Amberion
Mighty #9
It could be harnessed as a weapon as well.
Shepard Quest Mk V, Base of Operations (ME/MCU)
- Thread starter Esbilon
- Start date
That doesn't work, you can pick up the full burn of the current gen space shuttle in Pluto's orbit from Earth with current gen 'sensors' even if they pointed themselves straight at Earth.
The thermal radiation spreads out in all directions no matter what you do.
It came up on atomic rockets website, as it's a common mis-conception that simply 'pointing your engines away from passive sensors' can give you 'stealth', along with 'firing your thrusters for a second and coasting on interia', it's just that easy to pick up thermal blooming from spacecraft that it's also easy to calculate the direction, general location and speed of your craft because you also give away how big and how much mass your ship is by the total thermal output of your ship.
It's the reason why the same website pretty much says that the Normandy's stealth system is the only way to get 'stealth' in space.
...Even then it's more along the lines of 'low observation technology' rather than stealth.
That's not how it works. At all. Thermal bloom from thrusters is seen everywhere because you have hot exhaust that radiates in all directions. Here you only have electromagnetic radiation. If released in one direction, it will move in that direction. No, let me correct myself, it will, of course, spread. But not in all directions at all.
Basically? This is a laser. Well, it lacks coherency in all respects, but it's still a directed light emitter. Light can be focused, and won't spread in all directions at once.
we've got a long term planning doc at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NDxsKpeOQgyHIUDmhBbwKNL-wi75q1N9eLf_7QR95bo/pubhtml.
If you pm me your email, I can add you to that and you can post up your plan next to Van Ropen's. will make it easier to compare and vote for stuff when that time comes around.
I thought the GM basically said that it was going to thermal radiation that's released. As in, infra red radiation that normally comes from engines, reactors and general active sensors....
Amberion
Mighty #9
What do you think thermal radiation is?
Yes, and? Thermal radiation is light. Also no, active sensors don't generally emit heat. Well, they do, of course, but I meant that they generally don't actively send out IR signals as part of their intended function.
Well, yes, of course. But I meant that generally, as far as I know, the signals sent out aren't in IR range. If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me; I'd be interested ink learning about such devices.
Amberion
Mighty #9
LIdar is usually either Ultraviolet, visible or near-infrared. I don't think they actually use infrared proper, because it's too weak to be useful at any range. Or something. I'm not an expert.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LidarHmm, didn't know they used a near infrared, thought it was visible normally.LIdar is usually either Ultraviolet, visible or near-infrared. I don't think they actually use infrared proper, because it's too weak to be useful at any range. Or something. I'm not an expert.
I hadn't realized you actually had some ship stats in that post as well.
Could you expand on why you still want to have a normal mass accelerator? By the time we enter production (at least for Van Ropen's plan) we would have variable wavelength gigawatt lasers and repulsor cannons. We should also have the ability to make missiles that are reasonably capable of getting past point defense systems. Since we can make a fairly small and fast missile that can get pass mass effect shields, we just pack a couple hundred of those into a launch body that accelerates them to point defense range then splits apart.
If we get rid of the spinal accelerator, we can also break the long-thin ship convention, and make something with more internal volume for the same mass in armor. Anything that brings the shape of the ship closer to a sphere will increase the space for fancy toys without increasing the amount of surface to be armored. Would also emphasize the idea that this is an entire new generation of ships that break all the previous rules. Depending on the sizes of the various energy weapons, we might even be able to turret mount all of them. If we can do that, we'd be better off with a design that gives us the largest possible alpha arc with the smallest possible blind spot.
Hell, we could just make the ship a sphere. Wouldn't be quite as fast in atmosphere, but it would give us the armor possible for the weight class, and 2 weapon turrets would leave no blind spots and a decent alpha arc.
Van Ropen
Angry, angry about elves.
I'm updating the timeline right now - I realized that we can subtract the 95% value from the average return, and divide that by two to get a rough calc of the overflow per turn.
Also...do ME Frigates even have mass accelerators? Because I don't think the Normandy ever did...
Also...do ME Frigates even have mass accelerators? Because I don't think the Normandy ever did...
RahXephon
Monarch
- Location
- The Netherlands
The Normandy SR-1 definitely had one. Remember the ending of Mass Effect 1 when Joker shot Sovereign to pieces (even though there were like hundreds of other Alliance cruisers who could have done the same)?
lotsa ships that are similar to normady 2 or smaller in that fleet, and they all seem to be firing
*edit* bleh, apparently the auto imbed system strips out time codes. go to 1:50 to see the scene
Van Ropen
Angry, angry about elves.
Hmm, guess it was a torpedo in my head. Must have been distracted by all the tacticool flipping and getting in close to fire.
They are mounted in the two prongs underneath the ship's prow on the SR-2. If you don't have the Thanix cannon, Joker tries using them on the Collector ship and ends having to use the Javelin torpedoes to destroy it, at the cost of Garrus, if I remember the video right...
Van Ropen
Angry, angry about elves.
That's just it, I remember firing the Javelin at the Collector ship, but not any mention of the Thanix cannon.
*shrug* ...makes sense that it would have one anyways, though in that case, why use a bomb on Virmire if you pound the facility with the accelerator?
*shrug* ...makes sense that it would have one anyways, though in that case, why use a bomb on Virmire if you pound the facility with the accelerator?
Probably for story reasons more than anything. I mean, if everyone just sat back and let Joker bombard the facility, then you wouldn't have to choose between Kaidan or Ashley.
But then again....wasn't there something about Joker being worried about the GARDIAN defenses getting lucky because the Normandy was still visible while using stealth?
I vaguely remember him saying that he had to drop your team off behind some mountains before you shut down a pair of defense towers, but I don't remember if you just manage to shut down the towers on one side or something like that....
But then again....blowing the place up with a nuke was certainly flashy enough for Undina to throw a fit over, so there's that.
Van Ropen
Angry, angry about elves.
Oh, it was definitely for story reasons. The GARDIAN towers were preventing the Normandy from landing which is why we took the Mako, but we blew those...and it landed to drop off the bomb.
Whatever, frigates clearly have their own mass accelerators - though if the repulsor accelerator works out, can we have the same shot without the need for the pencil design?
Whatever, frigates clearly have their own mass accelerators - though if the repulsor accelerator works out, can we have the same shot without the need for the pencil design?
- Location
- Budapest, Hungary
For once Esbilon has yet to decide the ruling of RMA-s.
Also the long and thin design is aerodynamic, and it is harder to hit, because of the smaller profile.
But since the power of repulsors scale with their area, our ships will have a huge aft area with large repulsor plates.
Technically not a normal accelerator since it uses a repulsor, assuming we get the go ahead on that from Esbilon, instead of a coilgun.
That aside it's still a useful weapon. High energy lasers, no matter the frequency, have pretty serious issues in atmosphere. Repulsor cannons are rather limited range. It's also the only thing that can punch through an TIR barrier since they completely no-sell lasers.
Super-Pilum, of which I included two launchers, is basically the Pilum up-sized. Given that we just bought:
I don't think Paragon Industires will have any issues producing the scaryist torpedos ever made.
Or we could go with the Super-Pilum since it laughs at point defenses.
Sphere ships have a serious issue. Surface Area.
It's been a while but from what I understand Spheres have the lowest surface area for their volume of any shape. This is bad since we want as large a surface area for radiation as possible.
If we assume Volume = 1,000m^3
A cuboid's l/w/h = 10m/10m/10m
That gives it a surface area of 600m^3
A sphere's radius is:
1000 = 4/3*Pi*r^3
750 = Pi*r^3
750/Pi = r^3
r^3 = 238.73
r = cuberoot(238.73)
r = 6.20m
SA = 4*Pi*r^2
SA = 4 * Pi * 6.2^2
SA = 4 * 38.48 * Pi
SA = 153.93 * Pi
SA = 483.60
So for the same volume a cube has 124% the surface area. Assuming my math is right anyway.
Also have to consider that a sphere is equally vulnerable from all sides and thus has to be uniformly protected. With the pencil design the ships biggest weak points at the top and bottom both of which can easily be defended and should almost never be facing the enemy anyway.
Could you answer a couple quick questions? trying to come up with a ship design for the frigate.
1) how much space will the gigawatt lasers occupy
2) how much space will repulsor cannons occupy
3) If either are too large to be turreted, can the final output be turreted (in the style of this guy)
4) any thoughts on the thickness / weight of our new armor required to defend against various attacks?
5) how long / large would a repulsor accelerator need to be to match or beat the current guns?
6) about how large / heavy will reasonable anti ship torpedos be
Wouldn't the missiles be the thing that punches through TIR barriers? We've kinda made them to be more effective than the accelerators. Agreed that I want to know about the repulsor augmented accelerators first.
right, forgot about that, but the idea is the same - missile boats might well be more effective than rail gun boats.
I actually did a lot of those calcs earlier, and minimizing the surface area is the entire point - less surface area means less armor required for the same durability. Just as a tip, if you google "surface area of a sphere", google has a handy calculator that does it all very quickly.
Heat radiation can be done through deployable radiators or fins if absolutely needed, but we're already looking at using a lot of very efficient tech, so overall our heat dispersion needs should be much reduced compared to existing ships.
This is definitely a valid point, though it really depends on the type of fighting occurring. If your opponent is fast and maneuverable, has fast missiles that can turn, or has extremely accurate weapons, having a small profile in one direction really isn't very valuable. It also doesn't help if you get surprise attacked, and I don't think we have any particularly special sensor tech to avoid that.
I do, however, agree that a sphere isn't a great shape for a ship.
Here are a few ideas I've been bouncing around, though I'll want more info from Esbilon before formalizing:
1) missile boat. Would have a couple of energy weapons as well, but the majority of its volume is dedicated to carrying missiles, and it has enough launch tubes to get all of them in the air very quickly. Somewhat lightly armored, in large battles this ship would get in range, dump it's load, then get back to a resupply point. Without using its missiles it should still be a bit better than a modern frigate, firing a couple missiles should be enough to take out cruisers, and the entire load could feasibly take out a dreadnaught or two. This guy would be pretty boxy, in order to fit lots of missile tubes, but would be (relatively) fragile compared to the other types.
2) patrol / customs craft. This ship is optimized to operate solo or in small packs, and to survive any nasty surprised aimed at it. Heavily armored and sporting numerous gigawatt lasers, a couple missile tubes, and a couple repulsor cannons, this frigate can take a beating from a heavy cruiser then turn around and show it how a real ship delivers hurt. It can operate for short operations at full power while completely armored, or for protracted fleet engagements it can deploy heat radiators to the rear while presenting its heavily defended front profile to the enemy fleet. This guy would probably be shaped somewhat like a flatened cone or pyramid, with the point facing forward. The majority of its lasers are aimed forward, with a few on turrets towards the back.
3) Recon / ground deployment craft. Similar to the Normandy in function, this stealthy frigate has a couple turreted gigawatt lasers, a missile tube, and the ability to deliver a sizable number of troops with vehicle support anywhere, anytime. Aerodynamic and heavily armored, this craft resembles a flying wing, allowing it to deploy a large number of troops very quickly. Basically the entire bottom back part of the ship can lower as a ramp, allowing the enter width of the cargo hold to exit at the same time, rather than having to cram through a single ramp).
3) They're not.
5) I think @UberJJK did some calculations as to the ability of a repulsor to transfer energy to a target, he could probably answer that better than I could.
1, 2, 4, 6) As the plot demands/the stunt specifies.