Starship design challenge!

[Ouroboros]

I am writing a sci-fi story, and I need some ideas- namely, ship designs. Seeing how much ship-related discussion is going on here, I decided to seek the advice of the good people of Gateworld (especially the Virtual Fleet crowd, who seems so adept at ship-invention). Below I will describe what precisely I need, using Stargate ships and tech for comparison purposes.

1) I need a "design" for a patrol dreadnought- a very large, self-sufficient spacefaring unit intended primarily for border patrol of a multi-galactic space empire and, when necessary, suppressing rebellions. It should be able to single-handedly face off against whole squadrons of 304-comparable battleships, suppress planetary defences, etc. Preferably not a stereotypical Death Star-like thing with a superweapon on top though. I am looking for concepts that haven't been done to death yet.

Have you considered a "Super carrier" type ship for this role rather than a dreadnought/battleship type design.

The reason I ask is because you mentioned things like suppressing rebellions and planetary defenses and well as what sounds like a lot of border patrol/peacekeeping type missions.

A very large carrier type craft fits this role much better than a battleship type design because it can effectively "cover" and monitor much more space much more effectively. The type of threats you encounter in a patrol or peacekeeping type scenario are unlikely to ever require the attention of an enormous giant gunned dreadnought style killing machine. They'll be much better dealt with by flights of smaller fighters, gunships and destroyers that could be potentially housed, repaired and rearmed inside their enormous mothership.

In that sense you could think of the carrier less as a ship and more of a mobile base. Even giving it onboard factories for producing new ships, ammo, parts and fuel out of raw materials gathered by mining/gathering ships it carries inside it would be reasonable.

Edit: Just read your second post about how your mains guys didn't build this thing. Excellent. Make this process automated. Give the super carrier thing a sort of AI that automatically dispatches resource gathering drones and the like to fetch raw materials to covert into the various things the ship needs to continue to survive. You could even do a plot tie in that much of your societies "modern" technology came as a result of reverse engineering how the mothership/carrier/dreadnought AI built things like FTL capable drones after they discovered the first one of these automated super ships just wandering the void on it's own. It's boarded and what they find is a sort of ghost ship still filled with weapons, small ships and various bits of tech all in pristene condition and neatly laid out in rows prepared and awaiting use by beings who'd mysteriously all vanished eons ago.

Anyway back to the general capabilities. If you need to invade a planet to put down a small uprising or rebellion you've also got a very large number of landing craft to do it with as well as fighters and bombers to escort and protect them as well as take out ground targets without taking out potential friendly or neutral targets in the vacinity as large scale orbital strikes might. They can also supply direct close in air support for landed troops. If the carrier's big enough you could have ti basically constantly tow around it's own small planetary assault army, complete with drop ships troops and vehicles. This doesn't even compromise it's role very much because the launch bays are already there and the troops can also be used to defend it from boarding and capture/inspect suspicious ships the fighter patrols run across in their daily policing activities.

[thekillman]

the ideas i proposed on drones are filling the role of fighters and such. they come in massive amounts. anyway, the ship should have mining capabilities, like a mining beam, and a kind of asgard beam transporting stuff over the ship to quick repair

[Womble]

Yeah.

I am having the intro beta-ed as we speak. It's pretty big (14 pages), so might take a bit of time.

[jds1982]

Have you considered a "Super carrier" type ship for this role rather than a dreadnought/battleship type design.

The reason I ask is because you mentioned things like suppressing rebellions and planetary defenses and well as what sounds like a lot of border patrol/peacekeeping type missions.

A very large carrier type craft fits this role much better than a battleship type design because it can effectively "cover" and monitor much more space much more effectively. The type of threats you encounter in a patrol or peacekeeping type scenario are unlikely to ever require the attention of an enormous giant gunned dreadnought style killing machine. They'll be much better dealt with by flights of smaller fighters, gunships and destroyers that could be potentially housed, repaired and rearmed inside their enormous mothership.

In that sense you could think of the carrier less as a ship and more of a mobile base. Even giving it onboard factories for producing new ships, ammo, parts and fuel out of raw materials gathered by mining/gathering ships it carries inside it would be reasonable.

Edit: Just read your second post about how your mains guys didn't build this thing. Excellent. Make this process automated. Give the super carrier thing a sort of AI that automatically dispatches resource gathering drones and the like to fetch raw materials to covert into the various things the ship needs to continue to survive. You could even do a plot tie in that much of your societies "modern" technology came as a result of reverse engineering how the mothership/carrier/dreadnought AI built things like FTL capable drones after they discovered the first one of these automated super ships just wandering the void on it's own. It's boarded and what they find is a sort of ghost ship still filled with weapons, small ships and various bits of tech all in pristene condition and neatly laid out in rows prepared and awaiting use by beings who'd mysteriously all vanished eons ago.

Anyway back to the general capabilities. If you need to invade a planet to put down a small uprising or rebellion you've also got a very large number of landing craft to do it with as well as fighters and bombers to escort and protect them as well as take out ground targets without taking out potential friendly or neutral targets in the vacinity as large scale orbital strikes might. They can also supply direct close in air support for landed troops. If the carrier's big enough you could have ti basically constantly tow around it's own small planetary assault army, complete with drop ships troops and vehicles. This doesn't even compromise it's role very much because the launch bays are already there and the troops can also be used to defend it from boarding and capture/inspect suspicious ships the fighter patrols run across in their daily policing activities.

Man I'm telling ya, a nanite ship could pretty much do all of that.

[aAnubiSs]

Man I'm telling ya, a nanite ship could pretty much do all of that.

Nano-machines are not good at storing heat and electricity. Volume-area ratio you know.

[Sealurk]

Nano-machines are not good at storing heat and electricity. Volume-area ratio you know.

Agreed, nanotech could be powerful but has significant limitations...in real life, anyway! Plus, from a purely personal perspective, nanotech is grossly overused.

Non-nano approaches to typical 'nano-esque' areas are often quite a good idea I find. Instead of a hull made up of nanites that repairs itself, how about a future extension of shape memory alloys, or a dense ceramic that can be intentionally heated to melting point to reshape it and remove craters, scratches, dents etc by reforming the hull. With the plot point that while molten, the ship is vulnerable to attack by kinetic penetrators.

Then again, a thick hull of ice can be just as good and way easier to work with.

Invasion module? Planetary invasion would indeed require a dedicated ship-type, like Ouroborous said, a carrier. The first step would likely involve softening up the planet with a few rounds of orbital bombardment - dozens of missile hatches loaded with tungsten rods (google Rods from God or Project Thor), nukes, or whatever your tech equivalent is.

This would be followed very quickly by hundreds of individually dropped shock troops, possibly out of the same hatches, using disposable one-man capsules (look up M.O.O.S.E. on Astronautix.com for a terrifyingly cheap way of doing this!). These guys could perform the same function as paratroops in securing locations and removing any remaining surface to orbit firepower, preparing for the huge landing barges (big craft have one advantage in reentry, they don't need exotic heat shields - they slow down more in the upper atmosphere so depending on size, titanium or even certain steels are perfectly adequate, and of course a big craft won't be as adversely affected by a stray surface-to-orbit missile or equivalent).

An orbital assault carrier, for planetary invasion, would likely concentrate most of its armour on one side, the one facing the planet's surface, to absorb the huge amount of STO firepower that could be unleashed, and even allow it to make a sub-orbital pass, low enough to offload landing craft so they can get to the surface quicker before the carrier ramps up the thrust to return to a low orbit.

Hope this helps in some way!

[thekillman]

planetary invasion? send a couple of ships. each ship is a carrier carrying thousands of missiles. the missiles would be dropped out from the ship, enter the atmosphere and engage engines, and then drop off 9 nukes, into a perfect grid. tadaa, planetary obliteration. for a more enviromentally-frienly one: aschen bio weapons. for annother more enviromentally friendly one: fire naquahdah-potassium bombs at the required locations. or: send a holoship: emits the picture of a massive ship over itself, while using sensor distortion technology to make the sensor signature almost as big as the projected ship. meanwhile, the enemy attacks in full fore,allowing you to map out defences. a secondary strikeforce moves in, [above mentioned carriers] and take out the targets, and ensure victory

[Womble]

This would be followed very quickly by hundreds of individually dropped shock troops, possibly out of the same hatches, using disposable one-man capsules (look up M.O.O.S.E. on Astronautix.com for a terrifyingly cheap way of doing this!). These guys could perform the same function as paratroops in securing locations and removing any remaining surface to orbit firepower, preparing for the huge landing barges (big craft have one advantage in reentry, they don't need exotic heat shields - they slow down more in the upper atmosphere so depending on size, titanium or even certain steels are perfectly adequate, and of course a big craft won't be as adversely affected by a stray surface-to-orbit missile or equivalent).

Hundreds? Surely you mean tens of thousands (if not millions)? We're talking about a planet-wide invasion here, and an Earth-sized planet is a hell of a lot of ground to cover.

Nice ideas about the rest, definitely some food for thought.

[Sealurk]

Good point! I got stuck with the paratrooper analogy there I think...

[Womble]

Good point! I got stuck with the paratrooper analogy there I think...

Come to think of it, even millions might not suffice. And imagine the size of the ship needed to transport that many troops. These dreadnoughts will have to be some kind of self-propelled moons!

Which raises the question: how does one conduct a planetary invasion without an absurd amount of troops at one's disposal? I think it could be a good idea to emply mind-control weapons that would allow one to use the planet's own human resources as the invasion force. Something like nish'ta bombs perhaps?

[Sealurk]

Not necessarily. Assuming we're using nothing larger than an Earth sized planet (population wise), you can control the population with surgically precise but devastating attacks from orbit, without landing one soldier. Orbit is the ultimate high ground, literally and figuratively - orbit-to-surface attacks can be precise and incredibly powerful, without even requiring sci-fi superweapons, and retaliation from the surface is difficult...the ultimate morale weapon.

In addition, you wouldn't need to seize the entire planet in one go, just the problem areas, military bases, power facilities, capital cities etc.

Another benefit of having orbital superiority is you can put any unit, any personnel...anywhere. And all this assumes a very near future tech level - the more advanced, the better.

[Womble]

Not necessarily. Assuming we're using nothing larger than an Earth sized planet (population wise), you can control the population with surgically precise but devastating attacks from orbit, without landing one soldier. Orbit is the ultimate high ground, literally and figuratively - orbit-to-surface attacks can be precise and incredibly powerful, without even requiring sci-fi superweapons, and retaliation from the surface is difficult...the ultimate morale weapon.

That's what they used to say about aerial bombers after World War I. Then came World War II, and it turned out that you can bomb day and night, but you can't control territory from the air after all. You haven't conquered anything until you've put the troops on the ground.

I don't think it'll be that different with space invasions. You just can't suppress guerilla uprisings with naquadah bombs any more than you can hunt cockroaches with cannons.

[Sealurk]

True, but it'd probably help to drop the number of troops required for a successful invasion / occupation quite significantly.

[lord groovy]

I can think of 3 methods for taking control of a planet :

- complete destruction : orbital weapon platforms and/or bioweapon. It's useful when your goal is to make the planet your new homeworld. It's the ID4 tactic.

- conversion : surgical attacks followed by assimilation of the populations. It's the Goa'uld tactic. The main problem is that it would need 2 or 3 generations to be really effective. During that time, you should expect rebellion and guerilla (*cough* Irak *cough*)

- alliance : befriend the natives and start meddling in their affairs. It's more like the Aschen way of thinking. Objective : wipe them out silently. The main problem is that it takes a looooooooooooong time to be effective.

If it was me I would associate 1 and 3 :
- build an orbital weapon platform : vast network of satellites able to fire anywhere at the surface of the planet.
- launch the attack without ever setting foot on the planet.
- wait 2-4 years
- come to the planet and seek survivors
- claim that I am an enemy of the aliens that installed the orbital platform
- befriend with the survivors
- launch a surprise attack to (apparently) destroy the platform
- sign a treaty stating that I would help them rebuild their civilization while I can use a portion of the planet

Within 50years we will be like the Serrakin.

PS : I will erase any file than can be used as evidence of my participation in the original slaughter as soon as the weapon platform is operational.

[thekillman]

look. launch an attack this way:

1: send a few ships. they are equipped with tons of sensors, drop cloaked satellites in orbit, and descend on the planet to measure the defensive forces and reaction of the population.

2: leave, and study them for months. the situation will cool down, believing the enemy is scared. meanwhile, you look at what happens them. you can also use directed bioweapons to take out the political guys.

3: come back in full force. main fleet resides around the sun, while weapons platforms move in and kill the defenses.

4 main fleet moves in and finishes off. for optimal effect, leave only a few ships at the location and keep them in chaos. finally the people understand the old world is gone. at the right point, establish foothold and capture the planet. children and such are abducted and teached.