I didn't mean to start a battle, but...
"Battle stations! Energize main defensive nuclear dampers, power to main
meson screens. Sensors, get me some identification on the attacking
vessels!"
"Con, Sensors, the planetary defence sensor grid says there's a Bat-Ron of
Empress Jeannie class battle ships out there, coming in fast."
The navigator swung around. "Captain, that blast we felt was the number
sixty two underwater geothermal power station. Lucky no one was there."
"Right, so the enemy has advanced knowlege of our submarine power net, but
NOT where the subs are. Communications, send warning to the fleet. Tell
them Geothermal station 62 is out. Tell the Skydivers to prepare for action.
Divert them to any sensor bouys dropped by the Jeannie fleet."
"Weapons officer, have you got a lock yet?"
"Aye sir, we have a passive neutrino lock on what appears to be the
lead Jeannie in the fleet. Bearing 32 degrees, angle of elevation
82 degrees."
"Diving Officer, raise ship into firing position."
"Aye sir, 20 degrees up on the bow planes..."
The dark hull of the meson sub stirred from the bottom like a shark. The
trailing umbillical fed power to the subs systems so that not a single
neutrino would betray their position. Inside the ship, the crew's couches
rotated as the angle of the deck raised to 82 degrees. Not as comfortable
as it might be with grav plates to compensate, but then the artificial
gravity field would have betrayed the sub's position to the enemy fleet.
The weapons officer chimed out. "Meson gun in position, awaiting orders to
fire!"
The captain growled for a moment and gave the command in a calm voice, "Fire."
Then under his breath, "Eat hot mesons, invader!"
(snicker snicker snicker) :->
But seriously, I now realize that the Wet Navy stuff was worked on long
before I ever designed the Herbert Dean Meson Sub. But, I still stand
by its design. The lack of Grav plates & inertial comps was Not an
oversite, I wanted to reduce the signature of the ship (even if the
reduction won't show up in the rules as they are now.) Grav plates,
inertial comps, etc. suck power. to reduce the fusion reactor requirements
I just took 'em out. Now, while you may say that's gonna be difficult
for a ship that tries to change it's orientation in a planet's gravity, I
would say no. That would be taken into account in the design. Rotating
couches or something similar.
Actually, I would have to argue that rotating couches would have to be
standard equipment on all combat ships in case of environmental systems
failure. It is analogus to normal submarine operations. They may have
backup lighting systems, but they are trained to operate the ship in
the dark.
If they weren't standard on combat ships, you'd have ships being rendered
combat ineffective by environmental systems damage. Also, Tech level
9 combat ships without grav plates or inertial comps would never be able
to funtion well.
As for the story in challenge, I still say it is a STUPID idea to put
lasers on a submarine. Even X-ray lasers. The whole idea of a submarine
is to conceal your location, In order to use the lasers, you have to put
up a bouy as they did and that will reveal your location to some nut with
a nuclear missile. And a nuclear missile against a sub, underwater will
be FAR more effective than against a ship in vacuum. Direct fire weapons
went out at EARLY tl 6 when the British and French gave up on the idea of
submarine monitors and submarine cruisers. Missiles and meson guns are
the only weapons that will be effective at high tech levels. (counting
torpedoes as missiles)
By the way, have I interpreted the hull construction rules correctly as
they state them? According to the way I read it, steel, superdense, and
coherant superdense all require the same thickness to give an equal amount
of armored protection. Thus a 1 centimeter thickness of steel will have
the same strength as a 1 centimeter plate of coherant superdense, but the
superdense will weigh much less. If so, why is it called 'dense'? It
makes no sence to me.
Also, I didn't see any formula for the calculation of operational/crush
depth. Will this follow?
Well, we now have rules to build TL zero through four ships, will we see
rules on how to arm them? What's the Penetration/attenuation of a
6 pounder? Any ideas?
Scott Kellogg
Design Freak Extraordinaire.
BTW, as we stated before, The Horde small craft collection was designed
with the agility formula that Rob Dean and I agreed upon and posted for
all to see. If you don't like that, then the agility for most of them
becomes zero. (Until you enter combat and use emergency agility whereupon
it goes back up to where it was before!)
PS Did I read that right? You want MORE designs? TL 10? 12? 14?
hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe....
Actually, I'm overloaded w/ course work right now. But I'll think about it.