|
Post by AdmiralObvious on Apr 3, 2017 16:40:35 GMT
Here's my attempt at this so far. I realize it's a bit late. I tried to make it a point of keeping in a similar vein to the stock Stinger, since there must be a reason it's like it was. A bit (lot, depending on who asks) less DeltaV, but half the price for the same weight, and a gun, which while smaller fires about triple the burst mass over a second, unless it overheats. Also, the gun is on a turret, and has quite a lot more acceleration to add power into the shots.
|
|
|
Post by Enderminion on Apr 3, 2017 16:54:18 GMT
|
|
|
Post by morrigi on Jun 10, 2017 22:33:00 GMT
Speaking of late, here's a railgun drone. The railgun isn't anything special since it's only got 2MW to work with, but it's got nearly 10km/s muzzle velocity and a turret, and wrecks Stingers with sustained fire.
|
|
|
Post by AtomHeartDragon on Feb 13, 2018 13:14:51 GMT
I hereby present Firestorm and Dragonclaw: Both are similar to Stinger, with substantial part commonality, similar dimensions, capability to reuse existing fuel supply chain and ability to handle all the mission profiles available to Stingers, but around twice the available cannon firepower and additional blast launched payload weapon systems (tuned to match cannons' characteristics) for heavy, decapitating anti-capital strikes. Firestorm's payload is a complex, multi-part weapon combining a number of different kinetic weapons and a miniature nuclear charge and is best suited for completely obliterating resilient targets (unless the target is significantly better armoured than stock gunship there is really no point targetting subsystems because this increases the odds of some portion of enemy vessel remaining serviceable afterwards). Dragonclaw uses large number of single function kinetic payloads and is better suited for precise surgical strikes (like cutting off offending vessel aft section housing engines and power generation - at least I think that's what "surgery" means) or when you don't want to spam clusters of nukes (for example for political reasons). Basically, two variants consisting of Stinger's original propulsion stack, duplicated Stinger powerplant, doubly redundant remote control and two slightly modified Stinger's cannons (improved accuracy, exit velocity, heavier projectile and separate ammo bin), with lightened, somewhat showoff shell of armour stuck on top of it. It's somewhat lighter, cheaper, shootier, has better delta v, is less liable to be sent into a deathspin when its gun gets lasered off, less liable to be cored and... a flight of five should be fully capable of penetrating stock Gunship's laser screen, closing into firing range (no need to ignore range and you don't want to waste payloads) and literally cutting it into ribbons (single drone's payload should be sufficient for that, but a single drone is likely to get lasered to death before getting close), which is something you can't do with similar number of Stingers. Most of the flight are likely to be reusable afterwards too, even though some only as impromptu KKVs (at least without extensive repairs). Disclosure:This started as a simple excuse to stick my payload based (originally cannon fired) weapon system on a Stinger and evolved into improving survivability a bit by removing obvious points of failure - my heart isn't really into drones (presumably because many are chemically propelled). I also suck at armour design, and admit to have gone polygonal for purely cosmetic reasons here (usually I at least have the legitimate excuse of it being needed for roll thrusters), although it might make shooting the nozzle off a bit trickier. Credit also goes to the authors of 94.9t Mini-Nuke (Nitrogylcerin-Nitrocellulose) - although I *can* easily adapt to something less compact, and Space Sword KKDRM ( samchiu2000) - which provided working principle behind primary kinetic weapon used by Dragonclaw drone and used as late, but very worthwhile addition to Dragon's Breath payload used by Firestorm. Disclaimer:Names, tracer colours and armour configurations presented are liable to change without prior notice.
|
|
|
Post by AtomHeartDragon on Feb 13, 2018 13:23:38 GMT
Payload details for the above (works really well when fired high ROF out of conventional cannon as well):
|
|
|
Post by dragonkid11 on Feb 14, 2018 6:29:23 GMT
Huh, firing folded radiator projectile.
...I think i can get some ideas out of that because that actually interesting.
Overall, quite a good design without going too ridiculous in OPness.
|
|
|
Post by AtomHeartDragon on Feb 14, 2018 9:43:39 GMT
Huh, firing folded radiator projectile. ...I think i can get some ideas out of that because that actually interesting. Overall, quite a good design without going too ridiculous in OPness. Not my own idea sadly. I took it from a KKV using small, dummy RTG and four long (about twice as long as mine), thin osmium radiators as main means of dealing damage. My own work originally started as a quest to find a way to reliably inject nukes into ships - a heavy projectile dropping a nuke behind just before impact. Since I couldn't get it to work (blast launch, no matter how gentle, tended to throw the nuke's trajectory off enough to not let it follow) I started experimenting with compound nuke/rod/flak projectiles that fired thin rods into the target, dropped nuke/flak behind and detonated flak/nuke in projectile's body (the effect is quite similar no matter which you drop behind). This turned out to be surprisingly effective - can't determine if it's because of cycles of flashing, penetration and flak blasting making short work of armour, nukes shining down the holes, or even rare lucky nuke actually detonating inside, but it already tended to leave empty, incandescent hulls with some punctures and whipples flashed off. Folded radiator projectile was added later to maximize the area of hull damage after attempting to penetrate it with rods and really made the added mass worth it. Now it leaves incandescent, de-whippled, empty hulls that are also cut to ribbons - for when you absolutely, positively need something dead. Afterwards it turned out that just the folded rod itself also makes for an excellent, cannon- or blast-launched munition and can be more useful when you want a lighter solution or don't actually want to kill everyone and destroy everything on the target ship. The drone itself is just a better Stinger (thinner armour but better everything and handles lasing somewhat more gracefully) with some extra blast launcher(s) bolted on the front - I try to stick to vanilla power generation because it's more fun than throwing gigawatts at the problem until it vaporizes, plus some aspects of reactor mechanics are somewhat sketchy (subcritical fuel without reflector actually doing anything?). I once put two reactors (0.5 or 1GW each, I don't remember) I found on the workshop that happened to match both length and required radiator area in place of my five 60MW vanilla ones on my heaviest ship but it quickly lost sense to me - maybe if I wanted to terraform Ganymede I could put a bunch of such ships in orbit around it to melt the ice with radiated heat? Also, thanks. BTW: What is a good standardized measuring stick to pit your ships against? I'm using gunship, but obviously you can do better than that - except without making it clear to others what are you talking about. I also suck at armour.
|
|
|
Post by apophys on Feb 14, 2018 16:18:57 GMT
BTW: What is a good standardized measuring stick to pit your ships against? I'm using gunship, but obviously you can do better than that - except without making it clear to others what are you talking about. I also suck at armour. My Deep Fryer is being used as a standard testing laserstar. Examples: [1] [2] [3]It was made for, and won, last summer's 5 Mc tournament: childrenofadeadearth.boards.net/post/26597/threadImage of stats: Code: AE 2GW Deep Fryer.txt (7.51 KB)
|
|
|
Post by AtomHeartDragon on Feb 18, 2018 12:23:17 GMT
BTW: What is a good standardized measuring stick to pit your ships against? I'm using gunship, but obviously you can do better than that - except without making it clear to others what are you talking about. I also suck at armour. My Deep Fryer is being used as a standard testing laserstar. Examples: [1] [2] [3]It was made for, and won, last summer's 5 Mc tournament: childrenofadeadearth.boards.net/post/26597/threadImage of stats: Code: Ok, this thing is scary. It may not seem like *that* much, but when you realize just how many you can field with this kind of mass and cost - and have them all blazing - it becomes downright terrifying. And it doesn't even come with particularly objectionable material use (other than ablative radshields and MPD electrode material - I don't think it would be up to task, but MPDs are tiny and whatever could be done to make them work wouldn't change the ship that much... ok the reactors look unrealistic as well).
|
|
|
Post by AtomHeartDragon on Feb 18, 2018 19:55:42 GMT
|
|