[Spaceships] Designing the best possible fleet on a billion-dollar budget

[Michael Thayne]

I'd like to have a little contest to build the best warship, or fleet of warships, possible on a $1 billion budget. Ships are built at TL10 with no superscience, using any options from Spaceships 1-7. Organic armor is off limits (treat as TL11 for "engineered or manufactured). All consumables must be paid for from this budget.

I’m going to try to run as many different matchups as I have time for with available submissions. I will not be doing this play-by-post. Other folks are welcome to run their own matchups and report the results. Unless otherwise specified, optional rules and design switches will be set to “off”.

Combat scale will be one of the following:

• Close-scale, with 3-minute turns.
• Standard-scale, with 10-minute turns.
• Distant-scale, with 10-minute turns.

Which of these scales is used for a given matchup will be determined by the longest-ranged weapons in use on either side. If, after ten rounds, both sides are still able to fight, combat scale will be reduced one step. This represents the opposing fleets closing on slow approach.

Crews can be bioroids, AI, or a mix. AIs come free with a ship’s computer network, and are complexity 6 programs that function as crew of average quality (“Keeping it Simple: NPC Crew Actions”, Spaceships p. 54). Bioroids cost $200,000 and function as veteran crew. The rules for NPC crew actions generally apply, except that the exact number of bioroids available for damage control should be tracked, rather than basing the number of damage control parties on the number of engine rooms a ship has.

Ships must be designated capital ships or small craft. Capital ships must have the following:

• At least one bioroid per workspace (or one bioroid for smaller capital ships with no workspaces).
• Life support sufficient for all bioroid crew. Unless they have total life support, they must also have ⅓ ton of food per bioroid.
• At least 10 mps delta-V, which is subtracted from their delta-V reserve before combat to represent the cost of travelling to the battle.

Small craft must:

• Be carried in the hangar of a capital ship.
• Have at least one bioroid crew per workspace (no minimum).

If a small craft has bioroid crew, those crew have the same life support and food requirements as the crew of capital ships, but those requirements may be fulfilled by the carrier or the small craft.

Sample Submission
Total Fleet Cost: $992.64M

Capital Ship: Cruiser

Built on an SM+10 unstreamlined hull.

Front Hull
[1-2] Nanocomposite Armor (Hardened; total dDR 100) ($200M)
[3-4] Advanced Metallic Laminate Armor (Hardened; total dDR 60). ($80M)
[5] Smaller Systems (three at SM+9): one Habitat (15 bunkrooms; 25 tons cargo); two Advanced Metallic Laminate Armor (Hardened; total dDR 20). ($27M)
[6!] Major Battery (fixed mount 3 GJ particle beam).* ($60M)
[core] Control Room (C9 computer, comm/sensor 9, 10 control stations).* ($20M)

Central Hull
[1-3] Advanced Metallic Laminate Armor (Hardened; dDR 90). ($120M)
[4!] Secondary Battery (10 turrets with 300 MJ lasers).* ($60M)
[5] Smaller Systems (three at SM+9): one Tertiary Battery (thirty turrets with 300KJ very rapid fire improved lasers); one Fuel Cell (provides one small Power Point for the tertiary battery); one Tactical Array (comm/sensor 10).
($22.5M)
[6] Hangar Bay (300 tons capacity).* ($1M)

Rear Hull
[1-2] Advanced Metallic Laminate Armor (Hardened; total dDR 60). ($80M)
[3-4] Fuel Tanks (each with 500 tons of fuel pellets with 10 mps delta-V). ($6M)
[5-6] Fusion Pulse Drive Engines (0.05G acceleration each).* ($200M)
[core] MHD Turbine (two Power Points).* [$7.5M]

Empty Cost: $884M
Fuel Cost: $50M
Food Cost: $20K
Crew: 60 bioroids ($12M)

dST/HP: 150
Hnd/SR: -3/5
HT: 13
Move: 0.1G/20 mps
LWt.: 10,000
SM: +10
Occ: 60ASV
dDR: 180/90/60 (Hardened)

Small Craft: Attack Drone (x30)

Built on a SM+4 Unstreamlined Hull

Front Hull
[1-5] Hardened Nanocomposite Armor (Hardened; total dDR 25). ($500k)
[6!] Major Battery (fixed mount 16cm launcher). ($100K)
[core] Control Room (C6 computer, comm/sensor 4, and no control stations). ($10K)

Central Hull System
[1-2] Hardened Nanocomposite Armor (Hardened; total dDR 10). ($200K)
[3-6, core] Fuel Tanks (0.5 tons of antimatter-catalyzed water with 0.84 mps delta-V each). ($15K)

Rear Hull System
[1-2] Hardened Nanocomposite Armor (Hardened; total dDR 10). ($200K)
[3-4] Fuel tanks (0.5 tons of antimatter-catalyzed water with 0.84 mps delta-V each). ($6K)
[5-6] Antimatter Thermal Rocket Engines (using water, 0.6G each). ($100K)

Empty Cost: $1.131M each
Ammo Cost: $333K each
Fuel Cost: $90K each

dST/HP: 15
Hnd/SR: 0/4
HT: 12
Move: 1.2G/5.88 mps
LWt.: 10
SM: +4
Occ: 0
dDR: 25/10/10 (Hardened)