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Post by goduranus on May 6, 2017 7:07:27 GMT
What's a good laser armor for turrets now? I've been using Graphite but they don't last more than a few seconds.
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Post by The Astronomer on May 6, 2017 7:09:03 GMT
What's a good laser armor for turrets now? I've been using Graphite but they don't last more than a few seconds. Then there's me using aramid fiber on every single thing.
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Post by goduranus on May 6, 2017 7:10:29 GMT
That stuff on a turret costs as much as the whole ship Edit: Nope, 10cm Para-Aramid Fiber didn't last a second. The test was done using 10x 50MW point defense lasers at 200km, 3.7% efficiency, intensity ~125MW/M^2 each laser.
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Post by dragonkid11 on May 6, 2017 8:00:52 GMT
Nitrile rubber still works, same goes for silicon aerogel.
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Post by The Astronomer on May 6, 2017 8:06:13 GMT
Aramid, not para-aramid
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Post by bigbombr on May 6, 2017 8:43:11 GMT
Against low intensity, you can use laser threshold (non-ablative) armour such as a thin coating of aluminium. Against high intensity lasers, slather on aramid fiber (most mass-effective) or nitrile rubber (most cost-effective). Or weep in despair.
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Post by goduranus on May 6, 2017 8:48:30 GMT
Didn't last a second either, maybe it's getting through the gun barrel armor?
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blkcandy
Junior Member
Burn complete. Crawling back to bed.
Posts: 78
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Post by blkcandy on May 6, 2017 9:57:42 GMT
Possible. I have been having the same problem. Somehow my active laser turrets now last longer against laser than my railguns. I assume it is the barrel as both turrets has the same armor scheme.
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Post by bigbombr on May 6, 2017 10:06:52 GMT
Possible. I have been having the same problem. Somehow my active laser turrets now last longer against laser than my railguns. I assume it is the barrel as both turrets has the same armor scheme. Are the railguns firing? Perhaps the high temperature of the barrels means the laser has to deliver less power to reach the melting point of the barrel.
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blkcandy
Junior Member
Burn complete. Crawling back to bed.
Posts: 78
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Post by blkcandy on May 6, 2017 10:16:34 GMT
Nope. The railguns are cold. But their barrels are thinner than the turret and their rails are zirconium coppers.
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Post by bigbombr on May 6, 2017 10:21:41 GMT
Nope. The railguns are cold. But their barrels are thinner than the turret and their rails are zirconium coppers. Zirconium copper doesn't have any laser resistance, does it? Perhaps armour it with aluminium (gives issues with overheat because low melting point), aramid fiber (same, and insulation increases cooldown problems), graphene or diamond.
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Post by Enderminion on May 6, 2017 18:00:05 GMT
I am using Amorphus Carbon for turrets
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Post by AdmiralObvious on May 6, 2017 18:36:21 GMT
I am using Amorphus Carbon for turrets I do as well, unless I use Diamond, which isn't too great against lasing, but it's very resistant to everything else.
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Post by demetrious on May 8, 2017 17:49:21 GMT
Yes. Hyper-velocity projectiles tend to be low-calibre (in the gram range), which break up or plasmify upon impact with high density materials. Creating effective kinetic armour hinges on this principle. You do this by defeating it in several stages. First you break it up. Then you absorb the energy of the secondary debris, slowing it down. And finally you absorb whatever energy remains. Now, I see a lot of people here with either massive monolithic armour or soft outer layers, and from my experience that just isn't efficient. I try to keep the armour as percentage of total mass and cost in the single digits. Preferably adding negligible mass and making sure the cost stays at around 5% max of the total. Adequate kinetic armour consists of the following parts: <snip> I also recommend reading this paper ston.jsc.nasa.gov/collections/TRS/_techrep/TP-2003-210788.pdf, it covers the basics of whipple shield design and explains the principles behind it. Now that was an extremely informative post. The NASA paper you linked is one I hadn't seen before, either - it really elaborates on the quality of aluminum mesh (I suppose nickel-phosphorus microlattice would be our closest equivalent), kevlar as a whipple-shield stuffing, multiple-bumper shields, and most surprisingly, tin as a whipple shield materiel. The high density isn't much of a drawback considering how thin whipple shield's outer bumpers can be, and I've confirmed with in-game testing that tin whipple shields perform noticeably better than aluminum. Your point about melting temps have made me re-evaluate my penchant for thin boron whipple shields, as well. I spent all weekend re-designing my favorite ships because of you! I'm still skeptical about the aerogel stuffing, though - aerogel is so incredibly insubstantial that it seems most of the benefit would be from the 20cm spacing than from the gel. On the other hand the reason whipple shields use spacing is because shocking the HVI turns a lot of it into very hot plasma, which expands (and cools) a lot faster than still-intact solid shrapnel. Even air would significantly impede the plasma, so maybe that's why you see good results with aerogel. Especially since your armor seems optimized against those 15-50km user-designed sandblaster railguns; that's well above the "partial melt" regime the NASA paper describes, so most, if not all of the incoming projectile would be plasma. Thanks to the paper you linked I also worked on modifying my armor to incorporate "stuffing." The effect of a stuffed whipple shield is dramatic; you can visually see the "glowing" patches of inner armor are much wider; indicating the shrapnel/plasma was spread out over a much wider area (which is the point of a whipple shield.) I was playing around with a modification of the stock Sentinel using very generous total standoff distance (2 meters) when I noticed that the spider silk stuffing would have huge holes ripped out of it - naturally, because the plasma/shrapnel cone had expanded over the first 100cm after hitting the whipple shield. This meant that subsequent impacts close to the first one would encounter no stuffing on the way towards the rear wall. Moving the spider silk up only 20cm (or even less) from the whipple shield produced the same benefits, but without the gaping holes. I dont think CoaDE models crew radiation damage. ( Other than thermal radiation/temperature ). Then it must be the impulsive shock (g-forces) or armor spalling that's killing my crews, then. If radiation was accounted for we'd have to worry about neutron activation... I tend to take a vastly different approach; I have wipple shields that are stiff (Boron/amorphous carbon) stuffing, silica aerogel, and then a very thick plate of something very strong (boron) with a spall liner behind that (arimid fiber). This armor is designed to reflect, not obsorb. Imho u are right about needing less dense armors if they are to be chewed thru. But if they are designed to reflect, imo its more important for the armor to be dense and very strong. This (deflection approach to armor) requires very heavy angling, but my ships always resemble needles anyway. And it is a very massy and costly approach -if you put it over the whole length of the ship. I dont of course, its usually only on the top 20%, which is all the enemy ever sees anyway (with nose foward) Boron whipple shields do work if you're using angling as much as possible; a good percentage of shots will just skip off of it, which extends the shields lifetime, and if you're using a strong monolithic/composite final layer anyways it can absorb the shrapnel easily enough for it to work out as a net benefit. I also build ships with heavy "nosecones" for nose-on engagements (usually with big fixed weapons, which are much more useful after the last update,) and it certainly works. It does penalize you in the dodging department - if you see 60mm cannons opening fire, move. On the Sentinel modification I was playing with I found a final layer of 5-6cm boron, backed by 10-12cm of amorphous carbon lasted longer than either 15cm of a-carbon alone, or 12cm of boron backed by 2cm of a-carbon as a spall liner.
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Post by Enderminion on May 8, 2017 18:12:28 GMT
I have big nose guns on my dreadnoughts, they get popped by barrel damage and then remaining shots travel through the non-resistant armour under the turret, it took FOUR METERS of boron (radshield) to stop the stream of HV 1g projectiles for the duration of the bombardment
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