Calcatrice (I & II)-class Sensor Corvette

The Calcatrice-class Sensor Corvette is a small ship designed to assist fleets with their weapons targeting and sensor scans.



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The Calcatrice was conceived as a way to improve the targeting capabilities of fleets and other naval groups.
Due to the barely-FTL speeds of current-day sensors, the multi-light-minutes'-distance battles that make up most of naval warfare cause a significant lag-time, resulting in somewhat inaccurate fire control that essentially forces ships to try and anticipate what their target's positioning is.
Thankfully, the Imperium's naval innovators came up with a workaround for the problem: rather than relying on the sluggish speed of standard sensors, why not use FTL hyperwave technology?

The execution was simple. A small corvette was built, loaded with sensors, and given a short-range hyperwave transceiver. The idea was that the ship would be able to use its good speed and small target profile to remain close to the enemy fleet. It would then be able to transmit its scans continuously to the ships via hyperwave transmissions, giving a fleet the enemy's position significantly faster.




-Model: Calcatrice I-class Sensor Corvette
-Class: Corvette
-Role(s): Scouting, Real-Time Battle Intelligence, Minesweeping
-Manufacturer: New Carradock Naval Yards
-Length: 103 Meters
-Width: 36 Meters
-Height: 55 Meters
-Armament: MASrc-4 Dual 6.5M Repeating Anti-Starfighter Laser Cannon Turret
-Sensor Package: ASM/ECM/LIS-56H (Advanced Sensor Module/Electronic Counter-Measure/Light Imaging System, Type-56 Model-H) Short-Range Sensor System
-Max Acceleration (Space): 3,700 G
-FTL Drive Type: Hyperdrive
-Hyperdrive Range: 650 LY
-Shielding: 310 pJ Tolerance; 20 pJ/second Recharge rate
-Hull: 0.3 Meters Average of Meleenium Armor Plate, 55 mT Tolerance; WRA Composite for Non-Critical Armor
-Crew: 24 officers, 101 crewmen, 6 gunners, 217 AI systems
-Complement: None
-Passengers: 45
-Consumables: 6 months

-Model: Calcatrice II-class Sensor Corvette
Specs the same as Calcatrice I-class unless otherwise specified
-Armament: None
Sensor Package: ASM/ECM/MBSS-72 (Advanced Sensor Module/Electronic Counter-Measure/Multiple-Band Sensor System, Type-72) Short-Range Sensor System
-Length: 120 Meters
-Width: 44 Meters
-Height: 64 Meters
-Max Acceleration (Space): 4,200 G
-Hyperdrive Range: 300 LY
-Crew: 27 officers, 112 crewmen, 255 AI systems



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The Calcatrice-class was later split into two separate classes, the Calcatrice I and Calcatrice II, as the sensor corvette began to be regularly employed in large groups during battles. The Calcatrice II was designed to be slightly larger, had all armament removed and its fuel and supplies reduced, and was then given an improved set of sensors, a stronger hyperwave transceiver that reduced sensor data transmission times even more, a full separate command bridge for improved command, and more.
The new ship sub-type was then put into service as a "flagship" for sensor corvette groups during engagements, receiving the other corvettes' signals and transmitting them to the fleet. Because these ships were likely to be regarded as higher-priority targets by opposing fleets, the ship was given better thrusters to improve its evasive abilities.


Both classes had the unfortunate drawback of very little fuel and consumable capacity. The ships would be forced to dock with other larger ships for resupply multiple times during long travels, slowing down the entire fleet they're tasked to in the process. As such, when time is of the essence, some commanders consider it strategic to leave the corvettes behind with a few ships to refuel them and continue on, engaging the enemy and doing without the Calcatrice's improved sensor capabilities until the corvettes catch up.


The Calcatrice-class would later adopt other roles beyond boosting a fleet's sensors. The corvette class was equipped with a light jamming package that was originally intended for use in aiding an assault fleet with jamming a planet's sensors and comms, a task that the fleet would otherwise need to waste its larger ships for. It found other usefulness, though.
While the jamming package was too weak to interfere with a capital ship's scanners or comms, it was a totally different story for starfighters. A Calcatrice could easily jam the targeting sensors of several squadrons of bombers in the corvette's vicinity, allowing the Calcatrice to screen against bombing runs for capital ships.
This eventually led to the ships serving as escorts for lone capital ships or forming a screen to stop incoming bombers outside the range of a fleet's anti-fighter guns from trying to fire their missiles at long range.

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CREATOR'S NOTES:

Sooo this is just the result of playing around with some microship ideas a few days ago. I formed a bit of a concept for a "sensor frigate", worked out some background, and kinda liked it, and the model fit pretty well so I decided to make something out of it.

Interesting.... I've had ideas for a somewhat similar ship for quite a while now, so I should probably get around to it...

As for this ship, it's once again pretty sweet. Microships are always a challenge, so to see it pulled off well is a nice surprise. Greebling is also well done. I also quite like the description; very interesting role, unique in a good way.

Good job!

Nicely edited main picture, really enhances the presentation. Neat pair of the ships, well built - although the smaller one feels slightly incomplete compared to its larger counterpart. The use of a ladybug piece for greebling made me smile - clever.

Tetra: Thanks!


S-H: I've been experimenting with different ways of trying to improve the look of LDD screenshots. For this one I duplicated the layer the ship was on, set it to "overlay" (not sure what that'd be in Gimp), then fiddled with the opacity a little. I dunno if it's more realistic looking, but I thought it gave it a sort of a gritty look slightly.
By the way, any ideas on how to improve the resolution of screenshots in LDD? I've been looking to find some ways to improve on resolution and make the edges less pixelated, but haven't had any real success yet.

the only thing I can think of is going into edit--> Preferences and fiddling with those. Outside of that, can't help you.

From what I know, the resolution of LDD screenshots depends on two things: whether or not high-quality rendering is enabled, and the size/resolution of your screen.
If you've already enabled high-quality rendering, and you've already set your screen's resolution to maximum, and you're already taking screenshots at maximum possible magnification in the largest possible window, then I'm not sure what else to recommend.

Regardless, shots of smaller models in LDD will always suffer from some pixelation. Only way around that is to use a 3rd party rendering program like PoV-Ray

Rats, I'm stuck then. *Goes off to buy a monitor with 8000x5000px resolution...*

Hmm, that's a good thought. I think I could easily reduce the quality of renders to a LDD-ish graphics quality, and if it speeds up render time significantly it might not be a bad way to go. Thanks.

These are excellent little ships! I especially like the II! Great idea, and execution. But if they work as well as you plan, they will likely be taken out by mid-sized or larger enemy ships.

Dino: They could be big targets, but they'd probably be rather safe for the most part. Because they're so small, relatively fast, and highly maneuverable, they'd be significantly harder to hit than the big, slow main warships, even at the close ranges that they'd be operating at.

Also, it isn't likely that there would be any ships to do the job. The big ships would theoretically be too busy slugging it out with the other fleet's big ships to bother wasting their guns or superior targeting systems on tracking and destroying a bunch of little sensor ships, which because of their small size and evasive abilities could take almost as long as destroying a larger ship, and while some smaller frigates or the like could do it really well they'd be separated from the fleet and be extremely vulnerable to bomber squadrons or larger ships intended to specifically hunt down medium-small ships like frigates.

Lastly, while shaving 10-20 seconds off your sensor lag-time is a major advantage, it's not a complete game-changer. A fleet's commander would have to choose between sacrificing time or smaller vessels to eliminate the dozen or so sensor ships in play, either one of which could be costly, or to engage the enemy fleet while it has superior targeting abilities. I'm really not sure which would be better, but either option leaves you at a disadvantage in that battle.

Or, if you have the ships to pull it off, you could just get scarily close and let superior firepower and shielding prevail instead of losing to your enemy's greater long range targeting systems. (This only works when you actually have the firepower and shielding, not to mention enough ships, to make this effective, instead of being two-way suicide in which both sides are utterly decimated.) 

On the other hand, stealth tech works wonders too. 

As do hunter/killer frigates, destroyers, or light cruisers with fighter escort.




Still, knowledge is power and all.