svenhauke wrote:considering the current state of politics in the honorverse
i would have a very low expectation for a civil transport to survive
sln attacks, alliance attacks, man attacks comming up, pirates
so if i where a transport tycoon with a vision, id want
armed merchants capable of defending against enemys
if i was a solarian transport tycoon, id try to go to the andermani empire
if i was an alliance tycoon
id build a 8 million ton ship
with battle cruiser outer armor 30-40 cm tubes plus close in defense clusters about 12 at least havenite cemiterre Lacs and 500 pods of multidrive missiles, again at least havenite hardware 12 side missile tubes and 6+ front and a secondary set of battleship armor to defend my passengers and vitals
so long i got 4 million ton cargo capacity left i could make money ensuring the safety of my passengers and cargo in the great interstelar war
high value cargo only
It is nearly always not a good idea to combine a merchant vessel with a fighting ship.
And i can just about guarantee you wont get 4Mt of cargo into that ship. And with all that military gear, it´s gonna be hellishly expensive in maintenance and crew costs.
Get a pair of heavy/battle cruisers with pods on the hull, Andermani style or something like that as escorts instead and you MIGHT make a profit.
The cargo ships should have defenses, possibly some minimal offensive ability, like a few tractored on missile pods, but even that will vastly increase the costs for firecontrol and may very well not be worth it.
Some heavy armour for a cargoship is definitely a decent idea though, it´s cheap, dont need maintenance and although not exactly effective, it will raise chances to survive a fair lot.
Seriously, you want pod rails AND LACs? That´s going to play merry hell with size limits just by itself.
