Gudersnipe Ships

Gudersnipe Ships

Space is big. As in really really big. And the Gudersnipe Foundation needs a lot of ships. The School and Crimson Blade use the same starships.

Starship Classifications

Largest to smallest:

• Battleship
• Carrier
• Destroyer
• Light Destroyer
• Frigate
• Cutter
• Corvette
• Short-Range Bomber
• Mid-Range Bomber
• Long-Range Bomber
• Star Fighter

Sse also: Ship Classes

Battlegroups

A standard Tactical Battle Group has 52 Ships, including:

• 2 Carriers
• 4 Battleships
• 8 Cruisers
• 8 Cutters
• 12 Destroyers
• 18 Corvettes

A standard Expediary Battle Group has 35 Ships, including:

• 1 Carrier
• 2 Battleships
• 4 Cruisers
• 8 Cutters
• 10 Destroyers
• 10 Corvettes

Ship Systems

GE ship systems are classified into three different color-coded categories:

Blue: Primary Systems; shields, weapons, engines, power generation, big stuff.

Purple: Support Systems; life-support, power-transfer, stuff that makes big stuff work.

Orange: Minor sub-systems and diagnostics, artificial gravity, water purification, computers, little stuff, generally low-power.

System classifications are based on numerous criteria such as complexity, importance, power-requirements, integration, etc. Waste-management, for example, would not normally be though of as ‘primary’; but because ship’s waste is fed into the engines as fuel, waste-management is closely integrated with engines and thus a Blue system. Weapons, while not vital to the ship’s general survival, are high-energy and high-complexity and are thus Blue. Life support, while vital, is a support-system, and thus classified under ‘Purple’.

In addition to color, all ship’s systems have a primary and secondary designation, used namely during repair operations. Life support, for example, is ‘primary’, because life sucks without air. Waste management, is, of course, secondary, because you don’t need the ability to flush the toilet in order to breath. Power Transfer is primary because nothing else works without it; weapons are secondary because you don’t need to shoot when you can’t breath. Shields are primary because ships can’t move very fast without them (impacting a piece of space dust at 70% light speed will kill you without deflectors). Thus, it falls to the engineers and chief petty officers to understand all this stuff and actually make the ship go.

Alert Status System

Alert Status One: general status, maintained at all times while breathing. Standard eight hour shifts and rotation schedules apply.

Alert Status Two: something important is obviously going on and as a red blooded (or whatever color blood your species happens to employ) GS student you should try to keep this in mind. Standard shift and rotation schedules still apply.

Alert Status Three: attack and/or danger is immanent, all crewmembers are on twelve-on shifts with overlap or split six-on rotations.

Alert Status Four: combat preparations are underway or a battle has just been completed, all crewmen should be wearing pressure suits. Inactive personal remain in designated life-support shelters. Shift scheduling is at the discretion of department heads.

Alert Status Five: combat situation, General Quarters condition to be maintained AT ALL TIMES.

Hull Design

Or: why are Gudersnipe ships shaped suspiciously like boats? There are several reasons.

First of all, we are used to our current design for spacecraft because they are meant to travel through the atmosphere. Hence, most sci-fi artists basically start with airplanes and jet-fighters to produce their spaceship designs. Cool, sweat-wing concepts that look like they'd be great flying around in the atmosphere. Well, I do that too, sometimes, but the fact remains that spaceships don't need wings.

Secondly, on the very large scale(and the ships we're talking about get to be on the order of miles long) space, or rather the inter-steller medium, actually behaves a lot like water. This is the fallacy of the flying saucer: a cigar-shape is actually much more efficient at moving through space than a disk. So long, narrow ships are better.

The rounded underside of the hull also acts like a literal shield. The armor is thickest under that portion, so during an attack, the hull can be turned to angle the bottom section towards enemy fire.

Finally, within the story-world itself it is explained thusly: they are designed to land on water, where they will float around like ships. There are no star-ports on planet surfaces designed to accommodate such large vessels and for the biggest capitol ships this is a one-way trip, but it is still part of the emergency procedures. When it doubt: land on water. Even in situations where the ships are forced into emergency landings, the hull absorbed a land-based impact much better than other designs.

Utopia Gregaria Shipyard

Gudersnipe's primary shipyard. Main article: Utopia Gregaria.