|
|
Post by jtyotjotjipaefvj on Aug 14, 2017 19:46:43 GMT
I noticed that if a ship gets cut in two and both sides would be a viable ship with guns, power and crew, only one side will be alive and the other will die. This is an issue since the design I posted can get its nose cut off and lose pretty much all weapons even though the tail portion should be able to function just fine. Therefore I revamped it to a layout with crew modules in the center section only, and weapons and larger generators distributed throughout the nose and tail parts. This way the ship can lose both the nose and tail and still keep going. I also modified the weapon loadout a little, giving the drones heavier cannons and mounting some light nuke missiles on the tail in place of thrusters. This makes the ship both more survivable and more deadly in close combat. Updated blueprint:  And youtube video showing the ship beat 7 vanilla ships at once without dying, or even losing any sections: |
|
|
|
Post by Rocket Witch on Aug 14, 2017 22:53:55 GMT
Hm. Is this actually cheaper/more effective that just building multiple ships, though? (Maybe it's less crew?) One trick I have seen that I don't think you took full advantage of there is that missiles home in on heat (even against a single ship, they don't just target center-of-mass) - there have been similar designs that put their main radiators on the empty/connector/bait sections to let missiles just punch through there. Maybe combine that with your design and have high-power weapons and radiators on the connector sections, with lower-powered weapons (guns, launchers?) and smaller redundant generators in the machinery/crew sections? A similar but less extreme thing I am doing regularly now is to figure out what amount of crew is 'maintenance' (that is required just by virtue of size, mass, other crew - the cooks, life-support technicians, etc) and how many are actually required to operate all the weapons. In addition to the big paper-mache (Ok, not really, but I would if it was lighter) main crew cabin there are one or more small 'battle bridge' sections with light armor and just enough crew to man most or all of the weapons. It can be more survivable than multiple smaller ships for a few reasons. 1. (Not exploited by this design) a larger ship has a greater ratio of volume to surface area, allowing it to carry heavier armour. 2. The pressurised sections are small compared to the overall size. This can also be true of multiple ships, but in the case of a single ship internal spacing is a necessity to segment it enough to achieve appropriate redundancy. 3. Resources (ammo, crew, power) are shared in a single network. Most ships are knocked out before they lose function of all modules; if they're all connected in a single ship, any spare modules from a heavily damaged section will still serve the ship as a whole. 'Maintenance' crew is 3 extra comms officers, sensor specialists and astrogation officers (9 people total) for a ship that exceeds... I think 9kt? Nine extra people in total. You can vary a ship's mass easily to check the cutoffs using massive external tanks. qswitched has said among the comments on the blog that this indicates that the ship is "considered a flagship due to its size" and esentially has extra bridge bunnies to organise other ships as well as itself. I would like if external tanks didn't contribute to the mass count for this purpose. jtyotjotjipaefvj what are the music tracks in your videos? |
|
|
|
Post by Rocket Witch on Aug 15, 2017 0:09:33 GMT
Meanwhile on Callisto... 1cm gun barrel length; 100µm engine throat size, 1000 contraction ratio, 10000 expansion ratio. It's propelled by what amounts to a 5-way RCS block on the back. Comparing this drone with the stock Shooting Star is really rather hilarious; the whole thing only the size of the 22mm gun's barrel.  More: |
|
|
|
Post by madmike on Aug 15, 2017 4:04:03 GMT
Meanwhile on Callisto... 1cm gun barrel length; 100µm engine throat size, 1000 contraction ratio, 10000 expansion ratio. It's propelled by what amounts to a 5-way RCS block on the back. Comparing this drone with the stock Shooting Star is really rather hilarious; the whole thing only the size of the 22mm gun's barrel. More: Awww, it's so cute! |
|
|
|
Post by dragonkid11 on Aug 15, 2017 7:49:53 GMT
You should call it as Puppy-class drone because of how the drone is as small and as light as a puppy.
|
|
|
|
Post by jtyotjotjipaefvj on Aug 15, 2017 18:06:25 GMT
I was finally able to find a good balance of size versus thrust versus efficiency for drones, missiles and other smaller ships. Ethane is also a very cheap propellant, which helps keep the missiles affordable. Engine design: linkFlak missile made with said engine: linkThe missile is fairly slim and short, but has a decent range and acceleration. These factors make it a nice, spammable sidearm for medium-weight ships. |
|
|
|
Post by jtyotjotjipaefvj on Aug 17, 2017 17:58:46 GMT
I realized that there's no real reason to keep my NTRs as the tiny pushers they were. So I made myself a proper engine, with 1 GN thrust and 1,500 TWR, costing 2.5 Mc. This allowed me to make a ship that can actually dodge, since 40 Gs of acceleration allow you to avoid railguns even at fairly close range. Apparently the crew can survive a 600g acceleration as well, which is what these engines do when the tanks run dry. They must be well trained to be able to do that! Ship design: linkEngine design: linkMandatory youtube video showing some dodging action: |
|
|
|
Post by lennson on Aug 17, 2017 18:56:08 GMT
Just wondering, is there a reason why guns don't appear to try to correct for target acceleration?
|
|
|
|
Post by jtyotjotjipaefvj on Aug 17, 2017 18:59:08 GMT
They did get a few hits in. I guess the misses are probably due to the ship turning thanks to the homing order. At least that's what I had in mind when giving the order.
|
|
|
|
Post by jtyotjotjipaefvj on Aug 18, 2017 16:10:29 GMT
I improved my previous design by changing to a 600mm conventional cannon with a 400kg projectile and 1.1 km/s muzzle velocity. Thanks to the high dv and high acceleration, I can get the ship close enough on a fast intercept that it can fire a fairly long burst of 400kg rounds moving at ~8 km/s, and still dodge most of the return fire. It's a bit expensive (~70 Mc) compared to optimized designs, but at least it's something fun and unique. I always wanted to get a viable design that can punch a meter-wide hole through a ship with a single hit, and now I do. Plus, can survive battles with armor that is literally just a bit of aluminum foil, which is a bonus. Ship design: linkCombat video: |
|
|
|
Post by Rocket Witch on Aug 20, 2017 17:44:52 GMT
This is a very inaccurate gun designed to spray nukes in some general direction on ignore range. Half degree spread! It looks like a gunpowder-era mortar. Covered in stretchy LCPF to give it some laser resistance while increasing barrel strength as little as possible.  Ammo details: The visual effect of just after nuke flashes is pretty cool, a bit like something sensor imagery would see. I've also put a collection of stockalike designs up on the workshop. I originally made these a while ago and recently updated them for 1.1.2. steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1116181016 |
|
|
|
Post by ironclad6 on Aug 21, 2017 3:53:46 GMT
Is it just me or does fusion boosting not work for anyone else? As I understood it, fusion boosting is how you get from a ~50ish kt weapon to a multi megaton weapon.
|
|
|
|
Post by someusername6 on Aug 21, 2017 4:09:13 GMT
Is it just me or does fusion boosting not work for anyone else? As I understood it, fusion boosting is how you get from a ~50ish kt weapon to a multi megaton weapon. Not quite. There are people who can probably explain it better, but the nuclear weapons modeled in game are boosted fission weapons, where the fusion is used mostly to make sure that the fissile material does undergo fission (and to allow you to save some on mass / cost / size). Models even for this are not public, and qswitched said he did some model fitting based on the known characteristics of some nukes. The details on the design of two-stage thermonuclear weapons, with fusion, are classified / considered a matter of national security -- including special security clearances and the concept of Born secret. This information is the stuff that would let people actually build modern nuclear weapons. So, probably not going to make it into the game. |
|
|
|
Post by ironclad6 on Aug 21, 2017 5:18:32 GMT
Thanks. I'll abstract that bit in my novel then. Thanks a bunch. As ever, you're a font of knowledge.
|
|
|
|
Post by bigbombr on Aug 21, 2017 6:43:48 GMT
|
|
