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Post by ironclad6 on Aug 31, 2017 17:34:04 GMT
Yeah. I was thinking that. I think a carbon nanotube flywheel works for the K-mine concept. I basically only need to provide power for 3-5 seconds to accelerate from point blank and I'm away. Also, thus far I've been coating all of my Systems Commonwealth ships in VANTA but their signature is so bright from their radiators that this seems kinda pointless. What do you think thematically about switching to a very clean white paint instead? I like the very sinister looking invisible black hulls but maybe white would work? Forget the signature of the radiators. What about the signature of the fusion exhaust which is millions to billions of kelvin hot. Doubling temp increases irradiance by 16x. Tactically somethinh like aluminium would be the best because of lasers. But Adamites use particle emitter. A clean white would fit with the Commonwealth nature. So your Whisker IV has to use metallic hydrogen. Low efficenncy fusion makes not much sense because you could use them for powering MPDTs which have 10-100 times better thrust. Yeah, I'm aware there's no stealth in space. That's actually something that's sort of written into the plot. No stealth is not the same as no signature reduction though. Your drive flare only gives you away while your drives are running. That's why the Crater class ships use flywheels and low temperature fission reactors for hotel and startup load. Those rads only light up like that when she needs to run her stellarators. The rest of the time they're folded up in armoured bins. I think I need to go back to the drawing board a little bit because honestly the gulf between fusion powered warships and NSWR is just so massive. The Adamites wouldn't have a hope in hell against a ship that can hit them with 8.633 terawatt lasers at a light second range. You're right about the Whiskers I think. I wonder if instead of using a magnetic confinement nozzle, could I just just a small stellarator in 100% electricity mode and just use that to power an MPDT? |
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Post by Kerr on Aug 31, 2017 17:41:07 GMT
Forget the signature of the radiators. What about the signature of the fusion exhaust which is millions to billions of kelvin hot. Doubling temp increases irradiance by 16x. Tactically somethinh like aluminium would be the best because of lasers. But Adamites use particle emitter. A clean white would fit with the Commonwealth nature. So your Whisker IV has to use metallic hydrogen. Low efficenncy fusion makes not much sense because you could use them for powering MPDTs which have 10-100 times better thrust. Yeah, I'm aware there's no stealth in space. That's actually something that's sort of written into the plot. No stealth is not the same as no signature reduction though. Your drive flare only gives you away while your drives are running. That's why the Crater class ships use flywheels and low temperature fission reactors for hotel and startup load. Those rads only light up like that when she needs to run her stellarators. The rest of the time they're folded up in armoured bins. I think I need to go back to the drawing board a little bit because honestly the gulf between fusion powered warships and NSWR is just so massive. The Adamites wouldn't have a hope in hell against a ship that can hit them with 8.633 terawatt lasers at a light second range. You're right about the Whiskers I think. I wonder if instead of using a magnetic confinement nozzle, could I just just a small stellarator in 100% electricity mode and just use that to power an MPDT? This is what I suggested the entire time... Maybe you want to switch to 80% UTB NSWR? They have 4800km/s exhaust velocity. With some... disadvantages. |
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Post by Kerr on Aug 31, 2017 17:45:02 GMT
Yeah, I'm aware there's no stealth in space. That's actually something that's sort of written into the plot. No stealth is not the same as no signature reduction though. Your drive flare only gives you away while your drives are running. That's why the Crater class ships use flywheels and low temperature fission reactors for hotel and startup load. Those rads only light up like that when she needs to run her stellarators. The rest of the time they're folded up in armoured bins. I think I need to go back to the drawing board a little bit because honestly the gulf between fusion powered warships and NSWR is just so massive. The Adamites wouldn't have a hope in hell against a ship that can hit them with 8.633 terawatt lasers at a light second range. You're right about the Whiskers I think. I wonder if instead of using a magnetic confinement nozzle, could I just just a small stellarator in 100% electricity mode and just use that to power an MPDT? This is what I suggested the entire time... Maybe you want to switch to 80% UTB NSWR? They have 4800km/s exhaust velocity. With some... disadvantages. Also good luck cooling an 8TW FEL. Do you know how massive such a laser would be? If you can get 1000K outlet with it you still need 67km2 radiators.. ironclad6 |
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Post by ironclad6 on Aug 31, 2017 17:50:25 GMT
This is what I suggested the entire time... Maybe you want to switch to 80% UTB NSWR? They have 4800km/s exhaust velocity. With some... disadvantages. Also good luck cooling an 8TW FEL. Do you know how massive such a laser would be? If you can get 1000K outlet with it you still need 67km2 radiators.. ironclad6 The laser is not 8 TW. That's the beam intensity at 1 light second. The beam output is 20GW. At the moment the game gives me stupidly high pumping efficiency but I'm assuming roughly 75%. The resulting radiators are very large. How would I model 80% UTB NSWR and what are the disadvantages?, also yes, I just realized that you were suggesting that the entire time. It look me a while to catch up. Also, white paint comes out grey? What's up with that? |
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Post by Kerr on Aug 31, 2017 17:55:27 GMT
Also good luck cooling an 8TW FEL. Do you know how massive such a laser would be? If you can get 1000K outlet with it you still need 67km2 radiators.. ironclad6 The laser is not 8 TW. That's the beam intensity at 1 light second. The beam output is 20GW. At the moment the game gives me stupidly high pumping efficiency but I'm assuming roughly 75%. The resulting radiators are very large. How would I model 80% UTB NSWR and what are the disadvantages?, also yes, I just realized that you were suggesting that the entire time. It look me a while to catch up. Black box. You can use Zubrin as fuel, High thrust, high isp, easy to ignite. Disadvantage: a bit to easy tp ignite, you can pull some G's safely. Just make your fuel tanks save. Or otherwise.. |
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Post by ironclad6 on Aug 31, 2017 18:07:24 GMT
The laser is not 8 TW. That's the beam intensity at 1 light second. The beam output is 20GW. At the moment the game gives me stupidly high pumping efficiency but I'm assuming roughly 75%. The resulting radiators are very large. How would I model 80% UTB NSWR and what are the disadvantages?, also yes, I just realized that you were suggesting that the entire time. It look me a while to catch up. Black box. You can use Zubrin as fuel, High thrust, high isp, easy to ignite. Disadvantage: a bit to easy tp ignite, you can pull some G's safely. Just make your fuel tanks save. Or otherwise.. Actually that's not a bad idea. Thanks. This has all been so helpful. The problem with writing a good novel is that you have to make sure all of your cool ideas are evenly distributed. I'm actually going to take your MPDT missile design and use it to drive the Adamite's nuclear tipped AGDA missiles. I'll have to get some real world contact information for you at some point to make sure you get an acknowledgement. |
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Post by Kerr on Aug 31, 2017 18:55:06 GMT
Black box. You can use Zubrin as fuel, High thrust, high isp, easy to ignite. Disadvantage: a bit to easy tp ignite, you can pull some G's safely. Just make your fuel tanks save. Or otherwise.. Actually that's not a bad idea. Thanks. This has all been so helpful. The problem with writing a good novel is that you have to make sure all of your cool ideas are evenly distributed. I'm actually going to take your MPDT missile design and use it to drive the Adamite's nuclear tipped AGDA missiles. I'll have to get some real world contact information for you at some point to make sure you get an acknowledgement. You might want my updated MPDT Bus then. Dv: 80km/s Wet: 5.35t Dry: 2.4t Acceleration: 6.6-14.7G Warhead: 1t Powered by an 1t 17.5GW 80% Fusion reactor weighting. It has a power density of 17.5MW/kg. 175x more than my best fission reactor. If we remove thermocouples, coolant, turbopumps the difference shrinks to 20x. Rads are two 155kg folded graphene radiators running at 4000K. 30m long and 2.65m wide. Giving it somewhat of an appearance of an burning sword. |
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Post by ironclad6 on Aug 31, 2017 18:58:21 GMT
Actually that's not a bad idea. Thanks. This has all been so helpful. The problem with writing a good novel is that you have to make sure all of your cool ideas are evenly distributed. I'm actually going to take your MPDT missile design and use it to drive the Adamite's nuclear tipped AGDA missiles. I'll have to get some real world contact information for you at some point to make sure you get an acknowledgement. You might want my updated MPDT Bus then. Dv: 80km/s Wet: 5.35t Dry: 2.4t Acceleration: 6.6-14.7G Warhead: 1t Powered by an 1t 17.5GW 80% Fusion reactor weighting. It has a power density of 17.5MW/kg. 175x more than my best fission reactor. If we remove thermocouples, coolant, turbopumps the difference shrinks to 20x. Rads are two 155kg folded graphene radiators running at 4000K. 30m long and 2.65m wide. Giving it somewhat of an appearance of an burning sword. Perfect. They'd call it the burning sword of justice. Switching to 80% enriched NSWR brings things back into contention with the delightful side effect that you are rolling around in a quarter million ton nuke. |
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Post by Kerr on Aug 31, 2017 19:07:51 GMT
You might want my updated MPDT Bus then. Dv: 80km/s Wet: 5.35t Dry: 2.4t Acceleration: 6.6-14.7G Warhead: 1t Powered by an 1t 17.5GW 80% Fusion reactor weighting. It has a power density of 17.5MW/kg. 175x more than my best fission reactor. If we remove thermocouples, coolant, turbopumps the difference shrinks to 20x. Rads are two 155kg folded graphene radiators running at 4000K. 30m long and 2.65m wide. Giving it somewhat of an appearance of an burning sword. Perfect. They'd call it the burning sword of justice. Switching to 80% enriched NSWR brings things back into contention with the delightful side effect that you are rolling around in a quarter million ton nuke. Would you be ok with 3-6G of acceleration? Given that your ships have now crippled acceleration it might be enough. In exchange you get extra 32km/s of Delta-v. And also even lower fusion energies. Or 95km/s more Dv at the same fusion power |
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Post by ironclad6 on Aug 31, 2017 19:15:58 GMT
Perfect. They'd call it the burning sword of justice. Switching to 80% enriched NSWR brings things back into contention with the delightful side effect that you are rolling around in a quarter million ton nuke. Would you be ok with 3-6G of acceleration? Given that your ships have now crippled acceleration it might be enough. In exchange you get extra 32km/s of Delta-v. And also even lower fusion energies. What do you mean my crippled acceleration? 6g acceleration is good for most (The vast majority) of targets but the Composer Flight III can simply out run it if needs be. That rather neatly reflects the efficiency scaling with fusion power. I think I'm pretty close to call it done so I can get back to actually writing. I like that I now have two radically different technological visions in play that actually follow very neatly from each side's cultural pre-occupations. |
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Post by bigbombr on Aug 31, 2017 19:23:39 GMT
You might want my updated MPDT Bus then. Dv: 80km/s Wet: 5.35t Dry: 2.4t Acceleration: 6.6-14.7G Warhead: 1t Powered by an 1t 17.5GW 80% Fusion reactor weighting. It has a power density of 17.5MW/kg. 175x more than my best fission reactor. If we remove thermocouples, coolant, turbopumps the difference shrinks to 20x. Rads are two 155kg folded graphene radiators running at 4000K. 30m long and 2.65m wide. Giving it somewhat of an appearance of an burning sword. Perfect. They'd call it the burning sword of justice. Switching to 80% enriched NSWR brings things back into contention with the delightful side effect that you are rolling around in a quarter million ton nuke. NSWR make for great missiles. If you use almost all propellant, you're hitting your target at several dozen km/s, which means plenty of KE. If you don't use a large part of your propellant, it detonates on impact like a nuke. Not having to pick between propellant and warhead weight is awesome. |
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Post by ironclad6 on Aug 31, 2017 19:25:21 GMT
Hrmmm. Good point....
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Post by Kerr on Aug 31, 2017 19:32:07 GMT
Matterbeam had already disproven to me that I could put an 80% UTB NSWR on any missie below 100t. But 2.75kT per kilogram sound like an good warhead to me. You might want to get bunch of small zubrin tanks for nuclear inferno. |
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Post by ironclad6 on Aug 31, 2017 19:38:31 GMT
Matterbeam had already disproven to me that I could put an 80% UTB NSWR on any missie below 100t. But 2.75kT per kilogram sound like an good warhead to me. You might want to get bunch of small zubrin tanks for nuclear inferno. You guys are just fuckin' evil. That is actually something the Adamites would do out of sheer spite. Also, while I'm at it. Have a look at the latest version of the Crater Class.  |
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Post by Kerr on Aug 31, 2017 19:45:56 GMT
Matterbeam had already disproven to me that I could put an 80% UTB NSWR on any missie below 100t. But 2.75kT per kilogram sound like an good warhead to me. You might want to get bunch of small zubrin tanks for nuclear inferno. You guys are just fuckin' evil. That is actually something the Adamites would do out of sheer spite. Also, while I'm at it. Have a look at the latest version of the Crater Class. Huh, weren't the Light FELs in the hecto-MW? Also what going on with the glow on the fusion engines and exhaust? But nice overhaul of your Crater class. |
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