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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Nov 7, 2018 23:08:16 GMT
The main advantage of broadside is that you can use the main engines to dodge (in theory perhaps a needleship could do this, but the game engine doesn't support it very well and the mechanics are in fact somewhat awkward), and you can hide at least some of your big, fragile radiators behind the body of the ship itself. Also, a needleship may have issues actually getting all its weapons placed in such a way they all have line-of-sight forward. Another good, more recent thread with a nice variety of designs (albeit all relatively small ships) and screenshots is here: childrenofadeadearth.boards.net/thread/3376/challenge-750-ton-wondersCourse this just makes me think. Instead of your ship's engines being mounted inline with the long axis... why not have them mounted facing out the ventral direction. Now your main engines can still dodge, but they can evade fire with less deltaV (a ship can easily be over 200m long, but only 30m in diameter. Quicker to move 30m up, than 200m ahead) See here:
Course this just makes me think. Instead of your ship's engines being mounted inline with the long axis... why not have them mounted facing out the ventral direction. Now your main engines can still dodge, but they can evade fire with less deltaV (a ship can easily be over 200m long, but only 30m in diameter. Quicker to move 30m up, than 200m ahead) At the very least, it makes the case for having maneuvering thrusters that can move your ship in all three dimensions. But then, of course, your thrusters will be weaker. Tradeoffs, tradeoffs...
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Post by linkxsc on Nov 8, 2018 1:41:27 GMT
Course this just makes me think. Instead of your ship's engines being mounted inline with the long axis... why not have them mounted facing out the ventral direction. Now your main engines can still dodge, but they can evade fire with less deltaV (a ship can easily be over 200m long, but only 30m in diameter. Quicker to move 30m up, than 200m ahead) See here: wiki.eveuniversity.org/NaglfarMinmatar had this shit thought out years ago
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Post by airc777 on Nov 8, 2018 3:32:40 GMT
That isn't how you spell 'Hiigara'.
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Post by AdmiralObvious on Nov 8, 2018 6:32:39 GMT
Going back to the "mount the engines ventrally" thing. I did give that a try, and it did work overall. It turned quickly, and it dodged most shots relatively well for hypervelocity kinetic duels too. However, it had a few major issues.
First, I was forced to use chemical rockets, since he craft was heavily exposed to the radiation of any NTR I tried to use, and adding extra shielding to said NTR brought down the deltaV to an unacceptable level (for what I was doing). You can't add ventral radiation shields in this game, and they're cheaper, by a long shot than trying to actually use a decent neutron reflector.
Second, it required quite a lot of tinkering to actually get both engines in line, and balanced with center of mass. Fortunately both engines had a relatively high gimbal angle (I pretty much didn't armor the side with the engines) so it offset the imbalance, however minor it was.
Third, this format can cause problems with weapon targeting while dodging incoming shots, though I think that's more of a game issue than a real life issue. This really messed with any "nose mounted" guns I had, even if they had a turret.
I ended up using the ship in the conventional "broadside" manner, and it did overall very well, once you factor in that I had no armor on the back (double on the front), and the thing died to any remotely close nuke flash as a result.
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Post by linkxsc on Nov 8, 2018 17:11:41 GMT
Going back to the "mount the engines ventrally" thing. I did give that a try, and it did work overall. It turned quickly, and it dodged most shots relatively well for hypervelocity kinetic duels too. However, it had a few major issues. First, I was forced to use chemical rockets, since he craft was heavily exposed to the radiation of any NTR I tried to use, and adding extra shielding to said NTR brought down the deltaV to an unacceptable level (for what I was doing). You can't add ventral radiation shields in this game, and they're cheaper, by a long shot than trying to actually use a decent neutron reflector. Second, it required quite a lot of tinkering to actually get both engines in line, and balanced with center of mass. Fortunately both engines had a relatively high gimbal angle (I pretty much didn't armor the side with the engines) so it offset the imbalance, however minor it was. Third, this format can cause problems with weapon targeting while dodging incoming shots, though I think that's more of a game issue than a real life issue. This really messed with any "nose mounted" guns I had, even if they had a turret. I ended up using the ship in the conventional "broadside" manner, and it did overall very well, once you factor in that I had no armor on the back (double on the front), and the thing died to any remotely close nuke flash as a result. Well, issues 2 and 3 are largely game problems. IRL you wouldn't be tinkering with a "move laterally" button. And you could shift fuel around in tanks as ballast to balance the craft's COM. Similarly the targeting system ingame is really really not prepared for something like this, but it's the kind of thing we could likely manage IRL. On the first problem... Add proper shielding to the engines? Try resistojets? Reactor power is pretty cheap, and larger reactors scale better than smaller ones. Resistojet rockets themselves are fairly lightweight for a given thrust power. Could technically stick them all over the place, and only power the ones on the side needed. Course resistojets do appear to be borked right now (coil radius does literally nothing.)
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