Dropship engines: converting IS to Clantech?

[Lazarus Jaguar]

Kinda wondering, how hard is it for the Clans, when converting old Star League or IS made Dropships to thier own technology, to convert the engines.  it's the only major internal component that has different specs from the IS.  Is it just a matter of a few parts that can be easily changed out?  or do they need to strip out the whole engine and replace it?

[sillybrit]

Yes
[/Kosh]

The answer can be what you want it to be, because that level of detail has never been defined.

[verybad]

Think of it this way. If you buy a japanese car, how hard is it to convert the engine t oan american one?

It's much harder to convert Dropship engines.

Even if you have higher technology, stuff may simply not fit. The Clans left the Ttian class dropships unmodified till after the Wars of Reaving, when the Snow Ravens finally updated that ship...

[Orion]

I'd say it's about as easy as switching out the engine for any ocean-going vessel.  With a good dry dock, cranes, etc, it can be done, but may take months to do the work.  First you have to open it up, then take the engine out (and some of the pieces are sure to be rather large), put a new one in, and then button it back up.  Testing to ensure all welds are vacuum tight takes time as well.  I'd allow some incidental, fluff-level changes using software and small parts, but anything major requires a large dry dock.

[DaveMac]

Interesting question

What sort of numbers of upgraded dropships in service do we reckon we talking about compared to new build?  Could be that a lot of upgrades were done early in the Clans history before designs like the Overlord C were produced.  Later on I can only see the Clans going through the aggravation of swapping engines for those dropships that they value, in other words those that see combat.  That said, verybad's comment about the Titan implies that it is not common as that design is regarded as the best dropship fighter carrier and a prime candidate for upgrading.

[Fireangel]

The question would be; why would they want to?

Yes, weight-wise a clan transit drive is more efficient than an IS drive generating the same power, but not enough so (especially in the 2/3 through 4/6 Thrust ratings common in IS designs) to warrant dry-docking the ship and getting rid of a perfectly good engine.

My guess is that when the clans capture an IS dropper they consider worth upgrading to clantech (i.e. intender for use by the warrior caste), they simply upgrade the weapon systems or bay configurations, leaving the engines, for the most part, alone. If the ship is going to a lower caste, they might even leave in the IS weapons; biggest change would be in the paint job.

Now, if they decide to build their own version from scratch, they'll develop their own engine, giving the design a bit extra tonnage to play around with.

[Lazarus Jaguar]

The question would be; why would they want to?

Yes, weight-wise a clan transit drive is more efficient than an IS drive generating the same power, but not enough so (especially in the 2/3 through 4/6 Thrust ratings common in IS designs) to warrant dry-docking the ship and getting rid of a perfectly good engine.

My guess is that when the clans capture an IS dropper they consider worth upgrading to clantech (i.e. intender for use by the warrior caste), they simply upgrade the weapon systems or bay configurations, leaving the engines, for the most part, alone. If the ship is going to a lower caste, they might even leave in the IS weapons; biggest change would be in the paint job.

Now, if they decide to build their own version from scratch, they'll develop their own engine, giving the design a bit extra tonnage to play around with.

Good point.

My original making came from thinking about the ravens converting titans to the monitor version, how hard was it to work on the engine. 

[Jellico]

How original are the 300 year old engines in the first place?

[Nikas_Zekeval]

The question would be; why would they want to?

Yes, weight-wise a clan transit drive is more efficient than an IS drive generating the same power, but not enough so (especially in the 2/3 through 4/6 Thrust ratings common in IS designs) to warrant dry-docking the ship and getting rid of a perfectly good engine.

My guess is that when the clans capture an IS dropper they consider worth upgrading to clantech (i.e. intender for use by the warrior caste), they simply upgrade the weapon systems or bay configurations, leaving the engines, for the most part, alone. If the ship is going to a lower caste, they might even leave in the IS weapons; biggest change would be in the paint job.

Now, if they decide to build their own version from scratch, they'll develop their own engine, giving the design a bit extra tonnage to play around with.

Given the likely expense, the only time I would see this happening is when the cost of maintaining the non-standard parts to keep the engine running will cost you more than the expense of a total engine replacement, which most likely amounts to a virtual teardown and rebuild of the engine rooms and support systems.  A hugely expensive project, and only worth it if the spaceframe is likely to last long enough to pay off.  Otherwise use it till it can't be economically patched up any more, then break it up for parts and recycling.

[Maingunnery]

If the ship is going to a lower caste, they might even leave in the IS weapons; biggest change would be in the paint job.

I always had the idea that they would then strip out all the ammo-weapons.

[snewsom2997]

You would have to break the ship down to the structure, and shoe horn an engine in, and then basically rebuild the ship.

[Jimmy B]

As I see it, Dropships etc. are so expensive, that if they ever needed a whole new engine
it would still be far cheaper than building a new dropship. And it is highly unlikely with
this being the case, that they would be built in such a way as to require completely
stripping them down to the frame to replace the engine.

Im game terms, as long as the new engine is not bigger than than the old one, then
swapping it out should not be much different than standard repairs. It is still going
to be expensive and time consuming.

Cost of new engine
Man Hours to remove old one
Man hours to install new one.

AS far as figuring out the stats for a swapped engine. Since the tonage of the dropship determines
the weight of the engine for a given speed. Then you simply reverse the math based on the new engines
weight, to see what speed it will allow, and rounding down to whole numbers.

A lot of this is covered in the old Mechwarrior Mercenaries rules for Salvage, which allowed for the
mismatching of equipment and armor, etc.

[Fireangel]

Given the likely expense, the only time I would see this happening is when the cost of maintaining the non-standard parts to keep the engine running will cost you more than the expense of a total engine replacement, which most likely amounts to a virtual teardown and rebuild of the engine rooms and support systems.  A hugely expensive project, and only worth it if the spaceframe is likely to last long enough to pay off.  Otherwise use it till it can't be economically patched up any more, then break it up for parts and recycling.

Precisely. I'd even concede that over the course of several overhauls components get upgraded to "newer" standards simply for the sake of parts availability, making the engine a hybridized type weighing the same as an IS version.

[cawest]

or untill engine damage mounts up and it's cheaper to replace the whole thing with a new one.  it could be the like a cracked engine block on a large fishing boat or tanker

[rlbell]

I'd say it's about as easy as switching out the engine for any ocean-going vessel.  With a good dry dock, cranes, etc, it can be done, but may take months to do the work.  First you have to open it up, then take the engine out (and some of the pieces are sure to be rather large), put a new one in, and then button it back up.  Testing to ensure all welds are vacuum tight takes time as well.  I'd allow some incidental, fluff-level changes using software and small parts, but anything major requires a large dry dock.

While not simple, it is much easier than swapping marine engines.  If swapping engines was something that happened with any frequency (from the view of people doing the servicing, if not the DS, themselves), the fittings would be designed to make it as simple as swapping the engine on some fighter aircraft (after allowing for the much larger mass, helped by doing it in zero g).  Removing an engine could be as simple as opening the disconnects and clamps and using the docking thrusters to pull away from it.  Docking with the engine being installed is more difficult, but not a feat outside what a pilot is expected to be capable of.  The whole evolution taking a few hours.  After an initial period of working out the bugs of this system, the engines would hardened against physical shocks and dropships would be equipped with winches capable of hauling the drive off of the ground, in the event of landing with an unclamped engine unit.

[evilauthor]

I can't help but wonder what all is actually being improved in the Clan tech engine with regards to the IS engine. For both tech bases, Warship engines are 6% of the ship's mass. Dropship engines for both are heavier than Warship engines, but close enough to make me think they use the same tech as Warships. The extra tonnage for Dropship engines suggests to me that Dropship engines have some extra functionality that Warships don't need... like being capable of atmospheric operations.

So are the Clan improvements over IS engines actually the engine? Or are they actually in all the peripheral equipment that allow things like operating in an atmosphere? When "upgrading" to a Clan tech engine, you may not need to replace the actual engine at all, just the peripheral stuff.