Search found 128 matches
- Thu Jan 28, 2010 8:06 am
- Forum: General Discussion
- Topic: BSF 2 suggestion topic.
- Replies: 491
- Views: 159602
If you want to have a reasonable idea of the effects of decompression, watch 2001 instead of BSG. But yes. Bullets that don't pierce your external armor can't pierce internal compartments. Explosive decompression is dramatic on submarines where the pressure gradient between the external deep sea env...
- Tue Nov 17, 2009 3:50 pm
- Forum: Ship Archive
- Topic: HOMEWORLD G.A.W.
- Replies: 78
- Views: 21229
my feelings more precisely
MODERATOR FIAT: I support this post. -Ara
- Tue Nov 17, 2009 2:31 pm
- Forum: Ship Archive
- Topic: HOMEWORLD G.A.W.
- Replies: 78
- Views: 21229
- Sat Sep 19, 2009 12:36 pm
- Forum: Ship Archive
- Topic: PK's Newest Capital
- Replies: 16
- Views: 3402
Thought I'd stick my nose in here, 'cause hey! I made a ship or two in my day. I really like the outline. I think it's very ambitious and has a lot of potential. If I squint and imagine the ship done more professionally, I think it would work very, very well. Here are my suggestions: 1) Table this i...
- Mon Sep 07, 2009 11:36 am
- Forum: . _ _._. (Etcetera)
- Topic: The Practicality of various futuristic weapons.
- Replies: 124
- Views: 28964
On the subject of Defensive Installations and Space Warfare
Sponge: This sort of thing could be used for a focusing element on a large x-ray laser turret, though the material you'd make it out of would probably have to be a large very precisely machined crystal. Additionally, x-ray mirrors exist , so I'm not sure what the cutoff energy level is that Campbel...
- Mon Sep 07, 2009 2:59 am
- Forum: . _ _._. (Etcetera)
- Topic: The Practicality of various futuristic weapons.
- Replies: 124
- Views: 28964
Normandy: Thermal conductivity is incredibly important to what you're saying (that when a laser hits a ship with a glass layer, apparently the entire hull gets heated evenly because magical gnomes move all that heat before any damage occurs). Like you said, it determines heat transfer from matter to...
- Sun Sep 06, 2009 3:49 pm
- Forum: . _ _._. (Etcetera)
- Topic: The Practicality of various futuristic weapons.
- Replies: 124
- Views: 28964
Woah now Normandy, let's not get all hot and bothered just yet! I'll do you one better than reinforced carbon carbon and run the numbers for fullerite. It's about the same density (slightly higher at 1800 kg/m^3) boils at 4000K and with a thermal conductivity of 2 W/ (m K). In other words it is a fu...
- Sun Sep 06, 2009 11:38 am
- Forum: . _ _._. (Etcetera)
- Topic: The Practicality of various futuristic weapons.
- Replies: 124
- Views: 28964
- Sat Sep 05, 2009 10:35 am
- Forum: . _ _._. (Etcetera)
- Topic: The Practicality of various futuristic weapons.
- Replies: 124
- Views: 28964
- Sat Sep 05, 2009 3:04 am
- Forum: . _ _._. (Etcetera)
- Topic: The Practicality of various futuristic weapons.
- Replies: 124
- Views: 28964
Sponge: For my living this summer I aimed telescopes at objects four billion light years away. I'm not sure I centered the object totally perfectly, but given a template of the object the computer certainly could. Sure, it was a quasar and slightly bigger than a missile bus, but it was also quite f...
- Thu Sep 03, 2009 1:52 pm
- Forum: . _ _._. (Etcetera)
- Topic: The Practicality of various futuristic weapons.
- Replies: 124
- Views: 28964
I dunno how impractical long distance is... my first post pointed out that light second range combat errors lead to missing by literally miles; that is a problem for engineers :D. More seriously though, consider the following situation. ...actually, do that at your discretion. It got a bit out of ha...
- Thu Sep 03, 2009 12:31 pm
- Forum: . _ _._. (Etcetera)
- Topic: The Practicality of various futuristic weapons.
- Replies: 124
- Views: 28964
- Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:01 am
- Forum: . _ _._. (Etcetera)
- Topic: The Practicality of various futuristic weapons.
- Replies: 124
- Views: 28964
Bomb-pumped beams do have some attractive elements, but they manage to combine the weaknesses of missiles and lasers. The missile is slower than light and thus detectable and engagable with active defenses and you carry a much smaller primary lens and dramatically reduce range. You also only use a f...
- Thu Sep 03, 2009 2:48 am
- Forum: . _ _._. (Etcetera)
- Topic: The Practicality of various futuristic weapons.
- Replies: 124
- Views: 28964
The 8 TW doom laser would probably require mature fusion reactors to power and probably special crystals to do the diffraction focusing; those will require a lot of investment in nanoscale engineering. Power in space is not a big problem; piles of solar collectors closer to the sun than mercury coul...
- Thu Sep 03, 2009 2:11 am
- Forum: . _ _._. (Etcetera)
- Topic: The Practicality of various futuristic weapons.
- Replies: 124
- Views: 28964
Rocks have been running into things since the dawn of time, and lasers have been around for a minute. Free electron lasers in the x-ray frequencies are being built in Europe and many other places. Though the European xray FEL is firing waaay higher energy photons than the 88 kEV I was thinking of. I...