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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Jan 29, 2019 17:57:36 GMT
Elaborate please. What is your source for this information? This blog by Qswitched childrenofadeadearth.wordpress.com/2016/06/24/what-to-shoot/discusses the effects of varying the width on projectiles, and as I mentioned earlier I have tested the principle on payloads with needlers by swapping the needle for a disc (with a spacer added to maintain exit velocity) and observing a massive decrease in performance against sloped armor for the same impact velocity. Has anyone tested this with non-payload slugs? Say, same mass, same material ferromagnetic slugs fired at the same velocity - one plate shaped fired from RG, the other needle shaped fired from CG. Rate of fire and accuracy matched adjusting power draw and slapping on the right amount of barrel armour. Also matched tracking speed. Preferably also for high and low velocities (say 2 and 10km/s).
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Jan 26, 2019 9:45:13 GMT
I recommend you look up "Cassaba Howitzers". Slipped my mind that a shape charge is a thing that exists and fits the definition of self destructive cannon. I guess I was trying to picture a solid projectile and not a fluid jet, but that wouldn't matter at these energy levels anyway. Whoops. EFP/NEFP.
See Operation Plumbbob.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Jan 25, 2019 16:49:22 GMT
Oh noes! Sempai~ has been reduced to selling male enhancement medication! *builds a huge, phallic rocket*
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Jan 25, 2019 16:44:46 GMT
Wait a second. AFAIK 1 gram DU round can be set in stock game without limit editing. Why separate entity (rad.shield) is needed if 1g DU is 1g DU no matter how you look at it? Do you imply that the game thinks otherwise e.g. there's a bug? I'm 90% sure there is a bug. Payloads seem to ignore some of the physics when it comes down to actually impacting a spaceship. Like, as far as I'm aware, payloads don't shatter, they just penetrate as far as they can in one piece, then they get deleted. I'm also mostly sure that a payload won't bounce off armor. Don't payloads also ignore some of the gun physics (like mechanical stresses, due to distributing them over armature+payload length - especially fun if you add some spacers)?
....Aaand that's why I generally don't use payloads unless I need specific functionality (blast launched long rod penetrators and radiator based continuous rods being the border case for me, as you can't do them in any other way despite them being dumb kinetic impactors). Plus the flipside is that even a GJ relativistic needle typically won't cause all the spalling and mayhem inside the ship that can be accomplished by a slug. It just punches a tiny hole.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Jan 24, 2019 6:54:25 GMT
Easier way to do a 'recoiless' gun if that's what you're trying to achieve is just to build it like a real life 'recoiless rifle'. 'Easier' as in 'actually doable'.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Jan 23, 2019 23:24:26 GMT
Well, the current engine so far: 10m x 15m Tons: 47 Thrust: 307 MN Thrust:Mass Ratio: 668 Exhaust Velocity: 9.16km/s Gimbal: 15 Degrees And it accelerates my 5.4kt rocketship at 5.8g, and gives me 9.77km/s delta-v So I've been trying to reduce the acceleration in exchange for better engine efficiency, but I don't actually know how to do that. I assumed it would be as simple as increasing exhaust velocity - but then I'd test out higher ev and my overall delta-v would drop. Then sometimes I'd change things and my TMR might drop 20 units but that would somehow improve my delta-v by 0.20 - 0.50 km/s.
Here was my baseline:
10m x 18m Tons: 67.5 Thrust: 487 MN Thrust:Mass Ratio: 736 Exhaust Velocity: 9.15km/s Gimbal: None
Accelerates my rocketship at 9g, and gives me 9.24km/s delta-v. Which I really don't understand - it has higher TMR and thrust, and virtually equal exhaust velocity, and yet I get less delta-v out of it.
I've attached both to this post in case anyone wants to take a look.
Also, I really wish we had an option for a much smaller gimbal. I don't need 10+ degrees, just 1-3 is enough - especially with this much thrust, yet a 1-3 degree gimbal requires as much mass as a 90 degree gimbal! I'm even forced to maintain 3+ RPM even though 1 RPM will move 3 degrees in about half a second.
More or less what I'm trying to do is maintain >1.5g acceleration, fitting the engine within a 10m radius housing (either with or without gimballing), and maximizing the delta-v as much as possible.
I wouldn't mind doing away with the gimble, but I don't have a lot of room on both sides of my center of mass for lateral RCS thrusters so I'd be stuck with just a set in the nose.
5.4 G is a great way to turn your crew into a fine red paste not to mention 9 G. If you add more propellant tanks, they will increase your DV and lower your acceleration. You only really need less than 1 G of thrust to maneuver. At a typical laser engagement range of 1000km cross section matters very little. Lasers are going to hit your ship with 100% accuracy, just not your hardpoints. No reason not to add more propellant. Trained and protected humans can take about 7G along the long axis while sitting up before losing consciousness.
Laying flat on a good acceleration couch 9G eyeballs-in should pose no issues unless sustained for prolonged periods of time.
The main limiting factor for acceleration in CDE is that it's inversely proportional to the burn time, and you don't get a lot of hi-thrust burn time with CDE tech. Any thoughts on possible feasibility of using solid NTR propellant (960K T melt)? The material in question isn't that hard (27.58 MPa tensile str., 75.153 GPa Young's, 31.716 GPa Shear, 3.5 Mohs). How should this task be approached from storage/feeding PoV - would we store it pre-cut, in pellets, in fine dust form?... I'm talking about Lithium Hydride. Why not slurrify it with a propellant of choice it doesn't react with? Want deep cryogenic? LH2 slurry. Mildly cryogenic? Lower alkane slurry. Non-cryogenic? Higher alkane slurry.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Jan 22, 2019 19:59:13 GMT
Hi. That is similar but not quite. I made an image very quickly to show how it is supposed to look: The projectile already has all the kinetic energy it needs because it is, practically, part of the wheel, which is spinning. When the projectile leaves the wheel and enters the barrel, it takes that momentum with it. The wheel doesn't experience any change because what it has lost in mass, it has also lost in angular momentum. It's not applying or experiencing any forces to accelerate the projectile, so it is recoilless. Or at least, that's how I think it works. It has been difficult for me to build and intuition for physics. You don't get to cheat the deadliest S.O.B. in space like that.
No, I am actually not an ME fan.
Basically, you have a spinny object that suddenly separates. One part goes flying one way, the other, goes flying the opposite way. The exact minutiae of your spinny object and its mode of separation are irrelevant.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Jan 22, 2019 7:06:59 GMT
Less of a long range option, but, speaking of Xmas, I have published this somewhat recently: Amorphous carbon makes for an interesting armature material. I also have a bunch of 10km/s variants in 0.5, 1 and 4.4kg flavours, long, but relatively lightweight spinal coilgun (with AC coil) firing 30 1kg slugs per second at around 7.5km/s, and relatively complex multi-launch artillery setup involving telescoping blast launcher packs synchronized with nose mounted gun (very inaccurate, and laggy, but will obliterate gunship at around 70km out) but haven't pushed them yet.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Jan 21, 2019 22:27:24 GMT
A fun little experiment of mine, bashing together partially armoured broadsider layout, fixed broadside 4mm railguns to force orientation with turrets sticking out on the sides of armour face, good manoeuvrability, nose-mounted, right-way-forward launcher, and attempts to make devastator ammo explosion survivable (tested with manually triggering Devastator detonation immediately after launch - ragged stump of a ship emerging from explosion should retain power, manoeuvrability, most of weaponry and 50-100% crew) - all on a small ship (sadly with only 75% of Siloship's Devastators per ton of ship). Not a fully baked idea and it won't survive Striker launchers going off for a change, but it seems interesting enough to post - maybe it will inspire someone. Should be Vesta-qualified.
A 3kt minitanker, for when you have hilariously small mass budget, want a small tanker to fill the gaps in your budget, or want to ferry VIPs around solar system in slightly less ostentatiously lavish manner. It has (understandably) somewhat sub-par mass ratio, but is capable enough to be useful and has good manoeuvrability in deep gravity wells: Lastly, I have updated my "Garuda" class dreadnought to be somewhat more survivable - slightly better armour, better launcher placement.It also now has a bit more firepower and slightly better delta-v.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Jan 21, 2019 17:18:56 GMT
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Jan 16, 2019 20:19:47 GMT
Chiaroscuro in BLAM,
AKA Main Belt Destruction Extraction with my "Basilisk" class destroyer as seen from afar: ...Because nothing says "disarm and immobilize a space battleship WITHOUT killing everyone on board" like spamming it with dozens of cannon launched nukes.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Jan 12, 2019 23:44:44 GMT
I want to make such a thing, but the update that brought us the level editor also broke dual propulsion ships which would be essential to navigating demanding scenarios. I've been putting off doing anything with CDE until that's either fixed or enough time has passed that I can assume it won't be. This is where I'm at too. Actually came to this thread hoping "something" had happened, maybe a comment by qswitched on here. Won't lose hope and move on till February is over. seems like every 7 months is the current game plan … I Hope . Actually, I have just tested NTR/MPDT tanker around Mars using both propulsion modes (including stationkeeping in orbit around Deimos with MPDT - you don't get the luxury of stable orbits around there) and they seem to work just fine.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Jan 12, 2019 9:46:28 GMT
airc777Teller-Ulam devices and even some aspects (explosive lenses, the equations we have have been more or less guesstimated) of single stage fission nukes are NOT modelled by CDE due to math and physical models still being kept secret. We won't get Teller-Ulam devices.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Jan 10, 2019 18:17:12 GMT
While I am actually using Steam(ing pile)'s features for CDE (because the horrible mess it might be, workshop is still useful as a way for sharing your stuff), I certainly wouldn't object to GOG release and would be even likely to re-purchase.
I might be old fashioned but the idea of actually owning what I buy and of not having to install obligatory network connected software to enjoy something that is not even using the network appeals to me.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Jan 9, 2019 18:58:53 GMT
Could you have an open axial corridor (have to walk up a ramp or ladder to access) with some sort of circular joint so the device can spin in vacuum on magnetic bearings but still allow suitless transfer? Could the circular joint be something like a long and sinuous 2D Tesla valve, or would that leak too much atmosphere? What about a plasma window, could you make those in a circle between the rotating and non-rotating parts of the ship? If you could get tolerances tight enough maybe the joint could only have a millimetre clearance around a circle a metre wide, giving an area for the plasma window of 31.4cm^2, I think. That would require an energy for the plasma window of 50.6kW according to Wikipedia and some Google calculating. I think that's peanuts compared to most ship systems in COADE? If manufacturing tolerances can be made that tight. Current magnetic levitation trains can apparently levitate with as little as 1cm clearance from the guideway. I don't know how much they vary from that height (obviously well under a cm for safety factor) and how engineerable that is. Maybe you could combine a plasma window with a 2D Tesla valve to lower the atmospheric pressure to be contained so the plasma window draws less power (if that does draw less power). Would be interested to hear people's thoughts. Edit: I tried figuring out what energy a 1cm clearance would require for maintain its plasma window, it is 159.192kW. So the ships regularly built here could easily power a system where a rotating hab spins on magnetic levitation rails and has a plasma window seal in the centre of a decent size with achievable tolerance. So the only stumbling block is whether or not it's possible at all to run a plasma window between moving surfaces. Uh, but what problem are you actually trying to solve?
If you tumble a needleship, or hang an inflatable hab (directly or on a tether) from needleship's nose or tie two such habs or two needleships together, you get artificial gravity without any sort of centrifuges, rotating joints (hermetically sealed or not), engineering complexity or large diameter structures that are unfriendly to armour and shadowshields alike. You also get something that is going to be the easiest to remake back into something usable from badly damaged parts (you can, for example, create ugly and lopsided inflatable hab from the pieces of the old one after its storage compartment got remodelled by high calibre k-slug - try field fixing normal hermetic centrifuge or even a toroidal hab meant to be used as one and needing to be very carefully balanced, meanwhile a single long mass or two tethered masses spinning about their centre of gravity are self-balancing).
If you want a more conventional ring shaped rotating hab, you can still just rotate the whole ship/station, without needing rotating joints. Depending on risk of dings docking can be accomplished by just flying into the hub and manoeuvring there (basically landing on the inner surface of the dock), or parking near the hub and getting picked by a robotic manipulator and berthed. Beyond that there is no clear reason for despun platforms, let alone large, pressurized ones.
If you *really* want a separate centrifuge on your ship and are ready to take the mass and complexity penalties, then rotating inside cylindrical or toroidal pressurized volume is not going to cause severe enough energy losses to make you lose any sleep over the energy (you do have a pile, after all) or additional waste heat and you might repurpose resulting airflow for ventilation, reclaiming a lot of wasted energy for practical use. For combat you are going to de-spin any centrifuge you have anyway, and it's easier to not have to design for both rotation and hermeticity at the same time.
Tesla valve is very clever but far too leaky for this purpose, plasma windows are antithesis of failsafe. Why not just not make things harder for yourself.
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