Alfisti's picture
Second Round Designs
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From the first round of high-level vessel design approaches, Option 03 was chosen to develop into the second round of sketches.

Changes in this pass included:

  • Removal of most forward armour to be concentrated in a central citadel instead. Bunkerage and engines are confirmed as being outside of this protected area as:
    • Placing the engines inside would require too large of a penetration in the citadel armour.
    • Bunkerage is intended to explode out into space rather than being contained in the armour envelope should it be hit or otherwise fail.
  • Relocation of radiators to behind armour flares for protection and mask them for the forward sensor profile.
  • Possibly decoy launcher locations added.
  • Possible locations for fire control uplink antennas added.

Architect's Notes

Vessel design concepts: Round Two sketchesArchitect's notes accompanying the submission are as follows:

Concept 01 was a tidy up of the more stripped back third concept on the original sheet. The radiators jutting out at angles were removed as it made more sense to keep them in line with the ship's superstructure and thus not increase it's forward sensor footprint. What didn't seem sensible however was to only strip the armour off the dorsal and ventral surfaces, whilst leaving the flanks fully protected...

...which led to Concept 02. The notes give more detail, but essentially armour is now just on the citadel area, where all the things that are critical to the ship's ability to fight and function and/or don't react well to being shot are put. This includes the reactor but, notably, not the engines or bunkerage. In the case of the engine this is because they would require too large of a penetration in the citadel armour to put through. As to the bunkerage, the idea would be to have multiple armoured tanks instead, so that if one does go up it can explode out into the void, rather than being contained in an strong envelope and taking the ship with it. Keeping with the idea that the crew will want to keep the ship pointed toward anything suspicious however, both are protected by flares on the sides of the citadel from incoming fire off the forward quarter. These also hide the radiators, which were moved to the flanks to give a better field of fire for the point defence emplacements. These flares also double as mounts for reaction thrusters though, as it's not a heap of leverage, she may be a bit sluggish on the roll axis... which could be fun in its own way.

Otherwise, general theories from the previous round stand.

Concepts 03 and 04 were deliberately going off piste with other armouring schemes, though both are a bit all or nothing for my taste.

Comments

mattm's picture

The concepts look great. How much does armour add to the mass of the vessel (and impact its maneuverability)?

Alfisti's picture

At the moment the actual composition of the armour is still very much under discussion and development so, right now, the answer is "not sure". The current feeling is that it will be a layered composite system, intended to protect against a broad range of threats, both energy and kenetic. Depending on the result of that it would not be unfeasible to see the actual mass being upward of a ton/m2, particularly if there is a need identied for an ultra-dense component. Obviously for the purposes of manoeuvring less mass = better, (not to mention the amount of delta-v available per unit of fuel expended) hence the current intent to limit armour coverage to critical systems only in the citadel area.

mattm's picture

I like the forward half of option 2 and the aft section of option 3.