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Post by inbrainsane on Dec 29, 2016 6:26:32 GMT
After playing around with lasers, let me share my 8GW models. Scaling down in power from here should be quite easy and reduce price and increase Efficiency. I went with Nd:YAG+Krypton. It seems to be better. The cheap ones use minimum arc lamp radius. For the regular ones I tried to find another local Optimum. Considering that the mass and price of the laser does not really have an impact (Power Generator and Radiator are much more important), it might be worth to run with the slightly better regular ones. Or go cheap, I dont know. All modules are not armored. Do not forget to add some. Focus Area is calculated from Intensity and Output Power. The new 10GW Reactors from apophys (see a few posts above) come in handy together with those.
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Lasers
Dec 29, 2016 2:07:12 GMT
Post by inbrainsane on Dec 29, 2016 2:07:12 GMT
Can you post that single laser weapon of that system you just described? Screenshot maybe? Because I would really like to compare them at 1 Mm.
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Lasers
Dec 29, 2016 1:21:36 GMT
Post by inbrainsane on Dec 29, 2016 1:21:36 GMT
Better in Output Power and Intensity than all others of comparable power consumption, price, mass.
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Post by inbrainsane on Dec 29, 2016 0:13:06 GMT
Fixed.
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Lasers
Dec 29, 2016 0:02:53 GMT
Post by inbrainsane on Dec 29, 2016 0:02:53 GMT
Is this the king of the hill or has someone a better one? *Edit* I am a fool. This thing is not even good. *Edit*
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Post by inbrainsane on Dec 28, 2016 23:53:53 GMT
You do not need seven 10GW lasers. You only need a handful of those, see below. Also do not forget to consider mass and cost.
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Post by inbrainsane on Dec 28, 2016 23:49:54 GMT
Also, I made a Laser with the following specs:= 7.45MW Output Power= 1.3GW/m2 at Mm Intensity= 220 MW Power Required= 10.3t Mass= 157kc cost
*Edit* See some more lasers here: childrenofadeadearth.boards.net/post/8744/thread *Edit* I do not think Nukes are viable when the current state of the game allows such murder death machines.
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Post by inbrainsane on Dec 28, 2016 19:33:35 GMT
Given that the JDAM itself costs a non-negligible percent of the tank's cost and is dropped by a jet fighter costing one to two orders of magnitude more than the tank, that's definitely something not worth completely protecting the tank against. Giving the tank a reasonable chance of surviving one JDAM attack? That's about the most protection tank designers are willing to work on, and we're talking about active defences under development more than actual deployed technology. Protecting your tank against the ageing, cheap and widespread RPG-7 is worth it, but if multiple jet fighters are dropping smart munitions on it you just accept it's going to die and move on with your war. As I said initially: you protect against cruder or cheaper weapon systems, but comparable (or in this case, considerably more expensive) weapon systems are not worth aiming for complete protection against. There's a balance to strike I suppose that makes sense, but you would still move your own fighters to escort armored divisions, tanks are not good for anything if they've been mission killed by a bomb. The complexity of the modern battlefield is a nightmare. Its rock paper scissors with 50 or more factors/systems and each of them being a hard counter to some other highly specialised factors/systems. Specialisation is the magic word here. Specialised systems tend to be orders of magnitude more effective for the same cost. So you build a tank that is good vs tanks and infantry. And let your fighters or specialised AA threaten the enemy bombers.
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Post by inbrainsane on Dec 28, 2016 19:21:27 GMT
Serious PvP theorycrafting here. I am considering the position of opponents fighting over neutral territory, so no special considerations of attacker or defender. Capitals are the juicy targets of war. Thus, it makes the most sense to make them as untouchable as possible to your opponent. Since any armor can be broken fairly easily, this can only be achieved by out-ranging all opponents with a glass cannon setup or by running away. Glass cannon laser capitals would be easily countered and largely outclassed by drone versions of the same thing, so that option mostly falls away. We are left with various flavors of carrier ships as the standard meat-and-potatoes option, since a ship that never enters combat can never destroy an enemy. High dV is the best defense; as such, I see three viable propellant doctrines for capital ships: 1. HD NTR + MPD (excellent NTR, but dV too low on its own). 2. Decane resistojet + MPD (best resistojet propellant in terms of thrust; good enough for MPD use). 3. Neon MPD (neon is cheap enough that you can slap more propellant on freely to counter other mass increases, acceleration be damned). The question of what drones/missiles to carry has many viable possibilities for weapons/payload, but getting to their targets is a universal problem. Missiles (other than high-yield nukes) require decent thrust for impact; this limits them to low dV. Launching missiles from the mothership directly requires leeching off the mothership's dV to remove the dodging option; thus lowering the mothership's defense. A sub-optimal option. Drones: A similar propellant doctrine makes sense here for drones. Drones don't need to impact, so thrust is not a concern. And you cannot dodge a drone fleet with dV at a significant fraction of your capital; they must be intercepted. Lasers, high-velocity coil/rail, coil nuke, and missile launchers are all valid drones, and these are the meat-and-potatoes of your firepower. Missiles: Based on the above, capital-launched missiles should have high dV (20 km/s or so) and be exclusively those that do not care about accuracy (i.e. high-yield nukes). For drone-launched missiles, anything is possible. On capital weapons: If you are unable to avoid running away with your capital, you can pre-deploy drones for firepower. So there is no need to add weapons on the capital. There is significant penalty to adding a laser to an MPD carrier: the cost and weight of radiators. However, for a ship that already has power for MPDs, there is little opportunity cost to a rail/coil weapon with high power draw (if built cheaply enough), so capitals can be expected to have those. (My personal weapons doctrine would probably be based on 1Mm laser drones with high-yield-nuke-missile launcher drones for protection. A large group of drones/missiles incoming? Launch a nuke missile ahead of the flight path to wipe it. Small group of drones/missiles incoming? Lasers will deal with it.) Additionally better treatment of stealth would be bad for most glass cannon strategies, including yours, since a single missile launched "dark" (no engine running, no reactor running, no communications with launching ship etc) at its launching ship's velocity could get extremely close before being detected. That would be bad for everyone; a single NEFP missile can core through 50m of solid osmium in one hit (may be bugged, but that is the current simulation). Stealth is only possible with hydrogen steamer designs; otherwise absorption of solar radiation and cosmic rays, along with the electricity to run the controls, will heat it up to detectable levels. Even so, it will be visible against the backdrop of the sun, since it will be too cold compared to the sun's expected output (requires lining up perfectly to see it, but possible, particularly in the plane of the ecliptic). In a land of stealth, a ship burning out of the ecliptic can be expected to have dark-launched a missile; just dodge its projected path, or send out a few screening countermissiles. Excellent post. I see a possibly viable "multi stage" approach here. = MPD to travel between planets. A MPD Ship would be a kind of "lower stage" for a carrier (or more than one, depends on optimal sizes for mothership vs optimal size for carrier). Travel time between planets is several months anyways, so maybe we manage to get enough thrust to get the dV for a hohmann transfer between planets in one pass. Near the destination planet, we separate the lower stage. = NTR/Resisto for the travel between moons or between different orbits around a planet. MPD/NTR or MPD/resisto combinations might still be viable, but I still think on the tactical playing field in the vicinity of a planet, MPD thrust is just too low to be useful on the carrier.
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Post by inbrainsane on Dec 28, 2016 18:51:04 GMT
inbrainsane Actually, if you stopped masturbating your ego for a second, (...) Oh come on. Really? You make some interesting points here and I would love to look at some designs you are mentioning here and try to find out if the guns/armor on them is actually cool or if the mass would be better spent on drones, missiles or increased agility or dV. So can you link me some of your stuff, please? (And please also take a look at kittens and apophys posts, they are prime examples of how to argue/contribute without going ad hominem. Thank you.) *Edit* Jasonvance showed us some super crazy amazing laser based killer drones. Maybe missiles are not even viable currently. I need to do some testing. While this discussion is mainly about the carrier platform, the optimal payload is definitely also interesting.
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Post by inbrainsane on Dec 28, 2016 13:02:05 GMT
Jasonvance, can you share the specs of your latest revision of the laser, please? TIA *edit* Nevermind. I figured it out by myself. LOOKIT THEM LAZOR!
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Post by inbrainsane on Dec 28, 2016 12:47:47 GMT
Two quick addendums: = The engine is small on purpose, so you can experiment easily by going from 3 engines (minimum) to as many as you want. Balancing dV and acceleration. = I just slapped together a 100kt nuke missile. super easy super simple not that optimized. 5km/s dV. Of those I could fit 800 in 5kt of mass. Including launchers. This info is for people that do not really have an idea what can be done with 5000t of payload.
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Post by inbrainsane on Dec 28, 2016 12:05:02 GMT
David367th I meant Hydrogen Deuteride. Sorry for that confusion. As an answer to your mirror-like-better-carrier-hiveship approach: My drones would intercept your drones, my missiles would intercept your missiles and vice versa. And since my carrier is unarmored and unarmed, I have more/better drones on it for same dV and/or cost on the carrier. newageofpower Can your own assault/escort missile carriers successfully defend themselves against "themselves" in a mirror match? Or is it assured mutual destruction? Because that is kind of my point. Defense guns and armor on carriers are never cost effective. So I rather keep them light for max dV and burn to avoid combined with drone vs drone and missile vs missile intercepts. Just imagine your super cheap mass missiles on my carrier. Or imagine your carrier without any armor and guns and stuff and all that additional mass used for even more drones and missiles. I guess that second variant would beat the first. Also I had a look at your carrier. It has an MPD drive and <3g0 of acceleration. Please try it in the sandbox and look how long it takes to get somewhere. NTR ships run circles around it. That means they go for a single pass hohmann transfer to the body you are orbiting, drop all their stuff from high orbit or even flyby, and return. Your stuff will never get them and my carrier returns safely to pick up the next round of ammo at base. n2maniac Anything with MPD is not viable. NTR, chemical and resistojet can basically pick the attack vector which is bad. And while I can not outrun it on the long run, I can stage a perfect intercept with an optimized counter mix of drones/missiles because I have literally years to prepare. A regarding "a bit of anti-laser" armor. Scratch that and get more drones/missiles instead. A bit wont help anyways and with more payload I can intercept attackers even better before they get to my carrier. dragonkid11 Doctrine is not neccessarily inflexible. I altered my post above to make my points more clear. The cornerstone of my doctrines are: Carrier/Hiveship based fleet, no armor on carrier, no guns on carrier, NTR-like dV on drones and missiles, HD NTR on carrier. My point is: All gunship approaches and all Carrier approaches that deviate from this doctrine are weaker. And until now I have not seen a strong counterexample. lawson And you, too: Stop putting MPD on combat ships. But you are right about lasers. That was part of my inspiration for this setup, look at jasonvance made laser drones. They fry even max-possible armor from 1000km distance. After 1.0.8 they are no longer super-duper-powered but you can still build similar stuff. There is no way any ship can be protected against those devices. So my best idea is to counter this with "more of the same" and so optimize the carrier for max carrying capacity combined with evasive options. Evasion strategy is higher dV against NTR, chemical and Resisto and against MPD we evade just by running circles around it. *EDIT* Maybe we think also about the Viability of a MPD Behemoth Doctrine. Is it possible to slap so much guns and armor on a ship that you will not ever overwhelm it cost-effectively with drones and missiles?
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Post by inbrainsane on Dec 28, 2016 2:34:27 GMT
Hi all, I developed some ships and components around this doctrine. A short summary: = Hydrogen NTR based Carrier Ship. = No armor, no guns and most components weight-optimized. = dV of 14km/s with 5kt worth of payload (drones, missiles, launchers) = Acceleration of 184mg with 5kt worth of payload (drones, missiles, launchers) = total Mass 25.5kt (including 5kt payload) = total Cost 160Mc (empty) Combat drones use decane NTR and have around >5km/s dV by themselves. Some chemical or resistos or other type NTR also viable. But mobility always there for effective intercepts. Various flavours of combat drones. Most of them small. All of them anti-Laser armor. Some of them special super hard anti-Laser armor. (optional) a few kT worth of Nuke-Missiles (optional) accompanied by hydrogen fuel tanker (scaling) just more of the same. more tankers also. I can not think of any fleet that can beat this setup cost-effectively. = Big dV Advantage over any non-hydrogen NTR (also over chemical or resistojet) allows to avoid battle/intercepts with the carrier. = dV Advantage will allow flybys with drones at long range. Drones have big advantage here because of x-section. = Special drones with high anti-laser armor in the mix: How does enemy laser decide when to switch to next drone and skip the tough one? = Special missiles with super hard armor in the mix: How does enemy CIWS decide when to switch to next missile and skip the tough one? = Hydrogen-based gunship-like types will get shredded by drones because of huge x-section. = SOP: Setup a retrograde orbit, higher than the opponent/victim. Burn at the right moment to setup an intercept. Release drones/missiles. Burn again in opposite direction to stay at original orbit with carrier. Opponent is forced now to avoid or encounter drones/missiles coming in retrograde. They come in fast and it costs him a lot of dV to avoid or puts him in a tough spot if he decides to encounter (retrograde missiles best missiles). If he decides to try and intercept the carrier, it can easily avoid intercept from higher orbit. So, additional dV advantage brings even more dV advantage. So, only a mirror-fleet beats this? Or do you have any ideas? Did I overlook some archilles-heel of this? *Edit for clarification* = Carrier Specs added. There is a variety of possible payloads, so this is just the naked frame. For practical purpose, I added two small refuellers. You never know. The specs of the ship and the only relevant modules are below. The carrier has some extra crew and >10MW extra power for launchers. Black armor is just for aesthetics (and micrometeorites) and can be scrapped. = This is not about my super cool module optimization. This is doctrine talk. So for clarification I edited the above numbers. = The cornerstone of the doctrine are: Unarmed and unarmored carrier, hydrogen deuteride NTR on the carrier, combat only with drones and missiles, significant dV engines on drones and missiles (decane NTR or better). = So please imagine your own best and most effective designs as payload and also as opponent. = If you find a weakness in the doctrine, that means where you exploit one of the the doctrine cornerstones, let us know.
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