|
|
Post by Enderminion on Mar 8, 2017 17:46:59 GMT
So I am wondering if the damage from the heat of a flare is modeled if you used a flare as a projectile. No idea weather this idea would work or not, or if it would even be practical if modeled. but at least it would be an interesting thought experiment.
|
|
|
|
Post by Durandal on Mar 8, 2017 17:56:06 GMT
So I am wondering if the damage from the heat of a flare is modeled if you used a flare as a projectile. No idea weather this idea would work or not, or if it would even be practical if modeled. but at least it would be an interesting thought experiment. Hotshot rounds?  I vaguely remember this being brought waaaay back when, and I don't think it is modeled. |
|
|
|
Post by Enderminion on Mar 8, 2017 17:58:47 GMT
yes incendiary bullets
|
|
|
|
Post by kaiserwilhelm on Mar 8, 2017 18:41:17 GMT
At the speeds we shoot our bullets I dont think modeling flares as incendiary rounds makes much sense. |
|
|
|
Post by Enderminion on Mar 8, 2017 19:20:08 GMT
more energy in the shot for no more power to shoot?
|
|
|
|
Post by kaiserwilhelm on Mar 8, 2017 19:55:04 GMT
more energy in the shot for no more power to shoot? With our standard bullets/projectails weighing in in the 1g to subgram range the flare isn't going to do any good it may even be less useful then the standard projectail. You could argue that it could be usful when your launching greater payloads. But that's not the case since for a gun system to be effectiv in COADE it has to more or less challenge deathrays of doom and you cant do that with anything greater than a 1g projectail. It's not practicall but so are most of the coilguns. Hell it would be fun to imagine firing incendiary rounds in space just so you can replie when asked the question: Did you lit them up. Yep they're on fire. |
|
|
|
Post by Enderminion on Mar 8, 2017 19:57:04 GMT
I don't know about you but I have a railgun that can fire 50.2g of payload at 7.33km/s
|
|
|
|
Post by bigbombr on Mar 8, 2017 20:14:42 GMT
I don't know about you but I have a railgun that can fire 50.2g of payload at 7.33km/s Check the chemical energy per kg of the combustables and explosives in the game. It is negligible compared to their KE. I believe 3 km/s is the point where an inert mass carries as much kinetic energy as an equivalent stationary mass tnt. Explosives would add very little extra energy when projectile velocity is above 15 km/s, but their weaker and thus harder to accelerate without shattering them. |
|
|
|
Post by Enderminion on Mar 8, 2017 20:38:24 GMT
Not talking about explosives, I'm talking about using flares as incendiary bullets, graphite is not the strongest material but can handle my railgun (3.5ish meters and 7.33km/s) just fine
|
|
|
|
Post by ash19256 on Mar 8, 2017 20:48:42 GMT
Not talking about explosives, I'm talking about using flares as incendiary bullets, graphite is not the strongest material but can handle my railgun (3.5ish meters and 7.33km/s) just fine Except IIRC even our Osmium projectiles (which are likely significantly stronger than our hypothetical flare bullet, even if the flare has an outer Osmium casing) shatter on impact with armor, which would cause the flare to not do much. Not to mention, the main method of damage for incendiary bullets is setting things on fire, but most if not all of the materials used in spacecraft armor either requires oxygen to burn or is outright non-flammable unless you are trying to use Chlorine Triflouride or FOOF to burn them, which means that all our flare might do is cause things to get rather warm when a chunk of incendiary compound gets stuck in the armor... except that when the flare shatters, all of the incendiary composition is going to go every where, and probably either only get stuck in the upper layers of the armor (ie. the anti-laser armor, ie. the bits designed to handle getting stupid hot anyways) or burn out very quickly when they expend all of their fuel, or both. Or other probable failure modes. |
|
|
|
Post by bigbombr on Mar 8, 2017 20:50:40 GMT
Not talking about explosives, I'm talking about using flares as incendiary bullets, graphite is not the strongest material but can handle my railgun (3.5ish meters and 7.33km/s) just fine Flares would have to be either self-oxidizing or carry oxidizer. If we're going to attempt to weaponize them, this would have to be accounted for. An incendary would be rather useless: they would release their energy too slowly to transfer much of it into the target (if the shot either bounces or overpenetrates). 'Hotshot' ammunition sound really cool, but any heating would be significantly less than the shock heating from the impact, so even in a 'plugging event', pure KE is probably better. |
|
|
|
Post by kaiserwilhelm on Mar 8, 2017 21:00:45 GMT
I don't know about you but I have a railgun that can fire 50.2g of payload at 7.33km/s Which wont stand up to gigantic doom lasers. I assume. |
|
|
|
Post by Rocket Witch on Mar 8, 2017 21:08:24 GMT
I floated this idea once but never actually made a gun to shoot flares. Unless you can get a thermite charge to stick to the target while it burns, it's not going to be in contact long enough to do anything meaningful with the heat produced.
I do remember hitting a friendly Privateer with a flare and it making a large hole in the armour, but the ship is barely capable of withstanding a stray 60mm shot so I don't know if the hole was made by the impact or heat (there was no glowing).
|
|
bard
New Member
Posts: 4 
|
Post by bard on Mar 8, 2017 21:17:51 GMT
When is someone going to try it? Better than theory no?
|
|
|
|
Post by AdmiralObvious on Mar 8, 2017 21:35:11 GMT
I've tried this previously. It didn't do that much. It just made a tiny hole the size of the flare. I think I was using the stock 100MW flare at the time. It bounced off the fuel tank of the target I built I think, but not before penetrating the aluminum layer. I don't have the old design as I deleted it after the last patch. Edit: I just tested it. It doesn't seem to do much besides penetrate the outer layer of armor. This one was the big 300 MW flare being shot at the Beamcraft at about 700 m/s.  P.S. The beamcraft killed my ship by blowing up the flare storage. Edit 2: After testing it twice more, the flares simply bounced off the aluminum armor layering. |
|
