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Tacit Ronin: The Power of Three

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Nixeu said:
...Why are we not just making the carrier we have already into something able to fill that role, though? Because I feel the need to point out that the token is for aircraft carriers, and not Jaeger carriers. Whereas we could quite easily repurpose the hull into a mobile Jaeger repair base, the same way we repurposed the PT boats into support vessels. That's the main purpose we want a "super carrier" for. Which the Nimitz already is. That's literally the name of its class of warship. And we're certainly not so strapped for cash that we need to scrap it to repair the jets. We just got another 15k R from raiding Kitsap.
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...oops. I'll just quickly edit the token, since it should probably reflect the actual ship you'd be dismantling/examining. I just don't know boats well, and so thought "the Nimitz is a carrier, right? Yeah, Aircraft Carrier sounds good" when writing the token.

Edit: also, it looks like everyone's onboard with fixing the Hornets, but I'll still wait a while longer for votes on the other things, and total confirmation on keeping the Hornets.
 
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Fyrstorm said:
...oops. I'll just quickly edit the token, since it should probably reflect the actual ship you'd be dismantling/examining. I just don't know boats well, and so thought "the Nimitz is a carrier, right? Yeah, Aircraft Carrier sounds good" when writing the token.
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It's understandable. It's actually something of a layman's term, mostly used by news outlets and military history buffs who want to distinguish current carriers from past ones by comparing size. But it does make it more clear we're talking about something that's 1,000+ feet long (~333 meters), with a displacement of ~100,000 tons. So, like 4x as long as Gypsy Danger is tall. If altered properly, it should be more than capable of transporting a Jaeger, or even two at a stretch.
 
[X] Scrap the Carrier! (+7500 Resources, +1 Bremerton Token (Aircraft Carriers), no Nimitz for you)
[X] Fix the Hornets! (-4500 Resources, +3 F-18 Hornet Squadrons)
[X] On second though, better do some extra therapy first. (Ashley does not pilot Tacit Ronin this week, roll 1d10 for extra therapy.)
 
Look, unless you guys want a carrier submarine, scrapping the Nimitz-Class is damn near equivalent to repairing it, except less reliable and probably more expensive. I don't anticipate us being able to greatly exceed the Nimitz's size or displacement without a hell of a lot of work. It's pretty much the heaviest and largest warship on the seas right now IRL, as the Ford-class is more of an equipment upgrade than anything else. So, at most, the token gives us something of comparable size, assuming no 1s are rolled to botch the research. And then we have to build the damn thing, which will likely cost us significantly more than repairs would cost. It's just not worth it. A refit is the way to go here.

As much as I hate pulling the "I'm the Rear Admiral" card, I would really like it if you guys would take my opinion here into consideration. I'm kinda the one who has actually looked at the stats involved. Not only was my hope going in to get an aircraft carrier and refit it into a Jaeger carrier, getting a Nimitz-Class ship is effectively the best possible outcome, short of Fyr outright handing us a Jaeger carrier. I'd really rather not waste time reinventing the wheel. The token is worth significantly less to us than the hull. Seriously, what exactly are you guys expecting out of any aircraft carrier we design ourselves from the ground up that couldn't be true of a refitted Nimitz-class?
 
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[X] Keep the Carrier! (+1 damaged Nimitz class Aircraft Carrier, in severe need of repairs and refitting)
[X] Fix the Hornets! (-4500 Resources, +3 F-18 Hornet Squadrons)
[X] Yo, Ashley, get in the robot! (Ashley pilots Tacit Ronin this week. Tacit Ronin may gain ???(+/-).)

Aight, sure.
 
[X] Keep the Carrier! (+1 damaged Nimitz class Aircraft Carrier, in severe need of repairs and refitting)
[X] Fix the Hornets! (-4500 Resources, +3 F-18 Hornet Squadrons)
[X] Yo, Ashley, get in the robot! (Ashley pilots Tacit Ronin this week. Tacit Ronin may gain ???(+/-).)

Fuck it, okay but I'm not budging on putting Ashley in Tacit
 
[X] Keep the Carrier! (+1 damaged Nimitz class Aircraft Carrier, in severe need of repairs and refitting)
[X] Fix the Hornets! (-4500 Resources, +3 F-18 Hornet Squadrons)
[X] On second though, better do some extra therapy first. (Ashley does not pilot Tacit Ronin this week, roll 1d10 for extra therapy.)
 
So, just so people have an idea of what will fit, the Nimitz's hanger deck is 209 meters long, 34 meters wide, and 8 meters tall. Going by the schematic picture of Gipsy Danger, Jaegers are roughly 80 meters tall, probably about 25 meters wide, and perhaps 12 meters front to back on their torso. I believe that the most practical way to refit the carrier will be to add height to the hanger deck, install giant doors in the flight deck, and redesign at least half of the hangar deck into a cradle Jaegers lay down on, like on the Skadi, except with additional repair and fabrication equipment. We can either take a Jaeger and perhaps 6 squadrons of aircraft, or maybe fit in two jaegers. If we are willing to leave aircraft exposed on the flight deck, we could fit more aircraft squadrons, but that would likely impede the deployment of carried Jaegers (Since the aircraft would have to launch so the Jaegers can get out of the hanger deck).
 
[X] Keep the Carrier! (+1 damaged Nimitz class Aircraft Carrier, in severe need of repairs and refitting)
[X] Fix the Hornets! (-4500 Resources, +3 F-18 Hornet Squadrons)
[X] Yo, Ashley, get in the robot! (Ashley pilots Tacit Ronin this week. Tacit Ronin may gain ???(+/-).)
 
[X] Scrap the Carrier! (+7500 Resources, +1 Bremerton Token (Aircraft Carriers), no Nimitz for you)
[X] Fix the Hornets! (-4500 Resources, +3 F-18 Hornet Squadrons)
[X] On second though, better do some extra therapy first. (Ashley does not pilot Tacit Ronin this week, roll 1d10 for extra therapy.)

The carrier is fine but I'd rather have the chance to build them instead of depending on a one off. Also, we might be able to build non-supercarriers carriers along the way, would be great for a cheap water deployment ability for autogyros.

The hornets... Yeah, let's hold on to them and see if we can make those engines live longer than a single flight.

As for Ashley... Well, Fyr has his way of thinking that is certainly different from my own, but when I look at the situation I see a potential weighing towards a negative perk. Let's not stick someone in a robot after a traumatic experience and recovery right away.

As much Super Robot PR is, we do know from canon that death can be very Real Robot style.
 
Lone Courier 6 said:
It's a risk to be sure, but we might not even get a trait, or the trait could be positive, two good outcomes, one bad, odds are in our favor here
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That depends on how many iterations of the "negative trait" outcome are in that roll of the dice. If it's "6 on a D6 gives a positive trait, 5 gives no trait at all, everything else gives various negative traits" then I don't want it.

[X] Keep the Carrier! (+1 damaged Nimitz class Aircraft Carrier, in severe need of repairs and refitting)
[X] Fix the Hornets! (-4500 Resources, +3 F-18 Hornet Squadrons)
[X] On second though, better do some extra therapy first. (Ashley does not pilot Tacit Ronin this week, roll 1d10 for extra therapy.)

HolyDragoon said:
The carrier is fine but I'd rather have the chance to build them instead of depending on a one off. Also, we might be able to build non-supercarriers carriers along the way, would be great for a cheap water deployment ability for autogyros.
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Repairing it should give us some insight into how to build a new carrier, albeit less than dismantling it for reverse-engineering would. We'd need to do research actions either way; the only thing dismantling it would accomplish would be giving us a slightly better bonus to succeeding at them.

I wouldn't mind researching smaller carriers later, of course, but right now my priority is to get a working carrier, and I believe attempting to repair the Nimitz is our best bet at accomplishing that quickly.
 
[X] Keep the Carrier! (+1 damaged Nimitz class Aircraft Carrier, in severe need of repairs and refitting)
[X] Fix the Hornets! (-4500 Resources, +3 F-18 Hornet Squadrons)
[X] Yo, Ashley, get in the robot! (Ashley pilots Tacit Ronin this week. Tacit Ronin may gain ???(+/-).)

Edit: @Fyrstorm question: what is it about the atmosphere that interferes with the engines, again?
 
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Not to mention that said particulate is electromagnetic, and Iblis' global EMP basically kicked the atmosphere into a semi-perpetual storm.
 
Hm. Would a ramjet be able to fly in the atmosphere? Since no blades to be choked by the particulate.
 
I kinda wanna research some form of magnetic propulsion all of a sudden... That sounds pretty complicated, though, even if it's a viable research path.
 
Unless something dramatic changes, it looks like we'll be keeping the carrier and fixing up the Hornets... that really just leaves the decision on whether or not to deploy Ashley, but I can wait until tomorrow to declare final votes on that and stuff.
 
Hm... ramjets are bad for most of what we use our planes for, though. Ramjets really wanna be running at mach+ or so, figher/bomber operations kinda... don't. Maybe scouting drones?
 
LostDeviljho said:
Hm... ramjets are bad for most of what we use our planes for, though. Ramjets really wanna be running at mach+ or so, figher/bomber operations kinda... don't. Maybe scouting drones?
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While ramjets aren't great for that, a tesla valved pulse jet is more or less perfect for this, and has just as few moving parts, none.

This means that if we first research tesla valve pulsejets, we should be able to get something which allows our planes to stay in the air as long as their fuel lasts, at the cost of limiting them to at best Mach 0.8, probably more like Mach 0.6.

This in enough itself would be a fair trade off, but with an additional research action, it is one we will not have to make. This is because it is theoretically possible to create a pulse jet-ramjet hybrid, which acts as a pulse jet at low velocity, and a ramjet at high velocity.

This would allow our aircraft to keep most of the the high top speed and good low-speed handling characteristics that they currently possess, while also allowing them to fly with less maintenance then before the atmosphere got filled with dust.

In conclusion:
Tesla valve pulse jets and ramjet-pulse jet hybrids can get us viable jet aircraft, with equivalent performance and less maintenance to modern aircraft, at the cost of 2 successful research actions.

(I apologize for the excessive use of holding, but feel that the emphasis is needed.)
 
[X] Keep the Carrier! (+1 damaged Nimitz class Aircraft Carrier, in severe need of repairs and refitting)
[X] Fix the Hornets! (-4500 Resources, +3 F-18 Hornet Squadrons)
[X] On second though, better do some extra therapy first. (Ashley does not pilot Tacit Ronin this week, roll 1d10 for extra therapy.)

I'll concede to @Nixeu 's request but not on getting more therapy for Ashley.
 
[X] Keep the Carrier! (+1 damaged Nimitz class Aircraft Carrier, in severe need of repairs and refitting)
[X] Fix the Hornets! (-4500 Resources, +3 F-18 Hornet Squadrons)
[X] On second though, better do some extra therapy first. (Ashley does not pilot Tacit Ronin this week, roll 1d10 for extra therapy.)
 
[X] Keep the Carrier! (+1 damaged Nimitz class Aircraft Carrier, in severe need of repairs and refitting)
[X] Fix the Hornets! (-4500 Resources, +3 F-18 Hornet Squadrons)
[X] On second though, better do some extra therapy first. (Ashley does not pilot Tacit Ronin this week, roll 1d10 for extra therapy.)
 
So, having done some research in my capacity as Air Force General, I have learned:
  • Ramjets are bad for our uses because they really don't operate well below Mach 2, or at all below like Mach 0.5.
  • Pulsejets are bad because they don't actually beat out rockets on efficiency very well, if at all.
    • both of the above have major fuel economy issues.
  • Anything air breathing is going to have issues with the particulate atmosphere, moving parts or no, because of erosion. Flying things don't like particulates, full stop. The faster it is, the more of an issue.
  • The US military actually does have turbine engines designed to function in heavy particulate environs, because they're designed to be able to operate in the likes of Iraq, where the star wars sand memes are a truism.
    • whether our superbugs have those is a toss-up, because we got them from a pacific naval base, but they do exist.
    • I was linked a document about helicopter turboshaft engines regarding this. it's a chonky read and the URL is pure cancer, but:
      The upshot seems to be "you can deal with it but it takes some doing and you'll probably end up either heavier, losing some engine power, or both" when it comes to turbine engines, and you rally need to have an engineering team do the thing for you
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  • It was suggested we look into trying to find some Russian engines, because those are built with heavy particulate ingestion in mind. (The exact words were "Russian engines have a reputation for being able to potentially suck in literal riverbeds and not really care", but I don't know how inflated the reputation actually is, beyond reasonable certainty that it is.)
 
LostDeviljho said:
Pulsejets are bad because they don't actually beat out rockets on efficiency very well, if at all.
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While their efficiency is bad, it's not that bad.

Besides, the engines would only be run in pulse jet mode for takeoff, landing, or once the destination has been reached.

In the first two cases it will only be running for a brief period of time to manage the transition between on the ground and supersonic flight.

Once it reaches the target it will only need to keep the aircraft moving above its stall speed, meaning it will require vastly less thrust and as a result consume a comparable amount of fuel to a normal jet engine.

LostDeviljho said:
Anything air breathing is going to have issues with the particulate atmosphere, moving parts or no, because of erosion. Flying things don't like particulates, full stop. The faster it is, the more of an issue.
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While this is true, there are simply less things that can go wrong in either a ramjet or a valveless pulse jet (which a tesla valve pulse jet technically is). Furthermore their failures are highly predictable from the rate at which they are eroding, while a turbo jet may very well seized up and fail unexpectedly mid flight.
 
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