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Traveller, The Rise of Empire: A Naval Design, Procurement and Command Quest

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Doubloon said:
I like the idea but I think something around 5000 tonnes would be better, if only because I don't want to eat our entire shipbuilding capacity on one boat.
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The largest craft known to us is 4K. With the monitor being just 5K it's just an evolution of our SDDs. That said, I can see the argument for hogging yard space and extending production times. Perhaps something around 6K to 7K?
Briefvoice said:
[X] A class of modular defence stations that can also be shipped (in parts) to allied systems.
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I think it might be too early for those. First, at the moment we can transport just 500 tonne segments per jump and that this ties up the cargo ships that would otherwise be trading. Second, it would look bad if we build them in S'taxu or Xyri. Having ships there is one thing, but permanent stations would be harder to swallow.

@Coyote Niff An offensive design? That's unexpected, given that we don't want to be that aggressive. Plus, it would make us break our doctrine.
 
Magnificate said:
The largest craft known to us is 4K. With the monitor being just 5K it's just an evolution of our SDDs. That said, I can see the argument for hogging yard space and extending production times. Perhaps something around 6K to 7K?
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We can always do halfsies as well and do 6.5k just to eek out extra internal space for things like point defense. I think we should consider what armament such a monitor would have given it's going to be a defensive focused ship as well as most likely fight outnumbered more often than not.
 
Maxin_inc said:
We can always do halfsies as well and do 6.5k just to eek out extra internal space for things like point defense. I think we should consider what armament such a monitor would have given it's going to be a defensive focused ship as well as most likely fight outnumbered more often than not.
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I think that depends on whether we expect these Monitors to fight alone or as centrepieces of Interstellar Cruiser formations. I'd lean towards the latter. I'd keep Particle weapons as our mainstay, it's something our guys are familiar with and so far their performance in combat is excellent. The weapon list the QM provided has Shockwave missiles. These are anti-sand and since sand counters our particle beams we might want to have countermeasures. In addition, Particle Beams are long-ranged, but I assume this Monitor is going to be slower than the Cruisers, so it'll need some close-ranged weapon to use in emergencies. Perhaps Mass Drivers?
 
Magnificate said:
@Coyote Niff An offensive design? That's unexpected, given that we don't want to be that aggressive. Plus, it would make us break our doctrine.
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As noted, this is an expeditionary rather than explicitly offensive design-it takes the escort duties of the Quarrel and Crossbow proposals and supercharges them. The idea is to have a ship that can fly further and do more than a Cruiser, explicitly to intervene and defend Scout and Surveyor missions as we travel into deep space-the whole design is built around preventing another Heimdall Disaster. The orbital and infantry assets incorporated in the design are identical to those of the earlier Crossbow escort destroyer-just enlarged for an additional 2200 tons hull space.
 
Coyote Niff said:
The idea is to have a ship that can fly further and do more than a Cruiser, explicitly to intervene and defend Scout and Surveyor missions as we travel into deep space-the whole design is built around preventing another Heimdall Disaster.
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But, there's no FTL communication. If something happens during scouting missions, there's no way for us to respond to that until someone brings the message to us. It worked out in S-taxu, because that's just one jump away, but further than that mobilizing our fleet isn't going to be as fast. That said, if we do want to respond to some crisis further away, we've already got options for that in the form of Interstellar Cruisers plus Flotilla Support Ship. Granted, we're missing the marines, but building 3K designs just for that seems wasteful to me.
 
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Magnificate said:
I think that depends on whether we expect these Monitors to fight alone or as centrepieces of Interstellar Cruiser formations. I'd lean towards the latter. I'd keep Particle weapons as our mainstay, it's something our guys are familiar with and so far their performance in combat is excellent. The weapon list the QM provided has Shockwave missiles. These are anti-sand and since sand counters our particle beams we might want to have countermeasures. In addition, Particle Beams are long-ranged, but I assume this Monitor is going to be slower than the Cruisers, so it'll need some close-ranged weapon to use in emergencies. Perhaps Mass Drivers?
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I dunno I was just thinking that if these things are acting as capital ships as well as system defense ships it should have the assumption that it has the chance of being caught out alone or have its more fragile escorts whittled down.

I think a mix of Particle Weapons, Shock Missiles and Mass Drivers seems the way to go as well.

EDIT: I do support the idea of fitting it with drop tanks for jumps, even if it's just enough to allow it 2 parsec jumps so it can jump into nearby combat and then jump out since that doesn't compromise it's mission statement of being a defensive stance ship.
 
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Magnificate said:
But, there's no FTL communication. If something happens during scouting missions, there's no way for us to respond to that until someone brings the message to us. It worked out in S-taxu, because that's just one jump away, but further than that mobilizing our fleet isn't going to be as fast. That said, if we do want to respond to some crisis further away, we've already got options for that in the form of Interstellar Cruisers plus Flotilla Support Ship. Granted, we're missing the marines, but building 3K designs just for that seems wasteful to me.
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Yeah I agree with this, I really do not see what this new design would do that our cruisers don't already do. We don't currently need yet another offensive tool, I much prefer the Monitor idea.
 
OK, let me finalize my vote then:

[X] Two
[X] Two - Taking over three years to complete
[X] Write-In: Monitor, 6500 tonnes, one jump
-[X] Intended as semi-mobile defensive warship, prioritizing in-system operations, with primary armament consisting of particle beams. Additional features might include shockwave missiles, mass drivers, perhaps even fuel drop tanks.
 
Magnificate said:
OK, let me finalize my vote then:

[X] Two
[X] Two - Taking over three years to complete
[X] Write-In: Monitor, 6500 tonnes, one jump
-[X] Intended as semi-mobile defensive warship, prioritizing in-system operations, with primary armament consisting of particle beams. Additional features might include shockwave missiles, mass drivers, perhaps even fuel drop tanks.
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I'll agree on this, though I think we can also edit in the desire to directly influence the expansion of space in our drydocks.

[X] Two
[X] Two - Taking over three years to complete
[X] Write-In: Monitor, 6500 tonnes, one jump
-[X] Intended as semi-mobile defensive warship, prioritizing in-system operations, with primary armament consisting of particle beams. Additional features might include shockwave missiles, mass drivers, perhaps even fuel drop tanks.
--[X] In conjunction push for the expansion of drydock space by another 6,500 tons in order to increase Naval construction capacity to meet our 70/30 fleet goal, the Navy will also be willing to negotiate down to at minimum another 3,500 tons drydock space if it's absolutely necessary.
 
[X] Two
[X] Two - Taking over three years to complete
[X] Write-In: Monitor, 6500 tonnes, one jump
-[X] Intended as semi-mobile defensive warship, prioritizing in-system operations, with primary armament consisting of particle beams. Additional features might include shockwave missiles, mass drivers, perhaps even fuel drop tanks.
--[X] In conjunction push for the expansion of drydock space by another 6,500 tons in order to increase Naval construction capacity to meet our 70/30 fleet goal, the Navy will also be willing to negotiate down to at minimum another 3,500 tons drydock space if it's absolutely necessary
 
Considering how staggeringly costly jump drives and fuel are to include in a design, do the monitors - which as noted are primarily intended for in-system use anyway - really need them? What's the use case for making a single one-parsec jump and then having no ability to return until refueled, and will it be a frequent enough need to justify the accompanying loss in per-ship capability?
 
I'm gonna nix the dockyard expansion. I've said before (but I'm not sure it made it into an update) but the military yard space is essentially what your population will support.
 
If we are gonna build a monitor I'd rather it be a true system monitor rather than us trying to kludge a jump engine into it. Space we can use for weapons and armor, tbh.
 
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Wiadi said:
Considering how staggeringly costly jump drives and fuel are to include in a design, do the monitors - which as noted are primarily intended for in-system use anyway - really need them? What's the use case for making a single one-parsec jump and then having no ability to return until refueled, and will it be a frequent enough need to justify the accompanying loss in per-ship capability?
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I think so. If we don't include jump drives or don't design an accompanying jump-tug these Monitors can defend Home and nothing else. If we include them, then it's possible to redeploy to S'taxu and Xyri, whom we want to have as our core allies. I suppose in time it might be possible to build them in those systems, but then it wouldn't be possible to concentrate forces. Overall, I think that given our existing fleet profile and expected tasks, one jump is the better than zero jumps.

That said, if we do go into more detailed design next update I'm not sure about the drop tanks. A monitor is not a long-range ship, plus these tanks would be noticeably less "wieldy". I think I'll decide after I see the proposed designs.
 
Magnificate said:
That said, if we do go into more detailed design next update I'm not sure about the drop tanks. A monitor is not a long-range ship, plus these tanks would be noticeably less "wieldy". I think I'll decide after I see the proposed designs.
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I wonder if we could manage something where the fuel storage is completely independent of the ship, like a little autonomous tender that's just a bunch of fuel tanks on a truss. Keep them in orbit around Home-3, fly over and dock to power a single Jump.
 
Magnificate said:
I think so. If we don't include jump drives or don't design an accompanying jump-tug these Monitors can defend Home and nothing else. If we include them, then it's possible to redeploy to S'taxu and Xyri, who we want to have as our core allies. I suppose in time it might be possible to build them in those systems, but then it wouldn't be possible to concentrate forces. Overall, I think that given our existing fleet profile and expected tasks, one jump is the better than zero jumps.
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Re: concentration of force, I think the lack of FTL comms and the possibility of ships jumping in at any point around a system combine to mean that we will never not want ships actively guarding Home proper. And given the pace of our diplomatic efforts so far, I think it's pretty unlikely that we'll be wanting to deploy defensive craft on behalf of Xyri or S'taxu in the immediate future.
 
Doubloon said:
I wonder if we could manage something where the fuel storage is completely independent of the ship, like a little autonomous tender that's just a bunch of fuel tanks on a truss. Keep them in orbit around Home-3, fly over and dock to power a single Jump.
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That won't work, because there'll be no way for the ship to return from its destination. That said, if we want to consider something radical then it might be possible to have an J-engine-zero-fuel design, that can dock directly with the Flotilla Supply Ship and use its stored fuel for jumping both ships to the nearby systems. It potentially saves 650 tonnes.
Wiadi said:
And given the pace of our diplomatic efforts so far, I think it's pretty unlikely that we'll be wanting to deploy defensive craft on behalf of Xyri or S'taxu in the immediate future.
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It'll take years to build even one of these monitors, so we've got time to step up our diplomatic game. The guys in S'taxu are building their point-defense ships and they'll soon request our Cruisers to stamp out the Junta.
 
Magnificate said:
It'll take years to build even one of these monitors, so we've got time to step up our diplomatic game. The guys in S'taxu are building their point-defense ships and they'll soon request our Cruisers to stamp out the Junta.
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I'll admit that my perspective here is partially colored by a distinct disinterest in going out of our way to help our "allies" in S'taxu with how our last round of negotiations went. They'll have the Cruisers as promised, but I'm deeply skeptical that they'll offer us anything good enough to pay for a permanent protection detail built out of our yard space. At least until/unless we manage to basically eat them, which won't be a quick process to say the least.
 
I mean, the way I see, if the Monitor has jump capability it also becomes a very useful offensive tool, that we can use to bring our immediate neighbours to heel if they get uppity. We can also jump it to the Deep Hope system, which is important both economically and logistically.
 
Pinniped said:
I mean, the way I see, if the Monitor has jump capability it also becomes a very useful offensive tool, that we can use to bring our immediate neighbours to heel if they get uppity. We can also jump it to the Deep Hope system, which is important both economically and logistically.
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I am extremely wary of using a ship with only one jump of fuel in an offensive capacity. "Victory or death" is a fine slogan but a terrible strategy.
 
Wiadi said:
I am extremely wary of using a ship with only one jump of fuel in an offensive capacity. "Victory or death" is a fine slogan but a terrible strategy.
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"Offensive" does not need to mean "jump into an active battlefield". It can also mean jumping into an area already secured by other forces, with plenty of time to refuel before any battle takes place. For example, if one of our neighbours/vassals/trade partners starts acting uppity, we could jump in the Monitor before war is declared. Either they back off due to the arrival of our new giant ship, or if the conflict is inevitable we have time to refuel the Monitor anyway.

Actually, come to think of it, even us just building a huge ship like the Monitor will likely increase our reputation and thus give us more soft power. Rumors of a huge ship stationed in our system will make others less willing to cross us.
 
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Wiadi said:
I am extremely wary of using a ship with only one jump of fuel in an offensive capacity. "Victory or death" is a fine slogan but a terrible strategy.
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To be honest until we get jump tugs being able to move them around even in a limited amount is still useful, I'd like to station one at Deep Home after all.
 
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