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Post by bluuetechnic on Oct 8, 2016 11:59:25 GMT
Wow, the evolution of this thread over the past few days has been absolutely fascinating. Mainly watching from the sidelines, I've seen this thread go from discovering how the systems work, to optimizing armor, to finding entirely new ways of defeating said armor, and how to protect against those threats. (If it's even possible to anymore  ) But back to the main question, after everything so far, what do you currently think is the optimal method of armoring capital ships? (If there is a single one) if not, what armor setups would you use to counter specific threats? I'm still just starting to play around with this stuff myself, and have some ideas on unconventional armor layouts, but I may save that for another thread entirely. |
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Post by leerooooooy on Oct 8, 2016 14:22:53 GMT
Wow, the evolution of this thread over the past few days has been absolutely fascinating. Mainly watching from the sidelines, I've seen this thread go from discovering how the systems work, to optimizing armor, to finding entirely new ways of defeating said armor, and how to protect against those threats. (If it's even possible to anymore ) But back to the main question, after everything so far, what do you currently think is the optimal method of armoring capital ships? (If there is a single one) if not, what armor setups would you use to counter specific threats? I'm still just starting to play around with this stuff myself, and have some ideas on unconventional armor layouts, but I may save that for another thread entirely. I would say offense is the best defense: take out all long range weaponry with longer range weaponry (lasers, missiles and drones), intercept enemy fleets with a few smal-lish nukes to weaken if not disable them, rely on spamming cheap, high intensity attacks (once again, nukes are really good), and use a combo of silica aerogel + boron for those stray shots and lucky laser drones that could manage to sneak through. That because armoring weapons effectively is really expensive, adds so much weight and slows rotation down so much, radiators are even worse because of their enormous area, engines literally can't be armored, so chances are if you get in the middle of a serious fight many of your critical modules will be out of commission no matter what your main armour is, and after that you'll be a sitting duck. So IMO armour should be only a last line of defense, and that is even without considering how obscenely powerful many coilguns and railguns are thanks to some bugs |
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Post by ross128 on Oct 8, 2016 14:36:29 GMT
Your top threats to armor against should be lasers and proximity nukes, because these are the hardest to avoid getting hit by. Fortunately, they're also the easiest to armor against: silica aerogel and basalt fiber to the rescue, you are now immune to all forms of thermal damage, aside from engines and radiators.
Kinetic armor should be focused on protecting vital modules (crew, reactors, explosives) from long-range railguns and stray flak, but not much else. Trying to armor against direct flak hits, KKVs, or any variety of EFP is an exercise in futility. The only winning move there is to not get hit, your armor is only there to save you from close calls.
The best defense in this game is a good offense. Kill your target dead before they can get in weapon range, and intercept their ordinance with counter-ordinance if possible in order to avoid having your ships in play at all. Remember that any armor can be ablative armor if you're persistent.
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Post by cuddlefish on Oct 8, 2016 14:42:02 GMT
Things I learned today: I made a cannon approximating an AKM (the rate of fire is about three times too high, but I was at the lowest loader setting, and the full bullet mass is carbon steel) and stuck it on a half dozen drones. They killed the stock Corvette in the one pass.
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Post by concretedonkey on Oct 9, 2016 7:38:03 GMT
Ok some test from me as well : 6cm Boron - 90cm empty - 2cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Bazalt fiber composite. - mass 1.9kt - 16.69 s , 23.16 s , 20.67 s , 18.86 s 6cm Vanadium-Chromium Steel - 90cm empty - 2cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 3.64kt - 22.78 s 6cm Boron - 90cm empty - 2cm Vanadium-Chromium Steel - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 2.56kt - 20.22 s 6cm Marging Steel - 90cm empty - 2cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 3.85kt - 19.66 s 6cm Austenitic stainless steel - 90cm empty - 2cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 3.83kt - 12.21 s 6cm Carbon-Carbon - 90cm empty - 2cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 1.83kt - 16.06 s 7.4cm Carbon-Carbon - 90cm empty - 2cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 1.96kt - 12.68 s , 14.65 s ?? 6cm Aramid fiber - 90cm empty - 2cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 1.74kt - 21.09 s , 17.72 s , 20.38 s 8.9cm Aramid fiber - 90cm empty - 2cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 1.96kt - 18.51 s , 23.74 s , 19.19 s 6cm Basalt fiber composite - 90cm empty - 2cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 2.15kt - 19.91 s 6cm Ceramic Oside fiber - 90cm empty - 2cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 2.24kt - 16.64 s 6cm PBO fiber - 90cm empty - 2cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 1.77kt - 17.37 s 6cm Para-Aramid fiber - 90cm empty - 2cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 1.72kt - 19.24 s 6cm S-Glass composite - 90cm empty - 2cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 2.07kt - 21.47 s 6cm Liquid Crystal Polymer fiber - 90cm empty - 2cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 1.72kt - 21.33 s , 20.70 s 9.1cm Liquid Crystal Polymer fiber - 90cm empty - 2cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 1.96kt - 20.39s , 25.78 s 6cm Liquid Crystal Polymer fiber - 90cm empty - 2cm Vanadium-Chromium Steel - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 2.35kt - 16.04 s 6cm UHMWPE - 90cm empty - 2cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 1.59kt - 16.55 s 6cm UHMWPE - 90cm empty - 3cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 1.96kt - 19.13 s 13cm UHMWPE - 90cm empty - 2cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 1.95kt - 25.67 s , 29.05 s , 32.70 s !!! 6cm Boron - 90cm empty - 2cm UHMWPE - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 1.81kt - 16.25 s, 17.93 s , 18.95 s 6cm UHMWPE - 90cm empty - 2cm UHMWPE - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 1.46kt - 11.18 s , 19.88 s, 21.93 s , 16.90 s All tests were with a slow intercept , against a single conventional cannon :  Armor was deliberatly not slooped. I have yet to run a series of tests against the stock rail guns, but for now , it seems like I'll ditch my lower layer of boron/steel in favour of UHMWPE/Liquid Crystal Polymer fiber or some kind of aramid. Edit : The rail gun tests - against 4x 8mm stock - keep in mind that the combat starts from a greater distance this time: 13cm UHMWPE - 90cm empty - 2cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 1.95kt - 49.12 s , 43.19 s , 53.57 s 13cm UHMWPE - 90cm empty - 2cm Boron - 1m empty - 3mm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 1.83kt - 42.87 s , 35.80 s 8.5cm UHMWPE - 90cm empty - 4cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 1.96kt - 44.50 s , 30.33 s , 36.17 s 9.1cm Liquid Crystal Polymer fiber - 90cm empty - 2cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 1.96kt - 28.24 s , 31.84 s , 38.51 s 8.9cm Aramid fiber - 90cm empty - 2cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Basalt fiber composite. - mass 1.96kt - 20.53 s , 39.03 s , 40.95 s 6cm Boron - 90cm empty - 2cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Bazalt fiber composite. - mass 1.94kt - 27.12 s , 23.07 s |
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Post by blothorn on Oct 9, 2016 8:50:31 GMT
Nice! Interesting to see how large the difference vs. railguns of the 1cm vs. 3mm Whipple shield was; I would have expected the 3mm to suffice for such a light, high-velocity round. I would also experiment with some metal shields, as basalt is rather expensive for the purpose--I have had good results with 5mm aluminum zinc magnesium.
The one other thing I would keep in mind is cost; in my experience UHMWPE and the fibers make superb final layers (their relatively low Young's modulus allows them to absorb much more energy without fracturing than boron and the ceramics), but using nontrivial quantities is prohibitively expensive.
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Post by concretedonkey on Oct 9, 2016 9:07:58 GMT
I used basalt mostly because its my current arangement for the outer layers. I have to experiment if I can ditch it in favour of something cheaper. I'll keep in mind the aluminium zinc magnesium ... thanks.
Edit : its not bad at all
13cm UHMWPE - 90cm empty - 2cm Boron - 1m empty - 1cm Aluminum Zinc Magnesium - mass 1.96kt - 34.14 s , 46.86 s, 46.86 s, 36.68 s
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Post by concretedonkey on Oct 9, 2016 10:31:09 GMT
aaaand all of king's armor layers are penatrated with the first shot from this :    The gun is a simple , as small as possible , version of the one that I use on my drones, but it usually shoots nukes this one shoots kinetic missiles. Missile is nothing interesting , fairly standart micro one , ethylene oxide and a small tank. The penatrator is the interesting part... its 1 kg octogen topped by 1.6 kg of a frag bomb - 100mg octogen and the rest osmium. It generates just 7 fragments of 229g. I guess its that effective because of the arrangement of 1.6km/s from the cannon + whatever the missile can accelerate during the flight + the kick of the 1kg of octogen ... I can squeeze more performance from the missile if I optimise it for more G and sacrifice delta V. |
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Post by nivik on Oct 9, 2016 14:09:11 GMT
Your top threats to armor against should be lasers and proximity nukes, because these are the hardest to avoid getting hit by. Fortunately, they're also the easiest to armor against: silica aerogel and basalt fiber to the rescue, you are now immune to all forms of thermal damage, aside from engines and radiators. Kinetic armor should be focused on protecting vital modules (crew, reactors, explosives) from long-range railguns and stray flak, but not much else. Trying to armor against direct flak hits, KKVs, or any variety of EFP is an exercise in futility. The only winning move there is to not get hit, your armor is only there to save you from close calls. The best defense in this game is a good offense. Kill your target dead before they can get in weapon range, and intercept their ordinance with counter-ordinance if possible in order to avoid having your ships in play at all. Remember that any armor can be ablative armor if you're persistent Any missile-mounted, focused-damange warhead -- KKVs, close-range flak, and CEFPs -- have one weakness in my experience. They go after your biggest, hottest radiators, and when they punch through your armor, their effect is extremely localized. The best counter I've found for that which doesn't involve an "active" defense is this:  I mount my radiators over a spacer in the hull, with a radiation shield of armor material -- I think I'm still using van-chrome steel in this example -- protecting the citadel from any spalling or plasma splash. The space isn't completely empty -- I'm mounting my missile launchers there -- but the only true threat penetrations to that area pose is if they punch enough holes through the hull there that my ship breaks into two, or if the penetration is at a shallow enough angle and stays intact enough that it blows through my citadel plate or my armored fuel tanks. It's not really "armor" in the traditional sense of the word, but it does help you survive getting hit by that class of weapons, so I figured it belongs here. All of my front-line ships have this design feature now. That does give them a bit of an odd/distinctive look, though. No radiators or other design elements aft makes them look a bit front-heavy:  |
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Post by concretedonkey on Oct 9, 2016 20:16:04 GMT
ok guys ... the small conventional kinetic missile that I showed before ... just penatrated 10 m of armor on the fifth shot. Surely this is impossible ?    Then proceeded doing the same thing with again 10 meters of... depleted uranium. There must be something wrong ? |
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Post by blothorn on Oct 9, 2016 21:30:28 GMT
Found a setup that will give a repeatable penetrates/does not penetrate verdict (without angling). Initial conclusions are that I have yet to discriminate between boron and amorphous carbon (which I find rather surprising, given their considerably different properties), and that versus 1g@13.1km/s projectiles, I have yet to find an advantage for Whipple shields heavier than 4mm alpha-2 titanium aluminide.
Lightest affordable armor thus far that stops that 1g@13.1km/s railgun is 4mm alpha-2 titanium aluminide, 1m gap, 9cm boron, 4cm spider silk. This also handles a conventional gun firing 5g osmium rounds.
Meanwhile, armor that does *not* stop a stock 286mm coilgun: 1cm alpha-2 titanium aluminide, 50cm gap, 5cm boron, 50cm gap, 30cm boron, 2cm osmium, 10cm spider silk. I am not seeing reason to doubt my earlier decision that capital ships are irremediably vulnerable, although a non-cheating version of that coilgun is getting rather large to fit on a drone.
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Post by tukuro on Oct 10, 2016 0:55:23 GMT
Lightest affordable armor thus far that stops that 1g@13.1km/s railgun is 4mm alpha-2 titanium aluminide, 1m gap, 9cm boron, 4cm spider silk. Alpha-2 titanium alumunide doesn't seem to have particularly amazing stats. Any reason why it's so effective? And what was the radius of the projectile? This is what I could come up with for a general (economic) armor layout: Armor layers (From outer to inner):- Nuke/Whipple shield - Material with high melting point and specific heat for nukes (See below for whipple shield). Silicon aerogel fared poorly against my nuclear autocannon, but amorphous carbon with its high melting temperature and specific heat did much better.
- Laser Shield - Material with Low thermal conductivity, high thermal conductivity will tend to melt the whole layer.
- Whipple Shield - A material that is hard and tough. With a large space between this one and the next layer so a shattered projectile can spread its kinetic energy over a larger area. One of my favourites for this is diamond. it's sufficiently tough (yield and tensile strength), extremely hard and relatively light with an average price.
- Plasma Absorption layer - Material with a high melting point, but also hard and tough to absorb more fragments. Boron is often suggested here, but I like to use amorphous carbon: It has lower yield and tensile strength, but a higher speed of sound. I found this reduced spalling and makes the next layer cheaper and lighter.
- Spall Liner - Fibrous material that is flexible (low shear modulus) with high yield and ultimate strength. Spider silk seem to be the way to go here. All the other applicable materials are extremely expensive, and putting more ceramic or alloys here risks additional spalling.
The nuke shield here doubles as a whipple shield, which is an absolute must against kinetic missiles and nuclear shaped charges. In general, the last 3 layers feel like they are pretty much set in stone, but there is a lot you can do with the first two layers. For example, a molybdenum/silver flash shield followed by silica aerogel as a lighter alternative to amorphous carbon if you are up against a lot of nukes, or an additional (diamond) whipple shield with silica aerogel on top.
I also wonder what the best material for modules is. I had a lot of success with boron, as it combines a lot of favorable properties. Is spalling modeled for crew modules? |
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Post by blothorn on Oct 10, 2016 4:41:16 GMT
The projectile was 3mm, I believe.
Whipple shields are weird--since they are dealing with intact projectiles at extreme velocities, they see the closest to Newtonian impacts; this means that areal density is about the only thing that matters. I experimented with a number of other Whipple shields but none decreased the thickness of main armor required (and I have suspicions, but no unambiguous evidence, that brittle materials such as amorphous carbon degrade faster. The RL papers I have found on the subject certainly support that idea). Alpha-2 titanium aluminide is the logical choice among ductile materials for its amazing specific heat (and fairly high melting point for a relatively light metal).
I would actually expect to see much more spalling from amorphous carbon; it is substantially less flexible than boron and has barely half the tensile strength. Note that the 13.1km/s projectile I was using is hypervelocity against both boron and amorphous carbon; it might be easier to distinguish between them with a projectile that is between their respective speeds of sound.
Note that for "flexible" you want low Young's modulus, not low shear modulus. Low shear modulus just means it is vulnerable to plugging (although more flexible materials are less vulnerable to plugging, so the low Young's modulus of spider silk compensates for its relatively low shear modulus).
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Post by redparadize on Oct 10, 2016 9:37:20 GMT
Hi all.
I would like to post pics of some of my design but sadly Ctrl PrtScn give me black screen, problably because of my dual screen.
Anyways, I did some test with KKV missiles, the thing is they often get zap out and I only can to hit a single ship per voley. So my Idea was to replace KKV by drone and deliver as much playload on multiple target at the same time. I have a design that I am kinda pround of:
Nostromo:
1.61Ktons 19.9MC, 8.87kDV
Playload:
100 Tunderbolt II drones 1t 20KC 10kDV. 4x18MM guns 5 gram at 1.70km/s
20 Laserbolt II drones 1t 20KC 10kDV. 620kw Near Red laser.
105MW Flare
The concept is simple, I send volays of 5 Tunderbolt II and 1 Laserbolt II. The intercepts typicality happen at 5km/s to 7km/s. The laserbolt is just there to have a +100km engagement. The 5 tunderbolt will fire a combined 1111 rounds per seconds from the 100km mark. Given the intercept is around 5km/s and that my guns shoot at 1.70km/s. Thats 5.555kg at 6.7km/s every secs. Much better than any weapons of equal or lower of my 6x1t dromes.
Depending on hardness of enemy ships, I will try to switch targets every second or so. There is no ship that can sustain that much damage. I can defeat 10 ships on a single voley.
On the defensive side. These drones have enough Dv to catch anything comming against the Nostromo. And I have pleny of DV on the it to dodge if necessery.
I hope we will get multiplayer at some point! I want to test it against humans!
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Post by apophys on Oct 10, 2016 10:23:14 GMT
Hi all. I would like to post pics of some of my design but sadly Ctrl PrtScn give me black screen, problably because of my dual screen. Just play in windowed mode, and do a printscreen & paste in MS Paint or GIMP or other equivalent. |
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