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Post by concretedonkey on Mar 17, 2017 5:09:51 GMT
Graphics are for the most part not the focus in COADE. For classical cascaded shadow maps - I don't think so. Even fancy engines like Unreal have the staggering amount of 3! dynamic shadowmapped omnis per frame, if I remember correctly. Considering that everything in the ship is adjustable and it can be shot up and riddled with holes below the radiator - so everything static/baked is out ... unless it updates only when a change happens but again that is a few milliseconds of delay exactly when you don't want them. Keep in mind that I'm not a rendering programmer (I'm on the other side of the fence), and there are always ways and tricks and hacks - lights cut by user adjustable bounding volumes , meshes , texture cookies... but most of the stuff that comes in my mind is exactly this - static.
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Post by concretedonkey on Mar 15, 2017 16:03:05 GMT
These are just point lights without shadows , omnis with shadows is usually very expensive. You can also notice flickering when you have a lot of radiators. This happens when you hit the upper limit of number of lights and the algorithm is trying to decide which one to draw.
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Post by concretedonkey on Mar 15, 2017 5:09:45 GMT
But if they did turn how would you counter that? They address that. If they do turn they necessarily present their nozzles to the ship they're targeting, and THAT lases them. Anyways, I'm rather fond of a three-layered defense myself. Lasers at range, peashooters for terminal defense, drones (mostly sandblasters) as a forward screen. as caiaphas said it . we have only 3 cases, one of which I've never seen happen 1 turn towards the side - roughly 90 degrees towards both dangers - you are much more vulnerable from the sides even if your engine is pointing somewhere in the darknes. And as Rocket Witch said in reality there will be multiple drones from multiple angles in a multilayered defense. I actually want this to happen and usually at the same time the drone is closing in on the swarm I give the scatter order to the ship. 2 continue pointing towards the capital ship. This is what I mostly see since the drone is much colder than the capital ship and since mine only pull around 3G (I may have to upgrade that) the distance is really not that large. This is then a race between how far the missiles could get because the drone has a much less capable laser than the ship. Multiple drones could counter that. Also I usually turn the drone towards the ship to and I'm starting to boost back to make the relative speed between them smaller and to give the drone more time on target. Case 3 never happens - point toward the drone - missies will die probably in less than a second from the ship's lasers. What the missiles could do to counter it is to scatter at the start - which risks to ruin their intercept, but also makes the swarm a less packed target . If we were in a real situation I would probably call for multiple angles of attack but we can't do that for the moment.
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Post by concretedonkey on Mar 14, 2017 22:20:55 GMT
I think I already said it a couple of times but I use I couple of drones for this. For a swarm of less than 40 missiles usually one drone is enough. Its an evolution of my old decoy drone with a small laser slapped on it. Thing is that engine gimballs are still very vulnerable especially on small missiles with all the weight savings so a single drone passing through the swarm can kill a lot of missiles, make some of them turn sideways flaunting its hot radiators and they are as sure as dead from the defensive lasers on the capital ship. The ones that do not turn and continue expose their engines to the drone's laser. Drones are then refueled and reused for the next wave. this idea is sound so heres a challenge, the missiles turn and do not present their engines to your lasers, find a way to counter that as I already said most do not turn,then the laser from the drone kills them. if they do it the lasers from the ship kills them. ross is right btw, the key is price efficiency. the drone must be cheap enough if lost and you must try to guide it and keep it alive untill it can refuel for the next wave.
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Post by concretedonkey on Mar 14, 2017 21:37:42 GMT
I think I already said it a couple of times but I use I couple of drones for this. For a swarm of less than 40 missiles usually one drone is enough. Its an evolution of my old decoy drone with a small laser slapped on it. Thing is that engine gimballs are still very vulnerable especially on small missiles with all the weight savings so a single drone passing through the swarm can kill a lot of missiles, make some of them turn sideways flaunting its hot radiators and they are as sure as dead from the defensive lasers on the capital ship. The ones that do not turn and continue expose their engines to the drone's laser. Drones are then refueled and reused for the next wave.
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Post by concretedonkey on Mar 14, 2017 21:16:07 GMT
Ok I'm late again and not ready again with the ship . Guess too much tinkering with the missiles... I have two versions and can't decide between them I guess I'll just post them both. Version one is closer to the original in size. A bit more than twice the delta V. Savings were done mostly with the warhead and the H2O2/RP1 mix. It gives me almost the same density as pure hydrogen peroxide, with better exaust velocity. Version two is more optimal from my point of view but its more than twice the size of the original. More than 3 times the delta V of the original. Armor was switched to amorphous carbon since it gave me less mass with better performance. And I still consider it stock-y and realsitic enough. Also its on two layers with the upper covering around the front half of the missile. Both missiles use the same engines, stubby little ineffective ones that however have minimal size for the performance. Warhead was an W 59 equivalent , which was the lightest real 1MT nuke I could find. Tests were done against 10 laser frigates and were not particularly thrilling. AI sends 40 missiles , I zoom to the enemy fleet to prevent the ambush from a minimal distance bug, missiles cross the gap, usually the first dies around 5-10 km. A few more may die on the last dash and then we have a flash and then a lot of spinning frigates, a few dead, rarely more than a half of them. A shot from the approaching missiles Then frigates madly firing around at their fallen comrades : The stock devastators coudn't cross the gap even once. About the rcs here is a shot of one of my normal gunships with the rcs aiming thrusters : If I have to guess why they don't make a hole in the armor and are on top I think its because of the 90 degree gimball and the small size. Of the the two or both of them in combination.
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Post by concretedonkey on Mar 14, 2017 19:07:45 GMT
Donkey, god of paranoia and self irony.
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Post by concretedonkey on Mar 14, 2017 8:41:48 GMT
If this is your position then we have nothing to discuss . I'm out.
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Post by concretedonkey on Mar 14, 2017 7:57:55 GMT
Shit guys you are writing faster than I can respond and I really need to work . Thing is that you are all affected by what I would call "large force" way of thinking and I'm much more inclined to like small nations that defy the forces of the day and do everything possible to protect themselves . Both points of view have their issues. You think investing large amounts of money in military makes your stomping of everybody else somehow more moral and right. I on the other hand like simple cheap solutions that give even small nations ways to defend themselves. We may never agree.
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Post by concretedonkey on Mar 14, 2017 7:46:38 GMT
This is certainly a possibility but I would argue that in both cases that we discussed it doesn't matter. As I already said if its a retaliatory strike your people will not care since they will be dead , will have dead relatives and will be justifiably enraged how your enemy , likely a larger force , used their advantage to strike you. And if its the other way around - you are the one with more budget and you are considering this large installation to make all ships obsolete, than you can't ignore the possibility that this installation will be hit first by a sneak attack, be it a q ship or something else. So you will likely invest on smaller static defenses backed up by warships and avoid putting all your eggs in one basket.
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Post by concretedonkey on Mar 14, 2017 7:23:19 GMT
We can debate the morality of the issue at hand to death and never reach an understanding. For me it doesn't matter if you are firing from a Q ship or a warship what matters is the target. If its a civilian installation its a no go if its a military installation its ok. In this case we are discussing if a large static installation is not making all warships obsolete. I don't think so since the said static installation can be hit first in a variety of ways. The deterrent part is a bonus since it gives you the ability to strike back for a minimal price in case shit hits the fan. In that regard its the much cheaper and practical equivalent of the hypothetical hydrogen steamer that was discussed. I'm unsure of if it was possible technically, but even if it was, I don't like it, its a one pony show with a huge price.
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Post by concretedonkey on Mar 14, 2017 6:48:55 GMT
And a strategic bombardment with nukes from a proper warship is any less immoral, because you are waving your proud flag around, do you really think all those dead people will care? Q-ships are a viable alternative and anyway this is a deterrent weapon so the shit has either already hit the fan and many of the crew's friends and family are already dead, or as a first strike weapon leaves you open to the exactly reciprocal response from the other side. In both cases an embargo is the least of your problems. Pretty sure nukes aren't a deterrent here. They kinda are thrown around like candy. Similar to large bombs used in airstrikes today. I think it depends on the target. If we are firing on a static installation especially on a planet it sure is a deterrent. You don't want your stations and asteroids that you live on being nuked. On the other hand you are right in open space you might be just throwing them around like confetti .
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Post by concretedonkey on Mar 14, 2017 6:46:04 GMT
for capital ship RCS I usually go with large arrays of very small engines with 90 degree gimballs... The gimbals force the game not to make a hole in the armor and if the engines are small enough they survive just fine. But you need a lot of them. Erm. I found that gimballed RCS thrusters make holes in the armor. Big ones. that's strange then I have to investigate what makes it place the engine on top of the armor and what makes it go inside making a hole. This is ancient history now but you can clearly see that one of my drones had the engines outside and one has them inside. And I'm sure the small ones on my big ships have them on the outside as well, but I'm not at home and I can't make you a screenshot.
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Post by concretedonkey on Mar 14, 2017 5:31:58 GMT
Yeah. RCS thrusters create big holes in the armor; I just mount them in the shadow of my warship (in the rear) but this leaves me with mediocre turn times. Considering going to gimballed capital ship torches, but the sheer mass of not only the gimbal assembly but the extra armored surface area is... discouraging. for capital ship RCS I usually go with large arrays of very small engines with 90 degree gimballs... The gimbals force the game not to make a hole in the armor and if the engines are small enough they survive just fine. But you need a lot of them.
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Post by concretedonkey on Mar 14, 2017 5:21:47 GMT
Sorry for the lack of update yesterday. I've been reading and testing. I realised that because of the heavy armor there is a point where the effectiveness of the long engine bells and the higher exaust velocity of more effective fuel mixtures like the LOX/Methane is really counterproductive. So after encountering this useful spreadsheet and reading this I've gone full Hydrogenperoxide/RP1 for both offering me decent enough exaust velocity and very high density. For the devastator I've also found that several smaller fixed engines are giving me better performance because they are so much shorter and do not escalate the armor weight that much. The reduced turning speed did not turned out to be a problem for the moment but I experimented with RCS thrusters to boost it, sadly they turned out to make the missiles much less resistant ot laser fire. However it seemed to me that the RCS was behaving much better than before the patch so great work qswitched ! I'll try to wrap up the new missiles after work and I'll try to post them later today.
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