Super heavy armour for capital ships

[Amos.37]

An idea for the implementation of capital ships is to introduce a super heavy armour. The idea being that this armour is virtually immune to small arms and even light fighter armaments, but is so prohibitively heavy that only large ships can use it.
This could also necessitate the introduction of dedicated cap ship engines, reactors and dedicated anti-capital weapons designed for max armour penetration.
This would address the concern that cap ships will be made useless because a fighter swarm can just chew them up while being too maneuverable to hit.
It also necessitates the use of specialised bombers, cap vs cap fights and breach and board tactics to counter capital ships.

Thoughts on how to implement/balance this?

 

[FranklinZ]

An idea for the implementation of capital ships is to introduce a super heavy armour. The idea being that this armour is virtually immune to small arms and even light fighter armaments, but is so prohibitively heavy that only large ships can use it.
This could also necessitate the introduction of dedicated cap ship engines, reactors and dedicated anti-capital weapons designed for max armour penetration.
This would address the concern that cap ships will be made useless because a fighter swarm can just chew them up while being too maneuverable to hit.
It also necessitates the use of specialised bombers, cap vs cap fights and breach and board tactics to counter capital ships.

Thoughts on how to implement/balance this?

This will be difficult. No matter how strong the armor is, a shot through the cockpit and into the controls will disable the entire ship.

 

[Brushes]

Alloys are in work, but i prefer thicker armor to special super strong stuff.

Allow outer layer of armor to be buffed by thickness of layer behind it. This way we dont need any new ores and at some point it'd be thick enough to offer the invulnerabilities your after but would be resource intensive and heavy. Probably only key systems/areas would be armored on a large ship to mitigate the burden of such armor.

Naval ships usually have protected control rooms, spess ships could too. You'd just need spotters to guide you.

 

[FranklinZ]

Alloys are in work, but i prefer thicker armor to special super strong stuff.

Allow outer layer of armor to be buffed by thickness of layer behind it. This way we dont need any new ores and at some point it'd be thick enough to offer the invulnerabilities your after but would be resource intensive and heavy. Probably only key systems/areas would be armored on a large ship to mitigate the burden of such armor.

Naval ships usually have protected control rooms, spess ships could too. You'd just need spotters to guide you.

Spotters mean cameras. I really hope we have them but on my post about camera drones everyone says no.

 

[Brushes]

Spotters mean cameras. I really hope we have them but on my post about camera drones everyone says no.

i ment players, using mkI eyeballs

 

[FranklinZ]

i ment players, using mkI eyeballs

Maybe somewhat doable for driving but definitely not possible for shooting.

 

[Cannon Machine Ballista]

Spotters mean cameras. I really hope we have them but on my post about camera drones everyone says no.

Misuse of third-person perspective（and camera） may encourage people to think badly about their cockpit vision. Therefore, banning the third-person perspective of the ship is very helpful to screen out those who only want to play unreasonable space fighter fighting and do not design the details of the ship.

No radar can help players develop the habit of paying attention to them. This is fair and very exciting. Think about it, you can hide behind the enemy instantly, and he ca n’t find you at all.

This is the wonderful space, not the ridiculous [COD in space] and [Space Ace Combat].

 

[CalenLoki]

And how would you make sure those dedicated big ship modules aren't used by small ships to even easier deal with big ones?

Big ships are already really slow, due to much lower rear surface to mass ratio. Giving them less mass efficient modules will only worsen it.

Just build your armour thicc (and not out of paper like in vids) and you'll be fine.

What could help big ships are heavier turret rings that can carry decent armour. So they aren't obvious exposed weak spots.

 

[cranky corvid]

Large ships have an advantage in armor to begin with because they can protect a much larger interior volume with a given surface area of armor. The volume of a solid cube of the maximum dimensions currently possible in the ship creator (50x30x30m) would only increase by 2% per 12cm layer of armor plating added to all sides, while for one the size of a light multirole fighter, the figure would be more like 15%. If large ships have issues with survivability, the turrets and thrusters are going to be the main weakpoints, because it's not possible to simply slap heavier armor on those.

 

[CalenLoki]

I have some ideas for increasing suitability of turrets and armour within the current limitations.

For guns I plan to hide turrets inside the hull, with only narrow slits for pitch movement. Yaw would be achieved by rolling the whole ship (gunner would have control over it). Pilot would be left just with yaw and pitch control. Should be enough for flying in space, where roll is usually irrelevant (unless you have single strong strafe thruster direction).

I know that such setup is technically not turrets any more, but serves the same purpose: allows gunner 120x360 degree coverage relatively to flight direction.

Although that may not work on the huge capital ships, due to too slow roll speed. Bot for those casemate style guns should work a lot better than turrets.

Thrusters, due to having straight damage trail can be embedded very deeply in the hull, leaving them vulnerable only to fire from ~10-20 degree. Something hard to achieve when both sides are actively manoeuvring.

Cockpit also shouldn't be that much of a problem. If you stick just tiny dome right over drivers head, it'll be extremely hard to spot, target and hit, while providing decent field of view.
People fear they'll be sniped out o their bridge, because they imagine it as huge open space with a lot of windows and all people sitting together. That's space-fantasy a'la SW and ST.

TLR just think outside the box, and a lot of the problems with large ships may vanish.

 

[roundtable8]

Alloys are in work, but i prefer thicker armor to special super strong stuff.

Allow outer layer of armor to be buffed by thickness of layer behind it. This way we dont need any new ores and at some point it'd be thick enough to offer the invulnerabilities your after but would be resource intensive and heavy. Probably only key systems/areas would be armored on a large ship to mitigate the burden of such armor.

Naval ships usually have protected control rooms, spess ships could too. You'd just need spotters to guide you.

That does make me wonder if spaced armor would work in the same way it works on a real tank.

 

[roundtable8]

Large ships have an advantage in armor to begin with because they can protect a much larger interior volume with a given surface area of armor. The volume of a solid cube of the maximum dimensions currently possible in the ship creator (50x30x30m) would only increase by 2% per 12cm layer of armor plating added to all sides, while for one the size of a light multirole fighter, the figure would be more like 15%. If large ships have issues with survivability, the turrets and thrusters are going to be the main weakpoints, because it's not possible to simply slap heavier armor on those.

You also could make a ship big but leave it mostly empty so that they are just pointlessly shooting a decoy part of the ship.

 

[Brushes]

Than just dont use that alloys and bolt a bunch of regular metal plates together until it is a foot thick or so. That does make me wonder if spaced armor would work in the same way it works on a real tank.

Well, armor hardness has not been mentioned. Currently, stacking plates probably only adds thickness.

 

[roundtable8]

Well than if that were the case than spacing the armor would be beneficial but not in the way I thought.

 

[Amos.37]

And how would you make sure those dedicated big ship modules aren't used by small ships to even easier deal with big ones?

Big ships are already really slow, due to much lower rear surface to mass ratio. Giving them less mass efficient modules will only worsen it.

Just build your armour thicc (and not out of paper like in vids) and you'll be fine.

What could help big ships are heavier turret rings that can carry decent armour. So they aren't obvious exposed weak spots.

My thought on dedicated cap ship engines and reactors is that 1 large cap ship engine would be more efficient in use of materials and fuel when compared to lots of small engines in getting the same amount of thrust. But the draw back is they are large, heavy and require a lot more power to use, hence requiring a larger reactor. And once you have both a large reactor and large engine, well the ship is no longer small, or it has a large, exposed reactor, which is a patently bad idea. Hence, 'small' ships can't use cap ship components.
You could try and make a ship that is basically a giant engine just for speed, but the power requirement would prevent anything else being used.

I also don't see why a cap ship couldn't be faster than a small ship in at least straight line speed. A cap ship will always be less maneuverable than a small ship, but could potentially have a greater max speed. (I don't think this will be the case, but hey, it could be.)

I agree that their should be large weapons, and even the option to add armour to weapons. I also like your idea of recessed/internal weapons. I also have a couple designs that incorporate similar ideas.

My thought on the heavy armour is that it would be a thicker plate by default. But then, I see the point that it doesn't really need to be a new material, it can just be thicker pieces of current plating.

 

[Brushes]

We cant bolt plates to the weapons?

 

[Cannon Machine Ballista]

My thought on dedicated cap ship engines and reactors is that 1 large cap ship engine would be more efficient in use of materials and fuel when compared to lots of small engines in getting the same amount of thrust. But the draw back is they are large, heavy and require a lot more power to use, hence requiring a larger reactor. And once you have both a large reactor and large engine, well the ship is no longer small, or it has a large, exposed reactor, which is a patently bad idea. Hence, 'small' ships can't use cap ship components.
You could try and make a ship that is basically a giant engine just for speed, but the power requirement would prevent anything else being used.

I also don't see why a cap ship couldn't be faster than a small ship in at least straight line speed. A cap ship will always be less maneuverable than a small ship, but could potentially have a greater max speed. (I don't think this will be the case, but hey, it could be.)

I agree that their should be large weapons, and even the option to add armour to weapons. I also like your idea of recessed/internal weapons. I also have a couple designs that incorporate similar ideas.

My thought on the heavy armour is that it would be a thicker plate by default. But then, I see the point that it doesn't really need to be a new material, it can just be thicker pieces of current plating.

If the robotic arm of the ship is allowed to carry an infantry rifle and shoot, I think the boat will be more suitable for armor-free space city warfare.

 

[Cannon Machine Ballista]

We cant bolt plates to the weapons? View attachment 1030

If FB allows the robotic arm on board to carry an infantry rifle and shoot, I think this will make this design possible!

 

[Cannon Machine Ballista]

The problems caused by ultra-heavy armor may be insufficient propulsion power and reduced situational awareness.

Among them, the lack of propulsion power means that the speed of your rush to the battlefield may be the slowest in the fleet, and may only collect corpses for teammates.

Reduced situational awareness is fatal. When enemy artillery and penetration forces reach your armor belt, they will attack your weak points, such as the engine and the observation window. You do n’t know where they are or what they are doing. What, until they launch an attack and penetrate your defense.

This is very deadly.

 

[cranky corvid]

I also don't see why a cap ship couldn't be faster than a small ship in at least straight line speed. A cap ship will always be less maneuverable than a small ship, but could potentially have a greater max speed. (I don't think this will be the case, but hey, it could be.)

I agree. Large ships that aren't very tall and wide will have limited rear surface area available for thrusters, but main thrusters don't actually need to be in the rear - although less efficient, they can also be mounted on the sides with the thrust angled outward a bit so you can stack lots of them in a row without increasing the rear profile. Though I don't expect to see many, if any large ships going for the speed cap, since that would be gratuitously expensive for those last one or two dozen m/s.

We cant bolt plates to the weapons? View attachment 1030

The problem is the devices available as rotors - turntables can only handle limited weight, while rails' ability to survive flight is as of yet untested and they can't do 360-degree rotation without complex engineering. This complicates mounting heavy armor protection for non-fixed weapons.