Shipbucket

So I am an avid fan of the 4x game Aurora. For those of you who have not heard of it before you can learn about it here:

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php

and here...

http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.ph ... =Main_Page

Its basically an sand box style 4x space game along the lines of Dwarf Fortress in space. That's being polite, its basically a crap ton of spreadsheets with very little graphic eye candy besides a very basic system and galaxy map with the most simple representations of ships and planets and what not. It is, however, extraordinarily detailed and lets me get lost in hours upon hours of space exploration role playing in any direction I want.

Anyways enough about the game. As I said it has very little eye candy and while I have a pretty active imagination sometimes you just want to see your ships as something other than a single pixel point on a map. So I am going to draw them. The ships will be consistent with the rules of Aurora but I am going to attempt to make them as realistic as possible as well. To that end many will have elements and components that are purely role playing in nature and have no in game benefit. Later in the game this will probably go off the rails as things like shields and anti gravity and warp points will make this harder and harder but I'll do my best to balance game and reality.

Some background history:
2035 US Mars Mission Fails
2045 Chinese Mars Mission Fails
2063 US/ESA/JAXA Joint Mars Mission Fails
2065-2067 Pride War
2068 Confederation Formed
2069-2080 Winnowing
2085 Oceanic Collapse
2097 Space Elevator Completed
2198 Construction of Horizon Station Started

That's for context, I will fill in pre history and game history as I invent it for the purpose of explaining the drawings I post.


Summary:
The Pioneer program was the first major space exploration initiative attempted after the Pride War/Winnowing. Using global resources under the Confederation it was able to succeed where the previous serious attempts had failed including the 2035 USA initiative (abandoned half finished in orbit), 2045 Chinese mission (craft crash landed and destroyed during Luna test mission) and the joint 2063 USA/ESA/JAXA project (abandoned during run up to the Pride War). Of the three original vessels planned only two were built.

The vehicle was a joint project between the newly formed Confederation Aerospace Agency (CASA, formerly NASA/ESA/CSA/JAXA/CARI) and the Space Exploration Bureau (SEBU, formerly RKA/CNSA/ISRO/AEB/AEM, thanks for the kick start sebu!). CASA was responsible for the mission planning and execution while SEBU led the terrestrial construction of the modules as well as the orbital construction of the chassis and module mating. In reality both organizations were involved almost indistinguishably in all areas of the program, the division being a political carry over from the Confederation's formation.

Construction of the Pioneer's modules began in 2092 years before SEBU completed the Pacific Space Elevator (construction of the second vehicle, Adventure, began in 2097. The third vessel was canceled in 2103). Once the elevator was competed in 2097 assembly of Horizon Station was started immediately. While the ambitious duel shipyard and research station project would not be completed until 2106 the central hub and slipway was complete enough to begin the Pioneer chassis construction in 2099.

While Pioneer was being built CASA began creating the infrastructure needed for the Pioneer programs first two mission packages. Starting in 2097 when the the Pacific Lift started operations fuel and cargo pods began to be sent into Mars, Europa, and Titan orbit to support landings and return journeys. In the case of Mars prefabricated habitat pods were landed for eventual occupation by manned missions. These logistic staging missions were accomplished primarily with converted excess missile rocket motors from Earth's now defunct nuclear forces. Some, however, were delivered via the new CASA Mercury engine serving as real world testing beds. The design completed four trips to Titan without incident before Pioneer made her maiden voyage.

Pioneer's mission personnel (and later that of Adventure) were half military and half civilian, split equally between the vehicle crew and ground mission. Captain Adam Faulkner served as the vehicle commander and Dr. Peter Atkins as the ground team leader.

Pioneer was launched on January 2nd 2100. Following successful engine testing in near earth space Pioneer tested its non atmosphere landing vehicle on Lina on February 15th, following with a second landing to test the atmospheric lander on February 22nd. The Mars mission departed Horizon Station on April 2nd and arrived on April 27th. The first human to set foot on mars, Doctor Peter Atkins, did so the following day 28th of April.

Adventure was launched on July 12th 2100 and departed for Titan under vehicle Captain Samantha Martin on September 25th. After refueling and resupply stops at Mars and Europa Dr. Tyler Norman became the first human to set foot on Titan on December 23rd. He became the first human to set foot on Europa on February 3rd 2101.

Both vessels remained active through 2111 visiting and/or landing on all of the Martian, Saturnian and Jovian moons as well as visiting Mercury and Venus (though not landing on either). With the discovery of Trans Newtonian physics in 2104 and the the launch of the Prospector vessels starting in 2112 the Pioneer class rapidly became obsolete, though they remained the only spacecraft capable of landing humans on solar bodies until the Conveyor class debuted in 2117. They ceased active operation in 2117 and served as ready rescue vessels docked at Aurora Station through 2020, a service they were never required to fullfill. In 2020 both were stripped of their habitation modules and converted to robotic cargo carriers serving through 2030. Pioneer was broken down in 2031 and returned to Earth's surface and is currently displayed in Guangzhou outside the former SEBU facility where most it's modules were built (now part of the Dalian Space Corporation, DSC). Adventure was scrapped the same year.

Layout:

The vehicle is a series of prefabricated modules attached around a permanent chassis. The chassis runs from the forward part of the engine compartment, through the center of the vessel to the common compartment and ends with the lander cone. Along its length bracing attachments provide rigidity to the vessel for thrust transfer as well as all umbilical connections between all modules (via the common compartment for the habitable modules). The aft portion of the chassis contains two reaction mass tanks. The solar photovoltaic cells are attached to the chassis aft of the common compartment.

The ship is primarily composed of two stacks of three modules (starting aft engine, fuel, and habitat) attached to the port and starboard side of the chassis. Attached above and below the chassis are the command and communications modules. The common compartment provides access between all habitable modules and the lander cone.

Propulsion/Power:
Two Mercury rocket engines provide propulsion for a maximum speed of 111 km/s allowing for a travel between Earth and Mars orbit in one month provided optimum positioning of both planets. The engines can provide maximum velocity after five days of controlled burns. For deceleration the ship is rotated with thrusters and the engines are burned in the opposite direction. The vessel only requires half of its maximum fuel and reaction mass load to reach Mars so could conceivably abort a Mars transit and return to Earth. For Jovian missions refueling/provisioning from propositioned cargo and fuel pods at Mars is required. For Saturnian missions and additional resupply at Europa is required (as well as optimal orbits for Jupiter and Saturn).

The engines are located side by side at the rear of the vessel, each a self contained module with no critical equipment shared for redundancy. Directly forward of each engine module is the fuel module containing two fuel tanks each. Each engine is attached to the chassis running through the center of the vessel to transfer momentum to the rest of the vehicle, but are also lined up directly behind the habitability modules, the largest of the vessel's components. Reaction mass is contained in two tanks that are organic to the chassis.

Engineering functions can be controlled from either the command module or common compartment.

Vehicle power is provide by either solar photovoltaic cells or fuel cells. The photovoltaic cells fold against the aft hull during propulsion burns.

Life Support/Habitat:

Two habitat modules are located on either side of the common compartment. Each has its own life support system capable of maintaining the needs of the entire ship and its 20 crew, though each normally houses 10 crew each. The actual supply for life support systems are located in tanks between the habitat modules and the common compartment. Each habitat module also has its own radiator to remove crew and other heat from the vessel. The radiators fold down against the aft hull during propulsion burns.

Consumables such as food and water are stored in a cargo pod that is attached to the main airlock during orbit to orbit voyage. The crew can change this pod out with propositioned cargo pods at waypoints depending on mission requirements.
One pod provides enough provisions for one transit between Earth and Mars and back if required (normally only enough for a one way trip is taken to conserve mass).

The cargo pod also provides for emergency escape from the vessel while in orbit of Mars or Earth having shielding for reentry. With no dedicated life support escapees rely on their emergency egress suits and thus do not have enough longevity for mid transit escape. The pod can only carry the 10 member vessel crew. The lander can also be used for emergency escape and is the primary method for the ground crew if onboard (though the non atmospheric lander can not be used on Earth or Mars), however the lander requires a minimum of one hour to prep for departure (the cone doors can be blown off for powerless launch if needed).

Command and Control.

The primary control for the vehicle is through the command module mounted above the common compartment. The command module has a cockpit module attached in front for manual maneuver during docking operations but can be piloted automatically or via camera/radar from the module itself. Aft of the command module is the vehicle airlock used for normal docking and for crew access to the exterior of the vessel for maintenance or other purposes (emergency egress hatches are at the aft end of each habitat module)

The common compartment is the space at the center of the habitable portion of the ship and is organic to the ship chassis. All habitable portions of the ship attach via this compartment. Being a permanent portion of the ship all control functions are available from it and it is the primary station for engine monitoring and control and also holds the primary computer. The forward hatch of this compartment leads to the lander cone at the bow of the ship.

Backup communications gear is also mounted on the command module.

Communications:

The Communications module is mounted on the underside of the chassis and contains both receiving or transmitting gear. It also houses the secondary computer.

I don't know that game, but it's a nice work.

Thanks. I am working on my next ship and Horizon station now. Does anyone have any comments on realism? I really am trying to get things as realistic as possible using Atomic Rockets as my guide.

Here is a link to their site, a very interesting read:

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/index.php

Realistically, I highly doubt you'd be able to fit 20 people on that ship and have enough resources for them. Orbital mechanics will require you to carry everything you need with you as waypoints in space without a known, stable gravity point like a planet or moon simply does not work. Also, what type of engine are you using? If that's a conventional chemical engine, there's no way you can get it to burn for 428 days at few power, not even a nuclear engine has that sort of power.

However, this is just a spreadsheet game from the looks of it, so what I said rly doesn't matter. Nice drawing.

_________________
95% of my drawings are destined for NS, 4.9% for fun, & .1% serious.
Worklist:
Space Shuttle
Atlas V
Delta II/III
Project Constellation
Soyuz series

1.) On the crew thats a hard coded game thing based on the components used. I RPed that as having 10 of them as a dedicated ground mission but yes in a real world setting I would prefer a duel use crew with perhaps on two or three being dedicated vessel crew (Appolo had 1/3 dedicated vehicle crew).

Not an optimal situation I know.

2.) I didn't make any waypoints in space, the fuel and stores for the return journey from Mars (or the next leg out for Jovian and Saturnian missions) were pre positioned in Mars orbit for loading while the ground team was conducting their mission.

3.) This level of game engine is labeled "conventional engine" which is a catch all for all engine technology before the in game tech tree gets moving. I interpret that as rocket engine so that's what the write up was based on. The next level is "nuclear pulse engines" which I consider to be nuclear rockets of the NERVA type or perhaps Pebble Bed based reactors.

In all honestly I can design several theoretical engines under one base engine tech as there are five different modifications to any engine design I make to include size, fuel efficiency, thermal signature and two more I can't remember now. Each of those has its own research line as well. In this game I have to research the base tech, then reasearch each engine characteristics to whatever level I want, then manually design the engine on that base tech using a combination of the possible modifications, then research that designed component, then build that component individually for each ship so that it can be assembled with the ship at the shipyard (you don't have to build each component seperatly and can rather have the shipyard do this for you but that adds cost and time).

The game does not use Newtonian physics so it has you burning fuel for the entirety of the journey and when you run out of fuel you just stop. Obviously this is not particularly realistic for a space enviroment but I understand why they did it. Newtonian physics might be fun to play with now when I have a simple rocket engine moving pods back and forth from one planet, but latter when I have a dozen colonies and hundreds of civilian ships/dozens of warships that will get old fast. Its a game, fun takes president. When I get to the more advanced science fictiony engine techs much latter I will probably abandoned all pretext at making the ships and their movement mechanics realistic as its all magic at that point but for now and the near term I can sort of make the tech analogous to reall world concepts.

That being said the way I am RPing this is that the max game speed is the max Delta-V of the design so in this case 111 km/s. At this speed a trip to Mars would take about a month (to help address your provisioning question above). That speed would be attained by five small burns over five days with a similar burn in the opposite direction to slow down. Again this is RP done over top of the game mechanic so in game I need enough fuel for continous operation but the drawing and write up attempts to provide a more realistic vehicle. I would love to just give the vehicle a reaslistic fuel mass but it would mean a ship that would stop halfway to Mars due to game mechanics, so I have to make do with writeup/drawing realism vice actual game stat realism in this case.

I hope that clears things up and thanks for the comments! Did anything from the drawing strike you as unrealistic? Arrangement? Component size? The look?

Nuclear pulse engines are Orion drives, not NERVA type engines. NERVA engines offer a continuous propulsion stream which isn't a 'pulse' at all.

_________________
𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐍𝐄𝐓- 𝑻𝒐 𝑪𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝑺𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆

Ah, missed that. Its a big dang site!

So Orion first. I will probably have to incude quite a fuel engine techs under this level whether they are pulse or not if I want to include them as I believe the next level is ion engines.

Drawing an Orion ship with in game usefulness may be a problem, but a fun one.

Summary: In 2120 the Pioneer class had been serving as idle rescue vehicles but with the founding of permanent settlements on Mars and the slow introduction of the Conveyer class they cargo capacity was in desperate need. Both ships of the class had their habitat modules removed and replaced with cargo modules. The commom compartment was convereted into a compter core/AI housing that made the vessels pilotless and entirely automated.

The new cargo configuration could carry a maxiumum of 1000 tons. Despite the removal of the manned modules and landing cone this was still far above the original designed mass which greatly reduced the speed of the craft to 25 km/s, this was however considered acceptable as the vessel was automated thus had no crew deployment restrictions though the speed meant it transported the lowest priority or hazardous frieght once the faster and far more economical Conveyors came online.

The Pioneers served the Earth-Mars run for 10 years before being decomissioned in 2030. By that time the number of civilian cargo ships operating had made their costs prohibitive compared to contract transport.

This is purely a RP modification. I actually tried to refit them as cargo ships but the smallest in game cargo bay is 5000t which is too big. I did have these ships run place holder missions for the years in question until their maitenance clock maxed out after which I couldn't waste the resources to overhaul them.

A long time without updates! I will post the Conveyor-class shortly, but first a peek at the first warship I intend to draw. I am looking for any and all comments. I am actually drawing this up as I design it in game so nothing is set in stone. This is just a back of napkin style doodle for concept purposes and is in no way presented as an actual drawing.

I give you the HVX (Heavy Carrier Experimental)



The design was introduced during the final stages of the Colony War, a conflict between Earth/Luna (and the automated inner planet colonies) and the Martian Republic, Jovian Federation, and Saturnian Free Worlds. The war has dragged on for nearly 30 years primarily due to the destruction of Horizon station by a Martian war crime (depending on why you ask) which prevented Earth from constructing naval vessels for nearly five years, and only small ones after that for some time. 10 years after the conflict started Earth naval construction was capable of producing dedicated combatants that could be called proper warships and ten years after that capacity was enough to attempt a design such as the HVX.

The war has not gone well for Earth for most of the war. With Horizon station gone Mars actually had an advantage in vessel construction for the first phase of the war for two reasons. First, they had an intact naval shipyard even if small, and second due to them be primarily in a defensive posture they could have more capable smaller vessels that did not need to use mass for interplanetary travel or station keeping. This allowed for Mars to successfully raid Luna at +5 years of war, defeat Earth's first attempt to establish space superiority over Mars at +10, repel the Jovian Incursion (with the help of Jovian and Saturnian forces) at +15, and fight Earth to a standstill at the Battle of the Demos Ellipse at +19. After 7 years of effective blockade followed by the destruction of most of the Martian fleet and the successful occupation of Phobos (followed shortly by Demos) at +26 Mars was reduced to harrying Earth forces with FACs and fighters from the surface of Mars itself.

HXV is expected to be fielded at +30 and to participate in the reduction and then invasion Mars, then the following push out to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.


A. Reactor
B. Computer Core and Communications
C. Wipple Shield Storage
D. Primary Communications Antenna
E. CIWS (Particle Cannon)
F. Area Defense Laser
G. Embarked Fighter
H. Externally Docked Fighter
I. Hanger
J. Crew Decks
K. Fuel/Reaction Mass
L. Engines
M. Exhaust
N. Turning Mechanism

Design

So this vessel is the first of a new series of vessel attempting to combine combat power and endurance. The first generation of Earth warships had one or the other, meaning that they had difficulty either overcoming Martian defenses in the first place or staying in place to hold their gains if they could overcome them. Mars had the advantage in that nearly all their vessel mass could be devoted to combat systems while Earth had to not only have interplanetary capabilities, but the resources to remain in place in order to hold Martian space.

So with this in mind the goals for this generation of warships was endurance which translates to stores/fuel and gravity. For the HXV, which was specifically replacing the first generation carrier design which was little more than a box and engines, the goal was also to double the fighter complement from 12 to 24 embarked vehicles. At this point in the war Mars is reduced to fielding FACs and fighters that are small enough to be primarily built on the planet's surface either in part or wholesale. While this means Mars is no longer a threat to any solar body outside the orbits of it's moons, this has given them a numerical advantage that can easily overwhelm the more expensive long range frigates and destroyers of Earth. HXV vessels are to be able to launch enough fighters to gain enough local space superiority to penetrate Martian fighter screens, penetrate ground based orbital defenses and attack Martian surface targets.

A note about fighters in Aurora, because as my main guide Atomic Rockets will tell you space fighters rarely make sense in real life. In Aurora fighters serve as either three things: missile trucks, active sensor for weapons directing, or repositioned missile defenses. In the first case fighters basically allow you to have a sprint vehicle to extend the launch position of your missiles out beyond the position of your general warship keeping it safe and extending your strike range. Fighters are generally no more than an engine and the ordinance they carry so they are very fast allowing them to survive defensive measures better than some conventional warships (its a speed versus durability trade off thing, you can play it either way) but with no endurance.

In the second instance they can act as a sensor scout. There is no stealth in space, so its not about detection but rather fire control. Aurora requires every weapon to have an active sensor lock by a dedicated fire control sensor. Via assumed link capability any ship in the same task force can fire using any other ship in that task force's fire control lock. Aurora's sensor rules are complicated but basically while detection sensors (thermal or active) are very long, range fire control sensors are much more limited and due to this actual weapons ranges are generally outside their fire control's ranges all together or at least effective fire control ranges. So having an expendable fighter sprint ahead and paint a target will either let you use your weapons ranges to the max or put your enemies in weapons range while you remain outside theirs, or both.

In the third case you can arm your fighters with lasers or other direct fire weapons, park them some distance between you and a known enemy, and have them engage enemy missile salvos outside the range you would normally be able to. You could use small missiles on your fighters for this but its generally not efficient.

In this case we are using fighters as described in the first instance. It should also be noted that fighters in Aurora mass up to 500 tons at times, so they are more tiny warships in their own right rather than our normal idea of a one man snub fighter. The term fighter is mainly just a description based on the vehicles relative size to it's mothership and usually has 10 to 20 crew via Aurora's mechanics.

So with that in mind I came up with the above. It is not to scale and the ratios of the parts are not locked, is just a visualization of what I have been thinking. So the major features.

1.) The idea was to add gravity so the vessel has a very large habitat ring (much larger than any non station ring thus far in the AU). The inner ring has a diameter of 144 meters. With three rotations a minute, about what most humans will be able to handle with no problems, that gives you .77Gs on the outer crew deck, .73Gs on the inner crew deck (each deck is four meters), .69Gs on the hanger deck and .57 at the external vehicle docks (hanger is 12 meters).

I use this link for gravity calculations:
http://www.artificial-gravity.com/sw/Sp ... inCalc.htm

2.) In order to provide stability to the vessel there are two counter rotating rings comprising the crew section of the ship. The inner ring is made up of the crew decks and the hanger spaces (internal and external), and an outer ring that protects the inner ring. Both rings are designed to relatively the same mass, but this has to be balanced based on stores loaded and fighters present in the inner ring and any mass lost to battle damage on the outer ring. There is access to the unmanned portion of the ship via unpressurized tunnels in the spokes of the inner ring.

3.) The outer ring is a sheath of armor that protects the inner ring as well as acts as the primary radiation shied for the crew spaces and is made up of multiple layers of boron/carbon anti laser armor and (as yet undecided material) layers of hypervelocity projectile armor, spaced to provide a wipple effect.

There are two primary direct fire weapons in use during the Colony War, lasers on the Earth side and mass drivers on the Martian side. At the wars onset Mars did not have the tech ability to build lasers already in use on Earth craft, but they did have ready access to massive mass drivers to push mined resources from the outer planets to Earth so they weaponized it. However, by this point in the conflict the Jovian and Saturnian moons have been left to their own devices for the most part for nearly 30 years and are expected to have fielded lasers, so these vessels are built with laser defenses in anticipation of this.

The other weapon in use by all sides are missiles with nuclear warheads. The armor I describe would be little use against this, but Aurora basically treats all armor as effective in different ways against all threads (lasers drill, mass drivers pepper, missiles crater) so I am treatimg hypervelosity defense and nuclear blast defense as equivalent for RP purposes.

4.) The inner ring contains all the life support gear and all the computer gear to keep the ring going even if the main computer core is lost. The magazines for the fighter are at the joints between two of spokes and the ring, opposite each other. The two bridges (identical, double as combat) are at the joints of the other two spokes (four spokes total). The hanger deck can hold three fighters between spokes for 12 total internal spots. There is a hatch under each fighter and they are lowered by rails towards the hub and then are launched forward (timed to avoid the spokes). Outside each door a fighter can be mounted externally in the same launch rails described above (also act as recovery rails) and kept there during normal operations, though obviously lacking the protection of the internal hanger. Obviously the external fighters have to be launched first. There are two internal hanger spots that can be sectioned off and pressurized for various fighter maintenance purposes, all other portions of the hanger are permanently unpressurized.

The decision to incorporate the hanger into a gravity enclosure was based on experiences with earlier generation carriers where certain maintenance requirements in zero gravity caused readiness issues and sortie generation and emergency action reaction time were unacceptable. Earth High Command realizes this is somewhat indulgent and this class will serve as a counter experiment to see if the expense is worth it.

The exterior of the inner ring has a one layer of boron/carbon armor over a single layer of hypervelocity armor with no spacing. Around the outside of the two crew decks are a series of tanks storing the ships water which also serves as additional radiation shielding.

5.) HVX armament consists of four CIWS particle cannons, two mounted over/under off the bow and two under/over off the stern, (I'll explain these later) that are completely independent and provide a final fire against incoming missiles (in game they get one shot at one missile per 5 sec turn regardless of ship damage, provided they themselves are not damaged). RP wise they have a short range integrated fire control and a battery storage for one burst.

There are also four area defense laser turrets mounted above the spokes of the external ring. These are short range combat lasers for point defense against missiles. These require continuous online power, each having a dedicated reactor (all four can run off the power of three reactors, though with some loss of firing rate).

6.) The ship has four reactors that are for the use of the combat lasers and providing power to the turning mechanism. In the center of the reactors is a reactor machinery space housing all the auxiliary systems for the reactors, as well as a pressure vessel that can be pressurized for certain maintenance actions.

7.) There are four reaction mass/fuel tanks that supply the engine. I have not selected an engine yet as I am not sure if ion engines will be available to me game wise at this point. It will probably be NERVA or Ion engines, but the aft part of the ship could change dramatically. There is an engineering machinery space between the tanks similar to the reactors where auxilliary engineering systems are stored that also has a pressure vessel for certain maintenance as required.

8.) The turning mechanism occupies the center of the vessel and provides rotation to four parts of the ship. The inner and outer ring, rotating opposite each other for balance, and the forward armor screen and the aft armor screen each of equal mass and rotating opposite each other for balance. The hub draws its power from the reactors but can receive emergency power from the engines to provide 50% rotation rate for the inner and outer rings.

I would like some opinions about this design feature. The inner and outer ring both act as counter balances. I could have had two crew rings but when you look at the size of them to achieve .77Gs and that crew would have to transit down one spoke, over, and up another spoke to transit between them this didn't seem feasible and could be a big liability on a warship. Especially since I had not desired to pressurize the spokes or the main body of the ship. So I decided to have the counter rotating ring be a massive armored sheath. The fact that they are both counter rotating provides a very strong boost to armored protection as it 1.) prevents lasers from dwelling 2.) if the outer ring is penetrated the inner ring has a single armored layer that is also rotating to prevent laser dwelling 3.) It is constantly bringing new armor to bear and at the ranges we are talking hitting the same spot twice, especially when the shooter, the target, and now pieces of the target all moving is not achievable (except through luck). In fact at battle stations you could dispense with gravity and just use the rotation to put your most intact armor faces on the threat axis.

I think I self indulged in making the the forward and aft armor screens rotate, but I did it to get the same advantage over the entire ship that I describe above, though it is only a single screen vice the two of the inner outer ring combo. I am open to comments/suggestions about this.

9.) For high speed interplanetary transit the vessel has a large wipple shield that can be extended or stowed from a compartment in the bow.

10.) Radiators are the next big design decision besides the engines, It will need a bunch.

That's plenty for now. Thanks for the time.

My work so far on the HX project:



I started to wonder how big to make this thing so I created a few systems to stick inside to gauge how big to make the drawing. I have the dimensions of the ring based on the gravity and angular momentum I want to simulate, the rest was anyone's guess! This brought me to the hub assembly which was important due to it being centrally located and because of the large amount of rotating sections the ship has.

So some details.

1.) The left hand image of a cross section of one side of the hub itself. The full hub is made up of two of these pancaked together but rotated 90 degrees. This gives you four of the #1 inner drive motors simultaneously driving the two inner wheels in opposite directions at the same speed while encased in a ring shaped lubricating sump. The four drive motors spaced around the drive rings reduces torque and prevents warping of the drive rings. The sump itself is made up of the drive ring and rotating body of the two inner rings and besides the drive gears also contains a lube oil heater, strainer, filter and other services. The inner drive ring drives the habitable ring while the upper drive ring moves the armored shell. (FYI this is the last generation of ship to use mechanical drives for these sections)

Each side of the hub has two additional drive motors (#2) installed backwards with their drive gear encased in a separate enclosure along with an extension gear (#3) that mates with the drive ring of either the forward or aft shield. This drive wheel is not entirely enclosed in a lubricating sump but rather passes through the enclosure. These sumps are linked to the main inner sump for supply and services. This provides two drive motors per shield at opposite sides to reduce torque.

2. While researching how rotating sections on space ships work I encountered a serious or problems that most SF ship designers don't recognize or chose to ignore. One of these is that unless your hub is at the bow or stern of the ship you end up with a ship cut in half. How do you pass a pipe through any place other than the exact center of the hub, and even then you can only fit one! So the solution here was to have the rotating section mounted on rings with a good area of the center hollow driven by off center motors stationed around the circumference of said ring. This allowed for the creating of a central shaft (#4) that would allow for the passage of piping/cabling/stores without interference from the rotating section. The central shaft also has four primary structural supports (the triangles in the corner) that will line up with the engines and transfer force to the major portions of the ship. That's also a large problem with ships with rotating sections, not so much for thrust directly forward but with any force outside that.

This solves the connection between fore and aft, but not between the ship and the rings. In the case of power and data this can be accomplished via collar connections or wireless/laser communications which is the case with this ship. There really is no good way to transfer liquid or gas. Luckily the only habitable section is the inner ring, the rest of the ship is fully automated though there is an crawl shaft and freight elevator in each of that rings spokes that provides access to the central shaft. The habitability ring is self contained as far as water and life support gases and only draws power from the main ship sections. Radiators for the habitability ring is still an issue as it is surrounded by a disconnected armored shell, I am still working on this.

3.) The reasons for the counter rotating sections is in to provide stability to the ship as a single section would eventually set the whole ship rotating, and also to provide a moving armor layer that can move undamaged armor into a threat axis as well as prevent laser dwell. Armor is mass and if your enemy can ignore all of it but that on the side its shooting at its mostly wasted mass. The two inner rings are locked into the same rotating speed and balances so that the outer armor shield is the same mass as a fully loaded inner habitability ring. This works well until the ship launches its fighters, at which point the masses are unequal. I am not sure how to counteract this as due to the hub which has the inner sections sharing drive gears they can't be slowed down or sped up relative to each other. Two solutions are to either allow ballast to be pumped into the outer ring (with the aforementioned plumbing issues) or to vary the speeds of the fore and aft shells to compensate. I am not sure which way to go, suggestions?