Futuristic Anybody interested in some hard sci-fi?

[Tarmagon]

Hmm. If we're operating under the assumption that we have limited Alcubierre capability, it wouldn't make any sense for the ship to have rotating drums for gravity. One of the suppositions of the drive is an ability to manipulate gravity, so artificial gravity is most likely commonplace. At type II, there is a high chance that we will be using singularity cores for our power, not something as anemic as fusion plants. Unless there is some kind of guaranteed restoration protocol why would fully sentient AI be willing to pilot our warships for us? At that point, they would be as concerned about loss of identity as we are, so effectively becoming throwaway weapons might not appeal to them very much. I would imagine that for an AI, the protracted periods of isolation involved in the voyages would drive them a bit batty, since they would be so much faster in their perceptions. The surest way to drive something insane is to isolate it.

 

[Fishman Lord]

Hmm. If we're operating under the assumption that we have limited Alcubierre capability, it wouldn't make any sense for the ship to have rotating drums for gravity. One of the suppositions of the drive is an ability to manipulate gravity, so artificial gravity is most likely commonplace. At type II, there is a high chance that we will be using singularity cores for our power, not something as anemic as fusion plants. Unless there is some kind of guaranteed restoration protocol why would fully sentient AI be willing to pilot our warships for us? At that point, they would be as concerned about loss of identity as we are, so effectively becoming throwaway weapons might not appeal to them very much. I would imagine that for an AI, the protracted periods of isolation involved in the voyages would drive them a bit batty, since they would be so much faster in their perceptions. The surest way to drive something insane is to isolate it.

Alcubierre drives certainly do exist, but we most likely won't have access to them. Warp drives will only have been discovered by the extremely advanced AI and posthuman civilizations nearest to Sol and Earth, as well as a few other civilizations scattered around the Expanse, and have be spreading at light speed from there, which still means it'll take several tens of thousands years for them to reach the far Frontier, where we are.

As for why AIs would fight for us, it's for many of the same reasons any human would pilot a fighter jet. It's risky, they may die, but they have their own reasons. They might have also been specifically programmed to enjoy and want to do that task, so they wouldn't mind.

Finally to AI probes going insane due to isolation. AIs don't really think the way we do because they are software and code. They can do extremely repetitive tasks over and over without getting bored, they may be emotionless yet still sapient or just as emotional as us, all based on how they are programmed. There are "insane" AIs but that's usually due to a programming issue, a hack or glitch, or a miscalculation when they are trying to rewrite themselves to improve themselves. Alternatively, they may seem insane to us but have really just developed a very different moral code because of the conditions in which they are created or improved.

 

[Mr.Sandstorm]

I think this would work. We'd be a small fleet consisting of a large habitat ship, a large rotating cylinder capable of maybe 0.2c, and all its probes and tools. This would be the main "mothership" of the operation. There would be a good few probes on the ship. The probes could go much faster, maybe 0.4c. These would be used to investigate systems that were deemed interesting enough to warrant investigation but not enough for the ship itself to make the trip. Each probe would be equipped with a fully sapient AI to run it, various tools for scanning and researching a system, and a few rovers or bots to collect samples from asteroids or planets. Also on the ship would be a bay containing a good amount of attack ships. The main ship itself would have combat capability, but the attack ships would aid immensely. Like each probe, each attack ship would be controlled by a fully sapient AI. This would allow the fighters to have maximum efficiency and be the most useful. Finally, there would be a large amount of automated miners and construction ships to obtain resources for the ship and keep it repaired and up to date.

While we would be explorers, in a very major way we would also be traders and merchants. In a society where it takes decades for basic contact and everyone is isolated, information would be just as valuable if not more valuable than materials and resources. Merchants would trade news, data, and technology just as much as they would trade objects.

Hmm. Maybe we could do with a little less automation and some more speed if we used the subluminal warp drives your were talking about earlier. This exploration fleet, and the people who made it, would want as much speed as they could get ,considering it's mission. Maybe we could make some more usage of teoretical tech, at least for our fleet in specific.

I have an idea. Maybe the reason that the galatic community is so disconected isnt just because the travel times are too encumbering, but also because the galaxy was torn apart by an interstellar war that happened thousands of years ago (think 10 thousand or more), and the survivors have long lost the extremely complex infrastructure they needed to keep contact both with the homeworld and their neighbours.
Said infrastructure was built for extreme autonomy and sturdiness, but utilized technologies only completely understood by the homeworld and the central systems, and as they were desolated in the war, the systems in the periphery of the galaxy could not repair the broken tech or replicate it.

Interstellar lasersail relays were destroyed or abandoned, leaving the worlds that couldnt afford torchships and needed these "interstellar highways" to travel completely stranded.
The wormhole network got cut to pieces, and the few wormholes left operating now form a cluster of disconnected webs that aglomerate a few stars each, but are nonetheless completely isolated from eachother.

This calamity brought an end to the interstellar economy that kept all the torchships, laser sails and warp drives powered and running, so even the starships that remained were left with nothing to do other than shut down and gather space dust.
Many of the colonies could no longer afford to keep the more advanced industries they had as they no longer had a type II civilization to depend on; the very ships they used and the outposts they inhabited used science and materials they depended on the older, now gone settlements to acquire. Thus, they had to settle whatever planetoids were friendliest to life and descend to more ancient levels of civilization.

After this tragedy had been long lost to written records, the only whispers left of it were flashes of radiation from the battles, left to be witnessed by the children of the survivors as they grew and rediscovered fields of science and culture that their forefathers were forced to abandon. Eventualy, some lucky few managed to recover rare samples of (mostly) intact technology from the old days.

In this scenario, we could be using warp drive engines that were somehow kept intact well enough to be reactivated.
This circunvents a few problems I have with ultra-advanced tech such as the Warp Drive:

-Our protagonists wont have to be from a civilization advanced enough to actualy make warp drives, only enough to reactivate rare, sturdy models that proved the test of time (possibly kept intact as cultural/religious items, or buried in abandoned chambers on some moon), and then operate the basic functions.

-The lethal capabilites of those warp drives would be limited by multiple factors:

We dont have the power to run them to full capacity, only enough to traverse double-digit lightyear distances, and that's after spending some time (maybe whole years) charging them up with our "anemic" fusion plants (and antimatter cells also powered up by these anemic fusion plants).

We dont know how to replicate them, so the number of Alcubierre starships will be severely limited. I supose this would also add a nice excuse to allow for space marines, as any hostiles that recognize the utility of such a technology would be pressured to capture these Alcubierre starships without damaging them.

The control systems of the warp drives would probably have built-in failsafes to stop anyone from trying to fly it into a planet or star. The software of these devices would have originated from the "golden age" of galactic civilization; back then, a military could eventualy override it if it wanted to, but now nobody knows how to crack the code anymore.

 

[General Deth Glitch]

Yes
Can I be space Gandalf and his Fellowship :|
But also yes

 

[Mr.Sandstorm]

Yes
Can I be space Gandalf and his Fellowship :|
But also yes

Well, hello there. Feel free to drop your two cents (or dollars, or gold bars, whatever) about what we could do with a hard sci-fi story.

Please define "Space Gandalf" and "His Fellowship"....

lol, jk.

I'm sure we'll have some ultra advanced space wizard race just for you to play. Right now, were discussing more basic things, tough.

 

[General Deth Glitch]

What is the Current Discussion?

 

[Fishman Lord]

Hmm. Maybe we could do with a little less automation and some more speed if we used the subluminal warp drives your were talking about earlier. This exploration fleet, and the people who made it, would want as much speed as they could get ,considering it's mission. Maybe we could make some more usage of teoretical tech, at least for our fleet in specific.

I have an idea. Maybe the reason that the galatic community is so disconected isnt just because the travel times are too encumbering, but also because the galaxy was torn apart by an interstellar war that happened thousands of years ago (think 10 thousand or more), and the survivors have long lost the extremely complex infrastructure they needed to keep contact both with the homeworld and their neighbours.
Said infrastructure was built for extreme autonomy and sturdiness, but utilized technologies only completely understood by the homeworld and the central systems, and as they were desolated in the war, the systems in the periphery of the galaxy could not repair the broken tech or replicate it.

Interstellar lasersail relays were destroyed or abandoned, leaving the worlds that couldnt afford torchships and needed these "interstellar highways" to travel completely stranded.
The wormhole network got cut to pieces, and the few wormholes left operating now form a cluster of disconnected webs that aglomerate a few stars each, but are nonetheless completely isolated from eachother.

This calamity brought an end to the interstellar economy that kept all the torchships, laser sails and warp drives powered and running, so even the starships that remained were left with nothing to do other than shut down and gather space dust.
Many of the colonies could no longer afford to keep the more advanced industries they had as they no longer had a type II civilization to depend on; the very ships they used and the outposts they inhabited used science and materials they depended on the older, now gone settlements to acquire. Thus, they had to settle whatever planetoids were friendliest to life and descend to more ancient levels of civilization.

After this tragedy had been long lost to written records, the only whispers left of it were flashes of radiation from the battles, left to be witnessed by the children of the survivors as they grew and rediscovered fields of science and culture that their forefathers were forced to abandon. Eventualy, some lucky few managed to recover rare samples of (mostly) intact technology from the old days.

In this scenario, we could be using warp drive engines that were somehow kept intact well enough to be reactivated.
This circunvents a few problems I have with ultra-advanced tech such as the Warp Drive:

-Our protagonists wont have to be from a civilization advanced enough to actualy make warp drives, only enough to reactivate rare, sturdy models that proved the test of time (possibly kept intact as cultural/religious items, or buried in abandoned chambers on some moon), and then operate the basic functions.

-The lethal capabilites of those warp drives would be limited by multiple factors:

We dont have the power to run them to full capacity, only enough to traverse double-digit lightyear distances, and that's after spending some time (maybe whole years) charging them up with our "anemic" fusion plants (and antimatter cells also powered up by these anemic fusion plants).

We dont know how to replicate them, so the number of Alcubierre starships will be severely limited. I supose this would also add a nice excuse to allow for space marines, as any hostiles that recognize the utility of such a technology would be pressured to capture these Alcubierre starships without damaging them.

The control systems of the warp drives would probably have built-in failsafes to stop anyone from trying to fly it into a planet or star. The software of these devices would have originated from the "golden age" of galactic civilization; back then, a military could eventualy override it if it wanted to, but now nobody knows how to crack the code anymore.

Well, like I said, warp drives would still be an emerging technology in the core and a few scattered areas that developed it individually. They would be spreading at almost light speed, but that still means it will take tens of thousands of years for that tech to reach the distant Frontier, where we are.

I don't think a massive war is necessary or even maybe fully possible given that it would take thousands of years to spread, but I do have an idea for something similar. The Von Neumann Crisis started when a construction probe sent to a system to self-replicate and build infrastructure for incoming colonists malfunctioned. It began building only copies of itself, which in turn began building copies of themselves, and so on until the chain reaction was out of hand. Over many "generations", certain probes' code would "mutate", causing them to build the next generation slightly differently. As this continued, a kind of machine evolution took place as different varieties of the probe competed with eachother for resources and energy. Soon there was a whole interplanetary machine ecosystem of sorts. While this kind of machine ecosystem had been accidentally created before, it was usually confined to a single planet or was specially contained in a specific environment. This time, however, there was no observer or containment. As resources became less easily accessible in their own system, some of the probe's descendants launched to other star systems. They began ravaging those systems for resources, and the chain reaction grew deadlier. They attacked Orbital habitats and ships to gain resources, and even attacked planets with lander variants to take what they had. The true crisis had begun. Over the past twenty thousand years, the descendants of that single probe have spread like a tumor across the Earthen Expanse, wreaking havoc and destroying civilizations as they evolved more and more. Because of interstellar delays, the status of the crisis varies between systems: some may have successfully fought off the probes, others may have succumbed, some may still be fighting them right now, and others don't even know that there's a crisis happening halfway across the galaxy from them.

Of course, like I said I don't think we need a huge war or anything, but what I described is one possible scenario for a war/crisis that could feasibly affect such a massive network of disconnected civilizations.

As for wormholes, I personally believe we don't need them as a 100% STL setting could be quite interesting and unique seeing as most sci-fi settings like this have FTL or instantaneous travel of some sort.

 

[Mr.Sandstorm]

Yeah, for a setting where ships cant go superluminal, a rogue Von Neumann probe crisis is far more likely to achieve the level of destruction I sugested.
Unless, of course, someone managed to make FTL warp drives, in which case all bets are off.

Are you still ok with the idea of warp drives being available as reactivated relics of the core systems, tough? I think we could benefit from having a 0.9 c propulsion system, to make the timespans a little more familiar. And in my eyes, it would be much more interesting for a story if these drives were extremely rare artifacts from the so called "Earthen Expanse" instead of products of native technology.

 

[General Deth Glitch]

Well, like I said, warp drives would still be an emerging technology in the core and a few scattered areas that developed it individually. They would be spreading at almost light speed, but that still means it will take tens of thousands of years for that tech to reach the distant Frontier, where we are.

I don't think a massive war is necessary or even maybe fully possible given that it would take thousands of years to spread, but I do have an idea for something similar. The Von Neumann Crisis started when a construction probe sent to a system to self-replicate and build infrastructure for incoming colonists malfunctioned. It began building only copies of itself, which in turn began building copies of themselves, and so on until the chain reaction was out of hand. Over many "generations", certain probes' code would "mutate", causing them to build the next generation slightly differently. As this continued, a kind of machine evolution took place as different varieties of the probe competed with eachother for resources and energy. Soon there was a whole interplanetary machine ecosystem of sorts. While this kind of machine ecosystem had been accidentally created before, it was usually confined to a single planet or was specially contained in a specific environment. This time, however, there was no observer or containment. As resources became less easily accessible in their own system, some of the probe's descendants launched to other star systems. They began ravaging those systems for resources, and the chain reaction grew deadlier. They attacked Orbital habitats and ships to gain resources, and even attacked planets with lander variants to take what they had. The true crisis had begun. Over the past twenty thousand years, the descendants of that single probe have spread like a tumor across the Earthen Expanse, wreaking havoc and destroying civilizations as they evolved more and more. Because of interstellar delays, the status of the crisis varies between systems: some may have successfully fought off the probes, others may have succumbed, some may still be fighting them right now, and others don't even know that there's a crisis happening halfway across the galaxy from them.

Of course, like I said I don't think we need a huge war or anything, but what I described is one possible scenario for a war/crisis that could feasibly affect such a massive network of disconnected civilizations.

As for wormholes, I personally believe we don't need them as a 100% STL setting could be quite interesting and unique seeing as most sci-fi settings like this have FTL or instantaneous travel of some sort.

Having NO FTL, both limits your play space and mean any interstellar interactions take years, at best, to occur

 

[Mr.Sandstorm]

Having NO FTL, both limits your play space and mean any interstellar interactions take years, at best, to occur

Uh, yeah, we're aware of that. That's exactly what were going for here.

 

[General Deth Glitch]

Uh, yeah, we're aware of that. That's exactly what were going for here.

Thats fine, provided we are not RPing at such distances. Otherwise, ofcourse, there would be no reason for us to interact at all and the RP would quickly stagnate. However if we are in the same system, then it could be interesting. Otherwise why would I interact with another star system for anything other then purely informational gain?

 

[Fishman Lord]

Thats fine, provided we are not RPing at such distances. Otherwise, ofcourse, there would be no reason for us to interact at all and the RP would quickly stagnate. However if we are in the same system, then it could be interesting. Otherwise why would I interact with another star system for anything other then purely informational gain?

We will be travelling between systems, but as a research/merchant/exploration group. The massive times between systems will be explained through our characters going into cryosleep or something similar between systems.

 

[General Deth Glitch]

We will be travelling between systems, but as a research/merchant/exploration group. The massive times between systems will be explained through our characters going into cryosleep or something similar between systems.

Sounds good. I guess that means no to Space Gandalf then :|. So we would each have a singular character then?

 

[Fishman Lord]

Yeah, for a setting where ships cant go superluminal, a rogue Von Neumann probe crisis is far more likely to achieve the level of destruction I sugested.
Unless, of course, someone managed to make FTL warp drives, in which case all bets are off.

Are you still ok with the idea of warp drives being available as reactivated relics of the core systems, tough? I think we could benefit from having a 0.9 c propulsion system, to make the timespans a little more familiar. And in my eyes, it would be much more interesting for a story if these drives were extremely rare artifacts from the so called "Earthen Expanse" instead of products of native technology.

I think a slower system will still be able to manage timescales as we'll be in cryosleep or something similar during the massive journeys. I'm not entirely against us having a warp drive, it just seems that any civilization advanced enough to create a warp drive would be too advanced for very relatable characters. I guess this can be explained by us gaining the drive from a different or previous civilization, but for now I think we'll leave whether we have a warp drive until the actual RP as we have more time to discuss it.

Sounds good. I guess that means no to Space Gandalf then :|. So we would each have a singular character then?

I believe we would each have a single character, yes.

 

[General Deth Glitch]

I think a slower system will still be able to manage timescales as we'll be in cryosleep or something similar during the massive journeys. I'm not entirely against us having a warp drive, it just seems that any civilization advanced enough to create a warp drive would be too advanced for very relatable characters. I guess this can be explained by us gaining the drive from a different or previous civilization, but for now I think we'll leave whether we have a warp drive until the actual RP as we have more time to discuss it.


I believe we would each have a single character, yes.

Cool, though I worry, even with NPC's the 'group' will feel very underpopulated

 

[Fishman Lord]

Cool, though I worry, even with NPC's the 'group' will feel very underpopulated

What do you mean?

 

[Shireling]

Shireling Mr.Sandstorm Tarmagon This still leave us with the question of what the RP would actually be. Any ideas on what we would be doing or roleplaying as?

Sorry for a period of inactivity. I started work this week and I'm bushed.

 

[Fishman Lord]

Sorry for a period of inactivity. I started work this week and I'm bushed.

No worries.

 

[Tarmagon]

Hmm. Kind of like the "Star Carrier" universe without the Alcubierre drive style warping.

 

[General Deth Glitch]

What do you mean?

Well say you get 10 people to join. Nice, that means ten really active members on the ship... which probably has hundreds and the space for them all to work and live, not so much in comfort but certainly without too much discomfort. So you get 10 people who interact and feel alive and a few hundred (Or more) worker drones that say little to nothing and just work?
One solution could be we are all part of the same sort of 'sub section' like we are all part of a single trade team that goes out, secures deals and makes friendly relations with the groups we meet off ship. This could mean the rest of the ship do things, but we interact with each other because we work together closely, so we just don't see as much of the NPCs

 

[Mr.Sandstorm]

Well say you get 10 people to join. Nice, that means ten really active members on the ship... which probably has hundreds and the space for them all to work and live, not so much in comfort but certainly without too much discomfort. So you get 10 people who interact and feel alive and a few hundred (Or more) worker drones that say little to nothing and just work?
One solution could be we are all part of the same sort of 'sub section' like we are all part of a single trade team that goes out, secures deals and makes friendly relations with the groups we meet off ship. This could mean the rest of the ship do things, but we interact with each other because we work together closely, so we just don't see as much of the NPCs

Well, you raise a good point, I suppose. I guess for a ship this size, we'll all need to be in the same team to interact with eachother often enough. At least informaly in the same team, anyway; we could still be from separate teams, but by chance of fate we happen to like hanging around in some hub area during shore leaves, or whatever break period there is that isnt a visit to the cryopods. This ship's mission will take a good portion of our characters' lifetimes, even with the criogenics. I figure we'd all know eachother closely after a while.

And then a chain of events forces us to band together despite our mismatching professions.

 

[Mr.Sandstorm]

I think a slower system will still be able to manage timescales as we'll be in cryosleep or something similar during the massive journeys. I'm not entirely against us having a warp drive, it just seems that any civilization advanced enough to create a warp drive would be too advanced for very relatable characters. I guess this can be explained by us gaining the drive from a different or previous civilization, but for now I think we'll leave whether we have a warp drive until the actual RP as we have more time to discuss it.

Right, let's just leave a pin on it for now, I guess. I'm only sugesting warp drives if we get them as artifacts from the inner planets, in any other case we're better off with a story devoided of space-time bending machines.

Just so you know tough, I'm sketching some ship desings for our "mothership", as well as for the "fighters" and other drone ships. I'd prefer to have a commoly agreed idea of what our ships have, but it doesnt take a lot of sketching to desing hard sci-fi ships, so I'll just make multiple desings and show them to you folks.

 

[General Deth Glitch]

Right, let's just leave a pin on it for now, I guess. I'm only sugesting warp drives if we get them as artifacts from the inner planets, in any other case we're better off with a story devoided of space-time bending machines.

Just so you know tough, I'm sketching some ship desings for our "mothership", as well as for the "fighters" and other drone ships. I'd prefer to have a commoly agreed idea of what our ships have, but it doesnt take a lot of sketching to desing hard sci-fi ships, so I'll just make multiple desings and show them to you folks.

Hey, you never know. Some demonic alien race that is a mass of tentacles, or sufficiently advanced 'core' empire of humans turn up with their BOSS FTL MAGIC to take us all over

 

[Fishman Lord]

Right, let's just leave a pin on it for now, I guess. I'm only sugesting warp drives if we get them as artifacts from the inner planets, in any other case we're better off with a story devoided of space-time bending machines.

Just so you know tough, I'm sketching some ship desings for our "mothership", as well as for the "fighters" and other drone ships. I'd prefer to have a commoly agreed idea of what our ships have, but it doesnt take a lot of sketching to desing hard sci-fi ships, so I'll just make multiple desings and show them to you folks.

That's awesome. I was imagining something similar to this:

It's from Spaceengine, which is a really awesome program. It's what I would be imagining, functionality over coolness but still with a pretty awesome massive ship vibe going on.

 

[Mr.Sandstorm]

That's awesome. I was imagining something similar to this:
View attachment 314441
It's from Spaceengine, which is a really awesome program. It's what I would be imagining, functionality over coolness but still with a pretty awesome massive ship vibe going on.

Well, I finished my first sketch. It's quite different from what you showed me, but I hope you still like it:

Now to explain what everything is:

1- Life support:
The ship's habitable deck is composed of two areas: the four centrifuges that simulate gravity, and a main tube, where the centrifuges are mounted.
Two of the centrifuges house the crew during their awake period, while the third one houses a micro-ecosystem that acts both as a bio-regenerative life support system and as the main source of food for the crew. It houses both vegetation and livestock.
The fourth centrifuge houses a medical center tasked with sealing and studying alien biological samples, from bacteria to whole groups of specimen; it also doubles as a momentary residence for any eventual alien diplomats/captives.
In case youre wondering, the antenna-like sticks are exactly that, antennae. I originaly tought them as rotating counterweights that keep the ship's payload in balance with the rotating habitats, but then I realized I dont realy know how angular momentum physics works all that well. So just asume they're antennae.
The main tube that connect all four habitats is quite big and can house a lot of people for emergencies, as well as pressurized working stations for the crew. It's the main access point to both the Equipment Bay and the Materials Storage.

2- Materials Storage:
This expansive area houses a series of containers for securing construction material and refinery stations to process the brute resources acquired during the ship's stay in any system; it also stores most of the ship's fuel, and transfers it to the Propulsion Cap as needed.
Deep at the center of the Storage lies the Criogenic Pods where the crew stays confined during interstellar travel, as the material and fuel tanks offer good protection against radiation and even weapons fire; because of this, the Storage can also double as a "storm cellar" for the crew should they be threatened by high radiation events.

3- High-tension Truss
The Payload (1, 2, 8, 9?) of the ship is actualy dragged along by a suspension system, instead of being suported by a tower structure. This makes heat management and protecting the crew from reactor radiation much simpler than with a rigid, compressed armature. This sturdy cable lattice is made of a sturdy supermaterial (carbon nanotubes?) cabable of handling the titanic tensions of maneuvering burns.
The Truss also supports multiple pipes and cables to transfer fuel and energy between the Propulsion Cap and the Payload.

4- Fusion Drives:
The ship uses these four fusion torches for interplanetary travel (as well as interstellar cruising?). They're directly connected to the ship's powerplant.

5- Laser/Photon Sail:
In case the Mothership has to interact with a native lasersail relay, it can seal it's Fusion Drives and unfold a pair of massive photon sails ( the size is arbitrary, I have no idea how big this sail would have to be move a ship this size).

6?- Warp Drive (plz?):
In case you're still ok with using sub-luminal warp drives, that's where it is. Most of the Warp Engine's systems are located deep inside the Propulsion Cap, with only the Field Emmiter popping out of the ship's entrails.

7- The Propulsion Cap:
The Mothership requires a massive fusion powerplant to operate, and this is where the most energy-intensive equipment of the ship resides. It also has it's own fuel tanks that store the fusion fuel to be immediately used by the reactors.
(Suggestion: Antimatter Factory
I have an idea for making big, vulnerable ships such as this one more justifiable in comparison to a swarm of smaller vessels. Fusion power is extremely hard to achieve, so it's possible that advanced power generation would require the usage of catalyst elements such as antimatter and muons.

Exotic particles such as antimatter would require bulky particle synthesis infrastructure that most ships could not hope to house or power; particle accelerators to manufacture antimatter, that is then stored in supercooled cells and transfered to the ships of the rest of the fleet, where these antimatter samples allow for smaller and lighter fusion reactors that warships would require.

However, these lighter reactors are heavily dependent on a periodic supliment from an "Antimatter Factory", so such facilities would be vital for power economies, and ships of the Mothership's class would be vital to military efforts.

The Mothership's Propulsion Cap is it's most heavily armored element. If it's antimatter storage cells recieve too much damage, the resulting explosion would make the Nostromo look like a firecracker by comparison.)

8- Equipment Deck:
Most vessels, from mining drones to some manned battleships, reside here during interstellar transit. During stays at star systems, the bigger vessels move out of the docking bays, but fastly-deployed ships such as fighter drones can stay here permanently until they need to be deployed. The Equipment Deck also holds the Mothership's defensive weapons, and most of the crew's high-end equipment.

9?- High-power Comm.s Laser (maybe?)
The ship's mission requires that it keeps a constant, reliant feed of information heading towards the home system, and it's not too wise to allow other systems to catch trace emmissions from this uplink, so this high-power laser could be usefull.