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Post by amimai on Nov 15, 2016 3:57:42 GMT
Just curious ...I'm not talking about piddly little 1Mt things, but the big boys with multiple 10Mt warheads that make a second sun on the map when they explode
things i have noticed from stock designs:
sentinels boron/amorph carbon armor simply melts so heat capacity is no good
skirmisher reinforced carbon/ aluminium whipple armour resists a lot of the damage but still melts through in some areas, the whipple shield has massive amounts of melting : whipple shields seem useful
privateer and patrol ship both use a top layer of fiber armour, both manage to survive with minimal damage
from my own tests:
high density materials : these tend to contain the energy from nukes to just the surface layers, but will result in those same surface layers often burning off sue to massive amounts of heat
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Post by redparadize on Nov 15, 2016 4:47:16 GMT
Aramid fiber will work well. Anything that work against laser should also work against nuke.
But the best way is to not let nuke get near you. If you can maintain relatively low heat signature on your ship. You can do cheap and light flare missile. With them, nuclear missile will explode +20 km away. At that distance the lightest armor will resist the largest nuke.
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Post by amimai on Nov 15, 2016 5:42:17 GMT
That's only viable for tiny boats, what about my warships that use 1GW reactors as standard?
Also while fiber armour may be good for missiles warships need to be able to survive rail gun and cool gun fire as well as flack shot, kkv's and everything else that opponents might throw at you... also significant amounts or aramind that could be used as general purpose armour will break the bank no mater how effective
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Post by leerooooooy on Nov 15, 2016 14:42:04 GMT
Kill them before they get close. Ideally intercept with a drone/small missile so the AI will waste them on that target
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Post by redparadize on Nov 15, 2016 15:15:45 GMT
That's only viable for tiny boats, what about my warships that use 1GW reactors as standard? Also while fiber armour may be good for missiles warships need to be able to survive rail gun and cool gun fire as well as flack shot, kkv's and everything else that opponents might throw at you... also significant amounts or aramind that could be used as general purpose armour will break the bank no mater how effective All my ship have heat signature below 36MW. I fight mostly with drones that have even lower heat signature, usually under 15MW, so I do not need hard missile defense on any of my platform. If I had to use 1GW reactor. I still use speed (Dv) and aggressive drone tactic as my main defense. I would probably also mount a backup 10kw reactor. That way I could turn the main reactor off and use cheap flare missile. So if cornered, last line off defense would be to rely on laser when I know I will be able to defeat the missile wave, and go passive + flare missile when I know I won't. At that point, you have to ask yourself how much a enemy player would rely on saturation tactic, does its really worth it to have multi GW laser if you are not gonna be able to use it? Same goes for armor. That's why I do not rely on laser/railgun/coilgun, I can defeat these using drones and missile for 1/10 of their cost. |
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Post by dwwolf on Nov 15, 2016 15:25:37 GMT
Id love to test but I dont have a really viable nuke in the 10 Mt range.  |
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Post by redparadize on Nov 15, 2016 16:02:18 GMT
Id love to test but I dont have a really viable nuke in the 10 Mt range. I didn't manage to get a practical nuke above 10kt. They just too heavy and expensive. Such valuable asset need armor to defend them, wish make the missile even more big and expensive. At that point its so much better to have large number of smaller nuke. |
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Post by dwwolf on Nov 15, 2016 17:06:01 GMT
Well according to OP 50Mt fries a fleet..... IIRC most of my nukes upto 2Mt fall under 200kg weight. With 100kt being about 143 kg......I dont really use em and use the 200kg 2Mt one instead |
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Post by redparadize on Nov 15, 2016 17:14:49 GMT
I have no doubt a 50mt would fries a fleet, but for that it need to get at least within a km of it. As for now I didn't manage to reliably get a 2mt within the 1km mark, and a single cheap flare missile will counter a wave of much more expansive 2mt missile. It is so much easier and less expensive to spam 600c/9kg 2.66kt nuke. I mostly do it to keep laser busy.
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Post by dwwolf on Nov 15, 2016 20:37:30 GMT
NuclearPayloadModule 2.75 Mt Boosted Fission Nuke
UsesCustomName false
CoreComposition U-233
ReflectorComposition Lithium
SlowExplosive
CombustionReaction TNT
DelayComposition Sodium Bicarbonate
DelayCompositionMassFraction 0
FastExplosive Octogen
CoreMass_kg 290
Enrichment_Percent 0.97
HollowCoreRadius_m 0.14
InnerExplosiveWidth_m 0.001
FusionBoost Deuterium Tritium
FusionFuelDensity_kg__m3 0
Detonator
HardRange_km 0.10
ActivationRange_km 0.50
MinimumRange_km 1.5
TargetsShips true
TargetsShots true
Total mass 347 kg
NuclearPayloadModule 9.50 Mt Boosted Fission Nuke
UsesCustomName false
CoreComposition U-233
ReflectorComposition Diamond
SlowExplosive
CombustionReaction Nitrocellulose
DelayComposition Sodium Bicarbonate
DelayCompositionMassFraction 0
FastExplosive Octogen
CoreMass_kg 1000
Enrichment_Percent 0.97
HollowCoreRadius_m 0.31
InnerExplosiveWidth_m 0.001
FusionBoost Deuterium Tritium
FusionFuelDensity_kg__m3 0
Detonator
HardRange_km 0.05
ActivationRange_km 0.62
MinimumRange_km 1
TargetsShips true
TargetsShots true
totall mass ...1.5 ton :/
And my 1.6Mt nuke is only 197 kg. Very diminishing returns.
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Post by redparadize on Nov 15, 2016 20:44:53 GMT
yep, and if you look at cost its even worst!
The sweet spot seem to be around the 100kt mark. I however still prefer smaller one for strategic reason.
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Post by amimai on Nov 15, 2016 21:05:09 GMT
Actually my 5x10Mt King Tor anti fleet missiles weigh in at only about 10t with armour fuel and all that fun stuff. Their effective kill range is 5km, but at 10km they can still flash fry some of the lighter armoured vanilla ships... 2 waves of 6 missiles at 5km detonation managed to kill my current fleet through 9cm hard armour and 1m aerogel, so these things are a legitimate threat.
They boast my standard battleship armour and internal aerogel bulkheads to make them really hard to kill. When Nuking targets bigger is better, you can make the missiles tougher, faster, heavier, and so much more deadly.
It's not really viable vs single targets at 4Mc per missile but these things are called "anti fleet" for a reason. Wether you have 10 ships or 100 doesn't much matter if a couple of these get close enough.
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Post by Easy on Nov 15, 2016 21:07:50 GMT
Defense in layers. Prevention is less mass than cure. - Missile/Drone interception
- Delta V superiority
- Laser/Kinetic CIWS
- Decoys
In regards to armor, I don't worry about direct impacts or near enough to direct, you're dead. But Aerogel has a nice property of vaporizing in thin layers and not transferring that heat to lower layers. The alternative would be to use high temperature radiator materials to reflect, transport and emit the energy.
Even with the physics correction to Aerogel, it is an amazing material. Its mass efficiency alone is a reason to use it in spacecraft.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp9Yax8UNoM www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8OhJKR3AA4
I know some users use meters thick metal armor. I use low density brittle bulk armor covered by a single aerogel coated metal or ceramic Whipple shield. Aerogel protects the Whipple from nukes and lasers. Whipple turns small kinetics into plasma as it should. The bulk armor is brittle but thick, which works great as long as the projectile doesn't penetrate.
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Post by redparadize on Nov 15, 2016 22:01:24 GMT
Actually my 5x10Mt King Tor anti fleet missiles weigh in at only about 10t with armour fuel and all that fun stuff. Their effective kill range is 5km, but at 10km they can still flash fry some of the lighter armoured vanilla ships... 2 waves of 6 missiles at 5km detonation managed to kill my current fleet through 9cm hard armour and 1m aerogel, so these things are a legitimate threat. They boast my standard battleship armour and internal aerogel bulkheads to make them really hard to kill. When Nuking targets bigger is better, you can make the missiles tougher, faster, heavier, and so much more deadly. It's not really viable vs single targets at 4Mc per missile but these things are called "anti fleet" for a reason. Wether you have 10 ships or 100 doesn't much matter if a couple of these get close enough. 4Mc is allot. Now if I would have fleet that is worth +100Mc, I would surely intercept these missile with much cheaper drone/missile. Defense in layers. Prevention is less mass than cure. - Missile/Drone interception
- Delta V superiority
- Laser/Kinetic CIWS
- Decoys
(snip) Exactly! |
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Post by Easy on Nov 15, 2016 22:24:05 GMT
It's not really viable vs single targets at 4Mc per missile but these things are called "anti fleet" for a reason. Wether you have 10 ships or 100 doesn't much matter if a couple of these get close enough. Have you used these weapons against ships armored and armed by of your own design? The aluminum Whipple on stock ships doesn't handle nukes so well. The major armor bit I haven't figured out is protecting those thruster bells from a nuke that explodes from behind. I suppose turning more nose-on would help some. |
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