ESN-LF04 "Theseus"The Theseus represents an actual ship designed for modern warfare. Using all of our experience from the
many lessons of the Cuttlefish, we can create something truly devastating.
Its shape is defined by sleek and graceful curves, and ((if no tactical disadvantage)) it's painted a brilliant silver. The Theseus is notably larger than the Cuttlefish, as well. The weapons subtly jut out at specific points. While it doesn't resemble any specific shape, if one was to boil it down to its most basic shape, it'd be vaguely like an oval. But in its actual form, it's its own shape.
Crew requirements are drastically lower than that of the Cuttlefish despite being bigger. As the Theseus is built with Athena in mind, we can properly use Athena. Athena controls most of the ship's functions, decreasing our need for crew. The crew resides in the very center of the ship, in a small set of closely-packed rooms. The insides of these rooms are brightly lit and also painted white for crew morale. The majority of the space formerly used for crew is filled with additional computing power for Athena.
The Theseus is powered and moved via 3 Helios-S reactors and 3 respective Hermes thrusters. All three reactors simply share power loads, but their Hermes thrusters are placed to improve maneuverability. The 1st simply in the back for forward propulsion. The other two in the two back "corners" of the ship, at angles to provide some horizontal thrust. When combined with an electromagnetic gimballing system, this
massively helps maneuverability. Whereas the Cuttlefish had to rely on RCS for anything other than "go forwards", the Theseus can use its Hermes thrusters in a far greater number of directions, improving evasive capabilities.
The Theseus is equipped with 8x Spear turrets - proportional to the "3 per reactor" of the Cuttlefish, with one removed just for power security. It comes equipped with mounts for future weapons such as missiles, though those aren't included at the moment. The mounts are simplistic in nature - they're just here so we don't have to modify more than one design no matter how simple that modification is, when we create a space-variant of the Sarissa.
The ship also has some additional sensory equipment networked to Athena. Notably a passive heat sensor, in order to improve our effective range. Especially with the future missiles.
This vessel's most important aspect is its armor. Insalloy, while a huge advancement never seen before - even in Quillus - in terms of armor, it's never been used right in the Cuttlefish and other cases. We
actually integrate notable amounts of it into the armor of the Theseus, while also just giving the Theseus a higher proportion of armor to hull than before. The Cuttlefish didn't really
have proper armor, per-say - it was mostly just some thin Insalloy plates on a hull similar to that of the ITC. Kind of. The armor is an actual part of the ship, embedded to actually act as armor.
The armor layout uses a whipple shield configuration
stolen from another design proposal that uses an outer layer to break any projectiles followed by empty space and an inner hull to prevent the projectile's fragments from doing any damage.
TL;DR: New ship. Bigger than the Cuttlefish. Less crew due to being designed w/ Athena in mind, +more Athena processing power. 3x Helios-S + 3x Hermes w/ two Hermes angled partially outwards (+electromagnetic gimballing) to allow for us to use Hermes thrust in multiple directions, improving maneuverability evasive maneuvering capability. Passive heat sensors. Design focus is an actual substantial Insalloy armoring in a whipple shield configuration.
Shouldn't be difficult (I
hope Easy but I tend to be wrong whenever I hope for Easy) - it's almost all just putting together existing components in an actually competent fashion instead of the disaster that was the Cuttlefish.
((This was actually made before Andrea's Nautilus design though I did
steal get inspiration from the whipple armor layout.. It's mildly amusing how similar these are though.))
But we should probably focus on the ground for now. We can very easily revise the Sarissa into space-variants to put on our Cuttlefishes, which should help greatly in space. We're barely holding on in terms of ground combat. We have the experience, and we should do it.
Design: EAF-ACD1 "Aegis"Just as in Greek mythology Athena wielded the Aegis to protect, Ertex's Athena will use Aegis to protect us.
The
Automated
Combat
Drone
"Aegis" is a humanoid design - a bit larger than a human, but otherwise resembling one. Its outer "shell" (and some other parts) is constructed out of relatively thin Insalloy actually built into the frame, avoiding the pitfalls of the X100pI. Its lack of more directly-flexible parts mean we don't have to sacrifice protection coverage for mobility. Its head is the
least humanoid (though still notably humanoid) thing about it - moreso a bundle of sensors - visual, heat, etc. - shaped to not be too off-putting to the human eye. An Athena node is distributed throughout the entire frame. We thought about the head as the Athena node, but that's an obvious weak spot. We thought about the torso, but that's a big target. So instead, we're simply distributing it out to minimize the chances of catastrophic damage. The thing is powered by NQ Cells distributed along the frame too (but mostly in the center).
It's of course bipedal, the core tech behind it being prior bipedal robot designs before our departure from Earth, some tweaking by ourselves, and Athena managing it.
((
Boston Dynamics Atlas for reference. Not actually anything like the more human-like motion aimed for w/ this, but just shows that we already have a
lot of old-world knowledge to base this off of, etc.))
The Aegis' Athena node
individually is "relatively" intelligent. Involving such
dynamic functions such as "continue shooting at what you were shooting at", "don't shoot at friendlies", and "continue walking to where you were supposed to walk before disconnection from the network." Because of the fact that Athena is a networked intelligence, individual Aegis units should be able to tank surprising amounts of damage - even if their Athena node isn't functioning, that doesn't mean it can't receive orders from Athena; a damaged/destroyed node just means it can't properly contribute to the networked intelligence.
So even if you manage to blow a hole through the center of an Aegis, it should still keep functioning if it has enough intact servos to move, an antenna, and any capacitors with charge left. But blowing a hole through it should still be hard given its shell is made using Island Alloy and its not just haphazardly given a couple of I-Alloy plates to hang on itself like the X100-I.
The Aegis has
relatively nimble hands. It can pick up and manipulate most general tools, but can't do anything like keyboards, precision tasks, and the like. It's meant to hold guns and maybe pick up other things. It has "ports" and "hooks" and whatnot to attach extra gear to, and its hands can be "plugged" into our equipment - namely Raider rifles - to directly operate them from the Aegis unit's integrated cell. It's equipped with a speaker that has a randomized fairly human-like (still obviously robotic to prevent the auditory uncanny valley) voices in case it needs to coordinate with nearby humans or direct Quillus prisoners and the like. But most coordination with Triumvirate-aligned humans will likely be via Athena directly speaking to individuals via radio.
We're going for Quality over Quantity, here. But that's not to say Quantity is a valid aim of ours. Just less-so than Quality. Aegis units can perfectly coordinate with each other and other Athena equipment (e.g. Sarissa) instantly based on perfect intelligence from the entire Athena network. The units can make expert effective use of armor thanks to the fact that they have no bendy and squishy parts. They're much more durable regardless of armor because they can survive a lot more damage than a human (and have no pain). They can be more agile than humans thanks to not having to wear bulky suits. They can be manufactured at will. They mean less Ertexite lives lost.
TL;DR: A bipedal combat robot controlled by Athena. Numerous sensors in head (for more battlefield-aware Athena), durable + survivable, insalloy shell + basic core "skeleton", NQ Cell powered and, most importantly,
cool.((In terms of difficulty, I'd say
Normal (w/
hope for Easy - it has the
potential, but I would *never* bet on it being Easy in any case). It basically has two "new" things: Athena controlling individual bots (helped
greatly by Athena Flexibility) and being bipedal (which we're surprisingly currently very well on in real life). If it was
just doing these things, it'd probably be Easy, but we also have to put the whole thing together.))
Taken from various sources online. These aren't meant to impact the difficulty or the actual design at all - it's just for fluff and so Nuke + others get an idea of the aesthetic I'm going for.
One/both of these may actually be armored humans, and either way my "vision" of the Aegis would have it be notably more robotic than either of these designs, though still human-like in appearance.
MILITARY DESIGNS
PistolCrab Heavy Corvette(1):Detoxicated
Talon Intercepter(2):Blood_librarian, Happerry
Nautilus frigate (1) : Andrea
Smite (1): joha4270
ESN-LF04 Theseus (1): Chiefwaffles
EAF-ACD1 "Aegis" (1): Chiefwaffles
CIVILIAN DESIGNS
KingCobra Bomb
Streamlined hephestus process
Patterns of Fabrication
“Athena” Civilian Edition
Quantum Gravity
Seven Little Dwarves AI Program
"Hulk" mobile refinery
"Hercules" powered exoskeleton
"Caduceus" compact reactor
Author
Topic: Ertex Design Bureau - Battle for Aljadid - Strategy SY108 (Read 48475 times)