New ships ideas...

The Q-Ship

I had this idea for a new class of vessels when I was thinking about
what sorts of ships groundling empires would have and what they'd use them
for.  As a cargo vessel, a Spelljamming ship can keep a army supplied in
the field from a secure supply depot, which would enable the army to
travel in a single huge unit, as distinct from splitting up into separate
column to forage better.

The size of cities in the ancient period was limited by the amount of
grain which could be brought into the city, which was limited by the
amount of farmland near rivers or seas that could ship their cargo
to the city.

With Spelljamming ships, the size of cities could grow _enormously_.  In
a largely secure area there would be a demand for a simple heavy cargo
ship, which could transport the most cargo for the smallest amount of
magical equipment that needed to be purchased.

So, starting with the idea that you want a ship which can carry a large
mass in proportion to the mass of the ship I started off with a barge.
A barge is not too implausible a vessel, as it can be loaded and unloaded
quite quickly.

Now suppose this groundling empire has been spending its treasure on ships,
and finds them very useful indeed, but wildspace bandits hear about it
and start to prey on the inexperienced groundlings.  At first the standing
order would be to land the ship, or crash it, as fast as possible if
attacked, and the groundling empire would try to salvage the helm later.
But sometimes the cargo is troops who are being transfered to suppress
a rebellion, lay siege to an enemy, or whatever.

So you have this barge with a lot of troops in their bunks when the helmsman
spies a Neogi slaver ship approaching.  Ordinarily, he'd ground the ship,
hide, let the pirates take the cargo and report the location of the ship,
but in this case the 'cargo' has a higher ranking officer who has a different
plan.

The Neogi ship fires some artillery, and the barge's helm 'goes down', the
Neogi close to board when suddenly 100 specialized heavy crossbowmen
opens fire, using the barge's hatches as improvised mantlets, giving
about 90% cover.

The barge's helm suddenly 'came back online', and rammed the Neogi vessel.
With crossbowmen covering the hatches, it proved easy to sweep the decks
clear of the enemy, but since the troop commander didn't want to take
chances with entering the enemy ship and fighting Umber Hulks in close
quarters, the commander ordered the Neogi vessel thoroughly fired before
his troops cut their lines and pulled the barge away.

Afterwards, the groundling navy gave some thought as to deliberately
repeating their victory, with the intent of driving away pirates.  Thus
was born the Q-ship.

To outward appearance, the Q-ship is a barge with a covered deck, the ship is
a box 7' x 20' x 50' or so, with a heavily armored bow section.  Even though
the ship only has a minor helm, and itself weighs about 10-15 tons, it
can ship a lot of troops and cargo.  The cargo hatches are quite thick,
especially since cargo must rest on them in Wildspace, and so make excellant
Mantlets, protecting the crew from anti-personel artillery.

As the ship has a very low maneuverability rating, and poor SR due to lack
of highly skill crews, the Q-ship has a great concern when facing races
like the elves who stand off firing artillery for a long period.  To
reduce this problem, the Q-ships stock a number of temporary aids to SR
and maneuverability, which its captains are authorized to expend as
necessary.

A later development was the purchase of a number of Maneuver Helms, which
were much cheaper than minor helms and whose primary use was to enable
the ship to maneuver better, and take off faster.  It is essentially
a second helm which instead of adding to the SR, adds to the maneuverability
rating.  The Q-ship normally has an F rating, but since the Q-ships get
the best pilots, the pilot of the minor helm can use their Spelljamming
skill to temporarily boost the SR of the ship, the pilot of the maneuver
helm can boost the maneuverability.

With scrolls and potions for improving SR and tactical rating, the barge
can jump from a 1 or 2 SR, and F maneuverability to 3 or 4 SR, and B or
even _A_ maneuverability for a brief period.  As that may be all that is
needed to close the range enough for the Q-ship, that could be enough.
The Q-ship fires concealed harpoons with hidden ballistae which keeps the
enemy ship from reestablishing distance.


The Q-ship relies on being able to carry a huge crew because its primary
duty is within or real close to the atmosphere of a planet, when facing
WildSpace ships which must carry more food supplies and fewer crew to
keep the air of high quality.

For a WildSpace ship to match a Q-ship's crew density, it must base in the
same atmosphere as the Q-ship.  That means the groundling empire can, in
theory, find this base and hit it with overwhelming troop power, when
the raiders may not have enough ships to evacuate everybody beyond the
atmosphere on a moment's notice.

When not watching for WildSpace raiders, a Q-ship is excellent for patrolling
the groundling empire, participating in sieges, patrolling over the roads
and rivers of the empire's trading system.  The Mantlets can be shifted
to cover the sides of the ship, enabling the marines to fire down and to
the sides in support of sieges or ordinary battlefield.

The ship is designed to protect its marine complement cargo while at the same
time making sure the marines can rapidly deploy through the hatches when
they are needed.  As the Q-ship designers grew more familiar with the demands
of wildspace combat they added a few things to the inside of the ship.

Because the ship occasionally rams a more massive ship, gravity can shift
towards the front, there are sufficent hang on straps on both the decks
and the cargo deck floor for the entire marine complement to brace for
collisions better.

The Q-ship has a number of problems.  If it rams a ship in such a way
that its crew's crossbowmen can't cover all the opponents hatches, the
rammed ship's crew could make their way unmolested around its blindside,
and the crossbowmen would have to leave the protection of their mantlets
to be effective.

As its marines are unlikely to be welled trained in Wildspace fighting,
as their primary duty is inside the atmosphere vs planetary targets, they
won't fight very well in sudden G-shifts.  The large marine force can
be a disadvantage as the loss of a ship would involve many more casualties
than a lightly crewed WildSpace nation ship.

Even with all the modifications, a Q-ship would still need luck and
surprise to beat a heavy warship with an experienced crew, but
adding the necessity of completely disabling a ship before boarding
makes piracy a more expensive proposition, with less return.  And
because the Q-ship so resembles its more defenseless brethren, would
be pirates would have to practically destroy the flying barges before
boarding them.

The Q-ship idea is a way for groundling powers to win a few battles with
more experienced opponents, while gaining the experience needed to fight
on more equal terms with WildSpace pirates.  It can pour out an amazing
amount of fire power against an opponent 'above' its deck, with significant
protection for those firing, and would be an excellant ship to work in
formation.


A companion ship for the Q-ship would be a helm-cocked Trebuchet.  This
would be a much more agile ship, with crew to aid its maneuverability,
where the power of the helm could be used to cock a heavy Trebuchet.
As the Trebuchet is built into the ship, it would have a very limited
zone of fire, you'd have to turn the ship to aim the Trebuchet, but
by using the power of the helm to arm the Trebuchet, you wouldn't need
a large crew for the weapon itself.  Unlike a terrestrial Trebuchet
where you'd want to release the projectile while it was moving in an
upward arc, a spelljamming ship with a Trebuchet would want it to release
straight ahead for maximum power.


Now my theory is that if you have a ship which is supposed to either
ram and/or board you want to have a large marine complement and you
want to be able to board the enemy ship quickly.  That means you don't
want to have deal with obstructions or small boarding platforms while
you are exposed to enemy fire.

On the other hand, if you have a ship devoted to artillery and missile
weapons you want to have as many obstructions as possible to boarding.
You want your artillery to be able to fire even if your ship's gravity
is disrupted by being intertwined with an enemy ship.  You want restricted
access from the deck to inside which can be easily defended while
your missile fire sweeps the deck of boarders.


The Q-ship is limited by the requirement that it have a watertight
bottom in order to land in water.  A wildspace version of the Q-ship
would have hatches covering both top and bottom deck, so it could
suppress the enemy crew more effectively.  It could only land in a
docking cradle, or dock with another ship.  As long a wildspace
ships are designed with an undefendable 'bottom' surface which they
land on, they must defend themselves with maneuver or with another
ship covering their vulnerable areas.


Some landing structures that wouldn't interfere much with a ship
designed to board an enemy.

1)  Landing skis.  These don't have to protrude far from the hull, and
so wouldn't interfere with your own troops.

2)  Hermeticly sealable hatches on the 'bottom' of the ship.  Such hatches
would probably be slower to open, shut, and get through in combat.

3)  Take offs and landings are pure power, Levitate and Feather Fall,
requiring little shock absorbing structure.

These would enable a ship to be made extremely compact, with more of the
mass being armor and structural support, with those structures needed
for maneuverability not interfering with boarding or defensive missile
fire versus enemy boarders.


Except for the existence of spells with an area of effect in spelljammer
hexes, I'd think wildspace fleet battles would involve fleets in close
formation, like the ancient Greeks, Romans, etc...


Michael Sandy