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Post by Easy on Nov 16, 2016 13:59:28 GMT
Aerogel. The low density particulate shield that stops lasers and nuclear flashes is called aerogel.
It might not have an on/off switch or regenerative ability, but you also don't have to worry about turning it on or off.
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Post by Easy on Nov 15, 2016 22:24:05 GMT
It's not really viable vs single targets at 4Mc per missile but these things are called "anti fleet" for a reason. Wether you have 10 ships or 100 doesn't much matter if a couple of these get close enough. Have you used these weapons against ships armored and armed by of your own design? The aluminum Whipple on stock ships doesn't handle nukes so well. The major armor bit I haven't figured out is protecting those thruster bells from a nuke that explodes from behind. I suppose turning more nose-on would help some.
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Post by Easy on Nov 15, 2016 21:55:26 GMT
With the fast firing weapons we're going to get noises just from the cyclic rate. onlinetonegenerator.com/I think Sawtooth is a good approximation for modeling a single loud noise in each cycle. But whatever noises it takes to cycle the weapon once, that noise might repeat multiple times a second. For lasers and engines there will be noise of turbopumps, transformers and other noisy equipment. And of course the familiar rumble of rockets. Don't forget the noise of the air circulation, heat pumps and whine of capacitors. Of course this mostly applies to what sounds are able to travel through the ship's hull and components to the crew compartment. A high pitch vibration might not be able to travel the distance.
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Post by Easy on Nov 15, 2016 21:20:06 GMT
Being stuck on a spacecraft for years is certainly a hardship.
But if you're being sent into suicidal missions, you might want to reconsider your allegiance. For one, I can see single use starship crews having questionable morale. Second it is difficult to maintain high skill proficiency or experience if this is the crew's first and last cruise. Also I can see it getting expensive if you aren't reusing resources.
This game doesn't penalize you for launching all drones, missiles and ammo bins in each scenario. The real answer would depend on the ability to resupply before the next engagement.
DON'T JOIN THE SPACE NAVY OF SUICIDAL LOSERS
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Post by Easy on Nov 15, 2016 21:07:50 GMT
Defense in layers. Prevention is less mass than cure. - Missile/Drone interception
- Delta V superiority
- Laser/Kinetic CIWS
- Decoys
In regards to armor, I don't worry about direct impacts or near enough to direct, you're dead. But Aerogel has a nice property of vaporizing in thin layers and not transferring that heat to lower layers. The alternative would be to use high temperature radiator materials to reflect, transport and emit the energy.
Even with the physics correction to Aerogel, it is an amazing material. Its mass efficiency alone is a reason to use it in spacecraft.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp9Yax8UNoM www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8OhJKR3AA4
I know some users use meters thick metal armor. I use low density brittle bulk armor covered by a single aerogel coated metal or ceramic Whipple shield. Aerogel protects the Whipple from nukes and lasers. Whipple turns small kinetics into plasma as it should. The bulk armor is brittle but thick, which works great as long as the projectile doesn't penetrate.
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Post by Easy on Nov 6, 2016 16:16:47 GMT
This is particularly painful on, say, doom lasers with a 4m radius aperature (the type that wreaks most things at 250km range). True, but remember that its okay to ignore the advisory that your turret rotates slower than 20deg/s.
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Post by Easy on Nov 3, 2016 16:30:58 GMT
I am not convinced that you could remain pin point accurate at 250km. You'd be wrong. The hubble space telescope has a precision of 0.007 arcsec. This means that at 250km, the telescope will not wander more than 0.025mm from it's aiming point. That is smaller than the diameter of a human hair. The game chooses to have all turrets rotated with momentum wheels. This has drawbacks in making large turrets really expensive to turn, with most of the weight of the turret in the reaction wheels. However, reaction wheel systems can truly be crazy stable and precise. The HST doesn't rapidly aim at maneuvering targets in real time from a wobbly, accelerating platform. Also the HST uses long exposure times on a single target.
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Post by Easy on Nov 3, 2016 16:00:42 GMT
Power requirements are not an issue due to wonderfully efficient reactors. When you can build a fleet for 100 Mc that collectively pumps 54 GW of power into superlasers ( link), you cannot simply dismiss its lethality. You'll need quite thick silica aerogel on everything to close the range, and radiators can be sniped regardless. Missiles are less of a concern now that timed flak has been created. ( link) Output power for your superlasers is 44MW per GW. You only have 2.4GW of actual laser leaving your ship. Beam quality M 2 is 3.0. Energy density is 7070MW/m 2 at 100km, 1780MW/m 2 at 200km and continues to drop off. Wavelength 532nm This superlaser has limited range. 44MW / 7070MW/m 2 = 0.006m 2 at 100km 44MW / 1780MW/m 2 = 0.025m 2 at 200km childrenofadeadearth.wordpress.com/2016/07/02/the-photon-lance/You might be able to scratch at thousands of kilometers, but you're paying a price. And for what? to increase engagement range only tenfold? You could fire ballistics just as far, only dispersion means you're doing the same amount of nothing.
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Post by Easy on Nov 3, 2016 14:43:49 GMT
Hmmm. In general, do you guys prefer to design multi-purpose big ship or several single-purpose small ships? I'm basically designing some multi-purpose warship by shoving in as much stuff I could think of in them. I favor purpose-built ships. Multi-role is possible but you suffer in delta V and acceleration. Right now my current multi-role warship is a medium-small cone with 5km/s and a good mix of lasers and kinetics opposite the ventral radiators. Its primary purpose is to shoot down drones and kill wounded capital ships. It is only multi-role in that I have it carry laser resistant nuclear missiles which are used to nullify drones, missiles and harass capital ships. If you ever need more missiles or drones, just create a cheap little ship with 2km/s delta V or less, no armor worth mentioning and the drone/missile launchers you need.
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Post by Easy on Nov 3, 2016 14:33:15 GMT
Is it verified if the reaction wheels are uniform cylinders or a rim-weighted shape? I like your idea and suggest adding sliders for: - Outer Diameter
- Inner Diameter (where the wheel becomes thinner)(can be percentage)
- Outer Thickness
- Inner Thickness (can be percentage)
Of course we can run into issues where the wheel doesn't have the strength to rotate off-axis and will destroy itself, but it can be mitigated by simply increasing the inner thickness. Lets ignore multi-material reaction wheels for now.
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Post by Easy on Nov 3, 2016 14:19:10 GMT
You're governed by two features. Cooldown time and reload time.
The heat limits for your barrel is the barrel's max operating temperature and its equivalent radiance as a cylinder sticking out of your ship. The game lets the barrels get very hot.
Reload time is simply how much power you put into the linear accelerator with some material limits. Lower the linear accelerator power for a slower firing gun. The fastest you can fire is your cooldown time.
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Post by Easy on Nov 3, 2016 14:11:05 GMT
Everyone here is overestimating laser lethality.
The high temperature radiators will only lose some efficiency, aerogel armor doesn't care about lasers and you could still make a moly coated silicon carbide heat dissipation armor layer.
Remember that radiators increase efficiency as they get hotter, so if the ship can take the heat, you're getting ridiculous power requirements for your strategic weapon.
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