For fun: Upscaling... the LAC cores...

Had fun reading munroburton's post on upscaling missle baffles, but I had an interesting idea a bit ago that I don't remember seeing explored much, so I thought I'd toss an idea out there for a "MA hunter" style CA... which would also be a really good pirate/genetic slaver hunter ship also. Let me know what y'all think...

Given that reactor bunkerage limits time on station, and when a ship is in snoop mode, why not do something like have the LAC style B-squared nodes, driven by a fission core? Obviously, you're not going to get much accel out of this extra set, but it seems like it would give a ship a really long "time on station" plus the ability to go forward without much of a fleet train behind your hunters. By the way, I'd add pushbutton settings on "that set" of impeller nodes to imitate different kind of merchie hull wedges and signal patterns, etc. Then when the time comes, poof, away goes the B-squareds, the ship switches to the military double wedge at full RMN speeds. Buh-bye bad guys even if the opposition has a military grade compensator. Yes/no? Thoughts?

RFC has been adamant that fission plants do not provide nearly enough energy for a full sized ship. They do not even provide enough power for LACs, which only works because they do a few tricks with their proportionally oversized capacitor rings.

This also runs afoul with the prohibition against heavy attack craft, which is what this idea essentially is.

Potato wrote:RFC has been adamant that fission plants do not provide nearly enough energy for a full sized ship. They do not even provide enough power for LACs, which only works because they do a few tricks with their proportionally oversized capacitor rings.

This also runs afoul with the prohibition against heavy attack craft, which is what this idea essentially is.

The LAC fission pile really doesn't work without the super dense plasma capacitor rings attached to it. The fission pile produces enough power to run basic ship functions and trickle charge the capacitor rings. The rings are used to pull up the wedge initially, then the energy siphon effect from the Alpha wall supplies most of the power needed to keep the wedge working (Like all starships in the Honorverse).

Think of the Fission pile this way - it is like a small air compressor topping off several air tanks. The pressure put out by the compressor at any point isn't enough to really run any of the big tools you connect to it, a couple small tools, yes, but not big tools. But, after the tanks are full, they allow the tools to run for a brief period of time before the tanks need recharged.

So it is with the LAC fission pile and rings - the rings only have the capacity for a dozen or so Graser shots or a few dozen minutes running a bow or stern wall before they need to be recharged. the fission reactor will slowly recharge them, but you can't run them forever without a recharge period.

The only reason this system works is the fission pile and rings is lighter and smaller than the smallest Starship's Fusion pile (which is several thousand tons and which would provide enough power to run a Star Knight heavy cruiser on it's own.) If you add several fission plants and rings, they weight more than the fusion plant, and provide a fraction of the power.

--snipping--

Theemile wrote:The only reason this system works is the fission pile and rings is lighter and smaller than the smallest Starship's Fusion pile (which is several thousand tons and which would provide enough power to run a Star Knight heavy cruiser on it's own.) If you add several fission plants and rings, they weight more than the fusion plant, and provide a fraction of the power.

That was sorta my point, however, your post neglects that the Fission pile is enough to run the wedge and provide serious accel for a tiny ship. In a larger ship, of course, it wouldn't be able to provide enough accel to normally be worthwhile or ANY other functions. The use of a pile in a larger craft would purely be spy-style putt-putting around "on station", i.e. moving sedately in the outer reaches of a star system looking like something else without having to jigger the main impellers to make the fakery work or consuming reactor mass.

SharkHunter wrote:--snipping--

Theemile wrote:The only reason this system works is the fission pile and rings is lighter and smaller than the smallest Starship's Fusion pile (which is several thousand tons and which would provide enough power to run a Star Knight heavy cruiser on it's own.) If you add several fission plants and rings, they weight more than the fusion plant, and provide a fraction of the power.

That was sorta my point, however, your post neglects that the Fission pile is enough to run the wedge and provide serious accel for a tiny ship. In a larger ship, of course, it wouldn't be able to provide enough accel to normally be worthwhile or ANY other functions. The use of a pile in a larger craft would purely be spy-style putt-putting around "on station", i.e. moving sedately in the outer reaches of a star system looking like something else without having to jigger the main impellers to make the fakery work or consuming reactor mass.

Yeah, all that eye-glazing teccie stuff. And where are you going to actually stuff the beta^2 nodes and the fission piles and all the shielding? Seems to me, being neither serious teccie or naval architect, by the time you stuff a CA with this stuff, you may as well have a full up Battle Cruiser. Which is the preferred ship of most serious captains anyway for independent deployment.

pappilon wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:--snipping--

That was sorta my point, however, your post neglects that the Fission pile is enough to run the wedge and provide serious accel for a tiny ship. In a larger ship, of course, it wouldn't be able to provide enough accel to normally be worthwhile or ANY other functions. The use of a pile in a larger craft would purely be spy-style putt-putting around "on station", i.e. moving sedately in the outer reaches of a star system looking like something else without having to jigger the main impellers to make the fakery work or consuming reactor mass.

Yeah, all that eye-glazing teccie stuff. And where are you going to actually stuff the beta^2 nodes and the fission piles and all the shielding? Seems to me, being neither serious teccie or naval architect, by the time you stuff a CA with this stuff, you may as well have a full up Battle Cruiser. Which is the preferred ship of most serious captains anyway for independent deployment.

Modern RMN CAs already have Beta squared nodes in place of their beta nodes(at a 3:1 ratio), saving mass and producing more wedge power to boot.

the Fission thing - you can already run the wedge off just the dozens of supercapacitor rings in a CA, no fission plant needed, so you could putter around for days without a fusion plant by draining every weapons ring on the ship. But Cruisers carry enough hydrogen for 3-4 months, and can spread that out by just running on 1 of their 2-3 reactors. Even modern destroyers have the bunkerage to run for 2+ months.

On a starship, I think this is a solution looking for a problem.

IIRC the LAC fission reactors fill the gap in capabilities between gravity pinch fusion reactors and laser induced fusion reactors. Anything bigger then a LAC or it needs FTL travel capabilities it is not powerful enough and anything smaller it is too massive.

Theemile wrote:The only reason this system works is the fission pile and rings is lighter and smaller than the smallest Starship's Fusion pile (which is several thousand tons and which would provide enough power to run a Star Knight heavy cruiser on it's own.) If you add several fission plants and rings, they weight more than the fusion plant, and provide a fraction of the power.

Just as a side-note, does anyone else think that the loading of missiles for the LACs also includes charging up the super-capacitance rings from the CLAC's power core?
After all, the LACs do park in special bays that can provide a shirtsleeve environment for techs working on the forward missile tubes, so adding power couplings is only logical...

Michael Everett wrote:

Theemile wrote:The only reason this system works is the fission pile and rings is lighter and smaller than the smallest Starship's Fusion pile (which is several thousand tons and which would provide enough power to run a Star Knight heavy cruiser on it's own.) If you add several fission plants and rings, they weight more than the fusion plant, and provide a fraction of the power.

Just as a side-note, does anyone else think that the loading of missiles for the LACs also includes charging up the super-capacitance rings from the CLAC's power core?
After all, the LACs do park in special bays that can provide a shirtsleeve environment for techs working on the forward missile tubes, so adding power couplings is only logical...

Agreed, it is kind of stupid not to do that since it has quite a large effect on the combat readiness and re-arming speed plus it probably extends the life of the piles of every docked LAC at the expense of higher load on the CLAC's fusion bottles.

I was thinking you could probably make a special version of the LAC used by the repair ships to provide emergency power to crippled ships until they can be towed into dock. Remove the weapons and missile stowage and add engineering extras instead.

Dunno if it's practically and economically feasible compared to the standard engineering tugs available.

Joat42 wrote:Agreed, it is kind of stupid not to do that since it has quite a large effect on the combat readiness and re-arming speed plus it probably extends the life of the piles of every docked LAC at the expense of higher load on the CLAC's fusion bottles.

It is a time thing. Like refueling a NASCAR racer when it takes a pit stop to change tires. If there is time to hok up the power supply without interfering with the primary mission-reloading- then by all means, yes.

Joat42 wrote:I was thinking you could probably make a special version of the LAC used by the repair ships to provide emergency power to crippled ships until they can be towed into dock. Remove the weapons and missile stowage and add engineering extras instead.

Dunno if it's practically and economically feasible compared to the standard engineering tugs available.

Tugs are mission designed for that, LACs are designed for combat. Not sure they have the structural integrity to tow a whale into dry dock. But with a shortage of tugs in an emergency situation, all logic is nullified.