Approved Starship Type 3 Keldabe-class Battleship

[Captain Larraq]

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

[member="Captain Larraq"]

Would it be accurate to boil down the 3-vs-2.5 relationship as follows?

• +2 to overall defense rating
• Limited production vs. the 2.5's minor
• Half the hangar of the 2.5
• More toys
• Identical gun count

If you're lumping the drop pods in with "more toys", then yes. Basically though... Yup.

 

[Captain Larraq]

The 'only known means' thing has to go, unless you say that that's from Mandal Hypernautics' perspective.

Can I change it to "currently the only means of... by Mandal Hypernautics engineers." Or something along those lines?

While this is really cool, it comes too close to the 'no stargate' thing we talked about. I'm fine with a range from hours to months, but the fastest possible objective travel time has to be comparable to a hyperdrive.

Considering the speed of travel possible via hyperspace, and the capabilities of "precision hyperdrives" as used by Thrown, what sort of speed limits would you want to see as the minimum travel time?

Can you nail this down to an approximate time frame or range, and put that range in both places?

The range at which the wormhole spawns is about 500-850 meters in front of the ship. I can clarify that you'd want to be moving slowly when you enter the wormhole or that you need to be careful not to bump the sides... I could specify that bumping the sides of the wormhole is damaging or that it destabilizes the wormhole... Or say that the wormhole will "grow" to accommodate larger approaching ships. Just give me a little more detail on what you're looking for and I'll work that up.

Hyperspace wormhole within atmo is consistent with canon but could be immensely destructive. Please specify that weaponized use is not possible (i.e. hovering precisely in front of a building and making a wormhole inside the building or whatever). Use whatever technobabble necessary to justify that limitation IC. (Try and throw in something that'll keep you from spawning wormholes in nearby space stations, too, lol. Maybe something about how the projector gets baffled by the station's artificial gravity.)

Well... We can BS that the wormhole won't spawn if there is realspace solid matter blocking it. Air is fine. Maybe even water is fine. But a building? Nope. Either it won't spawn or it spawns closer to the ship.

Would any of that work for you?

 

[Jorus Merrill]

Can I change it to "currently the only means of... by Mandal Hypernautics engineers." Or something along those lines?

Yup.

Considering the speed of travel possible via hyperspace, and the capabilities of "precision hyperdrives" as used by Thrown, what sort of speed limits would you want to see as the minimum travel time?

Comparable to a Class 1 hyperdrive, please.

The range at which the wormhole spawns is about 500-850 meters in front of the ship. I can clarify that you'd want to be moving slowly when you enter the wormhole or that you need to be careful not to bump the sides... I could specify that bumping the sides of the wormhole is damaging or that it destabilizes the wormhole... Or say that the wormhole will "grow" to accommodate larger approaching ships. Just give me a little more detail on what you're looking for and I'll work that up.

Time range. '20% reduced blah blah blah for the time before the ship enters the wormhole, for up to two minutes.' Or whatever.

Well... We can BS that the wormhole won't spawn if there is realspace solid matter blocking it. Air is fine. Maybe even water is fine. But a building? Nope. Either it won't spawn or it spawns closer to the ship. Would any of that work for you?

Solves the building and station issues just fine.

Currently gathering precedents for ships with similar overall stats.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Captain Larraq"]

Well, I've just taken an eye-opening jaunt through the Approved Starships forum.

You've got a 750m ship with high but not maxed-out stats. I had some trouble pinning down close equivalents, but (after accounting for mandatory dev lengths for larger classes), I figure rating has a lot more to do with dev count than size does. In other words, I'm fairly comfortable taking a look at larger ships that would have similar armament and/or defense ratings.

Libita
Limited
Armament 4, defense 18, max squadrons, ultrachrome hull.
3000m
134 posts


Saratai
Limited
Armament 2, defense 20, token squadrons, a billion toys
3000m
~100 posts


Will of the Force
Unique
No ratings, but the ratings would probably be very very high
2800m
~500 posts


Darr Itah
Semi-unique
Armament 20 forward, average lower
Defense 12
Moderate fighters
All the toys
3000m
110 posts


Wyyrlok
Mass-produced
Way overgunned
Heavy defenses
Ultra heavy hangar
1300m
39 posts


Maladi
Mass-produced
Way overgunned
Heavy defenses
460m
69+misc stuff in larger threads


Dark Blade
Minor production
Way overgunned
Heavy defenses
1050m
220ish posts


Immortal
Limited production
Very high guns
Very heavy defenses
2000m
400 posts

Kevn
Minor production
Ratings 18/18
1000m (star destroyer, not cruiser)
90 posts, most very short

Based on these precedents and others, and after taking ultra-heavy weapons emplacements, presence or absence of actual weaknesses, length-related mandatory minimums, and a bunch of other factors into account, I currently believe 40 posts is a fair price for this particular limited-production ship. Do you concur?

 

[Captain Larraq]

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

Would that be including the ~20 posts already done, or in addition?

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Captain Larraq"]

I just took a look at the dev thread and it's fine by me -- you're actively lengthening your posts to compensate for your posting partners, which is always good. Another 20 should do fine, far as I'm concerned.

That's 40 minimum, by the way. We both know that people tend to respect other people's ships proportional to the amount of dev, so if you really want this monster recognized for what it is, I'd aim higher than 40 in your shoes.

 

[Captain Larraq]

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

Sounds good. I'll see what I can crank out.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Captain Larraq"]

Good stuff.

I don't anticipate any more large-scale edits, but the sucker is ten thousand words, so I'd imagine there'll be a bit of polishing before the end, just FYI.

 

[Captain Larraq]

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

While many experiments with this technology have been made, there has yet to be any concrete means of predicting either the point in space or the point in time from which the wormhole will vomit forth an entering ship back into reality. In some instances, travel via this means would seem to have resulted in a ship re-entering realspace hundreds of light-years away only a few moments after it had entered the wormhole. In other instances, a ship that was considered lost to the wormhole was instead vomited out into realspace several months after originally entering. In most cases though, the quantum tunneling of the wormhole results in a travel-time that is comparable to the capabilities of a class 5 to a class 1 Hyperdrive, if such a hyperdrive were capable of traveling a direct route from the entrance point to the exit point. More interesting that the relative transfer of matter from one point in space-time to another at a given speed, is how those being transferred perceive that same time-frame. From the perspective of those within the ship, this travel from one point of space-time to another appears to be nearly instantaneous.

While interesting from a scientific point of view, the unpredictable nature of these excursions into wormholes would have resulted in the removal of the GPB Emitter from the Type 3 Keldabe design were it not for a singular aspect of its capability. As these wormholes are forced into being in a state of disconnection with the gravitational fields that surround it, they can be created at any point in space regardless of closeness to a gravity well and can even be generated within the atmosphere of a planet. In this regard, the Hyperspace Wormhole created by the Type 3 Keldabe-class Battleship is currently the only known means (to Mandal Hypernautics Engineers anyway) by which a starship can flee a realspace battle in spite of nearness to a natural or artificial gravity field. However, when it is used the energy beam's activation causes a temporary 20% reduction in power to shielding during and immediately after firing as well as a similar 20% power reduction for all of the ship's other weaponry. This power drop lasts for roughly two minutes.

Scientific and military application testing has shown that, though realspace solid-mass objects (ground, buildings, stations, exc) will disrupt the forming of a wormhole and force it to spawn closer to the projecting ship or not at all, atmospheric conditions and even the presence of liquids will not disrupt the creation of this phenomenon. In one experiment, a wormhole was successfully spawned partially submerged in an ocean and resulted in the displacement of several thousand tons of water that traveled the wormhole alongside the Type 3 Prototype and managed to exit the wormhole as well.

• Power Hungry: Hyperdrive (20% reduction in shield strength while preparing for long distance jump, 20% reduction in weapon power for two minutes when first arriving in-system)
• Power Hungry: After activating the wormhole-creating Gravity Polarization Beam, the ship suffers a 20% reduction in both weapon power and shield strength that lasts for roughly two minutes

How's this look?

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Captain Larraq"]

Great, except the 'moments later' thing has to go, even though it's an edge case.

 

[Captain Larraq]

[member="Captain Larraq"]

Great, except the 'moments later' thing has to go, even though it's an edge case.

Changed it to Minutes.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Captain Larraq"]

Still falls within stargateishness. Fastest this thing can ever go is comparable to a hyperdrive, period. I'm cool with rare edge cases giving a comparative speed of 0.5 instead of the moments/minutes line.

 

[Captain Larraq]

[member="Captain Larraq"]

Still falls within stargateishness. Fastest this thing can ever go is comparable to a hyperdrive, period. I'm cool with rare edge cases giving a comparative speed of 0.5 instead of the moments/minutes line.

How would I phrase that?
Like... how long does that actually take?

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Captain Larraq"]

Half the time. 'In extreme cases, twice as quickly as if using a standard hyperdrive' or something like that

 

[Captain Larraq]

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

That doesn't really fit with the sentence structure I've got going on in that section...

I get that we're trying to be both vague and specific here... but I need something as specific as moment, minutes, hours, days, exc.

Which one works for "fast" by comparison to normal hyperspace travel times over a short distance (such as between neighboring stars)?

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Captain Larraq"]

The sentence structure is up to you, as long as even edge cases are no faster than 0.5

 

[Captain Larraq]

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

I get that.

I'm asking you how many minutes, hours, or days it would take to travel from one star to the next with a speed 0.5 Hyperdrive.

If "a few minutes" isn't going to cut it, I need more specific information about what is and isn't an appropriate frame of time for such a travel speed across astronomically short distances.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Captain Larraq"]

Travel times vary widely in canon. It depends, mainly, on how well established the route is, whether there are S-thread boosters, etc. Almost everything I know on the subject is in the hyperdrive range link in my sig.

System to adjacent system, minutes or hours usually. But for multi hex ranges, we're talking days or weeks or months. All depends on the terrain. Your sentence structure may have to go.

 

[Captain Larraq]

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

In some instances, travel via this means would seem to have resulted in a ship re-entering realspace in an adjacent system only a few minutes after it had entered the wormhole.

How's this?

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Captain Larraq"]

That works.