Upscaling MDM baffles?

It occurred to me that if the baffles between a MDM's impeller rings can be upscaled substantially, the possibility then exists that impeller drive starships could be radically redesigned.

They would not need to put the two rings as far away from each other as possible and could even have them right next to each other.

That would mean a single hammerhead-end rather than a double arrangement. True, this would be more exposed to collateral damage(á la Roland missile launchers), but allows the other end of the ship to be redesigned without requiring a hammerhead arrangement.

That end should still be heavily armoured, but potentially offers impeller warships a third broadside to mount more bow-wall generators, more weapons, anti-missile emplacements and so forth.

Kind of like the Ramform Titan.

munroburton wrote:It occurred to me that if the baffles between a MDM's impeller rings can be upscaled substantially, the possibility then exists that impeller drive starships could be radically redesigned.

They would not need to put the two rings as far away from each other as possible and could even have them right next to each other.

That would mean a single hammerhead-end rather than a double arrangement. True, this would be more exposed to collateral damage(á la Roland missile launchers), but allows the other end of the ship to be redesigned without requiring a hammerhead arrangement.

That end should still be heavily armoured, but potentially offers impeller warships a third broadside to mount more bow-wall generators, more weapons, anti-missile emplacements and so forth.

Kind of like the Ramform Titan.

Forts already have this kind of arrangement, with just 1 impeller ring (The 2nd isn't necessary to create the wedge). The 2 ring arrangement is specifically for generating grav sails in hyper and wormholes.

The question is can 2 grav sails work properly so close together.

Theemile wrote:

munroburton wrote:It occurred to me that if the baffles between a MDM's impeller rings can be upscaled substantially, the possibility then exists that impeller drive starships could be radically redesigned.

They would not need to put the two rings as far away from each other as possible and could even have them right next to each other.

That would mean a single hammerhead-end rather than a double arrangement. True, this would be more exposed to collateral damage(á la Roland missile launchers), but allows the other end of the ship to be redesigned without requiring a hammerhead arrangement.

That end should still be heavily armoured, but potentially offers impeller warships a third broadside to mount more bow-wall generators, more weapons, anti-missile emplacements and so forth.

Kind of like the Ramform Titan.

Forts already have this kind of arrangement, with just 1 impeller ring (The 2nd isn't necessary to create the wedge). The 2 ring arrangement is specifically for generating grav sails in hyper and wormholes.

The question is can 2 grav sails work properly so close together.

I thought merchant ships only had one impeller ring/wedge, and they do fine in Hyperspace and going through wormholes.

George J. Smith wrote:

Theemile wrote:
Forts already have this kind of arrangement, with just 1 impeller ring (The 2nd isn't necessary to create the wedge). The 2 ring arrangement is specifically for generating grav sails in hyper and wormholes.

The question is can 2 grav sails work properly so close together.

I thought merchant ships only had one impeller ring/wedge, and they do fine in Hyperspace and going through wormholes.

2 impeller rings, but not the double wedge military ships use to confuse enemy sensors.

Missile drives are incompatible with human life.

The real revolution is when the MA goes away from missile drives and goes to normal impellers combined with ridiculously robust designs, so your missile has infinitely varying acceleration and a duration of infinite.

kzt wrote:Missile drives are incompatible with human life.

The real revolution is when the MA goes away from missile drives and goes to normal impellers combined with ridiculously robust designs, so your missile has infinitely varying acceleration and a duration of infinite.

If I'm reading Monroeburton's original idea correctly, it not missile drives, but starship impeller rings, mounted right next to each other, with a MDM baffle between the drives

Theemile wrote:

kzt wrote:Missile drives are incompatible with human life.

The real revolution is when the MA goes away from missile drives and goes to normal impellers combined with ridiculously robust designs, so your missile has infinitely varying acceleration and a duration of infinite.

If I'm reading Monroeburton's original idea correctly, it not missile drives, but starship impeller rings, mounted right next to each other, with a MDM baffle between the drives

Pretty much the idea, yes. And you're right that it would depend whether the baffle allows the rings to operate in sail mode.

An additional problem could be that the baffle might not permit simultaneous operation of rings in such close proximity - it merely protects the inactive rings from being damaged by the active one.

munroburton wrote:It occurred to me that if the baffles between a MDM's impeller rings can be upscaled substantially, the possibility then exists that impeller drive starships could be radically redesigned.

This sounds like a solution in search of a problem.

Starships have the room to put a second impeller ring anywhere they want, but as established with the Peep Q-Ship Sirius back On Basalisk Station, the nodes have to be in a specific location relative to all the other nodes; that required Sirius to have her drive nodes mounted on rams to move them outside of her hull.

Most starships, and especially warships, are designed under the KISS principle. Adding Baffles, which are unproven for protecting two active impeller rings, adds a layer of complication and cost while adding a potentially disastrous failure mode. If the Baffles fail, wedge fratricide would probably be instantaneous -- and 100% fatal.

Weird Harold wrote:

munroburton wrote:It occurred to me that if the baffles between a MDM's impeller rings can be upscaled substantially, the possibility then exists that impeller drive starships could be radically redesigned.

This sounds like a solution in search of a problem.

Starships have the room to put a second impeller ring anywhere they want, but as established with the Peep Q-Ship Sirius back On Basalisk Station, the nodes have to be in a specific location relative to all the other nodes; that required Sirius to have her drive nodes mounted on rams to move them outside of her hull.

Most starships, and especially warships, are designed under the KISS principle. Adding Baffles, which are unproven for protecting two active impeller rings, adds a layer of complication and cost while adding a potentially disastrous failure mode. If the Baffles fail, wedge fratricide would probably be instantaneous -- and 100% fatal.

Count me into the Vieux Ecole. If it ain't fubar don't go messing with it. But I'm not emotionally tied to design qua design. We're developing ourown streak drive and probably the spider too, good time to play with node placements as well, eh?

Weird Harold wrote:

munroburton wrote:It occurred to me that if the baffles between a MDM's impeller rings can be upscaled substantially, the possibility then exists that impeller drive starships could be radically redesigned.

This sounds like a solution in search of a problem.

Starships have the room to put a second impeller ring anywhere they want, but as established with the Peep Q-Ship Sirius back On Basalisk Station, the nodes have to be in a specific location relative to all the other nodes; that required Sirius to have her drive nodes mounted on rams to move them outside of her hull.

Most starships, and especially warships, are designed under the KISS principle. Adding Baffles, which are unproven for protecting two active impeller rings, adds a layer of complication and cost while adding a potentially disastrous failure mode. If the Baffles fail, wedge fratricide would probably be instantaneous -- and 100% fatal.

I'm not really proposing any specific hull shape. Merely pointing out that if baffles can be used between starship impeller rings, it removes some of the design limitations which forced a basic cigar shape with two hammerheads.

A variety of different shapes would become possible, allowing for very different hull volume to (useful) surface area ratios.

Baffle failure rates are a completely unknown variable - there hasn't been a single mention of a baffle failure anywhere MDMs has been used IIRC.

As for KISS - that was Hamish's first reaction to seeing the MDM SD(P) proposal. I just think so much has functionally changed since the introduction of the laserhead that it wouldn't hurt the GA to have a small office somewhere throw out everything "traditional" about ship design and consider novel approaches.

If the computer simulations adds up, they can build testbeds out of recon drone parts and then do a 50-100,000 ton fully working prototype. If it turns out to be completely unpractical, of course the project should be abandoned(like the grav-lance cruiser was).