Original sub 300 character version

The Solar Lance uses a laser to deal with drones, ships and missiles

Relevant information is on the left side of the images

• Scale comparison with a Shuttle

• Ship specs and layout

  • Armor properties
  • Not an engineer? Read this

• Laser

  • Laser type
  • Turret takes 300 MW to rotate

• Power plants

• Engines

• Misc

Extended Version

The Solar Lance is second largest ship used by the Republic of Free Peoples. It is best used for long range drone/missile defense as well as anti-capitol ship roles when supported by escorts.

It has the second most powerful laser in the setting coming in at, 300MW input 10 MW output, after the Laser Station with it's 1 GW input 21 MW output.

Ship Handling

• Delta-V (the amount a ship can change it's velocity): 4.7 kps

  • For interplanetary transfers Children of a Dead Earth ships will use external propellant tanks to increase their delta-v so that when they arrive in the target sphere of influence their internal tanks will still be full.

• Wet acceleration (amount of acceleration when the ship is full of fuel): 104 miligravities

• Dry acceleration (amount of acceleration when the ship is almost out of fuel): 175 miligravities

• Turnabout Time: 60 seconds

• Rollabout Time: 43.9 seconds

Source

Laser Performance

The Solar Lance uses a 300 MW arclamp laser mounted on the bow of the ship as it's primary and only weapon.

The laser's radiators are the six 10x20 meter silicon carbide radiators mounted midship. Combined they radiate enough heat the laser can fire constantly But, if even a single radiator is destroyed or heavily damaged the Solar Lance will not be able to fire the laser continuously. Obviously the more radiators it loses the less uptime it has on the laser.

It is powered by five 60 MW Thermoelectric Fission Reactors which are mounted in the stern near the engines. If any of these are damaged enough to stop working the laser will not have enough power to fire. The reactor's radiators are the large ones mounted in the stern near the engines. If any of these radiators are heavily damaged or destroyed the Solar Lance will not be able to operate all of it's reactors and will be unable to fire it's laser.

• Output power: 10.2 megawatts

• Intensity at range,

  • 1 km: 274 GW/m²
  • 10 km: 2.74 GW/m²
  • 100 km: 27.4 MW/m²
  • 1000 km: 274 kW/m²

• The laser is mounted on a turret that can rotate at 293 degrees per second and has a 71 degree firing arc.

  • However if the turret is rotating at any significant rate it will consume more than 2 MW and prevent the laser from firing.

• Here is a Laser Effect Calculator which you can use to figure out the kind of damage this laser can do with one second of drilling.

  • Here is how to set it up so that you can figure out what the laser can do with one second of drilling.
  • Wavelength: 1.06e-6 meters
  • Radius of Lens: .65 meters
  • Laser Output Power: 10.2 MW
  • Beam Duration: 1 second
  • Duty Cycle.1

Sources: 1, 2, 3

Survivability

Unlike most Children of a Dead Earth ships, the Solar Lance does not have any whipple armor. It's only physical defence is 3.5 cm of reinforced carbon-carbon.

• 3.5 cm Reinforced Carbon-Carbon.

  • Reinforced Carbon-Carbon properties.
  • If you aren't an engineer you probably don't know what most of that means. This provides an explanation for their specific terms.

• Like all Children of a Dead Earth ships, as long as the crew still is connected to ship systems the ship can still operate. So in some cases the ship can keep on functioning even after getting cut in half.

  • Although in the specific case of the Solar Lance this is extremely unlikely to matter as if the ship get's cut in half it will separate the power plant plus engines and the laser plus crew making the ship functionally useless.

• The ship carries weapons to deal with attempted boarding actions.