|
Post by apophys on Aug 30, 2018 7:29:03 GMT
Boron fiber is the easy pick for high strength to weight ratio at low ingame cost. This also makes it an excellent kinetic armor material.
If you need it to be pressure-tight, the game won't let you use fibers, making diamond (cheap) or VCS (lightweight for strength) top choices.
If you need it to sustain very high temperature, amorphous carbon is best.
Combining structural material with lasing resistance is not a good idea, since the decent choices (more or less just aramid fiber) are very expensive for useful amounts.
|
|
ghgh
Full Member
Still trying to make kinetics work.
Posts: 136
|
Post by ghgh on Aug 30, 2018 16:26:35 GMT
Ditto for diamond, it tanks nuke-flash and gives your ships a very polished black sheen like a spit-shined black leather boot.
|
|
Prancer
Junior Member
Jousting in space. We're all Knights of the Stars.
Posts: 57
|
Post by Prancer on Sept 1, 2018 2:06:45 GMT
[nvm just delete this @mods]
|
|
|
Post by Apotheon on Sept 6, 2018 16:15:45 GMT
Really interesting stuff... I'm slowly entering the customisation space, but I haven't really made it to weapons and armor yet.
|
|
|
Post by gedzilla on Sept 6, 2018 16:43:39 GMT
Really interesting stuff... I'm slowly entering the customisation space, but I haven't really made it to weapons and armor yet. I suggest you start cusomization with basic modules, such as propellent tanks and crew modules (adjusting their shapes)
|
|
|
Post by Apotheon on Sept 6, 2018 16:55:54 GMT
Really interesting stuff... I'm slowly entering the customisation space, but I haven't really made it to weapons and armor yet. I suggest you start cusomization with basic modules, such as propellent tanks and crew modules (adjusting their shapes) Yeah, I started with changing the amount of propellant in propellant tanks since that's almost necessary to create small ships with hydrogen, then I started modifying the aspect ratio, and then I started changing everything except the material of "other" modules, command modules, and radiators. I've just downloaded Apophys propulsion and power plants and started changing the materials of all the things I've experimented with and that's where I'm at. Armour and weapons next, but probably a few weeks away.
|
|
Prancer
Junior Member
Jousting in space. We're all Knights of the Stars.
Posts: 57
|
Post by Prancer on Sept 10, 2018 18:58:05 GMT
Armor is actually not as hard and pretty fun to get into. I encourage you to start at least basic modification with stuffed whopper shields at least.
|
|
|
Post by AdmiralObvious on Sept 10, 2018 19:19:37 GMT
Armor is actually not as hard and pretty fun to get into. I encourage you to start at least basic modification with stuffed whopper shields at least. Stuffed whipple works great against extremely tiny hypervelocity projectiles. It's almost pointless against conventional guns though.
|
|
|
Post by AtomHeartDragon on Sept 10, 2018 19:38:46 GMT
Armor is actually not as hard and pretty fun to get into. I encourage you to start at least basic modification with stuffed whopper shields at least. Stuffed whipple works great against extremely tiny hypervelocity projectiles. It's almost pointless against conventional guns though. It's hard to make conventional gun armour that wouldn't be prohibitively heavy, though.
|
|
|
Post by AdmiralObvious on Sept 10, 2018 22:22:01 GMT
Stuffed whipple works great against extremely tiny hypervelocity projectiles. It's almost pointless against conventional guns though. It's hard to make conventional gun armour that wouldn't be prohibitively heavy, though. True, but that's a factor to consider, it's why the stinger drone is so effective (at crashing the game due to lag). It's why I really like chemguns, even though they definitely aren't "meta".
|
|
|
Post by AtomHeartDragon on Sept 10, 2018 23:38:39 GMT
It's hard to make conventional gun armour that wouldn't be prohibitively heavy, though. True, but that's a factor to consider, it's why the stinger drone is so effective (at crashing the game due to lag). It's why I really like chemguns, even though they definitely aren't "meta". That's why the best armour against chemguns is made of spacious propellant tanks and strong engines. As for the meta, I really consider it too simplistic to be informative.
|
|
Prancer
Junior Member
Jousting in space. We're all Knights of the Stars.
Posts: 57
|
Post by Prancer on Sept 17, 2018 17:29:22 GMT
Stuffed whipple works great against extremely tiny hypervelocity projectiles. It's almost pointless against conventional guns though. It's hard to make conventional gun armour that wouldn't be prohibitively heavy, though. So I was thinking about this and a thought just occurred to me. If tiny railguns projectiles are so effectively countered by whipper shields and heavier slower slugs are that much harder to armor against, why not use heavier slower slugs over smaller faster grains? It puts your opponent in an uncomfortable situation. At the very least, have a primary and secondary battery so that ships have both types.
|
|
|
Post by AdmiralObvious on Sept 17, 2018 17:58:17 GMT
It's hard to make conventional gun armour that wouldn't be prohibitively heavy, though. So I was thinking about this and a thought just occurred to me. If tiny railguns projectiles are so effectively countered by whipper shields and heavier slower slugs are that much harder to armor against, why not use heavier slower slugs over smaller faster grains? It puts your opponent in an uncomfortable situation. At the very least, have a primary and secondary battery so that ships have both types. For slower slugs, it's a matter of acceleration of the target. If the target can move so fast that you can't reasonably lead accurately with the gun, you aren't going to actually hit anything, save for some exceptional luck. Sandblasters are effective because they're exceptionally hard to dodge.
|
|
Prancer
Junior Member
Jousting in space. We're all Knights of the Stars.
Posts: 57
|
Post by Prancer on Sept 20, 2018 14:45:44 GMT
So I was thinking about this and a thought just occurred to me. If tiny railguns projectiles are so effectively countered by whipper shields and heavier slower slugs are that much harder to armor against, why not use heavier slower slugs over smaller faster grains? It puts your opponent in an uncomfortable situation. At the very least, have a primary and secondary battery so that ships have both types. For slower slugs, it's a matter of acceleration of the target. If the target can move so fast that you can't reasonably lead accurately with the gun, you aren't going to actually hit anything, save for some exceptional luck. Sandblasters are effective because they're exceptionally hard to dodge. Flak missiles then would probably a better way of delivering larger slower KE rounds.
|
|
|
Post by AtomHeartDragon on Sept 20, 2018 17:47:50 GMT
So I was thinking about this and a thought just occurred to me. If tiny railguns projectiles are so effectively countered by whipper shields and heavier slower slugs are that much harder to armor against, why not use heavier slower slugs over smaller faster grains? It puts your opponent in an uncomfortable situation. At the very least, have a primary and secondary battery so that ships have both types. For slower slugs, it's a matter of acceleration of the target. If the target can move so fast that you can't reasonably lead accurately with the gun, you aren't going to actually hit anything, save for some exceptional luck. Sandblasters are effective because they're exceptionally hard to dodge. Of course, there are more factors to that. Fast intercepts turn slow, heavy, easily dodgeable slugs (or payloads) into fast, heavy slugs of doom.
Deep gravity wells make fast intercepts easier as they keep you gravitationally bound even if you travel at obscene velocity and allow you to juggle your potential and kinetic energy around massively changing your velocity vector. If you are intercepting at 30m/s the difference between 10km/s 1g sandcaster and 1km/s 1kg is considerable, because you need to be in the knife-fight range to hope hitting with the latter. Now make it a 30km/s intercept in low orbit around a gas giant and you're effectively dealing with 1g pellets travelling at 40km/s VS massive 1kg slugs hitting at 31km/s, that can be fired as rapidly as relatively modest autoloader can ram them down the barrel.
Ouch.
So, where you're fighting is going to make a huge difference - in the belt I expect laserstars to rule the day, around planets it will be missiles and autocannons (and drone mounted autocannons), with railguns and coilguns somewhere in between.
Of course I generally aim for mixed battery, as it is unusual to ever keep your optimal distance in space, because it is good to be able to counter diverse threats and finally because it allows nifty things like putting the enemy in a crossfire with a single ship.
|
|