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 Ship Capabilities (hardware/software discussion on ship composition)
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| Thorin |
Posted on 18-07-2006 05:01
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 Posts: 414 Joined: September 02 2005 |
Well...I was thinking (in no small part due to the 1000+ pages of David Weber I have been digesting in the last two weeks) about capabilities and such as far as a ship's contents are concerned. An example would be the potential of a battlecruiser to be a flagship, simply because it has the space to afford a flag deck of its own on each of them, or the same potential being posessed by a ship a mere fraction of its size through the refit of a beefed up tactical and communications suite, and the conversion of a marine component staging area into a comfortable flag deck of its very own. I like to indulge in that sort of thing, and would like to hear what other people might think. |
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| Nemmerle |
Posted on 18-07-2006 08:37
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 Posts: 113 Joined: September 16 2005 |
You'd need to install a new suite of C3I hardware to go with that which means you'd likely have to restructure the power grid to some extent. Then you'd want the flag deck to be really deep in the ship where space is at a premium anyway due to it tending to be the most heavily armoured area. You might be able to convert another area like a flight deck in to one at a pinch but I don't think you'd just be able to add one in. |
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| Ironwatsas |
Posted on 18-07-2006 12:51
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 Posts: 856 Joined: October 21 2005 |
Welcome back Thorin. You've missed a whole bunch of stuff since you left. Quote to install a new suite of C3I hardware to go with that which means you'd likely have to restructure the power grid to some extent. Not nessacarily, most modern spaceships would have more than enough power to run any extra equipment you can install short of something like a large DEW turret. Think about it, you got on a Prince of Hiigara class hull, the 'main' plasma reactor (PD&G XbH24000c series, with a good Terrawatt of juice to run the drive), two secondary PD&G ECFv275-SXi cold fusion units for the ships internal power system (Lights, Crew interface, repair bots, doors, etc), ten small but powerful SP tWG-65 weapon generators to power most of the ships guns, A backup PD&G Gc580g Hellfire nuclear fusion reactor as a backup which can slave almost all other power systems to it in an emergency, retractable solar panels for situations where either the ship must 'run silent' or other systems cannot be operated properly, and several other powerplants whose location and specifications remain classified. Not to mention the fact that the ships quadrupile redundant life support, ICAs, and docking bays have their own respective power genorators seperate from the main system. Any runoff is shunted into an overflow battery array which can hold about 2.5Tw of electricity (if the ship could generate that much). Quote you'd want the flag deck to be really deep in the ship where space is at a premium Of course, but again assuming we're talking about a PoH class ship, the design can accomidate to some extent. When Sponson designed the PoH, they designed it for a long operational lifespan. The ship's internal configuration was designed to be easily reconfigured to accomidate whatever changes would be added. A full flagship grade Tactical communications suite however might require some more extensive work. If a flag deck is installed with Sponson built computer and interface eqiupment, it can easily be fitted into a spare cargo bay and use the ship's existing sensors with some software upgrades, but if a more complex scanner array or full NCW suite is to be fitted, than some of the ships internal systems like the research module might have to be cannibalized not as much for space concerns, but to reduce the strain on the crew and ship's command and control system. this would also require that a new sensor suite be installed externally. This can all easily be done at an Empress MSY or orbital Shipyard. Anything more complex, and you might want to just bulid a whole new ship custom taliored. Well there's my two cents. Okay, mabye a little more than that |
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| Nemmerle |
Posted on 18-07-2006 16:21
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Posts: 113 Joined: September 16 2005 |
My house is linked into the national grid and has to all intents and purposes infinite energy available to it for anything I might want to run, within the realms of likely deployment of course. Yet I can't set up a decent control centre in my basement because I have four plug-sockets down there and I'd overload everything if I started plugging in the sort of systems needed for that sort of thing. Not because I've got limited energy resources but because all the wiring and stuff isn't set up to cope with it. I'd have to strip most of the wires out of the walls of the house in order to set it up to work properly. Now imagine you're stripping wires out of the walls of a battle cruiser, setting up new data points, etc, a task that only increases with the complexity of the rest of the ship's systems - it's a pretty major yard job for that sort of thing. Where's the reference doc you're getting that from anyway?... Edited by Nemmerle on 18-07-2006 16:22 |
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| Thorin |
Posted on 18-07-2006 18:05
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Posts: 414 Joined: September 02 2005 |
*glances at time display* Okay. First of all, houses are usually not built to have their power lines tampered with, in favor of unbroken walls and other niceties. However, a starship would be designed as such, with many, many redundant power lines run through different places to service the same station. On a ship, wyou would expect to find conduits of color coded power lines, which could easily added to or redirected by use of strategically placed access points or access tunnels. You essentially would, however, have to route plenty of cabling, install new hardware and such. However, converting a Caravan hull between its configurations is a job for the Yards, not the non-coms. |
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| TelQuessir |
Posted on 19-07-2006 06:05
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 Posts: 2598 Joined: August 30 2005 |
Since I seem to love playing drow/Vagyr matron and have no idea how all of this "sorcery" works I'll just demand that the C3I systems be installed and that you should just "get it done, I don't care!" amid whatever passes for 61st Century whip-cracking. What? Don't look at me like that  |
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| Nemmerle |
Posted on 19-07-2006 14:17
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Posts: 113 Joined: September 16 2005 |
Tearing cables out of walls, tearing them out of conduits. You know well enough what I mean, you'd have to do a lot of re-wiring, which considering the amount of wires that would be knocking about on a ship like that and the fact that they serve so many systems from so many different sources is going to be a job for the yards where they can mess about with it rather than in deep space where you're going to be trying to rewire a ship while it's got lots of people and the like running about it and not breaking something vital while you're at it. |
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| TelQuessir |
Posted on 20-07-2006 02:47
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Posts: 2598 Joined: August 30 2005 |
Exactly, ruthless matrons of the sort that I love usually don't want to hear of such technical challenges. Therefore the statement of "Get it done, I don't care how" usually gets people motivated enough to actually do the damned work, instead of making "excuses" of how challenging it is. There are many instances in life where just the benefit of getting the C3I suite online (as an example) outweighs the prospective future complications in said rewiring. Heck, most RL scenarios aren't complex enough to even have said future complications. Oh, I even justify that kind of behaviour - it seems I'm hopelessly corrupted ^_^ |
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