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Post by concretedonkey on Oct 9, 2016 12:24:47 GMT
I can't stop thinking that maybe , just maybe we are all making a mistake with those hot steamy incredibly small reactors.
I know that gigantic amounts of power are very tempting but , with all those kinetic missiles , nukes and shrapnel flying about I can't stop thinking about flares , and I can't think of any viable way to pump gigawatts of energy at 2500K for more than milliseconds. Maybe the way are more efficient ways to fool the missiles - like those small hot reactors instead of flares that somebody mentioned... but maybe , just maybe the way is... less power.
I'm currently trying to restrict my power consumption. I slapped one of the big 13MW stock reactors back , instead of the optimized one that I had on my test hull... . Sure its more than 10 times bigger. Sure the radiators are at 1200k , but now my flares are actually viable and work for a change.
What do you think ?
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Post by Durandal on Oct 9, 2016 13:44:05 GMT
I can't stop thinking that maybe , just maybe we are all making a mistake with those hot steamy incredibly small reactors. I know that gigantic amounts of power are very tempting but , with all those kinetic missiles , nukes and shrapnel flying about I can't stop thinking about flares , and I can't think of any viable way to pump gigawatts of energy at 2500K for more than milliseconds. Maybe the way are more efficient ways to fool the missiles - like those small hot reactors instead of flares that somebody mentioned... but maybe , just maybe the way is... less power. I'm currently trying to restrict my power consumption. I slapped one of the big 13MW stock reactors back , instead of the optimized one that I had on my test hull... . Sure its more than 10 times bigger. Sure the radiators are at 1200k , but now my flares are actually viable and work for a change. What do you think ? I've been wanting to develop purpose-built reactors for each of my ships classes. No point in carrying around extra mass for an extra 2MW of power and heat that I'm not using. I need a better understanding of the reactor mechanics to do so however, and my degree isn't in nuclear engineering.
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Post by concretedonkey on Oct 9, 2016 13:50:17 GMT
Well what can I say, I'm a game developer, before this game the only things that I could say about reactors was that there was heavy water and rods involved .
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Post by nivik on Oct 9, 2016 13:50:31 GMT
I can't stop thinking that maybe , just maybe we are all making a mistake with those hot steamy incredibly small reactors. I know that gigantic amounts of power are very tempting but , with all those kinetic missiles , nukes and shrapnel flying about I can't stop thinking about flares , and I can't think of any viable way to pump gigawatts of energy at 2500K for more than milliseconds. Maybe the way are more efficient ways to fool the missiles - like those small hot reactors instead of flares that somebody mentioned... but maybe , just maybe the way is... less power. I'm currently trying to restrict my power consumption. I slapped one of the big 13MW stock reactors back , instead of the optimized one that I had on my test hull... . Sure its more than 10 times bigger. Sure the radiators are at 1200k , but now my flares are actually viable and work for a change. What do you think ? Most of my ships use around 3.5 MW of power. I'll probably design one that requires 10 MW, but yeah, I prefer smaller (and cheaper).
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Post by concretedonkey on Oct 9, 2016 14:07:35 GMT
I guess you are not much of a laser user then...
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Post by squalltemnov on Oct 9, 2016 14:19:47 GMT
I can't stop thinking that maybe , just maybe we are all making a mistake with those hot steamy incredibly small reactors. I know that gigantic amounts of power are very tempting but , with all those kinetic missiles , nukes and shrapnel flying about I can't stop thinking about flares , and I can't think of any viable way to pump gigawatts of energy at 2500K for more than milliseconds. Maybe the way are more efficient ways to fool the missiles - like those small hot reactors instead of flares that somebody mentioned... but maybe , just maybe the way is... less power. I'm currently trying to restrict my power consumption. I slapped one of the big 13MW stock reactors back , instead of the optimized one that I had on my test hull... . Sure its more than 10 times bigger. Sure the radiators are at 1200k , but now my flares are actually viable and work for a change. What do you think ? I think, that you don`t need any flares, since with that much power, literally nothing will fly close enough to damage your ship. Stealth is useless in game. Same with flares.
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Post by concretedonkey on Oct 9, 2016 14:29:39 GMT
Guess you never faced massive salvos of missile totting drones then . Its not about stealth , its about last ditch defence.
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Post by squalltemnov on Oct 9, 2016 15:51:48 GMT
Guess you never faced massive salvos of missile totting drones then . Its not about stealth , its about last ditch defence. Technically speaking, THAT much missiles and drones would cost more, than the ship they supposed to destroy. Up to now, 3x25 salvos never managed to get closer than 80 km, drones are taken out at ~120-140 km, due to the weak spot in front. Of course that is for vanila missiles and drones. You can try to use armored missiles, more of them, etc... but still - more power+more point defence|attack is better than less power+flares.
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Post by concretedonkey on Oct 9, 2016 15:54:28 GMT
Frankly it depends on the weapons... I'm finding the only thing that really hurts when I try to conserve energy is the lasers ... other stuff , aside from high tech kinetics that I currently avoid doesn't really use that much.
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Post by leerooooooy on Oct 9, 2016 16:20:45 GMT
I can't stop thinking that maybe , just maybe we are all making a mistake with those hot steamy incredibly small reactors. I know that gigantic amounts of power are very tempting but , with all those kinetic missiles , nukes and shrapnel flying about I can't stop thinking about flares , and I can't think of any viable way to pump gigawatts of energy at 2500K for more than milliseconds. Maybe the way are more efficient ways to fool the missiles - like those small hot reactors instead of flares that somebody mentioned... but maybe , just maybe the way is... less power. I'm currently trying to restrict my power consumption. I slapped one of the big 13MW stock reactors back , instead of the optimized one that I had on my test hull... . Sure its more than 10 times bigger. Sure the radiators are at 1200k , but now my flares are actually viable and work for a change. What do you think ? That it's a very inefficient strategy, especially if facing non-stock designs. A 100Mt nuke costs less than 100kc and will fuck up your ship real good even if it explodes near the flare instead of at point blank. Flares just don't go that far, and nukes are incredibly good. Also, radiator emittivity scales with the 4th power of temperature, so those 1200k radiators of yours require more than 16 times the area of the 2500k ones: that's 16 times more area to hit, and usually no space for redundant radiators. Even ignoring this, you now have a ship that can fool missiles. Congrats, here come the drones, and you can't just spam lasers to neutralize them without worries. And after the drones, it's time for the multi GW lasers, and the coilguns, and the railguns, all things that require power to work: the enemy has more power, so it can afford more firepower.
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Post by concretedonkey on Oct 9, 2016 16:26:50 GMT
I'm not talking about normal ship launched flares , I'm sticking them on the defensive missiles... aside from the nuke.
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Post by captinjoehenry on Oct 9, 2016 18:09:44 GMT
Well I actually made a super flare. It weighs over 300 tons and cost over 8mc but it emits over 50gw! Also the launcher which uses like a couple 100 mw throws it out at over 30m/s Here is the launcher:
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Post by concretedonkey on Oct 9, 2016 18:48:03 GMT
Yay! And now you can stick it on a 1 million ton ship and fly away to upper-giant-laserland! Isn't it great ? On a more seroius note , I'll probably try to design a "hot" drone to lure away missiles but frankly I'm not sure its not going to cost as much as this flare .
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Post by captinjoehenry on Oct 9, 2016 19:01:38 GMT
Yep! I have it on 2.17million ton behemoth which has two 1gw lasers which have 7750MW/m^2 at 240km range. Also it has 8 coil guns per broadside that shoot 5 2.5 megaton nukes every second at over 10km/s. Suffice to say the nuke guns are a lot more effective! The darn thing emits over 45gw of power but just launching very few of those super flares I can easily dodge any missile attack by just launching them! also this thing has a mass fraction of 1.3! Most of it is in armor and then weapons! It is a ludicrous design and it's only really vulnerable to having it's max armored turrets shot off! It also carries 1000s of missiles!
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Post by concretedonkey on Oct 9, 2016 19:07:44 GMT
Then I guess in this case your flare is practical
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