Re: Honor Harrington: Ideas for conversion?

On Mon, 19 Aug 1996, Mark A. Siefert wrote:

> Movement:
>	The ships use gravitic proplusion to manuver in both "n-space"
and to
> enter hyperspace or a wormhole.  It would appear that ships follows
> realistic vector movment rather than the popular "airplanes-in-space"
> style of travel.
> 
> Defenses:
>	In the "Harrington" universe a military ship's drive field
creates a
> "impeller wedge:" an impenetrable barrier above and under the ship
> leaving the bow, stern, port and starboard open.  The front and rear
can
> not be protected, but the flanks are covered by a "sidewall" shield. 
> The sidewalls are by no means as strong as the wedges and can be
> breached.
> 
> Weapons:
>	Missiles: These seem to the primary "long range" weapon of the
> "Harrington" Universe.
>	Lasers & Grasers (Gamma Ray Lasers I assume):  These weapons
seem to be
> most effective at short range.  Given how energenic gamma rays are, I
> would think that these would be more powerful than a run-of-the-mill
> laser.

Grasers are said to be far better mass-wise than lasers, but each of
them 
uses more mass than a laser; so smaller ships are more or less
restricted 
to ordinary lasers.

>	Energy Torpedos:  Quick firing, devasting against unscreened
targets,
> but are somewhat ineffective against sidewalls and they have a very
> short range.

Totally ineffective against 'military-grade' sidewalls (ie, anything 
_any_ military ship, at least down to destroyer-sized ships); but 
extremely devastating otherwise.

>	Grav Lance:  Great for bringing down sidewalls, but in takes up
a lot
> of space, has very limited range, and is slow to load.
>
Range about 25% of normal beam range...

Since long-range missiles are the main weapon, I'd start with slashing 
beam ranges to... very low. 12 m.u., maximum? No, that's too long - 6
m.u.?
Missile ranges are some 10 times greater (IIRC, could well be wrong). 
Also, missiles 'inherit' the speed of the launch platform, and can go 
ballistic if they have to travel far.

Internal launchers and magazines for missiles are a must. A big SD
should 
be able to carry several broadsides of many missiles each.

Of course, you don't want to track all missiles; in some of the bigger 
battles, the initial (pod-enhanced) salvos consist of over 3000
missiles. 
That even beats SFB <VBG> One way could be to use one missile marker for

each salvo from a ship, noting down how many missiles are left in that 
salvo; but this involves lots of book-keeping. Point defences are
crucial.

Good luck!

Oerjan Ohlson

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