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Post by midnightdreary on Jan 8, 2017 2:42:26 GMT
Big issue I have with all these tiny drones ... Where exactly does it have the sensors to locate and engage ships to it's front? Unless it plans on flipping to it's every time it wants to see again, it is literally all gun barrel forward facing ... Why does it even need it's own sensor? The capital ship can just send the updated data remotely to the missiles / drones? (unless there's a planet in the way or something). Although it would be very cool to have our own optic, radar, laser etc sensor modules to design. edit: bleh, several others beat me to these. lol. I need to read the rest of the responses before posting from now on.
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Post by midnightdreary on Jan 7, 2017 23:36:55 GMT
I think this drone is fairly cute. It sports a little 50kW railgun w/~1000 ammo and when these come out it looks like a cloud of angry wasps. (They're so cheap and light there's no reason every ship can't have a few escort drones. My actual hive ship has much more advanced drones.) "Oh, that's a nice intercept you have there. Here's a few hundred drones for warm up."
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Post by midnightdreary on Jan 7, 2017 23:01:22 GMT
I would like to test that some time. See what a 1g projectile going some %c hits a huge tank of water (among other interesting materials).
I see you point on breaking down the water, but that plasma ball / mini nuke would happen while still inside more water, which would boil and soak up much of that heat, then actually has to still pierce ship armor. Although the depressurization of the tank and water turning in to steam might spin the ship really fast and kill everyone anyway.
I hear ya on the hydrogen thing, but I'm not sure how someone could bring enough for it to really matter. Or deploy it ahead of time in a cloud in front of the projectile.
Or maybe go for reactive armor... a ship strapped with thousands of very low-yield nukes or NEFP designs. lol
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Post by midnightdreary on Jan 7, 2017 11:10:53 GMT
It wouldn't really pass through your ship though, I doubt it would survive impact with a sheet of paper at that relative velocity. It would be more like an explosion than the impacts we see from bullets on earth, pressure waves, sudden thermal changes and secondary effects would do most of the damage. I don't think anything known to us could make spaceships entirely safe from that kind of impact though. Theoretically the best defence against that kind of thing is having a thick atmosphere We need a hydrogen tank that spew enough gas to slow them down! Meh, I'd want something really thick and non-explodey, like water tanks strapped to the outside of the ship to take some of that energy away before it even hits the hull. Of course this would have no shortage of its own problems too, espically since there would probably be another zillion rounds coming at you right behind it. Maybe that's what we need in the game: Firing range mode where it's just your weapon, set a distance, then a sheet of armor (or whatever shape you want) at the other end and press the "fire" button. Would help standardize our testing too.
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Lasers
Dec 30, 2016 4:53:35 GMT
Post by midnightdreary on Dec 30, 2016 4:53:35 GMT
Does anyone have very cost effective designs for drone lasers (~100kw - 1 MW), point defense lasers (~10-100 MW), main battle lasers (~100-500 MW), and then mega death lasers (~500+ MW)? A lot of what I am seeing are just the most crazy and no-expense-spared designs, which are cool, but I find those sorts of designs impractical. If I can't afford to equip a fleet with something, then it's just a novelty. (Like building a multi million dollar infantry rifle that is the best rifle ever made... and then only able to equip one soldier with it.) I mean, I could completely understand a planet having an orbital defense laser that is truly insane, but not a fleet that is expected to move about in any reasonable fashion. Highly Affordable <snip> What? Too expensive for you? Need something that can track and hit a target at less than 10MM? Tired of overcorrecting Drone AI? <snip>
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Lasers
Dec 30, 2016 4:52:27 GMT
Post by midnightdreary on Dec 30, 2016 4:52:27 GMT
Does anyone have very cost effective designs for drone lasers (~100kw - 1 MW), point defense lasers (~10-100 MW), main battle lasers (~100-500 MW), and then mega death lasers (~500+ MW)? A lot of what I am seeing are just the most crazy and no-expense-spared designs, which are cool, but I find those sorts of designs impractical. If I can't afford to equip a fleet with something, then it's just a novelty. (Like building a multi million dollar infantry rifle that is the best rifle ever made... and then only able to equip one soldier with it.) I mean, I could completely understand a planet having an orbital defense laser that is truly insane, but not a fleet that is expected to move about in any reasonable fashion. Scaling for Laser is a bit tricky. You need decent Intensity to be effective. Opinions about best intensity vary a bit. But please have a look at this from a perspective where you consider Laser, Power Supply and Cooling. So lets look at our budget. 5x 2GW Laser | 8.55t | 0.15Mc | 1x 10GW Power Plant | 98.6t | 1.98Mc | Cooling for Power Plant | 83.7t | 1.76Mc | Cooling for Laser | 178t | 1.04Mc |
So we have a total of 369t and 4.93Mc for the entire system. The reactor allows fitting an auxiliary MPD drive because you need only power when you fire. That is a quite small and affordable system. You can even justify fitting it on a drone. The biggest parts are the radiators. Compared to them, the rest is tiny. The reactor is from apophys. Look at the standards thread. The radiators are not fully optimized, you can even cut down a little there. The laser is my current favourite. See below. The system is tested. You want to add armor on the laser but its dimensions are tiny, so shouldnt be a problem. Hmmm... I would really like to see an "Arena" style setting for user designs. From all that I have read it seems that mega lasers reign supreme, since we cant decently layer armor on weapons or have alternatives to articulate weapon systems (and also reduce surface area). I do appreciate the input though. I enjoy learning from the experience of others. I've already made some great progress in rail and coil designs because of community feedback.
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Lasers
Dec 29, 2016 6:41:15 GMT
Post by midnightdreary on Dec 29, 2016 6:41:15 GMT
Does anyone have very cost effective designs for drone lasers (~100kw - 1 MW), point defense lasers (~10-100 MW), main battle lasers (~100-500 MW), and then mega death lasers (~500+ MW)?
A lot of what I am seeing are just the most crazy and no-expense-spared designs, which are cool, but I find those sorts of designs impractical. If I can't afford to equip a fleet with something, then it's just a novelty. (Like building a multi million dollar infantry rifle that is the best rifle ever made... and then only able to equip one soldier with it.)
I mean, I could completely understand a planet having an orbital defense laser that is truly insane, but not a fleet that is expected to move about in any reasonable fashion.
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Post by midnightdreary on Dec 28, 2016 22:31:36 GMT
Has anyone considered a large cruise missile design to chase them down?
I know I've played with extreme range cruise missiles with 8-10km/s dv @ ~3g acceleration. Perhaps a KKV or nice nuke on the front and a few tiny drone launchers in the back of the missile (so they are protected during approach).
When on final intercept they have to choose between focusing the well-armored cruise missile and let the cheap and hard to hit drones strip their engines or other components or swat down the drones and risk a devastating impact from the main payload.
I mean, even if all we get is killing one mega-expensive super weapon, it's still a good trade, right?
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Post by midnightdreary on Dec 26, 2016 19:46:59 GMT
Looks like it's from just poor optimizations. VanChroSteel barrel, Lead reaction wheels, and a meter of boron. I could be wrong but an Aluminum Copper Lithium barrel, Magnesium wheels, with not a meter of boron would probably work out a little better, if sacrificing a minor amount of velocity and turn speed. Does an extremely long range gun really need armor too? Isn't the idea of the thing to severely wound capitals so they don't get a shot off when your heavier weapons get in range? Hmmm... I do like that performance everywhere except the reaction wheels. MUCH more cost efficient, but a much slower turn. I always preferred the VanChroSteel because it allowed me very high pressures in a small package. The boron armor was before I had tested it (Just in case something got in range I didn't want it to pop with 1 bullet.) After some initial testing no stock ship can get within 500km and some of my heavier designs don't have many weapons left when they do. lol Thank you for the feedback. Attachment Deleted
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Post by midnightdreary on Dec 26, 2016 19:16:25 GMT
my baby, spits 20 rail gun rounds a second at 79.7km/s its probably the reason I don't see wipple shields as practical my hypervelocity guns are closer to particle accelerators, if your armour dosen't have the sheer density and m^3 to stop the round it will go straight through and yes, I think its actually compliant with energy conservation, 3MW/round, 63MW total energy in, -100 loader, 13% efficient <snip> finaly got around to it This is not my typical design concept for rails - I tend to increase projectile weight as I scale up. So I take it you wanted a railgun concept with huge standoff range to tear down the enemy before they get in range, then clean them up with harder hitting weapons, like coils or missiles. So here you go. Huge range and accuracy. I tried not to stray to far off your original design so you would not have to rebuild the ship around the gun. Have a look and let me know what you think. EDIT: I also reduced the weight and cost. At the new maximum range the turning rate isn't much of a step down. Attachment Deleted
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Post by midnightdreary on Dec 26, 2016 4:25:26 GMT
I was playing with conventional missiles and some KKV concepts with an acceleration of 15g+ and it always always ran the tanks dry. I assumed it was because the acceleration was so strong it forced the fuel in to the combustion chamber and couldn't turn itself off. Is this truly a bug or is this (mis)conception of mine accurate?
I now keep my missiles around the 3-5g area and I only occasionally have a fuel tank run dry (1 out of 25-30 missiles, maybe?)
Btw, new to forums. This game is going to keep me entertained for years to come. lol
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