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Post by Enderminion on Feb 16, 2017 11:58:39 GMT
CDE was sesigned to be the most scientific space combat game out there, it just so happens lasers are kilometers better then everything else for direct action (two or more capital ships slugging it out) but everything loses out to drones and missiles be fired from the enemy ships. If you believe there is a secret code deltav it is also no secret that Coilguns are way better at launching fast payload then cannons or railguns (when I say payload I mean big payload)
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Post by darkwarriorj on Feb 16, 2017 15:31:50 GMT
Based on rough math, would melting incoming rounds really be possible? I'm not putting anyone on the spot. I'm just putting the question out there for anyone who might know if it would really be mathematically possible to melt incoming coil rounds with a laser like seen in the video at 3:28? How strong would the laser have to be and how long would it have to focus on the point? As a rough, qualitative analysis, a laser with a given spot size will vaporize/cause material to be ejected from a position as large as its spot size. We see this when lasers strike armor, assuming our lasers are of sufficient intensity. Now, assuming one can actually point the beam up the incoming trail of bullets, and assuming similar intensities (so if the spot size is 1m at 1000km, let's keep it so), then one should be able to vaporize bullets at a rate equal to the rate one vaporizes armor - with a purely naive only front of bullet gets lased model, the amount of bullets getting lased is related to the cross sectional density of the bullet stream. In other words, if you can lase through a meter of armor, you can lase through a meter of bullet. This does not bode too well for our disk-penny bullets... The big question here is aim. Can you aim up the bullet stream? Should one even aim up the bullet stream? I mean, rather than aiming up a particular stream of bullets it may be smarter to laser out a certain corridor that your ship intend to travel through instead. As for the effects of gaseous bullets, as yet another rough qualitative model, I submit that they become utterly and completely ineffective. Consider our rocket engines - are the gases from these rocket engines effective weapons even at a kilometer out? The problem with gaseous/vaporized bullets as an effective weapon of war is that they spread out, really really fast, so for the same reasons a rocket engine fails to be an effective weapon except at point blank, so too would vaporized bullets cease to be effective weapons.
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Post by The Astronomer on Feb 16, 2017 16:00:23 GMT
As soon as the coilgun reaches unreasonable speed, it's going to have really terrible firing rate.
If I have to choose between railguns or coilguns, I choose needle railguns.
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Post by newageofpower on Feb 16, 2017 16:19:38 GMT
As a rough, qualitative analysis, a laser with a given spot size will vaporize/cause material to be ejected from a position as large as its spot size. We see this when lasers strike armor, assuming our lasers are of sufficient intensity. Now, assuming one can actually point the beam up the incoming trail of bullets, and assuming similar intensities (so if the spot size is 1m at 1000km, let's keep it so), then one should be able to vaporize bullets at a rate equal to the rate one vaporizes armor - with a purely naive only front of bullet gets lased model, the amount of bullets getting lased is related to the cross sectional density of the bullet stream. In other words, if you can lase through a meter of armor, you can lase through a meter of bullet. This does not bode too well for our disk-penny bullets... The big question here is aim. Can you aim up the bullet stream? Should one even aim up the bullet stream? I mean, rather than aiming up a particular stream of bullets it may be smarter to laser out a certain corridor that your ship intend to travel through instead. As for the effects of gaseous bullets, as yet another rough qualitative model, I submit that they become utterly and completely ineffective. Consider our rocket engines - are the gases from these rocket engines effective weapons even at a kilometer out? The problem with gaseous/vaporized bullets as an effective weapon of war is that they spread out, really really fast, so for the same reasons a rocket engine fails to be an effective weapon except at point blank, so too would vaporized bullets cease to be effective weapons. Comparing 5km/s exhaust (that's already beimg dispersed at the nozzle) to 100-200km/s projectiles is a fallacy. I suppose it depends on how far 'upstream' the bullet has been lased; even a hypothetical 1000km/s bullet would become useless if lased at a sufficient range and with sufficient energy.
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Post by caiaphas on Feb 16, 2017 16:38:27 GMT
As a rough, qualitative analysis, a laser with a given spot size will vaporize/cause material to be ejected from a position as large as its spot size. We see this when lasers strike armor, assuming our lasers are of sufficient intensity. Now, assuming one can actually point the beam up the incoming trail of bullets, and assuming similar intensities (so if the spot size is 1m at 1000km, let's keep it so), then one should be able to vaporize bullets at a rate equal to the rate one vaporizes armor - with a purely naive only front of bullet gets lased model, the amount of bullets getting lased is related to the cross sectional density of the bullet stream. In other words, if you can lase through a meter of armor, you can lase through a meter of bullet. This does not bode too well for our disk-penny bullets... The big question here is aim. Can you aim up the bullet stream? Should one even aim up the bullet stream? I mean, rather than aiming up a particular stream of bullets it may be smarter to laser out a certain corridor that your ship intend to travel through instead. As for the effects of gaseous bullets, as yet another rough qualitative model, I submit that they become utterly and completely ineffective. Consider our rocket engines - are the gases from these rocket engines effective weapons even at a kilometer out? The problem with gaseous/vaporized bullets as an effective weapon of war is that they spread out, really really fast, so for the same reasons a rocket engine fails to be an effective weapon except at point blank, so too would vaporized bullets cease to be effective weapons. Comparing 5km/s exhaust (that's already beimg dispersed at the nozzle) to 100-200km/s projectiles is a fallacy. I suppose it depends on how far 'upstream' the bullet has been lased; even a hypothetical 1000km/s bullet would become useless if lased at a sufficient range and with sufficient energy. I figure that also depends on what temperature the laser heats the projectile to; you can figure out the Vrms after that and assume it expands in a rough sphere after that.
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Post by darkwarriorj on Feb 16, 2017 16:53:10 GMT
Comparing 5km/s exhaust (that's already beimg dispersed at the nozzle) to 100-200km/s projectiles is a fallacy. I suppose it depends on how far 'upstream' the bullet has been lased; even a hypothetical 1000km/s bullet would become useless if lased at a sufficient range and with sufficient energy. I figure that also depends on what temperature the laser heats the projectile to; you can figure out the Vrms after that and assume it expands in a rough sphere after that. This. Quickly and utterly ineffective may have been hyperbole on my part; actually applying the gas expansion laws with various assumptions should quickly reveal how much hyperbole that was. Anyone know the laws and can do a rough calc? I had another thought about this. Even if sufficiently duspersed, 100-200km/s is in the solar wind range, if not more, Might there be some resulting radiation/emp effects if a diffuse partle cloud hits a ship at those speeds?
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Post by caiaphas on Feb 16, 2017 17:03:01 GMT
I figure that also depends on what temperature the laser heats the projectile to; you can figure out the Vrms after that and assume it expands in a rough sphere after that. This. Quickly and utterly ineffective may have been hyperbole on my part; actually applying the gas expansion laws with various assumptions should quickly reveal how much hyperbole that was. Anyone know the laws and can do a rough calc? I had another thought about this. Even if sufficiently duspersed, 100-200km/s is in the solar wind range, if not more, Might there be some resulting radiation/emp effects if a diffuse partle cloud hits a ship at those speeds? Probably not? I think? I mean, we're talking discrete particles here, not ions, you'd get thermal effects more than you would radiation.
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Post by deltav on Feb 17, 2017 19:15:52 GMT
Sexy Lasers.
Interesting use of our types of lasers in 2017.
10 10 kW lasers used to take out drones and cruise missiles...
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Post by leerooooooy on Feb 18, 2017 11:15:04 GMT
CDE was sesigned to be the most scientific space combat game out there, it just so happens lasers are kilometers better then everything else for direct action (two or more capital ships slugging it out) but everything loses out to drones and missiles be fired from the enemy ships. If you believe there is a secret code deltav it is also no secret that Coilguns are way better at launching fast payload then cannons or railguns (when I say payload I mean big payload) It also happens that the game is riddled with gigantic bugs that affect pretty much every single weapon kind available, so the results we have now are a result of chance more than science. Let's not even talk about AI issues that make kinetics a lot less effective than what they should be
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Post by Enderminion on Feb 18, 2017 16:22:32 GMT
Sexy Lasers. Interesting use of our types of lasers in 2017. 10 10 kW lasers used to take out drones and cruise missiles... The laser I use to start engaments at long range is more powerful, 10Kw's is not a lot by are standards
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Post by deltav on Feb 20, 2017 16:30:30 GMT
True our lasers are super powerful compared to anything real but, I keep reminding myself of the enormous amounts of power we are talking about here. Take one of our 10 GW laser ships, pretty standard I think. That ship alone would require more power to run it than Kiribati, an Island of over 100,000 people.
We are talking about huge amounts of power here.
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Post by Enderminion on Feb 20, 2017 19:21:48 GMT
My computer takes more energy then the city of london in 1799, there is no context deltav
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Post by deltav on Feb 20, 2017 20:08:39 GMT
My computer takes more energy then the city of london in 1799, there is no context deltav Fair enough context matters, we are talking about the future so power should be cheaper and more plentiful. Also it turns out turbine electric power plants (first commercially viable large scale electric power production), was not invented until the 1880s. Heck the battery (first commercially viable electricity producer/storage) wasn't even invented in 1799.
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Post by Enderminion on Feb 20, 2017 20:53:37 GMT
My computer takes more energy then the city of london in 1799, there is no context deltav Fair enough context matters, we are talking about the future so power should be cheaper and more plentiful. Also it turns out turbine electric power plants (first commercially viable large scale electric power production), was not invented until the 1880s. Heck the battery (first commercially viable electricity producer/storage) wasn't even invented in 1799. I mean like how much energy that Island uses, 100k people could use no power or all the power
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Post by fenrin49 on Mar 1, 2017 2:53:55 GMT
On lasers vaporizing projectiles I believe the idea is more to deflect incoming unguided rounds by vaporizing one side - which only needs a small amount of energy - granted with this technology it would also be possible to use beamed power to give projectiles a little bit of terminal guidance while still using a relatively simple monolithic slug - look up that lasers launch assist concept
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