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Post by whiteweasel on Jul 9, 2018 1:10:09 GMT
So far as my adventures and experimentation continues, I'm diving into the apparently deep rabbit hole of composite armor. I'd love to be directed to any references that detail about them. As there's so many combinations to make. I guess it would be easiest to ask what is good in each category of armor type, and what properties are desirable for the job at hand. Then I can mix and match as I please. So far we got: Monolithic Plate - ? Whipple Shields - ? Anti-Spalling Liner - ? Bulk Armor - ? Thermal Armor - Insulators - I already know it's the legendary silica aerogel. Did I miss any other types/jobs for armor? Now, onto my ships. I went with a swelled bullet style design with a reinforced nose so the ship can stay pointed at the enemy and for the most part, be protected by thick, sloped armor. The design was inspired by this youtuber's ship design. Current armor is Amorphus carbon as a spall liner, s-glass composite as the bulk ceramic armor, boron with a 3 cm gap as a whipple shield, boron filament in the nose only as reinforcement, and a superficial layer of silicon carbide for aesthetics and to signify where the reinforcement layer is. Other design notes are the stock lasers I plan to replace once I get to playing with those, and that the "base" version is somehow more expensive. The fuel tanks are armored with 1 cm of amorphous carbon, and the ships have twice as many radiators as they should for redundancy.
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ghgh
Full Member
Still trying to make kinetics work.
Posts: 136
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Post by ghgh on Jul 9, 2018 4:04:44 GMT
Amorphous carbon is a good bulk layer, I'd say bulk it up to 6-8 cm. It is well worth the cost as it makes your ship resistant to all but an Apophys death-ray.
S-glass is.... terrible, do not use it.
In the capital-ship armor thread it was found that platinum is the best whipple (aluminum is trash). I've found Diamond is also pretty good and it gives the ship a nice sheen too.
Boron was nerfed and is no longer useful in large quantities though boron filament is still pretty good (makes a good turret armor alongside A-carbon).
Consider stuffing your whipple plate with Graphite Aerogel instead of spacing them. The stuff is practically as light and costly as air but very hard. Also, in terms of cost and surface area (probably mass as well) you are better off using nitrile rubber over silica gel. Rubber gets expensive as an entire layer but is good as a cap on missiles.
Spider silk is a good cheap spall liner. Graphite aerogel might be a good one too but I've never tried it.
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Post by Fgdfgfthgr on Jul 9, 2018 5:11:03 GMT
Mostly speaking, a right balance between defence and cost is to make a three-parts armour. The three parts are involving: 1. Whipple Shield 2. Bulk Armor 3. Anti-laser&Anti-Spalling layer. (usually can be done with the same material)
You may think it is too simple, but let me show you something, do you know the DHC fleet in the workshop? Try that, it has an incredibly durable armour!
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Post by treptoplax on Jul 9, 2018 21:00:45 GMT
The thread you want for specifically anti-laser armor is here: childrenofadeadearth.boards.net/thread/1390/davids-fantastic-spreadsheet-laser-tests. TLDR: use nitrile rubber for optimal mass, PTFE for optimal cost, nothing else is even close. Unfortunately I didn't bookmark any good armor threads. Ignore any ancient threads advising crystalline boron, that was great initially due to a now-fixed typo. My preferred scheme for capital ships (not going to say you can't do better): A layer of something dense and soft (you want fragments of it to splatter, not cut through lower layers) about as thick as the projectile is long (a few mm?). Tin is effective and cheap; I've seen silver and silicon used. This is the "Whipple shield". A 'stuffing' layer of tens-of-centimeters or more of something ultra-light and laser-resistant (graphite aerogel, or silicon aerogel if cost is no object). Optionally, a hard armor layer (usually amorphous carbon, though diamond and VC steel may be viable). May also add an anti-laser layer on top of this. Anti-spalling layer; quite thick if there's no armor layer, less if there is. Tensile strength is key here. Spider silk is effective and cheap, though useless against lasers. Boron filament or synthetic fibers are marginally useful against lasers and also strong but far more expensive. Slopped armor is much more effective. Many of my designs have a highly sloped nose with a few cm of hard armor (AC, diamond, VC steel) over the usual scheme on the nose only. A couple cm of unprotected AC won't do much normally, but at a 70 degree slope it's quite effective. Ships not expected to engage at close range (relative to their size - most drones, say) may not need projectile armor at all. Consider just a few mm of nitrile rubber and call it good. My suggestion, FWIW, would be: I'd swap the positions of the s-glass and AC, then replace the s-glass with spider silk. Replace the boron with 3mm of tin, and replace the 3cm gap between it and the inner layers (not nearly enough for the broken-up fragments to spread and cool) with a full meter of graphite aerogel (it's cheap!). I like boron filament in the nose, but I'd move it to outermost and then put another couple cm of AC on top of it (nose only). YMMV, void where prohibited.
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Post by treptoplax on Jul 9, 2018 21:36:19 GMT
So far as my adventures and experimentation continues, I'm diving into the apparently deep rabbit hole of composite armor. I'd love to be directed to any references that detail about them. As there's so many combinations to make. I guess it would be easiest to ask what is good in each category of armor type, and what properties are desirable for the job at hand. Then I can mix and match as I please. So far we got: Monolithic Plate - ? Whipple Shields - ? Anti-Spalling Liner - ? Bulk Armor - ? Thermal Armor - Insulators - I already know it's the legendary silica aerogel. Did I miss any other types/jobs for armor? Now, onto my ships. I went with a swelled bullet style design with a reinforced nose so the ship can stay pointed at the enemy and for the most part, be protected by thick, sloped armor. The design was inspired by this youtuber's ship design. Current armor is Amorphus carbon as a spall liner, s-glass composite as the bulk ceramic armor, boron with a 3 cm gap as a whipple shield, boron filament in the nose only as reinforcement, and a superficial layer of silicon carbide for aesthetics and to signify where the reinforcement layer is. Other design notes are the stock lasers I plan to replace once I get to playing with those, and that the "base" version is somehow more expensive. The fuel tanks are armored with 1 cm of amorphous carbon, and the ships have twice as many radiators as they should for redundancy. Having said my style above, though, let me try to answer your actual questions . Free advice, worth what you paid for it: Monolithic plate: For stopping large, slow object and diffuse fragments at high speed. Much more effective at high slope angles. Suggestions: Amorphous carbon, diamond, VC steel. High yield and Young's modulus. Low cost/mass obviously better. High melting point nice if you can get it. Whipple shields: For breaking up tiny, ultrafast projectiles. A couple mm of something dense and soft (you want shrapnel from this to be easy to stop!) - strength doesn't matter against a projectile incoming at 8Km/s, armor and projectile will both be vaporized regardless. Tin, silicon, precious metals. Anti-spalling liner. High tensile strength, not brittle; for stopping shattered bits of plate armor or Whipple shields. Spider silk is cheap, light, and strong. Aramids are better and resist lasers but are hideously expensive. Some mineral fibers may be good (boron filament, basalt fibers). S-glass is kinda OK here I guess. Bulk armor: maybe the same as plate? Or maybe this means anti-spalling layers so thick that they become a combo plate/liner on their own - the stronger fibers might be viable for this. Stuffings/insulators: the aerogels are light enough to fill any non-huge gaps in armor, and help absorb plasma and small fragments as well as providing some structure, insulation, and laser-resistance. I highly recommend just filling all gaps with graphite aerogel. I will add the category of : Laser ablative armor: Takes a lot of energy to burn off. Materials with extremely high melting points (diamond, ceramics, boron filament, aerogels) can be somewhat useful against lasers and nuke flash, but nothing stops lasers like even a thin layer of PTFE or nitrile rubber. Whether this is physically realistic is dubious.
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Post by whiteweasel on Jul 9, 2018 22:20:09 GMT
Alright, thank you all for the info, Now, I'm off to create a couple of proving grounds ships so I can test the efficacy of my current armor and the suggested replacements. Of course now, I need a test bed to wreck said armor. I'll probably use the stock gunship with some improved player weapons for now. Any suggestions for some test bed weapons?
Just a note for myself of the suggested materials: Monolithic Plate - ? Whipple Shields -High density and low yield strength- Platinum, Diamond, Tin, Silver. Optional stuffing of aerogel. Bulk Armor -High yield strength and young's modulus- Amorphous carbon, boron filament. (I've also read reinforced carbon carbon, but it's hella expensive.) Anti-Spalling Liner -High tensile strength- Spider silk, boron filament. Thermal Armor -High thermal diffusivty- Aramid fiber, PTFT, Nitrile Rubber, Silica Aerogel.
Though I do have some more questions. What is the typical spacing for a whipple shield? Currently, I'm using 3-5 cm of spacing. Also, if I use a material that is also a good anti-spall liner as bulk armor, (such as boron filament) do I forgo the spall liner since it's redundant?
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Post by whiteweasel on Jul 9, 2018 22:29:26 GMT
Having said my style above, though, let me try to answer your actual questions . Free advice, worth what you paid for it: -snip- Awesome, thanks for all of the info! Though I'll clarify what I meant by bulk armor and monolithic plate. Bulk armor is your filler armor that not the whipple shield or anti-laser/spalling layers that does the bulk of your protection, (what you described for monolithic plate pretty much) and monolithic plate to me anyways, is a single layer/material armor. I.E 5 cm of aluminum or titanium.
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Post by jtyotjotjipaefvj on Jul 9, 2018 23:47:47 GMT
A few patches ago, PTFE and nitrile rubber were superseded by PE (polyethylene) for anti-laser armor. It has the good efficiencies for both mass and credits, while not being the best at either. Here's a more detailed data sheet based on the game's laser damage model. The table on the left is relevant to your interests, the one on the right is for a mod that removes laser ablation cap. For ballistic protection things are not that simple and it doesn't seem like there's a single simple formula that would apply for most cases. Here are some recommendations for what works against hypervelocity projectiles (a 50 km/s railgun design I happened to have.) Monolithic plate: It doesn't seem like material choice for the main plate matters all that much, as long as the material is reasonably strong and doesn't shatter too badly on penetration. For a similar mass, it seems all these "good" materials work almost equally well. Good materials I've found include Beta Titanium, Vanadium Chromium Steel and Titanium. I've also experimented with plate materials that are nuke-resistant, which would work nicely as a multipurpose material. Zirconium Carbide seems to be one good candidate for this. 3-5 mm depending on material density seems to be a decent amount, lasting around 10 seconds against a dozen max firerate guns hitting a single small spot. Increasing it to 1-2 cm increases survivability further. Spall liner: The bulk plate should be backed by some ductile material like spider silk or nitrile rubber. Just a few millimeters seems like enough for a spall liner, and increasing it does not seem to help much. Whipple shield: A whipple shield stuffed with Graphite Aerogel is absolutely mandatory. No other combination of armor layouts comes even close to the low mass / high protection provided by a whipple stuffed by a meter or more of graphogel. Any less than a meter, and your performance will drop dramatically. Past that and it seems you'll hit diminishing returns. The whipple shield material doesn't seem to matter terribly much, but it should be something that does not generate huge plasma cones on hit. I've found just a few millimeters of Aluminum to be sufficient here. I also noticed that you can replace your whipple shield with 1-2 cm of PE for a combined whipple shield and anti-laser layer, which is very nice for keeping your armor layout simple. I haven't found any use in adding spacers anywhere, but there's so many possibilities I can't really rule that out either. At least I can say for certain that a meter of graphogel works far better than a meter of spacing behind a whipple shield.
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Post by apophys on Jul 10, 2018 0:11:49 GMT
There are 4 general techniques to deal with kinetics:
1. Dodge everything, with sufficient acceleration. Having a large engagement range helps to reduce the acceleration you require in order to do this. Try to have a small cross-sectional area to encourage natural misses. If not a missile, your weapons will need to be capable of firing broadside (with fast turret tracking), since the AI sucks at using side-mounted thrusters for dodging.
2. Win before any enemy bullets have time to reach you. This generally means having a large focus on powerful lasers, and coring through the enemy ship.
3. Try to bounce everything. This requires a sharply sloped nosecone with a layer of strong armor (high yield strength) on the outside, usually boron fiber.
4. Try to absorb everything. This normally means a whipple shield, stuffed with a thick layer of graphite aerogel, followed by an armor backing and a spall liner. You may try more than one whipple shield. Boron fiber or amorphous carbon are standard bulk armor choices. Good spall liners include spider silk or osmium (high ultimate tensile strength, and stretches rather than shatters on failure). Brute force testing by jasonvance (with a stock gun, iirc) has shown that a monolithic block of calcium armor is the most cost-effective monolithic armor. So, whatever you do for your composite armor, test it against an equal cost of calcium for a benchmark.
You can, of course, use multiple of these techniques at once.
Note that lasers will be doing damage well before kinetics, and what is good for kinetic armor is poor as laser armor.
I tend to use #2 and sometimes #1 for my stuff, and not have kinetic armor at all, just a layer of laser armor.
There was an update since then, improving the specific heat of polyethylene. Polyethylene is now the optimal choice, beating out both rubber and PTFE in both cost-effectiveness and mass-effectiveness.
That spreadsheet was updated to account for the change.
Edit: Ninja'd by jtyot.
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Post by AdmiralObvious on Jul 10, 2018 0:22:41 GMT
I personally prefer VCS as my plate armor, if only for the fact that it's got very high tensile yield which, provided you don't actually break it's limit, means that it shouldn't in theory obliterate everything behind it. If you want something to completely stop a sandblaster firing basically anything, a thick enough plate of it basically stops everything.
I'd also agree on spider silk being pretty good as a spall liner, but I've also tested spaced layers of graphite and silicon aerogel, with a very thin plate (less than 5mm) of Amorphous Carbon behind that, and it stops most spall from penetrating, though I usually have another backup layer behind that, just in case.
Whipple shields are usually only relevant specifically for sandblasters, and that only works for a short period of time, especially if the gun has basically 0 inaccuracy, which most player designs do. I've found that density over everything else seems to matter most for stopping projectiles, as long as that material doesn't shatter dangerously. As mentioned, precious metals are great if you can afford it. I personally prefer silver, but that weighed literal tons more versus a less dense, but thicker piece like tin.
One wonderful thing about ballistic weapons is that, if you armor for hypervelocity rounds, you are going to lose against bigger, slower rounds due to the sheer mass of the slug hitting you. These designs are great for single gram shots, but not as much for bigger shots like the 60mm conventional.
My old "school bus launcher" is a conventional gun which basically makes all the usual conventions we talk about here meaningless. Fortunately nothing stock is capable of shooting said school buses, but it's a point that should be made.
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ghgh
Full Member
Still trying to make kinetics work.
Posts: 136
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Post by ghgh on Jul 10, 2018 2:03:47 GMT
I usually use 50-100 cm for whipple spacing just for good measure. You could probably get away with 10 cm though.
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ghgh
Full Member
Still trying to make kinetics work.
Posts: 136
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Post by ghgh on Jul 10, 2018 2:34:50 GMT
Wouldn't a school bus launcher have such a low muzzle velocity that even something with mg0's of thrust could dodge it?
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Post by apophys on Jul 10, 2018 2:45:36 GMT
Wouldn't a school bus launcher have such a low muzzle velocity that even something with mg0's of thrust could dodge it? With normal custom-ship engagement ranges, yes. An unguided projectile that takes 5 minutes or more to get to the opponent is utterly useless. At that point, it should be made into a missile.
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Post by AdmiralObvious on Jul 10, 2018 3:22:07 GMT
Wouldn't a school bus launcher have such a low muzzle velocity that even something with mg0's of thrust could dodge it? Well, the whole ship was basically the ammo storage for the one projectile for the gun. Now that they come preloaded it's different. Still, I got a 10 ton projectile moving at 2.5 km/s with a LOT of Octogen and barrel.
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ghgh
Full Member
Still trying to make kinetics work.
Posts: 136
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Post by ghgh on Jul 10, 2018 4:58:05 GMT
I'm guessing that's a way to work around drones/missiles magically disappearing when they are shot or run out of fuel since the projectile can't be shot down?
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