Is "BattleCruiser" a relative size? -- discussion

[oleg]

Originally posted by Atrocities:
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.

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.

[Fyron]

As I predicted, noone is arguing that BC has to be 600 kT.

[Jack Simth]

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

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
As I predicted, noone is arguing that BC has to be 600 kT.

I think you're challenging someone to argue that fact.

[Ed Kolis]

Originally posted by Wanderer:
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.

Wow... in 140 years, what was called a "battleship" got 40 times bigger...

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!

[Fyron]

Too bad you can't make vehicle sizes obselete.

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Too bad you can't make vehicle sizes obselete.

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.