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by SquareDisc City » Sat Oct 27, 2012 5:35 pm
by Yes Im Biop » Sat Oct 27, 2012 6:12 pm
The Akasha Colony wrote:Yes Im Biop wrote:
SO I can basically call em whatever I want. The suites are basically each one of a kind for their job. Be it a Walking tank or a shadow.
He's not talking about the suits, he's talking about the soldiers in the suits. You can't train and equip people to fight a conventional field battle in ultra-heavy armor as well as perform ultra-covert insertions in light stealth suits. It's the same reason why militaries give specialty training to their soldiers. Highly-trained special forces units will usually have very basic training in most areas since they operate without support, but they are no substitute for an actual group of dedicated EOD or field battle personnel. For a given length of training, adding in additional skill sets inevitably results in taking time from others, so every week you spend training these troops in EOD is a week not spent training them in infiltration, and if the equipment varies so much, you now also have to devote additional time to training them on the different equipment types, which isn't necessarily cross-applicable (I'd wager movement techniques in heavy armor are a bit different than in a stealth suit).
Although on the matter of the suits, if the thinnest the armor gets is 3 inches around the arms, then it'll be rather uncomfortable, since the soldiers can't bring their arms to their sides.
[violet] wrote:Urggg... trawling through ads looking for roman orgies...
Idaho Conservatives wrote:FST creates a half-assed thread, goes on his same old feminist rant, and it turns into a thirty page dogpile in under twenty four hours. Just another day on NSG.
Immoren wrote:Saphirasia and his ICBCPs (inter continental ballistic cattle prod)
by New Amerik » Sat Oct 27, 2012 6:34 pm
YellowApple wrote:Well, the most straightforward means would be to harness the thermal energy generated by biological processes. Said energy - at least in oxygen-breathing organisms - is produced via a sub-process of metabolism called catabolism, which (to keep things simple) takes big molecules like fats, proteins, and complex carbohydrates and turns them into waste products (like carbon dioxide) and free energy, either in the form of ATP or as waste heat (the latter being what you'd be harnessing).
If you really wanted to optimize your energy-producing organisms, you could start breeding monocellular organisms that minimize the amount of ATP created relative to waste heat. This would, however, reduce the ability of cells to reproduce, since they'd have no energy to do so (ATP serves as an energy transport, so less of it means less energy being transported to the cellular structures needing energy). Thus, such an optimization should be done via hormonal control, if possible.
Some recommended reading from Wikipedia:
Metabolism
Energy metabolism / Bioenergetics
Catabolism
Citric acid cycle
Glycosis
Hopefully that helps. If you have more questions, post here or TG me
SquareDisc City wrote:Relying on converting biologically-generated heat to electricity will be horribly inefficient due to the temperatures involved. I think you'd be far better off either using living things to produce combustible substances (which is biofuel, same as in the real world), or to use electrochemical reactions that produce electricity directly (a biotechnological battery or fuel cell).
by YellowApple » Sat Oct 27, 2012 6:39 pm
New Amerik wrote:YellowApple wrote:Well, the most straightforward means would be to harness the thermal energy generated by biological processes. Said energy - at least in oxygen-breathing organisms - is produced via a sub-process of metabolism called catabolism, which (to keep things simple) takes big molecules like fats, proteins, and complex carbohydrates and turns them into waste products (like carbon dioxide) and free energy, either in the form of ATP or as waste heat (the latter being what you'd be harnessing).
If you really wanted to optimize your energy-producing organisms, you could start breeding monocellular organisms that minimize the amount of ATP created relative to waste heat. This would, however, reduce the ability of cells to reproduce, since they'd have no energy to do so (ATP serves as an energy transport, so less of it means less energy being transported to the cellular structures needing energy). Thus, such an optimization should be done via hormonal control, if possible.
Some recommended reading from Wikipedia:
Metabolism
Energy metabolism / Bioenergetics
Catabolism
Citric acid cycle
Glycosis
Hopefully that helps. If you have more questions, post here or TG meSquareDisc City wrote:Relying on converting biologically-generated heat to electricity will be horribly inefficient due to the temperatures involved. I think you'd be far better off either using living things to produce combustible substances (which is biofuel, same as in the real world), or to use electrochemical reactions that produce electricity directly (a biotechnological battery or fuel cell).
Ooh, thank you both for the responses! I'll be reading up on the links provided, and go to you YA via TG later I think.
For now, I guess my question is out of the three suggestions (breeding the organisms and using chemicals and hormonal balances to roughly control their output, using conventional biofuels, or using electrochemical reactions), which would be the...I guess most practical in terms of local area power maintenance? We're talking using 1960s level computers and manufacturing levels here, and they're only covering a relatively small area.
This would discount other sources like coal, natural gas, and so forth as these would be more self-contained semi-permanent military installations.
by Our Most Resplendent Goddess Sen » Sun Oct 28, 2012 3:01 am
Ularn wrote:Question; would a high-gravity planet have a denser atmosphere?
by Escalan Corps-Star Island » Tue Oct 30, 2012 3:50 pm
by Kreanoltha » Tue Oct 30, 2012 4:13 pm
Caecuser wrote:I'm going to regret this but can somebody tell me the problem of fighters in space combat? Apparently it is like a taboo here or something.
by Frizzbeez » Tue Oct 30, 2012 4:17 pm
Oh, did I mention they're all English? Because a true [cosmic swarm] must be represented with the utmost dignity by proper gentlemen. Really, if I'm going to go down that road, I can quite safely say, just imagine mid industrial revolution England in space with all the gentlemen replace by "gentlebugs."
by Our Most Resplendent Goddess Sen » Tue Oct 30, 2012 4:36 pm
by Kreanoltha » Tue Oct 30, 2012 4:37 pm
Our Most Resplendent Goddess Sen wrote:From the standpoint of actual rocket dynamics, a fighter must be capable of at least four times the velocity change, or dV, as a missile if it is going to do an attack run at the same velocity. You have to accelerate to attack speed, kill your velocity, accelerate back to your carrier (probably doing a second attack run to get the most bang for your buck), and kill your velocity again to rendezvous with the carrier. Because the rocket equation is exponential in nature, this can have a very large effect on the mass ratio, or the ratio of the rocket's fueled mass to its empty mass.
Even if you're using some sort of engine that cheats the rocket equation, it still makes sense that a drive system and power source is going to be larger and more expensive if it must deliver more velocity change per mission over a much longer life span.
Will post more later.
by Kreanoltha » Tue Oct 30, 2012 4:38 pm
Frizzbeez wrote:TL;DR
Apparently, anything not on a ballistic trajectory will be annihilated halfway between ship A and ship B with 100% success. Fighters can also only mount missiles consisting of dynamite and a bottle rocket, two uzis, and a single pilot in a NASA space suit. Their thrusters are re-purposed MAC truck engines, and the entire thing is held together within a card board box. Pilots are also required by regulation to be blinded and crippled.
by YellowApple » Tue Oct 30, 2012 5:26 pm
Caecuser wrote:I'm going to regret this but can somebody tell me the problem of fighters in space combat? Apparently it is like a taboo here or something.
Kreanoltha wrote:Frizzbeez wrote:TL;DR
Apparently, anything not on a ballistic trajectory will be annihilated halfway between ship A and ship B with 100% success. Fighters can also only mount missiles consisting of dynamite and a bottle rocket, two uzis, and a single pilot in a NASA space suit. Their thrusters are re-purposed MAC truck engines, and the entire thing is held together within a card board box. Pilots are also required by regulation to be blinded and crippled.
Read the fucking thing before assuming you can be a wise-ass.
by Dolmhold » Tue Oct 30, 2012 5:35 pm
YellowApple wrote:Snip
by YellowApple » Tue Oct 30, 2012 5:42 pm
Dolmhold wrote:YellowApple wrote:Snip
Just wondering, but what would be the point of using fighters to launch missiles when that same ship could also launch said missiles, and due to the fact that there is no friction in space, or at least in any way that actually affects anything, wouldn't a missile from the carrier be as good as that of the fighter's missile?
by North Calaveras » Tue Oct 30, 2012 5:55 pm
by Dolmhold » Tue Oct 30, 2012 5:58 pm
YellowApple wrote:Targeting. The fighters could go to a halfway point, aim, fire, and return. This is useful on space-scales because space is big, and therefore combat will often take place with light-second distances or more.
Missiles was admittedly a bad example; I'm more picturing kinetics, particle beams, or lasers being more accurate.
Plus, there's again the issue that the carrier is one ship, so if the carrier was attacking alone, everything would be firing from one location, making it easier to counter. Spreading out the area of attack using lots of smaller ships would make it harder to dodge, since there are more directions that the attack is coming from simultaneously.
by SquareDisc City » Tue Oct 30, 2012 6:18 pm
by Escalan Corps-Star Island » Tue Oct 30, 2012 6:47 pm
YellowApple wrote:Caecuser wrote:I'm going to regret this but can somebody tell me the problem of fighters in space combat? Apparently it is like a taboo here or something.
It depends on your technology level and your preference, as well as how you define "fighter". I'm among the minority that finds fighters a better use of mass than a single large ship. There are several reasons for my opinion:
- Consider two equal amounts of physical matter fighting against each other. One group is a large warship, while the other is a group of fighters and corvettes. While all components of the large ship are stationary relative to one another, each of the small ships can move freely relative to the rest of the group. Therefore, the single large ship is a much easier target than the many small ships, since there's only one target to aim for rather than dozens of individual targets.
- Consider those same two sides of our hypothetical battle - one big ship and one group of smaller ships, with both groups having equal mass. Because of the square-cube law - where the volume of a three-dimensional object grows faster than the surface area - you start to see efficiency and acceleration issues with the larger ship. Most players here RP with cigar-shaped capital vessels - long ships with engines at the rear. This means that the engines only cover one face of a rectangular prism representing the volume and surface area of the ship. As the ship gets bigger, the mass grows at a rate faster than the overall surface area, and therefore faster than the area of the face representing the engines.
- Consider those two sides again. Square-cube law has another effect - available surface area for weapons. Since the group of fighters and corvettes has more surface area than the single ship with the same amount of mass, there is more room for weapons in the small-ship group.
- Consider those two sides yet again. The big ship is a large monolithic vessel that - realistically speaking - would take weeks, months, possibly years to construct. Lots of labor costs, lots of energy costs, lots of design costs, all for one ship. Each individual small ship, on the other hand, is much faster to build - probably stamped out in a factory in an FT setting. Much lower labor, energy, and design cost per unit of mass. Sure, you can split the big ship into little pieces when making it, but you still have to add in the overall assembly, and there will be a large variety of individual pieces manufactured, rather than a bunch of small ships that are mostly (if not completely) identical.
A real-life analogue to this is in computer science. Once upon a time, supercomputers consisted of single, giant, monolithic machines. A few were modular, but still a single machine. Now, supercomputers consist of clusters of dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of individual smaller machines working together. Why is this preferred? Simple: more cost-effective. For the same amount of energy, manpower, and physical space, a computing cluster can pack more cores, more memory, and more capacity for redundancy and error recovery than the single monolithic machine could ever dream of.
Next, let's go into the definition of "fighter". Usually, when one talks of "fighter", they picture a space-opera-style craft sized roughly equivalent to a current RL craft. This is simply not rational. Space has different requirements than our atmosphere in terms of how vehicles need to be built. Space is big. There needs to be space for fuel, supplies, and breathable air to last for rather extended journeys. Meanwhile, there needs to be space for weapons capable of travelling that same scale in a usefully-short amount of time. A fighter the size of an F-16 ain't gonna cut it. I personally RP my fighters with a minimum length of 32 meters (for reference, an F-14 Tomcat is around 20 meters long); your own mileage may vary, but it needs to be much bigger than atmospheric fighter scales in order to be viable in space.
Kreanoltha brings up good points when comparing fighters to missiles. Missiles are certainly effective; however, comparing them to fighters is comparing apples to oranges. If you're bringing your fighters within range of your target's point defenses, you're doing something wrong. Your fighters are better off launching missiles from an intermediate distance between a home carrier and the target itself, and it's with that application - with the fighters firing individual missiles from a large number of individual trajectories relative to the target - that fighter-based tactics in deep space really shine.Kreanoltha wrote:
Read the fucking thing before assuming you can be a wise-ass.
Please consider a civil discussion on the subject. Both of you.
by YellowApple » Tue Oct 30, 2012 7:09 pm
Dolmhold wrote:YellowApple wrote:Targeting. The fighters could go to a halfway point, aim, fire, and return. This is useful on space-scales because space is big, and therefore combat will often take place with light-second distances or more.
Missiles was admittedly a bad example; I'm more picturing kinetics, particle beams, or lasers being more accurate.
Plus, there's again the issue that the carrier is one ship, so if the carrier was attacking alone, everything would be firing from one location, making it easier to counter. Spreading out the area of attack using lots of smaller ships would make it harder to dodge, since there are more directions that the attack is coming from simultaneously.
With missiles, shouldn't they be able to independently aim, or else what is the point of the missiles in the first place? As for the latter three, wouldn't that fall right into Kreanoltha's rant about how the ship has bigger, stronger and better everything and so would be able to swat them out? In general, that is. There are exceptions such as super-extreme glass cannon tech. At the same time, if you're going with those weapons, wouldn't it put your fighters at risk of the enemy's point defense weapons as if it can zap the enemy, the enemy could zap it?
Also, couldn't the missile maneuver around to spread out before converging back towards the enemy ship using some maneuvering propellant? While spreading out the attack is good, especially if you can get around to the other side of the enemy ship which, in space it seems, would be rather hard to hit because while there is nothing to hide with, there is also no gravity to allow arcing without penalties and so all weapons being line of sight only (except maybe missiles), wouldn't a cheaper and equally effective method be to have the missiles slowly spread out and then converge again?
SquareDisc City wrote:It's true that a bunch of small ships may be able to shoot at something big with impunity by staying far enough away to be unhittable by targeted fire from the big ship, though the big ship can use guided weapons or insane volume of fire to counter that. However while a small ship might pack in more weapons per unit mass, those weapons will be smaller and thus if of similar design weaker, so the fighters may well be shooting with impunity but not actually doing anything to their target, like small-arms fire against a tank. A lot of this depends on the balance between offence and defence, and I suspect that realistically "fighters" could actually damage "capital ships", but with most everyone runningdefensive magicshields and/or unobtanium armour materials to make their capitals not glass cannons, the fighters are rendered impotent against them.
SquareDisc City wrote:(And you can get rid of surface area to mass problems on large craft by making them hollow, a feature of many of my own designs.)
SquareDisc City wrote:Also equal matter is not necessarily the right comparison. The basically-uniform armour on a battleship may well mass as much as a thousand fighters, but it's a lot less complex than a thousand of fighters and so is probably cheaper and easier to build. I can argue the exact opposite to you on construction. To build a thousand fighters I have to build a thousand reactors, a thousand warp drives (if I want FTL fighters), a thousand bunches of engines, a thousand control systems, a thousand life support systems, and so on. To build a single larger ship I'll need far fewer of each such component. True, they'll be bigger examples, but I'd venture it's still cheaper to build 4 250 jiggawatt reactors than a thousand 1 jiggawatt models.
by Escalan Corps-Star Island » Tue Oct 30, 2012 7:53 pm
by YellowApple » Tue Oct 30, 2012 8:00 pm
Escalan Corps-Star Island wrote:The final plea I wish to make is merely this: that all RPers alike respect the chosen style and tech base of their compatriots and treat it accordingly. No system of armament distribution is truly inherently "better" than another- the vision is I'm the eye of the beholder, or so to speak. In addition to the standard Rule of Cool and convention of hospitality, one must remember that not all nations are at the same tech level within FT; some are just beginning interstellar travel, while others are almost god-like in ability. The Escalan are evidence of this themselves; the Star Fleets in 17200 are radically different and infinitely more powerful than those in 13575. Such disparities mean the parties involved must decide how to reconcile these differing levels of advancement accordingly- it's their choice, not ours. Every one of us, myself included, should remember that NS FT RPing is not "Deadliest Warrior" nor a competition to see who can wank the hardest- it is collaborative storytelling by nature. The point is not to impress upon others their own insignificance, irrelevance, impotence, and inability to compare with everyone else, but to support, demonstrate, and perpetuate the reputation of warmth, acceptance, and kindness that NSFT has long been known for. I hope we all strive to follow this convention more closely in the future. And if any one of us does not seem to fit in, perhaps it is because he marches to the beat of a different drummer. I know I do- but then again, don't we all?
by Escalan Corps-Star Island » Tue Oct 30, 2012 8:01 pm
YellowApple wrote:Escalan Corps-Star Island wrote:The final plea I wish to make is merely this: that all RPers alike respect the chosen style and tech base of their compatriots and treat it accordingly. No system of armament distribution is truly inherently "better" than another- the vision is I'm the eye of the beholder, or so to speak. In addition to the standard Rule of Cool and convention of hospitality, one must remember that not all nations are at the same tech level within FT; some are just beginning interstellar travel, while others are almost god-like in ability. The Escalan are evidence of this themselves; the Star Fleets in 17200 are radically different and infinitely more powerful than those in 13575. Such disparities mean the parties involved must decide how to reconcile these differing levels of advancement accordingly- it's their choice, not ours. Every one of us, myself included, should remember that NS FT RPing is not "Deadliest Warrior" nor a competition to see who can wank the hardest- it is collaborative storytelling by nature. The point is not to impress upon others their own insignificance, irrelevance, impotence, and inability to compare with everyone else, but to support, demonstrate, and perpetuate the reputation of warmth, acceptance, and kindness that NSFT has long been known for. I hope we all strive to follow this convention more closely in the future. And if any one of us does not seem to fit in, perhaps it is because he marches to the beat of a different drummer. I know I do- but then again, don't we all?
This.
I could really care less about the science and logic behind any FT decision, as long as it follows Code of Bro.
by Vernii » Tue Oct 30, 2012 9:06 pm
Escalan Corps-Star Island wrote:This may be incorrect on some counts, and feel free to correct me if you wish.
[*]Firstly, the assumption is that all enemy capital ships have point defense. There are several flaws with this reasoning, namely that said point defense is expensive and that not all civilizations have progressed to the point where it is feasible. For example, if one's fleet has never encountered point defense ICly, why would they be thinking about it as a weakness of their fighters? Also, given the already astronomical (no pun intended) cost of capital ships, not many nations would really have the sort of money to build point defense on all of them in an EFT society.
[*]Secondly, depending on the shape of one's ships, point defense cannot safely fire on something near the hull. Therefore fighters with warp drives could at least theoretically slip past the point defense's effective interior range limit. In this case, the capital ship would be helpless without fighters of its own.
*Now, on to the fighters themselves. In terms of cost-effectiveness as compared to capital ships, if the fighters take their power from the parent vessel and store it in onboard batteries, the need for a power-plant is negated, thus cutting costs. Next, a fighter can enter the atmosphere of a planet and conduct low-level surveying and ground support operations, which a larger ship cannot. A fighter also is not typically going to have as much armor as it would be pointless.
[*]In terms of armaments, it is most certainly true that a fighter cannot mount weapons as large as those of a capital ship. However, a fighter retains the invaluable capacity to rapidly change position and thus alter the trajectory of its weapons or its firing angle. Therefore a fighter can keep a ship occupied in self-defense from all directions, thereby providing a distraction to be exploited. Now, the weapons a fighter can mount are definitely capable of dealing crippling damage to or even destroying a larger ship. Large thermonuclear warheads can damage guns and most importantly propulsion systems, and the EMP they generate can damage electrical systems if the bomb hits an unshielded location. In a case specific to the Escalan, semi-singularity weapons known as "voidspace" armaments are capable of damaging hull structure and pulling armor plating apart due to their intense gravitational signature and aftereffects. As for lasers, I for one have a problem with lasers realistically being able to do damage at any significant distance. Small railguns mounted in fighters are also a potential threat, as high-explosive or shaped-charge shells could injure vulnerable areas such as gun ports. Fighters are also naturally a useful tool for combating other fighters, but that will be addressed later.
[*]In terms of speed, fighters can actually accelerate to much greater velocities than normal humans could withstand because of two things. One, again Escalan-specific, Aláranidni have evolved under higher-gravity conditions than average, and two, suits and gravity-dampening machinery can lower g-forces tremendously. As for velocity, since Escalan fighters are launched via railgunesque catapult systems, no propulsion is necessary to accelerate to attack speeds. In addition to that, gravitational propulsors maintain speed without the use of main engines and with minimal power consumption. When turns are required, counter-firing thrusters are capable of inducing very rapid rotation. Upon the necessity of returning to the carrier or parent vessel, the same process can be used. Fuel can also be gathered from stars that happen to be nearby.
[*]Fighters are capable of blocking missiles themselves with decoy maneuvers and electronic jamming. Onboard armaments can also destroy inbound missiles with relative ease. Where lasers are concerned, electromagnetic disruptors function beautifully. Fighters are also harder to target than larger vessels due to their inherent maneuverability and unexpected warps in some cases.
[*]When compared to drones, the main difference is that even with full AI, it is the human aspect of often-detrimental emotion that makes the real difference. Over-detachment from what one is doing can result in unnecessary bloodshed and destruction. Conscience is also necessary if one's society hopes to maintain any semblance of morality. And lastly, who but a human can predict irrational human responses so well?
[*]For defensive purposes, fighters serve to extend the range and adaptability of one's point defense or interception capability. Having forward-mounted missiles and kinetics can mean the fraction of an instant between life and death. And if heavier fire is being taken from one side, it is then possible to shift more fighters to one side of the ship, increasing the effectivity of the defense with less overall expenditure.[/list]
by Arthropoda Ingens » Tue Oct 30, 2012 11:58 pm
Power plants aren't computers. Power plants are power plants. And power plants become more, not less efficient as they increase in size. Sauce.YellowApple wrote:That's why in retrospect I stated that missiles were a bad example. However, one ship with moderately bigger and stronger capabilities than an individual smaller ship doesn't counter that - mass-wise - there's more overall potential of firepower with the many smaller ships because of increased combined surface area per unit of volume - and mass. Recall my analogy to cluster computing; one monolithic machine will not run as fast as a cluster of individually-slower but aggregated smaller machines combining their efforts without significantly higher expense.
Concentrating energy on one point has different effects than concentrating it on a thousand. Guess which one is more likely to penetrate. This doesn't even get into the difficulty of coordinating simultaneous impacts, nor into the issue of smaller beam diameters meaning less range (Macrokinetics: Shorter barrel length meaning less speed).Sure, the individual ships' firepower will be weaker, but when combined, you have significant firepower from an indeterminate number of directions. Again, recall my cluster computing analogy; each individual node in a computing cluster is significantly less powerful than a large monolithic mainframe, but when combined with the rest of the nodes, the cluster as a whole is more powerful with the same amount of money invested into hardware.
As pointed out above, a flat, ignorant lie. Just noting this again to kill this bullshit as quickly as possible.But then you still have a large target, and now without any gain. Compact that hollow space and you have a smaller target for your opponent to hit. But then it's once again not as energy-efficient as splitting that mass into smaller, freely-moving, independent assets.
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