Sat, Mar 6, 2021 at 1:50 PM
Ignatz,
Frankly, I'm not sure a Tottenberg would have more than a single mounted weapon system; it's not really a target for pirates unless it's hauling freight. It has almost no cargo space of its own: enough for food and supplies for the crew, and that's about it. I can't think of a likely scenario for it to be attacked, in and of itself. I can think of some cool unlikely situations, but nothing that they'd actually design the ship around.
Once mated to a cargo box, or series of boxes, though, the ships become much juicier to corsairs. Or rather, they become impediments to the pirates, which makes them targets.
On the other hand, the idea of mounting weapon drones, or other types of drones, to the magnetic pads when the ship is not hauling a box, is genius! I love that idea. It would effectively boost the ship's firepower by a huge factor, without needing any more mounted weapon pods.
DEW weapon pods would need some form of aiming system, but pods launching missiles don't; missiles can -- and actually have to be -- aimed after launch. They are ejected out, probably via a spring or magnetic system, then they use tiny thrusters to cartwheel in vacuum so that any target in all three axes can be fired upon. And of course, their courses can be adjusted on the fly.
Civilian DEW systems are weak compared to missiles, but they effectively have unlimited ammo, and their attacks happen at great speed (some, like lasers, move at the speed of light). Civilian missiles tend to do much more damage in an attack, but they are very limited in number, are slower, and subject to point-defense from the enemy vessel. The sort of defensive systems a vessel possesses is dependent upon its intended use. This covers not just what it will be hauling, but where it will be operating, and who is supposed to be flying it.
Regarding the placement of the weapon pods in the render, I like them. Those seem like sensible spots. The pods, themselves, seem big. Those look like they could tear a ship in half.
I imagine civvie weapon systems as appearing rather under-sized and under-powered because, well, they are. In one of the stories (I forget which), Ejoq describes civilian defensive missiles as being about the size and shape of a large salami. Based on the size of the airlock in the image, the missiles that would come out of those pods would be giants by comparison.
Gunnery and weapons are frequently mentioned in the Stardrifter tales because Ejoq likes them, and he's telling the story. Even he, though, admits that most other people, including other spacers, don't think about them very much, if at all.
-David