Lord Skimper wrote:Garth 2 wrote:
yes, eventually new designs are going to occur and I think it will fall into four main tonnage brackets:
SD/CLAC in the 10 to 12 M ton range
Battlecruisers in the 5 to 6 M ton range
Cruisers in the 2 to 3 M ton range
Just purely due to the size of the missiles, but who knows what the Manties etc. will develop next special given how good they are miniturising things.
Beside this being three categorise, what is the point in having battle cruiser?
One might consider just having two maybe three types of hyper ships.
1. SD-P
2. CLAC
3. Rowlands, although a CLAC can do anything a Rowland can do.
4. Freighters or transports, which might have an escort of some type of civilian based Q ship with or without armament but carries a couple LAC.
Again Rowlands don't really have much of a use if you have a Q ship for times of peace, pirate duties.
In war SD / CLAC are all you need. If you have enough.
In peace freighter's transports and Q ships give you everything you need.
One could always make civilian and military modular frames. Able to use the same modules, but military held back for government use. Military frames could be configured as QShips in peacetimes, and civilian frames configured as reserve military units in time of war.
Thing is with no current shipyards all future ship yards could be designed to accommodate these design parameters. Civil frame yards military frame yards and various module yards. One can then stock pile the various kinds of modules, freighter modules would be dispersed to all the trading worlds, while military modules held back at your core worlds and allied worlds.
Freighters and transports modular would be able to do both jobs or either job with a module change.
Same with the military modulars. While a CLAC module on a SD-P would be a weak point, although a modified armoured CLAC module might not be, an armoured CLAC module would not effect a CLAC much.
Fundamentally you different types of ships to undertake different Roles or Missions,
If you wanted to carry-out a show the flag mission:
sending an SD(P)/CLAC would send complete the wrong type of message, but a cruiser would fit the bill nicely.
commerce raiding
sending an SD(P) is a waste of resources, yes it could kill anything it could catch but everyone divert to this sort of mission is one, you know, not concentrated in fleets and available to defend against enemy actions or available to carry out offensive operations.
Sending a CLAC might work with ambushes at the hyper limit, but the individual units wouldn't be able to spend that much time on station nor would they be able to engage units travelling with in a gravity wave (the same is also true to a degree for an SD(P) given that's focused towards missile engagements)
But if you diverted a Battle cruiser or cruiser, not only can it stay on station for a long time, it can engage in both Hyper space and N-space, its more manoeuvrable, has the crew to carry out boarding operations (if there's time) and the enemy has to divert more ships to protect its own shipping.
Anti-slaver/Pirate patrols
Again an SD(P) is just over kill (how many pirates are going to have SD available).
But Battle cruisers/cruisers gives you all the options and fire power you would need.
Within systems you control, yes LACs can do the job but then you don't need to transport them and systems you control showed be unfriendly enough towards this kind of operation that there's no reason for them to turn up in the first place.
Commerce Protection
unless the cargo is a massively critical, an SD(P) would gain be just over kill.
Don't forget you don't send SD(P) out on their own they always move as part of a squadron, which multiple the amount of resources that are tied up in any given assignment.
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