David's Fantastic Spreadsheet of Laser Tests

A while back, I did some quick testing on the performances of Nitrile Rubber, Silica Aerogel, and Aramid Fiber to finally prove which was the top dog at stopping our drones and missiles from turning to dust. However, as time and updates go on, the data became stale and not exactly showing what was going on.

So now I began to redo the testing process, updating both the Laser Boat and Armor Test to a standard that could be repeated. This time instead of scribbling times on notecards and transferring them to the forums shit wonderful table formatting, the data goes straight into a new fancy spreadsheet that makes everyone's lives guaranteed 200% easier.

Ships and lasers are here
And the wonderful fantastic Mr. Spreadsheet can be found here

Testing process:

• Since the Armor is propelled by a very lackluster stock MPD, it's practically held in orbit. Save for a few times it dodges intercept of course. This way the intercept velocities can be controlled, as it proved to be a problem.
• Armor will be intercepted by the Pocket Lance with a range of 50km and at least 10m/s of perpendicular velocity. Ensuring the laser doesn't wobble around the center point of the armor and consuming all of my time. However, too much and the laser will drag across the armor to new tiles.
• Then a super scientific iPhone 4s will be used to measure the time when the laser impacts the armor to when the armor fails (armor indicator shows black tiles). Then the time is recorded in the spreadsheet.
• Repeated 5 times for each material, until I dislike life.

Unfortunately for those of you with keen eyes from discord will notice this process differs from what I mentioned I would be doing. Letting the AI control the armor ship with an NTR proved to change the times dramatically, even letting Aramid Fiber last indefinitely. Using an MPD ensured it would stay still so I could atleast try and drill on the same spot.


If anyone wishes to see their favorite material not shown in the spreadsheet ablated away, feel free to leave it below.

As well as a quick thanks to apophys ndeo and underwhelmed on discord for the laser, feedback, and support.

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Current Change Log I guess:

5/27/2017        v7

• Ablated a lot of things
• New metric for sorting sheet
• Np-237 Dioxide is really expensive