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Thor (heavy frigate)

0 (0%)

Hiram (Railgun drone)

0 (0%)

Occido MI (exploding mimic dron)

0 (0%)

Lux (Laser corvette)

0 (0%)

Stone (Solar sail transport)

0 (0%)

BIFROST (Laser drone)

0 (0%)

Pythagoras (Recovery ship)

0 (0%)

Julius (transforming drone)

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 0

Voting closed: December 13, 2012, 01:24:40 pm

[Maxinum McDreich]

I was meaning the warheads could be launched BY the drones. Each drone has 2 or so warheads (I doubt they'd last longer than those rounds). They could be EMP warheads that disable or confuse a ship. They could be burrowers that drill into the hull. Quite a few choices there.
I just don't see railgun toting drones being useful at all, not until we get AI that can spot weaknesses in the enemy ships, and even then, I'd doubt it. However, laser toting drones at close range has many possibilities of overheating certain defenses or weapony, or outright melting the hull. Difference between railguns and lasers: if a railgun cannot do anything on it's own, it'll never manage with a hundred thousand shots (exaggeration, but). Lasers, on the other hand, will slowly heat up the area with multiple hits, even if it's weak. On anything but drones, that's not much help, but drones, in numbers, should be able to do the biz.
And it's cheaper than a railgun, in terms of weapon contruction and ammo issues. Just need a generator of some sort in the drone.

[tryrar]

Hey Maximum, that might be something to try in the next turn, why don't you go ahead and design the specs for a drone that carries 2 missiles?

[GreatWyrmGold]

Sweet, let me find the sheet.

Any requests on aesthetics?

[tryrar]

Not really, though having a single powerful laser might work over multiple smaller lasers. Remember, we only really have room for 1 fusion plant/battery and capacitor ring/whatever power system one something THAT small, so making maximum use of power is key

[evilcherry]

Just in case as 2 long term future project proposals.

Fenrir-1R Prototype Heavy Starfighter
Mass: 800kg

The Fenrir-1R is a design made in response to the hypothetical existence of long-range pirate attack crafts that aims at avoiding the space station together and heading directly at the planet. It is designed to have very long range and have a reasonable arsenal of a laser cannon and hardpoints for attaching rockets, which can also carry specialized bombs to make it a long range strike craft. Maneuverability is ditched in favor of raw speed, as it is designed for catching up anyway.

Focus: Laser 1, Range 2, Speed 1, Warheads 1

Loki-0R Prototype Test Fighter
Mass: 600kg

Loki-0R is a design trying to capture our capabilities in fusion drive, atmospheric craft and laser weaponry. While it only has a single laser pod, it is mounted on a turret mechanism and is AI-programmed to be much more effective than anything else in a dogfight.

Focus: Fusion drive output (1), Aerodynamics (2), Atmospheric propulsion (1), AI(1)

[RAM]

Bear in mind that space armour is likely to be very light in all but the largest of vessels due to surface area issues and the fact that you can generally get a weapon to focus on a small area while armour generally has to cover the entire surface...
The pirates sound as though they are inclined to compete with one another. Probably have a comparatively high turnover of vessels. Likely come upon a fair number of new vessels that are not suited to pirate operations, but could be dismantled into components that would be exceedingly useful to a ship manufacturer. It just seems to be that if we were to produce a line of fast, armed 'salvage' vessels with some cargo capacity, that there might be a certain amount of local interest...

[evilcherry]

by the way, what are those "generic" engineers doing? will they just sit around, or will they be better off doing some research by themselves?

[Ukrainian Ranger]

They are background and I need them to promote some to more useful assistants if rolls are kind to you

[RAM]

The great thing about drones, is that you can recover them. This means that you can launch all of them as soon as any conflict arises without completely depleting your arsenal. The significance of this is that the vessel that transported the drones loses its relevance to the battle and becomes much less valuable as a target...

[10ebbor10]

The great thing about drones, is that you can recover them. This means that you can launch all of them as soon as any conflict arises without completely depleting your arsenal. The significance of this is that the vessel that transported the drones loses its relevance to the battle and becomes much less valuable as a target...

Not really. The drones are not completely autonomous. In most cases, the vessel that launched them will control them. So if you get said vessel to surrender, you can make them call back the drones.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

And we got the winners, you may discuss some more and update projects or I'll use Oculus  and Valhalla as they submitted earlier in the thread

[Aseaheru]

i vote that the losers are recycled for the next round.

[10ebbor10]

I'd just want to say that we really want to use thightbeam communications or another secure system for the Oculus drones. Having superior intel is not usefull when everyone has it.

[Aseaheru]

yep. get the math man on that. and see if there is a language somewhere on the world no other world speaks.

[10ebbor10]

yep. get the math man on that. and see if there is a language somewhere on the world no other world speaks.

You know, we can just use a standard encryption model. Using languages is way outdated. Besides, every sattelite has a copy of the code, so it wouldn't stay secret for long, especially if we give the merchants intel too.

The idea of a thightbeam communicator is that you're only transmitting data to one target. You can control where the laser goes, and you should be able to shut it down before the enemy gets near.