[Spaceships] Realistic TL10 Battleship for review

[evilDictatorInTraining]

The Victory ships are designed to be the backbone of a solar system spanning navy. It is able to quickly respond to an emergency anywhere in the solar system and provide both long range efficiency and high tactical mobility. Two aspects that are mutually exclusive in a conventional design.
This has been solved to creating a two part spaceship.
I would appreciate your reviewing and poking holes in the tactical soundness of the design.

Victory Class Battleship (TL10, SM10)
Maneuverable, tough and hard hitting. These craft can outfly and outfight anything in space. With ample dV reserves, these can sustain a 2g burn of over an hour.
It is especially flexible when used in conjunction with it's carrier lower stage. (See below)

Front
[1-2] Armor-Nanocompopsite (dDr 120/Hardened)
[3-5] Fuel Tank (Nuclear Bomb Pulse Units)
[6] Smaller SM Systems (2x Habitat , Hangar bay)
[Core] Control Room
Center
[1-2] Armor-Nanocompopsite (dDr 120/Hardened)
[3-5] Weapon Battery-Major (Turret/Laser, 3GJ, 6dx5(2), L)
[6] Weapon Battery-Tertiary
20x (Turret/UV Laser, 100MJ, 5dx2(2), L)
9x (Turret/Laser/Very Rapid Fire, 1MJ, 2d(2), C/S)
1x (Turret/Missile Launcher/Bombs, 25kT A/M)
[Core] Power Plant - Antimatter Reactor
Rear
[1-2] Armor - Nanocompopsite (dDr 120/Hardened)
[3-5] Fuel Tank (Nuclear Bomb Pulse Units)
[6] Reaction Engine - External Pulsed Plasma (Orion Drive) (2g, 57.6 mps, 13 million credit/mps change)

Crew Requirement (55 total): 10*Control Stations, 7 Technicians, 33*Gunners, 4*Entertainment, 1*Medical
Habitat breakdown, Front Section 6a/ Enlisted area:

• 11x Bunkrooms (4 per bunkroom, usually split between 2 shifts so only 2 are using bunkroom at a given time, But each has his own rack)
• 10x Cramped Cabin (NCO cabins, 1 per cabin)
• 2x Establishment(Enlisted dining room/Recreation area)

Habitat breakdown, Front Section 6b/Officer Country:

• 1 Luxury Cabin (Captain's cabin, that doubles as his office)
• 10x Cabins (Officer cabins, 1 per cabin)
• 1x Briefing room (Doubles as officer mess)
• 5x Sickbay
• 2x Steerage Cargo (Total of 10 Tons)

Victory Class Carrier (TL10, SM11)
The Victory Carrier is designed to provide long range transport and logistical support to the Victory Battleship. It does have some defensive weaponry, but is not intended to go into battle in anything other than the most dire circumstances. As an added feature it operates a major comms and sensory array to further enhance the situational awareness of the fleet.

Front
[1-6] Upper Stage (Battleship)
Center
[1] Armor-Nanocompopsite (dDr 70)
[2] Smaller SM Systems. (Weapons similar to the Battleship and a fusion reactor)
[2a] Medium battery (Turret/Laser, 3GJ, 6dx5(2), L)
[2b] 20x (Turret/UV Laser, 100MJ, 5dx2(2), L)
10x (Turret/Laser/Very Rapid Fire, 1MJ, 2d(2), C/S)
[2c] Fusion Reactor, providing power for both batteries.
[3-6,Core] Fuel Tank (Nuclear pellets)
Rear
[1] Armor-Nanocompopsite (dDr 70)
[2] Smaller SM Systems (Habitat, Hangar bay, Cargo Hold)
[3-5] Reaction Engine - Advanced Fusion Pulse Drive (0.015g, 500 mps, 0.75 million credits/mps change)
[6] Comm/Sensor Array - Tactical
[Core] Control Room

Crew Requirement (78 total): 15*Control Stations, 20 Technicians, 34*Gunners, 8*Entertainment,1*Medical
Habitat breakdown, Rear Section 2a:
Enlisted area:

• 17x Bunkrooms (4 per bunkroom, usually split between 2 shifts so only 2 are using bunkroom at a given time, But each has his own rack)
• 16x Cramped Cabin (NCO cabins, 1 per cabin)
• 3x Establishment(Enlisted dining room/Recreation area)

Officer country:

• 1 Luxury Cabin (Captain's cabin, note that either this cabin or the one on the battleship will be occupied depending on the location of the captain)
• 15 Cabins (Officer cabins, 1 per cabin)
• 1x Establishment(Officer dining room/Briefing room, when ships are joined this is where the officers not on duty will meet.)
• 1x Sickbay, Clinic

[DemiBenson]

Off the top of my head,

• Your battleship lacks a tactical sensor array, and any ECM
• The battleship’s 100MJ lasers won’t defeat other battleships, and are overkill for point defense. Consider swapping those with the missile launchers.
• Your carrier needs to have habitats if it’s going to be crewed.
• The carrier might also want to have a hangar for utility craft.
• You should specify what the habitat breakdown comes to.

[evilDictatorInTraining]

Originally Posted by DemiBenson

Your battleship lacks a tactical sensor array, and any ECM

All ships have both sensors and rudimentary ecm as part of their control room. This is another aspect of the gestalt between ship and carrier. carrier is a size 11 with a full blown sesnsor/comm array providing a tactical view for a smaller size 10 battleship without it having to carry it's own sensors.

Originally Posted by DemiBenson

The battleship’s 100MJ lasers won’t defeat other battleships, and are overkill for point defense. Consider swapping those with the missile launchers.

Hmm... need to think about it. While it is true the 100MJ will not be effective against rival battleships. There are other threats which are tougher than a point defense can handle But don't rate the full battleship killing treatment. For example destroyers that are trying to close in to launch missiles, or maybe even ship size missiles aimed to ram the battleship.
Like I wrote, Need to think about it.

Originally Posted by DemiBenson

• Your carrier needs to have habitats if it’s going to be crewed.
• The carrier might also want to have a hangar for utility craft.

Carrier rear section 2. Contains a habitat, a hangar bay and storage space.

Originally Posted by DemiBenson

You should specify what the habitat breakdown comes to.

Not problems, I will add those.

[DemiBenson]

Originally Posted by evilDictatorInTraining

All ships have both sensors and rudimentary ecm as part of their control room. This is another aspect of the gestalt between ship and carrier. carrier is a size 11 with a full blown sesnsor/comm array providing a tactical view for a smaller size 10 battleship without it having to carry it's own sensors.

Hmm... need to think about it. While it is true the 100MJ will not be effective against rival battleships. There are other threats which are tougher than a point defense can handle But don't rate the full battleship killing treatment. For example destroyers that are trying to close in to launch missiles, or maybe even ship size missiles aimed to ram the battleship.

Well, in a realistic setting, light-speed lag will come into play if your carrier is off at a distance, so sending remote tactical info across a lag might not be desired.

For the lasers, if your battleship encounters something that point defense cannot eliminate, then the 3GJ lasers should easily take those out.

[acrosome]

That's a really neat idea. You are a minmaxing munchkin who deserves respect. But I think it does bend the rules a bit- aren't stages supposed to be disposable? Wouldn't you have to use hangars instead? Or more likely, external clamps?

But...

Originally Posted by evilDictatorInTraining

All ships have both sensors and rudimentary ecm as part of their control room. This is another aspect of the gestalt between ship and carrier. carrier is a size 11 with a full blown sesnsor/comm array providing a tactical view for a smaller size 10 battleship without it having to carry it's own sensors.

Things like that work with defensive ships protecting larger specialized ships, such as IRL antiaircraft cruisers defending aircraft carriers. But those have to stay close.

So in your use case, if the carrier is close enough to provide sensor and ECM support to the battleship, then the carrier is in combat range, too. In other words it is a combatant- an escort ship. And given it's massive sensor and ECM emissions it'll be lit up like a Christmas tree- the biggest target in the sky.

If anything, I would put the sensors/ECM on the battleship and remove them from the carrier. And maybe give the carrier a cargo hold for reloads for the battleship.

Originally Posted by evilDictatorInTraining

While it is true the 100MJ will not be effective against rival battleships. There are other threats which are tougher than a point defense can handle But don't rate the full battleship killing treatment.

But do you have to kill twenty of them all at once? It seems like the primary armament can handle that use case. This is a "battleship"- it's advantage should be longer ranged and more damaging armament. With which it can swat destroyers with abandon.

Question- is this battleship/carrier meant to act on it's own, like a cruiser? Or is it a fleet combatant? Because SM+10 seems kind of small for a "battleship", though I suppose that is setting-dependent.

But SM+10 is the smallest ship that includes an engine room "for free", so that sounds more like a destroyer/corvette/frigate to me. Cruisers would be larger, and battleships even more so. For example, here are my setting's conventions:

SM+4 Pod, Missile, or AKV
SM+5 Small craft, fighters, transports, or shuttles (F-15 or Su-27 mass)
SM+6 Fighters, transports, or shuttles (C-130 or A320 mass)
SM+7 Large transports or shuttles (747 or Airbus Beluga mass)
SM+8 Whatever- a miscellaneous class.
SM+9 Cutter or Gunship, like a PT Boat-equivalent (Sherman-class DD mass)
SM+10 Frigate, Corvette, Monitor, or Destroyer (Arleigh-Burke DDG or Ticonderoga-class CG mass)
SM+11 Cruiser or Battlecruiser (Iowa-class BB mass)
SM+12 Battleship (Nimitz or Ford-class CV mass)
SM+13+ Dreadnought, Carrier, or Station

Note that spaceships seem to have the mass of an IRL naval ship of one class larger. For instance, cruisers mass as much as an Iowa-class battleship. This is probably because a lot more of a spaceship's mass is fuel/remass.

FYI, to a first-order approximation of traditional nomenclature, a cruiser is a battlecruiser-sized ship that is designed for longer-ranged semi-autonomous action at higher speeds, whereas the battlecruiser can expect replenishment from other ships in a fleet, so it exchanges range and speed for more weapons and armor. (But in other traditions, battlecruisers are independent commerce raiders.) Similarly, a frigate is a long-range semi-autonomous destroyer-sized ship, though destroyers do tend to retain high speed so that they can move around a fleet easier to do patrolling and whatnot. There is no autonomous version of a battleship- by definition a battleship's role is massed firepower, so they are fleet combatants only. But there is a lot of flex in modern naval ship sizes. Modern destroyers can be larger than WWII cruisers. And then there are escort destroyers, meant to protect shipping convoys, etc.

[acrosome]

By bending the rules just a little bit more you could make a Parasite Carrier that can haul two Parasite Combatants, for the bargain price of $3B for all three ships, which is about 1/5 the cost of a modern Ford-class aircraft carrier:

Parasite Carrier SM+11 TL10

Front
Parasite Combatant

Center
Parasite Combatant

Rear
[1] Armor, Nanocomposite
[2] SM+10 components; Habitat, Hangar Bay, Cargo Hold
[3] SM+10 components: Tertiary Battery, 2x Fuel Tanks 500t each
[4-5] 2x Fuel Tanks, 1500t each
[6] Advanced Fusion Pulse Drive
[Core] Control Room

Cost: $926M (could have Hardened armor for +$70M)
Accel: 0.005G (0.015 when empty)
dV: 266mps
Crew: 23
Cabins: 60
dDR 70

• For +$70M it could have hardened armor, but why not save the $70M if you don't intend for the carrier to ever be in combat? Hell, you could pick something even cheaper...

• Make the Tertiary Battery be 30x 35mm VRF conventional guns so that they don't need power- so that the carrier doesn't need a reactor and thus can allocate more mass for fuel- and dedicate them for point defense. It doesn't need anything but point defense- it's a carrier. This could be changed to a secondary battery with 10x 40mm VRF guns instead, if you like that better. The carrier is really not supposed to get near the combat, so having a limited ammo supply is acceptable.

• The SM+10 cargo hold is probably full of missiles for re-arming the Parasite Combatants.

• Interesting possibility: since it is SM+11 but has both the front and center sections consumed by parasite craft, would it actually be SM+10 to hit when empty? Hmm...

• Efficiency is much more important than raw thrust for a system-wide carrier, and this carrier has 266 mps of dV. That's pretty good strategic mobility- which is what a carrier is for. (You could definitely have a long-range version that swaps one parasite for a center section full of fuel tanks, though.)

But your combatants need higher thrust for tactical mobility:

Parasite Combatant SM+10 TL10

Front
[1-2] Armor, Hardened Nanocomposite
[3] Tactical Comm/Sensor Array
[4-6] 3x ECM

Center
[1-2] Armor, Hardened Nanocomposite
[3] SM+9 Components: Habitat, 2x Secondary Batteries
[4] Major Battery- your beam of choice
[5] Major Battery, 48cm Missiles, Shots 50
[6] Fuel Tank, 500t
[Core] Control Room

Rear
[1-2] Armor, Hardened Nanocomposite
[3-5] 3x Fuel Tanks, 500t each
[6] External Pulsed Plasma Reaction Drive "Orion"
[Core] Power Plant, Fusion Reactor

Cost: $936M
Accel: 2G
dV: 32mps
Crew: 15
Cabins: 20
dDR 200

• Since it only requires 2 power points, the Fusion reactor will do, and thus you can lose the vulnerable explosive antimatter version.

• No hangar- it doesn't need a small craft, since the carrier has a 300t hangar. So moar dakka- yay!!

• On that subject, both SM+9 Secondary Batteries could require power and the ship would still have 0.33 excess power points. But make them whatever you want- they are point defense, so one being 30x VRF UV lasers and one a 28cm missile launcher (Shots 150) might be nice.

• Note that all weapons are in the center section, so they can fire in any direction even while docked to the carrier.

• With only 15 crew the SM+9 habitat is sufficient, though probably cramped. That's why the Carrier has so many excess cabins, for longer journeys.

• If you want to prioritize offense over defense, swap an ECM for more weapons. This should probably not be anything that requires a power point, though, unless you want to accept the vulnerability of an explosive antimatter power plant. More missiles is a good option. Or, the extra weapon could use a power point but change both of those SM+9 secondary batteries to ones that don't.

• Upgrade the Orion drive to high-thrust if you prefer that to more dV. A parasite combatant probably doesn't need the dV, so it is reasonable. But a crew probably wouldn't tolerate 4G for very long, anyway. Hell, you could swap fuel tanks for more weapons if you wanted- the carrier is what provides strategic mobility.

• I would be tempted to reduce the armor on the rear section in favor of either moar dakka or moar fyool, too, since the front would usually be pointed at the enemy.

Those last few options allow you to easily make several variants. Having one Parasite Combatant in the pair have 3x ECM while the other only has 1x ECM but more weapons and depends upon it's wingman for ECM support might be a nice compromise. And a variant with more fuel is also a decent independent combatant that can still be carried when necessary. So you could build a great little fleet around this concept. Hell, I bet that I could even make one built around a spinal battery.

Note that if you are going for "realistic" then both the parasites and the carrier need radiators (SS1:31). So yet another variant might exchange ECM or weapons for Coolant Tanks.

[acrosome]

Now if you bend the rules even more, consider an SM+13 Carrier that transports six SM+11 Battlecruisers...

[weby]

The problem with designs of large ships like that is that in a "realistic" setting eventually they will be attacked by a drone swarm armed with nukes.

The only counters are a swarm of your own or breaking the rules by adding smaller than 1/30 size weapons and rolling the hit rolls against the drones one by one.