Orbiter Engine Destructiveness

[T.Neo]

Well, the higher the closing velocity between Target and engine, the faster the amount of energy per square centimeter will change. that would still be true even if the ship reached 90% of the exhaust velocity.

Yes... I'm commenting on how low the vehicle top speed is compared to the exhaust velocity.

Most of the time you'll be travelling away from a target, not towards one anyway.

Well, they weren't designed as weapons, after all... Most of the time it will be a nuicance because you have to watch out where you point them :lol:

That's true... perhaps some sort of super hacker-proof software could be installed into the flight computers to prevent the engine exhaust from being weaponised.

Kind of like the counterfeit-protection software installed with printers, only far more serious...

EDIT:

For a bit of fun, attached is HVIPS next to 620 megatons of TNT.

It is with such a visual representation that the sheer enourmity of the energy produced is realised, and the energy density of fusion power compared to chemical means.

 

[jedidia]

Most of the time you'll be travelling away from a target, not towards one anyway.

I think you're not quite getting my point. the rough formula for calculating the energy per second hitting the target is Energy / Area, whereas Area is a result of distance * (dispersion / meter). Distance in this case being the distance between engine and whatever it hits, which has nothing to do with the exhaust velocity (of course, the dispersion per meter is derived from the exhaust velocity and dispersion per second, but what you want to know is how much dispersion the exhaust has after travelling n meters). So the further the target is from the engine, the higher the dispersion, and the less energy it catches. If the aproach velocity is significant (no matter wheather positive or negative), the amount of energy actually hitting the target varies greatly from second to second.

Also, I noticed that I misread your pre-last post, I now see that you wrote that you had 341 mm vaporized per second, I thought the 1544.6 was the per second figure.

p.s. Your ship seems to get more and more resemblance to the Venture Star...

 

[T.Neo]

Ah ok, it relates to the dispersion of the thrust stream, which I factored into the calculation. A bit of a misunderstanding there as to what you meant.

Also, I noticed that I misread your pre-last post, I now see that you wrote that you had 341 mm vaporized per second, I thought the 1544.6 was the per second figure.

Yeah, 1544.6 was supposedly the 10 second figure, not the 1 second one.

p.s. Your ship seems to get more and more resemblance to the Venture Star...

Yeah... I can't help it. :lol:

Current design is the one on the right.

 

[Moach]

reading this makes me think of how awesome (and brutal) it would be to have an addon that imposes this aspect of the simulation

it wouldn't be very hard to pull off i think... in a "generic" manner, at least...
i'd just have it check for vessels within a safety range then "unrotate" their position vectors to check if their alignment with your engines is enough to impound doom upon them :hmm:

 

[Artlav]

reading this makes me think of how awesome (and brutal) it would be to have an addon that imposes this aspect of the simulation

Ever tried to fly something thru this baby's main exhaust stream?
[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3042"]Hius Interstellar Ramjet 070823[/ame]