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Post by bigbombr on Jan 7, 2017 18:14:06 GMT
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Post by newageofpower on Jan 7, 2017 18:57:47 GMT
Rotational kinetic energy storage has been a thing for awhile now. Compulsators and Flywheels may add interesting gyroscopic complications to a craft, but these are minor at most. The biggest issue, though, is mass; storing a few gigajoules of energy might take more mass than a reactor and radiator setup.
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Post by bigbombr on Jan 7, 2017 19:10:16 GMT
Rotational kinetic energy storage has been a thing for awhile now. Compulsators and Flywheels may add interesting gyroscopic complications to a craft, but these are minor at most. The biggest issue, though, is mass; storing a few gigajoules of energy might take more mass than a reactor and radiator setup. True, but IRL reactors take quite a while too throttle up or down, so I expect that this will be the same in-game at some point in the future.
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Post by n2maniac on Jan 8, 2017 4:23:38 GMT
Ingame UHMWPE (apparently the best option for this by weight ingame) will theoretically store about 2MJ/kg at its yield strength (someone PLEASE sanity check me on that) in a flywheel (notably about 550 Wh/kg). Balance of plant will cut into this, but it can certainly store energy. Possible uses? Power source: good ingame fission reactors are on the order of 40kW/kg (ignoring radiators) (example at 38 kW/kg). Ignoring converter mass and losses, the flywheel may be a mass-effective solution for a load needing 50s or less power-on time if the power conversion is sufficiently lightweight. This gets worse if cost is the constrain (180c/kg UHMWPE vs ~36c/kg reactor). They would also present an interesting explosion hazard. One-time energy source: Octogen sits a fair bit higher at 5.71 MJ/kg. Not sure which you would consider to be more stable (bearing failure vs stray embers) or effective (detonation vs kinetic fragments everywhere). That being said, chemical rocket fuel mixtures sit above both of these (exhaust velocity of 4km/s is 8MJ/kg). Payload: Maybe there is something to having 2MJ/kg of energy trying to disassemble your kinetic penetrator as it hits? I can't see it. Flinging things: flywheel speed calculates to 2km/s, not terribly exciting. Tethered co-rotating ships: not sure the dev is interested in doing that sort of thing, as amusing as it would be to watch erroneous targeting from the constant velocity changes in each entity. *shrug*
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Post by bigbombr on Jan 8, 2017 8:09:01 GMT
Ingame UHMWPE (apparently the best option for this by weight ingame) will theoretically store about 2MJ/kg at its yield strength (someone PLEASE sanity check me on that) in a flywheel (notably about 550 Wh/kg). Balance of plant will cut into this, but it can certainly store energy. Possible uses? Power source: good ingame fission reactors are on the order of 40kW/kg (ignoring radiators) (example at 38 kW/kg). Ignoring converter mass and losses, the flywheel may be a mass-effective solution for a load needing 50s or less power-on time if the power conversion is sufficiently lightweight. This gets worse if cost is the constrain (180c/kg UHMWPE vs ~36c/kg reactor). They would also present an interesting explosion hazard. One-time energy source: Octogen sits a fair bit higher at 5.71 MJ/kg. Not sure which you would consider to be more stable (bearing failure vs stray embers) or effective (detonation vs kinetic fragments everywhere). That being said, chemical rocket fuel mixtures sit above both of these (exhaust velocity of 4km/s is 8MJ/kg). Payload: Maybe there is something to having 2MJ/kg of energy trying to disassemble your kinetic penetrator as it hits? I can't see it. Flinging things: flywheel speed calculates to 2km/s, not terribly exciting. Tethered co-rotating ships: not sure the dev is interested in doing that sort of thing, as amusing as it would be to watch erroneous targeting from the constant velocity changes in each entity. *shrug* On the atomic rockets website, they propose a rocket-powered turbine to briefly power lasers. Either way, all of the above certainly would diversify our options and might lead to some unexpected results after some experiments. It would be nice if this would be added.
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