|
Post by ash19256 on Jan 1, 2017 1:47:24 GMT
I definitely think that one thing that is important for figuring out whether or not we want to use a module is the outlet temperature for any coolant loops. That way we can decide whether or not the tradeoffs of a high output temperature vs. a low output temperature are worth it.
|
|
|
Post by ash19256 on Dec 22, 2016 5:08:46 GMT
Right, tessfield and apophys , hold on to your butts. Here comes a whole bunch of reactors that apophys designed which I optimised to the best of my ability, including a 40.2 GW design that is a major upgrade for basically any boat using his older Tungsten-Tantalum thermocouple equipped 40 GW reactor, mostly due to the savings of almost 50 Mc in terms of cost and almost 19 kt in terms of weight. If apophys wants me to change the name of any of these reactors, I will be happy to do so. He has clearly demonstrated that he is better at the reactor optimization game than me.
|
|
|
Post by ash19256 on Dec 19, 2016 15:00:04 GMT
I don't really know, to be honest. That being said, I do kind of want tessfield to update the original post with at least the 70 kW reactor I designed, and perhaps the Snickers Mk II reactor, which I upgraded via the use of a Tungsten-Osmium thermocouple and modifications to it's cooling system.
|
|
|
Post by ash19256 on Dec 19, 2016 2:57:43 GMT
I've modified the reactor design randomletters posted to create this, which is a somewhat heavier, significantly cheaper, more powerful alternative design with a reduced form factor. I'll keep tinkering with it and see if I can get anything better out of these, but I think I've hit a performance cap where any further attempts are going to be met with failure. Part 2 of the Reactor
|
|
|
Post by ash19256 on Dec 19, 2016 2:10:19 GMT
I think you're SOL for a 10GW reactor with that sort of form factor, but if you don't mind your ship being 90 meters longer these could be an option. Why are you using Tantalum in your thermocouple? It's pretty much strictly worse in terms of performance to Osmium. Also, have the standard reactors been redesigned for Tungsten-Osmium thermocouples yet, or has someone created versions using T-O thermocouples? Because I kind of want to see how much optimization we can get out of this one change, and I suck too much at reactor design for that. On a related topic, I have devised an upgrade to the Snickers reactor, and a new 70 kW reactor for more power hungry gun drones, or light railgun drones.
|
|
|
Post by ash19256 on Dec 16, 2016 5:07:20 GMT
I realized I had an extra 2 Watts of unused heat space on my minimum size lithium radiator so I upped the fuel enrichment a bit and that shaved a fraction of a gram (enough to round down the final assembly with radiator). So I thought I would post the updated 13.9W version. It did raise the total cost rounding up by 0.1c though from the extra 233-dioxide. Reactor: With Radiator: Question, what would this even be used for? 13.9 W isn't enough to power any of the guns I know of, much less anything more power intensive.
|
|
|
Post by ash19256 on Dec 14, 2016 18:08:16 GMT
Have you tried building ships with your reactors? I suspect not.... ...Conclusion: I don't know how to say this in a nice way, so I'm going to tell you straight - your reactors are not even mediocre, they're awful. When the stock reactors are plain better than your designs, you know you're doing it wrong. Use 5+ Apophys 25GW if you need a fuckload of power. Much more efficient, power/weight/cost wise. And that's not even counting the saved radiator cost/mass. If you want to be a hipster and can't use apophys designs, my Maxima series of reactors have received the Apophys Seal of ApprovalMy only intention with these two reactors was to make ones with lower mass, lower cost, and more power output than the one apophys posted back on page 16 of this thread. The reactor in that post has the following power, mass, and cost. Power: 40.1 GW, Mass: 75.0 kt, Cost: 207 Mc. Let's compare it to the reactors I posted above. Power: 52.9 GW, Mass: 5.44 kt, Cost: 25.2 Mc Power: 70.9 GW, Mass: 60.5 kt, Cost: 169 Mc As such I achieved the limited goals I was aiming for. Still thank you for taking the time to do a critical analysis. Did you include the increased mass in radiators (assuming the use of minimum weight Amorphous Carbon radiators) that comes from dropping the outlet temperature to 1000 Kelvin from the 2400+ Kelvin that is so common in everyone else's reactors? Because if you didn't, you should check and see if the decreased radiator efficiency of your designs makes them ultimately less effective than the reactor apophys created in terms of weight and cost.
|
|
|
Post by ash19256 on Dec 12, 2016 20:41:51 GMT
We see a lot of these recently, are they useable for actual space propulsion? I could see this as a way to potentially pack higher density fuels into rockets in this game. Or for that matter solid fuel rockets. If we can toggle whether or not to use gimbal, then we are already able to make unguided rockets. Allowing us to use solid fuel would be a great way of maximizing the potential cost savings. While we are at it, hypergolic bipropellant rockets would be nice, if you want something cheaper than fluorine hydrogen or fluorine methane but with better performance than nitromethane.
|
|
|
Post by ash19256 on Dec 12, 2016 1:24:21 GMT
... and nobody comments on the guy trying to use the stuff in a thermoelectric reactor. Unfortunately, it's not an option. I checked. Darn.
|
|
|
Post by ash19256 on Dec 7, 2016 6:03:58 GMT
I tried straight depleted uranium dioxide, doesn't work very well as a moderator material... it's much cheaper, too. Well, for what ever reason, U-233 Dioxide works pretty well as both a fuel and a control rod material for high-density/low size reactors. I've seen it used in a rather neat 1.33 kW micro reactor that was smaller than a Snickers bar.
|
|
|
Post by ash19256 on Dec 6, 2016 23:46:39 GMT
You used 15kg of boron nitride for the control rod. Use 15kg of U-233 dioxide instead, as per the instructions. It's much denser, so it fits. That's... Ludicrous. "Now, for our reactor's safety mechanism... MORE FISSILES! YAY!" I believe that U-233 Dioxide, in any composition slot that doesn't let you choose enrichment, is automatically minimally enriched, so most of that is actually going to be depleted uranium dioxide, which IIRC can't be realistically used as a reactor fuel IRL because it takes too much energy to make it fission.
|
|
|
Post by ash19256 on Dec 6, 2016 23:06:00 GMT
BEHOLD MORTALS
THE GREAT EYE
SAURON SEES ALL!!!
or what it looks like when one or my forward mounted laser boats was hit by my strongest nuclear boosted fragmentation missile that thing went through 20cm of turret armour and 2m of hull armour like butter
... Can we get a copy of that missile/warhead?
|
|
|
Post by ash19256 on Dec 3, 2016 22:39:46 GMT
Okay, can someone who has actually done it recreate cubit's 8MW laser design? We don't get to see enough of the actually important things about the laser to figure out how to recreate it in our games.
|
|
|
Post by ash19256 on Dec 3, 2016 6:07:38 GMT
I am building a ship that is 300m+ long and I forgot to put the crew modules next to the center of mass. I then attempted to reorient the ship. The crew was unhappy, and then died. I kept getting that result with an upgraded Gunship design. It's not very optimized even in it's current configuration, what with the guns scattered all over the ship, the radiators being duplicated radially (ie. pairs where one of them is on one side, and the other is on the other side), etc. What kept happening was that when the ship turned, the crew modules at the front of the ship in the citadel (I was trying out a variation on stuffed whipple shield all or nothing armor at this point) kept experiencing so many g's the crew died. I eventually said, Fuck it, and moved the crew module down to the center of mass, along with using a custom crew module. I wasn't using a 300+ meter long ship, but I had something on the order of 1.7 some-odd g's of acceleration because lol 125 MN Methane NTRs.
|
|
|
Post by ash19256 on Dec 2, 2016 14:05:00 GMT
... and nobody comments on the guy trying to use the stuff in a thermoelectric reactor.
|
|