Sci-fi Writers Guild Forum

Artificial gravity in my ACVs is again one of those 'taken-for-granted' things, so I suppose it would be the typical Star Wars like generator. Conveniently, my main character, Snpr Mk. VII, also has a form of local artificial gravity, as inside his body is a compact gravitic generator. (Despite how that sounds, it works both to increase and reduce gravity in an area just slightly larger than his body. As a, and I quote, 'System Nanobot Persona R.A.G.E. Mark Seven Series One Generation One Combat BioAndroid' he has a base weight of seventy-seven tons, and a full weight of ninety tons, as there are thirteen tons of external weaponry. (Not including his signature, man-portable weaponry.)

I seem to remember a week or so ago making one of my newer ACV ideas have no onboard artificial gravity... I'm not sure about it though, but it did have to spin up to attain gravitic effects.

Fighter and Bomber loads, grouped into the 'Crafts' label along with most other very small ACVs such as fleet tenders, escape pods, and automated medical pods, vary wildly depending on the ACV in question. The SwarmCarrier, last I remember, can hold up to half a million assorted Craft, and its typical Craft-centric load is 125,000 manned Craft (combat or otherwise) while the rest are akin to drones- a mix between a shared datalink, and unique personalities. Strictly speaking, the 'drone' Crafts are little more than a BioAndroid without a humanoid body, albeit one with a dedicated long-range datalink. (Combat BioAndroids, the kind that Snpr Mk.VII is, are designed to exceed in combat solo, and thus their embedded datalink range is quite short. Two BA's on opposite ends of a SwarmCarrier would just barely be in range of each other without a booster. At the typical ranges of ACV fights- thousands or millions of kilometers, this is of course out of the question,)

With the swarm tactics of fighters and bombers, collections of Crafts aren't really 'wings', although on smaller ACVs there could arguably be wings, as a smaller number of Crafts would require some consideration to casualty rates. (Actually, the manned Crafts on a SwarmCarrier do have some better tactics, as survival on a SwarmCarrier for a human is something of a major thing: the ACV was build for BioAndroids, so much of the actual interior beyond the huge hangar is lethal to humans, even with the heavy shielding that is just enough to let BA's work in the generator areas in comfort. (A BA does have highly resistant organics, and they could easily work in the middle of a reactor for several days without adverse effects (Speaking for the radiation or other effects, and not the raw energy that would likely kill the BA in seconds.) The only issue is BA's are machines at heart, and if their organics were to catastrophically fail, or they were to become extremely stressed, they would fall into Emergency Mode, and a EM-engaged BioAndroid in a closed environment, especially in proximity to one of the most powerful energy sources on any mechanical object, has a high potential for disaster. God forbid a 4th Generation BA ever goes into Emergency Mode. Hello unintended WMD detonation.)

To be honest, I've sort of slacked off from adding in hangar bays and whatnot to most ACVs that aren't carrier-biased or dedicated carriers, and looking back on all my work, there is a lot I need to actually do. Many of the dimensions may not look good in an image, and only the omnipresent SwarmCarrier has actually received full consideration for weapon sizes: once upon a time, a bored Ocean Seven decided to find out how many Laser Guns could actually fit on the two sides of a SwarmCarrier, and he set out to do some lengthy math. Long story short I ended up adding a hell of a lot of machinegun-like turrets to fill in some rather gaping holes. (The number of those escape me, but the Laser Gun count has always been 1,500,000 on either side. Originally intended to nerf the huge behemoth, later on I realized that "Holy hell, that's three million bloody Laser Guns. Anticraft weapons or not, that's a hell of a lot of bolts focused on any given area.")

Launching times? Never really thought about those, but the manned Crafts are pretty much lived-in by their pilots. In effect, the launching time is however long they're willing to wait for the hangar door to open. With a door that is is three kilometers tall and two wide, and with the advent of the four-point opening system (before it was hinged on the bottom, like real-life landing craft) that is quite a large opening within moments. Exit time is just a simple matter of how much guts any given pilot is, although the automated Crafts launch all at once (either literally all at once, or whatever has been selected for use) and usually just before or when the doors are fully open, except in case of emergency. (In which case the manned pilots wait until all the automated ones are away. Unfortunately, the human brain, no matter how smart, simply is unable to figure out speeds, positions and launching moments for an eight of a million people at the same time. So, we like to take it safe in those cases...)


Weight can be a problem, at least I think it can. To be efficient, engines would have to be mounted on the exact centerline, otherwise at points to counter each others spins. Take a perfectly balanced fighter, stick four big heavy bombs on it, and your center of gravity shifts. Not truly a problem so long as you have the thruster fuel to trim that, but to my military-wired, war nut brain, no matter how more effective fighter-bombers are, fighters fight other fighters, bombers do the heavy work. The other thing is remember, the faster you go, the heavier you weigh, thus the more power you need to maintain your rate of acceleration. (Of course this doesn't offer anything to help reinstate bombers- they'd be even slower by my biases- but it's just something to consider. (Reminds me of a case in WWII, where there was a twin-engined convoy gunship to escort bombers. It was quickly discovered that after the bombers dropped their payloads, they were faster than their escorts! (I want to say it was the Japanese, but I seem to remember it being something the Americans made to escort the B-17's.)

Most of my ACVs can drive in atmosphere- drive because I have an abundance of Naval-Type hulls, literally a ship out of water, and they aren't terribly aerodynamic, so they are usually staying aloft on raw engine and thruster power, rather than lift forces. (A more literal version of how B-24 pilots 'drove' their aircraft rather than flew it, but in that case it was because the stick was really heavy, so everything took serious strength to do. Also lead to the joke that Liberator pilots had "huge left arms from horsing the yoke around all day!") although almost all of them are constructed in space. Virtually all Naval-Type hulls can drive in water, as the bottom of the hull is usually only armed with the Paladin Point Defense Laser Array, a small, durable laser system that is designed to defeat missiles and torpedoes. (To be brutally honest, the idea was ripped straight out of Command and Conquer: Generals, off of the American Paladin Tank, which featured a slow-firing laser that destroyed the odd incoming missile. The PPDLA, however, is much faster, and does have some limited use against Crafts. (Much faster, because the scale of combat is much larger. Without PPDLA's, a SwarmCarrier's CIWS HE Missile system could crush many smaller vessels, and with the PPDLA, the system is required to ensure some get through. With regards to the larger missile/torpedo types, the PPDLA's size has increased in response to changes on body types that defeat all but concentrated PPDLA attacks.)

As for a more detailed 'landing on planets', so far the only major landing vessel in use of the SwarmCarrier Barge, a scaled-down version of an official Delta-I Class SwarmCarrier (the original is now Delta-II, or just Delta to old fogies; Delta-I has no E-Beam, instead using the deck armor to house an expanded missile battery.) used to drop troops and vehicles, allowing the parent SwarmCarrier to continue combat duties. Other than that, I really don't land much else aside from the odd true SwarmCarrier drop. And in either case, the landing is not nice like in the movies. A hard drop, usually consisting of a straight drop through the atmosphere (with regards to reentry angles, though a typical atmosphere would be hard pressed to make a fully loaded SwarmCarrier bounce off of it) and a last-ditch countert-thrust as they near the ground. They usually impact the ground at 80-100km/h. Very violent, though nobody will really care in an emergency evacuation.

As a note, SwarmCarriers have four stowable engines built for such an operation, although savvy commanders can use them like an AV8B Harrier can use their jets to tighten their turn radius.