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Post by grumpster on Oct 12, 2016 15:45:27 GMT
Behold! Not 1! Not 2! Not even 3! but a whole fleet consisting of 10 ship designs... All of these ships have proven effective against more expensive and more massive fleets of stock ships. I would love to see how they fair against some of the other creations detailed in this thread. I really like the look of your fleet. Would you mind posting (or PMing) the designs? I would love to try them out. I'm still trying to wrap my head around ship and module design, but as of right now I find that tinkering and seeing what happens to be the best practice. |
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Post by morrigi on Oct 13, 2016 1:40:25 GMT
Microdrone time! Shenanigans used to reduce cost and weight include a very small 100kW nuclear reactor and nuclear-thermal engines, respectively. The gun isn't particularly powerful, but it's good enough to take out radiators and weapons or simply sandblast through armor with sheer weight of fire. The basalt-fiber composite protects the nose from laser fire, but direct hits from enemy projectile will shred the Hornet if they can get a lock, which I've noticed appears to be a very big if.
  The gun  Edit: The Hornet II, with a much more suitable and compact 200W reactor design borrowed and modified from one in the reactor thread.  |
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Post by dragonkid11 on Oct 13, 2016 4:46:35 GMT
How the hell do you guys get your drone to weigh so little and still so powerful?
I tried to make a drone with one 200 kw coilgun and only managed to get it to around 1 ton or so.
EDIT:
Also, tried to use drone that can launch missiles rapidly.
Micro nuclear missiles seem to just...don't work well.
Will try micro flak missiles when I can.
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Post by concretedonkey on Oct 13, 2016 6:09:48 GMT
What seems to be the problem with micro missiles ? I've seen very impressive designs in the 25 -15 kg range , and I'm quite happy with mine... ?
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Post by morrigi on Oct 13, 2016 6:14:56 GMT
Good engines are important, although the ones I'm using are a bit small because they were originally designed for missiles, so I'm clustering 6 of them. Currently working on a Hornet III with 4 guns, more powerful engines, and ammo storage separate from the gun to reduce explosions. Edit: Yeah, I have a line of 4 anti-ship missiles in the ~20-28kg range. Attachments:
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Post by dragonkid11 on Oct 13, 2016 6:17:04 GMT
What seems to be the problem with micro missiles ? I've seen very impressive designs in the 25 -15 kg range , and I'm quite happy with mine... ? Well, they don't explode in time and instead crash into the target uselessly. I will try flak missile later since flak will explode on impact. |
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Post by morrigi on Oct 13, 2016 6:18:02 GMT
Could be a problem with the fusing of whatever warhead you're using.
Edit: And it appears that a fleet of 15 Hornet III prototypes can do severe damage to entire fleets, even when there are ships with megawatt-range lasers present.
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Post by concretedonkey on Oct 13, 2016 6:21:50 GMT
I had a similar problem with one of my micro nukes , solved it by bumping up the minimum range up one notch... not sure what it was , not even sure if this solved it but the next design didn't have that problem... btw kinetic micro missiles make more sense - if its going to be cheap , let it be really cheap  . I use both, usually in 1 to 5 mix. |
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Post by morrigi on Oct 13, 2016 6:44:44 GMT
Hmm, there seems to be some kind of bug with armor layering, it's not weighing as much as it should under certain situations. I've noticed it when I have 2 full layers of different materials, and a third, partial layer.
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Post by morrigi on Oct 13, 2016 7:02:16 GMT
Oh, and I made a 30mm cannon fire a sub-caliber 5mm, 4.6g projectile at 3km/s because lol why not, and then I stuck it on a drone. Works well, and it makes pretty sparks as it punches through hulls. Attachments:
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Post by Dhan on Oct 13, 2016 7:10:36 GMT
Hmm, there seems to be some kind of bug with armor layering, it's not weighing as much as it should under certain situations. I've noticed it when I have 2 full layers of different materials, and a third, partial layer. There are definitely bugs here. I tried to give my drone a second layer of armor on the front end and there is no difference in weight from 0.05 cm to 10cm of boron for the same exact piece. When increasing the length of this armor, that is to say when armoring a bit more than just the front, the weight only changes in big steps. Going from 25% of the drone's length being armored to 50% has no change in weight despite the huge increase in coverage. The weight only changes here when going under 24% or over 51% coverage. |
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Post by morrigi on Oct 13, 2016 7:12:49 GMT
It changes again around 70-75%. Something is broken.
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Post by dwwolf on Oct 13, 2016 8:26:43 GMT
For those who need to do their killing on more of a budget, but still want unreasonable levels of penetration, I can offer a line of 15x400cm conventional missiles. No treaty violations with these! The first is a pure kinetic kill vehicle, with a 10kg osmium long-rod penetrator. It's most deadly at long range, and has demonstrated a penetration of 50cm of RCC when near its top velocity, and repeated strikes to the same area can breach a full meter of RCC. Cost is under 350c per missile, and mass per missile is just over 57 kg. And for the safety-minded among you, it's a nonexplosive bi-propellant design.   For those who are willing to sacrifice long-range penetration performance for good performance at any range, we have a conventional explosively formed penetrator variant. The CEFP uses an 8kg copper slug propelled by 2kg of octogen to offer 50cm of penetration vs RCC at ranges as low as 5 kilometers, and in testing has also shown the ability to penetrate 25cm of vanadium-chromium steel in a single hit. The flexibility of this variant comes at a slightly higher mass, but a significantly lower price tag. Each missile weighs in at 58kg, and costs less than 300c.  With the power to penetrate the armor of even the largest USTA and RFC capital ships at 1/5 the price of a standard USTA/RFC flak missile, defending your moon, dwarf planet, or asteroid's citizens from the threat of takeover by "wealthy" navies has never been easier. Think of your citizens. Think Salacian Naval Surplus. This message brought to you by Salacian Naval Surplus Liquidators, Inc.Could you post your engine designs and the detonation range on the explosive? |
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Post by beta on Oct 13, 2016 10:58:52 GMT
Sub-kiloton designs. Decided to make some low mass and relatively cheap capital spacecraft. Wanted to have some focused spacecraft to add versatility to a fleet. First two up are a missile craft and a gun craft. Both are low emissions, moderate armour, high-g, low cross-section. Can't have everything, these craft give up dV for their small cross-section and high-g engines. I had some flare launchers on them, but I just felt bad how easy it was to dodge enemy missiles, so I removed them. Active defense is the name of the game for these ships when dealing with enemy missiles or drones. That's what the defensive missiles are for! First is the gunship.   The guns.  Next is the missile ship.   The missile and warheads.     Lots of guns does the trick! Similar fleet mass, and the single Corvette costs a decent amount more.  |
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Post by nivik on Oct 13, 2016 13:25:47 GMT
<snip> Could you post your engine designs and the detonation range on the explosive? The engine is below. The detonation range...uhm, honestly, I don't know and don't have time to check right this second. I don't know that the fusing range really matters much, since payloads tend to wait until closest approach to detonate, from what I understand. The engine sacrifices efficiency to fit inside a 15cm diameter form factor:  My drone engines have much better performance:  But the exhaust is still really hot. The expansion ratios needed to pull all the energy out of the decane/lox reaction are nuts. |
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. I use both, usually in 1 to 5 mix.
