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Post by nivik on Oct 6, 2016 7:03:49 GMT
Wow, that's really tiny. I'm avoiding building spammy things of that scale because of framerate reasons.  I think not having a reactor, or a battery, on a missile is unrealistic. Gimbals in every module other than NTRs and combustion rockets require electricity. I'm expecting that the free gimballing is either a bug hiding in plain sight or temporary until batteries exist. It's not much electricity they should normally require, but nevertheless, it is nonzero. Right now there's no reason not to crank up the spin speed as high as the material can survive it, and there's no reason to use heavier materials for energy efficiency. I'll happily throw on a battery or fuel cell or whatever. Hell, if I could use fuel cells instead of RTGs or fission reactors for my drones, I would. |
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Post by randomletters on Oct 6, 2016 23:00:14 GMT
Have you guys tried armoring against Kinetic warheads?  Five of these will punch through 30 cm of Boron + 10 cm of Diamond, and then out the other side. I haven't tried testing them against incredibly complex armor but I doubt you're going to easily stop multiple 20kg projectiles at 2-3 km/s which all hit within cm of eachother. Edit: The payloads are 20kg of Boron with a 25 cm length and 100 mg of nitroglycerin. |
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Post by tukuro on Oct 6, 2016 23:14:57 GMT
Have you guys tried armoring against Kinetic warheads? Five of these will punch through 30 cm of Boron + 10 cm of Diamond, and then out the other side. I haven't tried testing them against incredibly complex armor but I doubt you're going to easily stop multiple 20kg projectiles at 2-3 km/s which all hit within cm of eachother. Edit: The payloads are 20kg of Boron with a 25 cm length and 100 mg of nitroglycerin. Once nukes are fixed I can see these warheads becoming a lot more common. Also, what about using osmium pellets instead? Osmium has higher moduli strength, higher tensile strength and a higher density. |
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Post by randomletters on Oct 6, 2016 23:23:20 GMT
Once nukes are fixed I can see these warheads becoming a lot more common. Also, what about using osmium pellets instead? Osmium has higher moduli strength, higher tensile strength and a higher density. I think the higher yield strength of Boron would perform better against thick homogenous layers (less chance of shattering afaik) and I wanted a fragment with a similar diameter to the thickness of the plate it was penetrating, but osmium or depleted uranium in a long rod penetrator might perform better. |
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Post by ross128 on Oct 6, 2016 23:33:31 GMT
Have you guys tried armoring against Kinetic warheads? Five of these will punch through 30 cm of Boron + 10 cm of Diamond, and then out the other side. I haven't tried testing them against incredibly complex armor but I doubt you're going to easily stop multiple 20kg projectiles at 2-3 km/s which all hit within cm of eachother. Edit: The payloads are 20kg of Boron with a 25 cm length and 100 mg of nitroglycerin. Once nukes are fixed I can see these warheads becoming a lot more common. Also, what about using osmium pellets instead? Osmium has higher moduli strength, higher tensile strength and a higher density. ___________________________________________________________________________________ The micromissile I posted on the previous page uses Osmium in its warhead. I tested it against a station that had 5m of Osmium, two Boron whipple shields, and 3cm Basalt Fiber spall liner (it's a special station I use for testing the absolute limits of weapon power). The first missile couldn't penetrate, but by the time a volley of 400 had finished detonating, it had been bored clean through. In one side and out the other. There is no armoring against a determined flak missile barrage, the only reasonable solution is to not get hit. Decoys are strong against them as long as you fire them to the side and/or behind you, because if they don't get a direct hit almost none of the pellets will hit you (due to how the fuses work right now). A decoy fired toward them can prove counterproductive though, because it'll set them off in front of you and you'll still get hit by the pellets. Also, making sure that there is nothing vital in between your radiators is important because that's where all the missiles will hit. If your ship is wide enough to have a roughly 1m radius hole bored through its radiator section without getting sawn off, you might actually be able to survive an arbitrarily large number of flak missiles (because they'll just keep hitting the hole). Though a savvy opponent might start using manual detonation to spread the hits out and finish you off. Whether you continue to survive after your radiator section is sawn off mostly depends on whether the radiators go with it. |
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Post by nivik on Oct 7, 2016 2:10:00 GMT
Have you guys tried armoring against Kinetic warheads? <snip> Five of these will punch through 30 cm of Boron + 10 cm of Diamond, and then out the other side. I haven't tried testing them against incredibly complex armor but I doubt you're going to easily stop multiple 20kg projectiles at 2-3 km/s which all hit within cm of eachother. Edit: The payloads are 20kg of Boron with a 25 cm length and 100 mg of nitroglycerin.   I'm going to start testing my armor with these. There's no warhead, just a 1.0 kilogram osmium long-rod penetrator strapped to the smallest amount of fuel I could manage and an engine. I've got a drone that fires them, but it's a bit finicky right now: unless you start your launch manually, the automatic missile release from the drone causes the missile's fuel tank to immediately explode, which usually knocks out a launcher or the whole drone. That said, these things are brutal if they actually hit. I tested one against the laser frigate; not only did it penetrate, a melted blob of missile and frigate bits punched clear through out the other side. I figure if I can successfully armor against a 1000g, 3.5km/s, 11mm projectile, I'll have basically won at armor: at maximum velocity, these hit with the force of 3.2 tons 3.2 kilos of TNT focused on an area the size of a dinner plate, if I have my math right. Edit: fixed math |
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Post by tukuro on Oct 7, 2016 2:37:15 GMT
I'm getting about 6 MJ per cm² for the rod alone.
I guess that explains the rods exiting at the other end.
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Post by nivik on Oct 7, 2016 3:21:14 GMT
I'm getting about 6 MJ per cm² for the rod alone. I guess that explains the rods exiting at the other end. Yeah. They're tricky to use, though: they're most effective at the very limit of their range, and the closer you get, the less time they have to turn fuel into velocity. They're able to kill my existing armor setup for my destroyers, though it takes a couple good hits at the outer portion of their range, which is...surprising. But 5mm of osmium really is no joke, particularly with the other layers in there to spread out heat and break up the missile. |
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Post by tukuro on Oct 7, 2016 3:37:59 GMT
I'm getting about 6 MJ per cm² for the rod alone. I guess that explains the rods exiting at the other end. Yeah. They're tricky to use, though: they're most effective at the very limit of their range, and the closer you get, the less time they have to turn fuel into velocity. They're able to kill my existing armor setup for my destroyers, though it takes a couple good hits at the outer portion of their range, which is...surprising. But 5mm of osmium really is no joke, particularly with the other layers in there to spread out heat and break up the missile. You could increase the acceleration, but I noticed too many Gs can cause missiles to miss. Alternatively you can use a long and short range missile. For armour you'd probably want several rigid high density layers to break up and slow down the projectile. Osmium it self might be one of the best choices for this (or vanadium chromium steel). For the final layer I'd go with a high melting point high yield strength elastic fibre to prevent spalling and absorb the plasma, so either para-aramid or basalt composite. EDIT: Just tested it. It works (Four 5mm layers of osmium followed by 5mm of para-aramid fibre), though obviously it's very heavy and the missiles weren't at max velocity. I tried to minimize the problem by using a "mushroom" setup and only putting the armour on the front. I'm not sure if there is an economical counter to this. |
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Post by shiolle on Oct 7, 2016 3:58:18 GMT
What qualities should I prefer in a material for a thin whipple shield (just a few mm thick like the original designs)? I've seen titanium proposed, and I think specific heat is important, but what else?
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Post by randomletters on Oct 7, 2016 4:30:12 GMT
You could increase the acceleration, but I noticed too many Gs can cause missiles to miss. Alternatively you can use a long and short range missile. For armour you'd probably want several rigid high density layers to break up and slow down the projectile. Osmium it self might be one of the best choices for this (or vanadium chromium steel). For the final layer I'd go with a high melting point high yield strength elastic fibre to prevent spalling and absorb the plasma, so either para-aramid or basalt composite. EDIT: Just tested it. It works (Four 5mm layers of osmium followed by 5mm of para-aramid fibre), though obviously it's very heavy and the missiles weren't at max velocity. I tried to minimize the problem by using a "mushroom" setup and only putting the armour on the front. I'm not sure if there is an economical counter to this. I've been quite happy with my ~250 MJ missiles, 3-6 Gravities hasn't caused me any problems yet. The single most important factor for deflecting KE missiles seems to be angling so far, I have yet to see any design take more than a few missiles at a solid 90 degree hit and survive, but a thick enough piece of Vanadium Chromium Steel (1M or so) at a decent angle is damn near invulnerable to KE hits. |
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Post by tukuro on Oct 7, 2016 4:35:15 GMT
What qualities should I prefer in a material for a thin whipple shield (just a few mm thick like the original designs)? I've seen titanium proposed, and I think specific heat is important, but what else? You could use one layer, but that would either be very costly (and/or heavy) or make you very vulnerable against certain weapons. I suggest having a minimum of at least one thermal armour layer. For laser protection you want low thermal conductivity (silica aerogel), while for nukes you want a high melting point and high specific heat (amorphous carbon). Without an outer thermal shield your kinetic shield becomes susceptible to lasers and nukes. For the initial kinetic armour layer you just want to slow down or break up the projectile. The projectile has not yet shattered or turned into plasma, so specific heat and thermal conductivity are less important here. You can either go with a soft (mostly fibrous) outer layer or a rigid one. There are benefits and cons to both. A fibruous/elastic outer layer (Generally has low young and shear modulus) is "safer" as there is less chance of spalling and shattered armour pieces traveling through the hull. On the other hand, if you can force the projectile to melt into plasma by using a very hard and rigid outer layer you can simply absorb the plasma with the inner layer. I prefer the latter due to the possibility of having to deal with long projectiles. For flak a fibre outer layer is usually sufficient, but long rod shaped projectiles (from coil/railguns or kinetic missiles) tend to puncture and rip through this. I'd suggest osmium, diamond, boron, ceramic oxide fibre (costly) or vanadium chromium steel for the first layer. Materials with higher yield strength are somewhat safer as it mitigates spalling. For the second layer I suggest a flexible material with a high melting temperature or specific heat such as titanium, para-aramid fibre, liquid crystal polymer fibre and s-glass composite. For the last one I'd suggest spider silk (for absorbing fragments) or amorphous carbon (for absorbing plasma with decent tensile and yield strength). |
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Post by nivik on Oct 7, 2016 4:37:24 GMT
Yeah. They're tricky to use, though: they're most effective at the very limit of their range, and the closer you get, the less time they have to turn fuel into velocity. They're able to kill my existing armor setup for my destroyers, though it takes a couple good hits at the outer portion of their range, which is...surprising. But 5mm of osmium really is no joke, particularly with the other layers in there to spread out heat and break up the missile. You could increase the acceleration, but I noticed too many Gs can cause missiles to miss. Alternatively you can use a long and short range missile. For armour you'd probably want several rigid high density layers to break up and slow down the projectile. Osmium it self might be one of the best choices for this (or vanadium chromium steel). For the final layer I'd go with a high melting point high yield strength elastic fibre to prevent spalling and absorb the plasma, so either para-aramid or basalt composite. EDIT: Just tested it. It works (Four 5mm layers of osmium followed by 5mm of para-aramid fibre), though obviously it's very heavy and the missiles weren't at max velocity. I tried to minimize the problem by using a "mushroom" setup and only putting the armour on the front. I'm not sure if there is an economical counter to this. I noticed that graphite has a low Young's modulus and amorphous carbon has a high yield modulus, so I think you could layer the two together in order to get a good composite spall liner for a fraction of the price. So far as tensile strength on a budget goes, I'd probably go with one layer of osmium just above the spall liner, then use boron with more empty space between the layers to try to disrupt and spread the impact a bit more. But, yeah. It's hard to beat Newton when it comes to making something dead. |
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Post by nivik on Oct 7, 2016 4:46:02 GMT
You could increase the acceleration, but I noticed too many Gs can cause missiles to miss. Alternatively you can use a long and short range missile. For armour you'd probably want several rigid high density layers to break up and slow down the projectile. Osmium it self might be one of the best choices for this (or vanadium chromium steel). For the final layer I'd go with a high melting point high yield strength elastic fibre to prevent spalling and absorb the plasma, so either para-aramid or basalt composite. EDIT: Just tested it. It works (Four 5mm layers of osmium followed by 5mm of para-aramid fibre), though obviously it's very heavy and the missiles weren't at max velocity. I tried to minimize the problem by using a "mushroom" setup and only putting the armour on the front. I'm not sure if there is an economical counter to this. I've been quite happy with my ~250 MJ missiles, 3-6 Gravities hasn't caused me any problems yet. The single most important factor for deflecting KE missiles seems to be angling so far, I have yet to see any design take more than a few missiles at a solid 90 degree hit and survive, but a thick enough piece of Vanadium Chromium Steel (1M or so) at a decent angle is damn near invulnerable to KE hits. The main weakness of KKVs, IMO, is that they're going to home in on heat. If you put your radiators over a spacer, with a "radiation shield" of thick plate on each side of the spacer, the only realistic way a KKV can kill you is if you get hit with enough of them to actually rip you in half, I think. The fact that they don't spread their damage makes them really potent, but also allows them to be countered by ship design: an armor penetration only matters if it damages something you care about on the other side, after all. So, yeah. I think a design feature of my ships going forward will be to have my main radiators positioned over a void in the hull. That should counter the worst of the threat in a way that minimizes added mass. |
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Post by ross128 on Oct 7, 2016 4:59:33 GMT
At the moment that's a strong counter to flak missiles too, they detonate so close to the hull they practically have the same damage profile as a KKV.
KKVs are particularly good launched out of turrets by the way, a turret will point the missile in the right direction to start with so all it has to do is burn toward the target and do a little course correction. The turret also gives it a velocity boost of course, but too much muzzle velocity prevents the missiles from homing reliably.
If you get juuust the right amount though, it'll reliably drill right through any radiator block you point it at.
I've also accidentally discovered that a nuke capped with a dense material will sometimes run a target clean through, with almost no regard for armor of any type or thickness, if it gets a point-blank detonation just right. My current theory is that it's liquifying the cap and launching that through the target, based on the small hole left at the center of the blast and the fact that it never happens if the missile turns sideways before hitting. Also, raising the yield of the nuke caused it to stop happening, I guess because it got too hot and vaporized the cap instead of liquifying it.
The effect is very finicky and difficult to reproduce reliably though. It's an amusing way to render an arbitrarily large amount of armor pretty much irrelevant, but unless we get a missile that can reliably get a nuke dead-on target it's likely to not be worth the trouble.
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