there are rules for making primitive jumpships. these are basically compact core ships but their KF drives are slightly smaller % of the mass, and they can only jump 15ly. they also can't use dropship collars. they usually have transit drives since they don't have collars.
the earliest warships were basically such craft with some guns, seems to me that you could probably use the more primitive KF drive tech to save some resources over a full up warship if meant for a defensive ship. use a corvette size for further savings, then give them plenty of fighter and smallcraft bays to give them not only some options for patrolling, but also some useful punch against bigger targets.
as usual though the problem is "if you can build an upgunned primtive jumpship, you can build a full up warship, just in fewer numbers", and the full on warship is more useful in every role but basic patrolling.
so assault dropships and PWS dropships end up filling the role instead.
Yes, thank you. I know there's primitive jumpships. The problem is the weight of their KF Drive. A standard Warship KF Drive weighs WarShip weight x .4525. A primitive jumpships KF Drive weighs 5% + 3% per light-year (with a minimum of 15).
So for a 1,000,000 warships the drive would weigh
Standard Warship 452,500 tons
Primitive Warship 500,000 tons
That's just the KF Drive. I haven't done the math yet on the rest of the ships. So it is possible to build a Primitive Warship but it'd be like the original USS Iowa BB-4 or BB-51 compared to the USS Iowa BB-61. Now if that 15 light year minimum wasn't there the KF drive would only weigh 50,000 tons. That'd make it more attractive as there's a lot more weight for weapons.
The real advantages of warship monitors should be that you don't need a working compact KF core extruder, that you don't need germanium, and that some idiot who thinks he's the second coming of Douglas MacArthur can't strip defenses from your shipyard systems. The first may occur to a point during the 2SW technological decline where warships could no longer be built, but monitors could be. The second always applies but is a false economy for everyone but Comstar. The third, though? A warship with the nonfunctional component (KF Drive) quirk is cheap at twice the price if your concern is preserving the shipyards against the vagaries of politics.
That kind of forgets that Monitors are still Warships. They still have everything else Warships would have. They're just smaller with bigger guns than other warships and are usually designed for coastal or river warfare.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monitor_(warship)
That means they're not going to be built everywhere. They can go everywhere though. It just takes a long time to get there and the voyage can be very dangerous. For example, the Cerberus was built in England and went to Australia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMVS_CerberusIn BT's case the universe requires a KF-Drive. So you're back to the TRO:2750 Bug-Eye with the Light Naval PPC. Under new rules I think the best is a NL-35. The next legal option is the Pocket Warship. Unless of course the minimum jump requirement were to be waved or reduced. Then a Monitor could be built and slowly moved to its deployment location. Or allow Dropships to mount Naval Weapons.