Git your pencils out and design me a ship!

Relax wrote:KHII is substantially larger ~120,000+
Apollo missile is "larger" call it roughly 150ton? Half is FTL? If a lowly SAG-C has 128 control channels, a BCL must have ~200 then a SDP must have at minimum 400 and I would lean towards 800. So, 400 is 30,000 tons and 800 FTL transceivers would be 60,000tons on the upper end IMO. you have 800 of these transceivers on a KHII... that is roughly ~120,000tons

Neighhh. High horse ridden hard.

Well somewhere I seem to recall a statement that BuWeap thought they could have fit an FTL transceiver into a normal size Mk23 at the cost of one of its drive rings (though that wouldn't have the 8 short ranged light speed links, nor the improved 'AI') but instead went with the ACM. So just a single missile's FTL isn't so large.

Though there's probably an asymmetry where the Keyhole side is both more powerful and more sensitive; letting you use a missile transceiver that's far less capable than the fixed ones used to control it. Getting that capability would mean the Keyhole FTL transceivers would be noticeably more massive than the missile ones...

Jonathan_S wrote:

Relax wrote:KHII is substantially larger ~120,000+
Apollo missile is "larger" call it roughly 150ton? Half is FTL? If a lowly SAG-C has 128 control channels, a BCL must have ~200 then a SDP must have at minimum 400 and I would lean towards 800. So, 400 is 30,000 tons and 800 FTL transceivers would be 60,000tons on the upper end IMO. you have 800 of these transceivers on a KHII... that is roughly ~120,000tons

Neighhh. High horse ridden hard.

Well somewhere I seem to recall a statement that BuWeap thought they could have fit an FTL transceiver into a normal size Mk23 at the cost of one of its drive rings (though that wouldn't have the 8 short ranged light speed links, nor the improved 'AI') but instead went with the ACM. So just a single missile's FTL isn't so large.

Though there's probably an asymmetry where the Keyhole side is both more powerful and more sensitive; letting you use a missile transceiver that's far less capable than the fixed ones used to control it. Getting that capability would mean the Keyhole FTL transceivers would be noticeably more massive than the missile ones...

That makes sense. It's similar to how we can communicate with the Voyager space probes at the edge of the Solar System with their relatively small radios (both in limited transmitter power and antenna size) with NASA's Deep Space Network here on Earth with very powerful radios (with powerful transmitters, very sensitive receivers and very large antennas).

Apollo is by directional FTL. It is a C&C loop. So, a quick glance would equate the FTL transceivers on a Keyhole to those on the Apollo missile itself.

Now it is possible, that the engineers(Uh engineer ) made the Keyhole FTL ability much more powerful so they could send uni-directional signals much further than the Apollo missile resulting in a decrease in terminal attack profile. So, far we have not seen this. Though maybe one could argue for BOMA ending.

Relax wrote:Apollo is by directional FTL. It is a C&C loop. So, a quick glance would equate the FTL transceivers on a Keyhole to those on the Apollo missile itself.

Now it is possible, that the engineers(Uh engineer ) made the Keyhole FTL ability much more powerful so they could send uni-directional signals much further than the Apollo missile resulting in a decrease in terminal attack profile. So, far we have not seen this. Though maybe one could argue for BOMA ending.

Actually, we may have some evidence of the Keyhole II FTL transceivers being larger than the ones on the Apollo Control Missiles, in an inverse way (transceivers on the Apollo Control Missile, rather than the ones on Keyhole II). Consider the briefing Michelle Henke received in:

Storm From the Shadows, Chapter 12 wrote:Michelle nodded, her eyes intent, and Halstead touched a button on his command chair's arm. A side-by-side schematic of two large—and one very large—missiles appeared above the conference table, between Michelle and the simulator command deck, and he indicated one of them with a flashing cursor.
"The Apollo itself is an almost entirely new design, but, as you can see, the only modifications the Mark 23 required were relatively minor and could be easily incorporated without any break in production schedules."
The cursor moved to the very largest missile.
"This is the system-defense variant, the Mark 23-D, for the moment, although it's probably going to end up redesignated the Mark 25. It's basically an elongated Mark 23 to accommodate both a fourth impeller drive and longer lasing rods with more powerful grav focusing to push the directed yield still higher. Aside from the grav units and laser rods, this is all off-the-shelf hardware, so production shouldn't be a problem, although at the moment the ship-launched system has priority.
"With the Apollo missile itself—we've officially designated the ship-launched version the Mark 23-E, partly in an attempt to convince anyone who hears about it that it's only an attack bird upgrade—" the cursor moved to the third missile "—the situation's a bit more complicated. As I say, it's an entirely new design, and we're looking at some bottlenecks in getting it into volume production. The system-defense variant—the Mark 23-F—is another all-new design. Aside from the drives and the fusion bottle, we had to start with a blank piece of paper in each case, and we hit some snags getting the new transceiver squared away. We're on top of those, now, but we're still only beginning to ramp up production. The 23-F is lagging behind the 23-E, mostly because we've tweaked the transceiver's sensitivity even higher in light of the longer anticipated engagement ranges, which increased volume requirements more dramatically than we'd expected, but even the Echo model is coming off the lines more slowly than we'd like. When you factor in the need for the original Keyhole control platforms to be refitted to the Keyhole-Two standard, this isn't something we're going to be able to put into fleet-wide deployment overnight. On the other hand—"

Italics are the author's, boldface and underlined text is my emphasis.

Now we know that the current version of Keyhole I weighs in around 65,000 tons, while Keyhole II weighs in at ~120,000 tons. Assuming 400 tons (SWAG) for the Mark 23-F missile, and assuming the Mark 23-F transceiver is 10% of that at 40 tons (SWAG), and assuming that each Keyhole II has 800 of these transceivers (double what I think it actually has), the total tonnage for FTL transceivers for Keyhole II would be only 32,000 tons. But ~120,000 tons for Keyhole II minus 65,000 tons for Keyhole I leaves ~55,000 tons for FTL transceivers, and we have (working from what I think are either reasonable or very generous assumptions) only 32,000 tons for FTL transceivers in Keyhole II (using the same ones the Mark 23-F system defense Apollo Control Missile), which leaves ~23,000 tons unaccounted for.

If we assume each Keyhole II has only 400 FTL transceivers, and uses the smaller Mark 23-E FTL transceivers at 5 tons (SWAG) then the unaccounted for tonnage increases to ~53,000 tons.

Now some of that unaccounted for tonnage probably is going towards additional power generation, plus additional light-speed fire control links and computing support aboard the Keyhole II. But I don't think all of it is, and I suspect that at least some of the difference in tonnage is devoted to much larger, higher power, and more sensitive FTL transceivers with much larger antennas than can be carried aboard even the largest missile aboard the Keyholes.

For evidence of antenna size, look at the entry on the Invictus in House of Steel, and compare the size of the gravitic sensors on both the ship and the Keyhole II in the picture. From the broadside view, the ship's gravitic sensors appear to be only slightly larger than the ones on the Keyhole II. Somehow I don't think that any missile, no matter how large, can come even close to matching the size of the ones on the Keyhole II.

First: the ~120,000 tons was my guesstimate, not DW's statement.

Second: I highly doubt the system defense missiles are 400tons. They have a 4th drive with larger laser head. Call it 200 tons IMO with the standard 3 stage MK-23 around 130 or so and Apollo around 150+. 50 for larger FTL and 4th drive. I would be willing to go as high as 250tons and call it a wash though.

Third: The MK23 initial desigh were projected to each have a FTL node in them before Apollo came along. Surely Keyhole II was in development at the same time since both barely made the pages of AAC. Therefore the number of control links of the FTL KHII has to match that first iteration scenario. After all that is how systems engineering land generally develops until they change that is... Congruently.

Fourth: Number of control links in BOMA, averaged over 400 with only half of their total being KH1 ships, and none being KHII ships. It was roughly 50% and of that 50% who knows if any of them actually even had KH1! Would appear to indicate KH1 is around 500-600+ control links by itself for the modified Medusa A's to alleviate the inferiority of the obsolete Gryphon SD's fire control being used as ammo carriers by and large. Could argue as high as 800 on the KH1 if one reads into the control link statements about the SAG-C compared to old style SD's... Of course that was a hopelessly ancient Somanthra class SD. KHII surely has more control links than KH1. Even if you don't like my 800 , its gotta be more than KH1.

Fifth: Well

Relax wrote:First: the ~120,000 tons was my guesstimate, not DW's statement.

Second: I highly doubt the system defense missiles are 400tons. They have a 4th drive with larger laser head. Call it 200 tons IMO with the standard 3 stage MK-23 around 130 or so and Apollo around 150+. 50 for larger FTL and 4th drive. I would be willing to go as high as 250tons and call it a wash though.

Third: The MK23 initial desigh were projected to each have a FTL node in them before Apollo came along. Surely Keyhole II was in development at the same time since both barely made the pages of AAC. Therefore the number of control links of the FTL KHII has to match that first iteration scenario. After all that is how systems engineering land generally develops until they change that is... Congruently.

Fourth: Number of control links in BOMA, averaged over 400 with only half of their total being KH1 ships, and none being KHII ships. It was roughly 50% and of that 50% who knows if any of them actually even had KH1! Would appear to indicate KH1 is around 500-600+ control links by itself for the modified Medusa A's to alleviate the inferiority of the obsolete Gryphon SD's fire control being used as ammo carriers by and large. Could argue as high as 800 on the KH1 if one reads into the control link statements about the SAG-C compared to old style SD's... Of course that was a hopelessly ancient Somanthra class SD. KHII surely has more control links than KH1. Even if you don't like my 800 , its gotta be more than KH1.

Fifth: Well

OK, I'll give you 5 tons per FTL transceiver and 2000 per Keyhole II. That's 10,000 tons.

Keyhole II is around the mass of a light cruiser, so ~120,000 tons is not far off (the Apollo-class CL in The Honor of the Queen is listed at 126,000 tons in House of Steel).

So ~120,000 tons for Keyhole II minus 65,000 tons (the mass of Keyhole I for the light-speed systems) - 10,000 tons for 2000 FTL transceivers = ~45,000 tons unaccounted for. Some of that will go into additional power generation, and computer support for light-speed control links (to the SDP deploying the Keyhole II). Maybe even some more PDLCs over Keyhole I. But the rest will go towards larger, more powerful, more sensitive FTL transceivers and larger, more sensitive gravitic arrays.

And I don't see how you can fit the gravitic arrays the size of the ones on Keyhole II (shown in the drawing of the Invictus-class SDP in House of Steel) into any missile unless you are either using TARDIS technology or Lord Skimper's ideas.

Well, it is Jayne's Intelligence review. Not official RMN specs...




That being said FTL volume seems dependent on range. A two stage FTL seems to displace a single drive node while a system defense varient is much larger. Would appear an RD FTL node should be larger yet.