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Post by madmike on Sept 7, 2017 20:12:09 GMT
Which they sorta should be, honestly. A game like this should strive for accuracy, not balance. I agree with you on that, as much as the game can be nice for fooling around it's far from a simulation, even just an half-believable one. True, but that's a result of limitations, not intentional design. CoaDE should be (and for the most part is) the best simulation it's capable of being, whatever that looks like. |
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Post by tangentialthreat on Sept 7, 2017 23:24:50 GMT
Interestingly, the most popular commercial products for blocking neutrons (besides lots of water and concrete) seem to be mostly HDPE laced with boron. About 90% attenuation at a thickness of 20cm if their websites are to be believed. Of course, in CoaDE that burst of neutrons would probably make all our carefully balanced reactors go supercritical! That would still be dozens to hundred of times the radiaton needed to send an healthy adult into coma in seconds. And then die from the damaged nervous system within hours. They make [million rad CPUs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAD750) although Wikipedia also claims that 5,000 rads worth of neutrons is sufficient to kill a typical CPU through lattice defects. None of the computers on COADE ships are obviously fast or particularly smart so they probably lean towards older, tougher designs. Older architectures are more resistant to microscopic damage. The cheaty way would be a box of these things in a smallish but meter-thick wall of borated polyethylene. Protecting humans is harder. A vanilla 35 crew module goes from 121 tons and 2.66 Mc to 605 tons and 25 Mc when surrounded with 1 meter of UHMWPE ignoring the 5% boron. Each 20 cm effectively removes a decimal place so this will reduce an instantly fatal 500,000 rads to a mere 5 rads, which will not even cause headaches. Some insects can survive 100,000 rads so maybe with genetic engineering of the crew... Our crews survive 40 g acceleration too so maybe they're already posthuman genetically engineered cyborgs or brains in leaded jars. However I think these are supposed to be authentic humans or something close and it would be neat to get messages like "#4 railgun temporarily disabled, operator is busy drowning in vomit" a few minutes after being too close to a nuke flash. |
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Post by Enderminion on Sept 8, 2017 0:08:02 GMT
That would still be dozens to hundred of times the radiaton needed to send an healthy adult into coma in seconds. And then die from the damaged nervous system within hours. They make [million rad CPUs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAD750) although Wikipedia also claims that 5,000 rads worth of neutrons is sufficient to kill a typical CPU through lattice defects. None of the computers on COADE ships are obviously fast or particularly smart so they probably lean towards older, tougher designs. Older architectures are more resistant to microscopic damage. The cheaty way would be a box of these things in a smallish but meter-thick wall of borated polyethylene. Protecting humans is harder. A vanilla 35 crew module goes from 121 tons and 2.66 Mc to 605 tons and 25 Mc when surrounded with 1 meter of UHMWPE ignoring the 5% boron. Each 20 cm effectively removes a decimal place so this will reduce an instantly fatal 500,000 rads to a mere 5 rads, which will not even cause headaches. Some insects can survive 100,000 rads so maybe with genetic engineering of the crew... Our crews survive 40 g acceleration too so maybe they're already posthuman genetically engineered cyborgs or brains in leaded jars. However I think these are supposed to be authentic humans or something close and it would be neat to get messages like "#4 railgun temporarily disabled, operator is busy drowning in vomit" a few minutes after being too close to a nuke flash. why would the railgun be disabled? AI systems aim and fire guns already |
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Post by vegemeister on Sept 20, 2017 2:32:14 GMT
You'd think a 10 kiloton bomb going off a few hundred meters from a patrolcraft would turn it to confetti, or at least irradiate the crew and the computers. A dozen 9 megaton bombs at close range will sometimes manage to burn through the armor or disable the engine, and I killed the stupid methane depot on Neptune with them. They also make decent anti-drone flyswatters if you don't like lasers or hypervelocity railguns. Are radiation effects modeled? Is the damage accurate? The thermal flash of a 10KT nuke at 100m is rather minor, it can just vaporize 11mm of aluminium and can't even produce Impulsive Shock. But the radiation is quite lethal. An Nuke in space would release 10% of its energy as neutrons. This means at 100m the neutron density is 333MJ/m². If an 70 kg adult male has an frontal area of 1m² he will absorb 500,000 rads. This should kill any complex living organism as we know it. Even if 90% of the Neutrons is absorbed by the ship's walls you would still fall in coma in the matter of seconds. Eh, if you vaporize 11 mm of aluminum from the surface of the ship, I think that will create a hell of an impulsive shock on the inside. |
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utilitas
Junior Member
I can do this all day.
Posts: 59
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Post by utilitas on Sept 20, 2017 17:33:08 GMT
They make [million rad CPUs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAD750) although Wikipedia also claims that 5,000 rads worth of neutrons is sufficient to kill a typical CPU through lattice defects. None of the computers on COADE ships are obviously fast or particularly smart so they probably lean towards older, tougher designs. Older architectures are more resistant to microscopic damage. The cheaty way would be a box of these things in a smallish but meter-thick wall of borated polyethylene. Protecting humans is harder. A vanilla 35 crew module goes from 121 tons and 2.66 Mc to 605 tons and 25 Mc when surrounded with 1 meter of UHMWPE ignoring the 5% boron. Each 20 cm effectively removes a decimal place so this will reduce an instantly fatal 500,000 rads to a mere 5 rads, which will not even cause headaches. Some insects can survive 100,000 rads so maybe with genetic engineering of the crew... Our crews survive 40 g acceleration too so maybe they're already posthuman genetically engineered cyborgs or brains in leaded jars. However I think these are supposed to be authentic humans or something close and it would be neat to get messages like "#4 railgun temporarily disabled, operator is busy drowning in vomit" a few minutes after being too close to a nuke flash. I wouldn't be surprised if COADE computers were mostly analog. Ionizing damage is much more subdued on analog systems, resulting only in minor variable errors rather than in total shutdown, and they can be much more easily filtered out with basic components. Current can also be the active component instead of voltage, making it very hard to do electromagnetic damage (as a result of neutron flux) to the system. Besides that, analog computers would be (and were, as mechanical and operational systems around WW2 and around then) ideal for use in guidance and course correction systems, which seem to be the majority of automatic computation in COADE. So yes, I'd say that COADE computers are really damn hardy against nukes. But human can still be fried by high radiation dosage extremely easily. There is currently research being done in the field of long term radiation resistance, but that's a long way off from the physical equivalent of each third exposed cell in your entire body spontaneously dying (as a best case scenario) when a nuke detonates a hundred meters away. It's strange that this isn't modeled to some degree yet, but as shown through extensive ingame play, the crew is already the perilously weak link that is entirely vital to the operation of a ship. Not that balance should replace realism, but space is a horrible place. |
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Post by omnipotentvoid on Sept 21, 2017 9:05:51 GMT
As interesting as neutron bombs and radiation effects on electronics are, the actual damage models for nukes have to be fixed first. The most significant problem with nukes is that they are bugged so that large nukes do less damage per ton of explosive energy than small nukes. As far as I've been able to tell, any nuke beyond a few hundred tons of TNT is basically not worth using and I've gone over to using 100t TNT warheads, often launched as independent submunitions in order to increase survivability. Beyond that, if you really want to do damage to a ship with nukes there is currently a bug where you can phase detonating nukes through armor, allowing the full detonation to occur inside the armor.
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Post by 𝕭𝖔𝖔𝖒𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖈𝖑𝖊 on Oct 16, 2017 23:10:19 GMT
They make [million rad CPUs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAD750) although Wikipedia also claims that 5,000 rads worth of neutrons is sufficient to kill a typical CPU through lattice defects. None of the computers on COADE ships are obviously fast or particularly smart so they probably lean towards older, tougher designs. Older architectures are more resistant to microscopic damage. The cheaty way would be a box of these things in a smallish but meter-thick wall of borated polyethylene. Protecting humans is harder. A vanilla 35 crew module goes from 121 tons and 2.66 Mc to 605 tons and 25 Mc when surrounded with 1 meter of UHMWPE ignoring the 5% boron. Each 20 cm effectively removes a decimal place so this will reduce an instantly fatal 500,000 rads to a mere 5 rads, which will not even cause headaches. Some insects can survive 100,000 rads so maybe with genetic engineering of the crew... Our crews survive 40 g acceleration too so maybe they're already posthuman genetically engineered cyborgs or brains in leaded jars. However I think these are supposed to be authentic humans or something close and it would be neat to get messages like "#4 railgun temporarily disabled, operator is busy drowning in vomit" a few minutes after being too close to a nuke flash. I wouldn't be surprised if COADE computers were mostly analog. Ionizing damage is much more subdued on analog systems, resulting only in minor variable errors rather than in total shutdown, and they can be much more easily filtered out with basic components. Current can also be the active component instead of voltage, making it very hard to do electromagnetic damage (as a result of neutron flux) to the system. Besides that, analog computers would be (and were, as mechanical and operational systems around WW2 and around then) ideal for use in guidance and course correction systems, which seem to be the majority of automatic computation in COADE. So yes, I'd say that COADE computers are really damn hardy against nukes. But human can still be fried by high radiation dosage extremely easily. There is currently research being done in the field of long term radiation resistance, but that's a long way off from the physical equivalent of each third exposed cell in your entire body spontaneously dying (as a best case scenario) when a nuke detonates a hundred meters away. It's strange that this isn't modeled to some degree yet, but as shown through extensive ingame play, the crew is already the perilously weak link that is entirely vital to the operation of a ship. Not that balance should replace realism, but space is a horrible place.CONSIDERING THAT THE SMALLEST ON BOARD FLIGHT COMPUTER IS A KILOGRAM IN MASS, ITS PROBABLY A FREAKING VACUUM TUBE COMPUTER |
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Post by The Astronomer on Oct 16, 2017 23:25:39 GMT
That kilogram-heavy computer might be mostly radshield. Don't mind the fact that said radshield is made out of aluminium though.
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Post by 𝕭𝖔𝖔𝖒𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖈𝖑𝖊 on Oct 17, 2017 1:25:02 GMT
That kilogram-heavy computer might be mostly radshield. Don't mind the fact that said radshield is made out of aluminium though. seriously ffs they could at least save space and make it out of osmium so I can fire it out of a railgun easier... its not like the ten million watts flowing through it would damage the computer or anything |
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Post by dichebach on Nov 6, 2017 4:26:41 GMT
So, the game is not realistic when it comes to radiation from nuclear bombs. Given the level of rigor in so many other aspects of the game, I would have thought it well within the abilities of the developer to include that. Would it be possible to "mod" in deadly radiation from bombs? Based on what Kerr is saying, they don't even need to be dialed to be "neutron" bombs, just standard boom types sound like they should produce plenty of rad death? |
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Post by Enderminion on Nov 6, 2017 13:22:32 GMT
So, the game is not realistic when it comes to radiation from nuclear bombs. Given the level of rigor in so many other aspects of the game, I would have thought it well within the abilities of the developer to include that. Would it be possible to "mod" in deadly radiation from bombs? Based on what Kerr is saying, they don't even need to be dialed to be "neutron" bombs, just standard boom types sound like they should produce plenty of rad death? you would need source code to mod that |
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Post by dichebach on Nov 8, 2017 21:21:06 GMT
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Post by n2maniac on Nov 9, 2017 3:28:17 GMT
You'd think a 10 kiloton bomb going off a few hundred meters from a patrolcraft would turn it to confetti, or at least irradiate the crew and the computers. A dozen 9 megaton bombs at close range will sometimes manage to burn through the armor or disable the engine, and I killed the stupid methane depot on Neptune with them. They also make decent anti-drone flyswatters if you don't like lasers or hypervelocity railguns. Are radiation effects modeled? Is the damage accurate? The thermal flash of a 10KT nuke at 100m is rather minor, it can just vaporize 11mm of aluminium and can't even produce Impulsive Shock. But the radiation is quite lethal. An Nuke in space would release 10% of its energy as neutrons. This means at 100m the neutron density is 333MJ/m². If an 70 kg adult male has an frontal area of 1m² he will absorb 500,000 rads. This should kill any complex living organism as we know it. Even if 90% of the Neutrons is absorbed by the ship's walls you would still fall in coma in the matter of seconds. What is the mean penetration depth of the "thermal" energy? IIRC a lot of it will be X rays of, but I don't remember how hard or soft. |
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Post by Kerr on Nov 9, 2017 5:11:03 GMT
The thermal flash of a 10KT nuke at 100m is rather minor, it can just vaporize 11mm of aluminium and can't even produce Impulsive Shock. But the radiation is quite lethal. An Nuke in space would release 10% of its energy as neutrons. This means at 100m the neutron density is 333MJ/m². If an 70 kg adult male has an frontal area of 1m² he will absorb 500,000 rads. This should kill any complex living organism as we know it. Even if 90% of the Neutrons is absorbed by the ship's walls you would still fall in coma in the matter of seconds. What is the mean penetration depth of the "thermal" energy? IIRC a lot of it will be X rays of, but I don't remember how hard or soft. Depends on the particle, thermal energy are just charged particles. They produce bremsstrahlung (x-rays) when they interact with matter, but charged particles of a nuke have as much penetration as alpha particles. |
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Post by dichebach on Nov 9, 2017 17:59:07 GMT
So yeah, that article seems to suggest that it should be too hard to create nukes that would deliver a lethal dose of radiation to anyone who was insufficiently shielded within about a 100 or 200 km radius!? Kerr: you seem to know your nuclear physics. Does that seem remotely accurate? If so, why would anyone even bother with elaborate ship-to-ship combat at all?* (note below) MAD doctrine would seem to extend into space with even more force than on Earth [url |
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