space Battleship ?

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youssef
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space Battleship ?

Post by youssef »

way is there no space battleship. I know that there is a battlecruiser but battleship and battlecruiser aren't the same things.
battleships should be with the command ships and aircraft carrier the are advanced warships take 300 days to build and have a lot of firepower and can have one aircraft abord.
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Balthagor
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Re: space Battleship ?

Post by Balthagor »

It could be added later, but early on we were pointed to this resource;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj6COIw8vOc

See the 15min mark.

For now, no "Battleship" unit.
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youssef
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Re: space Battleship ?

Post by youssef »

lol I watched this video 5 times before but I get it.
and by the way, i remember it was me who liked that video in battle goat discord before.
i am Mack in the discord
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tkobo
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Re: space Battleship ?

Post by tkobo »

I never saw this vid,i like it.I did only skim it though. The argument they make against battleships is flawed though. It assumes there will be weapons that can beat the armor present on the ship.There might not be.IF a battleship has armor that fighters cant breach,its becomes a necessity for any space fleet.This is the prime vs , weapon vs armor.And remember ,in space theres no real limit to how thick one can armor a ship.Heck,someone could even get creative and invent a liquid space armor.Think about how easily water defeats bullets ,or changes the direction of a laser...
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Re: space Battleship ?

Post by Nerei »

So the argument is "battleships are considered obsolete" and you pick battlecruisers as a better alternative?!
Battlecruisers are just as obsolete class of ships that are probably best know for exploding. Just consider the Battle of Jutland and the Battle of Denmark strait. That is arguably the most famous engagements involving battlecruisers and they both involved battlecruisers disappearing in a fireball and taking nearly all their crew with them to a watery grave.
If I where an admiral I would not want my class of super ships to be named after what is fundamentally a bad idea that is best known for its failures.

Also I would argue that battleships at least have the "cool" factor and just about everyone knows what they are.
As for not wanting to touch them due to obsolescence I would like to argue that some DARPA concept art used the hull number "72" for the arsenal ship. 72 screams "battleship" as that is the first unused US Navy battleship hull number (and as 72 had already been used for DDG and CG's those are not an option). I would say DARPA does not consider it as such.
From what I remember the US navy also got a lot of applicants when it was rumored that they might reactivate the Iowa class battleships.
So yes battleships are obsolete but so are battlecruisers. Battleships just have the advantage of "cool". Battlecruisers if you know their history have the advantage of magazine detonations.

Really though the entire "lets base our space fleet ship classification on warships that have been obsolete for possibly centuries that none of the design team has ever seen except in history lessons or in museums" really annoy me. I get why it makes sense from a gameplay perspective as players can use their "world war 2 strategy game logic" but from an in-universe perspective basing it on something only relevant for people interested in history seems odd.

Further if they really want to base it on the navy would it then not make more sense to base it on more contemporary vessels. As it looks right now that would likely mean destroyers or possibly (though far less likely) cruisers as the queen of space.
Destroyer also has a nice ring to it as literally the destroyer of enemy fleets.
Likewise the typical names used for the largest super ships like "Juggernaut" and "Titan" makes sense. It basically describes what they are.


When it comes to armour thickness keep inertia in mind. You will need to litter the hull with engines or you ship will crumble as it accelerates. The only alternative is slower acceleration.
More engines means a more complex design that will be more expensive both to build and maintain.
Maneuvering will be the same issue. Better pack some insanely strong materials or you will risk your super battleship tearing itself apart trying to evade enemy fire.


As for water as armoring I would probably not pick that. It is quite heavy to drag around with limits mobility. Also as water does not really do the compression part very well so it is not going to serve well as spaced armour. A well designed shaped charge could probably pierce the outer hull and detonate inside the water tank using the water as a hammer to hit the inner hull. Even a regular explosive warhead will send shockwaves though the tank which means you need really strong inner walls for them to not fail.

That is not to say it is a bad idea putting say the ships water tanks further out. Losing a water tank is definitely preferable to losing fire control or power but any protection would probably be incidental.
This is basically the concept of the protected cruiser. Those used the coal bunkers as protection for more vital parts.

Naturally this would be a problem with armour in general. Pierce the outer shell and detonate a large explosive inside the vessel. Your armouring is now serving to contain the explosion "inside" the vessel causing significantly more damage than if part of the hull where blown out and energy was lost into space.
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Re: space Battleship ?

Post by tkobo »

Would weight would be a factor in space, and the liquid would have to be something with some of the properties of water, and some properties that allow it to not boil off.
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Re: space Battleship ?

Post by Nerei »

Yes weight (or mass really) would still matter. This is about inertia and material strength.
Basically a larger ship needs a more energy to move at a given speed. That energy will be imparted into the hull where the engine is mounted. If you put too much energy into a single part of the hull that part will start deforming rather than just changing the velocity of the ship.
Imagine pushing really hard on a really large lump of jelly. Chances are you would just sink into it. You risk your engines doing the same to a colossal spaceship if they push too hard.


Also I am not talking about boiling anything. I am talking about detonating a shaped charge inside your water tank and using the fact that fluids are really not compressible to slam the majority of the energy of my charge into your inner hull.
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Re: space Battleship ?

Post by tkobo »

i mention boiling, because water would simply boil off due to vacuum, hence not be viable for such a use.

I am talking about surrounding a battleship in a huge liquid sphere, hence giving it an unconventional armor.
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Re: space Battleship ?

Post by Balthagor »

Nerei wrote: Jan 17 2021 So the argument is "battleships are considered obsolete" and you pick battlecruisers as a better alternative?!...
I haven't had the chance to read your whole post yet, but that's just one reason. Another important one is that we've not yet completed the balance of the equipment file or made final decisions if we're adding more ship types and what they are.

I'm happy for this discussion thread, it will be the process along. This is what early access is about.
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Re: space Battleship ?

Post by Nerei »

Balthagor wrote: Jan 18 2021
Nerei wrote: Jan 17 2021 So the argument is "battleships are considered obsolete" and you pick battlecruisers as a better alternative?!...
I haven't had the chance to read your whole post yet, but that's just one reason. Another important one is that we've not yet completed the balance of the equipment file or made final decisions if we're adding more ship types and what they are.

I'm happy for this discussion thread, it will be the process along. This is what early access is about.
My point is simply that battlecruisers are not exactly a great alternative. They where not a good ship class back in the day due to them being based on flawed logic thought out by a man that thought speed where a great alternative to armour in a battle-line.
When I think "battlecruiser" my first thoughts are of ships like HMS Queen Mary and HMS Hood exploding.
tkobo wrote: Jan 17 2021 i mention boiling, because water would simply boil off due to vacuum, hence not be viable for such a use.

I am talking about surrounding a battleship in a huge liquid sphere, hence giving it an unconventional armor.
Well the water would have to be inside some sort of container. If not the fluid being well a fluid together with inertia would mean that whenever you ship changes velocity you will shed most of your armour.
Assuming you have this boiloff would not really be too much of an issue. Water has a high boiling temperature and insulating it too keep temperature within acceptable parameters is not hard even with the technology we have today.

Freezing is also probably more of an issue. The perfect gross example was in 1984 when on its first mission the Space Shuttle Discovery had a 2 foot long pee-cicle stuck on its waste dumping port clogging it.


Alright lets look a bit more at water as armouring
The problem is water is a fluid. It is not really compressible and it is not exactly shock resistant. Consider how depth charges detonated near submarines can damage them.
Basically your armour is not a good protecting against explosions.

Explosions set off inside the water tank will propagate though it and if done right can be directed to hit the inner wall of the tank. You need regular armouring to resist this. If your opponent know you use water for this role it is not hard to design weapons to try and exploit it and the weapon will likely cost a fraction of building and running this ship.

Actually one of the advantages in space is there is no medium for which shockwaves can propagate making explosives less effective. The very armour is providing this medium.


Lets however assume the water tanks are sufficiently deep to resist "small" explosions. In that case your opponent can go nuclear and drop a thermonuclear bomb inside your tanks.
If I get this weapon deep inside your tanks I avoid one of the main issues with nuclear weapons in space. Namely energy being wasted into space and the loss of the shockwave which is a significant element of the destruction these weapons cause.

Your tank need to be truly colossal to have any chance of resisting this as the fireball will just expand as if the water was not there. Deep water nuclear detonations are somewhat contained by the immense pressure. These water tanks lacks this pressure.
Somewhat contained however means the fireball might "just" be 500m in diameter instead of 5000m.

A best case scenario is the weapon is sufficiently close to the outer walls of the tank at which point you just lose a colossal chunk of your armour (and your ship probably becomes unstable due to the loss of mass).
At worst the weapon is sufficiently close to the inner wall at which point your water tank actually helps contain the blast that then take the path of least resistance. Chances are this which will be your inner walls. In this case the 100 million Kelvin nuclear fireball breaks through and cooks your entire ship.
That is again a case of armour being a problem.

If your tanks are literally kilometres deep to try and avoid this nuclear death I can have my impactor contain the warhead in a supercavitating torpedo that will then race deeper inside your water tank and detonate at a suitable depth. Yes this is complex but compared to building a ship capable of moving cubic kilometres of water in space it really is not. This is basically a armour piercing, space version of a typical ASROC found on modern warships.
Given that this is a universe where fighters are relevant this weapon will also be feasible.
It should also be said that in this case you are probably not mobile anymore. You are an orbital ball of water.

Alternatively I can just keep hitting this colossal ship. The amount of mass you lose from each weapon vaporizing giant chunks of water armour off your ship will probably make your ship uncontrollable as your centre of mass will be quite offset from your centre of thust. This will likely make any evasive actions basically impossible allowing me to rain death on your ship until it stops twitching.
Even if I lose 99.9% of my warheads chances are I am still up by several orders of magnitude in terms of costs of resources committed to the battle.
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