Advice Thread OOC Future Tech Only

[Kreanoltha]

Okay so I finally pulled my head out my butt.
Obviously I need help. I have drastically reduced mu claims, and I no longer have the lolhuge Hezion. I need help with how to perfect my roleplaying when it comes to space battle. Because. I tend to try and win at all costs. This is bad as I use weapons that are ridiculous in nature. But I'm getting better at it.

Hey Vetega. Glad to finally see you here. So, the first thing you have to do is get over the idea that you have to win. This is not about winning. Just to emphasize that, NS-RPing is not at all about winning. It's about stories. Your nation is not one of invincible holy warriors. Maybe it is one of zealous holy warriors, but it has to loose every once and a while. And you can do interesting things with that. RP their response to loosing. Think more like a writer than a player.

Be cooperative as well. Don't stick with your guns after people complain. When people give you advice take it. I'll step aside here and let the people who frequent this thread take over.

[Dolmhold]

Think more like a writer than a player.

This is possibly one of the best tips that all RPers should understand- it took me too long to realize this and so I am still haunted by my previous trail of wank- in my post count I wish I could delete ~1500 of those posts...

On another note, try to give your nation imperfections and other potential storyline plots as well. I'm doing away my old sugar-bowl of a nation simply because the moment I see the other person's reply, my mind runs dry because there is no conflict to speak of. It doesn't exactly have to be a glaring issue, just enough for you to capitalize upon later. As I see your nation is an absolute monarchy... perhaps you could have something about an underground resistance group somewhere? It could make for an interesting RP.

[Kreanoltha]

Think more like a writer than a player.

This is possibly one of the best tips that all RPers should understand- it took me too long to realize this and so I am still haunted by my previous trail of wank- in my post count I wish I could delete ~1500 of those posts...

On another note, try to give your nation imperfections and other potential storyline plots as well. I'm doing away my old sugar-bowl of a nation simply because the moment I see the other person's reply, my mind runs dry because there is no conflict to speak of. It doesn't exactly have to be a glaring issue, just enough for you to capitalize upon later. As I see your nation is an absolute monarchy... perhaps you could have something about an underground resistance group somewhere? It could make for an interesting RP.

Even better than that, explore the issues of a single man controlling several star systems. Explore how vulnerable a man in his position would be to subterfuge and manipulation by his underlings. It can be really interesting.

[Sertian]

Thanks, that helped a lot guys, you have allowed me to perform a strategic strike against my arch enemy... my A-hole brother.

Any ways. What sort of weapon system would you recommend for robots. Not just humanoid, just a system that could be re-sized to fit, my V1 Combat droid, which is basically mini tank platform the size of a ATV and large repeating weapon and rockets, or something small like my V4 scout drone which is pretty much a small 2 winged drone with thrusters.

I was thinking maybe just go with laser, but I always hear people complaining about how weak they are. Or maybe I could just go with kinetic rounds, but for a nation that has micro-fusion cells and gravity manipulators, that just seems too low of tech.

You can pretty much state that your lasers are advanced enough to be useful in a small platform compared to the destructive potential of a kinetic round, no one would fault you that. As for ballistics being low tech... Well, there are fixes for that. Coil guns and rail guns, in particular, would be horrendously destructive. If you have miniature fusion power plants, both are on the table for a vehicle or personnel weapon.

[The Fedral Union]

Wait.. wait... Your saying people call lasers weak? I have no idea what they're smoking but I've seen designs for lasers that can cut through meters upon meters of steel in seconds. X-ray lasers/ Grasers are especially deadly and they're one of my main energy weapons. As for projectiles. The faster something moves the more mass it has, so if you fling a bullet fast enough it could leave a smoking crater with charred pieces around it. Unguided rounds are less useful for space to space combat than ground combat. For ship combat missiles are the way to go.

[YellowApple]

Wait.. wait... Your saying people call lasers weak? I have no idea what they're smoking but I've seen designs for lasers that can cut through meters upon meters of steel in seconds. X-ray lasers/ Grasers are especially deadly and they're one of my main energy weapons.

True, there are some very powerful lasers out there. However, the energy expenditure involved is - to me at least - far from ideal.

As for projectiles. The faster something moves the more mass it has, so if you fling a bullet fast enough it could leave a smoking crater with charred pieces around it. Unguided rounds are less useful for space to space combat than ground combat. For ship combat missiles are the way to go.

I think by "mass" you mean "momentum", which is mass times velocity. And in this case, you're touching on why I prefer kinetics in FT scenarios. It's much more straightforward to address the energy requirements involved in flinging a highly-destructive salvo than it is to address the energy requirements involved in shooting a highly-destructive laser, to me at least.

Of course, the above are my personal opinions on the matter, and (like my opinion that lots of small ships is more resource-efficient and therefore feasible than a handful of big ships) should be taken with a grain of salt.

[Sertian]

Eh, actually, by relativity, the mass of an object DOES increase with its speed (as you require more energy to 'accelerate' at higher velocities nearing C, the gained energy is added to the object's mass). However, the rate is so insignificant at the velocities utilized by a vehicle or infantry robot that its insignificant.

[YellowApple]

Eh, actually, by relativity, the mass of an object DOES increase with its speed (as you require more energy to 'accelerate' at higher velocities nearing C, the gained energy is added to the object's mass). However, the rate is so insignificant at the velocities utilized by a vehicle or infantry robot that its insignificant.

Hence my comment; I don't think he was going for actually firing something with enough kinetic energy to significantly affect mass-energy equivalence.

[Fata (Ancient)]

I have also heard of this thing where a super heated metal rod is launched out of a Gauss cannon. would this be better or worse then just shooting a normal round?

[The Fedral Union]

I have also heard of this thing where a super heated metal rod is launched out of a Gauss cannon. would this be better or worse then just shooting a normal round?

I would just fire this rod (preferably made of tungsten or depleted uranium, but iron is good too) at such a high speed that it would turn in to a jet of superheated metal that would slice through the section of ship it hit with balls of hot and possibly liquid metals bouncing around on the inside of the crew compartments or critical components of your ship. It would make no sense to preheat it unless you want to heat it enough to fire molten metal from the guns of your ships like fire hoses.

But on a second hand anyone with half decent point defense weapons would ruin your day, since lasers have light second ranges they would vaporize the incoming round and they can be deployed and employed on multiple platforms. Sand canisters are dangerous too, if they are deployed at long ranges by missile your round could run in to it and be turned in to droplets of slag, now this could also be hazardous to the enemy ship depending on the size of what your throwing at it but its been a while since I've read things on that.

[Ularn]

I have also heard of this thing where a super heated metal rod is launched out of a Gauss cannon. would this be better or worse then just shooting a normal round?

I would just fire this rod (preferably made of tungsten or depleted uranium, but iron is good too) at such a high speed that it would turn in to a jet of superheated metal that would slice through the section of ship it hit with balls of hot and possibly liquid metals bouncing around on the inside of the crew compartments or critical components of your ship. It would make no sense to preheat it unless you want to heat it enough to fire molten metal from the guns of your ships like fire hoses.

But on a second hand anyone with half decent point defense weapons would ruin your day, since lasers have light second ranges they would vaporize the incoming round and they can be deployed and employed on multiple platforms. Sand canisters are dangerous too, if they are deployed at long ranges by missile your round could run in to it and be turned in to droplets of slag, now this could also be hazardous to the enemy ship depending on the size of what your throwing at it but its been a while since I've read things on that.

The rod's not going to turn into superheated metal simply by going really fast. In an atmosphere, air friction will cause a high-speed object to heat up but there's no reason for this to happen in a vacuum. Pre-heating the metal might be an option but I'm also sceptical about whether a metal in liquid form can actually be fired out of a coilgun or railgun, although DARPA is apparently looking at the idea for something that behaves sort of like a HEAT warhead.

[SquareDisc City]

Wait.. wait... Your saying people call lasers weak? I have no idea what they're smoking but I've seen designs for lasers that can cut through meters upon meters of steel in seconds. X-ray lasers/ Grasers are especially deadly and they're one of my main energy weapons. As for projectiles. The faster something moves the more mass it has, so if you fling a bullet fast enough it could leave a smoking crater with charred pieces around it. Unguided rounds are less useful for space to space combat than ground combat. For ship combat missiles are the way to go.

Sometimes sci-fi portrays lasers as weak, sometimes it portrays them as strong. IRL particle beams are hundreds of times higher-yielding than lasers, but things needn't stay that way (and the record-holders in both are not built as weapons). In my case lasers are low-yield but compact and rapid firing weapons but that's just the flavour I went for (and bear in mind "low-yield" is envisioned as a quarter megaton TNT).

It's much more straightforward to address the energy requirements involved in flinging a highly-destructive salvo than it is to address the energy requirements involved in shooting a highly-destructive laser, to me at least.

1/e * Energy in = Energy out, where e is the efficiency, pick whatever value you like for that - I suggest higher if you think your Nation takes a sophisticated approach to engineering and refines things and uses finite fuel sources, lower if you go for brute force, have a bottomless energy source, or tend to rush new concepts into use rather than develop existing stuff.

If you are using massive projectiles in ship-to-ship combat, then IMHO you really want to get them up to ultrarelativistic speeds, meaning .95c and up. Otherwise they're just totally outclassed by lasers and particle beams, unless they're a lot more powerful to make up for the horrible range and even then they're dubious.

As for heating it, well why would you want to make the projectile easier to see and physically weaker? At the aforementioned ultrarelativistic velocities the thermal energy is irrelevant compared to the kinetic energy. Even making the projectile out of antimatter would not boost the yield much.

[Thrashia]

Let's do a thought experiment, shall we?

We have a grain of sand. That's right, a grain of sand. I decide to launch that grain of sand at a target at 99.9999% the speed of light; as close as I can get that little grain to go as near to light speed as possible. Because of that speed it has taken upon itself a tremendous amount of kinetic energy. How much? That depends on the original size of the grain. Sand particles range anywhere from .06 millimeters to about 2.1 millimeters in diameter. Quartz has a density of 2.67, so the mass of a grain of sand ranges anywhere from three tenths of a milligram to about 13 milligrams. Our particle of sand - let's say its massing 8 milligrams, releases approximately 360 gigajoules - that is 360 billion joules of energy - when it hits something solid. Three hundred and sixty thousand megajoules. That translates to about 72,000 kilograms of high explosive - seventy-two tons.

Now imagine that you have a missile or canister of some sort that fires off along a rail gun or some such, launching a single ton of sand at an enemy target. That would be...8.1646627e^12 kilograms of high explosive.

But that is just the kinetic energy. Heat doesn't come into the equation until you start flinging this stuff at planets. All in all, I'm surprised that more people don't realize how devastating such a "shotgun" blast of simple sand could be.

Then again, I rp SW-tech, so who am I to say anything?

[Durmatagno]

Let's do a thought experiment, shall we?

We have a grain of sand. That's right, a grain of sand. I decide to launch that grain of sand at a target at 99.9999% the speed of light; as close as I can get that little grain to go as near to light speed as possible. Because of that speed it has taken upon itself a tremendous amount of kinetic energy. How much? That depends on the original size of the grain. Sand particles range anywhere from .06 millimeters to about 2.1 millimeters in diameter. Quartz has a density of 2.67, so the mass of a grain of sand ranges anywhere from three tenths of a milligram to about 13 milligrams. Our particle of sand - let's say its massing 8 milligrams, releases approximately 360 gigajoules - that is 360 billion joules of energy - when it hits something solid. Three hundred and sixty thousand megajoules. That translates to about 72,000 kilograms of high explosive - seventy-two tons.

Now imagine that you have a missile or canister of some sort that fires off along a rail gun or some such, launching a single ton of sand at an enemy target. That would be...8.1646627e^12 kilograms of high explosive.

But that is just the kinetic energy. Heat doesn't come into the equation until you start flinging this stuff at planets. All in all, I'm surprised that more people don't realize how devastating such a "shotgun" blast of simple sand could be.

Then again, I rp SW-tech, so who am I to say anything?

ShotMACs people, they will make you wish you had spent more time moving, than trying to hit me.

[Yes Im Biop]

Let's do a thought experiment, shall we?

We have a grain of sand. That's right, a grain of sand. I decide to launch that grain of sand at a target at 99.9999% the speed of light; as close as I can get that little grain to go as near to light speed as possible. Because of that speed it has taken upon itself a tremendous amount of kinetic energy. How much? That depends on the original size of the grain. Sand particles range anywhere from .06 millimeters to about 2.1 millimeters in diameter. Quartz has a density of 2.67, so the mass of a grain of sand ranges anywhere from three tenths of a milligram to about 13 milligrams. Our particle of sand - let's say its massing 8 milligrams, releases approximately 360 gigajoules - that is 360 billion joules of energy - when it hits something solid. Three hundred and sixty thousand megajoules. That translates to about 72,000 kilograms of high explosive - seventy-two tons.

Now imagine that you have a missile or canister of some sort that fires off along a rail gun or some such, launching a single ton of sand at an enemy target. That would be...8.1646627e^12 kilograms of high explosive.

But that is just the kinetic energy. Heat doesn't come into the equation until you start flinging this stuff at planets. All in all, I'm surprised that more people don't realize how devastating such a "shotgun" blast of simple sand could be.

Then again, I rp SW-tech, so who am I to say anything?

To which i say. OUCH! You could probably turn a heavy atmo planet into the biggest BBQ ever imagined... Mmmm. BBQ

[Ularn]

Except this sand would burn up harmlessly in a planet's atmosphere, which suggests it would do more or less the same in a ship's shields. You probably need something a bit bigger than sand to punch through.

[Yes Im Biop]

Except this sand would burn up harmlessly in a planet's atmosphere, which suggests it would do more or less the same in a ship's shields. You probably need something a bit bigger than sand to punch through.

It would burn. That's the point i think. The same reason shattering an asteroid is a horrible idea. It would have the whole energy of the whole thing. Only now it would create massive heat.

[Ularn]

Except this sand would burn up harmlessly in a planet's atmosphere, which suggests it would do more or less the same in a ship's shields. You probably need something a bit bigger than sand to punch through.

It would burn. That's the point i think. The same reason shattering an asteroid is a horrible idea. It would have the whole energy of the whole thing. Only now it would create massive heat.

...Wut?

[SquareDisc City]

Our particle of sand - let's say its massing 8 milligrams, releases approximately 360 gigajoules - that is 360 billion joules of energy - when it hits something solid.

You're actually way low here because you've used the Newtonian kinetic energy equation. Using the relativistic KE equation the energy is 500 thousand gigajoules.

A useful approximation is that if you're firing something at 99 point several nines percent of the speed of light, each extra nine after the first few makes the yield ten times greater.

Except this sand would burn up harmlessly in a planet's atmosphere, which suggests it would do more or less the same in a ship's shields. You probably need something a bit bigger than sand to punch through.

With enough of it, it won't be harmless, it will create such heat as to scorch the surface even if no particle actually impacts the ground. I suspect the rough equivalent of detonating a 120 kiloton nuclear bomb on every 2x2 km square over half the Earth will be "enough of it". For a ship's shields it's a different matter, but I suspect that lots of little grains aren't a massive amount easier to deal with than one big lump - if only because otherwise the shields ought to be nigh-immune to particle weaponry.

We too have something akin to a giant shotgun, loading lots of smaller projectiles into our Gauss cannons instead of one slug. We call it "f---shot", a play on buckshot and because it will f--- the targets up.

[Thrashia]

Our particle of sand - let's say its massing 8 milligrams, releases approximately 360 gigajoules - that is 360 billion joules of energy - when it hits something solid.

You're actually way low here because you've used the Newtonian kinetic energy equation. Using the relativistic KE equation the energy is 500 thousand gigajoules.

A useful approximation is that if you're firing something at 99 point several nines percent of the speed of light, each extra nine after the first few makes the yield ten times greater.

Well, when I did the calculations, all I did at 99.0% but I wanted to make clear that you were going as close as possible to light speed. For my idea, it would be 99.0%.

Except this sand would burn up harmlessly in a planet's atmosphere, which suggests it would do more or less the same in a ship's shields. You probably need something a bit bigger than sand to punch through.

The kinetic impact itself is enough to start a massive exponential increase in temperature. Also, if you figured a way to make the impact of such weapons occur in waves, the then first wave of such an attack would weaken a worlds atmosphere enough that later waves would not encounter the same resistance and the planet would be even more ravaged. I figure you'd have a ball of rock by the end of it.

[Thrashia]

And incidentally, the Thrashian Empire would consider the use of such tactics and weaponry to be a gross injustice and label them weapons of planetary destruction (WPD).

[The Fedral Union]

I would just fire this rod (preferably made of tungsten or depleted uranium, but iron is good too) at such a high speed that it would turn in to a jet of superheated metal that would slice through the section of ship it hit with balls of hot and possibly liquid metals bouncing around on the inside of the crew compartments or critical components of your ship. It would make no sense to preheat it unless you want to heat it enough to fire molten metal from the guns of your ships like fire hoses.

But on a second hand anyone with half decent point defense weapons would ruin your day, since lasers have light second ranges they would vaporize the incoming round and they can be deployed and employed on multiple platforms. Sand canisters are dangerous too, if they are deployed at long ranges by missile your round could run in to it and be turned in to droplets of slag, now this could also be hazardous to the enemy ship depending on the size of what your throwing at it but its been a while since I've read things on that.

The rod's not going to turn into superheated metal simply by going really fast. In an atmosphere, air friction will cause a high-speed object to heat up but there's no reason for this to happen in a vacuum. Pre-heating the metal might be an option but I'm also sceptical about whether a metal in liquid form can actually be fired out of a coilgun or railgun, although DARPA is apparently looking at the idea for something that behaves sort of like a HEAT warhead.

I meant to say it would turn in to a jet of super heated metal that would slice through armor on impact with your hull like your statement about the HEAT round. Also space is not completely empty, there are alot of free floating particles especially inside systems when you have suns and micro meteorites and all sorts of goodies. I don't see the point in fighting outside of star systems myself.

[The Fedral Union]

Except this sand would burn up harmlessly in a planet's atmosphere, which suggests it would do more or less the same in a ship's shields. You probably need something a bit bigger than sand to punch through.

Not unless your using it to make a screen against a super fast moving round or missile, because at certain speeds especially fractions of C sand and grands of what ever else or metal beads would start impacting with atomic scale yields. So Thrashia is pretty much right on that. Sand canisters would be used against oncoming projectiles I'd never use them against planets.

[Ularn]

The rod's not going to turn into superheated metal simply by going really fast. In an atmosphere, air friction will cause a high-speed object to heat up but there's no reason for this to happen in a vacuum. Pre-heating the metal might be an option but I'm also sceptical about whether a metal in liquid form can actually be fired out of a coilgun or railgun, although DARPA is apparently looking at the idea for something that behaves sort of like a HEAT warhead.

I meant to say it would turn in to a jet of super heated metal that would slice through armor on impact with your hull like your statement about the HEAT round. Also space is not completely empty, there are alot of free floating particles especially inside systems when you have suns and micro meteorites and all sorts of goodies. I don't see the point in fighting outside of star systems myself.

There's not enough junk in space to heat up your ammunition by friction and if there was then you'd see your projectile vaporised long before making contact with the enemy.

Regarding the c-frac bucket of sand, you guys do realise that Earth is getting hit by micrometeorites like this all the time and we're not any worse for it. Of course it depends on your shields but I reckon if our atmosphere can take hits from these 120 kJ particles then there's no reason a ship's shield couldn't. Of course, this assumes your enemy has shields; once they've been blasted away, your c-frac sandpit could make an effective finishing move.

[The Fedral Union]

I meant to say it would turn in to a jet of super heated metal that would slice through armor on impact with your hull like your statement about the HEAT round. Also space is not completely empty, there are alot of free floating particles especially inside systems when you have suns and micro meteorites and all sorts of goodies. I don't see the point in fighting outside of star systems myself.

There's not enough junk in space to heat up your ammunition by friction and if there was then you'd see your projectile vaporised long before making contact with the enemy.

Regarding the c-frac bucket of sand, you guys do realise that Earth is getting hit by micrometeorites like this all the time and we're not any worse for it. Of course it depends on your shields but I reckon if our atmosphere can take hits from these 120 kJ particles then there's no reason a ship's shield couldn't. Of course, this assumes your enemy has shields; once they've been blasted away, your c-frac sandpit could make an effective finishing move.

Yes but I'm talking about a missile or an unshielded shell/rod not a fully shielded an armored warship look at car crashes now a days the faster something moves and the harder the barrier it hits, the more damage is inflicted. Even though sand canisters might be small they;d still create atomic level reactions the instant such a fast Cfrac would hit it. I mean at a certain height water would be as hard as concrete if you hit it.