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Post by jasonvance on Nov 21, 2016 0:28:27 GMT
It is possible to create "valid" MPD thrusters which have exhaust velocities slightly greater than the speed of light (299.7Mm/s)
Spoiler: MPD exhaust velocity > c specsOn a side note if anyone wants to build a really powerfful reactor to try and use the thing please let me know I would love to get this running (it will take me a while to daisy chain my current nuclear reactors so the more powerful the better). |
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Post by someusername6 on Nov 21, 2016 0:34:25 GMT
The largest reactor I'm aware of, in game, produces only 25 GW. You'd need to load 1.8 billion of them to power that module; not really feasible to design such a ship.
I'm inclined to say this doesn't matter / modeling relativistic effects doesn't matter unless such a module can actually be powered in game.
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Post by n2maniac on Nov 22, 2016 1:09:01 GMT
Definitely doesn't break anything in terms of game balance, given that 100km/s ISP thrusters don't get any love.
Get it down to 1GW and I would be interested in testing it with a 500t ship. 99% sure we will just end up with needing a few decades to accelerate up to speed.
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Post by amimai on Nov 22, 2016 1:18:09 GMT
My 15GW mercury thruster ball is nice, 15cm across with the entire system buried inside the gimbal armour, it's virtually indestructible general purpose main thruster, the fact that it gives 75k/s max dV at minimal space cost is a nice side bonus.
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Post by amimai on Nov 22, 2016 1:23:36 GMT
My 15GW mercury thruster ball is nice, 15cm across with the entire system buried inside the gimbal armour, it's virtually indestructible general purpose main thruster, the fact that it gives 75k/s max dV at minimal space cost is a nice side bonus. And before you start that's the smallest100% efficiency and burns just 4kg/s of fuel or in volume terms about 5cm^3. I have scaled up versions that have much better mass efficiency, perfect for a ship that has 100 lasers and 5m of armour... 150km/s+ exit v is pretty common for big ships, MPD are really good value on them. |
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Post by Durandal on Nov 22, 2016 1:31:31 GMT
My 15GW mercury thruster ball is nice, 15cm across with the entire system buried inside the gimbal armour, it's virtually indestructible general purpose main thruster, the fact that it gives 75k/s max dV at minimal space cost is a nice side bonus. And before you start that's the smallest100% efficiency and burns just 4kg/s of fuel or in volume terms about 5cm^3. I have scaled up versions that have much better mass efficiency, perfect for a ship that has 100 lasers and 5m of armour... 150km/s+ exit v is pretty common for big ships, MPD are really good value on them. Agreed, Ivery been using MPDs as main engines on my larger capital ships with NTR spaced around them. Very handy to have interplanetary and tactical engines.  |
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