Quote:We're already dealing with at least three pieces of handwavium, and I hope we can solve this one with a slightly smaller hammer.
Hell, considering that Macross is the size of a medium asteroid and weighs about the same, I'd seriously consider there being some sort of handwavium drive or something to reduce the ship's overall inertial mass to something the human-built engines can handle.
All of the following is, as usual, referenced from the ever-useful Atomic Rocket Project.
Referencing my preferred sketches, I'd guesstimate the Macross' main engines at slightly less than a square kilometer across... rough length 9km, average beam 2.5km, average draft... 1100m or so. 24,750,000,000 m^3, give or take, or slightly under two and a half billion displacement tons. Figure fifty percent of that to account for the main gun, engines, and other neccessary machinery - and, for the Macross herself rather than her Zentradi cousins, probably crew spaces also.
Empty mass is going to vary radically depending on what we say about the materials technology that went into her. My guess would be either steel or some sort of carbon composite - both of which are at least fairly strong and can be fabricated from common materials, and are hence cheap.
Mass ratio... probably a lot higher than most space opera considers and a lot lower than is really plausible. ^_^; For steel construction, 1.5 to 2 would probably be about the maximum - composite, I wouldn't have a clue.
Unfortunately, none of the posted drives seem to match the characteristics of what we're dealing with. Fortunately, I had always been thinking that the Macross would be lifting off under some kind of antigravity effect - otherwise, think about the consequences of her thruster wash on Tinian, or the entire Pacific basin, for that matter - so we don't have to limit ourselves to T:W>1... Hm. On second thought, perhaps a version of a solid core antimatter drive where the reaction mass is heated by... *makes a 'fill in the blank' hand motion* some kind of electrical arc, or something.
And anyway, I actually don't want a particularly quick trip - a year or two would be ideal, but there's considerable fudge factor in both directions.
The ARMOR platforms? Well, as noted, they're about five billion cubic meters, or 500,000,000 displacement tons, have aluminum and titanium construction, and I'd put their mass ratio at about two. Skywatch's older, smaller ships use a somewhat scaled-up version of what that page calls a Minimag-Orion, but it requires frequent maintenance, has a distinctly limited maximum operation period (after which you have to shut it off or melt your drive components and probably backfire one of your charges into the magazine and blow yourself to kingdom come), and is very expensive to operate.
Zentradi ships get away with a relatively low mass ratio because, well, even in a worst case scenario, they can always use carefully planned folds and local gravity to control their velocity. Also, their fleet trains include tanker and processor ships - also fold-equipped, of course - who can land on some otherwise unoccupied outer system body and shovel up spare remass 'till the cows come home.
I'm passing out as I type, so I'm going to wrap this up for the night.
Ja, -n
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."