Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
Reviewing the tech tree further, I think I can fit the Droid Ships in starting from Artificial Intelligence and DNA Computing. There would be a few new weapon systems and defense systems that could be introduced into this region. There's only two real issues I have in this sector of the tech tree with doing this:
1) Orbital Flight should predate when these ships begin. If we move Orbital Flight back one space on the x layer it would be fine.
2) Antigrav takes place in the same layer - not only is this already threatening to make Orbital Flight obsolete, it's kinda defeating the purpose of separating the Droid Ships from an Anti-Grav ship layer. Now... if we envision EARLY anti-grav as being useful with the constrictions that have already been discussed and introduce a more powerful form of anti-gravity later in the Transhuman era (nearing the end) we could navigate this issue.
3)It would be nice to have another Air Unit layer to accompany the Droid ships and a 'Lesser Anti-Gravity' would be cool to help enable that. We'd be talking about another tech for flight beyond Orbital Flight of course but it seems right that there would be.
So we could leave Anti-grav where it's at but we could make it more of a material base type Anti-grav such as suggested earlier regarding developed mono-atomic gold applications. It would be something akin to simply levitation and wouldn't be greatly useful for navies as it would simply take too much energy and come with other chemistry complications for levitating things of such size. The second phase would be an electromagnetic field application and would be a thrust system of its own that would also push aside water like air so would be applicable for the Anti-Grav ship layer but would not be comparable to the Gravity Drive ships. It would be coming from a new tech very late in the Transhuman era. I'll try to figure out where it could rightfully unlock.
New Weapon systems would be the Frost Beams as mentioned earlier (they'd fall into this region) and Magnetic Manipulation weaponry (at Hypermagnetics) which can tear apart metallic foes within reach. (Think Magneto.) Also Technological Telepathic weaponry (at Binary Semiotics) that can mindblast biological units on opposing ships (to disable the operators or even take control). As well there could be something like nano-feeder sprays (such as the weapon shown in use in the GI Joe movie) (at Smart Dust) that would 'eat' the enemy ships almost regardless of the hull (but would be a launched weapon rather than a Nanite Cloud that operates with its own swarm intelligence).
New Shielding systems would include a suspended Crystal structure around the ship to deflect laser and ion beams and can be effective against kinetic weaponry as well. Cloaking is right in here so it would be already taking advantage of Optical Shields as well.
This layer would span from x106-x111 (unless I can successfully shift cryogenics and Frost Beam weaponry back one or two layers).
The next layer would be an Anti-Grav ship layer and I believe AI would still, even more than ever, be dominant in warfare operations (though there may be some metahuman developments that may eventually play a role in here.) It just would have gone beyond the constraint of Biomimetic design to something improved since water is no longer really a barrier to strategic warfare. Many of the same prereqs may be maintained but it will require a bit of a redesign of the Droid/Anti-Grav/Gravity Drive layers some.
This wouldn't be a problem so long as we're going to be happy with it once it's completed.
EDIT: Initial tech tree restructuring shows it won't have to be all that dramatic to get this to work. I'm quite liking this idea actually. One thing to mention: It changes the current Antigravity tech to 'Levitation' and adds an Anti-Gravity tech later in the tree that requires Shielding (further developments of electromagnetic fields here lead to actual Anti-Gravity as we see witnessed in UFO sightings.) Some of what's on Anti-grav now can stay in that position (levitation vehicles for example) while other aspects may be better to move to the later tech.
I've also found some spots for further 'air unit' developments that can parallel the naval ones (Weightless Flight and Frictionless Flight.) Shaping up to be interesting and should address your concerns. I may need to restructure the y scale positioning of some of the techs in this era to get the tree to look a bit more organized but it shouldn't have to be too drastic.
Footnote: I do plan to fully make all the new techs being introduced here, quotes and all. And handle the xml adjustments to existing techs. Please do not seek to object to concepts on the grounds of minimizing efforts as I do plan to take on any burden from all this since it's my planning that brings them about.
Anyhow, I'll restructure the plan and it might take a while so I'll be back in blackout mode for a while.
1) Orbital Flight should predate when these ships begin. If we move Orbital Flight back one space on the x layer it would be fine.
2) Antigrav takes place in the same layer - not only is this already threatening to make Orbital Flight obsolete, it's kinda defeating the purpose of separating the Droid Ships from an Anti-Grav ship layer. Now... if we envision EARLY anti-grav as being useful with the constrictions that have already been discussed and introduce a more powerful form of anti-gravity later in the Transhuman era (nearing the end) we could navigate this issue.
3)It would be nice to have another Air Unit layer to accompany the Droid ships and a 'Lesser Anti-Gravity' would be cool to help enable that. We'd be talking about another tech for flight beyond Orbital Flight of course but it seems right that there would be.
So we could leave Anti-grav where it's at but we could make it more of a material base type Anti-grav such as suggested earlier regarding developed mono-atomic gold applications. It would be something akin to simply levitation and wouldn't be greatly useful for navies as it would simply take too much energy and come with other chemistry complications for levitating things of such size. The second phase would be an electromagnetic field application and would be a thrust system of its own that would also push aside water like air so would be applicable for the Anti-Grav ship layer but would not be comparable to the Gravity Drive ships. It would be coming from a new tech very late in the Transhuman era. I'll try to figure out where it could rightfully unlock.
New Weapon systems would be the Frost Beams as mentioned earlier (they'd fall into this region) and Magnetic Manipulation weaponry (at Hypermagnetics) which can tear apart metallic foes within reach. (Think Magneto.) Also Technological Telepathic weaponry (at Binary Semiotics) that can mindblast biological units on opposing ships (to disable the operators or even take control). As well there could be something like nano-feeder sprays (such as the weapon shown in use in the GI Joe movie) (at Smart Dust) that would 'eat' the enemy ships almost regardless of the hull (but would be a launched weapon rather than a Nanite Cloud that operates with its own swarm intelligence).
New Shielding systems would include a suspended Crystal structure around the ship to deflect laser and ion beams and can be effective against kinetic weaponry as well. Cloaking is right in here so it would be already taking advantage of Optical Shields as well.
This layer would span from x106-x111 (unless I can successfully shift cryogenics and Frost Beam weaponry back one or two layers).
The next layer would be an Anti-Grav ship layer and I believe AI would still, even more than ever, be dominant in warfare operations (though there may be some metahuman developments that may eventually play a role in here.) It just would have gone beyond the constraint of Biomimetic design to something improved since water is no longer really a barrier to strategic warfare. Many of the same prereqs may be maintained but it will require a bit of a redesign of the Droid/Anti-Grav/Gravity Drive layers some.
This wouldn't be a problem so long as we're going to be happy with it once it's completed.
EDIT: Initial tech tree restructuring shows it won't have to be all that dramatic to get this to work. I'm quite liking this idea actually. One thing to mention: It changes the current Antigravity tech to 'Levitation' and adds an Anti-Gravity tech later in the tree that requires Shielding (further developments of electromagnetic fields here lead to actual Anti-Gravity as we see witnessed in UFO sightings.) Some of what's on Anti-grav now can stay in that position (levitation vehicles for example) while other aspects may be better to move to the later tech.
I've also found some spots for further 'air unit' developments that can parallel the naval ones (Weightless Flight and Frictionless Flight.) Shaping up to be interesting and should address your concerns. I may need to restructure the y scale positioning of some of the techs in this era to get the tree to look a bit more organized but it shouldn't have to be too drastic.
Footnote: I do plan to fully make all the new techs being introduced here, quotes and all. And handle the xml adjustments to existing techs. Please do not seek to object to concepts on the grounds of minimizing efforts as I do plan to take on any burden from all this since it's my planning that brings them about.
Anyhow, I'll restructure the plan and it might take a while so I'll be back in blackout mode for a while.