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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 19, 2018 1:56:53 GMT -5
This topic is a child of the Space Loonies article directory.JUST ABOUT EVERYTHINGSpace Looney equipment is an eclectic mix of technological sophistication and ingenious improvisation. One way or another, most Space Looney equipment can be - or has been - repurposed to another task. With limited resources and manpower, versatility is a key factor in all areas. Accessibility, likewise, is another chief concern, as not all species aboard their fleets can carry out their tasks in the same way. As a result, much of their equipment can be used for virtually any related task, with virtually no training, by virtually anyone who finds it.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 19, 2018 1:57:19 GMT -5
INDUSTRY & POWER
At the most fundamental level of Space Looney existence is the High-Precision, Four-Dimensional Refining, Assembly, and Printing Station, or "H-RAP". Just as with their planet-dwelling cousins, the H-RAP is the source of the vast majority of equipment and food aboard a Looney ship. It is one of the first functioning devices installed aboard any ship under construction. H-RAPs vary heavily in size and can be tasked with anything from nanomachine construction up to the fabrication of hull components for dreadnoughts. Smaller printers are often dispersed throughout ships to attend to the needs of the crew, including food and medicine.
Power is generated almost exclusively from fusion, cold fusion, and antimatter reactors. Jumps that take Set to star systems with highly-energetic stars will sometimes see mass adoption of high-efficiency solar panels or sails for energy production. Even outside of these systems, the handfuls of Space Looney stations - and even some larger ships - are often covered in solar panels. Heat dissipation from power production, propulsion, and weapons fire is typically managed through a mix of heatsinks and coolant discharge, but methods often vary significantly between individual ships.
Unlike planetside Loonies, the Space Loonies regularly make use of energy-to-matter fabrication in their H-RAPs. In addition, matter-to-energy recyclers are often built into their primary industrial centers. This comes with a notable caveat compared to grounded examples of these devices; due to the power needs of spacecraft and the tremendous inefficiency of the process, construction from energy alone is used only in extreme situations or power surpluses. On most ships, only matter-to-energy conversion is used regularly, and largely for waste disposal.
Much like planetside Loonies, however, the Space Loonies regularly make use of conventional construction techniques and equipment. Arc welders are employed alongside molecular disassemblers. Exoskeletons and assembly arms regularly work alongside self-consuming labor drones. Bolts and rivets rest comfortably beside nanomachine gels. For as advanced as the Space Loonies are, they are hardly above tried-and-true techniques. The uncountable design philosophies of different fleets and construction teams ensure that few ships are ever alike.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 19, 2018 1:57:45 GMT -5
SHIPS
New ships are often constructed in temporary shipyards that end life as part of the ship they were built to construct. Larger, more successful fleets may have industrial craft dedicated to the construction of new vessels. More modular ships may even be capable of building new ships off of their own hulls, which eventually split off like a dividing cell. Construction of new craft in neutral facilities is a rare, frowned-upon practice. As a result of the Space Loonies' largely-nomadic lifestyle, shipbuilding is often carried out in either secluded locations or via mobile or towed construction facilities.
Ship construction is an evolving process that keeps pace with the technological breakthroughs of individual Space Looney fleets. Fleets are often composed of a succession of ever-more-advanced ships with ever-more-sophisticated equipment. Centuries-old corvettes may end up as the progenitors for freshly-constructed dreadnoughts. Further still, with each ship built in a single fleet, the larger they are likely to be. Established fleets may prefer an optimal ratio of heavy ships to lighter ships, but developing fleets may appear as though they were an evolutionary chart of a spacefaring civilization.
Ships are designated based on their intended role, overall tonnage, and anticipated crew requirements. They are broadly divided into three separate categories. Combat ships, as their name suggests, fulfill primarily combat-oriented roles and are often smaller, lighter, and less populated than others. Utility ships perform various services for the fleet generally related to repairs, construction, or moving ships or obstacles. Storage ships are used for retaining cargo and excess fuel, and are often fitted with habitation modules to sustain additional crew or dedicated research teams. Utility and cargo ships are often of similar size, but cargo ships typically dwarf all other categories in terms of crew aboard.
In order from lightest to heaviest, Space Looney ships are classed as launches, cutters, corvettes, frigates, monitors, cruisers, battlecruisers, battleships, dreadnoughts, and motherships. Of particular note is that, for combat ships, "monitor" is often exchanged for "destroyer". For non-combat ships, battlecruiser-sized ships are often lumped in with regular cruiser-sized ships, while battleship and dreadnought-sized ships are rolled into the mothership weight classification. Practice in naming varies considerably and some fleets may use alien designations that share little in common with the human norm.
Ships above frigates in size are rarely able to safely land on Set's surface without considerable planning beforehand. Craft the size of battleships or larger are generally prohibited from attempting landings - sometimes, under threat of force from planetside Loonies - due to the potential damage they could cause in the event of a crash-landing. Decommissioned craft that can not be reliably broken down are pushed into Set's graveyard orbit, where they can be salvaged over long periods of time. Derelicts deemed unworthy of salvage are pushed further past the graveyard orbit, where they will eventually be left behind whenever Set jumps.
Attempts have been made in the past to to use large, decommissioned ships as kinetic bombardment weapons, specifically against the Cult of Meat and the meatscapes. While each attempt caused catastrophic damage to the meatscapes the ships landed in, the resulting disruption to Looney bunkers and towns on the planet's surface largely nullified their overall impact. In each case, cultists and meat monsters were able to take advantage of the spreading debris cloud to defend and restore the impact site. As a result, "derelict bombs" are now used only in extreme cases.
Propulsion aboard ships is typically achieved through a mixture of chemical thrusters and backup ion engines. For many ships, maneuvering support and emergency propulsion are offered by a system of artificial gravity wells, which are generated by a drive component known as Synias-Novikov motivator, or SNM drive. The SNM drive is a jealously-guarded Space Looney innovation, and the difference in mobility between Looney and non-Looney ships easily demonstrates why. In the time a comparable ship could complete a single rotation over Set, a Space Looney ship with an SNM drive could manage upwards of three or more.
The SNM drive offers further advantages for combat and crew comfort. It affords the ship a means of projecting defensive gravity wells to divert or destroy incoming projectiles. Similarly, gravity wells can be generated inside of or in front of nearby hostile craft, causing damage and course disruption. More aggressive and complex maneuvers can be achieved without injuring or disrupting a ship's crew by counteracting onboard inertial forces with precision-tuned gravity wells. Artificial gravity aboard ships is commonplace, allowing terrestrial species to avoid the effects of prolonged microgravity.
The SNM drive is not without its failings. The system operates on principles that require dedicated experts just to maintain them. Aboard even dreadnought-sized ships with thousands of crew, there may only be a dozen people who can service the vessel's SNM drive. Further, power draw from the SNM drive is incredible, often times enough to exceed the output of fusion reactors several times over for little more than three seconds' worth of activation. SNM drives can only maintain a single gravity well at a time per drive, which is largely dependent on the drive's size for complexity and precision. Finally, SNM drives that have been critically damaged have been known to spontaneously generate short-lived black holes. While the singularity typically dissipates soon after, the ship is often consumed in the process. Despite the risks, the SNM drive remains a common element of Space Looney ship design.
Many ships also use an inertial-dampening gas known as kinetic-dispersal atmospheric additives, or, more simply, kinetic additives. This relatively benign gas is flooded into a ship's compartments during high-intensity maneuvers and serves to absorb extreme levels of inertia that may be experienced by the crew. When a ship is boarded, the gas may also serve to slow down or outright halt projectile weapons, such as firearms or mass drivers. While the gas is not toxic to most species, prolonged exposure may eventually flood an individual's body with kinetic additives. Among other things, this results in severe bodily stress in any physical action. This is largely independent of species or physiology and can even affect non-breathing creatures and machines.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 19, 2018 1:59:23 GMT -5
PERSONNEL
In multi-species fleets, the Space Loonies often assign crew to roles befitting their natural disposition. Some species are inclined towards labor, others for complex engineering work, and others still for diplomatic work between ships and fleets. As a result of their close understanding of Looney hierarchy and general prevalence, however, humans are the leaders and decision-makers of most fleets. Even in the scarce few fleets that have limited human populations, individual humans stand alone as the captains of many ships and the administrators of many fleets. Redworlders are often close behind thanks to their long history on Set.
Employment of certain species is forbidden under punishment of ship seizure or, in some cases, destruction. This is largely restricted to problematic species or creatures, such as sentient pseudocrustaceans or paleworlders. Species that are universally barred from Space Looney service are typically those that could pose a threat to fleets as a whole or to biospheres on Set. In most cases, these species have limited intelligence, fast reproductive cycles, or dangerous physical properties. Some artificial intelligences may fall under similar prohibitions as a result of their tendency to spread or replicate themselves.
The vast majority of fleets maintain a population of whiteworlders as a general labor force. This stems from their core nature and means of reproduction. As a whole, the whiteworlders are clones, produced by various fleets in "egg farms" where their young are literally printed from H-RAPs. In addition, whiteworlders are typically given over to other ships with a full copy of their genomic sequence, allowing ships to print their own populations as needed. As a result of their limited sentience, innate behavioral conditioning, and valuable physical traits, whiteworlders are employed in a manner none too different from automated work drones.
Sentient machines and artificial intelligences are common in the Space Loonies, but heavily dispersed across the various fleets. Many serve as administrators or captains in their respective fleets. Of particular note are commonplace rules regarding artificial life, whether organic, mechanical, or electronic. The creation of artificial life is, in most fleets, restricted solely to other artificial life, often with requirements in effect regarding appearance, behavior, and core design. In example, humans may not program artificial intelligences and AIs may not engineer new humans. Practice of and adherence to these rules vary substantially among fleets.
Many day-to-day affairs onboard ships are handled by automated drones. As a ship's population expands, these drones are slowly replaced by crewmen. Whiteworlders are often given similar treatment and are sent to other ships when pushed out by freshly-trained or transferred crew. Similarly, some ships may adopt rules regarding species in specific roles or aboard their ship as a whole. Those ships gradually push non-conforming species to other ships or positions as the desired species expands on the ship. Specist practice such as this is a common element of logistics policy in most mixed-species fleets.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 19, 2018 2:01:30 GMT -5
WEAPONS & ARMOR
Ship-to-ship weapons on Space Looney vessels strongly revolve around lasers, railguns, and particle cannons. For ships intended to engage smaller craft, ferrohydraulic coilguns may replace conventional solid-slug railguns. Smaller ships sometimes incorporate missile batteries to contend with strike craft or torpedoes to engage heavier vessels. Large ships are the primary users of particle cannons and may even forgo other varieties of weapons in favor of using larger or more numerous particle accelerator arrays.
In addition, Space Looney ships are often fitted with gravity pulse cannons derived from the SNM drive. Gravity pulse cannons function in a manner similar to railguns by accelerating projectiles with precisely-defined gravity wells. The definition of a gravity pulse cannon, however, is vague; there is little to separate a dedicated weapons system from a ship's airlock. Roughly any projectile, dispensed by any means, can be accelerated via the SNM drive. The distinction is primarily made for ships with fire control systems and structures dedicated to task.
Additionally, large ships with expansive SNM drives can use precision-generated gravity wells to control the movement of other ships. The effective tractor beam produced can be used to pull friendly ships away from danger, seize and capture hostile ships, or even fling nearby obstacles as improvised projectiles. While the power costs related to extensive usage of the SNM drive are enormous, its combat value is limited only by the creativity of the user behind it.
Ship defenses are primarily restricted to armor plating and defensive usage of the SNM drive. Due to its power requirements, ships must often judge whether to use the SNM drive as a shield, weapon, tool, or mobility enhancement. Few craft are able to sustain the power requirements of more than one task at a time. Further still, a single SNM drive can only generate a single gravity well at a time, and the complexity of the gravity well is limited by the drive's size. Some Space Looney vessels may forgo weapon systems entirely in favor of adding additional SNM drives, but such craft are rare - and failures resultant from their SNM drives are unbelievably catastrophic.
Personnel weapons for the Space Loonies are almost wholly based on lasers or particle cannons. Roughly three in four small arms aboard Space Looney ships are high-intensity lasers intended for crew defense aboard ships. The remainder are typically particle cannons used for long-distance fighting during spacewalks or marine incursions into hostile ships. Railguns and other weapons with physical projectiles are generally undesirable, as they have limited performance on ships using kinetic additives. Ships that do not use kinetic additives are more likely to sustain damage from overpenetration or fragmenting slugs.
The SNM drive is not limited exclusively to space vessels. Similar technology is used - in limited numbers - as infantry shielding and weapons. Weapons technology derived from the SNM drive is myriad in number; gravity pulse cannons able to punt objects with deadly force, kinetic capture tools able to lift and maneuver objects, and even black hole guns able to generate small, volatile singularities. Power requirements for gravity-based weapons typically require the usage of powered armor or other personal power stores for more than a single use.
For the Space Loonies, however, powered armor is both everywhere and nowhere. Exoskeletons are rare, but most Space Looney marines, security personnel, and salvagers are afforded access to "muscle suits". Muscle suits are layers for their pressure suits woven with armored, synthetic muscle tissue that mimicks the user's movements. Muscle suits are further adorned with armor plating, extra capacitors for weapons, or utility attachments such as thruster harnesses. In some cases, muscle suits can be programmed with automated movement routines, allowing users to continue moving - or even fighting - when fully incapacitated.
While not all Space Loonies are given muscle suits, all Loonies - including some vacuum-resistant species - are given pressure suits. The diversity of pressure suits, however, is as wide as the Space Loonies' tolerance for other species. Personal customization, workplace demands, ship customs, and fleet requirements blend together in endless combinations. Further, many ships require their crew to wear their pressure suits at all times in case of emergencies. Just as with other spacers, a pressure suit is often a Space Looney's identity, hand-crafted right down to their most basic needs.
Conventional pressure suits often incorporate an organic gel that lives in between the suit's inner and outer layers. The gel is composed of a biofilm hand-tailored to its wearer's body. This biofilm serves a number of valuable survival functions, such as waste recycling, atmosphere reprocessing, wound management, and even limited power generation. When stimulated with food, including food that would not otherwise be edible for the user, most variations of the biofilm can process it into edible rations - with divisive palatability, depending on species.
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