Buriable Spaceship
 

Hey, looking for input
In short I want to build a spaceship that is made so that it can go to a location, excavate a hole just deep enough for it to be flat on the surface and conceal itself.


Using the building design suggestion from Pyramid 34

SM+8
Upper Floors
[1, 2, 3]Armor, Exotic Laminate (dDR 50)
[4]Tertiary Battery (30 Fixed mounts with 20cm missile launchers)
[5, 6, Core]Hangar Bay (30 tons each)

Middle
[1]Armor, Exotic Laminate (dDR 50)
[2]Habitat
[3]Habitat
[4]Habitat
[5]Habitat
[6]Open Space

Lower
[1]Armor, Exotic Laminate (dDR 50)
[2]Cargo Hold (50 tons)
[3]Nanofactory
[4]Cloaking Device
[5]Super Reactionless Engine
[6]Control Room
[Core]Power Plant, Vacuum Energy (3 power points)

So what I was thinking was either another ship scouts and pre-excavates a site with (TL12 multifunction Construction/Disassembler Nanoswarms) or the buriable spaceship would carry them (most likely in the cargo bay)

For concealment on the surface I was thinking the Biomorphic design feature that could change according to what the surface is like, so if it's a grassy area then it will replicate a grassy area (Utility Fog)

A concealed driveway to the Hangar Bay doors will be built using Utility Fog (the 3 hangar bays are so the doors will accommodate a Wheeled ATV (UT pg.225 SM+5)

The heavy armor for the topmost level is in place under the assumption that it will be found and assaulted.

With the submerged Cargo Bay additional tunnels could be creates at a later time.

Any habitats will have Total Life Support

Re: Buriable Spaceship
 

Biggest issue I see is the Front/Upper Core being a Hangar Bay. According to Spaceships p. 18, Hangar Bay is Hull only (modules 1-6).

Easy enough to replace it with a Cargo Hold or Stowage Cargo Habitat, though.

Re: Buriable Spaceship
 

Missed that part, was focused on making sure the doors were big enough and all the armor, the Tertiary Battery could be switched for a Hangar bay if necessary.

Re: Buriable Spaceship
 

Another point of concern was that it would have the maneuverability to land in the excavated cavity.

For defences I wasn't as keen on the missile mounts using spaceships because I was wanting more of the Ultra-tech warheads such as Biochemical Aerosol/Liquid, Tangler and Swarm and possibly some sort of variable payload for dropping equipment/spy bots into areas.

Re: Buriable Spaceship
 

Putting a Mining module in the Rear/Lower section would allow it to dig a hole (and pull out raw materials for the nanofactory, if desired) into the underlying ground, at a rate of 5 tons/hour*. The kind of ground they land on is going to matter, but assuming something like granite, it needs to excavate around 3x its own mass (spaceships have a density of somewhere around 50 lb/cf). For an SM+8 (1000 ton) vessel, that's going to take around 600 hours, or 25 days (nearly a month). That's probably too long for what you're thinking about, but it's something to consider.

*This should probably scale with TL, but I'm not certain at what rate. Note also this includes at least some processing, like turning rock into a fine enough powder to be used in a mass driver, and bypassing this to just toss the stuff away may increase speed.

Re: Buriable Spaceship
 

I had considered the Flexibody Drivetrain but it only allows through soft soil (should probably scale at later TLs but there's only so much space in Pyramid articles) and concept wise it didn't really fit

The mining module definitely needs some scaling for TL for capability

Re: Buriable Spaceship
 

Hmmm.... Well, $1M (SM+8 Mining system) will get you 98 square yards of disassembler nanobots and enough swarmbot hives (98 of them) to hold and recharge all of them, and weighs only 1176 lb, leaving you with around 99% of a cargo hold for storing whatever. If we assume the 'bots only spend 20% of their time chewing through the rock (we'll stick with the 150 lb/cf density), and the rest traveling and recharging, they can get through nearly 8000 tons of rock in an hour (0.4 inches per second is 120 feet per hour, multiplied by 882 square feet gives us 105840 cf, for 7938 tons). Now, actually processing the material (rather than just leaving a big pile of dust) is going to take some extra time and/or extra gear, and programming our swarm not to attack the ship is going to cost extra (meaning fewer swarms), but then the Mining system is nearly 100x as heavy as our nanobot solution. Even if we assume this massive inefficiency is needed to make up for the ability to transport the materials and not have our 'bots eat the wrong stuff, our Mining system is still mining 0.25% what the nanobot solution does...

Re: Buriable Spaceship
 

And a SM+8 Secondary Pulse Laser Battery (30MJ) will burn a 1000 ton hole in granite in about 18 shots (6d cr exp vs dDR 10 (SM +13 Stone armor is 15,000 tons) and 200 dHP). Approximately 6 minutes. Granted, not very concealable, going to leave a hell of a mess...

Re: Buriable Spaceship
 

Would Underground Adventures be useful at all ? says it has some vehicle stats

Re: Buriable Spaceship
 

I personally allow a core hangar as long as there is a hull hangar in the same location, but it does not add to the launch rate (it adds space, but not doors).