TWRL idea - different type off ammo.

[NaffNaffBobFace]

I liked those posts, thanks :slight_smile:

I enjoyed your thinking based on space characteristics, like a gauss cannon with U shaped rounds traveling down a rail not having an issue in atmosphere... Not sure but I'd thing that might be even worse in atmosphere than the 50 year old Gyrojet rounds they were firing, though. What i'm now wandering about is an all-round pew-pew solution that works in atmosphere, in space and under-water as eventually we are getting water settings in the game too.

Put three guns into your ship gun-cabenet? Not me! I just Gyrojet 'n go!

The way I see in my minds eye is:

Water: Energy weapons will be useless in water as the energy would dissipate quickly, and high-speed ballistics have been shown by the MythBusters to shatter in a couple of feet - even with future alloys making super-strong bullets ballistics may still have that limitation. GJ ammo is said to be able to be used submerged as rocket fuel provides its own oxygen and the relatively slow speed up should help with the round shattering hopefully making it fairly viable.
Energy: No effect, Balistics: Low to no effect, GJ: Highest effect.

Atmosphere: Energy weapons would be workable but a percentage of their energy will be lost in heat and light to the atmosphere. A bolt of plazma may set light to the atmosphere as it flies through it, wasting energy. Ballistics, as we know, were designed and perfected in atmosphere so highest effect for that. Assuming the GJ performs as in the videos with limited accuracy (which modern high-precision production techniques and computer modeling may nullify) the damage the rounds do show they have effect.
Energy: Medium effect (assuming atmosphere leeches energy from the bolts), GJ: Medium effect (assuming no technological advancement), Ballistics: Highest effect.

Space: Energy weapons would not have any water or atmosphere to leech away their power in space so may be most potent here, but range limited as light and heat loss will eventually dissipate that energy. Ballistics once fired will just go and go and go forever until they hit something, so why they even have range in SC beats me... However traditional ballistics but suffer from Newtons Third Law. If you are sniping from an asteroid position the last thing you want is for your .50 cal to send you backwards off the face of the rock and into the enemies firing line. GJ rounds have low to no recoil, in space have reached max speed and will stay there, you get a higher caliber out of a smaller hand gun (are there even .50 cal hand guns? EDIT - yes there are but they are known for recoil) so should have the benefits of Ballistics without the drawbacks, as was their original design intention.
Ballistic: High effect (with drawbacks) GJ: High effect (without drawbacks) Energy: Highest effect (when In range)

So... i dunno, would it be worth an extra .2 of a credit on each round of ammo to have a sidearm with higher caliber potential in atmosphere, no recoil in space, and that might be the only option for underwater, when you might have to buy 3 different guns for space, atmosphere and water and 3 different types of ammunition...?

I'm gonna fly this flag, it just seems to be a viable all-round solution :slight_smile:

 

[Beerjerker]

Quantum Travel... Now this is something we actually have the math for, and you'd need one powerful fusion reactor to do. We have the math, not the means... Anyway what you do is generate an artificial quantum singularity in front of your ship, say 50,000 Gravities. You, and your ship will begin to fall into the singularity. You'd be essentially in free fall, so would not experience any odd G forces. Then you turn the singularity off before you hit the event horizon, and back on very fast, like a strobe. You'd be traveling at 20%C in very short order, somewhat sped up in the game but they even have the idea of the visible ball in front of your ship. AND if you notice, when you come out of QT in SC, you see the energy ball continue onward. That would actually occur. It's a ball of space dust that was stuck in the event horizon of the singularity being released.

Oh, if that's all, no big deal.
:astonished:
This video game is as close as I'm getting to any quantum singularity, that's for sure. Good luck and Godspeed, astronauts, I'm keeping my feet planted right here on Mama Earth!
:grin::earth_americas::ok_hand:

 

[Shadow Reaper]

• Quantum Travel... Now this is something we actually have the math for, and you'd need one powerful fusion reactor to do. We have the math, not the means... Anyway what you do is generate an artificial quantum singularity in front of your ship, say 50,000 Gravities. You, and your ship will begin to fall into the singularity. You'd be essentially in free fall, so would not experience any odd G forces. Then you turn the singularity off before you hit the event horizon, and back on very fast, like a strobe. You'd be traveling at 20%C in very short order, somewhat sped up in the game but they even have the idea of the visible ball in front of your ship. AND if you notice, when you come out of QT in SC, you see the energy ball continue onward. That would actually occur. It's a ball of space dust that was stuck in the event horizon of the singularity being released.

Dr. Robert Baker proposed this year ago, and was debunked at several aerospace conferences I attended last decade, including the Space Technologies and Applications International Forum (STAIF). His notion was based upon using a pair of High Frequency Gravity Wave generators, which focused at a point before the craft, and through constructive interference created a singularity which the craft would then "fall" toward. The problem was he was off by 44 orders magnitude for a propulsion solution. He later tried to sell a similar HFGW notion for communications and was picked up for some very expensive research by the Chinese, but it all came to naught. Personally I think the whole thing was a CIA counter-intel scam. The Americans Russians and Chinese are all actively engaged in wasting each other's research time and effort.

http://www.gravwave.com/mission-statement.htm

A much better solution and one that has support in the peer review literature for more than 2 decades is the work of Dr. James F. Woodward at Cal State Fullerton. His notion is to create an authentic "benign wormhole" to travel through. You can see a quick vid of that work here:

View: https://vimeo.com/85105575


pick up his book here:

https://www.amazon.com/Making-Starships-Stargates-Interstellar-Transport/dp/1461456223

and read some historical context for it here:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/flattening-space-time-ron-stahl/

Woodward's research group at Fullerton just won a phase II high profile innovation grant through NASA's NIAC program. This is real stuff, and the best hope we have for arbitrarily fast space transport.

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2018_Phase_I_Phase_II/Mach_Effect_for_In_Space_Propulsion_Interstellar_Mission

 

[Zookajoe]

So energy weapons aren't laser beams. Read issue with lasers above. I think they should be particle weapons of some kind. The shots are too dang slow to be light beams.

I totally agree with this statement. You would not be able to see a laser, unless it is being reflected by something. Nor could you really see a particle weapon, unless it is a constant beam, then perhaps.
BUT, an accelerated plasma? Yup, that you can see. Also, it travels slower than light, so would show the characteristics we are seeing in game. We currently employ accelerated plasma for cutting of metals and have been since the 1960's. All you need for plasma is a gas and a high enough electrical current. Ships already scoop gases in-game to power their engines, so we know we have a good supply of gas available. This would also explain why we never run out of "ammo" with energy weapons.

Force Fields... suspension of belief, yep that does it pretty well.

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/181773-physics-students-figure-out-how-to-make-star-wars-deflector-shields-in-real-life

So, basically it would be strong against any electromagnetic emission, but less so against solid matter. Sound familar?

 

[Shadow Reaper]

Theoretically plasma can block solid matter as well. Hence the use of the current Plasma Window:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_window

Its also being considered for radiation protection as a Plasma Shield:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9567-plasma-bubble-could-protect-astronauts-on-mars-trip/

 

[Zookajoe]

Theoretically plasma can block solid matter as well. Hence the use of the current Plasma Window:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_window

Its also being considered for radiation protection as a Plasma Shield:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9567-plasma-bubble-could-protect-astronauts-on-mars-trip/

True, but the window allows laser and radiation to pass through it, almost opposite of what the shields do in SC. While the Shield, as I postulated previously would deflect it. Apparently a "Window" and a "Shield" are two different things.

Perhaps the Shields in SC are a compilation of the two theories?

 

[Vavrik]

Woodward's research group at Fullerton just won a phase II high profile innovation grant through NASA's NIAC program. This is real stuff, and the best hope we have for arbitrarily fast space transport.

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/s..._for_In_Space_Propulsion_Interstellar_Mission

Interesting read. If you're into it:
https://physics.fullerton.edu/~jimw/nasa-pap/

If you're not into it, the math will make your brain run out your nose.
Very cool stuff though

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

...the math will make your brain run out your nose.

Math. Not even once.

 

[Vavrik]

True, but the window allows laser and radiation to pass through it, almost opposite of what the shields do in SC. While the Shield, as I postulated previously would deflect it. Apparently a "Window" and a "Shield" are two different things.

Yes Window and shied are two different things - to different things, and that's a problem. What is a window to one, is a shield to the other. Silicate glass (like used in glass windows in your house) is an example. It's transparent to infra-red and light, but opaque to ultra-violet. That's why you don't suntan in your living room, you just get hot, and you can read. But there's a glass called wood's glass (has other impurities) that is transparent to both infra-red, and ultra-violet, but blocks most visible light except very low blue, and very high red, hence the purple color of the light it emits... "black-light" (you can't actually see the infra-red or ultra-violet with your eyes). You could suntan behind a window made of that, if you had a good dermatologist to fix the skin cancer.

Math. Not even once.

I note the irony @NaffNaffBobFace. "Not even once", is actually a very deep mathematical principal. I teach an course module to my junior colleagues at work about the concept of Null, because the human mind doesn't deal with "nothing" vs "none" very well.

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

I note the irony @NaffNaffBobFace. "Not even once", is actually a very deep mathematical principal. I teach an course module to my junior colleagues at work about the concept of Null, because the human mind doesn't deal with "nothing" vs "none" very well.

Oooooh.

Ooh I like that. I had a quick Google (well, I Duck'd it and then googled just in case i'd missed anything).

Interesting concept :slight_smile:

 

[sum1]

For me this is a better way to go...

 

[Shadow Reaper]

Interesting read. If you're into it:
https://physics.fullerton.edu/~jimw/nasa-pap/

I worked with Jim for 8 years. Am doing my own thing now, but indeed yes; if Woodward is correct he deserves a Nobel, and human spaceflight is due for some amazing changes very soon.