Capital ship-grade landing gears

[Jessica Med-Beq]

With Ringovinda StarYards soon going to Tier-3, I have two subsidiaries in mind: one for ground vehicles, Ringovinda Motors and another one for all other technology that do not fit in either vehicles or starships, such as starship components.

Now, I've already got ideas for tractor beams, proton beam cannons (that one would count for 30x a normal turbolaser per tube) but the craziest of all would be a landing gear for capital ships frigate-sized and up and another one for smaller ships, up to corvette-size.

Again canon gives very little indication on what could landing gears be for capital ships... other than Acclamators and Venators have some.

 

[Yoru Shakou]

Keep in mind that the Venator class and the Acclamator class were designed with the purpose of landing on a planet in mind (this was the Clone Wars after all); with the design being as such to ensure the rapid deployment of the forces. Often the Venators wouldn't land and would cover the Acclamators from the air (with the Acclamators rejoining the Venators once they were offloaded).

A large portion of Capital ships were not designed to land on a planet. Even the Star Destroyers (shown in various comics) on Coruscant are being held in a berth and not physically on a set of landing gears.

Most (if not all) of the more advanced Star Destroyers (the 1600m range and up) were not capable of landing on a planet because that's not what they were designed to do. The Empire had smaller vessels to ferry troops down to a world.

[member="Charzon Loulan"]

 

[Gir Quee]

Now, I've already got ideas for tractor beams, proton beam cannons (that one would count for 30x a normal turbolaser per tube) but the craziest of all would be a landing gear for capital ships frigate-sized and up and another one for smaller ships, up to corvette-size.

Not too terribly crazy that they're already demonstrated as being in existence already.

There's a number of other capital ships (not from the Clone Wars) that have demonstrated the capability to land on a world's surface, notably CR90 Corellian Corvette and the Carrack-class Light Cruiser.

But like Yoru hinted at, this is probably not seen much on larger starships because many of them weren't designed to be atmospherically capable in the first place (like the classic Imperial-class Star Destroyer).

Frigate and corvette-sized

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

It's because of an upcoming major project (that will get past the planning stage once the company building the ship gets to tier-3) that I have to ponder the question of landing gears on heavy cruiser-sized ships.

The proposed landing gear would be smaller than those fitted on the Acclamators; whereas the Acclamator had three landing gears, and the Venators had more than three, six perhaps, to fit the landing gear I would possibly be developing on my ship would require nine and fifteen of these landing gears respectively. In these landing gears' defense, they are more compact, and hence spreads the risk and weight across more emplacements, so that if a landing gear fails, it can still nonetheless land without putting the landing pad or the ship at risk.

I know that a 987-meter long bulk freighter with such landing gears would require a dev thread for the landing gears themselves, however.

Spoiler

Said ship would probably be slow and unmaneuverable enough to make Star Destroyers look like Twi'lek acrobats in comparison.

 

[Gir Quee]

[member="Charzon Loulan"], as long as ultimately balanced (which it seems like you're aiming to do), I would imagine that it would be doable.

 

[Audren Sykes]

The Lusankya used a repulsorlift cradle to launch from a planet's surface. Not really designed for repeat landings and launches from the description, but also an option for Ringovinda.

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

While I understand that special computerized systems may be required, perhaps I could call upon the expertise of some company that has experience in building walkers for the hydraulics.

 

[Dunames Lopez]

But would an inertial compensator help larger ships land when they were otherwise too heavy to land?

 

[Ellie Mors]

But would an inertial compensator help larger ships land when they were otherwise too heavy to land?

No. That's not what inertial compensators are for, nor would they do anything to the ship regarding landing.

 

[Kurayami Bloodborn]

You also have to consider the immense amount of weight that would need to be supported. Not only by the surface you landed on, but also among each individual strut. We are talking thousands of tons of men, cargo, and machines. So let's say that you have an Imperial II. The only weight given is that of cargo capacity, coming in at 36,000 tons. Now that is cargo only, not inclusive of the craft carried on board.So even with 60 landing struts(which would take up valuable space that is utilized for weapons and fighters as well as cargo) each one would have to support 600 tons under optimal conditions. Not outside the range of possibility, but then again that is just the cargo capacity, the ship as a whole, I'll be really nice and put it around 20 times that. so that would be 720,000 tons that has to be supported. And you would need to add far beefier struts as well as other support systems for landing. And that is just to get it on the ground.

Getting it back into the air presents large challenges of its own when it comes to actually lifting off without any aerodynamic surfaces to help. You have to provide enough thrust to move the entirety of that ship vertically, no takeoff run to gain energy, no wings to provide lift, just pure brute force. And while repulsors would help lessen the overall impact of needed thrust you are still looking at massive power consumption that would possibly leave you all but defenseless while you were taking off. That doesn't even touch on controllability, which is going to be minimal at best if even extant during that time frame.

Basically there are a number of reasons that ships in that size range were built in orbital dockyards and don't land planet side. I can understand the want to change that, but the issues I pointed out in my post are just the tip of the iceberg and are very simplified since I didn't have long to write this up.

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

Venators had five or six (depending on the individual ships, I guess; I saw some with five and others with six) struts and Acclamators had three. I would guess the footprint of these ships' landing gears would be about 30m x 30m in both cases (the landing gear I am devving has a 15m x 15m footprint on the ground), and I also mentioned in that dev thread it would have required 4x as many of these variable-geometry gears to outfit an Acclamator or a Venator as they actually ended up having landing gears) So, while not being any better in terms of hydraulic strength than the Acclamators or the Venators, that ought to give you an idea of the hydraulic strength required for the landing gears on these ships.

Theed Hangar's Indispensable-class, which is a 1,500m-long Star Destroyer, is now confirmed in Marketplace to be capable of landing on planets (I previously assumed they weren't when I inquired Theed Hangar for threading about the supply of variable-geometry landing gears for the Indispensable; there was no trace whatsoever of landing capability in the initial submission for that class) and is about 30-40% heavier than a Venator, is estimated to have 8-10 struts the size of those on the Acclamators/Venators.

The main question with regards to thrust is how fast could these ships (especially Acclamator or Venator) could accelerate in open space... and this is where the inertial compensator comes in. If a Venator could accelerate at 3,000 G (but that's with an inertial compensator at full power) then surely you would have said inertial compensator at full power as part of standard takeoff procedure or else there would be no way it could take off at all. And far less than 3,000 G (assuming 1 G is the same as 1 standard gravity) would be required to take off.

There's a NPC I often use that rants about how Kuat Drive Yards decided not to either sell a cargoship version of the Acclamator or outfitting the Super Transport XI with landing gears... and how that made her leave KDY. That NPC even lent her first name to the very capital ship-grade landing gear resulting from what is discussed in this thread.

 

[Kurayami Bloodborn]

Venators had five or six (depending on the individual ships, I guess; I saw some with five and others with six) struts and Acclamators had three. I would guess the footprint of these ships' landing gears would be about 30m x 30m in both cases (the landing gear I am devving has a 15m x 15m footprint on the ground), and I also mentioned in that dev thread it would have required 4x as many of these variable-geometry gears to outfit an Acclamator or a Venator as they actually ended up having landing gears) So, while not being any better in terms of hydraulic strength than the Acclamators or the Venators, that ought to give you an idea of the hydraulic strength required for the landing gears on these ships.

Theed Hangar's Indispensable-class, which is a 1,500m-long Star Destroyer, is now confirmed in Marketplace to be capable of landing on planets (I previously assumed they weren't when I inquired Theed Hangar for threading about the supply of variable-geometry landing gears for the Indispensable; there was no trace whatsoever of landing capability in the initial submission for that class) and is about 30-40% heavier than a Venator, is estimated to have 8-10 struts the size of those on the Acclamators/Venators.

The main question with regards to thrust is how fast could these ships (especially Acclamator or Venator) could accelerate in open space... and this is where the inertial compensator comes in. If a Venator could accelerate at 3,000 G (but that's with an inertial compensator at full power) then surely you would have said inertial compensator at full power as part of standard takeoff procedure or else there would be no way it could take off at all. And far less than 3,000 G (assuming 1 G is the same as 1 standard gravity) would be required to take off.

Couple issues. As Braith mentioned the inertial dampners do NOTHING to help reduce strain on the engines during take off or at any other point. What they do is lessen the effects that the pilot or passengers would feel. Without such accelerating/decelerating, especially in combat, would leave nothing more than goop behind and organic slurries are notoriously bad at piloting. The Indispenable you mention above is about the size of an Imperal II yes, but is a non combat craft. As such it does not carry the same crew, the same number of fighters, a prefabricated garrison base, assault walkers, and landing craft. Nor does it have nearly the offensive loadout.

If your landing gear would take up 2x the space that you state, (though they are half the size, you require 4x as many) for the same size of ship, then other than being variable geometry(another issue here is that if one part receives a tiny bit too much stress it could easily cause the entire joint to fail or at best lock up, as well as the gear being far more maintenance heavy as variable geometry systems are notorious for) then I fail to see any real reason to utilize it in the end. The craft sacrifices payload and offensive power due to needing twice as much room dedicate to landing gear, and that is for a roughly 800 meter ship.

To stick with the Imp II as my example, it is about 2x the size of an Acclamator. So suddenly you would need 8x the amount of landing gear just to support it on the ground, and that is assuming that the weight was exactly doubled. Now you sacrifice 4x the space that would be necessary to land one equipped with a different system based on that of the Acclamator.

Now for the inertial dampners. As Braith mentioned above, they have nothing to do with landing or taking off. Yes they are likely activated at that point either by the pilot or more likely an automated system. The reason is because organic slurry is terrible at piloting. It tends to lack the requisite situational awareness and reflexes necessary. Basically what it does is act like a G-suit for the entire craft, reducing the stresses involved with high speed acceleration/deceleration and maneuvering. It is a structural thing. So it would ease strain on the hull during such events, but would do nothing beyond that as it doesn't do anything to make the ship lighter or increase the thrust to weight ratio. All they do is keep the pilot alive and structure intact. That is all.

While less than 3,000 G of acceleration would be required to take off it would still require massive amounts of thrust to move multiple thousands of tons into even low orbit under Earth like gravity. In fact for something as small and lightweight (in comparison) as the Saturn V rocket, still took 3 stages to move something that weighed in at 3274 tons(gross weight, with a 310,000 pound payload) into orbit 90 miles above Earth. The first stage(focused on due to it being rated for sea-level thrust output) was capable of producing 7,648,000 lbf of thrust. That stage alone burned for 165 seconds. Even then it was still barely able to achieve over a 1:1 thrust to weight ratio, utilizing 5 rocket engines total to produce that amount of thrust (3824 tons roughly). That is a tiny amount of thrust in terms of tonnage it can move in terms of a Star Destroyer. 720,000 tons is being extremely kind in terms of weight but using that it is still only 1/188th of the lowball estimate given here. And to move it upwards would take almost 3 minutes. Keep in mind these are not instant values, they are totals. A ship like a Star Destroyer on the ground is at best a bomb magnet, and that is taking into account you could find a large enough space that was even enough to land on and was able to support the immense weight on top of it.

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

A variable-geometry landing gear is intended for landing on uneven terrain. I readily accept that more maintenance will be required compared to the same gear that isn't variable-geometry: it has been evoked in dev threads, too. Since Ringovinda StarYards builds mostly non-combat ships, and freight ships at that, it's not about building Imperators with landing gears or equivalent ships. To Ringovinda StarYards, a Star Destroyer is just a size category, irrespective of what the ship actually does.

Half the size would have implied a 450-square-meter footprint (assuming the same vertical clearance could be achieved); 4 gears with a 225-square-meter footprint (like a Jessica) would achieve the same as 1 gear with a 900-square-meter footprint (those on the Acclamators/Indispensables/Venators). Space on a starship is primarily defined in terms of volume, but load-bearing surface (or as I said earlier, the area of the "footprint") determines the size of a landing gear once the vertical clearance is set.

With the original landing gears, one gear locking up on an Acclamator would be disastrous; one Jessica locking up would not be as problematic.

 

[Ellie Mors]

A variable-geometry landing gear is intended for landing on uneven terrain. I readily accept that more maintenance will be required compared to the same gear that isn't variable-geometry: it has been evoked in dev threads, too. Since Ringovinda StarYards builds mostly non-combat ships, and freight ships at that, it's not about building Imperators with landing gears or equivalent ships. To Ringovinda StarYards, a Star Destroyer is just a size category, irrespective of what the ship actually does.

Half the size would have implied a 450-square-meter footprint (assuming the same vertical clearance could be achieved); 4 gears with a 225-square-meter footprint (like a Jessica) would achieve the same as 1 gear with a 900-square-meter footprint (those on the Acclamators/Indispensables/Venators). Space on a starship is primarily defined in terms of volume, but load-bearing surface (or as I said earlier, the area of the "footprint") determines the size of a landing gear once the vertical clearance is set.

With the original landing gears, one gear locking up on an Acclamator would be disastrous; one Jessica locking up would not be as problematic.

The reason why this fixation with physical landing gear is getting you nowhere is because larger ships relied on massive repulsorlift generators scattered throughout the base of the ship in order to keep it falling apart at the seams from the sheer weight and gravitational pull of the planet it would be landing on. Ten large landing "legs" wouldn't get your ship anywhere without the repulsorlift engines because the sheer weight of the ship (let's say a 1600 meter long destroyer) would simply crush the legs and fall in parts on itself.

If you want to try to make a large capital ship capable of landing, you'll have to work within the realms of physics. And while Star Wars usually has some way around them, this is one of those things that SW tends to agree with in canon - too large of a ship, see: destroyers, either can't function in atmosphere, were never designed to function in atmosphere (see first), or need some kind of special external equipment or repulsorlift thrusters that prevent the ship from literally breaking apart.

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

Edit: The resulting landing gear is now subbed in the Factory!

All right, a second component to have a dev thread about... repulsorlift generators!

That said, who would even want to thread about building and testing capital ship-grade repulsorlift generators?