[Spaceships] Stat a Viper Mk II & VII

[Noven]

How would you guys stat out a Colonial Viper Mk II & VII? The reason I ask is I am looking to make something similar to a campaign I'm tinkering around with. Basically, I want something like a Raptor (has a small FTL drive), and a Viper (uses gas and has conventional guns). Kinda like a X-Wing but with guns =)

[Kale]

Hmm... well, probably use a medium forward fixed railgun battery for the guns on both ships. For the Mk II use the missing third gun for ammo storage. The missile launcher on the MkII could be a single fixed primary battery. Regarding the engines, I'm a bit stumped. Reactionless? Fusion torch?

[tshiggins]

Grav plates to negate the mass of the ship, combined with fusion thrusters to allow for rapid delta-v?

[Noven]

This is what I have come up with so far:

SM: 5
Front
[1] Armor: Nanocomposite
[2] Array: Tactical
[3!] Weapons: Major Battery
[4-6] Fuel Tank

Center
[1] Armor: Nanocomposite
[2] Cargo Hold
[3-6] Fuel Tank
[core] Control Room

Rear
[1] Armor: Nanocomposite
[2-4] Reaction Engine: Antimatter Plasma Torch
[5-6!] Stardrive
[core] Power Plant: Antimatter

Design Options
* Winged Hull

Cost
$3,280,000

The 3 front fuel tanks power the FTL drive, giving it a good solid 3 FTL jumps. The 3 reaction engines put out 3G's of acceleration with the 4 fuel tanks in the center giving a delta-v of 480. Its major battery is a 10cm electromagnetic rapid-fire gun.

[Sanity]

The 3 front fuel tanks power the FTL drive, giving it a good solid 3 FTL jumps.

Which, incidentally the Viper is incapable of - it has no FTL drive. Which makes absolutly sense given it's role as a fighter - you want to get as much weapons per mass as possible.

I am also not sure I would use Antimatter in somehting as nimble as a fighter - it turns it too much into a bomb, especially given you will have lots of those around close to bigger ships. Antimatter is always a dubious choice for a warship (due to it's intrinsic tendency to blow up the ship on a containment failure), but having AM on board of something that is PLANNED to get destroyed even when flying in tight formation does not sound like a good design to me.

[the adventurer]

Viper Mark IIs, IIVs, Raptors, and in fact all ships of the BSG universe run on Tillium. Which is a mineral refined into a fuel. However, I believe those fuels supliment a "hot" nuclear reactor for thrust (as per the original Mini-Series)

Tillium is volital when not refined,and can be redered inert by strong radiation (like from a nuclear blast), but is fairly stable when in a fuel state.

[Noven]

ok then what drive to use that has a decent amount of thrust and has decent amounts of delta-v if not the antimater drive?

[jspade]

Tylium turbines. They're not in Spaceships, since they make no physical sense and are specific to the Battlestar Galactica setting; you pretty much have to roll your own. Refined tylium has a tremendous energy density of approximately half a billion megajoules per kilogram, or about 6 times greater than Uranium-235 and 81% that of deuterium fusion. [1] That gives it an Isp, if I'm figuring right, of 80-90,000.

[1] Battlestar Wiki

[safisher]

Originally Posted by Noven

ok then what drive to use that has a decent amount of thrust and has decent amounts of delta-v if not the antimater drive?

Total conversion.

[SpaceGurper]

ya, total conversion. It's a catch all engine type that fits anything you would like to do. you can fudge the TL.