NationStates Jolt Archive

Well, I'm about to begin construction of my newest line of warships -the Skeelzot class- and thought I should get some feedback on whether its overpowered or not. Thanks to Northrop Grumman and Central Facehuggeria for thier feedback, but I'd like more than two opinions.

Notes: Lance Cannons are very powerful, very inaccurate, and very unreliable energy weapons. They are the first major energy wep deployed on a Skeelzanian vessel, so they are not incredibly advanced.

The Ram Drive is a modified Tachyon FTL Drive. It is used, obviously, to bring the Skeelzot up to ramming speed. Due to the ships immense size and limited power supply, it can only be used in short bursts.

Skeelzanian Combat Armor is a type of composite armor, much like Chobham. It has been treated to offer some resistance to energy weapons, but is mostly geared towards projectile and torpedo attacks.

I have been informed that people look down on mobile suits thanks to the high rate of godmodding that accopanies them. I for one do not use Gundam Suits, rather they are a weaker, mass produced model, similar in performance to Zaku IIs.

Skeelzot Class Batlteship[/i]
http://img29.photobucket.com/albums/v87/Bad_Skeelz/ImpCR.jpg
Type: Battleship
Length: 3000 meters
Height: 975 meters
Beam: 900 meters
Weight (empty): 2,250,000,000 metric tons
Propulsion: 7 Heavy IE Drives, 1 Hyperspace Drive, 1 Ram-Drive
-Cruising Speed: .3 LS
-Jump Speed: Being outfitted with a HS Drive, jump speed is determined by how deep the ship is within hyperspace.
-Ramming Speed: .5 LS for <10 seocnds
Armor Coverage: The bow has 12 meters of ultra-heavy combat armor. The rest of the ship is protected by 6 meters of Combat Armor.
Armament: Port/Starboard Weapon arc (each side carries these armaments): Four Heavy Lance Cannons, 9 light railgun (25 kg. projectile) ports, 2 triple-mount heavy railgun (140 kg. projectile) turrets, 10 light beam mounts, 4 heavy beam mounts. Forward weapon arc: Two Heavy Lance Cannons (one on each “wing”), 12 torpedo tubes, one armored ram. Rear Arc is covered by one triple-mount light railgun turret and 4 light beam mounts.
Powerplant: 2 Heavy Duty Fusion Reactors, one backup fission reactor
Crew: 4000
Marine Compliment: 500
Mobile Suit Capacity: 8
Launch Catapults: N/A, suits enter and exit through a drop hatch on ventral side of ship.
Introduction Date:
Ships of the Line: Baad, Ianos, Dmitri. Currently only the Baad has been laid down, the entire class is expected to be completed by

Comments? Suggestions? Shamless attempts to raise your post count? All are welcome.

As long as you RP it out, it should be fine.

Dominance-Class Battleship
http://www.angelfire.com/stars5/karasitha/Battleship_-_Right.jpg http://www.angelfire.com/stars5/karasitha/Battleship_-_Firing.jpg http://www.angelfire.com/stars5/karasitha/Battleship_-_Orbit.jpg

The Dominance-class battleship is Wormia's primary offensive craft. It is the first naval vessel, of any sort, to be considered a battleship in over two centuries. These ships have been designed and constructed to replace the now-obsolete Wormian carriers whose main offensive force (snub fighters) have been reduced to cannon fodder with computer controlled weapons/guidance systems.

The battleship possesses the exact same shielding specs as its nimble counterpart, the Raptor-class. It is not stealth, which is what the Raptor's "cold plasma" helium shields grant for vessels of smaller size, a category in which the Dominance-class is not included.

Despite this nefarious malediction, the battleship's main use is for inter starship engagements, not planetary bombardment. The ship relies primarily on beam weapons which tend to be unduly burdened by atmospheres, but are succintly boosted in the void of space.

Due to the battleships reliance on beams, they possess special targeting computers onboard, allowing them to utilize the warped medium of spacetime to arc beams around large masses such as stars and black holes, and yet manage to hit an unsuspecting foe. While the calculations of any spacetime distortions can, at times, take days, the ability to arc supposedly straight shooting beams is invaluable.

Due to its nature as a warship, diplomacy is often solved using broadside MDC's (Microwave Disruptor Cannons), and thus, it has an effectual lack of diplomatic/administrative shields.

Length: 786 ft
Width: 519 ft
Height: 183 ft
Crew: 4,100
-Enlisted: 700
-Officers: 50
-Marines: 3,350
Armament
-Microwave Disruptor Cannons: 27
-Heavy Microwave Disruptor Cannons: 6 (Broadside)
-Plasma Cannons: 14
-Amplified Photon Cannons: 42
-Standard Torpedo Launchers: 8
Armor
-Dual layer carbon-steel primary plates interwoven w/ titanium-diamond weave armor supported by carbon nanotube cytoskeleton. Exterior armor comprised of diamond-carbon energy/heat dispersion armor.
Shielding
-Primary and secondary shields of carbon-60 buckyballs arranged triangularly in electromagnetic field. Helium-12 plasma energy dispersion/absorption shielding.
Speed
-Sublight: .48c
-Superluminous: 1,200c
Docking Bays: 0

PS: Yeh, I made the pics. Ain't they neat?

Lance Cannons are very powerful, very inaccurate, and very unreliable energy weapons. They are the first major energy wep deployed on a Skeelzanian vessel, so they are not incredibly advanced.

Personally, I would say that energy weapons are extremely accurate (at least as long as you have sufficient targeting mechanisms), for a first gen energy weapon, energy (yield) should be the major problem, not the other way around.

But it doesn´t really matter.

Then, the size is a problem. This thing is big. With one ship under construction and three more planned, I would say that it is possible for you, but you will likely realise a distinct lack of smaller, tactical vessels ;)

Oh, and 30% the speed of light cruising speed is IMHO insane (Relativistic effects, time distortion). I would go with a mediocre acceleration (The extreme mass of the vessels makes it kinda hard to accelerate fast) of, say, 30m/s^2 (~3g), which, if used constantly, should be enough to reach any and all objects in sol within a week or so (Should do the actual math, but I`m a bit lazy right now...), by cutting the standard max speed until acceleration stops at 0.1c. Faster is possible, but... for in- system travel, I do not really see the point.

Skeelzot Class Batlteship[/i]
Type: Battleship
Length: 3000 meters
Height: 975 meters
Beam: 900 meters
Weight (empty): 2,250,000,000 metric tons
Propulsion: 7 Heavy IE Drives, 1 Hyperspace Drive, 1 Ram-Drive
-Cruising Speed: .3 LS
-Jump Speed: Being outfitted with a HS Drive, jump speed is determined by how deep the ship is within hyperspace.
-Ramming Speed: .5 LS for <10 seocnds
Armor Coverage: The bow has 12 meters of ultra-heavy combat armor. The rest of the ship is protected by 6 meters of Combat Armor.
Armament: Port/Starboard Weapon arc (each side carries these armaments): Four Heavy Lance Cannons, 9 light railgun (25 kg. projectile) ports, 2 triple-mount heavy railgun (140 kg. projectile) turrets, 10 light beam mounts, 4 heavy beam mounts. Forward weapon arc: Two Heavy Lance Cannons (one on each “wing”), 12 torpedo tubes, one armored ram. Rear Arc is covered by one triple-mount light railgun turret and 4 light beam mounts.
Powerplant: 2 Heavy Duty Fusion Reactors, one backup fission reactor
Crew: 4000
Marine Compliment: 500
Mobile Suit Capacity: 8
Launch Catapults: N/A, suits enter and exit through a drop hatch on ventral side of ship.
Introduction Date:
Ships of the Line: Baad, Ianos, Dmitri. Currently only the Baad has been laid down, the entire class is expected to be completed by

Comments? Suggestions? Shamless attempts to raise your post count? All are welcome.

With that much armor, (which you've obviously accounted for in the ship's total mass), the construction cost of this thing would easily be several trillion. Assuming that one ton of armor is surely $1000, and probably MUCH more...

Lance Cannons are very powerful, very inaccurate, and very unreliable energy weapons. They are the first major energy wep deployed on a Skeelzanian vessel, so they are not incredibly advanced.

I tried to model my own fleet realistically, rather than going for technology of coolness, and I'd say that, realistically, probably nobody would use such a weapon.

In space combat, accuracy is the most important thing, due to the rather extreme ranges and velocities involved.

Also, it's kinda hard to imagine that any military would adopt an unreliable weapon, if they could find a less-powerful but more reliable alternative. If your weapons don't work half the time, I'd expect morale to go down the toilet :)


My own fleet is fairly low-tech compared to most people's - we don't have shields or artificial gravity or any of that paraphanalia. For energy weapons, we have solid-state lasers, the largest of which can cut through about a foot of steel plate per second, and are effective up to about 5000km. That's not a particularly impressive yield, considering that many people, I'm sure, have energy weapons that can blow asteroids in half.
Accuracy is practically pinpoint at up to 5000km; the only real problem with them, aside from the low yield, is the high energy consumption.

I believe modern solid-state lasers are effective at about 500 miles, and can cut through about half an inch of steel plate per second. They are also about the size of a house.


I won't comment on production costs, because future economies and production capacities are likely nothing like today's.

Is thise role playing? Or does this actually become an option later on o_O

If I created my own ship, would you guys take a look at it, and see if it is ok? This would be the first ship I would create, but I have created R&D ships for a Star Wars Board, so I'm not totally new at this.