ConfusedPotato
Unverified Verifier
- Location
- Australia
I already have that in the long description, along with a rail-layer add-on
Hard Vacuum: Joro Wan Armament Design Bureau
- Thread starter We Just Write
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi
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- robots space war design engineering
ConfusedPotato
Unverified Verifier
- Location
- Australia
[X] Tunnel Boring Machine 'Tim'
Cybandeath
Lord Darkness, and Representative of Mad Science
- Location
- The United States of America
[X] Tunnel Boring Machine 'Tim'
//Booting_up . . .
//Initializing fasquardon.exe
//Initializing . . .
//initialization complete
//Starting_up sequence . . .
//Reticulating splines . . .
//Loading skynet.ini . . .
//Start_up complete
Whu-alright, what have you miserable lot been up to!
//Loading log file.txt . . .
Huh. OK. Well, I guess you're doing pretty well. Love what you've done with the HOTV.
Hm. And a tunnel boring machine? Can't argue with that one.
[X] Tunnel Boring Machine 'Tim'
Reckon we'll need to build up our solar power infrastructure in Ros orbit as the next infrastructure project. Need a proper planet cloud and beamed power would really help address the issues with the Dagger missile. Also, this fight'll go much better if we've got good eyes. Need some decent telescopes to see the enemy coming.
//Sleep program
//fasquardon.exe asleep
//Initializing fasquardon.exe
//Initializing . . .
//initialization complete
//Starting_up sequence . . .
//Reticulating splines . . .
//Loading skynet.ini . . .
//Start_up complete
Whu-alright, what have you miserable lot been up to!
//Loading log file.txt . . .
Huh. OK. Well, I guess you're doing pretty well. Love what you've done with the HOTV.
Hm. And a tunnel boring machine? Can't argue with that one.
[X] Tunnel Boring Machine 'Tim'
Reckon we'll need to build up our solar power infrastructure in Ros orbit as the next infrastructure project. Need a proper planet cloud and beamed power would really help address the issues with the Dagger missile. Also, this fight'll go much better if we've got good eyes. Need some decent telescopes to see the enemy coming.
//Sleep program
//fasquardon.exe asleep
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DevilsAdvocate
Always follow the golden rule.
[X] Tunnel Boring Machine 'Tim'
Cybandeath
Lord Darkness, and Representative of Mad Science
- Location
- The United States of America
why solar power? why not nuclear power, there is plenty more power to made from nuclear.
'Cuz solar power is cheap.
There's two basic approaches to a SPS:
1) build the thing out of thin-film photovoltaics and a transmitter to beam the power somewhere, since shooting one is like firing bullets at a sheet, it is very hard for the enemy to knock one of these out.
2) build a big mirror out of reflective film that concentrates sunlight on a compact generator (either high quality photovoltaics or something else like a molten salt Rankine engine) which feeds a transmitter. This is easier to knock out (they can mission kill this model if they hit the generator) but it should be cheaper and since the generator would be darned small, it should be fairly hard to mission kill.
In either case, they are much simpler and more robust than fission or fusion reactors, meaning we can prioritize those expensive reactors and their fuel for applications where they provide a greater return.
And if we've got cheap energy and beamed power, a whole bunch of options open up for us.
fasquardon
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
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Your card is a 2
Is that the worst possible result?
I hope this design has a low difficulty...
fasquardon
@I just write: Do we need to do anything now that the card has been drawn? And is there anything we can do to improve the result? (Like omakes and such.)
fasquardon
fasquardon
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
It's all on me at this point.
Infrastructure: Tunnel Collapse | Start of Revision Phase 2
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
To say that the tunnel boring machine project failed would be a massive understatement. One problem after another kept cropping up, ranging from a flaky transmission for the drill head, a pressurization system prone to explosive failure, to the feed system for debris being removed from the rock face constantly clogging, to the automatic concrete lining system for the tunnels looking like it worked while only producing a layer one tenth as thick as it should have.
As a direct result of that last flaw in particular, the only prototype is now buried fifty meters under a hill, after spending the better part of two months repeatedly breaking down in the process of getting there. The only good thing that can be said of this whole ordeal is that at least you learned exactly how not to build a tunnel-boring machine.
As a direct result of that last flaw in particular, the only prototype is now buried fifty meters under a hill, after spending the better part of two months repeatedly breaking down in the process of getting there. The only good thing that can be said of this whole ordeal is that at least you learned exactly how not to build a tunnel-boring machine.
Transport Capacity: 1
Mobilization: 2
Ore: 2
He3: 1
Munitions
Earthmover Charges: Repurposed industrial explosives used for mining, the composition forgoes complex hydrocarbons in favor of highly reactive metals and metal oxides.
1 Ore (Cheap)
Dagger Missiles: Propelled by a miniaturized fusion torch, these missiles have ludicrous acceleration, somewhat hampered by their limited delta V and complete inability to evade target locks.
1 Ore 2 He3 [Complex] (Somewhat Expensive)
Infantry
'Liza' Construction Droid: These multipurpose robots are built a lot like an orangutan, with four limbs, each of which has a fully functional gripper capable of both dexterity and strength. Each unit is powered by a twenty kilogram rechargeable Potassium-Ion battery pack, meaning they have great endurance, but need a lot of downtime to recharge. The limitations of these droid's peak power output, coupled with the fact that their frames really aren't built to handle heavy recoil forces, means that they cannot wield any category of direct-fire weapon aside from chemical firearms.
1 Ore (Cheap)
Ground Vehicles
Strike Craft
'pancake' re-entry pod: These armored pods are designed to deploy ground forces from an orbiting spaceship. Each is equipped with both equipment for aerobraking and a full set of thrusters for landing on airless bodies. Notably, these pods can be used as short range VTOL transports on planetary surfaces. Each pod can move 120 tons of materiel.
1 Ore (Cheap)
Capitol Ships
"Elitist" HOTV: A heavily armored transport craft designed for fast hauls between planets, the Elitist can credit most of its performance to its downgraded (but still rather high-performance) fusion engine. It is able to easily manage 700 kilometers per second of delta v, and can carry 30,000 tons of war materiel, providing one Transport Capacity. The HOTV is designed to carry the 'pancake' re-entry pods, suitable for planetary landings on most bodies. Recent upgrades to manufacturing infrastructure have allowed the engines for these ships to be more easily acquired than previously, and greatly improved performance.
3 Ore, 2 He3 (Somewhat Expensive)
Static Installations
'Bludgeon' Anti-Orbital Coilguns: Hastily constructed based on the Z-pinch technology in the colony ship's fusion engine, these massive surface-to-orbit coilguns are, not to put too fine a point on it, rather low quality. While their muzzle velocity of 500 kilometers per second may seem impressive at first, it is significantly less so when you realize that their slugs are only 0.2 kilograms in mass, and each gun needs twenty seconds to recharge its massive capacitor banks after a full-power shot. If necessary, they can fire much slower shots at machine gun rates, for close-range interception of munitions or strike craft. The absolute maximum effective range is somewhere around 25,000 km. Beyond that, dodging becomes distressingly easy, even for very large ships.
3 Ore, 2 He3 (Somewhat Expensive)
Logistics
Infrastructure
Prefab Factories: Your colony ship came with a bunch of 3D printers and other such devices needed to establish manufacturing infrastructure. They do not have the precision needed to manufacture fusion-based devices reliably, but you have other things to do that now.
ID-1 Processing Block: A modular industrial installation intended to produce high grade materials and form them into simple components. This effectively ends the superconductor shortage that led to difficulties producing fusion-based equipment previously.
Loose Components
Open-Cycle Z-pinch Fusion Engine: This propulsion system makes use of intense magnetic fields to crush a plasma of fusion fuels to the point of ignition, with the resulting plume of C-fractional plasma propelling the ship forwards. This engine design has immense performance both in terms of exhaust velocity and thrust. Recent developments now mean they can be manufactured reliably and affordably.
Mobilization: 2
Ore: 2
He3: 1
Munitions
Earthmover Charges: Repurposed industrial explosives used for mining, the composition forgoes complex hydrocarbons in favor of highly reactive metals and metal oxides.
1 Ore (Cheap)
Dagger Missiles: Propelled by a miniaturized fusion torch, these missiles have ludicrous acceleration, somewhat hampered by their limited delta V and complete inability to evade target locks.
1 Ore 2 He3 [Complex] (Somewhat Expensive)
Infantry
'Liza' Construction Droid: These multipurpose robots are built a lot like an orangutan, with four limbs, each of which has a fully functional gripper capable of both dexterity and strength. Each unit is powered by a twenty kilogram rechargeable Potassium-Ion battery pack, meaning they have great endurance, but need a lot of downtime to recharge. The limitations of these droid's peak power output, coupled with the fact that their frames really aren't built to handle heavy recoil forces, means that they cannot wield any category of direct-fire weapon aside from chemical firearms.
1 Ore (Cheap)
Ground Vehicles
Strike Craft
'pancake' re-entry pod: These armored pods are designed to deploy ground forces from an orbiting spaceship. Each is equipped with both equipment for aerobraking and a full set of thrusters for landing on airless bodies. Notably, these pods can be used as short range VTOL transports on planetary surfaces. Each pod can move 120 tons of materiel.
1 Ore (Cheap)
Capitol Ships
"Elitist" HOTV: A heavily armored transport craft designed for fast hauls between planets, the Elitist can credit most of its performance to its downgraded (but still rather high-performance) fusion engine. It is able to easily manage 700 kilometers per second of delta v, and can carry 30,000 tons of war materiel, providing one Transport Capacity. The HOTV is designed to carry the 'pancake' re-entry pods, suitable for planetary landings on most bodies. Recent upgrades to manufacturing infrastructure have allowed the engines for these ships to be more easily acquired than previously, and greatly improved performance.
3 Ore, 2 He3 (Somewhat Expensive)
Static Installations
'Bludgeon' Anti-Orbital Coilguns: Hastily constructed based on the Z-pinch technology in the colony ship's fusion engine, these massive surface-to-orbit coilguns are, not to put too fine a point on it, rather low quality. While their muzzle velocity of 500 kilometers per second may seem impressive at first, it is significantly less so when you realize that their slugs are only 0.2 kilograms in mass, and each gun needs twenty seconds to recharge its massive capacitor banks after a full-power shot. If necessary, they can fire much slower shots at machine gun rates, for close-range interception of munitions or strike craft. The absolute maximum effective range is somewhere around 25,000 km. Beyond that, dodging becomes distressingly easy, even for very large ships.
3 Ore, 2 He3 (Somewhat Expensive)
Logistics
Infrastructure
Prefab Factories: Your colony ship came with a bunch of 3D printers and other such devices needed to establish manufacturing infrastructure. They do not have the precision needed to manufacture fusion-based devices reliably, but you have other things to do that now.
Improved Prefab Factories: Several efficiency improvements have recently been made involving assembly lines and specialized machinery, greatly improving industrial output. Further, Ros's manufacturing infrastructure has been significantly hardened against bombardment.
ID-1 Processing Block: A modular industrial installation intended to produce high grade materials and form them into simple components. This effectively ends the superconductor shortage that led to difficulties producing fusion-based equipment previously.
Loose Components
Open-Cycle Z-pinch Fusion Engine: This propulsion system makes use of intense magnetic fields to crush a plasma of fusion fuels to the point of ignition, with the resulting plume of C-fractional plasma propelling the ship forwards. This engine design has immense performance both in terms of exhaust velocity and thrust. Recent developments now mean they can be manufactured reliably and affordably.
DevilsAdvocate
Always follow the golden rule.
Anyone have any ideas?
- Pronouns
- He/They
So, to start working towards longer-term planning, here's a list of possible priorities. I'm definitely open to input and suggestions on it.
By the end of turn 5 when the war starts we'll absolutely need:
We have 3 Designs, 3 Infrastructure, and 4 Revision phases remaining. We can't rely too much on plans for Revisions because we might need them to improve badly-rolled Designs. If people agree with my logic, once we have a consensus on a set of priorities we can make a plan for the Designs and some Revisions needed to achieve them.
By the end of turn 5 when the war starts we'll absolutely need:
- A capable space warship (design + revised missiles, maybe revised coilgun)
- A capable ground combat unit (probably a design, maybe a revision)
- System-wide sensor coverage (design)
- The ability to support/control ground combat units on the surface of enemy planets (design or revision)
- Atmospheric or aerospace fighter craft (design)
- Better stationary defenses, ideally ones which can easily be deployed to protect offworld mining (design or revision)
We have 3 Designs, 3 Infrastructure, and 4 Revision phases remaining. We can't rely too much on plans for Revisions because we might need them to improve badly-rolled Designs. If people agree with my logic, once we have a consensus on a set of priorities we can make a plan for the Designs and some Revisions needed to achieve them.
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If I understand rightly, if we revise the tunnel borer this turn, we get a full re-roll of the development (and our lowest card is now out of the deck) as well as getting a revision roll on top of that?
In any case, revising the tunnel borer is probably worthwhile. More resources means we can better support expensive designs in large numbers. Unless someone has a better idea for how to boost the economy with this revision.
I don't see why we'd want to invest in ground combat capability and certainly not air combat units. Especially at this early stage in the game.
Gaining and keeping space superiority, allowing us secure access to the other bodies in the system while being able to deny the enemy access to the rest of the system is I think the priority. Our second priority (I say second, because if we lose in space we lose this by default) is to seed our local space with telescopes, mirrors and interceptors to fend off planet-slagging attacks with radiation beams or RKVs (RKVs are by far the largest threat since the technology needed for them is exactly the same as the technology needed to build a space ship - which we know the enemy already have, also, things that make death rays are big vulnerable targets in space).
Also, we should consider a strike missile to hit the enemy infrastructure on Agua. Potentially, we can scale these pretty high. The value of Agua is in the wealth of its biochemical and genetic uniqueness as well as the mass of the planet as raw materials for a dyson swarm. Landing a few dinosaur-killer strikes against the enemy infrastructure will not harm either to any significant degree.
fasquardon
In any case, revising the tunnel borer is probably worthwhile. More resources means we can better support expensive designs in large numbers. Unless someone has a better idea for how to boost the economy with this revision.
I don't see why we'd want to invest in ground combat capability and certainly not air combat units. Especially at this early stage in the game.
Gaining and keeping space superiority, allowing us secure access to the other bodies in the system while being able to deny the enemy access to the rest of the system is I think the priority. Our second priority (I say second, because if we lose in space we lose this by default) is to seed our local space with telescopes, mirrors and interceptors to fend off planet-slagging attacks with radiation beams or RKVs (RKVs are by far the largest threat since the technology needed for them is exactly the same as the technology needed to build a space ship - which we know the enemy already have, also, things that make death rays are big vulnerable targets in space).
Also, we should consider a strike missile to hit the enemy infrastructure on Agua. Potentially, we can scale these pretty high. The value of Agua is in the wealth of its biochemical and genetic uniqueness as well as the mass of the planet as raw materials for a dyson swarm. Landing a few dinosaur-killer strikes against the enemy infrastructure will not harm either to any significant degree.
fasquardon
- Pronouns
- He/They
If we don't have ground combat units, then enemy forces will be able to run wild on our planets if they land. Aerospace fighters would be a relatively flexible and durable way to launch strikes into our own orbitals, as well as defending against attempted landings on Ros.
We want Agua so the colonists can inhabit it; we don't want to damage the currently earth-like ecosystems too much. Our planet on the other hand is vulnerable to high-speed rocks, but once we have nuclear space-to-space missiles they should easily be able to deflect those. Definitely agreed on the need for distributed sensors; I was going to suggest cheap, spammable probes with passive sensors to station throughout the system.
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Good point.
Except they're not very flexible because each planet would have different atmospheres requiring different designs to operate on them - a ground attack aircraft in the thin atmosphere of Ros would need a different wing design to the wing design required for a ground attack aircraft designed to operate on Agua.
A defensive aircraft is something that may be worth the specialized design work required.
Also, your talk of "aerospace fighters" seems to assume that we would want a single design for both operation in the atmosphere and in space - that may - MAY - be worth doing as a short run stop-gap, but it will never operate in both environments well. It would be like trying to combine the functions of attack submarine and fighter aircraft - with enough technology it is possible, but designs made to operate in such different environments will pay heavy penalties. As such, I would rather focus for now on a good space fighter design, with perhaps an orbit-to-ground munition so that we have a much lower difficulty and thus higher chance of producing a really good design to enable us to win decisively in space combat. The orbit-to-ground munition (something like the US "rod from god"/"Thor" concept - a 6ft tungsten rod that, when dropped from orbit would hit a target on the ground with the same punch as a small tactical nuke) should enable us to mop up anything that did get through the space defences.
1) Artificial habitats would be far better and cheaper places to live than the bottom of a big gravity well like Agua for any serious civilization (that is to say, 1 or more on the Kardishev scale) - it may be that the designers of the Joro Wan colony mission here were aiming to construct a primitive "back to basics" type civilization on Agua, but with the discovery of hostile alien life, I think it would be irresponsible to allow the fleshlings to build an intentionally primitive civilization.
2) The native life is highly, highly, highly unlikely to be compatible with the frozen colonists, odds are the native ecosystem is a toxic death world from their perspective. The number of random coin flips that have to come out just right for alien life to be compatible, even when assuming the same basic chemistry as exists on Earth (which would emphatically NOT be the case, since each planet we've found so far has its own unique chemical make-up, meaning different resources are more or less rare, pushing biochemistry down different paths), is extremely large (hundreds if not millions of coin flips have to come out right). Whatever we do, Agua will never be a shirtsleeve environment for the colonists unless we glass the place and Joroform it (which would be an absolutely colossal waste - even if life on Agua is only at the bacterial stage, the wealth of a couple billions of years of truly separate evolution would be staggering) or we genetically engineer the colonists to live within the local biosphere (which may well be what the original plan was - we're at the sort of tech level where that sort of biotech is quite possible, even applied to adult organisms).
3) Allowing the enemy to run an industrial civilization on Agua (which will, even assuming highly efficient technology, will still involve toxic run off from mines, transport lines cutting through ecosystems, damage from occasional industrial accidents and eventually sheer mass of enemy machinery disrupting the local biosphere) will be more damaging than any nuclear winter type scenario. To preserve the maximum value of the Agua biosphere, removing them early and quickly is worth some collateral damage.
4) And Joro Wan making Agua the focus of its industrial or even non-industrial civilization is highly unlikely to be less damaging.
5) The colonists are frozen. If the damage from the war takes a thousand years to repair, we can leave them on ice for that thousand years. Or we can defrost them once we build a proper rotating space habitat for them.
To deflect or intercept and destroy missiles you need two things:
1) the sensors to detect the incoming missiles.
2) interceptors/deflectors with the deltaV to reach the incoming munitions in time to do their job
Interceptors are easier on the detection side, since you don't need to detect them so far out, but require more deltaV (exactly how much deltaV depends on how good your sensors are) while deflectors require less deltaV, but much better sensors, so that they can reach their targets early enough to deflect them. Either way, this is non-trivial and it is possible that if they or we get a slight advantage in bombardment tech over the enemy defence tech allowing direct attacks against the enemy heart at various points in the game.
Amen.
I think good eyes are our priority. Especially as they will allow us to concentrate our expensive Elitist HOTVs where they can make the biggest difference.
fasquardon
- Location
- Williamsburg, OH
Here's an idea for propulsion mechanisms, photons act as is they have mass when they're under superconducting fields. So have a photon emitter pointing at a superconductive plate and then have a solar panel to reabsorb the photons when they bounce back, repeat over and over again to produce thrust. It'd be like moving a chair through pelvic thrusting (don't tell me you haven't done it before!). Though it'd probably need this to actually make it effective enough for actual use. Well, that or just launching them out the back while they act like they have mass. This way ships don't require propellant while at the same time not leaving a trail of energetic particles to track them by. And I'd suppose it'd also make lasers more viable as a weapon even if doesn't work like how I think it would.
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On the fighters I was thinking more like a rocket plane which can launch from the surface and enter space for maybe partial orbits if necessary, but you're right that it'd only be really useful for defensive roles and can be deprioritized.
As for space 'fighters', I think their offensive use at least hinges on how successfully we can make miniature fusion drives; they could potentially be used as point-defense screens or sensor platforms for the fleet even without them. With that in mind, should we make this revision an improvement of the missile? My impression is that we can't revise the TBM at all because the project was a total failure; there's no TBM in our designs list, not even a problematic one.
Orbital kinetic bombardment runs into practicality problems; if you want accuracy you need to have active guidance and/or come in at a pretty vertical angle. The first nullifies the cost advantage because it's no longer a cheap metal rod while the second requires huge delta-v unless you're firing from very far away from the planet. Small nuclear weapons are likely to be nearly as cheap and far more effective against non-point targets. If they could make accurate re-entry vehicles for nukes in the 70s, I'm sure we can manage it - we can probably make one that fits on the end of the M-2, letting warships easily carry out bombardment.
In terms of KKV defense, I think if we fill the system with passive sensors we should be able to detect any engine plumes very early even if we can't necessarily see them with any great resolution. Considering the amount of thrust and delta-v our Elitists have, they may actually be just fine as long-range interceptors at against very large impactors; in any case, deflection from a long distance should be no problem once we have nukes.
While I don't have the knowledge to say if it would work, it sounds an awful lot like troll physics to me. I don't see how a reaction mass could create a net force on a system if it doesn't leave the system.
How's this for a revised list of priorities?
Definitely need:
- A capable space warship (design + revised missiles)
- A capable ground combat unit (Design? revision of the construction droid?)
- A cheap passive sensor platform which can be spammed throughout the system (design)
- Space fighters capable of extending the reach of our missile ships (design, requires successful miniaturization of fusion drives)
- Small nuclear warheads (design, or a probably difficult revision on the missile)
- Better stationary defenses, ideally ones which can easily be deployed to protect offworld mining (design or revision)
- The ability to support/control ground combat units on the surface of enemy planets (design or revision)
- A fighter for defensive use (design)
- Revise missiles - for military usefulness and fusion drive miniaturization
- Design a capital warship using the missile design and maybe the coilgun too - it should at least have carrying points for small craft.
- Design the sensor probes
- Design a ground combat unit (whatever we put last won't get to be revised before the war starts)
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- Location
- Williamsburg, OH
[Why Am I so bad at explaining things?! This is the 7th Iteration on the below explanation! Fuck it, I'm just going to post it.]
Except it would leave the system? If you consider the system "how does the photon interact with X". Once the photons aren't under the effects of a superconducting field any longer they'll go back to acting as if they don't have mass, allowing them to be reabsorbed and remitted back at the other end. So it's kind of like if you overlapped multiple systems with them only interacting at a single point? But not, since that single point of interaction changes depending on if you want it to or not?
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
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So, from what I have looked up regarding physics, the 'photon acting like it has mass' thing only applies to the fact that a magnetic field can only partially penetrate a superconductor. This will not make for a very effective propellantless drive.