New Freighter Design.

Kizarvexis wrote:When someone shoots at me, I will shoot back. Freighters still can not take a punch.

It's probably a good thing you're not a pirate.

Say you are a pirate and closing in on a wedge signal acting like a fat, slow, merchant. Suddenly your target fires a warning shot that is obviously a bigger missile than you carry; Heavy Cruiser sized or bigger.

Do you:

1: Assume it is a bluff by a genuine freighter with a few rent-a-pods trying to scare you off; still a formidable challenge for your point defense -- if he sprung for a full dozen pods you're going to take a severe beating even if you destroy him.

2: Assume it is an old style Q-Ship with moderate missile capacity and humongous energy beams. You and your lively-hood are going to take a beating and probably run into at least a platoon of marines if you survive to try and board her.

3: Assume it is a new-style Mantie Q-Ship, which has been known to take out modern warships that outclass your pirate ship be a couple thousand tons.

4: Assume it is a full-fledged warship trolling for pirates like you. Someone looking to see how well you can breathe vacuum if they can capture you. (a fairly stupid warship to warn you off, but still able to trash your lively-hood and you if you don't take the hint.)

5: Assume your point-defense can keep you unharmed long enough for your lighter, shorter ranged missiles to cripple your target so you can capture the target and make a profit.

Note that none of those scenarios except the last make you any profit, and most get you dead. You might destroy a valuable freighter and it's cargo, but you're not making any profit and you are going to run your ammunition and repair bills way up.

The simplest an most vulnerable of those options probably still has 99 missiles left.

Weird Harold wrote:That's true, but I haven't seen anyone suggest more than four Limpet-LACs per Freighter. That's a substantial investment in manpower unless a centralized maintenance and arming pod to service and entire convoy; not much help for ships traveling solo, though.

The obvious question I have is why do you need to do this at all? The odds are you are never going to have to shoot at anyone, and the odds that you will need to do this twice on a single trip are absurdly small. (because you are going to go back somewhere safe right after you get in a fight - not press on.) So you won't need to reload, you'll run.

LACs are suitable to operate for weeks at least on patrol, so they don't need delicate hand-holding all the time. You service it fully before a trip and then when it comes back. You don't launch it or do other things that will add significant wear and tear to the craft unless you really need to, any training is via simulation only. During the trip the crew does what it can for minor issues, but if it is a major issue then the bird is limited or down until you get to a CLAC or base that has full service capabilities.

kzt wrote:LACs are suitable to operate for weeks at least on patrol, so they don't need delicate hand-holding all the time. You service it fully before a trip and then when it comes back. You don't launch it or do other things that will add significant wear and tear to the craft unless you really need to, any training is via simulation only. During the trip the crew does what it can for minor issues, but if it is a major issue then the bird is limited or down until you get to a CLAC or base that has full service capabilities.

You'd want to bring the nodes up to standby status each time you approach or depart a star system; because if you had to launch you likely couldn't affect the extra 20 minutes cold node startup would take you.

But still, even over a multi-month trade route, that shouldn't add up to enough node wear to require special maintenance before you can cycle back past a maintenance depot.

kzt wrote:The obvious question I have is why do you need to do this at all? The odds are you are never going to have to shoot at anyone, and the odds that you will need to do this twice on a single trip are absurdly small. (because you are going to go back somewhere safe right after you get in a fight - not press on.) So you won't need to reload, you'll run.

Do What? Run convoys, Q-Ships, and/or arm merchant ships? Or provide maintenance and support for Limpet-LACs?

If you're going to trade in areas infested by pirates, you will need commerce protection. Running after your commerce protection has done its job would be a waste of time and money and possibly incur non-delivery penalties.

kzt wrote:LACs are suitable to operate for weeks at least on patrol, so they don't need delicate hand-holding all the time. You service it fully before a trip and then when it comes back.

I'm not the one who advocated support pods to provide CLAC-like docking and maintenance facilities, but I can see where they would be necessary for extended deployments.

Merchant Ships that would need commerce protection don't make safe "day-trips" over a well-traveled route, they make long loops covering dozens of systems and six-months to a year. Minimum. If such a merchant takes 2-4 Limpet-Lacs on-board, they're going to be away from maintenance and spares for longer than a LAC's internal stores and life-support permit.

Limpet LAC no compensator.

Weird Harold wrote:Merchant Ships that would need commerce protection don't make safe "day-trips" over a well-traveled route, they make long loops covering dozens of systems and six-months to a year. Minimum. If such a merchant takes 2-4 Limpet-Lacs on-board, they're going to be away from maintenance and spares for longer than a LAC's internal stores and life-support permit.

Then they had better invest a lot of money in armed escorts, because the two are not compatible.

Lord Skimper wrote:Limpet LAC no compensator.

Why would you say that? It has the highest acceleration in the HV. Of course it has a compensator.

dreamrider

Which BTW does not mean I favor the Limpet LAC idea.

dr

dreamrider wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:Limpet LAC no compensator.

Why would you say that? It has the highest acceleration in the HV. Of course it has a compensator.

dreamrider

I'm not sure - and I'm not going to check out the rest of his post to see the rest of the context - but I *think* he means that limpeted LACs fall outside the carrier ship's compensator field.

Maybe, maybe not. We have textev of a pinnace (which, granted, is a helluva lot smaller than a LAC) being carried on the hull of a ship, and of course, all those pods. However, pinnaces and pods *may* be the limit of what can be limpeted.

reordered quotes

Lord Skimper wrote:Limpet LAC no compensator.

MaxxQ wrote:

dreamrider wrote:
Why would you say that? It has the highest acceleration in the HV. Of course it has a compensator.

dreamrider

I'm not sure - and I'm not going to check out the rest of his post to see the rest of the context - but I *think* he means that limpeted LACs fall outside the carrier ship's compensator field.

Maybe, maybe not. We have textev of a pinnace (which, granted, is a helluva lot smaller than a LAC) being carried on the hull of a ship, and of course, all those pods. However, pinnaces and pods *may* be the limit of what can be limpeted.

In Cauldron of Ghosts the (small) freighter Hali Sowle was able to carry two Nat Turner-class frigates tractored to her hull.

Those are bigger than LACs and there was no indication that she had to hold her acceleration down; leading me to assume that they were inside her compensation field.

(And for what it's worth I don't recall any specific text-ev that a freighter's compensation field stops immediately beyond her hull)