What does KT really mean??

[Instar]

Dont forget, metric people have their own tonnes and stuff.

[Jubala]

I always took it to mean 1,000 Tons, ie big brutes. Makes sense really. You need something big to cram all the systems into them the game has. And to withstand the rigors of space travel. A Honor Harrington Superdreadnaught weighs in at about 8,300,000 tons, ie 8300kT, much larger then a baseship. A HH Battlecruiser weighs in at about 850,000 tons, ie 850kT. But then the HH ships gets progressivelly larger the higher up in class they come then the hulls in SE4. Been thinking about putting together a HH techset with shipsizes and componentsizes such that you can design and build ships with similar size and armament as the HH ships. Probably won't though as it would be way to much work. Might just adjust the ship sizes though.

BC crews are about 700 souls and SD crews are about 6000 souls but the RMN could lower that with more automated systems.

My point is the ship sizes makes sense in a sf kind of way.

[Kimball]

quote:

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Originally posted by Kagetora:
They must displace much more water than they actually weigh in order to float.

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Actually, that is not entirely true. A FLOATING body will displace a mass of water equal to the mass of the floating body. That is because the buoyancy force (specific weight of the fluid, water for ship, multiplied by the volume of water displaced by the object) must equal the weight of the floating object. SW * Volume = weight If the two forces did not equal, the object would accelerate in one direction or the other, basically it would sink.

Picture a 10,000 lbf, 1000 ft^3 object float in water. The buoyancy force must equal 10,000 lbf, otherwise it would sink. The object would have to displace approximately 10,000 lbf / 62.4 lbf/ft^3 (specific weight of water) = 160.25 ft^3 water, much less than the volum of the object itself.

Call me a geek.

[Kimball]

I forgot to mention that seawater has a specific weight, requiring even less water to make the same object float.

[Kimball]

Oops, seawater has a specific weight GREATER than water. I need to proof read these a little better.

[Taqwus]

And while you're puzzling over this... figure out how much your people weigh. You can put millions of 'em in a colony pod, after all, along with everything needed to keep 'em alive indefinitely.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Tomgs]

They are probably in suspended animation when in colony ships or cargo pods. They don't seem to reproduce or die in there. That way you can stack them and no food or other requirements are needed.