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Post by wormzjl on Oct 30, 2016 2:58:30 GMT
It seems a bit strange to me that the nukes are not capable of killing crews with radiation It's much simpler to kill the whole enemy fleet with a neutron bomb than deal with them physically In the absence of atmosphere, radiation can propagate much further than on earth
Also from the effect of the nukes I guess that the thermal radiation are not taken into account too
Is this a game design decision?
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erin
Junior Member
Smash Mouth Plays From The Depths Of Hell As You Traverse A Deep, Rat-Infested Cave
Posts: 57
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Post by erin on Oct 30, 2016 3:21:10 GMT
The game is supposed to be a simulation to as high realism as possible, within the given geopolitical/historical assumptions, on a desktop computer, but I do wonder about this along with a few other things. Why don't we have chemical explosive-pumped EMP bombs, for instance, for mission kills? What about charged particle beams versus crew compartments, and various forms of electronic warfare?
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Post by ross128 on Oct 30, 2016 3:31:43 GMT
Maybe those will be DLC. (maybe I shouldn't give him ideas)
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tuna
New Member
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Post by tuna on Oct 30, 2016 5:10:06 GMT
It seems a bit strange to me that the nukes are not capable of killing crews with radiation Also from the effect of the nukes I guess that the thermal radiation are not taken into account too What makes you think so? I think both neutron radiation and thermal radiation from nukes are modeled. Thermal is very easy to verify, just pop enough nukes nearby and the ships you are shooting at melt. Neutron radiation doesn't usually come in play, but if you armor your ships with armor made of heavy elements (including the armor internal to the crew quarters), nukes can pop the crew quarters without destroying the armor first. The reason you don't notice crew-killing radiation usually is that the primary armor materials, including all the ones used in stock crew moduels are really good at blocking them. And the neutron flux of the best bombs in the game is not very powerful, as you cannot build proper neutron bombs.
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Post by wormzjl on Oct 30, 2016 9:06:51 GMT
It seems a bit strange to me that the nukes are not capable of killing crews with radiation Also from the effect of the nukes I guess that the thermal radiation are not taken into account too What makes you think so? I think both neutron radiation and thermal radiation from nukes are modeled. Thermal is very easy to verify, just pop enough nukes nearby and the ships you are shooting at melt. Neutron radiation doesn't usually come in play, but if you armor your ships with armor made of heavy elements (including the armor internal to the crew quarters), nukes can pop the crew quarters without destroying the armor first. The reason you don't notice crew-killing radiation usually is that the primary armor materials, including all the ones used in stock crew moduels are really good at blocking them. And the neutron flux of the best bombs in the game is not very powerful, as you cannot build proper neutron bombs. I think 6 cm of carbon is just paper before nuke radiation
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Post by leerooooooy on Oct 30, 2016 10:08:30 GMT
It seems a bit strange to me that the nukes are not capable of killing crews with radiation Also from the effect of the nukes I guess that the thermal radiation are not taken into account too What makes you think so? I think both neutron radiation and thermal radiation from nukes are modeled. Thermal is very easy to verify, just pop enough nukes nearby and the ships you are shooting at melt. Neutron radiation doesn't usually come in play, but if you armor your ships with armor made of heavy elements (including the armor internal to the crew quarters), nukes can pop the crew quarters without destroying the armor first. The reason you don't notice crew-killing radiation usually is that the primary armor materials, including all the ones used in stock crew moduels are really good at blocking them. And the neutron flux of the best bombs in the game is not very powerful, as you cannot build proper neutron bombs. because a 9 MT bomb going off within 1 km of a crew module only protected by 5 cm of amorphous carbon failed to kill the crew
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Post by concretedonkey on Oct 30, 2016 13:23:53 GMT
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Post by bigbombr on Oct 30, 2016 18:56:25 GMT
I disagree with that piece. K-slugs aren't competitive with lasers, missiles and drones. Kinetic weaponry is only usefull on high-acceleration, expendable drones (so they can get into range). Check the laser thread for 1 GW lasers effective at 250 km, and the unlimited power thread for a 1,01 GW reactor.
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Post by concretedonkey on Oct 30, 2016 19:09:25 GMT
I ment only the part explaining the drop of radiation per distance . Otherwise I agree, for me too guns a primarily a drone weapon and a point defence for capital ships. Seen quite a lot of 1GW lasers nothing interesting there... I'm more interested in 1000x1MW lasers .
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Post by ross128 on Oct 30, 2016 19:16:55 GMT
Well, scroll down to the "missiles ruin everything" section. I do disagree with their "you simply don't build warships" conclusion though. You've got to get warm bodies from point A to point B somehow, and there will be people who don't want certain bodies to reach point B in a warm state. Those two conditions mean you can't avoid building a warship, no matter how bad of an idea it is otherwise. Unless we invent point to point teleportation, nothing else will be able to take a bunch of angry people with guns and drop them on the enemy while the enemy tries to kill them. So more likely, warships will exist but their primary role will be transporting troops and supporting those troops during battle (after all, a ship in orbit has a faster response time for CAS than a silo on the next planet over). Missiles (or drones, which in a way are just smart missiles with guns) will be their primary armament, and they'll be loaded to the gills with point defense. K-slugs and lasers will both mostly be used for point defense, mostly for covering different types of incoming missiles. It is likely though that in a war between two highly fortified powers, the initial phases of the war will consist of IPBM bombardment in order to weaken the enemy's defenses enough that the warships actually have a chance of surviving the trip over. It'd be nice if one side or the other surrendered during the IPBM phase of course, but we can't assume that will happen for sure any more than we can assume current armies would surrender under artillery bombardment with no need for a ground assault. It's nice (for the winners, and arguably for the losers if the winners don't commit war crimes) when it happens, but you can't build your whole military around the assumption that it will happen every time.
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Post by concretedonkey on Oct 30, 2016 19:41:40 GMT
If I have to speculate, for me it will be primarily a battle between remote platforms run from large motherships. I can imagine that if your drones lose the enemy might even offer you a honorable surrender, the mothership by itself being helpless, aside from defensive missiles and point defence guns.
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Post by captinjoehenry on Oct 30, 2016 19:55:22 GMT
Honestly if things come to a cap ship engagement lasers even massive GW class arrays are pretty worthless against competent armor that is fairly cheap and kinetics rule the day. So be it in my experience the best weapon in a capship on capship situation is coilgun launched high yield nukes. But yeah missiles are the main thing that settle things.
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Post by apophys on Nov 1, 2016 3:18:58 GMT
Regarding the original point of this thread, building crew modules out of boron (and/or having boron main armor, which is common) gives them excellent rad shielding against thermal neutrons, and wrapping the innermost part of the armor belt around crew with a little lithium-6 will stop fast neutrons. So neutron bombs, or even a fringe possibility of highly radioactive drones coming close, are not very difficult to block and ignore. Yes, everyone please use my 1GW and 10GW reactors, and my 1GW laser, too. I love seeing them proliferate. I'm an arms dealer now. xD
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Post by concretedonkey on Nov 1, 2016 5:00:38 GMT
Regarding the original point of this thread, building crew modules out of boron (and/or having boron main armor, which is common) gives them excellent rad shielding against thermal neutrons, and wrapping the innermost part of the armor belt around crew with a little lithium-6 will stop fast neutrons. So neutron bombs, or even a fringe possibility of highly radioactive drones coming close, are not very difficult to block and ignore. Yes, everyone please use my 1GW and 10GW reactors, and my 1GW laser, too. I love seeing them proliferate. I'm an arms dealer now. xD ... I'm using your 10GW reactor on some large test hulls right now, although I'm not using it properly for the moment... I've yet to design power hungry weapons on that scale
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Post by Durandal on Nov 1, 2016 17:05:55 GMT
Honestly if things come to a cap ship engagement lasers even massive GW class arrays are pretty worthless against competent armor that is fairly cheap and kinetics rule the day. So be it in my experience the best weapon in a capship on capship situation is coilgun launched high yield nukes. But yeah missiles are the main thing that settle things. Ive found it to be situational. Most KE guns can be burned off with a sufficient amount if laser input at 250km ranges. However, if the enemy *also* has 250km lasers it becomes a first strike situation on who an burn off more lasers the fastest so that the winner could proceed to burn off KE weapons. That said, a ship which protected it's KE weapons behind armor through rotating or some means could preserve enough weapons to survive into effective range. I know one user here had a ship with side-mounted nose guns which rotated into firing position after advancing in a quasi-broadside fashion. On the gripping hand, I've yet to devise a good PDW against las-armored missiles. Sufficient amounts of missiles always seem to break through wetter it's against 1GW lasers or KE
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