Full Speed Ahead

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"The first and third Death Stars had thermal exhaust ports because the engine and reactor waste heat was not used in full: they may have used it in every single possible imaginable way, but they still needed a heat sink for what was left. Let's not forget that there's also the reactors that we could use as a source of waste heat for many things in one, all things considered. Those that the crew will use the most will be cooking, life support and water heating, and also waste management"

But could they truly power all the less power-hungry systems aboard a ship using all the waste heat from the reactors and the engines in all the possible ways? Here we are seeing the Jessica of the golden days right up in action. These kinds of moments are where she likes herself most, where she can be herself to its fullest extent. Using waste heat recovery devices will save you hypermatter in the long run but complicates maintenance a bit. Without WHRDs, life support would drain some power and waste heat would just radiate into space, one way or another. WHRDs are used all over the place in industrial applications... Nevertheless WHRD benefits would probably outweigh the cost here.

"Auxiliary power generators could use the waste heat to power sensor arrays, computing systems. Not all of it can be recovered that way, though, as a result of the Carnot limit. Plus it would reduce the thermal signature of the engine: much of it is caused by the waste heat. But I suppose the extra maintenance of waste recovery used in more ways than straightforward direct usage could be worth the hypermatter savings in the end"

[member="Dune Rhur"]

 

[Dune Rhur]

"Well that is a start," he said with satisfaction "Not everything, but a beginning."

"I pray such a vessel is more a deterrent than an active thing."

A battle cruiser could kill many. Or it could prevent their deaths. Most deaths were wholly unneeded and tragic. Tragic because they could've been prevented.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"You could almost say that Ringovinda StarYards is a Jedi-operated shipyard, even though no one in the Design Triumvirate actually are Jedi: we never built ships specifically for the purposes of combat and the low amounts of armament mounted on every ship we build is there to allow operators to defend themselves more than for any real offensive use. We might have driven out Kuat Drive Yards and Rendili StarDrive from the bulk freight and mobile drydock markets but these were markets that most shipyards neglect"

That said, the Mateus was rather easily reconverted: all that they had to do was to convert part of the cargo hold into 7 more squadrons' worth of and outfit a heavy (380mm-caliber) long-range hypervelocity cannon instead of a super-heavy turbolaser. The ventral hangar is useful for loading/unloading cargo in orbit, and all Star Destroyer-sized bulk freighters were so equipped. As such internal tug droids or tractor beams were necessary. But the Mateus began its operational life as a bulk freighter. And yet Jessica remembers very clearly the chief process officer saying that they could develop dedicated carriers for very little R&D cost, especially since the weapon complement was a little low for warship standard, yet close to carrier standard. The Mateus cost only 2 million to develop from the Ultima hull.

"The first ship we will build using that engine will be a cargo ship. I call it a battlecruiser engine just because of the size of the ships it will be mounted on"

[member="Dune Rhur"]

 

[Dune Rhur]

"With this canon replacing turbolaser batteries," he asked "I assume it can stand up to abuse?"

It certainly was more powerful than the conventional weapons. It also centralized the threat into one place. It was a lot easier to hit one cannon than multiple batteries. However, there was the matter of not being vapourized by it to begin with.

It never hurt to be prepared, he knew. Hence his seemingly inane focus on minor details. Even what materials crew quarters would be composed of could make or break a design. Everything counts in large amounts.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Barrel recoil is a thing, but shock absorbers do what you describe: plus the barbette and the turret had to be made of the best quadanium-ditanium hull plating"

Dune knew that Jessica designed the entire hypervelocity cannon by herself until the prototype was built on Dulvoyinn. Without necessarily implying it was her that designed the AI or the HVC, he finally found out that it was her. But out of the many possible uses of a WHRD, Jessica knew that you needed to have enough waste heat to run it all. While the Death Stars had enough waste heat to run all the aforementionned systems, some ships would not. To Jessica it would seem that some shipbuilders feel comfortable with only putting the WHRD on the reactor(s) and hyperdrive only, especially on the smaller ships. On a ship that big, sublight engines must also be equipped with WHRDs: to Jessica it was a no-brainer.

"And also air and water decontamination: that's an additional benefit of a waste heat recovery device"

[member="Dune Rhur"]