Adventwolf
Well-known member
It is part of their techbase and present on all their ships. So yes they have the gravity tech both for gravity plating(or whatever they use) and for anti-gravity that keeps them from killing themselves when they move.
Battletech Battletech/Battlestar Galactica Crossover - Lucky 13th (the rewrite)
- Thread starter LordSunhawk
- Start date
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Albeit it has a minimum scale since Raptors and Vipers don't have it
Doomsought
Well-known member
Raptors use anti-gravity for lift.
I thought they used just very good and finely tuned thrusters.
Adventwolf
Well-known member
Raptors and Vipers do have it. If they didn't then on the Raptors they wouldn't have been able to stand, lay, and walk around normally while in space which is shown to be the case. And the Vipers have it or else the pilots would be turned into paste by any of the maneuver they use. Those moves are too much for a normal unaided body to handle and the ship would tear itself apart with the grav tech to negate some of the inertia and stress.
Actually the Viper's certainly do not have inertial dampening, the maneuvers we see in the series peak out at about 9g and the pilot shows the effects of it, plus during launch sequences we see definite signs of acceleration (and they are accelerated down the launch tube at approximately the same rate as a cat launch off a carrier)
Now in the Original Series BSG it was different.
As far as weaponry is concerned.
nBSG Vipers are either armed with 3x 25mm 'cannon' (in the Mk VII) or 2x 30mm 'cannon' (in the Mk III). These are likely equivalent to real world equivalents used in many European and Russian designs, and would thus be roughly equivalent to a Battletech 'Heavy Machine Gun', which fluff wise is in the 25mm to 30mm size range. Their missiles are shown to adversely affect performance, thus I am using the same rules for XO weapons as BTech.
While BTech rules don't allow a perfect equivalence, a Mk III Viper would be a 12/18 light fighter in the 20-25 ton range armed with a pair of HMGs and plentiful ammunition (they are shown to have deep magazines). The drive would be an XL equivalent.
A Mk VII Viper would be a 14/21 light fighter in the same range armed with a trio of MGs with somewhat less ammunition, the drive would be an XXL equivalent and all Mk VII would have, by default, been equipped with a C3 system (which has been disabled).
A Raider would use the Drone rules, would be a 12/18 light fighter with a pair of HMG and a pair of LMG (on the filming model for the Raider it has 2 large and 2 small barrels for weaponry, and we see that they are capable of handling Colonial rounds)
The Battlestar's are somewhat more difficult to determine, as there are significant differences between the actual models and the CGI (with weapon fire sometimes coming from locations on the ship that don't, in fact, have weapon turrets. See Pegasus during the Battle of New Caprica)
Galactica currently has 24 'primary' guns and 512 twin CIWS turrets. The Primary Guns are shown to have both anti-ship and anti-fighter modes, firing flak bursts at ranges beyond the 'flak wall' of the CIWS system. However said bursts appear to be relatively ineffective as we rarely see them hit a Raider. Moreover the 'primary' guns do not appear to have a great deal of range, as Galactica has to maneuver relatively close to Cylon Basestars in order to use them.
However if I stuck strictly to demonstrated performance the Galacticas guns wouldn't be larger than, at most, NAC/10s, and possibly Heavy Sub-Capital Cannon. That makes for too much of a disparity, however, therefore I am setting Galactica's primary armament as NAC/25s. The CIWS turrets are being interpreted as twin LB-10X equivalents.
Pegasus has a significantly heavier armament. 4 fixed twin mounts of significantly greater size than the 30 twin turrets. In addition she has at least as many CIWS turrets as Galactica. Therefore, I am giving her 8 NAC/35's in twin mounts in the bow, plus 60 NAC/20's (as the turrets are shown to be smaller than Galacticas.) on the broadsides.
For missiles, the capital missiles appear to be either White Shark or Killer Whale equivalents, albeit armed with nuclear warheads (making them Santa Ana and Peacemaker respectively). Galactica has 12 tubes while Pegasus has an unspecified number of tubes. I am giving Pegasus at least as many tubes as Galactica.
Now in the Original Series BSG it was different.
As far as weaponry is concerned.
nBSG Vipers are either armed with 3x 25mm 'cannon' (in the Mk VII) or 2x 30mm 'cannon' (in the Mk III). These are likely equivalent to real world equivalents used in many European and Russian designs, and would thus be roughly equivalent to a Battletech 'Heavy Machine Gun', which fluff wise is in the 25mm to 30mm size range. Their missiles are shown to adversely affect performance, thus I am using the same rules for XO weapons as BTech.
While BTech rules don't allow a perfect equivalence, a Mk III Viper would be a 12/18 light fighter in the 20-25 ton range armed with a pair of HMGs and plentiful ammunition (they are shown to have deep magazines). The drive would be an XL equivalent.
A Mk VII Viper would be a 14/21 light fighter in the same range armed with a trio of MGs with somewhat less ammunition, the drive would be an XXL equivalent and all Mk VII would have, by default, been equipped with a C3 system (which has been disabled).
A Raider would use the Drone rules, would be a 12/18 light fighter with a pair of HMG and a pair of LMG (on the filming model for the Raider it has 2 large and 2 small barrels for weaponry, and we see that they are capable of handling Colonial rounds)
The Battlestar's are somewhat more difficult to determine, as there are significant differences between the actual models and the CGI (with weapon fire sometimes coming from locations on the ship that don't, in fact, have weapon turrets. See Pegasus during the Battle of New Caprica)
Galactica currently has 24 'primary' guns and 512 twin CIWS turrets. The Primary Guns are shown to have both anti-ship and anti-fighter modes, firing flak bursts at ranges beyond the 'flak wall' of the CIWS system. However said bursts appear to be relatively ineffective as we rarely see them hit a Raider. Moreover the 'primary' guns do not appear to have a great deal of range, as Galactica has to maneuver relatively close to Cylon Basestars in order to use them.
However if I stuck strictly to demonstrated performance the Galacticas guns wouldn't be larger than, at most, NAC/10s, and possibly Heavy Sub-Capital Cannon. That makes for too much of a disparity, however, therefore I am setting Galactica's primary armament as NAC/25s. The CIWS turrets are being interpreted as twin LB-10X equivalents.
Pegasus has a significantly heavier armament. 4 fixed twin mounts of significantly greater size than the 30 twin turrets. In addition she has at least as many CIWS turrets as Galactica. Therefore, I am giving her 8 NAC/35's in twin mounts in the bow, plus 60 NAC/20's (as the turrets are shown to be smaller than Galacticas.) on the broadsides.
For missiles, the capital missiles appear to be either White Shark or Killer Whale equivalents, albeit armed with nuclear warheads (making them Santa Ana and Peacemaker respectively). Galactica has 12 tubes while Pegasus has an unspecified number of tubes. I am giving Pegasus at least as many tubes as Galactica.
Legion0047
Member
Only on MK2 as those are mounted on external pods and probably throw of the centre of gravity while the MK3 (and as such later designs) have internal launchers.
Well, BT guns canonically fire in burst while Colonial weapons keep up a constant bombardment while also having deep magazines. Also, I've been looking at the real close up shots you can get of the galactica's turrets in the pilot part 2 and her bore is at least a meter, and probably more, if that helps.
For the flak wall, it's definitely the early AA version of Flak where you put up a wall of shrapnel in front of the approaching aircraft instead of the more modern one. I.e Preventive instead of offensive. The goal isn't to shoot down aircraft, but to keep them away from anything important and to block any missiles.
For the mercury missile tubes: BSG Deadlock gives the mercury a second missile slot over the Jupiter so just doubling the number of tubes wouldn't be amiss.
Adventwolf
Well-known member
And that is one of the greatest misunderstanding of flak out in the world. Flak is and never was meant to shoot down aircraft the primary duty is to keep crafts away and to deal with missiles and ordnance. People saying flak is ineffective miss the point of why it exists.
If they didn't have inertial dampening then the pilot and viper would be destroyed. The maneuvers they pull both in space and in the atmosphere would be way more than 9Gs. The fact they show acceleration means nothings as no system is perfect and will have bleed through and more importantly complete negation is the last thing you want. You want acceleration and Gs on the pilot as that is needed to give them a frame of reference and indication that they are moving in order to properly pilot a fighter in space.
Legion0047
Member
In the battle for the Tylium Asteroid, Apollo fires his retro thrusters and goes from full combat speed to a dead stop in flash without just blacking out, so yes, some amount of dampening is there.
Doomsought
Well-known member
probably only on the main engines, but not the maneuvering thrusts. That would make sense since the power supply comes from the main engines, power supply is certainly a concern. It would also save on weight and computational complexity to only have dampening on the main engines. You could probably even run them off an analogue control circuit with that sort of setup.
I fully understand the purpose of flak. We see the 'flak wall' of the CIWS turrets routinely slaughtering Raider's that get in range. We see the flak bursts of the main battery missing. Which lines up nicely with the rules for capital weapons in BTech assigning significant to-hit penalties for capital weapons trying to hit fighters.
And I ran the numbers when I was working on the first version of this story back in the day. At no point do we see any maneuvers by the Vipers *or* Raiders that would require inertial compensation, a good g-seat and suit would suffice. Considering that the ACM sequences in the RDM BSG were developed in consultation with actual fighter pilots (hence why we see actual real maneuvers in use) shows that they aren't 'impossible' without dampening. The closest is the Tylium Asteroid battle scene with Apollo, however even then if you calculate the velocity he was traveling at based on external reference it was roughly a transitory 15g burn, which is survivable (transitory g-loading of significantly higher than 9g is not only survivable but routine, 9g is the sustained g-limit).
What I'm trying to say here is that neither side has all the advantages. nBSG has the rapid jump, the grav well jump, artificial gravity, and the ability to break the 2.5 million ton limit on a Warship (with the Mercury class). They lack energy weapons of any kind, rapid reload missile launchers, advanced targeting systems, HPGs, and indeed most advanced electronics capabilities.
BTech jump drives have far greater *range*, but require extended recharge times and must occur either outside the jump limit or at a pirate point. They completely lack artificial gravity generation and are limited to the 2.5 million ton limit on their big ships.
Legion0047
Member
Not actually important for the quest (unless you decide to derp up the colonials) is that they did have quite advanced tech before the cylon war. Their pre-downgrade ships are to the galactica as modern missile cruisers are to ww2 ships.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Uhhhh Sunhawk I can't remember where but the Galactica was calculated to mass roughly 44 million tons so yeah make of that what you would
Doomsought
Well-known member
Where is the calculation for that? Did they make it denser than water? Ships are mostly air.
It's in the Science of Battlestar Galactica. I thought it 30 million tons, and Pegasus 50+ million tons. Either way, it's a LOT more than BT.
I'm basing my numbers on the length and such, Galactica here masses 2.5 million (Hello Leviathan!) while Pegasus is 3 million.
I'm giving Colonials and BTech equivalent metallurgy.
I'm giving Colonials and BTech equivalent metallurgy.
The big bore cannons are literally just doing area denial when they're used in an anti-fighter role. IIRC, Adama says as much right when they open up during the Ragnar fight. All that flak is supposed to do is shred any fighters trying to cross through that volume of space.
Legion0047
Member
Also, a battlestar is supposed to be part of a battlestar group. So behind the flak shield of a jupiter or mercury, you'd have cruiser and escorts to protect the flank and engage enemy ships.
Chapter 7
Chapter 7
Dacre had decided to reduce the alert level somewhat, enough that he could deploy the grav decks as it appeared that contact had been pretty much peaceful, at least enough so that he would begrudge his crew the health benefit of pseudo-weight.
He thought it a bit odd that the ship opposite him wasn’t doing the same, but then again at the size of the beast it might have fully internal grav decks so he wouldn’t be able to tell if they’d spun them up or not.
He was still waiting for the translation team, which from further reports would feature his first meeting with the redoubtable Dr Stevens. Joy. Especially considering that his former CO back when he’d been a young wet-behind-the-ears lieutenant was accompanying his fiance and had forwarded a list of ‘helpful suggestions’.
But the suggestions were sensible enough from what little he knew of Dr Stevens, so he’d had a stateroom set aside for her with two-way voice communication and 1 way video conferencing, arranged for a rotating set of female marines to guard the hatchway, and issued instructions keeping the passageways between the shuttle bay and the stateroom completely clear when the team arrived.
Then again, she’d not been rescued from the Rimmer frontier world where she’d ‘lived’ until she was 12, and Dacre’s mind shied away from the horrors he knew females, regardless of age, suffered amongst the Rimmers unless they won the lottery and were born into the Elite caste.
And considering that he had it on good authority that Dr Stevens had a truly eidetic memory? He considered it a minor miracle that Tank had managed to get past her trauma and earn her trust and affection.
But the day before they were due to arrive came an event he’d been notified of from Galactica as a small flotilla of those 50 ton shuttles, accompanied by a smaller unidentified craft that seemed completely different in terms of design style. He had his sensors fully focused on them, gathering yet more data on their emergence and actions.
The next day the pair of Cossak Fleet Destroyers that comprised Constitutions normal escort arrived, one loaded with her usual complement of three Storms and the other with 2 of the swift assault droppers and, looking quite out of place on the small destroyer, the Galaxy-class Logistics Dropship that Constitution normally carried on her fifth ‘fixed’ docking point.
The two Cossaks immediately moved to the standard escort positions, while the Storms similarly formed up into the standard defensive formation. The Galaxy and a shuttle docked with Constitution, the Galaxy on her dedicated hardpoint, and the shuttle in the shuttle bay.
Extra clamps mated with specially reinforced hold down points on the hull of the Galaxy and in a matter of minutes the logistics dropship looked like it was faired into the much larger cruiser, rather than a separate parasite craft. Dacre found himself relaxing a bit, no captain of a cruiser or larger vessel really liked being separated from their assigned Galaxy any longer than strictly needed.
After all, the Admiralty, in a fit of diabolical planning and evil inventiveness, had ensured that no major combat unit carried its own ice cream machines, but rather had to rely on their Galaxy-class logistics vessels to provide the delicacy. Thus ensuring that crews would make sure to keep the logistics vessels safe in combat.
Cunning. Evil. But Cunning.
With the team present Dacre called a meeting to discuss plans going forward. Dr Stevens attended remotely via one-way vidlink. Tank was there, but following the principle that a ship’s captain is junior only to God on board his own ship he let Dacre run the meeting.
“These… Colonists, I believe the term is?” he glanced over at the video pickup, but it was one of the translation team who was present who answered.
“It’s the best we have right now, Captain.” the young woman said. “Αποικίες is the closest modern Greek word, which can mean Colony, Colonies, Colonists, etc based on context. Since this is more akin to Attic Greek, the word meaning is known to have drifted quite a bit. And for all we know it means something other than it might in Attic”
Dacre rubbed his forehead. “We’ll go with Colonists for now, then. They have requested that we come aboard their big ship, the Galactica, to begin talks. I’ve stalled them so far on the grounds of waiting for the translation team, but the question is if we agree to their terms, insist on them coming to us, or something else.”
He paused, looking around the table. “If we go to them, on the positive side it shows trust in them acting honorably, it may make them more comfortable with us and positively inclined, and it will give us the opportunity to get a closer look at their technology and readiness. Negative, it may show weakness, us coming to them as supplicants in our own space. It places whoever we send over in a position of great vulnerability if they prove hostile, and it may allow them to only show us what they want us to see.”
There were nods around the table.
“If we insist they come to us, on the positive side it is a show of strength, we are setting the terms for the discussion right from the start and starting off from a position of authority. We have control over the situation and can stage manage the meeting however we wish. On the other hand it may antagonize them, causing them to become hostile, it allows them a better look at our technology than we might want to give them, and if they’re as sneaky and fanatical as the Rimmers they might sneak a suicide bomb on board.” Dacre continued.
He then took a breath “We don’t really have any neutral parties where we could hold the talks, we’re in deep space at the moment after all. Yes, Dr Stevens?” he interrupted himself upon noticing that the ‘attention’ light was blinking next to Kerry’s pickup.
“Captain, there is a ‘neutral’ way, actually. According to your reports a clearly civilian dropship of some sort docked with the Galactica. Perhaps we could specify that the meeting took place onboard that vessel, perhaps with our delegation going on on the Galaxy we came in with.” Kerry’s voice was quite calm, more so than he’d feared with the horror stories of her behavior at meetings were to be believed.
Dacre bristled slightly, though, at the thought of risking the Galaxy, but he then nodded, it was a sensible proposal.
The meeting continued for a while longer, ironing out things like protocols they intended to follow, communications methods, and other logistical affairs before he returned to his CIC to contact Galactica with the request, accompanied by one of the translation team who’d been working on the melange of languages these ‘Colonists’ spoke.
---
“They want to do what?” Roslin sat in Adama’s ready room once more.
“They want to meet on board Colonial One, although they refer to it as the ‘civilian drop ship’ rather than by name. They propose sending their delegation over on their ‘logistics drop ship’, which I’m guessing would be that big one that docked on their main vessel earlier today.” Adama repeated the proposal. “They refer to it as ‘truce ground’, I think they mean ‘neutral ground’.” he shrugged. “It at least means we’ll be talking, Madame President.”
She sat silently for a moment, thinking. “I’ll want a squad of your most level-headed Marines on board Colonial One for this, and keep Starbuck well away from it as well.”
Adama chuckled. “She’d either challenge them all to drinking contests, strip triad, or get into a brawl. Could be interesting to see their reaction, but probably not wise for the first meeting.”
She surprised herself with a laugh at that. “Exactly. Once we get their measure, maybe. But if they are the 13th Tribe, well… I think it’s reasonable enough.”
Say what you will about Laura Roslin, but nobody had ever successfully accused her of being indecisive.
“Tell them we agree.” she looked over at Adama. “But I’ll take Lee, if this is a trap, we can’t afford to lose both of us.”
Dacre had decided to reduce the alert level somewhat, enough that he could deploy the grav decks as it appeared that contact had been pretty much peaceful, at least enough so that he would begrudge his crew the health benefit of pseudo-weight.
He thought it a bit odd that the ship opposite him wasn’t doing the same, but then again at the size of the beast it might have fully internal grav decks so he wouldn’t be able to tell if they’d spun them up or not.
He was still waiting for the translation team, which from further reports would feature his first meeting with the redoubtable Dr Stevens. Joy. Especially considering that his former CO back when he’d been a young wet-behind-the-ears lieutenant was accompanying his fiance and had forwarded a list of ‘helpful suggestions’.
But the suggestions were sensible enough from what little he knew of Dr Stevens, so he’d had a stateroom set aside for her with two-way voice communication and 1 way video conferencing, arranged for a rotating set of female marines to guard the hatchway, and issued instructions keeping the passageways between the shuttle bay and the stateroom completely clear when the team arrived.
Then again, she’d not been rescued from the Rimmer frontier world where she’d ‘lived’ until she was 12, and Dacre’s mind shied away from the horrors he knew females, regardless of age, suffered amongst the Rimmers unless they won the lottery and were born into the Elite caste.
And considering that he had it on good authority that Dr Stevens had a truly eidetic memory? He considered it a minor miracle that Tank had managed to get past her trauma and earn her trust and affection.
But the day before they were due to arrive came an event he’d been notified of from Galactica as a small flotilla of those 50 ton shuttles, accompanied by a smaller unidentified craft that seemed completely different in terms of design style. He had his sensors fully focused on them, gathering yet more data on their emergence and actions.
The next day the pair of Cossak Fleet Destroyers that comprised Constitutions normal escort arrived, one loaded with her usual complement of three Storms and the other with 2 of the swift assault droppers and, looking quite out of place on the small destroyer, the Galaxy-class Logistics Dropship that Constitution normally carried on her fifth ‘fixed’ docking point.
The two Cossaks immediately moved to the standard escort positions, while the Storms similarly formed up into the standard defensive formation. The Galaxy and a shuttle docked with Constitution, the Galaxy on her dedicated hardpoint, and the shuttle in the shuttle bay.
Extra clamps mated with specially reinforced hold down points on the hull of the Galaxy and in a matter of minutes the logistics dropship looked like it was faired into the much larger cruiser, rather than a separate parasite craft. Dacre found himself relaxing a bit, no captain of a cruiser or larger vessel really liked being separated from their assigned Galaxy any longer than strictly needed.
After all, the Admiralty, in a fit of diabolical planning and evil inventiveness, had ensured that no major combat unit carried its own ice cream machines, but rather had to rely on their Galaxy-class logistics vessels to provide the delicacy. Thus ensuring that crews would make sure to keep the logistics vessels safe in combat.
Cunning. Evil. But Cunning.
With the team present Dacre called a meeting to discuss plans going forward. Dr Stevens attended remotely via one-way vidlink. Tank was there, but following the principle that a ship’s captain is junior only to God on board his own ship he let Dacre run the meeting.
“These… Colonists, I believe the term is?” he glanced over at the video pickup, but it was one of the translation team who was present who answered.
“It’s the best we have right now, Captain.” the young woman said. “Αποικίες is the closest modern Greek word, which can mean Colony, Colonies, Colonists, etc based on context. Since this is more akin to Attic Greek, the word meaning is known to have drifted quite a bit. And for all we know it means something other than it might in Attic”
Dacre rubbed his forehead. “We’ll go with Colonists for now, then. They have requested that we come aboard their big ship, the Galactica, to begin talks. I’ve stalled them so far on the grounds of waiting for the translation team, but the question is if we agree to their terms, insist on them coming to us, or something else.”
He paused, looking around the table. “If we go to them, on the positive side it shows trust in them acting honorably, it may make them more comfortable with us and positively inclined, and it will give us the opportunity to get a closer look at their technology and readiness. Negative, it may show weakness, us coming to them as supplicants in our own space. It places whoever we send over in a position of great vulnerability if they prove hostile, and it may allow them to only show us what they want us to see.”
There were nods around the table.
“If we insist they come to us, on the positive side it is a show of strength, we are setting the terms for the discussion right from the start and starting off from a position of authority. We have control over the situation and can stage manage the meeting however we wish. On the other hand it may antagonize them, causing them to become hostile, it allows them a better look at our technology than we might want to give them, and if they’re as sneaky and fanatical as the Rimmers they might sneak a suicide bomb on board.” Dacre continued.
He then took a breath “We don’t really have any neutral parties where we could hold the talks, we’re in deep space at the moment after all. Yes, Dr Stevens?” he interrupted himself upon noticing that the ‘attention’ light was blinking next to Kerry’s pickup.
“Captain, there is a ‘neutral’ way, actually. According to your reports a clearly civilian dropship of some sort docked with the Galactica. Perhaps we could specify that the meeting took place onboard that vessel, perhaps with our delegation going on on the Galaxy we came in with.” Kerry’s voice was quite calm, more so than he’d feared with the horror stories of her behavior at meetings were to be believed.
Dacre bristled slightly, though, at the thought of risking the Galaxy, but he then nodded, it was a sensible proposal.
The meeting continued for a while longer, ironing out things like protocols they intended to follow, communications methods, and other logistical affairs before he returned to his CIC to contact Galactica with the request, accompanied by one of the translation team who’d been working on the melange of languages these ‘Colonists’ spoke.
---
“They want to do what?” Roslin sat in Adama’s ready room once more.
“They want to meet on board Colonial One, although they refer to it as the ‘civilian drop ship’ rather than by name. They propose sending their delegation over on their ‘logistics drop ship’, which I’m guessing would be that big one that docked on their main vessel earlier today.” Adama repeated the proposal. “They refer to it as ‘truce ground’, I think they mean ‘neutral ground’.” he shrugged. “It at least means we’ll be talking, Madame President.”
She sat silently for a moment, thinking. “I’ll want a squad of your most level-headed Marines on board Colonial One for this, and keep Starbuck well away from it as well.”
Adama chuckled. “She’d either challenge them all to drinking contests, strip triad, or get into a brawl. Could be interesting to see their reaction, but probably not wise for the first meeting.”
She surprised herself with a laugh at that. “Exactly. Once we get their measure, maybe. But if they are the 13th Tribe, well… I think it’s reasonable enough.”
Say what you will about Laura Roslin, but nobody had ever successfully accused her of being indecisive.
“Tell them we agree.” she looked over at Adama. “But I’ll take Lee, if this is a trap, we can’t afford to lose both of us.”