Space Combat Techniques Discussion

[RisingFury]

Or maybe there could be a configuration option that dictates whether to spawn debris or not, and if so, how much. Something much like what the Deltaglider-IV has. Of course, this is only assuming a generic debris vessel.

If you wanted something simpler, you could try what Sputnik's Uragan does, which is to use dozens of small double-sided simple polygons instead of complex polyhedrons. It has very little impact on framerate, even with 50+ debris objects on-screen.

Even if there is an external way of turning debris on and off, we'd still need a dynamic way. The performance of autopilots degrades when you lower FPS. While I haven't tested the autopilot at low performance, I wouldn't want the FPS to drop below 30 or 40 FPS at any time, if at all possible.


I'm not so worried about the mesh itself. We can do that low poly. My problem is that any vessel, even if it's just sitting there, is draining CPU. If FPS is already low, we don't wanna spawn an additional 50 objects for fancy looks.


We'll see what the details will be like.


Have you found any bugs? I find it unlikely that our software has no bugs...

 

[Izack]

Have you found any bugs? I find it unlikely that our software has no bugs...

I sent an email to the one listed in the PDF, with a few more obvious bugs. I haven't had nearly as much time for this as I thought I would, unfortunately. I'm going back to test some more ideas I had now, though. :thumbup:

 

[SolarStorm]

I have a somewhat technical question. With surface to LEO lasers (assuming there will be any) would there be thermal blooming, air heating up and changing the refractive index of the atmosphere?

Also, instead of being hit with a laser and bang you're dead, will there be spot temperatures from where the laser is actually focused, so that manouvering will shift the spot of heat around the craft, making it (hopefully) survive longer?

One more question, could there be chemical weapons, so instead of kinetic or other energy damage, what about corrosive chemicals being sprayed over a wide area or even in a stream at the target?

 

[T.Neo]

Powerful enough lasers would do their damage in less than a second, hardly enough time to react.

I see chemical weapons as being wasteful. Beside the problems with vapour pressure and getting the stuff to the target, I have serious doubts any chemical would exist that could do sufficient damage.

 

[docabn]

You'll have to be almost as close with a nuke to seriously damage a spaceship as you have to be with a waterbomb to down a submarine...

I was just thinking about the whole nukes not being as effective in space thing and your right. They would make for horrible wasteful weapons if they were used the way they are used on the surface. They get most of their destruction fron the fact that they take the objects at their epicenter and violently displace them outward. The result is a tremendous amount of dectruction. In space there is very little at the epicenter unless you actually make direct contact with the enemy target.

I would propose a nuclear claymore. That is to say turn it into a shape charge and so that the several ton object has say a lead and tungston imaginarium inverted cone backplate on one side and the other is filled with what will become a billion ball bearings of kinnetic destruction on the the other.

When the explosion occures the more solid side the back plate is thrust away at a pretty good speed and if it happened to hit something it would cause damage but odds are that it would not hit anything. (you should put a transponder on it anyway. so that you don't killed by your own back blast.)
However things on the buisness end of this claymore are much much more likely to suffer from multiple hull breaches so long as they are within a reasonable range.

 

[Ghostrider]

I would propose a nuclear claymore. That is to say turn it into a shape charge and so that the several ton object has say a lead and tungston imaginarium inverted cone backplate on one side and the other is filled with what will become a billion ball bearings of kinnetic destruction on the the other.

But why use a nuke then? High explosives work just as well and they're cheaper.

 

[Andy44]

The "nuclear claymore" is essentially similar to the Project Orion propulsion charge.

 

[Urwumpe]

Better have some copper rods around the nuclear warhead and turn it into a X-Ray projector or particle accelerator...

 

[Ghostrider]

That's what I suggested. I may be old-fashioned, but I believe that if I have a nuke, I'd like to use it to do stuff that nukes do and conventional HE cannot.

 

[docabn]

But why use a nuke then? High explosives work just as well and they're cheaper.

Not sure I agree that they work as well or are cheaper. In space and mass is money. AFAIK the amount bang to mass ratio is still much higher in nuclear weapons than conventional high explosives.
And if your going to make a shape charge the higher the potency of your charge the smaller the whole device has to be.

Better have some copper rods around the nuclear warhead and turn it into a X-Ray projector or particle accelerator...

I completely agree with both you and ghostrider. Harnessing the X-rays would give more bang (or interplanitary carnage) for the buck.

 

[SolarStorm]

Would the radiation do damage to the spacecraft, or the people inside?

Here's a graph from http://history.nasa.gov/conghand/nuclear.htm to show nuclear radiation intensities at sea level and in space from a 20 KT warhead

 

[jedidia]

Would the radiation do damage to the spacecraft, or the people inside?

Depends on the distance, and on the armor of the ship. close range detonation of a high yield warhead (say, within 1 km) should pretty much boil the ships hull into slack by em luminosity and radiation, but the inverse square law sees to it that you really have to be close. Otherwise, you might still give everyone a good radiation poisoning, but that's not really what you're after. Anything that doesn't disable the ship immediately isn't of much value in a fight. It won't help you if half the enemy crew dies of cancer two years after they've blown you out of space...

Neutrino radiation is another kind of dog... strong neutrino radiation might be able to take out the crew in a usable time frame.

However, even if the explosion isn't close enough to send the ship to oblivion immediately, the radiation might still wreak havoc with the ships electronics if they're not sufficiently hardened, and if the explosion catches them at a good angle they will have overheated radiators, which will make it tough for them to return fire (except missiles) during the next few minutes. Various degrees of hull damage and uncomfortable temparatures inside the ship might also be a result of a not-so-near miss. However, have a nuke detonate some 10 kilometers away, and you won't achieve anything at all, I think...

 

[T.Neo]

Neutrino radiation is another kind of dog... strong neutrino radiation might be able to take out the crew in a usable time frame.

I hope you mean neutron radiation... apparently I have millions of neutrinos passing through me right now and they're not doing anything...

I've found the Nuclear Weapons Calculator very useful. At a kilometer a 10 megaton bomb will do far more damage than a 10 kiloton one...

 

[jedidia]

I hope you mean neutron radiation... apparently I have millions of neutrinos passing through me right now and they're not doing anything...

oops, me and nuclear physics... :lol:

At a kilometer a 10 megaton bomb will do far more damage than a 10 kiloton one...

err... that does seem kind of very logical, yes...

 

[T.Neo]

err... that does seem kind of very logical, yes...

Well... it isn't like there is a magical boundary at which a nuclear blast all turns to harmless neutrinos...

 

[Ghostrider]

Line your hull with water tanks? Water is a good neutron absorber, AFAIK.

 

[Urwumpe]

err... that does seem kind of very logical, yes...

Well on Earth, you have Blast radius ~ yield ^ (1/3)

In space the inverse square law should apply.

 

[jedidia]

Well... it isn't like there is a magical boundary at which a nuclear blast all turns to harmless neutrinos...

Ah! Now I understand what you wanted to say :lol:. That's why I wrote high-yield, to have some kind of a definition. Not a too exact one, I'm afraid.

 

[T.Neo]

Line your hull with water tanks? Water is a good neutron absorber, AFAIK.

Another advantage of an ice-filled spacecraft.

Pykrete spacecraft maybe? That would be awesome... :hmm:

 

[Ghostrider]

Not to beat an Evil Dead horse, but have there been any developments on nuclear-pumped X-Ray lasers? That would merge the advantages of BVR weapons with those of DEWs, while not even requiring coming in CIWS range of the target.