Post by goduranus on Oct 7, 2016 7:05:06 GMT
When I first saw this game on Scott Manley's channel I didn't think much of it, because of the poor grahpics, but recently Enterelysium did a really great series showcasing missile tactics and ship design, and that got me into buying the game.
I'm always full of rants and potentially poor suggestions, and so here are some now
1) Armor shouldn't be a uniform cylinder around the whole ship, because
1a. Ships don't need armor around every fuel(propellant) tank
By the time a ship enters a position where it is threatened by enemy fire, most of its fuel tanks are already empty and so don't need to be armored.
The ship has already spent much of its deltaV getting to the battle zone, and then some more to establish orbit, come to a good position relative to the enemy, and give its missiles a head start. When it has half of its deltaV remaining when it enters combat, then its tanks are only 1/3 full, and so only 1/3 of its fuel tanks need armor.
Given that fuel tanks are the biggest components of ships, being able to armor fewer of them would be a huge weight saving. If i were designing a warship, I would make it so that 2/3 of the fuel are carried in unarmored external tanks which are jettisoned before combat, allowing more armor to be concentrated on the tank that remains full.
1b. Only one side of the ship needs heavy armor
Because there is no stealth in space, you always know where the enemy is, and most of the time can maneuver to keep the enemy on your "good" side. So ships only need to have its best weapons and armor on the side that you expect to be facing the enemy. The armor on that side will probably be wedge shaped to take advantage of armor sloping. The end result is that ship's cross-section will look like the top view of a tank turret, sharply angled heavy armor on the side that will face the enemy, light armor all around to defend against small weapons from flanking drones, and soft components like missile launchers and radiators on the side that will face away from the enemy. www.1999.co.jp/itbig08/10087134n3.jpg
Maybe also heavy armor on the prow of the ship, for situations where it needs to minimize its cross sectional profile.
2) Small weapons and sensors will be mounted on pylons for better firing(viewing) arc
If the turrets are mounted on the hull, then they have only 360x180 degree field of fire. For point-defense guns mounted uniformly around the hull, at best 3/4 of them can fire in any direction. If you prop them up on pylons and give them at least 360x240 degree field of fire, then up to all of the uniformly mounted point defense guns can be focused in certain directions.
3) Projectile weapons won't use chemical tracers, probably diode lasers instead
Metal flares 1cm in diameter will probably get really faint by the time it goes 100kms, and the cameras needed to see them will need a huge brightness-range as the closer flares blot out the further ones in brightness. Instead, they probably use diode-lasers(like laser pens) mounted on the back of the dart pointing backwards towards the firing ship. This would mean that tracers are limited to colors that a diode laser can generate(although you can mix red-green-blue lasers for more colors?), and they would only be visible in a 5 degree cone behind it, so enemies won't see your projectiles coming.
I'm always full of rants and potentially poor suggestions, and so here are some now
1) Armor shouldn't be a uniform cylinder around the whole ship, because
1a. Ships don't need armor around every fuel(propellant) tank
By the time a ship enters a position where it is threatened by enemy fire, most of its fuel tanks are already empty and so don't need to be armored.
The ship has already spent much of its deltaV getting to the battle zone, and then some more to establish orbit, come to a good position relative to the enemy, and give its missiles a head start. When it has half of its deltaV remaining when it enters combat, then its tanks are only 1/3 full, and so only 1/3 of its fuel tanks need armor.
Given that fuel tanks are the biggest components of ships, being able to armor fewer of them would be a huge weight saving. If i were designing a warship, I would make it so that 2/3 of the fuel are carried in unarmored external tanks which are jettisoned before combat, allowing more armor to be concentrated on the tank that remains full.
1b. Only one side of the ship needs heavy armor
Because there is no stealth in space, you always know where the enemy is, and most of the time can maneuver to keep the enemy on your "good" side. So ships only need to have its best weapons and armor on the side that you expect to be facing the enemy. The armor on that side will probably be wedge shaped to take advantage of armor sloping. The end result is that ship's cross-section will look like the top view of a tank turret, sharply angled heavy armor on the side that will face the enemy, light armor all around to defend against small weapons from flanking drones, and soft components like missile launchers and radiators on the side that will face away from the enemy. www.1999.co.jp/itbig08/10087134n3.jpg
Maybe also heavy armor on the prow of the ship, for situations where it needs to minimize its cross sectional profile.
2) Small weapons and sensors will be mounted on pylons for better firing(viewing) arc
If the turrets are mounted on the hull, then they have only 360x180 degree field of fire. For point-defense guns mounted uniformly around the hull, at best 3/4 of them can fire in any direction. If you prop them up on pylons and give them at least 360x240 degree field of fire, then up to all of the uniformly mounted point defense guns can be focused in certain directions.
3) Projectile weapons won't use chemical tracers, probably diode lasers instead
Metal flares 1cm in diameter will probably get really faint by the time it goes 100kms, and the cameras needed to see them will need a huge brightness-range as the closer flares blot out the further ones in brightness. Instead, they probably use diode-lasers(like laser pens) mounted on the back of the dart pointing backwards towards the firing ship. This would mean that tracers are limited to colors that a diode laser can generate(although you can mix red-green-blue lasers for more colors?), and they would only be visible in a 5 degree cone behind it, so enemies won't see your projectiles coming.
