Considering that this is technically an OC ship, I've decided to compile the author notes into a description for what Epsi is equipped with, or at least is designed to be equipped with. I'm not a huge nerd for the navies so I can't be sure that this is reasonable, but I passed it through several people who are more into military technology than I am so it should be at least reasonable- ish. For the sake of reference, she is slightly larger than the current British carriers.
I also added notes on her expected performance as she might seem a bit overpowered for a world full of WW2 era ghost boats from numbers alone. Once again, it is not supposed to be a stomp fic. You can guesstimate how she should perform in the narrative from this.
You can consider the general performance of her gear to be vaguely comparable to IRL analogues of similar systems as it won't be reasonable to use raw numbers from the game. To paraphrase a comment that I've read about the CC2 carrier:
"We have a 6 shot tomahawk box launcher, an Oto Melara 76, a pair of Rapier launchers instead of something sane, four Phalanx mounts on the bow and stern, two sets of twin torp launchers off of a Clemson and a flare launcher strong enough to to turn night into day and skin cells into tumors. We fly fire scouts, some demented tiltrotor that does not tilt its rotors, MQ-9s and X-47B drones. We drop robot go-karts and four track tanks and also do artillery out the unclosing welldeck. Also we make 110 knots on waves tall enough to go mast down, someone hands helm a ham sandwich"
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ACC Epsilon DCVN-821 characteristics:
Type: Drone Aircraft Carrier Nuclear / Amphibious Assault Ship hybrid
Displacement: 80000 tons
Length: 285 m
Beam: 75 m (deck)
Height: 74 m
Draught: 12 m
Installed power: Two United Nuclear Engineering 950MWth molten salt cooled nuclear fission reactors, accepts Unat/SEU/LEU/Thorium fuels, four Draziw Industries 165 mw steam turbine electric generators, total electric output: 660 megawatts. Two backup 40 megawatt synfuel gas turbine generators
Propulsion: Full Electric Propulsion. Four Draziw Industries Advanced Superconducting Motors, 420000hp, four 300hp azimuth thrusters
Speed: 30 knots, up to 35 knots with significant system wear
Range: Effectively unlimited, 10-15 years without refueling depending on reactor load
Crew: 60 human command staff and specialist crew, 1400 sub-sapient bot personnel. Can be operated with skeleton crew of only one human operator
Armaments:
4x 76mm multipurpose guns in turrets below flight deck (basically Oto Melara 76 ripoffs in performance)
6x 20mm Coalition Dynamics Testudo CIWS
6x Polaris 750nm pulsed laser CIWS refit (for but not with)
4x Coalition Dynamics Estoc surface to air missile launcher, 4 IR missiles each
2x 180mm deck guns (10 rpm autoloader) in two hardpoints in front and behind the carrier island for anti surface and coastal bombardment roles
2x 180mm plasma armature railgun refit for deck guns (for but not with)
2x 8 cell Hammerhead cruise missile VLS boxes, nuke warhead option
2x dual torpedo launchers below the flight deck
Intelligence and ECM:
3x Broadband phased array radar
Passive and active sonar systems
Coalition Dynamics advanced ship ECM suite
Sonic pulse launcher (for but not with)
Universal countermeasures launcher (chaff, smoke)
"Noisemaker" torpedo decoy launchers
Towed torpedo decoys
Illumination flare launcher
Auxiliary equipment:
Synfuel production plant, produces fuel from water and atmosphere at the cost of high power demand, refines from other petrochemical sources
Autonomous engineering deck with multi-material metal sintering 3d printer array
Distributed remote operation and AI coordination server farm
Aircraft elevator
Well dock
NBC crew protection systems
Cryonics long term stasis facilities
"Hopper" lifeboats
Ship scuttling system, *confidential*
Armor: 70mm kevlar over vital areas, polyethylene radiation shielding filler, radar absorbing coating
Troop complement: 2000 "Corgi" marine bots in 40 AAVs, 30 other amphibious unmanned combat vehicles
Vehicle types:
- Seal: Light and fast but poorly armored amphibious UCGV. Has 2 support slots for countermeasures and one primary slot for either 30mm cannon, 40mm cannon, AA gun, missile launcher, radar array or bot deployer
- Walrus: well rounded 6 wheeled amphibious UCGV with decent armor. Has the same equipment as the Seal. Faster than the Seal on land but slower on water
- Bear: 20 ton amphibious UCGV light tank. Significantly slower than Walrus and Seal but much better armored. Has 2 support slots for countermeasures and a primary weapon which is either a 120mm tank gun or 125mm indirect fire artillery piece
- Mule: unarmed logistics and engineering vehicle, primarily carries fuel, ammunition and bots but can carry IR missiles
- Hinny: unmanned AAV, larger Mule variant specifically created to deploy large quantities of bot infantry. Tracked and carries a 20mm cannon.
- Corgi: marine bot infantry. Quadrupedal canine- like robot equipped with two heavy machine guns, a single ATGM launcher and two foldable manipulator arms
- Virus: marine bot engineer. Quadrupedal canine- like robot with two manipulator arms, cargo rack and a broadband data uplink
Aircraft carried: Up to 70 drone aircraft of either type in hangar deck, 4x magnetic catapults capable of launching two pairs of aircraft with some delay
Aircraft types:
- Albatross II: light UCAV with a turboprop similar in appearance to the US Reaper drone with 4 hardpoints for 20mm autocannons, unguided rocket pods, bombs, missiles and torpedoes. Can equip an AWACS package at the cost of most of the armaments. Has excellent loiter performance but poor combat flight capability. Launched with the catapult if loaded with a significant payload
- Manta II: short takeoff and landing UCAV similar in appearance to Boeing Phantom Ray. Carries two types of countermeasures and has 4 hardpoints. Has an integrated AWACS package. Has two jet engines with gimbal capability which technically allows for VTOL operation, but fuel reserve makes it impractical. Launched with the catapult if loaded with a significant payload
- Razorbill II: coaxial rotor unmanned attack helicopter. Has two countermeasures, two hardpoints and one chin mounted 20mm autocannon on a turret
- Petrel II: tiltrotor heavy unmanned helicopter. Has four hardpoints and a chin mounted 20mm autocannon, but it can forgo weapons to equip skycrane attachment to airlift ground units and move cargo
Escort ship blueprints:
- Needlefish gunboat: fast unmanned gunboat with two weapon slots. Can equip a naval gun, torpedo launcher, missile launcher array or CIWS
- Swordfish frigate: small unmanned escort frigate with four weapon slots. Can equip a naval gun, torpedo launcher, cruise missile array or CIWS
Combat operations notes:
Epsilon is built around island raiding solo or with small escorts. As such she is an "everything" ship and that causes design drawbacks which could be alleviated if the functions were split between multiple ships. Jack of all trades, master of none. The nuke plant makes her significantly heavier than optimal for LHA ships while having both landers and that many aircraft cut into capacity and optimizations for both. Azimuth thrusters allow for high precision maneuverability when docking or navigating in shallow water, but add extra unnecessary drag in most circumstances.
Near full automation is not as good as it sounds. While bots are capable of maintenance and most types of damage control, they lack the cognitive capacity to improvise to solve every issue in the most effective ways. Efficient damcon, refits and deep maintenance requires a skilled swarm robotics engineer specialist, but a single engineer can focus only on one problem at a time. The same applies to land forces and air forces, drones are capable of coordinating and engaging designated enemies autonomously but they are kinda dumb and work best with a "babysitter" operator to manage pathfinding, evasion, targeting and coordination along with direct remote operation when needed.
Fuel factory and a 3d printer farm lowers the logistics overhead, but they are not the be all and end all. Fuel factory eats energy like crazy for operation to the point where it can't run when the ship is moving at full power. The printer farm is mainly needed to provide spare parts for maintenance and damcon.
Epsilon is not an MCV or an RTS commander, she can't build boat escorts, she can't self-refit and printing replacement units has to be done in parts and is nearly unreasonably long. As such units "regenerate", but extremely slowly and each loss hurts for a long time. Kanmusu eating BS will help somewhat, but it is limited mainly to supplies and is less effective with drone replacements.
Long term efficient operation requires a network of autonomous facilities and Epsilon has the modules required to establish such bases. However, "construction pods" in the gaea mission are firmware packages that order underground facilities to start rebuilding, they can't rebuild where there was no base before. Constructing a base from scratch is a conspicuous multi- month long operation that requires enough construction materials to build a fleet as well as a stationary carrier to pipe electric power until base powerplants are online.
"All amphibious vehicles" approach allows for quick amphibious deployments, but even Bear tanks are light in comparison to modern MBTs and thus ground troops have poor performance when pushing deep inland. She also lacks a dedicated bulk interface logistics unit like LCAC making it difficult to supply large formations. Epsilon would need to abuse kanmusu physiology to disgorge land assets directly onto the island if logistics strain is too high to support.
Electromagnetic catapults allow for heavier aircrafts to launch, but light drones don't really need it when not hauling "all torpedoes" or "all heavy bombs" loads. This allows for WW2 style of carrier operations and wing sizes as drones are positioned on deck to be launched in huge air wings sequentially. However, Epsilon's drones are lighter than modern manned naval aviation and can carry proportionally less weapons. She is an enormous danger against 50+ year old designs, but an equivalent or just modern carrier would push her in 1v1 with heavier jets.
Two sets of deck guns allow for shore bombardment, but with 20km range if Epsilon is in range to use them she's likely in range to be shot at in return. They also take up deck space and the autoloaders stretch deep into the superstructure which is the space that could've been used for more storage, more aircraft or more marines. Same applies for the 76mm guns, but instead of taking up flight deck space they have awful elevation and are useful only against close surface targets.
VLS cells are positioned in the middle-back of the flight deck along the spine. They don't take up the space on the flight deck, but they stretch through the entire ship vertically and they can't easily launch when aircraft are nearby on the flight deck due to the upward facing exhaust vents. They are also a pain to reload, especially in cases of significant waves and wind.