I: On the nature of warships

[justifier]

This is part one of a detailed analysis of my fictional universe. Feel free to comment or critique it, and if you ask you're free to write fiction set in the universe

On the nature of warships.
Spacefaring combat ships have been in usage for almost 200 years, with the greatest advances just now being made during the Universal War. Military ships can be broken down into several categories; first are messenger ships, they are used by militaries to carry coded combat messages, they are fast with disproportional E-drives and small crews; cruisers, these are smaller capital ships which are used mainly for reconnaissance and target observation; destroyers, heavily armed and armored these are true heavy ships; carriers, these carry fighters and small transports.

Design↔
Warships are designed to allow for the smallest surface area and the greatest firing arc. Thus the most common shapes are spherical, diamond shaped and triangular. Messenger ships and carriers however break this design rule due to their combat purposes, respectively.

Interior↔
Ships are created with multiple bulkheads, many of which are closed during combat to prevent depressurization of large parts of the ship if the hull is breached. Redundant navigation and power systems also allow even a heavily damaged ship to escape destruction and limp away from a battle.

Weapons↔
Ships carry many types of weapons; guided torpedoes being common; Also scatter torpedoes, which are large torpedoes which airburst into many small torpedoes; as a main weapon many capital ships however use plasma-cannons, railguns which fire huge spherical rounds which contain superheated plasma, upon contact with target the already highly destructive round disintegrates and sprays plasma on the target. For planetary bombardment plasma cannons are marginally effective, sometimes ships mount large space-to-planet missiles, but more commonly use fighters to make bombing runs.

Shields↔
Ships have circuitry on most of the hull, these circuits emit an energy field which interconnects and protects the ships. This setup allows the majority of the ship to be additionally protected against attacks. It also means that if the shield is breached only a small part will be exposed and the rest of the shield network will remain unaffected.
It should be noted that shields are not seen as a ships only defense and warships have reinforced and layered hulls for protection.

Faster than light travel↔
Faster than light travel is based on the original theory of Dr. Briason, which was later expanded on by the Advanced Scientific Research Committee, this is of pre confederate time, of course. The method of FTL is by putting a ship into the E-dimension, a mirror dimension where only energy normally exists, this is done by focusing the ships energy a creating a field around the ship which allows it to enter the E-dimension, once in the E the ships takes in energy and moves FTL, then comes to a stop and drops the field, thus reentering realspace. There are a number of problems with FTL however, first erecting the fields takes several minutes and in a combat situation it can be easily knocked out, also dropping out of E while still moving at FTL will scatter the ship across millions of miles of realspace.

[Knife]

This is part one of a detailed analysis of my fictional universe. Feel free to comment or critique it, and if you ask you're free to write fiction set in the universe

Okey dokey, you asked.

On the nature of warships.
Spacefaring combat ships have been in usage for almost 200 years, with the greatest advances just now being made during the Universal War.
Ships can be broken down into several categories; first are messenger ships, they are used by militaries to carry coded combat messages, they are fast with disproportional E-drives and small crews; cruisers, these are smaller capital ships which are used mainly for reconnaissance and target observation; destroyers, heavily armed and armored these are true heavy ships; carriers, these carry fighters and small transports.

1) messenger ships; Does this imply that your communications are STL? Or does it mean that coded material is sent via Messenger ships to ensure security?

2) Personally, I think you have Cruiser and Destroyer backwards but I can see the appeal of going back to the 'Age of Sail' idea of a cruiser. One of a fast and medium armed ship. Destroyer must be a colloqualism(sp?) and really what you have there are battlecruisers or battleships.

3) the other two are pretty standard, though you might want to expand the transports to container, tanker, freighter, ect...

Design↔
Warships are designed to allow for the smallest surface area and the greatest firing arc. Thus the most common shapes are spherical, diamond shaped and triangular. Messenger ships and carriers however break this design rule due to their combat purposes, respectively.

Sounds good, how are the hull details? Are you going to have your shield circits exposed or are the hulls going to be smooth? Are the weapons internal and have ports or are they mounted outside the hull?

Interior↔
Ships are created with multiple bulkheads, many of which are closed during combat to prevent depressurization of large parts of the ship if the hull is breached. Redundant navigation and power systems also allow even a heavily damaged ship to escape destruction and limp away from a battle.

Good, good. Is the navigaitonal systems hooked up to the sensers or is there an internal component or perhaps both? How much of the volume of the interier is non-habitable or do you have trek crawl ways all over?

Weapons↔
Ships carry many types of weapons; guided torpedoes being common; Also scatter torpedoes, which are large torpedoes which airburst into many small torpedoes; as a main weapon many capital ships however use plasma-cannons, railguns which fire huge spherical rounds which contain superheated plasma, upon contact with target the already highly destructive round disintegrates and sprays plasma on the target. For planetary bombardment plasma cannons are marginally effective, sometimes ships mount large space-to-planet missiles, but more commonly use fighters to make bombing runs.

Torpedo's - missiles- what ever; but a good mix of warheads would be good as well as yeild. On the plasma/rail cannon, people will probably come along and tell ya the disadvantages of a rail gun. The idea of a plasma warhead is good though and could carry through to the missiles/torpedos. If you are bent on plasma guns, you can go point defense with squirting plasma like a water gun. For a kenitic round, good old DU rounds would work wonders for ya too.

Shields↔
Ships have circuitry on most of the hull, these circuits emit an energy field which interconnects and protects the ships. This setup allows the majority of the ship to be additionally protected against attacks. It also means that if the shield is breached only a small part will be exposed and the rest of the shield network will remain unaffected.
It should be noted that shields are not seen as a ships only defense and warships have reinforced and layered hulls for protection.

Are the shields reflective, absorbive, dispersive?

Faster than light travel↔
Faster than light travel is based on the original theory of Dr. Briason, which was later expanded on by the Advanced Scientific Research Committee, this is of pre confederate time, of course. The method of FTL is by putting a ship into the E-dimension, a mirror dimension where only energy normally exists, this is done by focusing the ships energy a creating a field around the ship which allows it to enter the E-dimension, once in the E the ships takes in energy and moves FTL, then comes to a stop and drops the field, thus reentering realspace. There are a number of problems with FTL however, first erecting the fields takes several minutes and in a combat situation it can be easily knocked out, also dropping out of E while still moving at FTL will scatter the ship across millions of miles of realspace.

Is your intent a B5 hyperspace type thing, more or less a wormhole effect or something akin to Independence War and LaGrange points? On knocking out the E drive, is this an ECM type thing or are they more worried about weapons fire on the engines themselves.

And where the hell are the troops? Dropships? Capacity of the ships mentioned above to transport the troops? Are the fighters capable of carring weapons (missiles) that are a threat to larger capital ships?


Ah, the fun of making your own shit? Good job on the preimilaries.

[justifier]

Okey dokey, you asked.

If my universe is ever able to satisfy forum goers it will be able to satisfy anyone

1) messenger ships; Does this imply that your communications are STL? Or does it mean that coded material is sent via Messenger ships to ensure security?

Communications are STL, we still use radios. The military uses special ships, while governments have postal service type systems set up. For planet to planet within the same system radios are still sometimes used though.

2) Personally, I think you have Cruiser and Destroyer backwards but I can see the appeal of going back to the 'Age of Sail' idea of a cruiser. One of a fast and medium armed ship. Destroyer must be a colloqualism(sp?) and really what you have there are battlecruisers or battleships.

Well I'm not an expert in ship designations, so the names will probably change

3) the other two are pretty standard, though you might want to expand the transports to container, tanker, freighter, ect...

I probably should add personel transports, but freighters and such seem more like civilian ships

Sounds good, how are the hull details? Are you going to have your shield circits exposed or are the hulls going to be smooth? Are the weapons internal and have ports or are they mounted outside the hull?

Undecided about the shield circuits. The light weapons will be external, the plasma-cannons will be on huge battleship like turrets, and the torpedoes will be in ports

Good, good. Is the navigaitonal systems hooked up to the sensers or is there an internal component or perhaps both? How much of the volume of the interier is non-habitable or do you have trek crawl ways all over?

Undecided

Torpedo's - missiles- what ever; but a good mix of warheads would be good as well as yeild. On the plasma/rail cannon, people will probably come along and tell ya the disadvantages of a rail gun. The idea of a plasma warhead is good though and could carry through to the missiles/torpedos. If you are bent on plasma guns, you can go point defense with squirting plasma like a water gun. For a kenitic round, good old DU rounds would work wonders for ya too.

I'm undecided as to the averag torp yeild, I'm not too good with calcs. I'm set on keeping a railgun though. Yes, I'm gonna arm fighters and point weapons with DU slugs

Are the shields reflective, absorbive, dispersive?

Dispersive

Is your intent a B5 hyperspace type thing, more or less a wormhole effect or something akin to Independence War and LaGrange points? On knocking out the E drive, is this an ECM type thing or are they more worried about weapons fire on the engines themselves.

Well I'm not basing my FTL on any other sci-fi. The reflective dimesion provides enough energy for the ship to move and stop uberfast.
The ships are worried about the field generaters being knocked out or messed up and the whole thing dropping

And where the hell are the troops? Dropships? Capacity of the ships mentioned above to transport the troops? Are the fighters capable of carring weapons (missiles) that are a threat to larger capital ships?

In time, in time