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Post by subunit on Nov 1, 2016 20:19:38 GMT
The large size of the 'precise intercept' I've found is a huge reason why people have trouble intercepting with missiles, since the volume size does not really guarantee an intercept if you are approaching too fast. In the next update, I intend to shrink down the size heavily. It will make it much harder to get a 'precise intercept', but hopefully it will assist with the missile intercept issue. The current large "precise intercept" volume is useful for capital ship fights. I.e. you have a 250Km range doom-laser ship/drone that works best with flybys at long range. Can we get an "estimated distance at closest approach" number floating near the icon instead? That way you can adjust the number to zero for kinetic kill missiles, or set it to 100-200Km for long range ships. "Distance at closest approach" would be hugely useful.
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Post by subunit on Nov 1, 2016 19:19:13 GMT
Now I'm confused- oxidizer is not propellant, is it? If so, then why describe "monopropellants" at all, since they're unusable? Ah rocket terminology. In a chemical rocket you have reaction mass which is the stuff that is thrown out the back and then you have fuel. For chemical rockets they are the same thing. Nuclear rockets the nuclear rods are the fuel that heat up and expel the reaction mass which can be pretty much anything. Bipropellant engines almost always has an oxidizer and something else. They are mixed together in an oxidation reaction releasing lots of energy and throws the products of the reaction out of the rocket nozzle at fairly decent velocities. One thing I am not sure I have the totally correct names for the things but I definitely described them correctly Yeah, sorry, it sometimes takes me a couple of people telling me similar things in different ways to understand Is anything like this simulated in-game? I haven't got to rocket design yet so I don't really know how deep the propellant simulation is.
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Post by subunit on Nov 1, 2016 18:46:52 GMT
Essentially, fun with electronegatives. Monopropellant reactions generally work by taking an unstable molecule, like hydrogen peroxide, and decomposing it into its more stable components (oxygen and water, in this case). The change in energy of decomposition reactions is generally fairly small, because you're taking a molecule that has already formed bonds and breaking it into some slightly more stable molecules. Most bipropellant fuels are oxygen plus another reactant, though some of the more energetic ones use fluorine as an oxidizer. Oxygen and fluorine are both very electronegative, which means they like to steal electrons from other atoms to form bonds. So if you can find them something that has a weak hold on its electrons, like hydrogen, they can react to form very stable molecules (like water) and release a ton of energy in the process. Because they can only release energy by forming those bonds, the energy is all locked up unless you mix both propellants together. So why don't you have both propellants already mixed in the same tank? Well, oxygen and fluorine REALLY like stealing electrons, especially fluorine. And your reactant will have a really weak hold on its electrons, you picked it like that to get lots of energy. Which means that as soon as they mix, they're likely to start reacting whether you want them to or not. So you have to keep them separated, and only mix the amount that you want to be exploding at the moment. Ah, gotcha. I think I was thinking that bipropellants are decomposed in the same way as monopropellants. Thanks! e: it occurs to me that the RR entry I'm referring to would be more easily comprehensible if it simply mentioned that monopropellant reactions are generally lower-energy decomposition reactions and bipropellant reactions are normally higher-energy oxidations rather than indicating that the chemical energy of the propellants themselves differ
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Post by subunit on Nov 1, 2016 18:44:09 GMT
In the bipropellant recommended reading entry, it states that bipropellant chemical mixes are superior to monopropellants because one can get more chemical energy out of a bipropellant than a monopropellant. I found this confusing. I don't really know anything about inorganic chemistry or rocket propellants, but my understanding is that generally reaction energies are dependent on bond strengths between atoms in the fuel molecules. Since a bipropellant mix necessarily contains dissimilar molecules, naively reasoning about this seems to indicate that a monopropellant tank of the higher-energy bipropellant component would have more potential chemical energy than the bipropellant mix itself. Can someone tell me what I'm missing here? It is the chemical reaction between the two propellants that release the energy. Such as oxidation and fire. Or all explosives when they are detonated undergo a very exothermic and high energy reaction with the oxidiser. Normal that is the oxygen in the atmosphere. Same thing with combustion engines and jets. In space you do not have any oxygen so you bring an oxidizer along. Therefore giving you bipropellant. A fuel and oxidiser. Which is the primary reaction that powers the world these days. I don't have the chemical equation but that is my best shot at explaining why it works without going into the chemistry. Now I'm confused- oxidizer is not propellant, is it? If so, then why describe "monopropellants" at all, since they're unusable?
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Post by subunit on Nov 1, 2016 18:02:21 GMT
In the bipropellant recommended reading entry, it states that bipropellant chemical mixes are superior to monopropellants because one can get more chemical energy out of a bipropellant than a monopropellant. I found this confusing. I don't really know anything about inorganic chemistry or rocket propellants, but my understanding is that generally reaction energies are dependent on bond strengths between atoms in the fuel molecules. Since a bipropellant mix necessarily contains dissimilar molecules, naively reasoning about this seems to indicate that a monopropellant tank of the higher-energy bipropellant component would have more potential chemical energy than the bipropellant mix itself. Can someone tell me what I'm missing here?
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Post by subunit on Nov 1, 2016 17:51:04 GMT
I would kill for a "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" mod. One faction is more or less a standard CoaDE navy (Earth) and the others are a bunch of subsurface lunar colonists who are strongly limited by sensor data (must minimize time of manned sensor teams on the lunar surface during the lunar day), weapons (mostly unguided, but devastatingly huge, cargo-railgun-slung pallets of rocks), etc.
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