I have many and varied ideas Ross.
I do like the idea of a wormhole race(possibly using Aurora-ish stuff where it only works at Lagrange points), but since that would entail a bunch of whatevers, I'm gonna drop it for now.
I did come up with what I think is a good table for the Space/HP/Cost/Speed. Mostly. Tried to make it balanced for what we're doing, since there's no research to get to certain ship hulls or logistics maximums or the like that GalCiv does. For ships, I went with a multiplier based on their cost, getting slowly less efficient the larger the ship. Efficiency versus Efficacy; it takes longer negate a larger ship's firepower than an equivalent cost of small ships, as that Space helps armor and defenses too...
You were saying you were gonna multiply Weapons damage by 40. Will there be possibilities of only partial hits, or even half-size or in between size weapons, then? Otherwise, the difference between a Fighter, a Freighter, and a Light Cargo Ship in terms of durability is just decoration.
Actually, I may be making adjustments, looking at the original table again, especially if we're gonna have extra powerful weapons. Might tip the tables towards offense too much otherwise...
Ship Type | Space | HP | Speed | Cost |
Fighter | 10 | 8 | 800g* | 2 bc |
Fast Courier | 5 | 5 | 750g | 10 bc |
Destroyer | 15 | 80 | 660g | 25 bc |
Light Cruiser | 25 | 140 | 600g | 40 bc |
Light Cargo | 40 | 10 | 270g | 15 bc |
Heavy Cruiser | 45 | 260 | 560g | 80 bc |
Freighter | 180 | 35 | 230g | 55 bc |
Battlecruiser | 80 | 480 | 520g | 160 bc |
Dreadnought | 135 | 850 | 480g | 320 bc |
Carrier | 180 | 650 | 450g | 350 bc |
Superdreadnought | 240 | 1400 | 420g | 800 bc |
Superfreighter | 450 | 55 | 200g | 100 bc |
* - cannot hyperI'm gonna try and look at weapons or something next.
And lore. Can't forget that lore. Let's say...four major starfaring races, with others species of intelligent life existing, but for one reason or another, haven't reached the stars, whether by killing themselves off, having a planet that you can't really get into space very easily without some really fancy tech that you might not be able to research into without reaching space, simply being too early into development to have reached that point, or being killed off by factors that aren't each other. Or maybe they simply don't have interest in space. Some of these, of course, will be minor citizens in one nation or another, but they won't have the sheer numbers the races that propagated themselves on multiple planets have. One race is probably gonna end up being humans, hopefully we can avoid the other races being Hat-People by leaving which nations are which race til after the nations are made. Maybe 7 'major' powers, myriad lesser ones, various fleet, combat, and strategic doctrines based on available technology, resources, and the psychology of the nation/race in question. Either several 'Federation' nations or none(in terms of the major powers, at least) I think would be best. It would just be odd if only one nation contained multiple races, and replicating Star Trek isn't the point. I'd like to break from Honorverse as much as possible, in tech to some extent(as long as we still keep our own physics consistent) and lore alike. Be unique.
Finally, Gunin, those were rhetorical questions. Sidewalls reduce laser firepower, they're almost certainly X-rays, they've probably found some materials that deflect X-rays, 80% of damage deflected each time someone hits you(they're moving at speeds possibly up to 0.6 or 0.8C. You're probably not going to hit them in the same 1 millimeter spot with each pulse(unless the tracking systems are set up for such miniscule adjustments at such high speeds?), let alone each volley; they can turn their ships over if nothing else). There's also the difficulty in having systems that can handle pulsing that quickly, with that much energy, as well as focusing lens absorbing some portion of the energy(not much but enough that overheating might become a concern), and so on. Size also isn't usually the primary concern for being able to accelerate quickly, but yes that would be why big ships are more durable. But additionally, if the pulses were that short, and arrived, as you put it, in the same instant, then the material would not have time to scorch and denature before the next pulse arrived, and it would reflect some of that too. In addition to the heatsinks and materials almost certainly being able to handle 8 MW of energy. That aside, it was 80-90%, not flat 80%. If you can get materials that, as they begin to break down, change the frequency they're reflecting to that of what's breaking them down(and likely over time needing replacement just from solar radiation, but they would thus help protect the crew from some of that solar radiation).
As for reflective dust, no, you really wouldn't, as either they're shooting at you from behind, the sides, or the front in this instance. Behind you leave a trail that interferes. In front you have your own guns, typically. The sides have the side walls, and if they look like they're about to broadside you can toss up reflective dust into the sidewall, even, which might be able to keep it around for a few moments more.