|
|
Post by ross128 on Oct 7, 2016 22:56:01 GMT
Alright, people asked for designs and here they are. This is a nuclear EFP utilizing an Osmium radiation shield as its projectile:  This is one utilizing an armored nose cone to form its projectile:  You'll note of course that the armored nose cone is much heavier, despite being thinner (and thus potentially more vulnerable to vaporizing). However, I cannot definitively say which one does more damage because they're both extremely inconsistent, their performance depends very heavily on the angle of impact. Using a rocket cluster to turn instead of gimbals helped improve consistency by reducing how much the guidance computer could oversteer, though taking that approach pretty much cements its role as an anti-station weapon. It's likely to have a hard time catching anything that can actually move, but then anything that can actually move is not likely to have enough armor to justify deploying this thing. This is the result on a station armored with 5m of Osmium, a 3cm Basalt Fiber spall liner, two 5mm Boron whipple shields, and a 1m shell of Silica Aerogel (to absorb the nuke's heat, so theoretically all the visible damage should be from the projectile).  That is from a single hit (from the nose-cone version, but the plate version produces similar results when it works). The bright yellow spot in the lower-right is where the missile hit, you can see some of the internal damage where it busted out the opposite side of the spall liner although the angle doesn't have a very clear view of it (that's the black cone, for some reason the Osmium layer is transparent except for its outermost skin). The gaping hole on the left is the exit wound. The only reason the station is still functioning is that the inside is mostly spacers. Still very much early days though, it took several resets to get a good clean hit like that. One thing that happened a lot was at shallow angles, the projectile would deflect off the Osmium layer and bounce around inside the whipple shields, covering half of the Osmium layer in orange spots but not doing much else. I definitely look forward to seeing other people improve the design. |
|
|
|
Post by nivik on Oct 8, 2016 3:59:44 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. |
|
|
|
Post by Durandal on Oct 8, 2016 4:29:57 GMT
Introducing the Broadside Frigate MK-VII. Incorporating a wide variety of technologies developed by fellow members of the board, the Broadside MK-VII features a 1cm whipple shield of boron, a second 3cm layer of boron, a ![]() 15cm armored citadel of Vanadium Chromium Steel, all coated by a 5cm layer of silica aerogel. The ship's slim frontal profile provides full protection to the radiators against incoming fire. 9mm railguns accurate to 50km provide long to mid-range sniping of enemy modules and radiators. A pair of stock ND:YAG lasers and a pair of gimbled 30mm cannons provide close and mid-range defense against incoming missiles, along with 200 1.89kt interceptor missiles. The primary armament consists of 200 106kt Casaba Howitzer missiles. While they still require some finagling, they've proven quite effective against stock enemy designs. Secondary armament consists of 25 Stinger Mk-II drones, mainly intended for CAP duty in the event of a mass enemy missile strike that is expected to get past the interceptor missiles and the lasers. The ship recently solo'd against a fleet of four Gunships, 3 Corvettes, 2 Beamships, and an Escort Carrier without suffering a single hit. *EDIT* Apologies for the crappy formatting and pics. I can post better screenshots if interested. |
|
|
|
Post by concretedonkey on Oct 8, 2016 15:19:01 GMT
So the broadside drones experiments are over and I kind of like them  . They die faster than the normal drones - larger frontal aspect , however they can deploy more weaponry on the target at the same time , which for me fits the drone's purpose perfectly , so for the moment my wings will consist of those two birds:  The Shieldmaiden is the escort drone , main weapon is the 680KW laser , result of your help from my "lasers" thread , I like how small it got - only 80 kilos , and still quite effective at burning other drones before I can blink.  Secondary weapon is a nasty little turreted conventional cannon - nothing fancy. 2.6 km/s 1 gramm slug. The only thing interesting about this cannon is that its only 5 kilos without the ammo.  The Berserker is the attack craft. Main Weapon is a fairly conventional short cannon firing 2.52 kt micro nukes. I modified the cannon with 2 seconds delay in order not to kill my FPS. It turned out spinal mounting is not effective on broadside drones so I gave it a small underpowered turret. Secondary armement is the same small cannon. I'm quite happy how they chew the opposition - in just two attack waves each consisting of 5 drones of each type they just defeated a fairly substantial stock fleet: 1 Fleet carrier 2 Gunships 2 Laser frigates 2 Corvettes 2 Cutters 1 Orbital Attack craft 1 Orbital Defence craft 2 Cutters 2 Patrol ships At the end the carrier test craft was in range so it wasn't just the drones. But it's only weapons were conventional cannons, it just cleaned the wrecks after the drones. |
|
|
|
Post by concretedonkey on Oct 8, 2016 15:39:39 GMT
Sorry for the second post , only 3 attachments... The carrier itself is just a test craft, there will be a bigger version with similar outlines running on hydrogen deuteride instead of decane... it again uses things I learned in the forum .  Its hiding its radiators and uses substantial boron layer in the front. Antimissile defence is handeled by this :  Aside from the normal micro nuke this missile has a 10 seconds 40 kg flare - and the only reason this works is that the ship itself is quite underpowered - only 2mw lasers and conventional cannons. I usually fire them in salvos of 5 from 2 launchers with 2 seconds delay. Works fine most of the time. |
|
|
|
Post by ross128 on Oct 8, 2016 15:40:40 GMT
I really should have thought of this earlier, but the prior versions of the nuclear EFP were so excessively lethal that there really isn't any reason not to downsize them.  Still capable of punching clean through any reasonable ship armor, this smaller NEFP can actually hit ship-size targets (a volley of 20 will typically get 2-4 direct hits against roughly gunskiff-sized ships) and can be carried in sufficient quantity that accuracy problems can be addressed with volume of fire. The increased volley size has the added benefit that anything in the immediate area that doesn't get hit is still going to be bombarded by several nearby nuclear blasts. Kiloton-range warheads are likely to still be capable of generating the EFP effect and allow for even smaller, more accurate missiles for fleets that want to further sacrifice area damage for larger volleys and more direct hits. |
|
|
|
Post by Durandal on Oct 8, 2016 16:30:36 GMT
Kiloton-range warheads are likely to still be capable of generating the EFP effect and allow for even smaller, more accurate missiles for fleets that want to further sacrifice area damage for larger volleys and more direct hits. This is true. And I'm very impressed with some of the decane designs I've seen around here. Might have to switch from methane... |
|
|
|
Post by tukuro on Oct 8, 2016 16:55:04 GMT
Introducing the Broadside Frigate MK-VII. I love that layout, after I redesigned my gunships in this manner they ended up surviving a lot longer. I figure this is because when a shot lands it doesn't penetrate the entire ship. After adding some redundancy they could even survive being shot in half. If you want an easy way to improve the design, consider putting the radiators at either end of the ship, this way enemy missiles will aim away from your centre of mass. You can do the same with the weapons. |
|
|
|
Post by ross128 on Oct 8, 2016 19:06:57 GMT
During the course of testing, it occurred to me that, other than en-route interception, the greatest weakness of the nuclear EFP was decoys. After all, if the nose is pointed away from the target, it turns into an ordinary nuke even if it does still get close enough to detonate. Ordinary nukes are surprisingly easy to armor against, engines and radiators aside. So I dusted off my unguided MIRV drone.  Note that the launchers are a considerable distance behind the radiators. If the nukes drift into the radiators after being launched they tend to detonate (which is also why it has three launchers, angled to project the nukes out-of-plane from the radiators). It is inadvisable to launch these in flights larger than 20, the lead drones will tend to blow up the trailing drones. Here is what they were carrying:  I will say, the hit rate on these is abysmal. Due to their "guidance" consisting of being lobbed in vaguely the right direction by a drone, against a single target a full flight of 20 (with 120 warheads between them) will usually get single-digit hits, sometimes as low as 3. Most of the nukes will detonate though, their proximity trigger is as generous as it can be without immediately blowing up the drone that deployed them (drones don't count toward "minimum range", go figure). They are, however, immune to decoys. The drone ignores decoys, it aims its nose gun at the center of its targets. The warheads, once deployed, cannot be fooled by decoys because they have no guidance. They are exceedingly effective against large fleets. The more total surface area the enemy fleet exposes to the barrage, the higher the chances of an EFP finding a target. They are also fairly resistant to mid-flight interception, because you can disable the launcher and cancel the drone's orders to preserve delta-V and prevent the warheads from launching. The enemy would have to launch enough ordinance to kill the drones outright, instead of using a single interceptor to cause fratricide. The exposed radiators do make these more vulnerable to lasers than an aerogel-armored missile would be, although the drones only need to survive long enough to launch their warheads. |
|
|
|
Post by Durandal on Oct 8, 2016 21:49:58 GMT
Ross128, would you mind sharing the design for that 1.6Mt warhead that you're using?
On a related note, I've found that an osmium rad-shield combined with an osmium nose-cone is reasonably effective. I'm not sure if it helps or not, but I've set the nose cone to end at 99%, so that that the nose of the missile is open (beneath the layer of aerogel and silica basalt). The nose cone on my 106kt design is 3cm, and the rad shield is 6cm if I remeber right. Kills are fairly consistant at the right angles, but it's difficult to gauge the effective difference given the blink and you'll miss it speed of impact.
*edit*
Ending the nose cone at 99% did prove far more effective than a fully enclosed nose cone when combined with the rad-shield. Again, not sure why exactly, by both with both missiles launched from the same ship, the open-nose missiles achieved more kills.
I've also made attempts and mixing up the layout of the rad-shields. One attempt used a trio of shields in the same "stack layer, which seemed to kill the effect. Another used a much wider shield with the same diameter as the missile body, at the same thickness as the shields I've been using, which again seemed to have not trigger the effect. I tried adding an armored collar of Titanium Hafnium Carbide (given its thermal and mechanical properties that I've found useful in other applications) and this didn't seem to do anything either (except for slowing down the missile).
Any advice for eliminating the "wobble" of the missile? I've modified my engines to reduce their gimble speed which seemed to work a little. I think someone mentioned using a counter-weight somewhere.
|
|
|
|
Post by Dhan on Oct 8, 2016 22:11:28 GMT
What about making a smaller rad shield and setting the count to 3. Do you get 3 separate hole in the target? Or do they go flying in all directions. Maybe you could even have 2 small rads, a spacer and then 1 small rad, or vise versa for some possible scatter effects. Edit: Nvm, I just realized that's what you meant be 3 shields in the same stack layer.  |
|
|
|
Post by ross128 on Oct 8, 2016 22:28:09 GMT
Here you go, it's not terribly optimized but it has managed to be consistently good enough for a lot of tasks. It has proven to be quite a workhorse.  As far as stabilizing wobble, unfortunately that has remained a mystery to me too. Long and heavy missiles with a fast turnabout time tend to wobble, so making the rocket shorter, lighter, or less agile can reduce it. Missiles that are front-heavy seem to wobble more than missiles that aren't, so a thin ring of heavy armor (like Osmium or Depleted Uranium) on the back can sometimes help reduce it by pulling the center of gravity back. This also solves the problem where a front-heavy missile can launch with some of its dV missing. I don't know where the ideal spot for the center of gravity is though. |
|
|
|
Post by Durandal on Oct 8, 2016 23:16:20 GMT
What about making a smaller rad shield and setting the count to 3. Do you get 3 separate hole in the target? Or do they go flying in all directions. Maybe you could even have 2 small rads, a spacer and then 1 small rad, or vise versa for some possible scatter effects. Edit: Nvm, I just realized that's what you meant be 3 shields in the same stack layer. I've actually had some luck with double stacked rad-shields. I neglected to mention it, but my the missiles I posted with my frigate used them. And Ross, I'll try adjusting the COG here soon. *edit* And Ross, thanks for sharing. |
|
|
|
Post by argonbalt on Oct 9, 2016 0:26:42 GMT
So here it is, my precious babies! These are the like, 7? iteration of these ships, i am still fine tuning them and altering/replacing/designing new modules daily, so this is more of a snapshot than a definitive "design". Anyways moving on to the general design philosophy it goes something like this: - For most of modern history, the things that do well in warfare are usually (good) and (simple/cheap) as opposed to the misconception of (amazingly good) and (Expensive).-So Efficiency is king! Big expensive ships with 20+ weapons are cool on the drawing board, but simplicity and elegance on a budget is a far more fun and realistic principle of design .-The key is to think of the ship not as a ship, but as an "animal". All animals are super efficient in their design and life style. Usually it boils to only three things :1 Things i can eat, 2 Things i can mate with/are similar or mutually beneficial and 3 Things which can eat me. For spacecraft this equates to 1 ships/Drones/Missiles i must kill/am good at killing, 2 Ships i compliment and work together with and 3 Ships/Drones/Missiles that can kill meNow on to specific design principles: - Delta V is king, much like how humans are exhaustion predators that starve and tire their prey with relentless pursuit, it does not matter how dangerous the "claws" "teeth" or "poison" of a ship/drone/missile is if it can no longer get to you/no longer move, a current bare minimum of 7 Km/s is ideal, though i am pushing fuel and engine designs to hopefully get 10 Km/s as the default.- Fuck Armour(mostly) Ever since gunpowder weapons first appeared armour has mostly played catch up with arms, and for the simplest attacking methods (rpg's come to mind) usually require complicated expensive defences. So the first defence is speed, if one is not were the enemy is, then there can never be a battle, likewise countermeasures must always ideally deal with issues away from ships,the farther the better, to the point were a good offence is SUPERIOR to a good defence. Granted drones and missiles can be equipped with a measure of armour to perform their role as an offensive defence. - Know your role (and do it well) i will probably go in depth in this at some point, but "jack of all trades master of none, better than a master of one" is only partially in effect here. trying to do everything ALWAYS runs into either/or weight,money,size,heat issues etc. So specialisation is key, having said that a bit of adaptability never hurt anyone. That's enough explaining on to the ships, firstly the "spear-man" and "sword and shield" "Melee" ships  First up is the Coil Lancer, a ship so ludicrously overpowered that even if the main gun is turned off it's engagement range alone would allow a fleet to begin combat while hundreds of kilometres away. This thing still outclasses lasers and will until the prevailing issues with coil guns become mitigated, in which case it will be fine tuned back up to the furthest range possible. This extreme range is only made worse by the fact it has a calibre that has not been seen since the Ottoman's needed to get rid of crusader castles. This ship acts as a front-line engagement vessel, comparative to a gunship, and is the core of the fleet. Also equipped with the variable Angel Dancer missile to deal with pesky missiles and drones.  Second up is the Laser Destroyer, this is the thing that makes buckets of drones and missiles go pop! A super long range laser(only beaten by the OP Coil Lancer), complimented with 6 dozen Angel Dancer missiles for anti ship and anti Drone/Missile formation jobs. Has the pretty well known triple punch of concealed radiators/decoy flares/broadside laser turret. Also equipped with the now somewhat adjusted RCS for those last second dodges. Chunky laser section sports additional armour for protection of module and power supply. Also has certain "stealth-like" features i don't want to go into detail with here. The rest of the ships will be covered in part 2 - |
|
|
|
Post by argonbalt on Oct 9, 2016 0:30:05 GMT
These represent the other half of the fleet model i have been working on the "long range" portion. They are the "cavalry" and "archers" of the fleet.  The Arsenal Gear is what is sounds like, a big ol crate of missiles. 600 ORA! Missiles and once again the ever useful Angel Dancer. A manoeuvrable speed demon of a missile ship with a hell of a punch. Not much to talk about really.  The Musai-Kai is the latest in the Musai line of Mobile Suit carriers. Carrying 10 Zaku-F2/III/G Mobile suits, this is with out a doubt, the single most dangerous ship in the fleet. When a single Zaku can put no less then five gunships out of commission with the allotted fuel and ammo, four zaku's took out ten gunships and twenty five corvettes respectively(though stock ships are good as cooked goose at this point i know). Once i am satisfied with my mobile suit/missile designs i will post them here as well. |
|
.
