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Post by wafflestoo on Nov 15, 2016 17:52:07 GMT
Okay, I'm awake again Here's the missile I tested it with and against. Protection was slightly worse than the sil-gel but the massive drop in cost and mass more than made up for it in my book. I tested it against all of the stock laser carriers and against one of my "Escort, Mk.II" ships mounting 3x 13MW greenies (not stock green lasers, they're based on the best R&D I could steal borrow from Apophys with about double the power output). I have not yet tested them against my Escort, Mk.III ships which mount a GW green with 1 Mm engagement range (that one was flat ripped off from Apophys, thanks!) a.k.a. "Duracell of Death"
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Post by redparadize on Nov 15, 2016 18:26:58 GMT
Okay, I'm awake again Here's the missile I tested it with and against. Protection was slightly worse than the sil-gel but the massive drop in cost and mass more than made up for it in my book. I tested it against all of the stock laser carriers and against one of my "Escort, Mk.II" ships mounting 3x 13MW greenies (not stock green lasers, they're based on the best R&D I could steal borrow from Apophys with about double the power output). I have not yet tested them against my Escort, Mk.III ships which mount a GW green with 1 Mm engagement range (that one was flat ripped off from Apophys, thanks!) a.k.a. "Duracell of Death" So its slightly worst that sil-gel? I think a 1 on 1 comparative would be welcome, like raising the mass until it match the sil-gel variant. It would also be interesting to add the spacer to get equal number of hit square on sil-gel variant, and then run the two sil-gel variant agaist each other. I would like to break down every variable until we can figure out what does what...
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Post by concretedonkey on Nov 15, 2016 18:54:34 GMT
OK , first results , for the moment I'm testing just the materials and the spacers.
First direct conversion to your material composition against what I have now (boron-graphite aerogel-graphite) against modified solar lances: Your setup fared the same from 1000 to 500 km , then mine got definitely worse closer. Still not enough to convince me to switch , given the higher price and higher weight.
5 layers of graphite - graphite aerogel - graphite were nothing extraordinary. 5 layers of just graphite also nothing interesting.
The interesting part came up when I switched the 50cm spacer that I had in the front to 5x10cm. Big improvement even with my armor setup, matching your materials and still giving me the bonuses of the boron-graphite aerogel-graphite setup - lower price and weight.
Now something that I didn't pay attention before - most of the missiles died from losing their delta V. Seems that armor wasn't penatrated most of the time, with both setups. I don't know if anyone else noticed but the missiles continue to accelerate after the initial burn if they are shot with lasers.
Also, the 4 solar lances didn't seem that dangerous as I expected. Definetly a less dangerous environment than my single laser escort with the 200MW violet lasers. And definetly much much less dangerous than my top target - 18X200MWs of the same type all firing at the same time.
More tests will follow with fat missiles with bundled fuel tanks.
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Post by wafflestoo on Nov 15, 2016 19:55:07 GMT
Okay, I'm awake again Here's the missile I tested it with and against. Protection was slightly worse than the sil-gel but the massive drop in cost and mass more than made up for it in my book. I tested it against all of the stock laser carriers and against one of my "Escort, Mk.II" ships mounting 3x 13MW greenies (not stock green lasers, they're based on the best R&D I could steal borrow from Apophys with about double the power output). I have not yet tested them against my Escort, Mk.III ships which mount a GW green with 1 Mm engagement range (that one was flat ripped off from Apophys, thanks!) a.k.a. "Duracell of Death" So its slightly worst that sil-gel? I think a 1 on 1 comparative would be welcome, like raising the mass until it match the sil-gel variant. It would also be interesting to add the spacer to get equal number of hit square on sil-gel variant, and then run the two sil-gel variant agaist each other. I would like to break down every variable until we can figure out what does what... Sorry, I get that backwards. Man, I should stop posting prior to my first cup of coffee. Your armor design flat beat sil-gel when facing a 1GW laser.
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Post by wafflestoo on Nov 15, 2016 20:04:19 GMT
OK , first results , for the moment I'm testing just the materials and the spacers. First direct conversion to your material composition against what I have now (boron-graphite aerogel-graphite) against modified solar lances: Your setup fared the same from 1000 to 500 km , then mine got definitely worse closer. Still not enough to convince me to switch , given the higher price and higher weight. 5 layers of graphite - graphite aerogel - graphite were nothing extraordinary. 5 layers of just graphite also nothing interesting. The interesting part came up when I switched the 50cm spacer that I had in the front to 5x10cm. Big improvement even with my armor setup, matching your materials and still giving me the bonuses of the boron-graphite aerogel-graphite setup - lower price and weight. Now something that I didn't pay attention before - most of the missiles died from losing their delta V. Seems that armor wasn't penatrated most of the time, with both setups. I don't know if anyone else noticed but the missiles continue to accelerate after the initial burn if they are shot with lasers. Also, the 4 solar lances didn't seem that dangerous as I expected. Definetly a less dangerous environment than my single laser escort with the 200MW violet lasers. And definetly much much less dangerous than my top target - 18X200MWs of the same type all firing at the same time. More tests will follow with fat missiles with bundled fuel tanks. I've noticed that too, sometimes a fuel tank will burst and I can't find the hole in the armor. I'm wondering if it's thermal effects penetrating the interior? Maybe we need to add an insulator as the last layer to help prevent that, or maybe we need to stop making our tanks out of UMHWP?
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Post by redparadize on Nov 15, 2016 20:13:10 GMT
Sorry, I get that backwards. Man, I should stop posting prior to my first cup of coffee. Your armor design flat beat sil-gel when facing a 1GW laser. All good, I just want to make sure to get the proper conclusion from each testing. From what I get, the multiple layering is not always the good option, it seem to be true at least for Amorphous carbon. My understanding of it suggest that it is related to its high heat transfer but I could be wrong. concretedonkey tested something similar with graphite and graphite aerogel and got negative/inconclusive result. It kinda reinforce my conclusion, but it could have another cause, his setup have a much lower heat sink capacity. But I don't know for sure if its relevant here. I am at work now so I can't test anything. Tonight I will try to play lower power laser, it should allow to "map" the effect more accurately. I will try to come up with a test that would allow me to differentiate the effect of shape (number of hit square) heat storage capacity and heat transfer. There is other variable of course, It will be hard to isolate them...
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Post by redparadize on Nov 15, 2016 20:19:54 GMT
(snip) Now something that I didn't pay attention before - most of the missiles died from losing their delta V . Seems that armor wasn't penatrated most of the time, with both setups. I don't know if anyone else noticed but the missiles continue to accelerate after the initial burn if they are shot with lasers. (snip) I've noticed that too, sometimes a fuel tank will burst and I can't find the hole in the armor. I' m wondering if it's thermal effects penetrating the interior? Maybe we need to add an insulator as the last layer to help prevent that, or maybe we need to stop making our tanks out of UMHWP? Boron tanks are heavier but much cheaper, you should switch to that. I noticed that many disabled missile had all their module intact. The fuel seem to boil off because of high temp, but note that once targeted by enemy fire, the IA now do evasive maneuver even if targeted by laser, just that alone drain out the Dv. A quick test could be done to confirm if boil of is a thing, deactivate engine after initial push, if the fuel still disappear from intact fuel tanks then we will know for sure.
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Post by concretedonkey on Nov 15, 2016 21:10:41 GMT
I've noticed that too, sometimes a fuel tank will burst and I can't find the hole in the armor. I' m wondering if it's thermal effects penetrating the interior? Maybe we need to add an insulator as the last layer to help prevent that, or maybe we need to stop making our tanks out of UMHWP? Boron tanks are heavier but much cheaper, you should switch to that. I noticed that many disabled missile had all their module intact. The fuel seem to boil off because of high temp, but note that once targeted by enemy fire, the IA now do evasive maneuver even if targeted by laser, just that alone drain out the Dv. A quick test could be done to confirm if boil of is a thing, deactivate engine after initial push, if the fuel still disappear from intact fuel tanks then we will know for sure. I tried just that, disabled the engine manually , didn't seem to do much , fuel continued to evaporate, its not only the AI burning , I really think its the heat. Btw I'm also using boron for the tanks. Edit : I'll stay on the graphite aerogel - graphite composition but I plan to do some tests with silica again. If the hypothesis about the thermal conductivity is correct silica may be a good option again. Frankly aramid is good but its too expensive. I had good results with amorphous carbon on the lowest layer of the armor, but it impacted the NEFP efficiency somehow - much less damage on the target compared to the boron underlayer.
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Post by redparadize on Nov 15, 2016 21:36:12 GMT
Good, I was almost sure about the boil off. Now if the missile had a power source do you think it would remain activated when out of fuel? If its the case it would be usefull for nuke/flak missile. Enemy laser would also fire longer at every individual target...
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Post by Drahkan on Nov 15, 2016 21:55:32 GMT
I too "only" lose missiles due to delta-v loss, but in nearly all cases it's due to the tanks being visibly destroyed, and with multi-tank setups one dying at a time while I watch the delta-v slowly drain away. That aside, if they happen to make it all the way to the target, it still appears to me that they are *still* burning all of their delta-v prior to actual impact, which also seems to *still* result in loss of control despite that bug having supposedly been fixed. Their warheads still seem to go off at least (unless they were destroyed in the process) but it still bothers me since it takes away from the customization options we now have for remote controls. On the "what's happening with lasers and tanks" front, if you hover over a part of the missile - so you can see the inside of it - I've noticed that even if the Armor Visualizer is showing me zero internal armor damage (all "green" boxes), I can see huge areas of red-hot armor somewhere in my layers. (I'm currently using ~1.5mm Aramid over ~1cm Amorphous Carbon with 3-7cm gap below it over ~1cm Vanadium steel over ~5mm graphite aerogel over ~1cm Boron. Which is a lot of armor, but my rockets tend to be 10-15m long and around 1.5mm wide.) If I tweak my armor downwards, especially reducing the carbon, then lasers will actually cut completely through the armor, removing chunks visibly and taking out fuel tanks after that. However, even if my missile's armor is completely penetrated and there is visible damage to one or more fuel tanks, the lower-left module/damage panel never says that the fuel tanks are disabled. So perhaps it's just a bug with laser damage, that it's not notifying us that X fuel tanks were destroyed, so it just appears that fuel is "boiling off" even though that's not the case..?
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Post by Drahkan on Nov 15, 2016 21:57:20 GMT
Good, I was almost sure about the boil off. Now if the missile had a power source do you think it would remain activated when out of fuel? If its the case it would be usefull for nuke/flak missile. Enemy laser would also fire longer at every individual target... AFAICT once delta-v is gone, the missile is considered disabled and the AI stops shooting at it. The missile I'm building at the moment has a generator in it and I've definitely had cases of it being disabled/destroyed while the generator was still operational.
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Post by redparadize on Nov 16, 2016 0:22:24 GMT
Ok, I replaced Aramid fiber with sil-gel and it seem to be a fairly good compromise. In fact, it seem to insulate much better. I can now say that insulation prevent tanks form boiling off. Because while running that test, something interesting happened, the first few missle entercepted at +800km had their external tanks exploding first. Sometimes the inner one would remain and boil of. At closer range, it seem that missile suffered explosive decompression, the missile would be cut in two, but the nose would remain intact. That would explain why missile with a small diameter gave be lesser result. So, unless its a realy small missile, spacing should give a nice bonus.
I will test tiny spacing to see if it also works.
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Post by redparadize on Nov 16, 2016 2:39:04 GMT
Ok! I got a massive improvement here! 73% of my missile now reach target! (all my test have been performed in exactly the same circumstance.) I have a couple of minor amelioration to my previous design. Like a spacer in the middle to split sides hit square in two. That partial partial armor result in a much lighter missile and a tad more laser resistant. Note that you can't have partial armor cutting a hit square in two, spacer is necessarily for small missile. The downside is that engine is more vulnerable if the approach is at high angle. Spacing between layer is not that much helpful, a retained a 500um between Amorphous Carbon layer, that allowed me to remove silicon aerogel between layer without affecting insulation much. I kept a single silicon aerogel layer in the inner position. It allowed me to retain the isolation and remove most of the space between armor and module. I also have a module positioning improvement, I use to put the nuke on the back because I wanted to protect it, pretty pointless if the missile is deactivated by lack of fuel. I now put my nuke in front, result is that it now explode (conventional, not nuclear) upon penetration. But because of the frontal shape and heat being applied further away from the tank, the missile survive much longer. The downside is I needed to tweak my remote control or engine because with that extra weight in front missile turn slowly, resulting in burning all its fuel before having the final maneuver completed. Something interesting also happened during these test, I tweaking space between layer resulted in a weird bug: Enemy Laser were blasting my missile and ship in a fraction of second. I restarted the game and the bug was still there. But when I reverted the spacing back to its original value then laser started behaving normally. That's clearly a bug, now I have reason to doubt all my test...
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Post by redparadize on Nov 16, 2016 3:22:20 GMT
I applyed the same armor layout on a much larger drone and it worked! So I guess that's it, we have a replacement for Silica aerogel!
Edit: that setup might have a weakness agaist green laser, at least it seem so... Edit 2: I am missing something, I have lesser result doing the same test same test but agaist a unmodified Solar Lance...
I think I found a bug, it happen when you have spacing below 1 cm. Game does not seem to like that at all. Every small change in spacing result in erratic armor performance that affect all ship.
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Post by Drahkan on Nov 18, 2016 0:36:18 GMT
Last night and today I did some tests with variations of the "lots of thin carbon layers" theory, and it turns out that it even works amazingly well *against slugs*! Kinda makes me think that it might be a bug of some sort with how layering works, perhaps some built-in modifier that makes separate layers "better" than just a single slab of the equivalent thickness of armor, I'm not sure. Anyway, here's the current "missile" I'm using: As you can see it's pretty friggin' huge, technically counts as a drone, and is pretty slow-and-lumbering; even with the remote control set to (literally) burn 100% fuel on the approach, it *never* runs out of gas before reaching the target, at least not against stock ships with stock weapon ranges. Despite all that, this armor layout *usually gets it past 2 Gunships plus 1 Cutter*. Granted, the nose gets caved in once the Cutter's green lasers turn on, but I've got a 17cm aerogel plate sitting underneath to protect the 4 x 2 stacked fuel tanks, about half of which get torn up...but not until it's already reached the enemy (and usually tumbling past due to all those slugs bouncing it around). Once those ships have lost at least 2 lasers, however, it doesn't seem to care at all that it's the only missile on the battlefield being targeted by 3 enemies - it just keeps going until it hits or passes its target.
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