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Post by dwwolf on Oct 17, 2016 19:58:36 GMT
The recent changes to nukes mean that I'm going to have to overhaul my entire nuclear product line. However, that gives me a convenient excuse to finish adding EFP caps to all my warheads. So far the results are not too devastating. To be sure, the nukes themselves are bigger and heavier while offering significantly lower yields, not surprising when a series that consisted of nearly pure-fusion nukes gets converted to nearly pure-fission with only minor fusion boosts. However, the switch to U-233 for better hydrogen containment has significantly lowered the cost (in fact the cost is driven almost entirely by the conventional explosives that set it off now), and in EFP designs (which my entire arsenal is being converted to) the higher warhead mass can be offset by the lower yield allowing a much thinner, lighter EFP cap. Early tests seem to indicate that the EFP remains as lethal as ever, even when only driven by a 133kt warhead. It'll still run most targets it's pointed at clean through, it just doesn't also melt everything around the target anymore. Also on the drawing board, bi-propellant conventional micro-missiles. 99ton micronuke + EFP in a <10kg missile 😉 |
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Post by Durandal on Oct 17, 2016 21:09:26 GMT
So...tweaking and upgrading my saucer spacecraft yet again.  If Mark 4 looks like an very old fashioned flying saucer, Mark 5 could be described as a modern sleeker version of it. I meant just look at it, it looks like freaking Enterprise. For armor scheme, I used Nivik's armor composition which worked quite well for its price but it's bloody heavy. With its current slope, Mark 5 can deflect bullet like nothing. Well, for most of the time at least. Here's the internal  Basically, ammo and drone on top, crew compartment in the middle, fuel tanks and then finally the small sized nuclear reactor at the bottom. Might experiment with osmium half armor to all of the front instead, since the back of it won't be facing anything anytime soon. I wonder if a very, very thin rad shield of a sufficiently cheap material spaced out to an extelremely wide diameter would help to widen the hull and create and even sharper angle for the edge. Really hope I'm able to get my game up and running again after yesterday's glitch... |
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Post by redparadize on Oct 18, 2016 1:02:36 GMT
I can't wait to go against other player. Most of your design are radicaly different than what I came up with. Here is my most successful ship so far. Note that armor is quite tin, some of the layer are partial. Given I always engage from front, the slope do the rest. The Rosi is a ship to ship fighter, the missile it carry server as a diversion. Its main weapon is the 100mm coilgun described bellow. The sulaco is a good all around ship. It carry regular gun for the ship to ship fight. But the main weapons is its playload, it can destroy large fleet from range.  The drone: The dwarf is mostly a annoyance, its mean to be spam and keep enemy laser busy, very useful when you don't want your precious coilgun sniped. If they are not countered, they can inflict serious damage. 3kt, every 1.5 sec, per launcher! The downside is that its way too expensive, I have to fix that. The trident D16 is a MIRV and carry 16 dwarf. It essentially serve the same function as when used on ship, but for the Thor I. The main advantage over 16 individual missile lunched from the mothership is that they are lunched two by two. So one doesn't destroy all of the others. And the Thor I. I use to carry much smaller Gun drone and overwhelm the enemy with sheer number, but it was killing my frame rate. So I designed the Thor. It does carry some improvement trough, they have 4 nuclear RCS, the corrective maneuver tend to move them out of incoming fire. 5 Thor I can punch trough some serious armor given enough time, specially if the drone intercept at high speed, and it is designed to do exactly that.  Now the gun. My previous design were much smaller. As I said I had to go bigger to save my frame rate. The 70mm gun give to the sulaco its brawling capacity. It is accurate way past the 30km mark, large target won't be able to dodge its fire, even at 100km. And since its weight and size allow redundancy, it is probably operationally superior to the 100mm coil gun. The 100mm coil gun deliver a serious punch, more damage than the 7 70mm gun of the sulaco. 200g at 14km/s is limit overkill. The downside is that its heavy, require allot of power and radiator, the heat signature require large decoy, it can also be effectively sniped by laser. Last is the Thor I gun, its 50mm gun have the same punch as many smaller gun. Its nowhere near as powerful as the two previous one but its much lighter. Against most target its strong enough, stock ship get obliterated. Against my own design it require pack of 5 and long focused fire to be effective.  I also have the donnager and Tachi to show off. The interesting part is the Tachi. Its basicly a overgrown drone and carry about 1/2 of the firepower of the Rosinante, but weight only 62t! I will leave that for another day, this post is already a page long! |
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Post by redparadize on Oct 18, 2016 1:32:20 GMT
hehehe. I managed to shave 1/4 of the cost of my ship by fixing my 3kt nuke! on top of they are lighter!
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Post by ross128 on Oct 18, 2016 3:59:25 GMT
The new parameters on propellant tanks have yielded major breakthroughs in bi-propellant micromissiles:  Lighter, cheaper, faster, longer ranged, these cutting-edge fluorine-hydrogen micromissiles are superior in every way to their ethylene oxide powered predecessors. KKV and EFP warheads are also available, carefully calibrated to deliver the same excellent performance characteristics. For the more safety-minded people out there, LOx-LH2 versions are also available that feature much less reactive propellant for only a minor decrease in performance and increase in cost. As an added bonus, in the event of life support failure the LOx-LH2 powered missiles may have their propellant siphoned to provide a last-resort source of air and water. Short-range versions can get as low as 6kg and ~30c while retaining a respectable 4dv (by cutting the fuel in half), but the 6kg versions have a tendency to burn through their fuel extremely quickly while in homing mode. With just 9s of burn time, they require either careful management of coasting until they're within burn range, a smarter homing algorithm, or a target that doesn't have more than 20km of PD range. I didn't want to post all of them though, because that's 12 variations of a single missile. |
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Post by elouda on Oct 18, 2016 5:01:24 GMT
Started experimenting with mixed fuel propulsion, using a single Hydrogen Deuteride core thruster for orbital maneuvers backed by a number of Semiheavy water engines for in combat maneuvering. So far the results have been rather impressive, compared to either pure Decane or Semiheavy water craft (I don't consider HD viable on its own for anything besides transports or carriers as the volume is horrid).  This the 'baseline' hull for the ~8.5-10kt Frigate class based on these. They have 12.3km/s dV if using only the HD engines, and 6.22km/s when running the SHW combat engines.  Close up of the 'business end' of this design. The core engine is a 9.2km/s 5.1MN HD NTR with 15 degrees of gimbal (allowing to act as an additional maneuvering thruster in combat). It has 400t of HD fuel, and with this engine only, the acceleration is around ~61 mg. The combat engines are six 4.46km/s 10.1MN SHW NTRs with 55 degrees of gimbal. They are supplied with 5850t of fuel. The large gimbal angles and solid (though less than I prefer, I generally aim for 1-1.2g) thrust gives this thing very impressive maneuverability in combat. Unfortunately there's a few major issues with it, mainly that the combat thrusters like to thrust at odd angles wasting a lot of dV, and the dV display is occasionally somewhat odd when running with some engines off. |
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Post by dragonkid11 on Oct 18, 2016 13:16:01 GMT
Some random picture I made when testing out my UFO drone.  They are slightly complicated to design but in the end, they look fancy enough to be worth it.   Dozens of Shuriken I coming out of the mothership, ready to rip human ship apart.  They can also take some serious level of damage and still function. This drone was impacted by a 10kg coilgun slug and went of to kill the corvette that shot it.  An internal image so you can design one for yourself today! |
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Post by ross128 on Oct 18, 2016 15:24:40 GMT
The Roombas have rebelled! Maybe giving them self-improving AI was a bad idea after all...
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Post by dragonkid11 on Oct 18, 2016 15:58:06 GMT
The Roombas have rebelled! Maybe giving them self-improving AI was a bad idea after all... Now that you mention it, they do look like space roombas... |
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Post by nivik on Oct 18, 2016 20:09:29 GMT
The recent changes to nukes mean that I'm going to have to overhaul my entire nuclear product line. However, that gives me a convenient excuse to finish adding EFP caps to all my warheads. So far the results are not too devastating. To be sure, the nukes themselves are bigger and heavier while offering significantly lower yields, not surprising when a series that consisted of nearly pure-fusion nukes gets converted to nearly pure-fission with only minor fusion boosts. However, the switch to U-233 for better hydrogen containment has significantly lowered the cost (in fact the cost is driven almost entirely by the conventional explosives that set it off now), and in EFP designs (which my entire arsenal is being converted to) the higher warhead mass can be offset by the lower yield allowing a much thinner, lighter EFP cap. Early tests seem to indicate that the EFP remains as lethal as ever, even when only driven by a 133kt warhead. It'll still run most targets it's pointed at clean through, it just doesn't also melt everything around the target anymore. Also on the drawing board, bi-propellant conventional micro-missiles. Yeah, I took a break for about a week, but the news that we've got smaller propellant tanks and another order of magnitude reduction in minimum rocket engine proportions has be re-excited. I'll probably be putting some research time into more small/budget bi-propellant conventional munitions, myself. |
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Post by ross128 on Oct 19, 2016 0:51:52 GMT
Here is my Missile Support Ship, I think I might call it the Harrington class.  It is lightly armored with thin layers of Silica Aerogel and Boron, with a bit of VCS wrapped around the important bits. It has minimal direct-fire armament with a single defensive railgun ring and one laser ring for point defense, as it is not intended to engage in direct combat unescorted (or at all if it can help it). Its primary armament consists of three thousand octogen-copper EFP micromissiles, three thousand Osmium KKV micromissiles, and six thousand flak micromissiles, for a total complement of twelve thousand missiles. Now I am become Death, the destroyer of frame rates. Because the missiles dispense quickly and have high acceleration, they can even be used defensively if necessary. At just 33.9Mc, it's a real bargain for the amount of firepower it carries.
WARNING: DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, PRESS THE "LAUNCH ALL" BUTTON. The UserDesigns.txt section, since there is no way I'll ever fit all those modules on a screen shot: CraftBlueprint Missile Support Ship Modules 10.3 MW Thermoelectric Fission Reactor 1 161.05 null 0 10x5 Diamond Radiator 2 12.53 10.3 MW Thermoelectric Fission Reactor 0 2x5 Diamond Radiator 2 84.726 30 Crew Module 0 7.88 km/s Hydrogen Deuteride Gimballed Nuclear Thermal Rocket 3 0 null 0 30 Crew Module 2 118.18 null 0 50.0 kW Flak Micromissile FH Launcher 4 77.538 null 0 4x0.5 Diamond Radiator 2 113.6 50.0 kW Flak Micromissile FH Launcher 0 600 kW 3mm Turreted Railgun 6 102.75 null 0 10000x 3mm Railgun Round 2 18 167.16 null 0 250 t Hydrogen Deuteride Tank 1 118.31 null 0 1.000 kt Hydrogen Deuteride Tank 1 1 null 0 8.00 m Diameter 2.00 cm Radiation Shield 1 0.25 null 0 300x Flak Micromissile FH 2 20 124.42 null 0 50.0 kW EFP Micromissile FH Launcher 4 55.785 null 0 4x0.5 Diamond Radiator 2 47.226 50.0 kW EFP Micromissile FH Launcher 0 50.0 kW KKV Micromissile FH Launcher 4 49.89 null 0 4x0.5 Diamond Radiator 2 119.99 50.0 kW KKV Micromissile FH Launcher 0 300x EFP Micromissile FH 10 130.53 null 0 300x KKV Micromissile FH 2 10 136.63 null 0 3.00 MW Titanium:Sapphire Violet Laser 6 35.803 null 0 2x5 Diamond Radiator 2 23.81 3.00 MW Titanium:Sapphire Violet Laser 0 50.0 cm x 0 m Spacer 1 167.66 null 0 50.0 cm x 0 m Spacer 1 168.66 null 0 2x5 Diamond Radiator 2 93.451 30 Crew Module 0 Armor ArmorLayers Vanadium Chromium Steel 0.02 0 0.824 1 1 Vanadium Chromium Steel 0.015 0 0.475 0.6 1 Boron 0.015 0 0 1 1 Boron 0.002 0.6 0 1 1 Silica Aerogel 0.01 0 0 1 1 |
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Post by squalltemnov on Oct 19, 2016 6:20:22 GMT
Protip: If you place weapon(s) on the front, it will look like the image on the right. Here its not that bad because I don't have much spaced armor. (I don't need it because the stacked stuff in the nose are blocks of graphite aerogel and tin layer of armor. From the front it can sustain quite allot of punishment while remaining realy light.) Now, if you move down your weapon(s) just a little bit down, they will still point foward as you see on the second image. Giving it a much nicer pointy nose, and it is also more light that way.  It works with engine too, but only if you have gimbals of more than 45 degree. It is usefull to add additional control to gimballess/small angle engines. Its the best way to control roll too:  No matter what I do, can`t get the same effect. Probably, that is related to the turret angle somehow. Or to kinetic turrets. Lasers with limited turn angle, just won`t fit that way. If I try to mount the thrusters same way, they tend to stay unconnected to the main hull, just floating nearby. Maybe you can share the txt version of a sample ship of yours? |
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Post by dragonkid11 on Oct 19, 2016 14:13:57 GMT
*Cough awkwardly* Okay...I tried out on trying to make sub-capital drone stuff and... Here's the thing, while the drone would be highly maneuverable with all the armor, weapons and engine while being practically 50% cheaper than the original ship design. The carrier itself needs to be REALLY large just to fit the drone. And the price barely tipped over the scale even after reducing some stuff like armor.  Yeah, it's big and very vulnerable. VERY vulnerable. But the sub-capital drone though.  They look so adorable! And that ridiculous thrust that can be used because the drone is unmanned makes it so damn maneuverable. And yes, the drone is carrying smaller drones. DRONE-CEPTION!!!  Not an exact size comparison but you do wonder how the hell do they fit in the launcher pod...  I love this game for so much shit I could do with it. But anyway, yeah. The control pod weight needs to be increased. Does the number of crew needs to be increased too? I think possibly...yes. The carrier total has 71 crews. Compared to my original ship design with the sub-capital drone is based on, each need like 41 people or so, so that 246 crew member job being handled by only 71 crews. Though this wasn't really related to armor thread anyway but I would like to do something about the current discussion. Sub-capital drone, viable or not? You decide! |
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Post by redparadize on Oct 19, 2016 15:38:45 GMT
They definitively are a more viable option than regular capital ship to ship design. The +100 tons saving is no trivial. They are quicker, cheaper and have better survivability.
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Post by dragonkid11 on Oct 19, 2016 16:12:17 GMT
They definitively are a more viable option than regular capital ship to ship design. The +100 tons saving is no trivial. They are quicker, cheaper and have better survivability. While, the drones are definitely cheaper. The problem was that the carrier needed to mount the launcher has to be lightened severely because the damn launcher is heavy as hell, resulting in a carrier that is almost as expensive as 6 of the original ships the drones are based on, which is exact number of drone the carrier is carrying. It also costs a crap ton more mass, almost 100% more. You can of course, strip the drone of excess stuff like armor and such to lighten it too. So it is viable if you have the mass limit to play with. Of course, I will just design more of its kind and possibly refine it because I'm having fun with design it. |
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