Argument Thread OOC Future Tech Only

[The Kafers]

Well, for travel it doesn't matter so much. For kinetic spam, it matters quite a lot.

[Hyperspatial Travel]

CC - Of course, c-fracs are utterly crucial for ship-ship combat. After all, a .99c projectile gives the enemy 1 second out of every hundred to react, for a .1c projectile they get nine out of every ten. And since that .99c projectile is going to cover a five lightsecond distance in about five seconds, which gives the enemy 0.05 seconds to react. The same .1c projectile will take fifty seconds, and the enemy gets 45 seconds to react.

[The Cosmic Balance]

Edit: As for the pointing out of hawking radiation, I meant that that very hawking radiation would cause the black holes to explode long before they can be used as a viable mine. I dunno the actual theory, however, I've only got a general understanding of it. A black hole smaller than Mercury with average back ground temperatures, would lose more heat/energy than it sucks in from surrounding space. The smaller the black hole, the less powerful the gravity field, the faster the energy is released. I think that a black hole the size you described would pretty much explode, releasing whatever energy is left inside of it almost instantly. You'd have to constantly remotely feed the black holes with the exact energy that they're losing to the hawking effect to cause them to stay still until the ship activates it's FTLi.

I'd have to do the math w/re to the size; they might need to be a little larger. The idea is to have them evaporate away over a few hours or days (or perhaps a number of minutes). But as soon as the FTLi goes on, they blow.

[Balrogga]

If you worry about seeding an area with micro black holes then you might as well use the theory of Quantum Foam. It postulates the fabric of the universe is composed of a virtual seething mass of wormholes and black holes. Think of all that energy when the FTLi is turned on as the very fabric of their existence is eliminated.

Pretty fireworks.

[Sertian]

Hmm, actually you're right. Although the ball would be pushed away, so would the entire contraption that the magnets are attached to. So while the ball is pushed, transferring it's entire momentum to the ship, the magnets are being pushed back with the same force of magnetism, which then cancels out the force the sphere transfers. In effect, the ship might very well travel in the OPPOSITE direction of travel, as some of the momentum of the ball might be transformed into heat (grinding up against the inner surface of the sphere) beforehand.

To bad though, the image of a ship which is based around a ring of floating weapon systems spinning around a giant ball and could move in any direction at any time was a VERY cool idea...

[Bryn Shander]

CC - Of course, c-fracs are utterly crucial for ship-ship combat. After all, a .99c projectile gives the enemy 1 second out of every hundred to react, for a .1c projectile they get nine out of every ten. And since that .99c projectile is going to cover a five lightsecond distance in about five seconds, which gives the enemy 0.05 seconds to react. The same .1c projectile will take fifty seconds, and the enemy gets 45 seconds to react.

A better solition would be to close in to fist range and not just use bigger numbers. :\

[Hyperspatial Travel]

The famous "BRING ME CLOSER! I WANT TO HIT THEM WITH MY SWORD!" doctrine. Awesome? Yes. Bit limited when it comes to practicality, unfortunately.

[Phenia]

CC - Of course, c-fracs are utterly crucial for ship-ship combat. After all, a .99c projectile gives the enemy 1 second out of every hundred to react, for a .1c projectile they get nine out of every ten. And since that .99c projectile is going to cover a five lightsecond distance in about five seconds, which gives the enemy 0.05 seconds to react. The same .1c projectile will take fifty seconds, and the enemy gets 45 seconds to react.

It's a bit disconcerting to see implications that 99% c projectiles are not only thought perfectly reasonable but that they are crucial.

If you have the energy to shoot projectiles at 99% the speed of light, you also have the energy to make vastly more powerful lasers and other beam weapons that won't explode upon firing.

[Bryn Shander]

The famous "BRING ME CLOSER! I WANT TO HIT THEM WITH MY SWORD!" doctrine. Awesome? Yes. Bit limited when it comes to practicality, unfortunately.

Not really. Both CC and I use a close in doctrine. We use different ways to achieve that range, but it quickly becomes rather clear that anything further than a few thousand kilometers is quite frankly too far to fight effectively with unguided munitions.

Time to target is not the limiting factor. The limiting factor is the fact that the further you are from your target, the bigger slight errors in your aiming get. Even if you do have super advanced targeting systems, a warship in combat is not the most stable gunnery platform. Not only is the recoil of your own guns affecting your stability, but so is the enemy ordinance hitting your ship/shields. This will result in plenty of shaking in your own ship. The shaking will be transferred to your guns, and even with the best auto-compensating systems you'll be fractions of degrees or more off target.

At close range this isn't a crippling factor, but as the range gets longer that half a degree or more will result in more and more distance from target. IE: If your aim is off by a meter at 1km, at 100,000km you'd be off by 100km. Projectile speed is irrelevent.

[Capsule Corporation]

practicality? you want to talk practicality when almost all of NS subscribes to the doctrine that in order to have a decent fight you need to use 8 billion megaNewton engines, with projectiles firing out from your ship at 250 million kilometers per second, while completely ignoring power requirements, g-forces, thrust production, fuel, energy sources, and aiming?

Look, Naggaroth was just asking me the same questions on MSN.

Here's what I had to say:

[00:16] Naggeroth: Your main weapons are beam cannons correct?
[00:16] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: no.
[00:16] Naggeroth: What are they
[00:17] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: Kryptonite class:
[00:17] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: Weapons: 18 Mk II EM Cannons (Typical Rail Load: 100km/s x200kg [Reversable]) [an additional Turret-mounted EM Cannon is concealed in the side of each hull], 80 Turret-Mounted Beam Cannons [Concealable], 6 Heavy Ion Cannons (Forward firing).
[00:18] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: the turret-mounted ones are fairly short trange...
[00:18] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: I -had- beam cannons back a year ago, before I reentered NS
[00:18] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: it was just something still in the works, wasn't final
[00:18] Naggeroth: What speed to those weapons fire, cfracs?
[00:18] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: well obviously beam weapons go the speed of light
[00:19] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: and 100km/s on the EM cannons is 1/3000c
[00:20] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: so no... they aren't really c-frac
[00:20] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: but they're still high speed
[00:21] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: I assumed an invasion force would want to actually -approach- the planet
[00:21] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: so let's leave it in the 500,000km range
[00:22] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: when i say short range, I mean it
[00:23] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: these ships I'm talking about here are not long-range artillery
[00:23] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: they're up-close fighters
[00:23] Naggeroth: No, their not, their actually technology is years old
[00:23] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: huh?
[00:23] Naggeroth: You fire within 20km, this isn't visual sci-fi so that is less then useful
[00:24] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: why....?
[00:24] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: mind explaining?
[00:24] Naggeroth: Because you said your ranges were 20km right?
[00:24] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: no...
[00:24] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: I said the -most effective- ranges are within 20km
[00:25] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: to the point where rail cannons fire in sync at dozens of rounds per second...
[00:25] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: if not hundreds, haven't finalized it yet
[00:26] Naggeroth: THere shouldn't be a huge difference at longer ranges

[00:26] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: here are the factors that come in at long range that don't come in at short range
[00:27] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: precision aiming, where microdegrees mean the difference between hit and miss
[00:27] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: with precision aiming means lower firing rate
[00:27] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: lag shooting, because what may seem lightning quick up close is terribly slow at range
[00:27] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: with lag shooting means more time aiming, which means less fire rate...
[00:27] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: in the house that jack built...
[00:28] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]:
[00:28] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: Anyway
[00:28] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: maneuvering thrusters
[00:28] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: it's easier to turn a space ship 3 degrees than .0000003 degrees anyday
[00:28] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: it's also faster
[00:28] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: which means... faster rate of fire
[00:28] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: which means more damage
[00:29] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: recoil! With every shot, you experience reverse thrust! Especially on a light weight ship designed for close combat!
[00:29] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: with recoil, you have to readjust aim
[00:29] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: when you get a recoil knocking you off .1 degrees, then it makes less of an effect on your 3 degree aiming arc compared to your .00000003 degree aiming arc
[00:29] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: I'm done with that question... next?
[00:30] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]:
[00:30] Naggeroth: nothing else
[00:30] Jor-Dan [Capsule Corporation]: ok then.

There, because I don't feel like saying it twice.

I feel like playing harder science than most... if you really don't want to make a compromise, then I can just throw my books to the fire and just multiply all my stats by a factor of 1000... that would put it on par with every other ship in NS. I've done that in the past. I've elected not to this time. I want to have a more realistic feel to things.

[Capsule Corporation]

The famous "BRING ME CLOSER! I WANT TO HIT THEM WITH MY SWORD!" doctrine. Awesome? Yes. Bit limited when it comes to practicality, unfortunately.

Not really. Both CC and I use a close in doctrine. We use different ways to achieve that range, but it quickly becomes rather clear that anything further than a few thousand kilometers is quite frankly too far to fight effectively with unguided munitions.

Time to target is not the limiting factor. The limiting factor is the fact that the further you are from your target, the bigger slight errors in your aiming get. Even if you do have super advanced targeting systems, a warship in combat is not the most stable gunnery platform. Not only is the recoil of your own guns affecting your stability, but so is the enemy ordinance hitting your ship/shields. This will result in plenty of shaking in your own ship. The shaking will be transferred to your guns, and even with the best auto-compensating systems you'll be fractions of degrees or more off target.

At close range this isn't a crippling factor, but as the range gets longer that half a degree or more will result in more and more distance from target. IE: If your aim is off by a meter at 1km, at 100,000km you'd be off by 100km. Projectile speed is irrelevent.

*gasp* Yes, it's true people, Bryn and I normally do agree about stuff like this

[Bryn Shander]

I feel like playing harder science than most... if you really don't want to make a compromise, then I can just throw my books to the fire and just multiply all my stats by a factor of 1000... that would put it on par with every other ship in NS. I've done that in the past. I've elected not to this time. I want to have a more realistic feel to things.

You should probably know better than to argue real science and battle factors with someone that thinks that their and they're are the same thing. :\

[Capsule Corporation]

I feel like playing harder science than most... if you really don't want to make a compromise, then I can just throw my books to the fire and just multiply all my stats by a factor of 1000... that would put it on par with every other ship in NS. I've done that in the past. I've elected not to this time. I want to have a more realistic feel to things.

You should probably know better than to argue real science and battle factors with someone that thinks that their and they're are the same thing. :\

I dunno, my favorite is a certain someone's over-usage of the word "purpose" when he means "propose" and "dose" when he means "does" lol

[Bryn Shander]

I feel like playing harder science than most... if you really don't want to make a compromise, then I can just throw my books to the fire and just multiply all my stats by a factor of 1000... that would put it on par with every other ship in NS. I've done that in the past. I've elected not to this time. I want to have a more realistic feel to things.

You should probably know better than to argue real science and battle factors with someone that thinks that their and they're are the same thing. :\

I dunno, my favorite is a certain someone's over-usage of the word "purpose" when he means "propose" and "dose" when he means "does" lol

Arguing with Rob is just as futile.

[The Kafers]

If you have the energy to shoot projectiles at 99% the speed of light, you also have the energy to make vastly more powerful lasers and other beam weapons that won't explode upon firing.

Kinetic weapons don't lose power over distance; even lasers do that (collimation is never perfect).

Not really. Both CC and I use a close in doctrine. We use different ways to achieve that range, but it quickly becomes rather clear that anything further than a few thousand kilometers is quite frankly too far to fight effectively with unguided munitions.

Who said kinetic munitions have to be unguided? They're called "smart rocks" for a reason.

Of course, if you're going to throw "smart rocks", you don't want to throw them at 0.99c, as time dilation will dramatically reduce terminal maneuverability. 0.80c to 0.90c is quite fast enough and not nearly as tough on the targeting system.

BTW, the Kafers don't use kinetic weapons for ship-to-ship combat; they use kinetic weapons (slugthrowers and mass drivers) for ground combat. I'm just offering the foregoing as counterpoint.

[Feazanthia]

Hadn't heard that phrase before, but "smart rocks" is definitely a rather accurate description

The benefit of slapping a drive to a kinetic projectile is that you don't HAVE to accelerate it so fast. If your target is non-evasive, just kick the motor in to further accelerate it in-flight.

[Balrogga]

You use the acceleration device (rail gun) to get the velocity and the drive for maneuvering.

You have less fuel and more mass for impact that way. You want mass and using fuel will reduce the overall mass of the projectile. OF course, at +0.8C, it does not matter. You could cFrac a feather and most likely take out a ship

[Sskiss]

You use the acceleration device (rail gun) to get the velocity and the drive for maneuvering.

You have less fuel and more mass for impact that way. You want mass and using fuel will reduce the overall mass of the projectile. OF course, at +0.8C, it does not matter. You could cFrac a feather and most likely take out a ship

Regarding solid projectiles. As for as I'm concerned, the mass of the projectile is of less importants than the amount of power put into its velocity. It is for this reason, that most of our mass drivers use small condenced matter "pellets" munitions fired at cfraction velocities. Such pellets mass at around a few kilos apiece.

[Capsule Corporation]

for those of you who are clueless, the formula for kinetic energy is:


k = .5mv²

k = kinetic energy
m = mass in kg
v = veloocity.


Granted, once get up to about .5c, you're going to have to throw in an extra bit of E=mc²... which means that the formula for c-frac kinetic weaponry is:

k=.5(((.5mv²)/c²)+m)v²


And, of course, 4x10^12 Joules (joules is the unit of measurement of kinetic energy) will equal 1 kiloton of TNT.


There is, from the above formula, no real firepower benefit of firing kinetic weapons at c-frac speeds... because a heavy rock at 1/3000c will do just the same impact as a light rock at 1/3c... the lighter ammunition will require less storage space, than the heavier shells... the only problem comes in the actually -building- of a weapon that can accelerate something that quickly.

There's also the benefit of the c-frac weapons being harder to dodge at longer range... thus the short-range designation

Now, of course, this means I may want to rethink my weapon velocities, right? Nah... I am fine with firing 200kg rocks instead of 1kg pebbles anyday... they just make me feel more... like a power weapon Plus, I don't like, out of realism, the idea of accelerating something that heavy, that quickly, in such a short distance... it just would require a much stronger frame, and would probably do structural damage from the recoil.

I leave my cannons able to fire whatever, but I typically fire 200kg slugs at 100km/s, which gives me about a quarter kiloton of impact damage. I could always fire a lighter slug at a higher velocity, but the energy requirements would be the same.


EDIT: sorry for the horrible misstatement, fixed

EDIT2: GAH! I was right the first time

EDIT3: wow, I even did the c-frac formula wrong

[Naggeroth]

You should probably know better than to argue real science and battle factors with someone that thinks that their and they're are the same thing. :\

I don't think their the same thing, I confuse them if I don't merticulously check my writing. There is a difference.

[Arthropoda Ingens]

There is, from the above formula, no real firepower benefit of firing kinetic weapons at c-frac speeds... because a heavy rock at 1/3000c will do just the same impact as a light rock at 1/3c... the lighter ammunition will require less storage space, than the heavier shells... the only problem comes in the actually -building- of a weapon that can accelerate something that quickly.

More specifically, if you accelerate somethign faster, you've less time to actually accelerate it, and thus need a much greater energy density to accelerate it, as well as the appropriately capable conductors, heatsinks, radiators... Materials to withstand the vastly stronger currents, and so on.

'course, cfrac makes everything weird. I'd put a 'Stop' at .4c (Relativistic effects such as time dalition, mass-increase et al hover aroudn 10% normal) just to avoid them.

Come to think of it, I do, unless I feel like splurging my semen in someone's face and have missiles drop outta FTL at an arbitrarily high fraction of c.

pewpew

[Capsule Corporation]

There is, from the above formula, no real firepower benefit of firing kinetic weapons at c-frac speeds... because a heavy rock at 1/3000c will do just the same impact as a light rock at 1/3c... the lighter ammunition will require less storage space, than the heavier shells... the only problem comes in the actually -building- of a weapon that can accelerate something that quickly.

More specifically, if you accelerate somethign faster, you've less time to actually accelerate it, and thus need a much greater energy density to accelerate it, as well as the appropriately capable conductors, heatsinks, radiators... Materials to withstand the vastly stronger currents, and so on.

'course, cfrac makes everything weird. I'd put a 'Stop' at .4c (Relativistic effects such as time dalition, mass-increase et al hover aroudn 10% normal) just to avoid them.

Come to think of it, I do, unless I feel like splurging my semen in someone's face and have missiles drop outta FTL at an arbitrarily high fraction of c.

pewpew

which is why I added

I don't like, out of realism, the idea of accelerating something that heavy, that quickly, in such a short distance... it just would require a much stronger frame, and would probably do structural damage from the recoil.

it loses energy, because of the extra density of acceleration force it would have to... generating heat costs unnecessary energy... absorbing the shock costs extra energy, -cooling- the heat costs extra energy... plus time dilation for whatever that actually effects (I never cared too much for special theory of relativity...)

Also... how the heck do you drop projectiles out of FTL at high speeds? isn't that a violation of every principle of FTL?

[Arthropoda Ingens]

Also... how the heck do you drop projectiles out of FTL at high speeds? isn't that a violation of every principle of FTL?

Which principles? The ones we make up for entirely fictional 'Physics' and technologies?

Yeah. It doesn't violate those at all.

[Babylon Commonwealth]

I use Babylon style human tech, and the biggest rail guns we have is in the form of deck guns designed to tackle enemy support ships and medium/lightly armored escorts. all the spinal mount weaponry, and all the larger turrets are all some form of pulse weapon. The missiles use nukes in the 5-10 kiloton range....

As for your question, i may have some light to shed. Some FTL types, like wormholes, have a preset destination/exit point. so all you need to do is open up a portal, tear, whatever you feel is visually pleasing, and proceed to shoot into the opening. Alternatively, you could equip the missiles with miniature FTL drives. in which case you'd have to be using larger missiles.

[Capsule Corporation]

Also... how the heck do you drop projectiles out of FTL at high speeds? isn't that a violation of every principle of FTL?

Which principles? The ones we make up for entirely fictional 'Physics' and technologies?

Yeah. It doesn't violate those at all.

warp drive: Once you exit a warp bubble, you have the same kinetic energy you normally would have...
hyperspace: you're either in hyperspace, or you're not... there's no real gain in kinetic energy
wormhole: again, you're traveling through some medium other than realspace... as soon as you get back into realspace, you're back at your normal kinetic energy.

Now, just out of hypocrisy, I have created a drive that can function as a zero-acceleration* engine... instantly dumping the energy you would have used for spacefold or whatever into your actual kinetic energy... it doesn't break Newton's laws of motion, so much as it just supersedes them As a rule for roleplay, I don't use both functions at the same time... either I fold with conservation of momentum, or I dump the power into zero-acceleration. But I was just curious if you used something like that, or like the above normal FTLs...

Either way, I'm sure you don't really care and I'm just rambling on to nobody.



*and technically, it's not zero, it's 1/0... but "Undefinably infinite and inertialess Acceleration" just doesn't seem like a cool name