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Post by concretedonkey on Oct 18, 2016 11:27:42 GMT
Ok I'm dreading the moment when qswitched will come and say its really bug. Its just too good to be true.
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Post by dragonkid11 on Oct 18, 2016 12:11:03 GMT
Still, it's not REALLY that good.
It's basically an upgrade over the ordinary whipple shield which has gel instead of empty space in between the layers.
And very accurate fire will bore though the armor in no time, which happen everytime my ship was shot by stock 60mm cannon.
But it's decent enough to be real good.
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Post by nerd1000 on Oct 18, 2016 12:38:19 GMT
Indeed, my railgun drones cut through it in no time- it looks like single rounds can be stopped quite effectively but hundreds of 1g pellets aimed at the same spot simply shred the whipple and the gel until they have no effect any more, at which point they easily punch through the main plate. Interestingly it seems that these very light, relatively fast projectiles can be easily bounced by even extremely thin plates, so long as the armour is sloped. The ship I was testing with (a modified siloship) had a battery of 4mm railguns I designed for point defense against drones and missiles- they needed many hits on each drone to kill it because often the 1g pellets would simply skip off the side. The drones were protected by a mere 1cm of sillica aerogel plus two spaced layers of 3mm alpha titanium aluminide each.
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Post by redparadize on Oct 18, 2016 13:29:14 GMT
For the same thickness it is definitively true. I did not do a comparison between them with equal mass, but graphite is 10 times lighter than silica. Thats allot, if silica is 10 times more effective then there is a argument to make, if not well them... For anti-laser work, silica aerogel is not 10 times more effective. Based on my tests, it's more like 10000 times more effective. Yes, really. Nice! So I will keep using silica for drones and graphite for ship. Laser are not a treat for ship anyway. A these I will have to run one day is how effective it is to fill gap between spaced armor with aerogel. I do get good result with it, but it might not be for the reason I think. I Wish we had something like a shooting range to test these thing. That would be helpful. |
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Post by captinjoehenry on Oct 18, 2016 13:41:25 GMT
Well this is all very exciting! I seem to have caused a revolution in ship armor. This is pretty darn great to see and I'm really glad that my idea of stuffing whipple shields is turning out to be a massive improvement in armor.
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Post by dragonkid11 on Oct 18, 2016 14:02:58 GMT
Well this is all very exciting! I seem to have caused a revolution in ship armor. This is pretty darn great to see and I'm really glad that my idea of stuffing whipple shields is turning out to be a massive improvement in armor. Yeah, thanks man. Now my ship can be light and cheap while still decently protective to their crews. Anyone tested if what would happen if you thicken the gel layer to...several meters thick? It's dirt cheap enough that it won't matter much in weight or maybe price. Maybe. |
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Post by redparadize on Oct 18, 2016 14:08:03 GMT
Well this is all very exciting! I seem to have caused a revolution in ship armor. This is pretty darn great to see and I'm really glad that my idea of stuffing whipple shields is turning out to be a massive improvement in armor. I do not want to diminish your excitement, but if you go back a couple page back I posted a design that had that feature. If you go to the post your design tread, trough not specifically mentioned, it seem that several design had that feature a while ago. I think its like the phone and radar invention, many discovered the same thing at the same time. It just prove that it is a logical and sound solution. |
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Post by dragonkid11 on Oct 18, 2016 14:21:57 GMT
The game has been out for barely a month after all.
We are all pioneers of CoaDE here.
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Post by concretedonkey on Oct 18, 2016 14:30:37 GMT
Hey, lets not fight alright ? The inclusion of the graphite aerogel was indeed inspired by redparadise's ship's bow. The captain had the idea of stuffing something in between the layers. I was mad enough to just flip the layers backwards. Lets just enjoy it and hope that its not a bug.
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Post by captinjoehenry on Oct 18, 2016 14:43:21 GMT
Well this is all very exciting! I seem to have caused a revolution in ship armor. This is pretty darn great to see and I'm really glad that my idea of stuffing whipple shields is turning out to be a massive improvement in armor. I do not want to diminish your excitement, but if you go back a couple page back I posted a design that had that feature. If you go to the post your design tread, trough not specifically mentioned, it seem that several design had that feature a while ago. I think its like the phone and radar invention, many discovered the same thing at the same time. It just prove that it is a logical and sound solution. Well then I apologize! I did not realize you had posted designs with this. Either way it is definitely a very good improvement over most other armor schemes cost and mass wise. Only issue is it is quite bulky. Not much of an issue but still the only real major downside of the whole design |
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Post by redparadize on Oct 18, 2016 15:03:59 GMT
Don't get me wrong. I am not claiming ownership here.
The design I posted earlier was only partially like that. The Nostromo II had a regular spaced armor on top of another spaced filled armor. It is with that ship that I noticed that armor layer directly on top of aerogel didn't seen to be heated as quick from proximity nuke explosion. The full fledged concept was done afterward, more or less at the same time as your one. You can see these on the other tread.
I think its a convergence of idea, and that's great. It kinda validate the concept.
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Post by captinjoehenry on Oct 18, 2016 15:37:19 GMT
Don't get me wrong. I am not claiming ownership here. The design I posted earlier was only partially like that. The Nostromo II had a regular spaced armor on top of another spaced filled armor. It is with that ship that I noticed that armor layer directly on top of aerogel didn't seen to be heated as quick from proximity nuke explosion. The full fledged concept was done afterward, more or less at the same time as your one. You can see these on the other tread. I think its a convergence of idea, and that's great. It kinda validate the concept. Yeah. It is always nice to have other people confirm that the armor design works. |
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Post by Dhan on Oct 18, 2016 16:48:02 GMT
Aerogel on the outside working better than on the inside is quite mysterious. It seems reminiscent of the tiny osmium rad shield atop a nuke or explosive charge piercing arbitrary thicknesses of armor.
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Post by redparadize on Oct 18, 2016 17:11:13 GMT
I really have to do is to compare this setup to other designer armor layout. There might be other material to use. Some of the ship design I have seen have serious damage dealing capacity too, I wonder how my armor layout would react to that. Some of these ship, to be honest, probably would never be able to catch me, unless if I play stupid.
My doctrine ask for fast ship and drone. Evasion before armor, force projection before brawling firepower. Tonight I will post my newly done ship/drone/missile combo that push this doctrine to its extreme.
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Post by captinjoehenry on Oct 18, 2016 19:35:48 GMT
Ok I have done a bit more of experimentation. It turns out that from what I can tell nickel phosphorus microlattice is a superb spall liner and an excellent material to put behind any armor layer. It really provides quite a nice boost to the strength of the armor.
Also from my experimentation it appears that an equivalent mass of any aerogel and especially the microlattice is better than composite armor. Or the same mass of denser material. The only thing I have found that provides additional protection to a primary low density armor set up is a very thin 5mm or so whipple shield. In my case I use a thin layer of basalt fiber composite 5mm thick backed by a few cm of microlattice and finally followed by a substantial thickness of silica aerogel provides quite a lot of protection. In addition adding another 5mm thick basalt fiber whipple shield between thick layers of low density armor works really well. I am sure that using something more affordable than basalt fiber would also yield an increase in armor effectiveness. In addition even a fairly thin layer of just a few cm of micro lattice between the whipple shield and the bulk of the low density armor results in a very nice increase in protection.
The only issue with all of this is that this armor is best when it is quite a few meters thick. This is still quite low weight but it definitely increases the cross section of a ship quite a lot. I think the protection this armor grants is definitely worth while but given two ships all other things being equal the ship with low density armor will be shot at first. It'll also be more or less immune to the incoming fire but it will almost definitely be a bigger target.
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