Gunstar Ares (BSG)

[Endeavour]

Okay, that's fine. Here's an idea for helping him understand the scale: draw in some missiles to scale with the ship. That'll help him see that he can have more missiles in such a large ship and, if you post the pic here, we can see how big they will be. Also, just curious, what scale are you drawing the ship at? i.e., is it 1 pixel=1 meter, 2 pixels=1 meters, etc.

[Major Diarrhia]

Originally Posted by Alexzandyr

Yes, i originally thought that as well. However, after discussion this is the sort of thing my friend was going for. The thing is though, i'm not quite sure what the affects would be of it jumping from within the ship.

That really depends on how significant any "splash" from the jump effect might be, if such splash even exists. If there is a splash area to the effect, then the episode where the dozens of Raptors jump could give us an idea of the minimal clearance required for internal launch of jump missiles. Otherwise, a short launch sequence out of the ship then a jump once it's a couple dozen meters away would work.

Originally Posted by Alexzandyr

The idea here is though that you'd have something slightly larger than a raptor, that jumps in close to a target and releases these self-propelled nukes. This way you could have them go after their own targets. I doubt the cylons would be able to intercept them with raiders in time.

Sounds like a bomber, it's going to need to be manned, considering the Colonials don't trust automation. It's going to be a big craft anyway, to hold a jump engine and a bunch of nuclear tipped missiles. Although, the nukes in nBSG are extremely small yet potent, so the missiles don't need to be too big.

Originally Posted by Alexzandyr

The idea is to keep your ship away from the action and catch a cylon basestar by surprise. By jumping your ship in and firing, you run the risk of being destroyed as well. Especially if there is more than one basestar.

That's what raptors are for, a couple of them jump in first, jump out, and the main ship jumps in. Colonial ships have a distinct advantage in closer combat against the Cylon capital ships, their guns are far more effective than the Cylon missile and fighter combo.

Originally Posted by Alexzandyr

I also intend to add a pair of those cannons we saw on the Pegasus to the tip of the Ares bow. She isn't going to have many of the big capship guns on her. She simply doesn't have the room for them.

I would think it would since it won't have the crew requirements of a fighter carrying ships; no pilots, fewer engineers, no officers for flight operations, no facilities needed for any of that, etc. It's not that much smaller than a battlestar and we know the guns can be packed in pretty darn tight.

Originally Posted by Alexzandyr

Regarding the old gunstar i did...the very tip of that gun was 14 meters in diameter, with an actual opening that was 1 meter in diameter. Definitely bigger than your average cannon round...but i wouldn't call it nuts lol.

14 m diameter gun with only a 1 m opening, yep, that's nuts.

Seems like you have a good plan for the ship, and it's looking cool. I look forward to its progress.

[Major Diarrhia]

Originally Posted by Alexzandyr

Lol yeah he just now added them as buttons. I'll talk to him about seeing if he'd like someone else to be involved in the writing of the stories. I don't give out emails without permission, so i'll ask once i see him.

I was going to talk him into having more of these missile devices on board, he has a hard time imagining just how big a ship this would be.

I have you covered on this, it's just so easy.

In the images below are a size comparison between an old battlestar of 610 meters and a Typhoon Class nuclear submarine of 175 meters in length. The second image shows the arangment of missiles in the Typhoon. Here is a short description of the Typhoon's armement.

MISSILES

The submarine carries 20 RSM-52 intercontinental, three-stage solid propellant ballistic missiles. The two rows of missile launch tubes are situated in front of the sail between the main hulls. Each missile consists of ten independently targetable multiple re-entry vehicles (MIRV's), each with a 100kt nuclear warhead. Guidance is inertial with stellar reference updating. Range is 8,300km with accuracy (CEP) of 500m. The missile weighs 84,000kg at launch and was designed by the Makayev Design Bureau. It has the NATO designation of SS-N-20 Sturgeon.

TORPEDOES

Typhoon has four 630mm torpedo tubes and two 533mm torpedo tubes with a total of 22 anti-submarine missiles and torpedoes of varying types. The torpedo room is in the upper part of the bow between the hulls. The torpedo tubes can also be used to deploy mines.

The RSM-52 is has a
Length 16 m (8.4 m without warhead)
Diameter 2.4 m
R-39 missile - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This doesn't get into the fact that such a missile built with colonial technology would be superior in every imaginable way. For one, those ten 100 KT warheads could be made smaller, not much larger than a shell for a fore arm size warhead yielding 1 megaton. The entire missile will be smaller because of Colonial drive technology. You could fit several hundred missiles on a nBSG size ship.

[t-cast]

If the Soviet Navy is to be used as a model, another option is to use slant
missile tubes, like used in the Oscar class subs. They could be in the "head"
of the gunstar, or put into the outboard pods. In the latter case, they could be placed next to the hanger ( In the Oscar , they are put between the inner and outer pressure hull ).

Speaking of hangers, does the gunstar also carry fighters?

[Alexzandyr]

Originally Posted by Major Diarrhia

Sounds like a bomber, it's going to need to be manned, considering the Colonials don't trust automation. It's going to be a big craft anyway, to hold a jump engine and a bunch of nuclear tipped missiles. Although, the nukes in nBSG are extremely small yet potent, so the missiles don't need to be too big.

Well a raptor would have to jump in and find the targets. So i imagine that the missile would be controled from the raptor. If for some reason the raptor lost control, i believe it would be able to continue on its own. Its not so much the colonials that don't trust automation, as it is Adama that doesn't trust it.

Such as the fact that Pegasus is 200 meters longer than Galactica, and yet its max crew is smaller than the skeleton crew on Galactica. The Bucket has 2,000 crew on it and that's reduced for decommissioning, so we can assume that she would have several thousand more. The Beast has 1500 crew, and Cain said she only lost 700 in the attack on the shipyard they were at.

Anyway, as for showing him the scale. I'm just going to put up a small box that represents the size of the missile compared to the ship.

1 pixel= .63 meters

Well I'm off to work on the drawing. I'll post an update before i go for the night.

EDIT: Sorry didn't see the other post. No the Ares doesn't have fighters. However its hanger bays will have room to store a few fighters in emergency situations.

And one last thing. The old gunstar weapon was 14 meters in diameter to house the larger components that extend all the way to the tip of the barrel, as well as extensive reinforcing to allow the barrel to withstand the forces of multiple shots without damaging the gun. Needed since it would be firing a projectile nearly a meter in diameter at higher speeds than a normal cannon.

[Alexzandyr]

Ok here's that update i promised. I've only started to add the hull plating, once all of it is down i'll start with shading everything and adding some greebles here and there.

Right now the cannons are only a shadow. Also that red box is a guesstimate of what the missile would be.

[Lord Ravensburg]

comming along nicely...good job.

[Greathor]

This is turning out nicely. I'm going to have to pay a lot of attention to this ship

Are you going to make a new warstar to go along with this ship?

[Alexzandyr]

I was considering it. However i figured that the intention behind this new Gunstar would be to phase out the need for the heavy firepower of a warstar. However, i might create a "new" warstar class that was built after the war but before the Ares.

EDIT: oh and good luck with that Armada 2 mod...i liked those cylon ships you posted in the update.

[Major Diarrhia]

It's looking good but I still say it needs more guns.