Worlds of Design: The Warship Trinity

When constructing a world—or on this case, a science-fiction setting that in all probability entails many worlds—you will need to first outline what sorts of warships can be found to the setting’s nations. The dialogue may be utilized to warships at most ranges of expertise, even earlier than the existence of environment friendly weapons.

Any dialogue of warship design begins with the Trinity of navy car capabilities:

1. Mobility: Contains straight-line velocity, maneuverability (altering course, acceleration, deceleration), and vary (how far you possibly can go while not having to resupply). (The nice basketball coach John Wood famously needed a extra cell participant than the opponent at every place; the identical precept applies to automobiles.)
2. Offense: Something you are able to do to bodily hurt the enemy, whether or not it is ramming, hearth (like “Greek Fireplace”), projectile weapons (rail weapons), guided missiles, mines, blasters, or lasers.
3. Protection/Survivability: Contains armor, defensive missiles, vitality screens, and passive protections like anti-torpedo bulges. Maneuverability typically features as a type of protection, as does stealth, exemplified by B2 bombers and F35 fighters.

There’s usually an inherent trade-off: “Mobility, Offense, Protection (MOD)—you possibly can have two out of three.” You can not pile weapons, armor, and highly effective engines into one hull indefinitely; the ship will merely get greater, making protection and mobility extra expensive.

This trade-off results in a elementary query of dimension: Don’t you need the smallest, most cost-effective ship that may do the job at hand? Gentle cruisers exist to carry out jobs that don’t require a bigger, armored heavy cruiser. Why pay extra, and why “put all of your eggs in a single basket”? Extra ships are usually higher than fewer for deployment flexibility. The one sound motive to construct a super-gigantic ship is that if that dimension by some means makes it resistant to hurt (dimension as a type of protection in itself), or if the designer succumbs to the Rule of Cool (“10 mile lengthy spaceships”).

Word that exterior components, equivalent to the necessity to construct many ships shortly throughout a battle, may also dictate design—as seen within the speedy manufacturing of service provider vessels just like the Liberty and Victory ships in World Battle II.

Shifting from generalized capabilities, we will decide what sorts of ships a navy wants by generalizing their meant features.

Scouting: This requires ships with lengthy vary (which requires in depth dwelling quarters, gas, and self-repair capabilities). Lengthy-range scouts are usually not meant to struggle; their velocity is their protection. Brief-range scouts for a fleet, nonetheless, are constructed to struggle off the enemy’s scouts, requiring much less vary however greater preventing functionality.

Defending Commerce: (Assuming interstellar commerce is critical, although superior civilizations could also be self-sufficient—a subject for one more dialogue.) Commerce protectors want the vary of scouts however require higher preventing functionality to defeat enemy raiders. Their energy should be adequate to keep away from harm that can’t be repaired by the crew on board.

Defending Territories: This requires two sorts of ships:

• Far-flung territories: Ships right here typically present a warning and warning system towards frequent threats (like pirates). They might be meant to flee to a stronger drive fairly than interact.
• Main territories (The Core): Ships listed here are designed to defeat outright enemy invasion or makes an attempt to destroy motionless belongings.

• Commerce Raiding: Historic raiders have been normally medium-size to small ships on lengthy cruises alone, with the target of avoiding a struggle whereas taking or destroying service provider ships. They want velocity for the getaway and adequate energy to brush apart small defending forces.
• Raiding Enemy Territory: Necessities listed here are just like commerce raiding, however demand extra preventing functionality to brush apart defending orbital forts or small warships. Pace is essential for the “smash and seize” and getaway.
• The Important Battle Fleets: Fleet fight typically entails a round relationship the place every ship class is countered by one other, making a strategic internet. In WWI, as an example, destroyers have been most harmful to battleships, cruisers have been most harmful to destroyers, and battleships have been most harmful to cruisers. In a science-fiction setting, this round relationship could also be totally different—maybe a extra complicated four-element relationship like “A beats B, beats C, beats D, beats A.” This relationship is essential, because it finally determines the elemental features and desires of each warship kind within the fleet.

Sensible fleet design requires making use of the common Mobility, Offense, Protection (MOD) trade-off to outline a ship’s particular perform—from scouting to raiding—after which modeling fleet fight primarily based on a predictable, round “rock-paper-scissors” relationship between lessons to make sure strategic depth.

Your Flip: Should you run Sci-Fi video games with area fleets, how do you outline your ship lessons?