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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Sept 2, 2018 9:35:22 GMT
My custom tank work has generally been limited to taking stock methane tankage and replacing material with VCS.
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Prancer
Junior Member
Jousting in space. We're all Knights of the Stars.
Posts: 57
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Post by Prancer on Sept 2, 2018 16:15:54 GMT
Exactly the same here. Except I also mess around with aspect ratios depending on the exact dimensions of my craft.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Sept 2, 2018 17:59:18 GMT
Exactly the same here. Except I also mess around with aspect ratios depending on the exact dimensions of my craft. I like having a set of standardized components to play with - optimally ones that are interchangeable with the stock ones as this allows rapid prototyping of both stock and non-stock variants. .
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Post by Apotheon on Sept 2, 2018 18:48:08 GMT
The lowest density materials are lithium, lithium-6, potassium, polyethylene, and UHMWPE… but would building a tank out of these materials and filling it with methane really work, all things considered? Probably no? Also, what’s the default propellant tank thickness? Dynamic? Because the tanks must be able to hold a certain amount of pressure and if they’re transparent, I guess radiation can affect the contents? All things considered, what’s a good material for containing methane or oxygen? What you need is a high strength to weight ratio, not low density. The tanks need to be pressure-tight. Tank thickness is dynamically modified to be the minimum that holds the pressure. Materials that are not directly outclassed by any other for tanks, from lightest to cheapest, are vanadium chromium steel, diamond, or selenium. The mass increase with selenium isn't ever really worth it, imo.
I use diamond tanks for all fluids with the density of around methane or better.
There is no need to add armor to prop tanks. Your armor should be wrapped around the outside of and in front of the ship, not wasted inside between tanks. Oh, man... diamond? It feels like I'm making everything out of diamond, which feels like cheating
What are the best materials for crew modules, cargo modules, and radiation shields by the way?
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Sept 2, 2018 19:39:25 GMT
What you need is a high strength to weight ratio, not low density. The tanks need to be pressure-tight. Tank thickness is dynamically modified to be the minimum that holds the pressure. Materials that are not directly outclassed by any other for tanks, from lightest to cheapest, are vanadium chromium steel, diamond, or selenium. The mass increase with selenium isn't ever really worth it, imo.
I use diamond tanks for all fluids with the density of around methane or better.
There is no need to add armor to prop tanks. Your armor should be wrapped around the outside of and in front of the ship, not wasted inside between tanks. Oh, man... diamond? It feels like I'm making everything out of diamond, which feels like cheating Make them out of VCS then. Of stock materials it yields the best propellant mass fraction with stock-like tankage aspect ratio, and it's just a kind of steel.
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Post by apophys on Sept 3, 2018 1:50:21 GMT
What are the best materials for crew modules, cargo modules, and radiation shields by the way?
I mentioned this in another thread, but the best crew module materials, from lightest to cheapest, are polyethylene, calcium, magnesium, and potassium (potassium needs more than 1 cm thickness; the others don't, for maximally lengthened modules). I typically used to use magnesium, but I'm leaning toward polyethylene now.
Cargo modules are fine with graphite aerogel, so there's no reason not to use that.
Radiation shields for fast neutrons are best made from lithium-6 (this is what you need for shielding from reactors).
Radiation shields for thermal neutrons are best made from a very thin layer of gadolinium-157. Boron is also good, though not quite as good. But there's no relevant source of these, so you can more or less ignore it.
Gamma shielding is best done by propellant tanks and distance. A thick layer of material works, but is very heavy (selenium, zinc, or lead are decent, depending on your available volume). The only relevant sources of gamma are cobalt-60 RTGs, so you can ignore it if you don't have those on a ship (put them on drones only). There is a bug where spider silk blocks all gamma radiation, but I expect that to get fixed eventually, so I'm not going to recommend that. Note: Lithium-6 does nearly nothing for gamma.
Of course, if you need to shield from multiple different types of radiation, layer multiple types of radiation shields. There's no single combo material.
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Post by Apotheon on Sept 6, 2018 15:45:05 GMT
Oh, man... diamond? It feels like I'm making everything out of diamond, which feels like cheating Make them out of VCS then. Of stock materials it yields the best propellant mass fraction with stock-like tankage aspect ratio, and it's just a kind of steel. Yeah, I've been using VCS and that's great.
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