Post by toaster on May 23, 2011 4:25:11 GMT -5
I've been reading some more CJ Cherryh lately and got to thinking about using CBF in the Alliance/Union setting, these aren't full designs just some ideas in case anyone else wants to run with it. I have enough else on my plate but thought I should jot my ideas down somewhere for when I come back to them, and if I put them here everyone else can play too.
Human naval design is firmly set on the battlerider concept where an unarmed (relatively anyhow) carrier ship deploys two or more destroyer sized battle riders. The battleriders have high acceleration and enough weapons to kill a battleship in a single pass before said battleship can lock onto the much smaller and stealthy battlerider, but have limited endurance, no jump capability and zero damage control ability. For battles among human factions you could use patrol ships and give both sides a number of merchantmen to represent the carriers, lose the carriers and you lose the game.
This idea however breaks down when you add non human ships such as Kif hunter ships which are probably cruiser sized and RDF role, they often carry jettisonable cargo holds to pass as merchants.
I was thinking battleriders need to combine Patrol, Scout and RDF role on destroyer hull and still get something to up their firepower such may mount double the normal number of weapons per hardpoint. This makes them very dangerous and hard to balance so they need some major weakness. First up is they may not repair any damage, second is they must be fielded with a carrier which will push their cost way up and they automatically lose when their last carrier dies/flees. I don't know that their limited endurance is a major factor in a CBF time frame as they should be good for 24 hours lifesupport but possibly a maximum ammo limit of three turns firing on all ammo using weapons.
Then there's the question of how much mass the carrier has to devote to its battleriders, they should be carried on hardpoints since they are the carriers weapons but is paying their full mass to much as it means their cost doubles.
So still a work in progress but I would like to see a field-able battlerider at some point, I tried to design them using the tug rules in FT but they were completely non cost effective as you could buy 3 FTL destroyers for the price of 2 battleriders and their carrier but in FT you were still paying for all those other spaceship abilities such as damage control that battleriders shouldn't have. The CBF roles system give the opportunity to make them work but I'd like to hear if anyone else has any thoughts on the idea.
Sorry for the long post but I wanted the idea out so I could go back to designing Narn and Centari for B5.
Robert
Human naval design is firmly set on the battlerider concept where an unarmed (relatively anyhow) carrier ship deploys two or more destroyer sized battle riders. The battleriders have high acceleration and enough weapons to kill a battleship in a single pass before said battleship can lock onto the much smaller and stealthy battlerider, but have limited endurance, no jump capability and zero damage control ability. For battles among human factions you could use patrol ships and give both sides a number of merchantmen to represent the carriers, lose the carriers and you lose the game.
This idea however breaks down when you add non human ships such as Kif hunter ships which are probably cruiser sized and RDF role, they often carry jettisonable cargo holds to pass as merchants.
I was thinking battleriders need to combine Patrol, Scout and RDF role on destroyer hull and still get something to up their firepower such may mount double the normal number of weapons per hardpoint. This makes them very dangerous and hard to balance so they need some major weakness. First up is they may not repair any damage, second is they must be fielded with a carrier which will push their cost way up and they automatically lose when their last carrier dies/flees. I don't know that their limited endurance is a major factor in a CBF time frame as they should be good for 24 hours lifesupport but possibly a maximum ammo limit of three turns firing on all ammo using weapons.
Then there's the question of how much mass the carrier has to devote to its battleriders, they should be carried on hardpoints since they are the carriers weapons but is paying their full mass to much as it means their cost doubles.
So still a work in progress but I would like to see a field-able battlerider at some point, I tried to design them using the tug rules in FT but they were completely non cost effective as you could buy 3 FTL destroyers for the price of 2 battleriders and their carrier but in FT you were still paying for all those other spaceship abilities such as damage control that battleriders shouldn't have. The CBF roles system give the opportunity to make them work but I'd like to hear if anyone else has any thoughts on the idea.
Sorry for the long post but I wanted the idea out so I could go back to designing Narn and Centari for B5.
Robert