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Post by Enderminion on Aug 7, 2017 14:23:50 GMT
RCC is really expensive, BF rubber composite armor is superior Oops, forgot to delete that from the old design. The intent is basically boron filament whipple shield>graphite aerogel buffer>aC main armor plate, with a further osmium citadel plate in the nose section. The outer layers are just "paint". Also, the boron filament might become something else - I just used it because it was "good enough". Lasers missiles or drones would be nice, long range firepower, since a laser ship could swiss chesse that at 10 million meters I was deliberately going for a kinetic-only warship, partially just because I wanted to. Nagato is meant to serve in a battle group, anyway. Long-range duties are mostly relegated to my laser destroyers, laserstar, and (WIP) carrier. That said, I did tack on a decent battery of those Atlas missiles that omnipotentvoid posted earlier in the thread. Basically, the rest of my fleet screens the various uber-long-range meta threats like lasers and missile spam, while Nagato exists solely to delete anything dumb enough to get within 1Mm of the fleet, be it drones or capital ships. that seems... pretty niche, especially since interceptor missiles/space superiority drones can wipe enemy drones and missiles out before they are within laser range. and your own attack missiles and drones can weaken enemy capitals before they get into engagement range |
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Post by madmike on Aug 7, 2017 16:15:52 GMT
that seems... pretty niche, especially since interceptor missiles/space superiority drones can wipe enemy drones and missiles out before they are within laser range. and your own attack missiles and drones can weaken enemy capitals before they get into engagement range Yeah, I'm aware. Like I said, I was going for more of a fluffy fleet design than something that really fits the meta. I really wanted to try and make a WWII Pacific fleet IN SPACE!!! It's anything but efficient, but I'm just happy if I get it competitive with crunchier designs and doctrines. Plus drones honestly kinda bore me. |
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Post by Rocket Witch on Aug 8, 2017 3:52:28 GMT
Next gen engine for my capitals, using some of my newer mods... actually, hafnium diboride and zirconium diboride are still mods; is there a way for vanilla NTRs to achieve the same performance? Requirements were fitting into a 3x5m box, producing 2MN thrust with 4.5km/s exhaust, and having an I-220H beryllium chamber. Costs 10kc more than the nearest competitor! Heh.  |
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Post by madmike on Aug 8, 2017 7:43:45 GMT
Next gen engine for my capitals, using some of my newer mods... actually, hafnium diboride and zirconium diboride are still mods; is there a way for vanilla NTRs to achieve the same performance? Requirements were fitting into a 3x5m box, producing 2MN thrust with 4.5km/s exhaust, and having an I-220H beryllium chamber. Costs 10kc more than the nearest competitor! Heh. Any tips on rocket design? That and reactors are the two big areas that I really just don't get. Like, I understand the physics, but actually applying that quickly gives way to randomly moving sliders and hoping for the best. I can fall back on Apophys's standardized reactors for most purposes, but scavenging rockets off of the workshop is somewhat limiting. |
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Post by jtyotjotjipaefvj on Aug 8, 2017 7:51:38 GMT
Next gen engine for my capitals, using some of my newer mods... actually, hafnium diboride and zirconium diboride are still mods; is there a way for vanilla NTRs to achieve the same performance? Requirements were fitting into a 3x5m box, producing 2MN thrust with 4.5km/s exhaust, and having an I-220H beryllium chamber. Costs 10kc more than the nearest competitor! Heh. Here's a cheaper and more efficient NTR using only vanilla parts. 4 of these gives more thrust for less weight and far less size than your design, and has a higher exit velocity so it's more efficient too. Not sure about propellant density, but methane isn't too bad when it comes to that. I think the chamber throat is too wide on your design, causing it to be heavier and larger than it needs to be. Mine doesn't have a gimbal, but they're not that useful and I think I could fit that in as well without going over your design's efficiency, since my engine is so light.  Edit: here's the engine I use for most of my capitals. I prefer going a little faster with my ships.  |
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Post by apophys on Aug 8, 2017 18:29:51 GMT
I can fall back on Apophys's standardized reactors for most purposes, but scavenging rockets off of the workshop is somewhat limiting. Not to worry! I will soon be adding methane, RP-1, and HD NTRs, from 10 kN to 100 MN thrust, to my standard modules.  Here's a teaser to compare with the rocket posted above...  |
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Post by bigbombr on Aug 8, 2017 19:02:50 GMT
I can fall back on Apophys's standardized reactors for most purposes, but scavenging rockets off of the workshop is somewhat limiting. Not to worry! I will soon be adding methane, RP-1, and HD NTRs, from 10 kN to 100 MN thrust, to my standard modules. Here's a teaser to compare with the rocket posted above... No water NTR's? I know they're somewhat subpar, but if you're also using water MPDT's they might be useful for emergency maneuvering, while having denser propellant than methane, that other great dual use propellant. |
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Post by apophys on Aug 8, 2017 19:37:33 GMT
No water NTR's? I know they're somewhat subpar, but if you're also using water MPDT's they might be useful for emergency maneuvering, while having denser propellant than methane, that other great dual use propellant. Water has dissociation issues. Heavy water is superior for the same purposes, and has nearly identical cost. I am planning to add a full line of heavy water thrusters (MPDs, NTRs, and resistojets) within about 2 weeks from now. |
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Post by jtyotjotjipaefvj on Aug 8, 2017 20:35:01 GMT
Here's a teaser to compare with the rocket posted above... Cheeky  I also felt like doing some space opera after all my autistic optimization in the last few days, so I made a battleship and shot some vanilla ships with it. It does look quite pretty. Here's a close-up of the design:  It's armed with some cannons and railguns, as well as a bit under 600 nuclear missiles. Here's a youtube video with all the pretty lights: Edit: here's a version with a 50-50 split between nuclear missiles and cluster flak missiles. The nukes have higher acceleration and more dv, so they arrive before the flaks and soften up the enemy nicely. |
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Post by Rocket Witch on Aug 8, 2017 22:29:19 GMT
Here's a cheaper and more efficient NTR using only vanilla parts. 4 of these gives more thrust for less weight and far less size than your design, and has a higher exit velocity so it's more efficient too. Not sure about propellant density, but methane isn't too bad when it comes to that. I think the chamber throat is too wide on your design, causing it to be heavier and larger than it needs to be. Mine doesn't have a gimbal, but they're not that useful and I think I could fit that in as well without going over your design's efficiency, since my engine is so light. You're right, I could reduce the throat size. I thought I was at the hard limit for the amount of thrust for the chamber material. I had set aside an alternate version with an RCC chamber (real space probe engines use this) and made improvements to that. Turns out stock TiB2 rods/reflector give a slightly cheaper and lighter assembly. Not sure how the thrust went up slightly. A diamond-chambered version of this engine could easily have half the throat size again, but I don't like to use diamond since how to manufacture it into complex shapes isn't clear to me and apparently it decomposes into graphite at relatively low temperatures.  One thing to bear in mind is that NTRs contain reactors, and using clusters of them or placing them around the hull as opposed to gimballed engines can inflate crew requirements massively, depending on how many power production reactors the ship already has (you can have 5 of a system, in this case 'nuclear reactor', before the crew requirements jump up from the base values, though I think the count for reactors might be 4 instead). As to gimbals, in missile development I've found that multiple ungimballed engines are less vulnerable and the AI controls the craft more reliably, but a single engine with a large expansion nozzle taking up the space the cluster would use is more fuel-efficient. Any tips on rocket design? That and reactors are the two big areas that I really just don't get. Like, I understand the physics, but actually applying that quickly gives way to randomly moving sliders and hoping for the best. I can fall back on Apophys's standardized reactors for most purposes, but scavenging rockets off of the workshop is somewhat limiting. I rarely make an NTR from scratch; most of my designs start as a copy of the stock water NTR, or one of my existing designs that started as one. With any module, starting with something that already works tends to be easier as you can keep it functional while you adjust parameters. Removing the gimbal makes it a bit easier to work through until the engine's dimensions are approximately done. Know how much thrust you want beforehand, and set up the reactor and the turbopump up to produce some more thrust than requried. Gradually tune the coolant flow down for maximum exhaust velocity until you get reactor temp errors, then decrease the fuel of the reactor, keeping its neutron flux as high as the 6 month lifetime requirement will allow. Repeat these steps back in forth until you come down to your desired thrust, and you'll have the maximum attainable reactor temp along with it. At least I find lots of small steps help give a sense of where things are going. An ideal chamber ratio for reactor lifetime is 1:1, so ideally the contraction ratio would be 1, but increasing the ratio up to some point (2.5 to 7.5 depending on propellant or design) can boost thrust significantly. A high ratio will also make the neutron reflector significantly heavier (if you aren't using Li-6 shields, which are the sort of thing that works but no one would actually do, like all the potassium and lithium turbopumps on really optimised engines). My pictured engine was originally a 1.3t device and the biggest weight savings were made on reducing the contraction ratio. For the nozzle take something that's thick enough to withstand the pressure, raise regenerative cooling as much as possible without cracking. If you're stuck without a margin where there is neither error or the engine can't dissipate heat fast enough, the throat size needs to increase until you get a tiny usable margin to balance the engine on the brink of cracking from expansion when it's turned on and exploding from the internal pressure... safe! Something like that, anyway. I'm missing some details and relationships between sliders but this post is taking forever to write. |
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Post by Rocket Witch on Aug 8, 2017 22:48:15 GMT
Water has dissociation issues. Heavy water is superior for the same purposes If anyone's curious as to why this is, qswitched talked about it on the blog: |
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Post by madmike on Aug 8, 2017 23:07:23 GMT
Here's a cheaper and more efficient NTR using only vanilla parts. 4 of these gives more thrust for less weight and far less size than your design, and has a higher exit velocity so it's more efficient too. Not sure about propellant density, but methane isn't too bad when it comes to that. I think the chamber throat is too wide on your design, causing it to be heavier and larger than it needs to be. Mine doesn't have a gimbal, but they're not that useful and I think I could fit that in as well without going over your design's efficiency, since my engine is so light. You're right, I could reduce the throat size. I thought I was at the hard limit for the amount of thrust for the chamber material. I had set aside an alternate version with an RCC chamber (real space probe engines use this) and made improvements to that. Turns out stock TiB2 rods/reflector give a slightly cheaper and lighter assembly. Not sure how the thrust went up slightly. A diamond-chambered version of this engine could easily have half the throat size again, but I don't like to use diamond since how to manufacture it into complex shapes isn't clear to me and apparently it decomposes into graphite at relatively low temperatures. [snip] One thing to bear in mind is that NTRs contain reactors, and using clusters of them or placing them around the hull as opposed to gimballed engines can inflate crew requirements massively, depending on how many power production reactors the ship already has (you can have 5 of a system, in this case 'nuclear reactor', before the crew requirements jump up from the base values). As to gimbals, in missile development I've found that multiple ungimballed engines are less vulnerable and the AI controls the craft more reliably, but a single engine with a large expansion nozzle taking up the space the cluster would use is more fuel-efficient. Any tips on rocket design? That and reactors are the two big areas that I really just don't get. Like, I understand the physics, but actually applying that quickly gives way to randomly moving sliders and hoping for the best. I can fall back on Apophys's standardized reactors for most purposes, but scavenging rockets off of the workshop is somewhat limiting. I rarely make an NTR from scratch; most of my designs start as a copy of the stock water NTR, or one of my existing designs that started as one. With any module, starting with something that already works tends to be easier as you can keep it functional while you adjust parameters. Removing the gimbal makes it a bit easier to work through until the engine's dimensions are approximately done. Know how much thrust you want beforehand, and set up the reactor and the turbopump up to produce some more thrust than requried. Gradually tune the coolant flow down for maximum exhaust velocity until you get reactor temp errors, then decrease the fuel of the reactor, keeping its neutron flux as high as the 6 month lifetime requirement will allow. Repeat these steps back in forth until you come down to your desired thrust, and you'll have the maximum attainable reactor temp along with it. At least I find lots of small steps help give a sense of where things are going. An ideal chamber ratio for reactor lifetime is 1:1, so ideally the contraction ratio would be 1, but increasing the ratio up to some point (2.5 to 7.5 depending on propellant or design) can boost thrust significantly. A high ratio will also make the neutron reflector significantly heavier (if you aren't using Li-6 shields, which are the sort of thing that works but no one would actually do, like all the potassium and lithium turbopumps on really optimised engines). My pictured engine was originally a 1.3t device and the biggest weight savings were made on reducing the contraction ratio. For the nozzle take something that's thick enough to withstand the pressure, raise regenearative cooling as much as possible without cracking. If you're stuck without a margin where there is neither error or the engine can't dissipate heat fast enough, the throat size needs to increase until you get a tiny usable margin to balance the engine on the brink of cracking from expansion when it's turned on and exploding from the internal pressure... safe! Something like that, anyway. I'm missing some details and relationships between sliders but this post is taking forever to write. Much appreciated, thanks. Now it's time to go see if I can't figure out how to optimize my Nippon Fleet. Again. |
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Post by jtyotjotjipaefvj on Aug 9, 2017 8:43:43 GMT
With the grossly efficient engines I posted earlier, I was able to make a very fast single-stage missile that can carry a payload weighing around 100kg, and costs next to nothing. They'll reach ~17 km/s in a bit over 20 seconds, so they won't take forever to reach targets at longer ranges. I made versions carrying the same payloads as before, so 13kt nukes and cluster flak launchers. Below is a video showing them go. Design for the nuke:  |
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Post by Enderminion on Aug 9, 2017 18:11:45 GMT
With the grossly efficient engines I posted earlier, I was able to make a very fast single-stage missile that can carry a payload weighing around 100kg, and costs next to nothing. They'll reach ~17 km/s in a bit over 20 seconds, so they won't take forever to reach targets at longer ranges. I made versions carrying the same payloads as before, so 13kt nukes and cluster flak launchers. Below is a video showing them go. Design for the nuke: could we see the warhead design for the nuke? |
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Post by Enderminion on Aug 9, 2017 18:12:26 GMT
and the missile thruster design...
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