Escort Carrier Modification

Relax wrote:Regarding Hyper Generators... I have always pictured them being an integral installation coinhabitating room in and overflowing near the Alpha/Beta impeller nodes and not its own distinct Room/Bays. In other words you cannot remove a hyper generator from a Destroyer and place Missile storage in same space without completely different Fusion room/Impeller installation.

I do not believe we have any nailed down definition of just exactly WHERE this ship part is either in any of the books other than the "hypergenerator was damaged" or some such down in Engineering.

Can anyone think of a clearer reference? Can't find any pearls on TFI

EDIT: The obvious: Hyper generators interact with Warshawki sails coming out of the Alpha Impellers so does this also mean the hyper generator is part of the Alpha Impeller nodes? Uh, did not Colony ships use Warshawki sails before impellers nodes? Or do I have that backwards... ? Hrmm answer should be in Appendix at end of The Short Victorious War I am thinking...

I don't think hyper generators directly interact with Warshawski sails. Ships used hyper for about half a century [first hyper generator was 725 PD if the wiki timeline is to be believed] before impellers were invented [1246 PD], and that slightly predates the sail [1273 PD]. Though we're told that cracking a hyper wall while under sail does help stabilize the transition.

I always envisioned the hyper generator being being more centrally located in the ship. Though since we know they can extend their effects well beyond the hull I guess there's no particular reason it needs to be near the center - they can clearly create a sufficiently large area of effect to cover the whole snip no mater where they're located.


I also can't recall any passage or pearl that explicitly mentions their location.

Though, FWIW, I just thought to look at the SITS ship books, for the Honorverse tabletop combat game. They have hit tables for each ship showing what gets damaged based on where rolled dice show a shot hits, and I'm assuming the cell marked 'hyp' is the hyper generator; though I don't actually have the rule books to confirm that. In any case they consistently have that 'hyp' cell located dead in the center of each ship (halfway down the length and halfway up the height (though the hit tables are 2D, so we can only guess as to how far back from the broadside the items are). However even if I'm reading them correctly I don't know if that location is based on cannon from RFC or just how it balanced well for gameplay.

cthia wrote:For an anti-LAC, I imagine the difference is maneuverability, more of a dogfighter? Or are the differences something other or in addition to that? Like bow walls? At any rate, I don't think a higher top speed is the main difference of a Katana?

The main difference actually seems to be be weapons fit. The Katana does have fractionally better acceleration; but nothing significant. HoS give its design acceleration as 640.4 g, compared to 635.5/635.8 g for the Shrike/Ferret.
However a) that's less than a 1% improvement, and b) even that seems to be primarily due to being designs about 3 years later and having a slightly better compensator available when the design was finalized.

Most Shrikes/Ferrets have also been upgraded and don't sport the outdated compensator from their original design period. The actual acceleration advantage of the nearly identically sized Katana (1m shorter and 9% lighter than a Shrike) should be less that 1g higher acceleration if using equivalent compensators.
So their acceleration or maneuvering advantage is negligible.



The big difference is that its entire missile loadout is the anti-LAC Viper missiles (based off the Mk31 CM, but with a single rod laser-head added). It even uses those for anti-missile intercepts. Also I think because those missiles are smaller that the small anti-ship missiles the Ferret and (in smaller numbers) the Shrikes carry I believe it carries more missiles that either. Those have about half the range of a normal SDM anti-ship missiles (just 3.5 million km from rest) but they cover that distance far sooner, just 75 seconds, and have a higher terminal velocity - so once in range they're harder for a LAC's point defense to stop. And it's energy weapons loadout is also optimized for killing LACs - its offensive energy weapons are a trio of point defense laser clusters off an SD. Too light weight and short ranged to be particularly effective against a DD or larger, they're powerful enough to wreck an unarmored LAC (most of which also have pretty weak sidewalls) and the rapid targeting and high cyclic rate help kill enemy LACs if they try to blow past the Katanas in a high speed pass to reach the targets beyond the Katana screen.

cthia wrote:But what I meant is that ejecting the hyper generator can make removing it rather painless, if it is designed as such. And of course, retrieving it should be a piece of cake, and then tractors can reinstall it if it is designed as a modular system.

But you haven't given a reason why a ship would have a hyper generator emergency ejection system in the first place.

cthia wrote:But, a larger LAC could offer more room for goodies that could make up for any compromises made of a single homogenous unit.

There's a size threshold where it no longer makes sense. At that point, it becomes a HAC and David was clear such a thing will not exist. Among other reasons (and you should read his), I suspect that the additional cost of adding a hyper generator is worth it because it gives you much better flexibility. So you no longer have a corvette, but instead a destroyer.

The RMN rushed new LAC technologies onto the playing field. Their mission was totally unproved. I don't think they had the time to be fancy by designing a single unproved LAC trying out unproven LAC tactics. But now?

What do you mean by rushed? They'd been in development (Project Anzio, part of Project Gram) for two decades. Honor took some of them with her to Silesia aboard Wayfarer. I suspect more tests happened "off camera" too, before Truman got the Minotaur and the first real LAC wings.

I'll grant you that they only became really usable after the improved compensators and the tiny fission cores from Grayson, but those studies started in 1904. The most obvious use of a compact power generator is in compact ships, where space is at a premium.

Do forgive the double post. My homework is piling up right after I rediscovered the great outdoors. Did all of you know there's a thing called a sun outside???

Whaaaa? You mean the "big blue room with the yellow light?"

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:But what I meant is that ejecting the hyper generator can make removing it rather painless, if it is designed as such. And of course, retrieving it should be a piece of cake, and then tractors can reinstall it if it is designed as a modular system.

But you haven't given a reason why a ship would have a hyper generator emergency ejection system in the first place.

Let's slow down a bit.

The gist of it is that the Wiki says the hyper generator consumes a LOT of space. So much so that the Frigate is literally useless because the hyper generator consumes way too much space for that size ship.

Yet, if that volume can be quickly reclaimed by being an ejectable module, then the volume becomes available for missiles. And if the missiles can also be contained on a slip-in module, even a Frigate should be made vastly more effective.

So, I'm not talking about an emergency ejection but a convenient one. The Frigate can be reconfigured after it enters another system. A warship doesn't need a hyper generator during battle. It is consuming valuable space. Reconfigure it on the spot. Tractors can handle the reinstall of the hyper generator module. Tractors can also handle the install of an interchangeable pod module.

But, like a car engine it would be a lot faster to reinstall a new engine if the existing engine can be quickly jettisoned. OMG how that capability would help a Nascar.

****** *

It's NOT a big blue room with a yellow light. It's a Sun I tell you! I actually remained outside long enough to make sure!

cthia wrote:Let's slow down a bit.

The gist of it is that the Wiki says the hyper generator consumes a LOT of space. So much so that the Frigate is literally useless because the hyper generator consumes way too much space for that size ship.

Yet, if that volume can be quickly reclaimed by being an ejectable module, then the volume becomes available for missiles. And if the missiles can also be contained on a slip-in module, even a Frigate should be made vastly more effective.

So, I'm not talking about an emergency ejection but a convenient one. The Frigate can be reconfigured after it enters another system. A warship doesn't need a hyper generator during battle. It is consuming valuable space. Reconfigure it on the spot. Tractors can handle the reinstall of the hyper generator module. Tractors can also handle the install of an interchangeable pod module.

So you're talking about a modular design, where the part can be swapped out by something else. That could certainly make sense, but remember that there's an overhead in having the swappability in the first place. Moreover, it's likely to be a yard job, so a frigate needs to be in a system with a decent and friendly yard in order to do that in the first place. At best, I could see a "hot-swapping" done by a fleet service vessel or repair vessel in one shift (6 hours). Any faster than that is simply not likely given everything we know about the power requirements of a hyper generator.

That would mean the frigate needs to be in a fairly major system of its home government and can't be used to project power or chase pirates back to their lair. Not that I'd expect anyone to want to project power with a frigate anyway -- the RTN does that only because they don't have bigger ships and they're going against commercial shipping, not other warships.

To secure a less important system, the frigate would need to be accompanied by an FSV so that could make the swapping for the duration of the frigate's station. It can't leave until another FSV comes along to reinstall the hyper generators. That means the admiralty can't simply send another ship to relieve it, since this one can't come back. It has to send two ships: one to relieve and the FSV to reinstall the hypergenerator.

All for what gain? A frigate is lightly-armed and lightly-armoured, but it probably costs in personnel as much as a destroyer. Any threats it can deal with can probably be dealt with by LACs or even customs cutters in the first place, whereas a if a visiting pirate showed up with a destroyer, it would be outmatched. It might be evenly matched if a pirate showed up with a frigate of their own or a handful of armed corsairs (commercial ships with bolted-on weaponry), but "evenly matched" is not good for defence. I say that having a wing of LACs deters as much or more, has more flexibility, and less cost.

Maybe this would make sense for a cash-strapped backwater system that is itself in a fairly secure region. Say like New Tuscany, which being neighbour to the Talbott Quadrant, shouldn't see a rise in piracy in the first place, so it could order a pair of IKEA frigates (some assembly required) that it could install a hyper generator on if it needed to send a warship somewhere for some reason.

But, like a car engine it would be a lot faster to reinstall a new engine if the existing engine can be quickly jettisoned. OMG how that capability would help a Nascar.

I don't know anything about Nascar. In Formula 1, the engine can be replaced. Not hot-swapped during a race, of course. It's a multi-hour job and has been known to happen overnight: a driver whose car had an engine failure on qualifying on Saturday might be able to participate on the Sunday race with a different engine or part of a new engine installed on the same chassis -- not a different car. There's no need to do design for hot-swapping during a race because there's absolutely no way it can be done in time to be useful. A Formula 1 pit stop is measured in seconds: 2.5 seconds is a good stop, whereas 3.5 is bad. Changing a nose cone usually means a 5-8 second stop, which is catastrophic, but the driver can rejoin the race. An engine swap would need to take at MOST 30 seconds to be useful. Any longer than that you may as well retire from the race and save the cost.

It's NOT a big blue room with a yellow light. It's a Sun I tell you! I actually remained outside long enough to make sure!

Lies! Now let me go back to my couch with a nice cup of coffee and figure out what I'm going to read next. I've got a couple of samples on the Kindle, but I might actually start with the Culture series (Iain M. Banks).

cthia wrote:Let's slow down a bit.

The gist of it is that the Wiki says the hyper generator consumes a LOT of space. So much so that the Frigate is literally useless because the hyper generator consumes way too much space for that size ship.

Yet, if that volume can be quickly reclaimed by being an ejectable module, then the volume becomes available for missiles. And if the missiles can also be contained on a slip-in module, even a Frigate should be made vastly more effective.

So, I'm not talking about an emergency ejection but a convenient one. The Frigate can be reconfigured after it enters another system. A warship doesn't need a hyper generator during battle. It is consuming valuable space. Reconfigure it on the spot. Tractors can handle the reinstall of the hyper generator module. Tractors can also handle the install of an interchangeable pod module.

Sounds like a FF with a single missile pod. A FF(P)?

Asked and answered.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:I can't help thinking that the design of the Frigate is what a LAC would be if it had a hyper generator, so says the Wiki. The hyper generator consumes too much space for the design to be useful. Removing the hypergenerator from a Frigate allows the platform to be turned into a LAC?

But, I was thinking how small the Frigate is, and perhaps a design can be made to easily swap out the hypergenerator quite readily and use the space for pods. That would be a new variant of LAC? Less maneuverable but missile heavy. But able to quickly be turned into a hypercapable warship. Can sails be designed to be an add on?

Why isn't there a DD(P)?

Why isn't there a DD(P)? SIZE!

Pretty sure a DD is too small to run missile pod rails out to the hammerhead given the chokepoint formed by the aft impeller rooms (which form a ring inboard of the aft impellers).
Even the Roland, huge for a DD, has 10% the volume of an Agamemnon-class BC(P) and those can barely squeeze 4 pod rails through that hole. A Roland struggles to fit 6 missile tubes, which would take up maybe 50-60% the cross section of a podrail.

You might be able to squeeze in a broadside or ventral launch bay for pods; but those areas are full of important things so you'd really compromise the ship's other combat abilities to squeeze a few pods in.

As for trying to fit one into a LAC - the pod has approximately the same cross section at the LAC does. Not going to happen. No way no how.
A Shrike or Ferret is 72m x 20m x 20m while a Pod appears to be 20m x 20m x 5m

Plus a frigate is over twice the tonnage of a modern LAC and being build like a normal ship, around 10 times the volume. (LACs are super dense in no small part because much of their equipment is designed to be maintained more like an aircraft or shuttle than a ship; with much of their equipment only being servicable from the outside by removing access panels - whereas Frigates are just small warships and so everything can be accessed and maintained from the inside. Plus Frigates need far, far, more room for fuel and stores as they're designed for long range patrols of months while LACs aren't)

And no, adding a sail wouldn't be a trivial drop in upgrade. An Alpha node, needed to generate a sail, is far larger than the Beta Squared nodes that modern LACs use. And I think (but am not 100% sure) that the impeller mechanisms within the hull are also proportionately larger.


This idea simply doesn't work because none of the relative sizes make any sense.

cthia wrote:I wasn't claiming that a Frigate's reactor is jettisonable, but rather that it is the smaller warships which tend to have the capability. I don't see a reason that single reactor ships should not include the capability simply because there is only one reactor. It could buy some time to get everyone off the ship, or at least some people. There isn't enough life pods anyway, even for evacuations. The crew can die many different ways.

But what I meant is that ejecting the hyper generator can make removing it rather painless, if it is designed as such. And of course, retrieving it should be a piece of cake, and then tractors can reinstall it if it is designed as a modular system.

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Hyper generators are relatively large, so the same challenge applies to being able to jettison one: What parts of the little ship's superstructure are you got to have to also dump if the engineering layout isn't already configured such that there is a "relatively" clear of important things that the generator can be ejected from- including the exterior hull section because your not going to have that hinged on one side, its going to be some sort of blow-out plate with explosives to cut the whole and another batch to pop it out of the way.

So you have some serious structural problems- self induced and for the most part we have seen problems with hyper-generators do to battle damage and if you can't fix it fast you had best hitch for your crew with a friend because your opponents are going to be coming for you.

If your intending (when ?) to retrieve the hyper-generator why did you think you want to eject it in the first place? If the thing is going to explode and you are trying to get rid of it, there is a really great likely hood that it's already damaged beyond repair and might have some scrap value but if you do get it out and it blow up there's nothing of it left to scrap.

Remember, this is Frigate....compaired to a DD, its an eggshell with some teeth and speed....but not going to absorb much in the way of damage.

Brigade XO wrote:Remember, this is Frigate....compaired to a DD, its an eggshell with some teeth and speed....but not going to absorb much in the way of damage.

A frigate IS the exact same as a DD in terms of armor. They are both eggshells.
Difference is that DD's have more defensive/offensive suites than Frigates so they can take on system defense LAC's/LAC's with hypergenerators ~Frigates.
https://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/e ... ton/289/1/

Since the advent of the DDM/MDM, difference between Frigate/LAC has only increased. Then we have Pods being hauled by LAC's now which means that A frigate to carry same number of pods would have to have an even larger compensator for its displacement to hold said pods for going through hyperspace... assuming it even could.

So, Roland sized is truly minimum size for a DD now against a peer, and LAC's against a peer, have essentially turned into missile defense and have essentially lost their system defense ability. Why? MDM. If you send LAC's out on a vector to intercept, the attacker has already fired all their missiles at your infrastructure LONG before your LAC's can come even close to defend. Only at Terminus's are they valuable due to VERY shallow hyperlimit.

Of course DW/RFC/1st space lord has not unveiled a forts true defensive power for system defense, only showed pods with system attack "defense" MDM.... The CM's PDLC ability for system defense is completely lacking in print. So, we can dream

cthia wrote:
The gist of it is that the Wiki says the hyper generator consumes a LOT of space. So much so that the Frigate is literally useless because the hyper generator consumes way too much space for that size ship.

Yet, if that volume can be quickly reclaimed by being an ejectable module, then the volume becomes available for missiles. And if the missiles can also be contained on a slip-in module, even a Frigate should be made vastly more effective.

So, I'm not talking about an emergency ejection but a convenient one. The Frigate can be reconfigured after it enters another system. A warship doesn't need a hyper generator during battle. It is consuming valuable space. Reconfigure it on the spot. Tractors can handle the reinstall of the hyper generator module. Tractors can also handle the install of an interchangeable pod module.

Well I'd say, as isn't uncommon, the Wiki is slightly off. The hyper generator volume alone isn't why a frigate is useless.

Their extra size over a LAC means that they're easier for missiles to target and look more interesting to stray missiles; plus seem more worth deliberately targeting with anti-ship missiles. They've got enough extra size to make them more of a target, but not enough to carry sufficient additional defenses to overcome that. And the amount of defenses they can have is more a function of surface area than it is volume - so even swapping out the hyper-generator doesn't give you the ability to mount noticeable more defenses.

And it's not just the hyper generator that's driving the extra size. As a starship they have to be built around longer missions (it takes time to transit between the stars) and need to be able to maintain their systems while on those missions. They need far more in the way of crew comfort, stores, and health/exercise than a LAC (at least a modern LAC[1]) does. The LAC can leave the med-bay, the gym, most of the kitchen and pantry, maintenance ship and even maintenance access corridors back on its base or CLAC. But a frigate needs all those things as even round-trip to a target might take you a couple months; where-as the LAC is normally away from base for less than a week and often less than a couple days. Plus in addition to the hyper drive a frigate has to carry a an alpha + beta ring of impellers both fore and aft; so it's got a lot more mass and volume devoted to impellers (and impeller rooms) than the LAC with its single ring of Beta-squared nodes fore and matching single ring aft. And to power the hyper-generator and extra impellers a frigate needs a fusion plant, it can't get away with the fission reactor the LACs can. And given the inefficiency of lower output GRAVMAK fusion reactors in the Honorverse that means it needs a lot more bunkerage for fuel than a LAC does.


Still, the hypergenerator might be the single biggest and most concentrated extra item a frigate needs to carry compared to a LAC (though fusion reactor + fuel combined could well be more); and its certainly the one it needs least once inside the hyper limit. So, if you could magically swap it for something more in-system combat oriented you could probably give the frigate a larger punch while it lasted - but it still wouldn't be all that useful except in a swarm.

The only reason the Torch frigates are somewhat useful is that they weren't primarily planned to be used against an actual navy -- they were designed for the anti-slavery league, to go after slavers or slave bases (which might have some armament but aren't first line warships) and Manticore released enough of their export grade tech that, for the moment, the frigates enjoy a significant (if temporary) tech edge over most people. (That lets them, for now, fight somewhat out of their weight class. But you're still looking at a ship that'd likely lose to most people's CAs; even if it might manage to deal with one of their CLs)

You'll note that even with access to all their bleeding edge tech toys Manticore had no interest in building frigates for themselves; and is instead exploring the idea of significantly increasing the minimum size of anything that isn't a LAC.



Anyway, I'm not actually convinced you could actually do this quick swap at all, or that the volume you'd get back by dumping the hyper generator would free up enough space for even a single pod's worth of missiles. But for the sake of argument let's explore what it'd mean if you could.



Even if you can swap the hyper generator in the field, you've got a ship that's more expensive than a LAC, more vulnerable than a LAC, and if it's going to do this hyper-general swap trick that needs to be accompanied by another ship large enough to bring along the module that replaces the hyperdrive. All that to convert a frigate temporarily into a Corvette/HAC - which can't easily retreat under fire because it'd have to swap back for its hyper generator while under fire.

If you've got to sent a freighter or something to haul the swappable module along for this weird frigate/corvette hybrid then why bother building it in the first place? Just use that same freighter to haul in a couple LACs and some pods for them to tow (IIRC they can tow one at reduced accel in reasonable stealth or three if they don't care about hiding). That gives you a more survivable punch using your existing hardware - and once the LACs fire or ditch the towed pod they're quicker and more survivable than a frigate sized starship (even one that's temporarily not a starship as it's lacking its hyperdrive).

One of the big advantages of a hyper equipped warship is it can deploy itself into and out of a target system; it doesn't need another ship there to help it out. But your convertible concept means that in their normal combat operations you would still need that other ship to bring in the swappable modules. So if that other ship's going to be there anyway then might as well not bother with hyperdrives on the warships in the first place and let that extra ship just bring the non-hyper warship(s) too.


[1] Older LACs, like those from the beginning of the series, were built far more like scaled down starships and seem to have had more of those facilities and onboard/internal maintenance capabilities. Which must be a significant part why ton for ton, or volume for volume, they were so much less combat capable than the Shrike/Ferret style LACs. They were designed to be more self-sufficient and less base supported, even if they had to come back to refuel far more often