller". Taking "k" (as in "kilo" on the units is probably a reflection of the common assumption that space ships of the distant star-faring future will be huge compared to current maritime vessels. For example, the USS Enterprise of the original 1960's Star Trek TV series was supposedly about the same length as the real-life CVN USS Enterprise, but was classified as a "heavy cruiser" and had about 1/10 the crew as the wet-navy carrier. Another example is the derelict Galactic Empire cruiser found & refurbished in Asimov's "Foundation", which was described as over 1 mile long. In both cases, "cruiser" is apparently intended to refer to a mid-sized ship. Another example of huge ships is in the "Honor Harrington" novels, where a Superdreadnought is about 3 km in length!

And no, I do not suggest that spaceships will be measured in tons of vacuum displaced. What I mean is that the volume of 1 ton (mass) of seawater is an established unit of measurement for the volume of large maritime vessels, so it is reasonable to assume that if they start making spaceships of similar or larger size (and using all sorts of other wet-navy traditions) they will likely use the same measure of volume.

[Beck]

The traditional designations like DD for destroyers had nothing to do with the number of letters or their presence in the word. Rather it was a means to differentiate from like types of vessels. There were only so many hull types on which a vast number of different ships were based. To be able to distinguish between them a system was created using letters for designations. All had a minimal of two letter designation with the first letter being the base designation and the second being a suffix (or it could have mutliple suffixes like CLAA - light cruiser, anti-aircraft). The base designation served to let one know the general type of the vessel, ie. destroyer, cruiser, battleship, etc. with the second serving to distinguish from the different types/roles of vessels. DD was used to designate a basic destroyer. The repeat of the letter always served to note the basic ship type. A derivative of the destroyer was the DE or destroyer escort which was used to escort and supply anti-submarine capability to those being escorted. Carriers used CV, not because carrier begins or has the letter c in it, but because the early carriers were based on cruiser hull designs and hence were considered a cruiser derivative. The suffix V came to use because that letter was assigned to serve as the suffix for vessels having fixed wing aircraft. The suffix S in your use of DS for destroyer would imply that it was a destroyer seaplane tender and not a destroyer.

[Suicide Junkie]

Hey, whatever you want is fine. Just slip into the "vehiclesize.txt" and change the 2-letter code.

Thing is, DS is used for the ship size, and you can put whatever you feel like on it. Make it a carrier, a supply ship, an artillery piece, a luxury liner.
It still has the same code.
If you want to have the codes relate to what they do, change your "designtypes.txt" to have "DD - Basic Destroyer" and "DE - Destroyer escort" instead of "attack ship"

I don't really care about the codes, but I ususally have only a small fleet of really expensive, legendary kickass ships, so I know each one by name.

[CaptSpoogy]

I agree with Barnacle Bill.

I think in the context of the game that the kT (kilotonne) is meant to be used for volume - that's why I suggested that to make it more realistic you should mod the fighter bay to be 100kT in size and 100kt cargo space - so it could hold 4 large fighers - and a carrier might hold some 16-20 or so. It would balance the current superiority that fighters are experiencing in the 1.35 Version...

------------------
Visit the Spoogy Federation at:
http://spoogyfederation.tripod.com

[jimbob55]

In the case of cargo / hangar bays, they displace lower mass of water because they're mostly empty. If it was indicating volume, the measure would be cubic meters / kilometers / feet.

Fighter balancing would be easier to do by modding your point defense or making PD use targetting computers / combat sensors. Create a new PD purely for anti fighter role.... (Di any starfire fans?)

[This message has been edited by jimbob55 (edited 02 May 2001).]

[rdouglass]

quote:

---

Originally posted by capt_spoogy:
I think in the context of the game that the kT (kilotonne) is meant to be used for volume - that's why I suggested that to make it more realistic you should mod the fighter bay to be 100kT in size and 100kt cargo space - so it could hold 4 large fighers - and a carrier might hold some 16-20 or so.

---

Isn't volume irrelevant in a Zero-G, no atmosphere environment (at least in terms of acceleration)? So in a space-based concept, mass IS the relevant factor, yes????

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

---

In the case of cargo / hangar bays, they displace lower mass of water because they're mostly empty. If it was indicating volume, the measure would be cubic meters / kilometers / feet.

---

1 KT of water has a pretty definite volume. so KT could be used as volume.

quote:

---

Fighter balancing would be easier to do by modding your point defense or making PD use targetting computers / combat sensors. Create a new PD purely for anti fighter role.... (Di any starfire fans?)

---

Not that I feel fighters are unbalanced, but that would be the best way to go.

quote:

---

Isn't volume irrelevant in a Zero-G, no atmosphere environment (at least in terms of acceleration)? So in a space-based concept, mass IS the relevant factor, yes????

---

How very, very true.

The only concern is having 200kT worth of sats/fighters, in a 20kT cargo bay. The ship only feels the 20kT of the cargo bay and is unaffected by whether the bay is empty or contains 200kT of minerals.

This indicates that a ship's mass is more important than size, and a unit's size is more important than its mass.
Which I am perfectly willing to accept.

The cargo bay would weigh 20kT when full. The empty space in the bay would hold 200kT.
The fighter takes up 20kT of space, but only weighs 100 tons.

When designing the ship, you don't care about size (since you're not going inside cargo bays), just mass (for propulsion)

Units have to be stored, so thier mass is unimportant (and negligibly small compared to the ship), but the size is critical (since it needs to be stored within something (cargo bay, planetary warehouse, etc)
------------------------------------

My question. How the heck do you use KT for damage and hitpoints???