|
|
Post by blothorn on Sept 30, 2016 6:59:34 GMT
Nifty. That may make nuke coilguns properly practical---one shooting mine is absolutely devastating, but not at all compact. I do wonder how they get 20000 kg/m^3 of fusion fuel in there...  |
|
|
|
Post by 123nick on Sept 30, 2016 14:08:36 GMT
I see the desire for the one-sided armor now after getting to Vesta Overkill. If anyone has given up on Vesta, you can build 8 of these and then sit back and win the level with gold. I'll be seeing how they hold up on later missions or if its a one-time/application deal. View Attachmenti LOVE the name of that ship. |
|
|
|
Post by josephw71 on Oct 1, 2016 15:03:37 GMT
The Newton is a laser bearer for a fleet I'm constructing around role-oriented craft. At 3.6 kt and 40 Mc it is much smaller and cheaper than stock craft of similar role (the solar lance), while outperforming it in damage, range (by a large margin), and maneuvering capability. This largely boils down to excellent laser and reactor design. The primary boron nitride armor layer covers the enemy-facing side of the spacecraft while the reinforced carbon-carbon layer wraps all the way around. Three laterally facing gimballed resistojets in the nose provide supplementary maneuvering torque. The firing arc of the main laser is a bit small, but the plan (for the whole fleet) is to destroy the enemy long before they get close enough for firing arcs to matter. Your whole reactor design didn't make it into the image |
|
|
|
Post by The Astronomer on Oct 1, 2016 15:21:32 GMT
I see the desire for the one-sided armor now after getting to Vesta Overkill. If anyone has given up on Vesta, you can build 8 of these and then sit back and win the level with gold. I'll be seeing how they hold up on later missions or if its a one-time/application deal. I use one railgun+laser ridden battleship and win the battle (sometimes). The control is very easy, just enable "Ignore Distance" and make them face their weapon at the enemy, then watch the spacecraft shoot drones, missiles or capital ships down to crisps with its Touhou-style bullet hell attack. However, it is very weak when get shot. It would cripple fast, so it is pretty bad against long range drones (like railgun drones I designed and used on another ship) The result is devastating as the lasers can't take them down before they get close enough to use their railguns. Anyways, how do I take screenshots? |
|
|
|
Post by quarkster on Oct 1, 2016 16:29:28 GMT
Your whole reactor design didn't make it into the image Once again, pastebin.com/TRJKJutN |
|
|
|
Post by Zerraspace on Oct 2, 2016 21:39:33 GMT
Since I've had a bug that keeps me from using campaign or sandbox modes, I've just unlocked the design modules and have been messing with them. I'd like to think I've started to get a hand on most of the parts (well, except for conventional guns, coilguns and ammo). This all started with a custom 1 GW laser:  ![]() ![]() It's got much three times the efficiency, an eighth the mass and much better range at a similar radiator temperature - intensity is around 7.7 GW/m2 even at maximum range (250 km - high as it would let me), same as the in-game variant at 33 km. Granted, it's a lot slower to aim, but I figure that kind of range more than makes up for it. Naturally, I decided I wanted to build a ship around said laser, but even this "light" version still outweighed anything I'd ever built several times over, and I realized I'd have to create a monster.  This is said monster. I had to post it up against the largest stock design (in terms of length, at least - the fleet carrier might be a bit bigger) because the numbers and shape just don't do it justice - most ships would fit lengthwise across its diameter! It's so large the square cube law actually works in its favor, enabling 10 cm thick armor all over plus a significant whipple shield, while still leaving enough delta-v and acceleration to at least hold up to most stock designs. I had to push the module editor for what it was worth to make engines big enough for it, and as is they're just barely visible on the bottom. With a mass budget like that, stuff almost comes for free - except for the reactor, it's got double redundant everything (even the mega-death laser), and frankly there's probably enough room to fit a second reactor with all its heat disposal equipment too. It takes forever to turn, but with guns pointing every which way, it doesn't need to. As for why this is called Virgil II, Virgil I had all the parts except the propellant tanks at the very front of the ship, so I rearranged them throughout the body to put the crew closer to the CoG and better distribute drone launchers and other parts so they wouldn't all get taken out with a few lucky shots - though with this many guns, lasers and drones, I don't see how anything is getting close to this. Thing's so huge it would probably snap itself in half under its own thrust if it ever tried to turn even with that low acceleration - it's literally half a mile long - and I bet it would need spinal columns to hold itself up. If I could double this it would be on the scale of a star destroyer. How well this would actually work though is moot, because I doubt anyone's going to get the chance to take this bad boy for a spin.  42.7 Gc - that's more than a thousand times my other most expensive ship. You could literally buy a fleet for it, even if you took out seventh-eighths of the price from the twin lasers and basalt fiber. I somehow think 100 regular capitals would do a lot more damage, provided the simulation could handle that many ships. Whether or not the simulation could handle as many guns and drones as this has is questionable too... |
|
|
|
Post by Durandal on Oct 2, 2016 22:10:05 GMT
Since I've had a bug that keeps me from using campaign or sandbox modes, I've just unlocked the design modules and have been messing with them. I'd like to think I've started to get a hand on most of the parts (well, except for conventional guns, coilguns and ammo). This all started with a custom 1 GW laser: ![]() ![]() It's got much three times the efficiency, an eighth the mass and much better range at a similar radiator temperature - intensity is around 7.7 GW/m2 even at maximum range (250 km - high as it would let me), same as the in-game variant at 33 km. Granted, it's a lot slower to aim, but I figure that kind of range more than makes up for it. Naturally, I decided I wanted to build a ship around said laser, but even this "light" version still outweighed anything I'd ever built several times over, and I realized I'd have to create a monster. This is said monster. I had to post it up against the largest stock design (in terms of length, at least - the fleet carrier might be a bit bigger) because the numbers and shape just don't do it justice - most ships would fit lengthwise across its diameter! It's so large the square cube law actually works in its favor, enabling 10 cm thick armor all over plus a significant whipple shield, while still leaving enough delta-v and acceleration to at least hold up to most stock designs. I had to push the module editor for what it was worth to make engines big enough for it, and as is they're just barely visible on the bottom. With a mass budget like that, stuff almost comes for free - except for the reactor, it's got double redundant everything (even the mega-death laser), and frankly there's probably enough room to fit a second reactor with all its heat disposal equipment too. It takes forever to turn, but with guns pointing every which way, it doesn't need to. As for why this is called Virgil II, Virgil I had all the parts except the propellant tanks at the very front of the ship, so I rearranged them throughout the body to put the crew closer to the CoG and better distribute drone launchers and other parts so they wouldn't all get taken out with a few lucky shots - though with this many guns, lasers and drones, I don't see how anything is getting close to this. Thing's so huge it would probably snap itself in half under its own thrust if it ever tried to turn even with that low acceleration - it's literally half a mile long - and I bet it would need spinal columns to hold itself up. If I could double this it would be on the scale of a star destroyer. How well this would actually work though is moot, because I doubt anyone's going to get the chance to take this bad boy for a spin. 42.7 Gc - that's more than a thousand times my other most expensive ship. You could literally buy a fleet for it, even if you took out seventh-eighths of the price from the twin lasers and basalt fiber. I somehow think 100 regular capitals would do a lot more damage, provided the simulation could handle that many ships. Whether or not the simulation could handle as many guns and drones as this has is questionable too... Nice! I've been waiting for someone to post some sort of monster. I wonder what the biggest ship we could build would be? |
|
|
|
Post by BLDoom on Oct 2, 2016 22:24:39 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by Zerraspace on Oct 2, 2016 22:35:44 GMT
I was kind of surprised nobody had yet. Thanks durandal! At this point it was hard to move components because so many things would get displaced as soon as I touched anything, and scrolling in and out was a pain due to the scale, but the editor wasn't bugging out or slowing down visibly, which suggests that you could fit way more components or get quite a bit larger, though whether you could get anything functional out of it is another matter. I can't actually playtest this, so it could be this is already past the limit. But in terms of just building ships, this has 19x 55 MN nuclear engines, which is the highest thrust I could squeeze out of them, and I somehow doubt you could much more than double that - each engine is already using 500 kg with as much power as reactor lifetime will allow. Other propellants get way more thrust, but are so much denser that the resulting ship would be a fraction of the size. All that's to say that for a ship with halfway decent acceleration, I figure this might already be close to the ceiling - but I'm sure having said that, I'll soon be proven wrong.  |
|
|
|
Post by Dhan on Oct 2, 2016 23:12:00 GMT
What a reasonable ship, said no one ever. |
|
|
|
Post by BLDoom on Oct 2, 2016 23:48:56 GMT
I think we need bigger and/or more powerful nuclear thrusters. I have not made any progress in that field, concentrating on deadly and efficient drones.
|
|
tuna
New Member
Posts: 33 
|
Post by tuna on Oct 3, 2016 6:37:49 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by Dhan on Oct 3, 2016 7:15:05 GMT
Yeah NTRs achieve some ridiculous thrusts.
|
|
|
|
Post by elouda on Oct 3, 2016 7:57:28 GMT
Interestingly I just finished my own first monster ship, a 111kt fleet carrier. My previously largest design was a 40kt missile cruiser, so this was interesting to play with.  Shown here alongside the Fleet Carrier for size. It carries a wing of 30 'drones', along with 400 RIM-12 Dagger ( details) anti-missile/drone missiles. A backup kinetic battery of 150mm and 20mm coilgun provides close in defence (for practically no mass cost), with the 20mms also pulling adequate double duty as point defence. This is supplemented by a ring of 8 lasers. Protection is somewhat light, with a 2m deep (1m-50cm-50cm) stuffed whipple shield over an inner shell. I standardized on the following Decane NTR for most of my larger designs, and this vessel has 19 of them. Their high thrust allows for most of my larger ships to pull 1.5-2g, with dV reserves between 5k and 12k depending on configuration.  Details: linkThe carrier was conceived as a platform to carry the 'Sphinx' class remote attack craft, a 371t variant of an earlier manned design (which proved unsuccessful due to the added weight of the crew spaces for 30-odd men).  This RAC is armed with a single 860kw 40mm coil gun firing 20 25g slugs per second at 8.57km/s (effective range vs 1000m2 is 61.5km). Its main weapons however, are the 100 RGM-13 Falchion ( details) missiles it carries. Interestingly the Falchion was originally intended to be a flak missile with a 30kg frag warhead that would detonate a few hundred meters before the target and shower it in kilogram chunks of DU, but this didn't work due to the fact that frag missiles try to get too close before detonating. So instead it got a small nuke. |
|
|
|
Post by Zerraspace on Oct 3, 2016 8:49:05 GMT
Now that, elouda, is a genuine supership - and one that I suspect would be way more useful than mine. You have my applause!  If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing. After making custom 10 kt hydrogen tanks, as massive as allowed, and lining six of them up in a row while dispersing parts for safety, I was able to soup up this behemoth. Behold!   Yes, you saw that right - 1.93 km, 2.44 million tons wet. That's more than a mile long, bigger than a Star Destroyer, and it's wider across than any of the in game ships are long. Even the old Virgil looks small besides it. It's got double redundant everything (sextuple most things), even nuclear reactors, so it can fire two of those mega death lasers at once, and it's got two of those on each side so that it won't need to turn - because with a turnabout time like that, it's never going to. Delta-v is passable, acceleration barely so - most in-game ships can outrun it now, but part of that owes to me more than doubling the armor. 25 cm all over plus whipple shield is not a joke, and this ship is going to need it with how slow it is. That, and with its cross-section, I bet it's guaranteed to get hit at the maximum range of any of the weapons. It will have to count on its drone wings, missiles and death lasers to pick off targets before they can get to it, and I gave it twelve high power custom 60 MW 150 km range laser turrets to aid it in case the big ones are blown off. Also, I can give a conclusive answer as to the biggest size possible in game - around 4 to 6 km. If you try to scroll out any further than that, the screen blanks out. I suppose it's possible you could build bigger, but then you can never get a shot of the whole thing at once - and really, do you want to go slower than 50 mg? My not so ridiculous ships are all 1 g+, less than 20 seconds turnabout, I'd die waiting for this to move. To go any bigger than this, it would almost certainly have to be a space station.   The price tag is just as outrageous as you might expect, courtesy of insisting on basalt fiber (it's light, it's strong, and it's great against lasers - thank you, blothorn). To its credit though, pound for pound it's only marginally more expensive than Virgil II. I won't be making any more of these, just saw some easy modifications and went with them. |
|
