New Manty ship ideas.

Rakhmamort wrote:

MaxxQ wrote:Don't go giving Skimper new ideas, now.

I already got 1 private message accusing me of being this Skimper. Go ask the mods or admins to check IPs before throwing out your accusations.

No offense but, Skimper isn't a handle I'd ever pick. No identity nor originality. Kinda bland handle IMHO.

Maybe *you* should check who my post was meant for. It certainly wasn't you, as you weren't quoted in my post. Also, take your own advice and not throw accusations until you're sure of your target.

MaxxQ wrote:Maybe *you* should check who my post was meant for. It certainly wasn't you, as you weren't quoted in my post. Also, take your own advice and not throw accusations until you're sure of your target.

I have said somebody already sent an accusation via PM, there's been no Skimper in the discussion before your post. What am I supposed to think? It's not rocket science you know.

Rakhmamort wrote:Wouldn't you agree that those cripples would be more susceptible to ETorp armed LACs?

If I'm the captain of a damaged ship who is in danger of getting left behind by my wall of battle, which system would I try to get online first? Engines or sidewalls? Yes they are equally important in the midst of combat. But I can always turn my wedge towards the enemy if my sidewalls are down. It's not a 100% fix to not get damaged but I'd rather be wedge towards the enemy, sidewalls down while in the middle of my wall with supporting point defense of my fleet rather than lagging all alone 2 million kilometers, sidewalls up with no supporting point defense in range.

That assumes a captain has any choice, meaning both systems are down but still repairable, and there is only crew enough to work on one.
But in the end the true problem of an etorp LAC is that it is a specialized unit, only able to finish off cripples at close range. Yes, they might be effective there, but is that worth the effort? Other units can be used for that, which also serve other roles.
Would you rather have more Katanas to bolster the missile defense during the battle and then finish off the cripples with a few more missiles, or have a bunch of LAC's around which are completely useless during the battle, and still take losses finishing off the cripples?

Whitecold wrote:

Rakhmamort wrote:Wouldn't you agree that those cripples would be more susceptible to ETorp armed LACs?

If I'm the captain of a damaged ship who is in danger of getting left behind by my wall of battle, which system would I try to get online first? Engines or sidewalls? Yes they are equally important in the midst of combat. But I can always turn my wedge towards the enemy if my sidewalls are down. It's not a 100% fix to not get damaged but I'd rather be wedge towards the enemy, sidewalls down while in the middle of my wall with supporting point defense of my fleet rather than lagging all alone 2 million kilometers, sidewalls up with no supporting point defense in range.

That assumes a captain has any choice, meaning both systems are down but still repairable, and there is only crew enough to work on one.
But in the end the true problem of an etorp LAC is that it is a specialized unit, only able to finish off cripples at close range. Yes, they might be effective there, but is that worth the effort? Other units can be used for that, which also serve other roles.
Would you rather have more Katanas to bolster the missile defense during the battle and then finish off the cripples with a few more missiles, or have a bunch of LAC's around which are completely useless during the battle, and still take losses finishing off the cripples?

They are not that specialized. They still have the standard grasers. The only thing that's going to change is that they won't have the missile throw weight which is practically useful only at the start of the attack, when they can stack salvos to make the missile storm thick. What they get in return is in the 'end-game', they got a bigger knock out punch. The 'mid-game' where they peck at enemies with their graser remains the same.

Rakhmamort wrote:They are not that specialized. They still have the standard grasers. The only thing that's going to change is that they won't have the missile throw weight which is practically useful only at the start of the attack, when they can stack salvos to make the missile storm thick. What they get in return is in the 'end-game', they got a bigger knock out punch. The 'mid-game' where they peck at enemies with their graser remains the same.

I seriously doubt you can squeeze in a fusion plant and launcher in place of the fission plant, and besides, Shrikes are already overgunned, and lack in range, that was the whole reason for the Ferret.
If you want more punch, replacing Ferrets with Shrikes would do the job as well, and against anything but SD's the graser is enough, and engaging SD's is not a LAC's business, that is what your own wall is for.
To engage SD's they would need to be able to survive the counter-fire, not more weapon systems.

Whitecold wrote:

Rakhmamort wrote:They are not that specialized. They still have the standard grasers. The only thing that's going to change is that they won't have the missile throw weight which is practically useful only at the start of the attack, when they can stack salvos to make the missile storm thick. What they get in return is in the 'end-game', they got a bigger knock out punch. The 'mid-game' where they peck at enemies with their graser remains the same.

I seriously doubt you can squeeze in a fusion plant and launcher in place of the fission plant, and besides, Shrikes are already overgunned, and lack in range, that was the whole reason for the Ferret.

Jesus! Am I talking to kids here? ETorps Launchers for Missile launchers and missiles. Either replace the Fission file with a not so micro fusion plant or mate the fusion plant directly with the ETorp launcher. ITS AN ENGINEERING PROBLEM. One that Manticore has the capability to do. They have micro fusion plants in drones for crying out loud!

(I prefer if they just fin a way to mate the micro fusion plant with the ETorp launchers, taking out the fission file is going to require too much bunkerage space)

If you want more punch, replacing Ferrets with Shrikes would do the job as well, and against anything but SD's the graser is enough, and engaging SD's is not a LAC's business, that is what your own wall is for.
To engage SD's they would need to be able to survive the counter-fire, not more weapon systems.

YES the Ferrets are the missile strike boats. Why do you have a problem with removing the missiles from the Shrikes but you don't have any problems when they replaced the grasers from the Ferrets. They made a design that has no short range punch. Only has offensive capability while it's limited missiles lasts.
It's just like aircraft today, you have bombers and you have interceptors. Each one will excel in their own part of the battle and neither one performs the task of the other.
As for surviving SDs, do you really think whatever offensive weapons mix a LAC has matter? If they survive the approach, they survive the approach. Firing LAC sized missiles at healthy SDs is like pissing in the wind. A Shrike's missile load might do some damage to a damaged SD but I'm quite sure if you manage to equip a LAC with ETorps, it would do far more damage.

Jesus! Am I talking to kids here? ETorps Launchers for Missile launchers and missiles. Either replace the Fission file with a not so micro fusion plant or mate the fusion plant directly with the ETorp launcher. ITS AN ENGINEERING PROBLEM. One that Manticore has the capability to do. They have micro fusion plants in drones for crying out loud!

(I prefer if they just fin a way to mate the micro fusion plant with the ETorp launchers, taking out the fission file is going to require too much bunkerage space)

The entire reason the new LACs are workable is because they are not trying to shoehorn in a fusion plant into such a tiny hull. The fission plants were such a revolution in LAC design because they did not have to sacrifice a quarter to a third of the tonnage of the ship to power generation. If you want to cram in a fusion plant, you just end up with the Havenite's first generation Cimeterre design which was massively limited in effectiveness.

Tourville in AoV explains why fusion plants in LACs are not a viable prospect. The grav-based fusing plants which are used for starships have an absolute tonnage and volume floor. The laser-based fusing plants can be made smaller, but are inefficient for powering larger vessels. Ergo, the microfusion plants in missiles and drones are worthless for anything larger, so you cannot power a LAC with them.

YES the Ferrets are the missile strike boats. Why do you have a problem with removing the missiles from the Shrikes but you don't have any problems when they replaced the grasers from the Ferrets. They made a design that has no short range punch. Only has offensive capability while it's limited missiles lasts.
It's just like aircraft today, you have bombers and you have interceptors. Each one will excel in their own part of the battle and neither one performs the task of the other.
As for surviving SDs, do you really think whatever offensive weapons mix a LAC has matter? If they survive the approach, they survive the approach. Firing LAC sized missiles at healthy SDs is like pissing in the wind. A Shrike's missile load might do some damage to a damaged SD but I'm quite sure if you manage to equip a LAC with ETorps, it would do far more damage.

You cannot guarantee that a sidewall will be down even on a cripple. I do not comprehend why this is so hard for you to understand. We have seen many instances where sidewalls have been brought back online when the damaged/destroyed generators are bypassed and the remain generators used to spread the load. The graser and missiles are weapons which are useful in every situation. (Yes, even when approaching a wall. As is explained in AoV, the missile cells are loaded with decoys instead.) The energy torpedo has zero application outside a very narrow band of circumstances.

Rakhmamort wrote:Ignoring your over the top and absurd suggestions:
The tech advances that I am inferring is simply more improvement of current tech items existing in Honorverse. They are not that far fetched as far as tech advances go. Hell, compared to a completely new drive system, the tech advances I'm suggesting is minor. Miniaturize ETorp launchers that use micro fusion plants so they can be installed in LACs. I don't know why there's such a huge effort that say
1) ETorp launchers cannot fit into LACs
2) micro fusion plants cannot be made to power ETorp launchers.

ETorp launchers are probably very low on the totem pole for research but I wouldn't be surprised if at this point if BuWeaps announced that they can build an ETorp launcher with the same output as the ones that was installed in HMS Fearless but at half the size. Look at the advances they made with the Grayson based compensators. Year after year they have better models and they are still tweaking the sh!t out of it. I don't know why it's suddenly impossible to develop a better, smaller ETorp launcher? I'm not even suggesting the improvement would impact the range of the torpedoes (which can be achieved by prolonging the 'life' of the stabilizing field).

I'd actually be less surprised by a breakthrough in etorp range than one in miniaturization (without a corresponding reduction in effectiveness)...

My understanding is that an etorp is just a packet of reactor plasma wrapped by a containment field. Wouldn't reducing the size of the launcher reduce the size of the projectile? Which would in turn reduce the amount of plasma, which should reduce the damage.


You probably could put a current etorp launcher in a LAC, but my guess is that it'd be a single spinal mount (because it displaces at least one CL broadside mount), and that you'd have to go back to a classic LAC fission plant (as inefficiently scaled as that is) with the corresponding limitations on endurance. Like Whitecold, I really doubt that you can squeeze in both the fission reactor and sufficient supplementary microfusion reactors to act as plasma generators for an etorp; LACs just don't have that much room, and you'd need a vastly scaled up microfusion plant, or a lot of them, to generate enough plasma (or at least that's my assumption)



Now if I'm wrong and you can miniaturize an etorp launcher while still keeping a useful payload then maybe, maybe, you can displace a Shrike's rotary launcher and mount a few around the spinal graser. We don't have hard details on the size of those mounts, or on the size of current etorps (much less hypothetically minaturized ones) so we can't really know for sure.

IF you could put one in at only the cost of a rotary launcher or two I could see some arguments for doing so. I'm personally still not sure it's worth it, since the Shrike would have a lot more opportunities to use those (limited numbers of) LAC missiles - but it's at least a debatable tradeoff. (Although if you costs the Shrike all its onboard missiles, that also costs it it ability to launch it's own decoys and jammers to cover its approach; it's always have to pair with a Ferret to get that protection then...)

Rakhmamort wrote:

MaxxQ wrote:Maybe *you* should check who my post was meant for. It certainly wasn't you, as you weren't quoted in my post. Also, take your own advice and not throw accusations until you're sure of your target.

I have said somebody already sent an accusation via PM, there's been no Skimper in the discussion before your post. What am I supposed to think? It's not rocket science you know.

And MaxxQ had no way to know someone had accused you of being Skimper.


He was joking with Theemile (whose post he quoted) about a well known poster here[1], Lord Skimper, who frequently posts ideas well beyond (or sometimes directly against) how RFC[2] has described his Honorverse working.

It wasn't anything about you; much less an accusation that you were Skimper.

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[1] Sufficiently well known that it didn't matter for the joke if he'd posted recently in this thread.
[2] RFC, short for Runsforcelery, the username that David Weber uses on this forum.

Rakhmamort wrote:

MaxxQ wrote:Maybe *you* should check who my post was meant for. It certainly wasn't you, as you weren't quoted in my post. Also, take your own advice and not throw accusations until you're sure of your target.

I have said somebody already sent an accusation via PM, there's been no Skimper in the discussion before your post. What am I supposed to think? It's not rocket science you know.

Skimper *started* this thread, and posted just a couple pages ago.

If I had been referring to you with that post, I would have put *your* name in it, not Skimper's. I can't help it if *you're* the one taking offense here.