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Post by amimai on Jan 4, 2017 19:37:55 GMT
hmmmm, did a bit of testing... NIrubber and SiGel seem useless so far the only cost effective missile armour is found is : AMcarbon/Graphogel/AMcarbon/Graphogel/AMcarbon tested vs 6x 10GW rainbow lasers What's your thicknesses and spacing for those? No spacing, equalise mass for thickness(change to suit missiles)
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Post by spacechicken on Jan 4, 2017 22:14:50 GMT
This is my strategy:
1: Make your missiles have the smallest crossection possible. (absorb less laser) 2: Give them aggressively pointed tips and Armor with (in to out) Si aerogel .5mm, 1cm gap, amorphous carbon .5mm, Ni Rubber 2mm. 3: approach at 5+ k/ms 4: approach in large numbers.
Tiny missiles are cheap missiles so #1 helps #4.
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Post by amimai on Jan 4, 2017 22:22:58 GMT
This is my strategy: 1: Make your missiles have the smallest crossection possible. (absorb less laser) 2: Give them aggressively pointed tips and Armor with (in to out) Si aerogel .5mm, 1cm gap, amorphous carbon .5mm, Ni Rubber 2mm. 3: approach at 5+ k/ms 4: approach in large numbers. Tiny missiles are cheap missiles so #1 helps #4. Ahh the wonders of MIRV type carrier drones and short range micro NEFP nukes Also you forgot about KKV decoys, nothing says laser resistance like an engine strapped to a couple kg of armour...
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Post by jasonvance on Jan 12, 2017 10:55:45 GMT
I would highly recommend using an aramid fiber or silica aerogel radiation shield at the nose on small diameter missiles. It is much much more effective than armoring the entire missile (and even more effective than using partial armoring assuming the bugs get fixed with it). I haven't done the math to figure out the optimal ratio of cost to time to kill gained for this setup but 10cm is a good place to start (you will see very few missiles get destroyed by large lasers arrays). Drop tanks for out of combat acceleration phase on attacker missiles reduce the total surface area needed to cover with armor as well significantly (not so great on interceptors that are launched mid-combat though). For example this missile has effectively ~10cm of aramid fiber armor from the nose cone radiation shield on a 9.8cm diameter target. It takes a really long time to burn through 10cm of aramid fiber on a small target like that since the inaccuracy zone @ 1,000km is about 2.5m. *note* that missile is still a work in progress I have been messing with TtK values against laser arrays mainly and still need to tweak it Another added bonus of this is you get a small KKV element added to your missile as the left over rad shield will slam into the target (usually getting some acceleration from the payload as well during detonation).
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Post by deltav on Jan 15, 2017 1:56:50 GMT
Multi-GW lasers, assuming reasonably efficient design, are simply too strong to be worth armouring most things against currently. When and if we get longer range engagements, we'll probably worry about armouring against them at extreme range—if lasers could shoot out to hundreds of light milliseconds they would both be less intense and much harder to avoid, so some form of armouring would become compulsory. But worry not, that would require large changes to the engine (including modeling appreciable travel time for light at those distances), so in the immediate, keep your capships away and overwhelm them with numbers. Make your drones and missiles effective at as long a range as possible, send in lots of them and play the numbers game. Kinetic kill missiles don't seem viable against serious point defences because you require the targetable missile to actually hit; instead of 10 missiles it's better to have 10 drones that will put hundreds of hypervelocity projectiles into space before they get vapourised. Also, gigaton class nuclear missiles that detonate for huge AoE flash before the lasers can even be brought to bear and laser drones should be effective. I hope that in future patches it will become easier to design super-flak missiles that fill space with fast-moving, dense debris. The engagement ranges in the stock game are frankly absurdly close—35km is point blank for RL naval fleets that have to deal with stuff like atmospheric drag and the curvature of the Earth. Right now I'm of the opinion that anything you command in the orbital mechanics portion of the game should only need to be in the general vicinity of its target, having to close the distance in the combat phase is just asking for trouble. 35 km is point blank range for blue water navy? Let's think about this for a second. Yes missiles and aircraft carriers can reach out far beyond 35 km, but that's not what we are talking about. We are talking about using guns. For the old school WW2 Battleships, the longest hit ever made on another ship during combat is 26,260 yards, about 24 km. So using a gun even if it is coil powered, the target has to be tracked and targeted using sensors for exactly where the ship is, and the fact that the target may be gone by the time the round arrives. For comparison, someone who makes a sniper shot at 2500 m, the bullet takes almost 6 seconds to reach the target. If the target is moving erratically the shot will most likely miss wasting rounds. Also space is not completely empty, there is space dust and so on. So taking all this into account, 46 km vs a capital ship (the range of a 39 MW 8mm Turrented Railgun), isn't it a perfectly reasonable range?
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Post by jasonvance on Jan 15, 2017 2:25:02 GMT
Multi-GW lasers, assuming reasonably efficient design, are simply too strong to be worth armouring most things against currently. When and if we get longer range engagements, we'll probably worry about armouring against them at extreme range—if lasers could shoot out to hundreds of light milliseconds they would both be less intense and much harder to avoid, so some form of armouring would become compulsory. But worry not, that would require large changes to the engine (including modeling appreciable travel time for light at those distances), so in the immediate, keep your capships away and overwhelm them with numbers. Make your drones and missiles effective at as long a range as possible, send in lots of them and play the numbers game. Kinetic kill missiles don't seem viable against serious point defences because you require the targetable missile to actually hit; instead of 10 missiles it's better to have 10 drones that will put hundreds of hypervelocity projectiles into space before they get vapourised. Also, gigaton class nuclear missiles that detonate for huge AoE flash before the lasers can even be brought to bear and laser drones should be effective. I hope that in future patches it will become easier to design super-flak missiles that fill space with fast-moving, dense debris. The engagement ranges in the stock game are frankly absurdly close—35km is point blank for RL naval fleets that have to deal with stuff like atmospheric drag and the curvature of the Earth. Right now I'm of the opinion that anything you command in the orbital mechanics portion of the game should only need to be in the general vicinity of its target, having to close the distance in the combat phase is just asking for trouble. 35 km is point blank range for blue water navy? Let's think about this for a second. Yes missiles and aircraft carriers can reach out far beyond 35 km, but that's not what we are talking about. We are talking about using guns. For the old school WW2 Battleships, the longest hit ever made on another ship during combat is 26,260 yards, about 24 km. So using a gun even if it is coil powered, the target has to be tracked and targeted using sensors for exactly where the ship is, and the fact that the target may be gone by the time the round arrives. For comparison, someone who makes a sniper shot at 2500 m, the bullet takes almost 6 seconds to reach the target. If the target is moving erratically the shot will most likely miss wasting rounds. Also space is not completely empty, there is space dust and so on. So taking all this into account, 46 km vs a capital ship (the range of a 39 MW 8mm Turrented Railgun), isn't it a perfectly reasonable range? 50km effective range is a very reasonable range to design your ships around if you like roasted BBQ crew corridors from lasers...
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Post by dragonkid11 on Jan 15, 2017 2:40:22 GMT
Multi-GW lasers, assuming reasonably efficient design, are simply too strong to be worth armouring most things against currently. When and if we get longer range engagements, we'll probably worry about armouring against them at extreme range—if lasers could shoot out to hundreds of light milliseconds they would both be less intense and much harder to avoid, so some form of armouring would become compulsory. But worry not, that would require large changes to the engine (including modeling appreciable travel time for light at those distances), so in the immediate, keep your capships away and overwhelm them with numbers. Make your drones and missiles effective at as long a range as possible, send in lots of them and play the numbers game. Kinetic kill missiles don't seem viable against serious point defences because you require the targetable missile to actually hit; instead of 10 missiles it's better to have 10 drones that will put hundreds of hypervelocity projectiles into space before they get vapourised. Also, gigaton class nuclear missiles that detonate for huge AoE flash before the lasers can even be brought to bear and laser drones should be effective. I hope that in future patches it will become easier to design super-flak missiles that fill space with fast-moving, dense debris. The engagement ranges in the stock game are frankly absurdly close—35km is point blank for RL naval fleets that have to deal with stuff like atmospheric drag and the curvature of the Earth. Right now I'm of the opinion that anything you command in the orbital mechanics portion of the game should only need to be in the general vicinity of its target, having to close the distance in the combat phase is just asking for trouble. 35 km is point blank range for blue water navy? Let's think about this for a second. Yes missiles and aircraft carriers can reach out far beyond 35 km, but that's not what we are talking about. We are talking about using guns. For the old school WW2 Battleships, the longest hit ever made on another ship during combat is 26,260 yards, about 24 km. So using a gun even if it is coil powered, the target has to be tracked and targeted using sensors for exactly where the ship is, and the fact that the target may be gone by the time the round arrives. For comparison, someone who makes a sniper shot at 2500 m, the bullet takes almost 6 seconds to reach the target. If the target is moving erratically the shot will most likely miss wasting rounds. Also space is not completely empty, there is space dust and so on. So taking all this into account, 46 km vs a capital ship (the range of a 39 MW 8mm Turrented Railgun), isn't it a perfectly reasonable range? Besides that, shooting in space is completely different than shooting on ocean. Yes, you need account for curveture due to gravity, atmospheric resistance, but the target is moving at...what? 50 kilometer per HOUR at max? That's like, about 14 meters per second. Where in game and in space, ships move at several HUNDREDS meter per second, making hitting them astronomically (heh) harder. We literally need coilgun and railgun to just achieve the range of what we now have as 'point-blank' range. Because using conventional cannons (Designed to fire hypersonic rounds at around 1.8 to more than 2.0 kilometer per second) would result in only ranges of less than 20 kilometers.
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Post by kitten on Jan 15, 2017 6:43:53 GMT
Multi-GW lasers, assuming reasonably efficient design, are simply too strong to be worth armouring most things against currently. When and if we get longer range engagements, we'll probably worry about armouring against them at extreme range—if lasers could shoot out to hundreds of light milliseconds they would both be less intense and much harder to avoid, so some form of armouring would become compulsory. But worry not, that would require large changes to the engine (including modeling appreciable travel time for light at those distances), so in the immediate, keep your capships away and overwhelm them with numbers. Make your drones and missiles effective at as long a range as possible, send in lots of them and play the numbers game. Kinetic kill missiles don't seem viable against serious point defences because you require the targetable missile to actually hit; instead of 10 missiles it's better to have 10 drones that will put hundreds of hypervelocity projectiles into space before they get vapourised. Also, gigaton class nuclear missiles that detonate for huge AoE flash before the lasers can even be brought to bear and laser drones should be effective. I hope that in future patches it will become easier to design super-flak missiles that fill space with fast-moving, dense debris. The engagement ranges in the stock game are frankly absurdly close—35km is point blank for RL naval fleets that have to deal with stuff like atmospheric drag and the curvature of the Earth. Right now I'm of the opinion that anything you command in the orbital mechanics portion of the game should only need to be in the general vicinity of its target, having to close the distance in the combat phase is just asking for trouble. 35 km is point blank range for blue water navy? Let's think about this for a second. Yes missiles and aircraft carriers can reach out far beyond 35 km, but that's not what we are talking about. We are talking about using guns. For the old school WW2 Battleships, the longest hit ever made on another ship during combat is 26,260 yards, about 24 km. So using a gun even if it is coil powered, the target has to be tracked and targeted using sensors for exactly where the ship is, and the fact that the target may be gone by the time the round arrives. For comparison, someone who makes a sniper shot at 2500 m, the bullet takes almost 6 seconds to reach the target. If the target is moving erratically the shot will most likely miss wasting rounds. Also space is not completely empty, there is space dust and so on. So taking all this into account, 46 km vs a capital ship (the range of a 39 MW 8mm Turrented Railgun), isn't it a perfectly reasonable range? Naval artillery hasn't been a primary weapon for blue-water navies since WWII, when it was already on the way out and overshadowed by aircraft. Battleship engagements happened before the advent of electronic fire control systems and radars that can track individual shells, so they're not relevant to today's navies or even today's naval gunnery. Currently even a small surface warship like a corvette carries "short" range surface-to-surface missiles with ranges of 120-200km. In fact, even the aircraft launched by carriers carry these missiles; the days of dive- and torpedo-bombing are long gone. The idea that in space, without the curvature of the earth and atmospheric drag, engagement ranges would be reduced is a bit silly. Space does allow for "guns", in the broadest sense, to make a comeback but for that they need to compete for range with missiles like hypervelocity electromagnetic launchers (rail/coilguns) can. From a realism perspective, I'd expect coilguns to have the edge because they're truly frictionless and have less maintenance needs and per-shot cost compared to railguns, even though railguns are closer to maturity IRL. Although lasers and various types of missiles would of course be relevant in space.
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Post by newageofpower on Jan 15, 2017 6:54:26 GMT
Space does allow for "guns", in the broadest sense, to make a comeback but for that they need to compete for range with missiles like hypervelocity electromagnetic launchers (rail/coilguns) can. From a realism perspective, I'd expect coilguns to have the edge because they're truly frictionless and have less maintenance needs and per-shot cost compared to railguns, even though railguns are closer to maturity IRL. Although lasers and various types of missiles would of course be relevant in space. I suspect rails, with their superior performance/weight ratio, will continue be retained as terminal PD defense (with medium coils and lasers forming the outer and middle area of PD) and small-drone armaments. Although railguns optimized for muzzle velocity (needleguns) currently outperform coils, that is only due to COADE's lack of barrel bracing and maximum input power of 1GW. Once (if?) barrel bracing is implemented, coilguns firing sandstorms may be able to rival lasers as a main battery armament at medium ranges.
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Post by kitten on Jan 15, 2017 7:16:11 GMT
The problem with rails for PD—assuming we actually have to care about cost-per-shot and service life—is that PD weapons typically have to fire fast and often, while railguns wear out after a few shots. Coilgun technology also inherently allows for a faster rate of fire, though I'm not sure that will have practical consequences.
Railguns are more efficient, at least with RL technologies, but in a world where energy is cheap and mass/maintenance is not, coilguns would IMO be better.
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Post by newageofpower on Jan 15, 2017 7:32:00 GMT
The problem with rails for PD—assuming we actually have to care about cost-per-shot and service life—is that PD weapons typically have to fire fast and often, while railguns wear out after a few shots. Coilgun technology also inherently allows for a faster rate of fire, though I'm not sure that will have practical consequences. Railguns are more efficient, at least with RL technologies, but in a world where energy is cheap and mass/maintenance is not, coilguns would IMO be better. What, service life? If my assault drones survive long enough to fire off their whole magazine, I consider that amazing. Space warfare is hilariously lethal, and survivability tends to be a secondary concern behind terminal performance. Service life isn't even a tertiary concern. I do arm my capital ships (and >200t heavy drones) with coils rather than rails, because at their band of mass/power budget, coils are more efficient... I suppose they'd be massively superior in terms of maintenance and service life as well, but that's not a primary concern.
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Post by kitten on Jan 15, 2017 7:38:26 GMT
Well, with throwaway high-stress railgun designs, your training exercices also would be hilariously lethal
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Post by newageofpower on Jan 15, 2017 9:15:29 GMT
Well, with throwaway high-stress railgun designs, your training exercices also would be hilariously lethal Eh. Expendable drones ;p
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Post by caiaphas on Jan 15, 2017 9:17:50 GMT
Well, with throwaway high-stress railgun designs, your training exercices also would be hilariously lethal Eh. Expendable drones ;p I assume you also use live ammunition and don't bother to issue the crew of your drone carriers pressure suits?
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Post by bigbombr on Jan 15, 2017 9:38:27 GMT
The problem with rails for PD—assuming we actually have to care about cost-per-shot and service life—is that PD weapons typically have to fire fast and often, while railguns wear out after a few shots. Coilgun technology also inherently allows for a faster rate of fire, though I'm not sure that will have practical consequences. Railguns are more efficient, at least with RL technologies, but in a world where energy is cheap and mass/maintenance is not, coilguns would IMO be better. What, service life? If my assault drones survive long enough to fire off their whole magazine, I consider that amazing. Space warfare is hilariously lethal, and survivability tends to be a secondary concern behind terminal performance. Service life isn't even a tertiary concern. I do arm my capital ships (and >200t heavy drones) with coils rather than rails, because at their band of mass/power budget, coils are more efficient... I suppose they'd be massively superior in terms of maintenance and service life as well, but that's not a primary concern. Wasn't the service life of current IRL railguns 20-ish rounds? (Compared to 5000-10000 rounds barrel life of conventional cannons.)
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