|
Post by AtomHeartDragon on Dec 31, 2019 11:25:13 GMT
You can set up Deimos as frame of reference, but for some reason not Phobos, so you'd have to do everything manually and I have never managed that (I have come within a literal stone throw distance of Phobos, but with some 150m/s velocity difference).
You can even sort of inject into orbit around Deimos, but it's so low mass and potato-shaped that there are no stable orbits around it - you end up in heavily perturbed tangle of not-quite ellipses and eventually end up being ejected or smashing into the surface (unless you continuously correct).
|
|
|
Post by AtomHeartDragon on Dec 29, 2019 13:25:16 GMT
Large bore guns offer the possibility of burst munition, but I got the impression that a large cannon that can deliver 60 bursting charges deploying a total of 6000 small rounds per minute is significantly heavier than a rapid fire small gun that fires 6000 small rounds a minute. I don't see much point in large cannons (of the chemical and electric variety). The only role I can see for large bore cannons is orbital bombardement, as large objects handle reentry better. I'd argue missiles are better suited for that role though. Bursting charges have an advantage of of allowing you to create denser pattern when and where you want it, though. Large electric cannons might be necessary to accelerate small projectiles to tremendous speeds. Large projectiles might indeed not have as much point at very high velocities as they seem to be more susceptible to whipple shields than an equivalent mass of small ones thrown in quick succession in tight pattern (but less than equivalent mass of small ones scattered in loose pattern).
|
|
|
Post by AtomHeartDragon on Dec 29, 2019 11:45:53 GMT
Deimos yes, but curiously enough not Phobos (unless you do it manually).
|
|
|
Post by AtomHeartDragon on Dec 25, 2019 19:08:43 GMT
Mine are mostly of the sort of: "Wait, I could actually make X by doing...!".
|
|
|
Post by AtomHeartDragon on Dec 25, 2019 0:03:50 GMT
I have pushed a bunch of easily swappable stock reactor replacements to the workshop. They all use HEU, are all substantially shielded and they share space and radiator requirements with stock reactors (if the reactor is much smaller than its stock counterpart it can be padded to exact same length using just stock spacers).
|
|
|
Post by AtomHeartDragon on Dec 21, 2019 15:20:19 GMT
I wonder if I could whack it with some of my stock stuff.
|
|
|
Post by AtomHeartDragon on Dec 20, 2019 17:06:03 GMT
You place your non-turreted gun(s) and launcher(s) so that they aim in the same single direction, you make their exit velocity the same, then you make the launcher(s) engage at distance where the gun can actually hit the targets (unless whatever you're firing doesn't need pin-point direct impact).
That's the basic version, advanced versions may include complex intermediate launch systems and a lot of tweaking, but they are very much worth it:
|
|
|
Post by AtomHeartDragon on Dec 18, 2019 18:56:42 GMT
This entire game was made the way it is because there are no simple, one size suits all answers. It depends on what do you want from your armour and what you are ready to pay for it (not just in terms of money).
|
|
|
Post by AtomHeartDragon on Dec 11, 2019 18:51:54 GMT
TBH, VCS' stiffness is kind of shit also in game.
Though if it's low temperature performance is dramatically lower, it would preclude it from its most important application in game - tankage.
|
|
|
Post by AtomHeartDragon on Dec 9, 2019 19:49:18 GMT
Ah, I might have been trying to fix it incorrectly: I've been slowing down the missiles to see if that could get them to hit, assuming the problem was inaccuracy. I'll have to try sending them in faster. Also maybe increasing the ratio of explosives to inert filling. See if faster shrapnel would help as well. The explosive filling is only to give your fragments the right size and spread (whatever it might be). If you want to make them meaningfully faster, put them on top of more propellant (or fire them out of faster EM gun). Conventional explosives are pretty much worthless in space as far as dealing damage is concerned, unless you stick them in a barrel or put a large amount of them on an enemy ship.
|
|
|
Post by AtomHeartDragon on Dec 8, 2019 18:52:03 GMT
Patch did break flak in that it now despawns too fast to register impacts if moving at low velocities - for example stock flak CG can't deal damage any more most of the time. That said, flak can still be pretty devastating if travelling at high enough velocities, and those velocities are perfectly attainable even with stock flak missiles.
|
|
|
Post by AtomHeartDragon on Dec 1, 2019 11:46:11 GMT
srbrant: I am also working on a sci-fi story (main caracter's name is my username), and it has many elements similar to yours (although it is set in cca. 22nd century, and arfical gravity is much more expensive). The horizontal layout is surely useful for cargo transport (try stacking containers to a skyscraper), but it is also useful for flying around in atmosphere. Surely, you need artifical gravity to keep crew on decks and some anti-inertial system to prevent them from falling towards back of the ship, but you need that second one for FTL anyway, right? And even if the first one consumes a lot of energy, it might be useful to "reduce" weight of the ship on planet (by lowering the local gravity). In my 'verse, there is a saying: Combat, Drive, Gravity, pick any two. Stacking crates is easy. Bending spacetime to get gravity without constant acceleration, a stupendous amount of mass-energy or spin is impossible. Also, for flying though atmosphere: the F9 seems to manage just fine, despite being a wingless tailsitter. IMO, belly landers don't make much sense and are grossly over represented in modern sciencefiction. It also doesn't make sense not to use your main drive for landing. Stacking crates: Just have a crane and/or ramp + big cargo door. You are going to have to haul all that stuff up the gravity well anyway, so it's not like you are pointlessly wasting energy hauling it up a tall vehicle. You could also have cargo bay near the ground level and engines on the sides or top. Some considerations for belly landers: - Your main drive would be very hard on landing site and cannot switch gears. You could have a ventrally mounted softer liftoff/landing drive to clear the ground. An example configuration would be ventral liftoff drive, aft maneuvering (and combat if applicable) drive (also used after clearing the ground to boost to orbital velocity), again ventral low-thrust, high-isp cruise drive (to keep the floor the way it was when landed). You can swap the liftoff drive for wheels and a runway if you want to.
- Stability when landing rough. Note that you need VTOL for that, so no swapping liftoff drive for a runway. You can have stable tailsitter, but it will require long, splayed landing legs - depending on the rest of considerations, either configuration could be more practical.
|
|
|
Post by AtomHeartDragon on Nov 17, 2019 23:56:06 GMT
If you can manipulate gravity you have a warp drive or at least reactionless drive.
|
|
|
Post by AtomHeartDragon on Nov 17, 2019 19:00:33 GMT
I usually prototype my ships with stock parts, then have hi-end replacement components that can be fitted in place of the stock ones.
|
|
|
Post by AtomHeartDragon on Nov 17, 2019 15:31:09 GMT
It's usually more fun to beat the campaign with stock modules only. Well designed stock module ship can still beat 5-10 equivalent stock designs, with custom modules utterly steamrolling stock fleets typically takes seconds.
|
|