Argument Thread OOC Future Tech Only

[L3 Communications]

*snip*

Stop amiting.

That guy's mean. It's not my fault I have sinus infections all the time ;-;

^^^^

[Sertian]

AM plus stuff equal boom.

Pretty much this. Put regular matter (usually hydrogen or helium) with its antimatter composite (usually antiprotons or anti-helium) and you get an explosion equal to their mass times the speed of light squared (now, not ALL of his is usable energy/damaging. About 50% of the energy will dissipate harmlessly as neutrinos and not all of your antimatter/matter might react). In short, the best way to use antimatter as a weapon is in explosives whether contained in magnetic bottles or sometimes contained in (what I think) are specially designed molecules to keep it in place until the material is deformed (this could be usable in projectiles to create exploding antimatter bullets). To give you a sense of how much energy you can get from this, if you take a common every day pen from its table and turned half of it into antimatter and then had it react with the rest of the pen it would give you an explosion the size of Hiroshima (alright, half the explosion due to those darn neutrinos).

Concepts for an antimatter beam are... Well, I always thought they were silly (considering the beam would suffer from disruption whenever one of the particles impacted with the interstellar medium, and because the first few atoms to hit the enemy's shields/armor would blow the rest of the beam apart as well), but would function pretty much like a particle beam... With anti-particles.

Antimatter drives can work in a variety of fashions, but the two most popular use antimatter pellets to spark easy fusion reactions and uses that energy for acceleration (I forget the technical term) and the other uses pure matter/antimatter reactions to propel the ship (utilizing a magnetic field as a pusher plate to rob momentum from magnetic byproducts of the reaction before it degrades into neutrinos). Think of a beam of matter and antimatter focused at the back of the ship, reacting, and pushing it forward (bad analogy, but the simplest I could try to put it technically).

[Otagia]

In short, the best way to use antimatter as a weapon is in explosives whether contained in magnetic bottles or sometimes contained in (what I think) are specially designed molecules to keep it in place until the material is deformed (this could be usable in projectiles to create exploding antimatter bullets).

Not really specially designed. You just need C₆₀.

[Alpha Imperium (Ancient)]

Concepts for an antimatter beam are... Well, I always thought they were silly (considering the beam would suffer from disruption whenever one of the particles impacted with the interstellar medium, and because the first few atoms to hit the enemy's shields/armor would blow the rest of the beam apart as well), but would function pretty much like a particle beam... With anti-particles.

So no canceling out? Also what is a particle beam? That might do the job I want it for.

Antimatter drives can work in a variety of fashions, but the two most popular use antimatter pellets to spark easy fusion reactions and uses that energy for acceleration (I forget the technical term) and the other uses pure matter/antimatter reactions to propel the ship (utilizing a magnetic field as a pusher plate to rob momentum from magnetic byproducts of the reaction before it degrades into neutrinos). Think of a beam of matter and antimatter focused at the back of the ship, reacting, and pushing it forward (bad analogy, but the simplest I could try to put it technically).

So a drive would work? At a decent (FT-wise) speed?

[Sertian]

So no canceling out? Also what is a particle beam? That might do the job I want it for.

No, antimatter doesn't cancel out matter. It makes it explode with exceedingly high energy upon contact.

So a drive would work? At a decent (FT-wise) speed?

Anti-matter drives actually make up the 'best' drives with known physics and, in the later 'beam core' variants which rely only on matter/antimatter reactions for propulsion, the fastest rivaling laser drives. Given enough time, an Anti-Matter Beam Drive can accelerate your ship just shy of the speed of light. However, this requires carrying a large supply of explosive antimatter on your ship, which could turn a stray ship shot into a world killing explosion. Because of this, it might be best to keep a small supply of antimatter and use it to seed fusion reactions for propulsion.

Edit: Upon reflection, it seems like you've confused what antimatter and negative matter is. Antimatter, is basically matter with opposite electrical charge (it gets more advanced than that, but still), and upon contact annihilates itself with its matter twin and creates energy (aka explosion). Negative matter is a theoretical material which WOULD cancel or make its worth of matter 'disappear' if it ever came into contact. Unfortunately the only place I know of that can form negative matter/energy is the event horizon of a black hole so you really don't need to worry about it (this is the process of Hawking Radiation. Negative matter/matter pairs that appear and destroy each other simultaneously pop up at the edge of a black hole's event horizon and get seperated. The negative mass falls into the singularity and removes a bit of its mass, while the equivalent lost mass flies off).

Another type of thing you might get confused about is Dark Energy, which basically means any type of energy we don't currently know/have a theoretical model for. Its theorized that at least one type of dark energy is contributing to the expansion of the universe however.

[Alpha Imperium (Ancient)]

So no canceling out? Also what is a particle beam? That might do the job I want it for.

No, antimatter doesn't cancel out matter. It makes it explode with exceedingly high energy upon contact.

So no lazer-beam-gun-thingys then?

So a drive would work? At a decent (FT-wise) speed?

Anti-matter drives actually make up the 'best' drives with known physics and, in the later 'beam core' variants which rely only on matter/antimatter reactions for propulsion, the fastest rivaling laser drives. Given enough time, an Anti-Matter Beam Drive can accelerate your ship just shy of the speed of light. However, this requires carrying a large supply of explosive antimatter on your ship, which could turn a stray ship shot into a world killing explosion. Because of this, it might be best to keep a small supply of antimatter and use it to seed fusion reactions for propulsion.

Is there a chance of genarating it onboard ship? At the same rate that it is used up? Otherwise using it as a sort of nitros for boosts will be a good idea.

[Sertian]

[quote="Alpha Imperium";p="2481810"][/quote]

The only known method of synthesizing anti-matter is by smashing particles together in atom smashers, and even then it has a theoretical limit of only getting 50% of the energy/mass you put in comes out as Anti-matter. If you had something on the order of a several kilometer long warships (or at least a fleet 'tender') that could house this colossal thing then yes, you could generate small/moderate quantities of Antimatter as you need it and thus not have fricken huge tanks of the stuff ready to blow.

Its also possible you could just use handwavium or science to explain your production of Antimatter. Say you have safe, portable wormhole projectors that siphon the mass from a universe composed of antimatter for example, or just say you can convert matter to antimatter at a 1:1 ratio via rearranging/changing their quarks. This is NS FT for example, and nothing is off limits. However, whatever you decide, we would appreciate you realizing the implications of whatever SCIENCE! you used (for example, if you have wormhole technology that can siphon mass from an alternate universe it would be present in other areas of your technology, such as possible FTL travel or weaponry. If you can 'magically' convert regular matter to antimatter, any energy crisis your nation has would be gone... Of course it would also allow any terrorist faction who gets a hold of the device to create Hiroshima's easily).

And no anti-matter lasers. You could try gamma ray lasers utilizing anti-matter explosions as the power source (you'd have to talk to Morningstar Coalition about specifics, but you'd need to use gravity lenses to focus the gamma rays released).

[Otagia]

The only known method of synthesizing anti-matter is by smashing particles together in atom smashers, and even then it has a theoretical limit of only getting 50% of the energy/mass you put in comes out as Anti-matter.

And a practical limit of somewhere around .1% or so. Less, probably. Smashing particles has a bad habit of making stuff besides what you wanted, and most of the antimatter will react long before you can even try to collect it.

And no anti-matter lasers. You could try gamma ray lasers utilizing anti-matter explosions as the power source (you'd have to talk to Morningstar Coalition about specifics, but you'd need to use gravity lenses to focus the gamma rays released).

I actually use AM-pumped (well, Hawking-rad pumped, but close enough) graserheads in some of my missiles. Not really a requirement to use gravitic lensing to make the laser (see AR's editors notes about gamma ray mirrors), but it is generally entertaining. Just try to keep track of all the reprecussions of being able to manipulate gravity on a fine enough level to lase a nuke.

[Alpha Imperium (Ancient)]

The only known method of synthesizing anti-matter is by smashing particles together in atom smashers, and even then it has a theoretical limit of only getting 50% of the energy/mass you put in comes out as Anti-matter. If you had something on the order of a several kilometer long warships (or at least a fleet 'tender') that could house this colossal thing then yes, you could generate small/moderate quantities of Antimatter as you need it and thus not have fricken huge tanks of the stuff ready to blow.

Its also possible you could just use handwavium or science to explain your production of Antimatter. Say you have safe, portable wormhole projectors that siphon the mass from a universe composed of antimatter for example, or just say you can convert matter to antimatter at a 1:1 ratio via rearranging/changing their quarks. This is NS FT for example, and nothing is off limits. However, whatever you decide, we would appreciate you realizing the implications of whatever SCIENCE! you used (for example, if you have wormhole technology that can siphon mass from an alternate universe it would be present in other areas of your technology, such as possible FTL travel or weaponry. If you can 'magically' convert regular matter to antimatter, any energy crisis your nation has would be gone... Of course it would also allow any terrorist faction who gets a hold of the device to create Hiroshima's easily).

Well I do plan on having supply ships in my fleet. How big would we be talking for one of those producers though? Would make for an intresting RP if that ship was blown. I imagen a lot of surrounding ships would go up too.
I might go with the SCIENCE! method if I cant make the other way work in terms of what want it to do. The Hiroshima would also be intresting to RP.

PS: What does FTL mean?

[Vocenae]

Faster Than Light. Your basic hyperspace, warp, wormhole, subspace, slipspace mode of getting to other places quickly in the galaxy.

[Alpha Imperium (Ancient)]

Faster Than Light. Your basic hyperspace, warp, wormhole, subspace, slipspace mode of getting to other places quickly in the galaxy.

Basic being relitive in this context.

[Sertian]

If you actually DO RP terrorist forces taking advantage of the easy to get Antimatter production in your tech base, and the steps your state has to take to protect their people (or don't) I will love you forever. So many people do not want to deal with the negative consequences of the technology they have on their society. In fact, if ya do it and you ever need a technologically powerful Empire to 'help' you build and 'include' you into galactic society, I would be honored to volunteer the services of the Sertian Empire's Colonial Fleet. ^_~

Seriously though, SCIENCE! is really your best method unless you want to go with a hard/realistic only technology. As Ot stated, atom smashers only get a small amount of the energy poured into them as dark matter, so the energy loss per gain is humongous. However, you could create a circular particle accelerator (a giant ring) a few kilometers in diameter or less and it should be able to get high enough energy in the collisions to produced Antimatter. In fact, you could probably have several rings of these around your 'fueling' ship to produce the stuff quicker. You DO need a good means of getting the energy to produce these collisions though, fusion is a popular and theoretical plausible power plant. Nuclear/fission reactors are also a good choice, and you could pair them with special fusion reactors designed to hastened the radioactive decay of the fission byproducts to get even more energy and turn them into more stable compounds (and think of the plentiful depleted uranium you would have for ship weaponry/armor, even if tungsten is a better choice!).

However, the most common antimatter production facilities I've seen were giant solar arrays in orbit of stars and utilizing the energy gained from the star's light to fuel the collisions. My suggestion is to make vast 'farms' of these arrayed around your stars to produce most of the antimatter (if you're going for a hard tech nation) and utilize the giant mobile production facilities for long ranged fleets who'll need to be topped off on the move.

[Otagia]

How big would we be talking for one of those producers though?.

Probably about 9 or so kilometers in diameter for a tiny one, plus another few hundred thousand square kilometers in solar panels. Mind you, that size will probably only produce a few grams a year, tops.

[The Fedral Union]

How would a 500 meter warship beat a 5 km battle ship? any suggestions?

[L3 Communications]

How would a 500 meter warship beat a 5 km battle ship? any suggestions?

Shoot it.

[The Fedral Union]

How would a 500 meter warship beat a 5 km battle ship? any suggestions?

Shoot it.

L3 I have you on my foe list as a note.

[L3 Communications]

How would a 500 meter warship beat a 5 km battle ship? any suggestions?

Shoot it.

L3 I have you on my foe list as a note.

I have no idea what the foe list is for, but okay.

[Vocenae]

It's the NS version of ignore.

[Telvira]

Hope to god(s) their aim is shit and hold out until reinforcements arrive?

[The Fedral Union]

This begs the question does bigger always = going to win? or Better?

[Clamparapa]

This begs the question does bigger always = going to win? or Better?

No. Never. In my experiences, force size and quality are a fraction of a battle. How you use them will win or lose you the battle. For example, look at Vietnam. The Vietnamese general and leader knew they could never defeat the US in conventional battle. They were clever, though, and brought the war to the living rooms of the US public. This pressured the Americans to leave Vietnam. If you know your forces' strengths and weaknesses intimately (at least well enough that you know how to use them effectively), you can turn the weakest militia force into a military steamroller.

[Sertian]

I'll take on your five kilometer ship of the line space sailors with my 350m long destroyers!

One of the reasons I seriously want to get into a confrontation with a Space Marine or Chaos player so I can see my tiny in comparison vessels whittle away their chaos shields with their primary weapons and then shred into their hull with particle beams and dissect their behemoths into sections. It would be... Awesome.

[L3 Communications]

This begs the question does bigger always = going to win? or Better?

No. Never. In my experiences, force size and quality are a fraction of a battle. How you use them will win or lose you the battle. For example, look at Vietnam. The Vietnamese general and leader knew they could never defeat the US in conventional battle. They were clever, though, and brought the war to the living rooms of the US public. This pressured the Americans to leave Vietnam. If you know your forces' strengths and weaknesses intimately (at least well enough that you know how to use them effectively), you can turn the weakest militia force into a military steamroller.

That was the media. If we didn't have an anti-American media, we would have won that war.

[Solar Communes]

Depends on how exotic your FT base is. Making bigger things just for the sake of it is pointless, but when you impose hard limits regarding miniaturization to your technologies, you can build around such limits. So if there is no weapon, shield etc that would require a 5 km long big ship to fit inside it, there is no point in having something that big when you could have the equivalent firepower with a greater number of more efficient, smaller spaceships.

[Rethan]

Depends on how exotic your FT base is. Making bigger things just for the sake of it is pointless, but when you impose hard limits regarding miniaturization to your technologies, you can build around such limits. So if there is no weapon, shield etc that would require a 5 km long big ship to fit inside it, there is no point in having something that big when you could have the equivalent firepower with a greater number of more efficient, smaller spaceships.

This is generally how I view this argument. However, those who know of me know that my two main ship classes, the Nephilim and Grigori, are 50km and 5km respectively, both for good reason. Miniaturisation only works so far, and I cannot shrink down an entire population to live on a small ship (Nephilim) nor transport armies (Grigori). Both these ships take their enormous size and use it as they can, resulting in Grigori being armed with 4km long coilguns (if you have the space, may as well use it) and Nephilim having stupidly huge numbers of weapons. That said, I don't like waving huge ass compensation pieces around too often, hence I've been working on smaller ships. Sort of like a 250m Interdictor Mark 2.

tl;dr: Size has uses (more space, more engines, ergo more power) but assuming a high enough tech level it becomes logical to use smaller ships.