New Manty ship ideas.

Who said the fusion plants are going to be used to power the LAC? Modified micro-fusion plants to provide the plasma for the ETorp launcher. Is that so difficult to understand?

You did. To quote your words:

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!

Do not yell at me when you are the one who is saying stupid things.

Yes, the sidewalls may still be active, but you still have that big damned graser in your LAC's nose, use it. The current LACs mainly use their missile power at the start of their attacks and flush what's remaining when they see an opening for it. Their main weapon for taking down the enemy ship is the graser, which will remain. What they're getting would be a coup de grace weapon that would enable them to finish off a target quickly so they can move on to another target. With the current weapons mix, LACs have to pound the enemy into scrap with their grasers. With ETorps if one or two sidewall generators goes down, just a couple of salvos will turn that ship into a wreck freeing the LAC to find another target.

Energy torpedoes are dead weight in all but a few scenarios. So why are you so insistent that LACs haul around that dead weight all the damn time when the graser is already more than enough to do the job? If the situation is so far up shit creek that the ship has lost its sidewalls completely, then the graser is already plenty enough to do the job to compel the enemy to surrender. A sidewall-less SD is in for a world of hurt from a Shrike's graser, so there is absolutely no reason to put energy torpedoes on them.

For that matter, those "useless" LAC missiles you're stripping out would also be plenty useful against such a foe, because there is no sidewall to mitigate the damage.

Rakhmamort wrote:BoM was a battle between fleets who knew each other's capabilities and have developed counters for the other side's tactics. The SLN doesn't have LACs like the GA has. They don't have the battle experience to generate the tactics that made it very difficult for Manty LACs to attack a Havenite force.

This is the case you should design your ships for. Assume your enemy is competent. If there is a SL by the time any new ships are built, they will have learned in between.
And the system defense doctrine states to hold the pods in reserve. Light enemy raiders should be driven off by the LACs alone, without any support.

Whitecold wrote:This is the case you should design your ships for. Assume your enemy is competent.

But neither side had the fleet mix or size they wanted. Manticore was still recovering from the Janacek betrayal, and Haven was pushed to act sooner than it wanted because of Giancola's plan to reveal the new fleet and the altered correspondence.

Not so much a ship but an Apollo missile with a PD cluster on it might be able to shoot down other missiles. Or perhaps a ghost rider platform mounting PD.

A wall of such mounted Ghost rider platforms could act as an antimissile screen.

Lord Skimper wrote:Not so much a ship but an Apollo missile with a PD cluster on it might be able to shoot down other missiles. Or perhaps a ghost rider platform mounting PD.

A wall of such mounted Ghost rider platforms could act as an antimissile screen.

I know someone had the 'bright idea' a while back to propose mounting a PDLC on a drone -- the word of god came down that the cluster is almost the size of the drone and the drone doesn't have enough power to run the cluster anyway.

So putting the cluster on something even smaller, an Apollo control missile, is right out

Potato wrote:You did. To quote your words:

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!

Interesting, you highlight one option but ignore the next one. And you don't even include which option I explicitly said I prefer.

Here, let me help you identify the parts I'm talking about.

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)

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If you are going to argue against something, don't base your counter argument on the less acceptable OPTION. I've practically disregarded that approach right after I listed it down.

Do not yell at me when you are the one who is saying stupid things.

Putting a fusion plant in a LAC is not a stupid thing. Old style LACs had them. Just because they are using fission piles now, doesn't mean fusion plants are stupid. If I remember correctly, nobody is ready to put fission piles in a proper warship or on planet. That means Manticore knows those things are still dangerous. Gambling with 10 lives in a LAC with a fission pile is acceptable. Gambling with an entire shipboard or planetary biosphere, not good.

Energy torpedoes are dead weight in all but a few scenarios. So why are you so insistent that LACs haul around that dead weight all the damn time when the graser is already more than enough to do the job? If the situation is so far up shit creek that the ship has lost its sidewalls completely, then the graser is already plenty enough to do the job to compel the enemy to surrender. A sidewall-less SD is in for a world of hurt from a Shrike's graser, so there is absolutely no reason to put energy torpedoes on them.

For that matter, those "useless" LAC missiles you're stripping out would also be plenty useful against such a foe, because there is no sidewall to mitigate the damage.

Scenario that ETorps will be useful. - Enemy sidewall down, range is within 300K km.

ETorps in a warship trading missile salvos vs enemy beyond 300K range- UNUSABLE.
ETorps in a LAC diving into an enemy formation that has been damaged by missile salvos - High probability of finding an enemy with damaged/destroyed sidewall generators.

Yes you LAC missiles can be used if you find an enemy with sidewalls down. But what is the damage potential compared with ETorps? How many Shrike LAC missiles can you pound that damaged ship with?

Let me give you an example. LAC sees a practically healthy SD with just a couple of sidewall generators down. Do you think that LAC is going to take out that SD with its itty bitty missiles? How bout if it has ETorp launchers? Obvious answer, No with missiles, maybe with ETorps.
DN? Same answer.
BC? Maybe with missiles, High probability with Etorps.
Smaller ships. Yes for both (Maybe the graser won't need help). But it is faster with ETorps and you don't run out of ammo.

ETorp launchers aren't going to be dead weight in the environment Shrikes were designed to be in. It's a no brainer they are designed to use their grasers to pound on their targets again and again and again until it is scrap. What happens to a ship's sidewall generators between the time LACs start pounding at the ship and the ship turns to wreckage? Are you going to claim that it won't lose a sidewall generator? That opening to use ETorps are never going to come?

Whitecold wrote:

Rakhmamort wrote:BoM was a battle between fleets who knew each other's capabilities and have developed counters for the other side's tactics. The SLN doesn't have LACs like the GA has. They don't have the battle experience to generate the tactics that made it very difficult for Manty LACs to attack a Havenite force.

This is the case you should design your ships for. Assume your enemy is competent. If there is a SL by the time any new ships are built, they will have learned in between.
And the system defense doctrine states to hold the pods in reserve. Light enemy raiders should be driven off by the LACs alone, without any support.

And having, say 2 LACs in the squadron equipped with ETorps is going to remove that capability? I'm not that stupid to propose that all LACs should be equipped with the same weapons mix. They have different weapons because they have different roles.

And YES, having LACs with ETorps can improve their ability to fight off light enemy raiders. Since these raiders know that these LACs rely on their grasers to deal heavy damage, I doubt they are going to let the LACs close early. Long ranged combat means missile expenditure. Shrikes don't have the magazine capacity to exchange missile fire during approach and still have enough missile to fire during the 'melee'. ETorps give them that 'missile' capability in close without needing to worry about ammo. A missile capability that if they are able to use it deals a hell of a lot of damage compared to their standard missile.

Rakhmamort wrote:Putting a fusion plant in a LAC is not a stupid thing. Old style LACs had them. Just because they are using fission piles now, doesn't mean fusion plants are stupid. If I remember correctly, nobody is ready to put fission piles in a proper warship or on planet. That means Manticore knows those things are still dangerous. Gambling with 10 lives in a LAC with a fission pile is acceptable. Gambling with an entire shipboard or planetary biosphere, not good.

RFC has said that the reason they haven't put fission plant into anything larger than a LAC isn't due to safety concerns, it's because a fission plant with the footprint of a full up starships grav pinch fusion plant can't produce anywhere near as much power. (Specifically it can't produce enough power to run everything you need to run on the ship)

Basically the only reason they fit in LACs is because he set up the rules of the universe where LACs fall into a gap in the fusion technology he specified in his universe. According to his rules the laser based fusion plants (used in pinnaces and shuttles; and presumably forming the basis for microfusion plants) don't scale up to the energy requirements of even a LAC. But also according to his rules grav pinch plants scale down very inefficiently once you go below a CL or DD. A fusion powered LAC seems to need almost as large a plant, with almost as much fuel fused, for way less power - leading to crappy endurance.


You could put a fussion plant on a planetary surface, the dangers are different, but not necessarily worse than a fusion plant. But planets can easily use the output of a starship size fusion plant, where their efficiency is well beyond a fission plant of the same size; so why bother with the less expensive [correction: efficient] option?

Jonathan_S wrote: RFC has said that the reason they haven't put fission plant into anything larger than a LAC isn't due to safety concerns, it's because a fission plant with the footprint of a full up starships grav pinch fusion plant can't produce anywhere near as much power. (Specifically it can't produce enough power to run everything you need to run on the ship)

Basically the only reason they fit in LACs is because he set up the rules of the universe where LACs fall into a gap in the fusion technology he specified in his universe. According to his rules the laser based fusion plants (used in pinnaces and shuttles; and presumably forming the basis for microfusion plants) don't scale up to the energy requirements of even a LAC. But also according to his rules grav pinch plants scale down very inefficiently once you go below a CL or DD. A fusion powered LAC seems to need almost as large a plant, with almost as much fuel fused, for way less power - leading to crappy endurance.

And all of this is for what? A reason why modern LACs wouldn't be using fusion plants for power generation?

I don't know how to make things clearer.

The modified micro fusion plants are to provide the plasma for the ETorp launchers. Not for power generation. That's why the proposed option is to find a way to mate the two systems.

You could put a fussion plant on a planetary surface, the dangers are different, but not necessarily worse than a fusion plant. But planets can easily use the output of a starship size fusion plant, where their efficiency is well beyond a fission plant of the same size; so why bother with the less expensive option?

I don't know, maybe because it's less expensive? Or do you mean less efficient?

Rakhmamort wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote: RFC has said that the reason they haven't put fission plant into anything larger than a LAC isn't due to safety concerns, it's because a fission plant with the footprint of a full up starships grav pinch fusion plant can't produce anywhere near as much power. (Specifically it can't produce enough power to run everything you need to run on the ship)

Basically the only reason they fit in LACs is because he set up the rules of the universe where LACs fall into a gap in the fusion technology he specified in his universe. According to his rules the laser based fusion plants (used in pinnaces and shuttles; and presumably forming the basis for microfusion plants) don't scale up to the energy requirements of even a LAC. But also according to his rules grav pinch plants scale down very inefficiently once you go below a CL or DD. A fusion powered LAC seems to need almost as large a plant, with almost as much fuel fused, for way less power - leading to crappy endurance.

And all of this is for what? A reason why modern LACs wouldn't be using fusion plants for power generation?

I don't know how to make things clearer.

The modified micro fusion plants are to provide the plasma for the ETorp launchers. Not for power generation. That's why the proposed option is to find a way to mate the two systems.

Sorry, all that was off on a tangent about your claim that not having fusion plants in starships proved that Manticore knew they were still dangerous. I was trying to provide the explanation we'd been given on why they weren't really in starship.

That whole thing wasn't really attempting to address your primary point of etorps in LACs.*

You could put a fussion plant on a planetary surface, the dangers are different, but not necessarily worse than a fusion plant. But planets can easily use the output of a starship size fusion plant, where their efficiency is well beyond a fission plant of the same size; so why bother with the less expensive option?

I don't know, maybe because it's less expensive? Or do you mean less efficient?

Damn in, I did mean efficient

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* I've already expressed my believe that a microfusion plant couldn't generate enough plasma for an etorp; and that an scaled down etorp, if possible, is unlikely to be anywhere near as powerful