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Post by jasonvance on Dec 9, 2016 4:36:41 GMT
Err we were looking to see if it's at all possible to be fend your boat with armor, but go ahead on a crusade of your own... We got into a tangent from... Er. The Laser Range thread. Some people there are like "nerf lasers OP" and personally, I think Lasers are not OP. Very important, yes. Maybe, even the most important weapon, if you agree with Shurugal. But pure laser fleets (or almost-pure laser fleets) are less efficient and less effective than a combined arms fleet, that is my analysis. Conflict makes us stronger! Instead of me and Shurugal shooting each other IRL, we shoot at each other's virtual ships with virtual weapons! build my laser drones and give whatever you want a try mass to cost or whatever and let me know if you find a viable counter i am actually really interested. Make 2 sets though and have them launched in equal distributions (one set to only target ships the other with ships + shots to avoid swarming being viable) I've been trying for the last few days (against dumb AI you can counter them with nukes, weird 10 minute travel time projectiles that the AI refuses to move out of the way of but nothing that screamed "I as a player would have fallen for that."
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Post by nerd1000 on Dec 9, 2016 4:41:07 GMT
Given the dominance of doom lasers, armour IS still viable- but only if the engagement takes place at ranges where the lasers cannot burn your armour plate away in a fraction of a second. Our laser cannons are generally capable of continuous fire, so there's no reason not to be zapping enemy ships as soon as they're close enough for your aiming system to get the beam on target.
That means longer engagement ranges- perhaps many Mm, rather than our current 1mM limit.
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Post by jasonvance on Dec 9, 2016 4:47:22 GMT
Given the dominance of doom lasers, armour IS still viable- but only if the engagement takes place at ranges where the lasers cannot burn your armour plate away in a fraction of a second. Our laser cannons are generally capable of continuous fire, so there's no reason not to be zapping enemy ships as soon as they're close enough for your aiming system to get the beam on target. That means longer engagement ranges- perhaps many Mm, rather than our current 1mM limit. Spreading the engagement range out further only gives more dominance to lasers. I've toned down my 1,000km lasers from 80,000MW/m^2 to 100MW/m^2 as there is a dps cap to each individual laser (dependent on the material). the 80,000MW/m^2 version could sill be doing reasonable damage at 60,000km to amarid fiber.
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tuna
New Member
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Post by tuna on Dec 9, 2016 5:38:49 GMT
Just to note: Graphite aerogel is one of the worst anti-laser armors in the game. Silicon aerogel is one of the best. I keep seeing people using graphite aerogel to armor against lasers -- if you do that, you are going to have a bad time. (reason: graphite aerogel has great thermal conductivity, silicon aerogel has nonexistent)
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Post by The Astronomer on Dec 9, 2016 5:42:47 GMT
Just to note: Graphite aerogel is one of the worst anti-laser armors in the game. Silicon aerogel is one of the best. I keep seeing people using graphite aerogel to armor against lasers -- if you do that, you are going to have a bad time. (reason: graphite aerogel has great thermal conductivity, silicon aerogel has nonexistent) THE SCIENCE CLASS MEMORIES. COME BACK, NOW.wait i haven't learnt that. Anyways, thanks. WAIT. "if you do that, you are going to have a bad time."Fat skeleton nut?
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Post by themohawkninja on Dec 9, 2016 6:46:10 GMT
Something tells me these crazy Mm range coilguns and hyper-powerful lasers might be more of evidence that the game has issues with the physics calculations rather than a reason to do away with armor.
Even with atmospheric resistance/dissipation, I would imagine that if the performances we see with the OPs weapons (and other users weapons), many militaries IRL would have long since developed such weapons for Earthly use.
So, I'd argue that armor is still useful, but only in an "I sense some future, major, nerfing of weapons" sense.
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Post by amimai on Dec 9, 2016 6:56:32 GMT
Graphogel Ian there to stop lasers, graphogel seems to work as a shock absorber, it lets armour on its surface survive truly massive kinetic hits.
Mmm, yea apparently graphogel is the ultimate squishy marshmallow, you can literally compress it to paper thin and it will spring back no worse for wear... put a metal plate on it and it will take all the force out of a hit without fractures or suffering catastrophic damage unlike most armour materials
It's also much stronger then silica gel structurally, and can survive huge forces that most other material would take damage from. Per kg it's probably one of the strongest materials ingame.
Also note that while per kg silica gel is 10-20% stronger then amorphous carbon vs thermal weapons, silica gel has atrocious mechanical properties and is not suitable to taking any kind of kinetic damage.
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Post by newageofpower on Dec 9, 2016 7:19:14 GMT
Graphogel Ian there to stop lasers, graphogel seems to work as a shock absorber, it lets armour on its surface survive truly massive kinetic hits. Mmm, yea apparently graphogel is the ultimate squishy marshmallow, you can literally compress it to paper thin and it will spring back no worse for wear... put a metal plate on it and it will take all the force out of a hit without fractures or suffering catastrophic damage unlike most armour materials It's also much stronger then silica gel structurally, and can survive huge forces that most other material would take damage from. Per kg it's probably one of the strongest materials ingame. Also note that while per kg silica gel is 10-20% stronger then amorphous carbon vs thermal weapons, silica gel has atrocious mechanical properties and is not suitable to taking any kind of kinetic damage. *shrug* armoring missiles vs kinetics is a lost cause (death-spiral of size, mass, performance), so loading up on anti-laser armor is usually the correct call.
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Post by amimai on Dec 9, 2016 7:27:55 GMT
But for armouring ships it's laughable, you can fracture silica fell by simply tapping it with your finger.
Also silica gel-> amorphous carbon will likely at least halve the price of anything using it and you can make up the added mass with reduced volume cost.
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Post by shurugal on Dec 9, 2016 13:45:50 GMT
In a modern war between equals, there is no fight to wrest ground or gain; there is only deny the opponent and destroy his assets. If I spend 2-5 kt mass to wipe out 20 kt of yours, I consider that an overwhelming victory, and damn the orbital space. Hell, if that's your victory criteria, let's just saturate each other with thousands and thousands of 1 kT nukes. We'll pump out so much radiation that we find a way to neutron-activate vacuum.
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Post by shurugal on Dec 9, 2016 14:09:48 GMT
But for armouring ships it's laughable, you can fracture silica fell by simply tapping it with your finger. Also silica gel-> amorphous carbon will likely at least halve the price of anything using it and you can make up the added mass with reduced volume cost. true, but it seems that under the current state of the physics engine, armoring ships with anything is laughable. I mean, my cannon there accelerates a 100 kg missile to 10 km/s in 3 meters... 60 ms acceleration time... 17 kG acceleration. between that and the proliferation of NEFPs, armor is only good for decorative purposes.
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Post by jasonvance on Dec 9, 2016 14:52:39 GMT
Graphogel Ian there to stop lasers, graphogel seems to work as a shock absorber, it lets armour on its surface survive truly massive kinetic hits. Mmm, yea apparently graphogel is the ultimate squishy marshmallow, you can literally compress it to paper thin and it will spring back no worse for wear... put a metal plate on it and it will take all the force out of a hit without fractures or suffering catastrophic damage unlike most armour materials It's also much stronger then silica gel structurally, and can survive huge forces that most other material would take damage from. Per kg it's probably one of the strongest materials ingame. Also note that while per kg silica gel is 10-20% stronger then amorphous carbon vs thermal weapons, silica gel has atrocious mechanical properties and is not suitable to taking any kind of kinetic damage. *shrug* armoring missiles vs kinetics is a lost cause (death-spiral of size, mass, performance), so loading up on anti-laser armor is usually the correct call. anti-laser armor doesn't scale well enough when compared to scaling increases to laser amounts to be worth the mass investment. Adding extra lasers burns through the materials n times faster while adding extra armor layers increases mass n^2 x faster. A standard 1,000km laser weighs ~2 tons (~4-5 tons with reactors and radiators) 4-5 tons of aramid fiber spread over a ship will likely not be a significant amount to really do anything and as you have to add more the amount of extra gained armor per 4-5 tons decreases ass the total surface area / volume increases in size. If the first 5 tons of armor gave you 1cm the next 5 would give you .95 then the next 5 .8 etc. while the increases in lasers will always add n amount of seconds of burn through time 10 sec total burn, 5 sec total burn, 2.5 total burn etc. (check out my videos above on how long 1 meter of aramid fiber actually lasts against 20kT of glass cannon laser drones, then try adding 1 meter of aramid fiber for the ~1 second of time to kill addition and see if it is worth the cost) To elaborate a bit more it is 135 million credits and 500 tons to armor just a 25 man crew module with 1 meter of aramid fiber where as it is only 80 million to have 800 lasers worth of drones in the sky.
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Post by thorneel on Dec 9, 2016 17:51:45 GMT
We'll pump out so much radiation that we find a way to neutron-activate vacuum. I am so going to steal that image one day
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Post by Guest on Dec 9, 2016 20:36:27 GMT
Seems the best way is to not get hit in the first place, while decoys can sucker missiles having decoy drones that matched emmsisions with your main ship in formation should work... if that ever gets added
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Post by newageofpower on Dec 9, 2016 22:06:17 GMT
Hell, if that's your victory criteria, let's just saturate each other with thousands and thousands of 1 kT nukes. We'll pump out so much radiation that we find a way to neutron-activate vacuum. Thats... literally what my Assault Carrier drones do... launch thousands of 2.68 kt nukes... Yeah, modern war/future war is likely to be hellish for the combatants... but it can be fought. Thinking about it is a good mental exercise, one that I'm glad we've participated in.
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