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Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...

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Fri, 2010-04-16 00:21
It that must no... It that must not be named's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
In "the forever war" Haldeman used repelled fields that projected a double layer field out ahead of the shild charged with electrostatic energy. Any object passing thru the outer field picked up a strong charge over it's surface and was pushed asides when it hit the inner field. objects too large to be shoved around like this could be detected and avoided.
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"I learned the hard way that if you take a stand on any issue, no matter how insignificant, people will line up around the block to kick your ass over it." -Jesse "the mind" Ventura.

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Fri, 2010-04-16 00:46
UpliftedOctopi UpliftedOctopi's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
That is brilliant and, in spite of its squishyness, I love it. I think a combo of huey dewey and louis AND that 2 stage shield will be the shield tech in my game, also of course... nanoswarms. I don't really put much faith in the evasive maneuvers solution though, seems to risky for anyone to put stock in if other options are available. In EP's setting I refuse to believe their solution to space debris is to "do a barrel roll" (fox).
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Fri, 2010-04-16 01:18
It that must no... It that must not be named's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
If you've never read the forever war please consider doing so. it's depictions of alien worlds can only help you work out worlds to descrive to your players in terms that will awe and amaze them.
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"I learned the hard way that if you take a stand on any issue, no matter how insignificant, people will line up around the block to kick your ass over it." -Jesse "the mind" Ventura.

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Fri, 2010-04-16 02:06
UpliftedOctopi UpliftedOctopi's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
My favorite depiction of aliens has been Pearson's puppeteers. I will pick up a copy of "the Forever War" for sure, my party has shown interest in gatecrashing so it only makes sense. Thanks for the suggestion!
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Fri, 2010-04-16 03:33
GJD GJD's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
It that must not be named wrote:
In "the forever war" Haldeman used repelled fields that projected a double layer field out ahead of the shild charged with electrostatic energy. Any object passing thru the outer field picked up a strong charge over it's surface and was pushed asides when it hit the inner field. objects too large to be shoved around like this could be detected and avoided.
Except that you can't impart an electrostatic charge without the surfaces touching, and depending on the material will depend on what charge, negative or positive, is applied to it. A conductive material, like a NiFe micrometeorite, or a metal spanner, will pick up a different charge to a CaCo micrometeroite. You could end up with your repulsive magnetic field acting as an attractor! I'd also say again that strong standing magnetic fields, apart from requiring energy to establish and maintain, may have long term detrimental effects. Some observed phenomena include metals becomming brittle, liberation of ozone and molecular hydrogen from fluids and infertility in males. IMEPU, at least, there will be no magnetic fields, except maybe around the "sun bunker" which is switched on when a really bad solar flare is inbound. G.
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Fri, 2010-04-16 04:56
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
GJD wrote:
Except that you can't impart an electrostatic charge without the surfaces touching, and depending on the material will depend on what charge, negative or positive, is applied to it. A conductive material, like a NiFe micrometeorite, or a metal spanner, will pick up a different charge to a CaCo micrometeroite. You could end up with your repulsive magnetic field acting as an attractor! I'd also say again that strong standing magnetic fields, apart from requiring energy to establish and maintain, may have long term detrimental effects. Some observed phenomena include metals becomming brittle, liberation of ozone and molecular hydrogen from fluids and infertility in males. IMEPU, at least, there will be no magnetic fields, except maybe around the "sun bunker" which is switched on when a really bad solar flare is inbound. G.
Vastly-powerful magnetic fields already have a presence throughout the Eclipse Phase universe. Antimatter is a budding power storage medium with amazing potential, and an extremely potent magnetic field is necessary to contain it. Habitats and morphs on the Sun require powerful electromagnetic fields to protect themselves from the radiation and heat. Even railgun weapon technology utilizes powerful magnets. However, you are incorrect in saying that contact is necessary to give something an electrostatic charge. Ionizing radiation tears electrons from atoms, inducing a positive charge in any material it affects. If the outer "layer" is an ionizing radiation field (like a gamma ray emitter), and the inner layer is a outward-projected positively-charged monopole magnetic containment system (which could even be positively charged by the gamma ray emitter), then it is feasible.
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Fri, 2010-04-16 05:30
GJD GJD's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
Decivre wrote:
GJD wrote:
Except that you can't impart an electrostatic charge without the surfaces touching, and depending on the material will depend on what charge, negative or positive, is applied to it. A conductive material, like a NiFe micrometeorite, or a metal spanner, will pick up a different charge to a CaCo micrometeroite. You could end up with your repulsive magnetic field acting as an attractor! I'd also say again that strong standing magnetic fields, apart from requiring energy to establish and maintain, may have long term detrimental effects. Some observed phenomena include metals becomming brittle, liberation of ozone and molecular hydrogen from fluids and infertility in males. IMEPU, at least, there will be no magnetic fields, except maybe around the "sun bunker" which is switched on when a really bad solar flare is inbound. G.
Vastly-powerful magnetic fields already have a presence throughout the Eclipse Phase universe. Antimatter is a budding power storage medium with amazing potential, and an extremely potent magnetic field is necessary to contain it. Habitats and morphs on the Sun require powerful electromagnetic fields to protect themselves from the radiation and heat. Even railgun weapon technology utilizes powerful magnets. However, you are incorrect in saying that contact is necessary to give something an electrostatic charge. Ionizing radiation tears electrons from atoms, inducing a positive charge in any material it affects. If the outer "layer" is an ionizing radiation field (like a gamma ray emitter), and the inner layer is a outward-projected positively-charged monopole magnetic containment system (which could even be positively charged by the gamma ray emitter), then it is feasible.
For single paticles, yes, but you can't apply a charge to a mass with an ionizing field, only individual particles. It's going to zero effect on a micrometeorite except to weakly irradiate it. You also won't get a field like you will with an electromagnet - gamma ray sources are point emitters, not field generators. I'm also very unconvinced about the wisdom of having a large ionizing radiation source beaming out the front of the ship... A monopole magnet would actually also be less useful than a traditional electromagnet, which is tuneable and imparts a nice flux, wheras a monopole is a static field. You don't need a massivly strong field to contain antimatter - just a constant, stable, reliable one. But hey, your game, your rules. It seems to me that Occams Razor indicates that all this field and shield tech is bunko when we have pretty efficent materials technology available now to create a decent protective material, which we can easily extrapolate this to a much more efficent material in the EP universe without having to resort to all this complicated and energy hungry field technology. But, if you have a burning desire to be able to say "Shields up!" when tracked by your nemesis de jour, then go for it. G.
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Fri, 2010-04-16 07:33
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
GJD wrote:
For single paticles, yes, but you can't apply a charge to a mass with an ionizing field, only individual particles. It's going to zero effect on a micrometeorite except to weakly irradiate it. You also won't get a field like you will with an electromagnet - gamma ray sources are point emitters, not field generators. I'm also very unconvinced about the wisdom of having a large ionizing radiation source beaming out the front of the ship... A monopole magnet would actually also be less useful than a traditional electromagnet, which is tuneable and imparts a nice flux, wheras a monopole is a static field. You don't need a massivly strong field to contain antimatter - just a constant, stable, reliable one. But hey, your game, your rules. It seems to me that Occams Razor indicates that all this field and shield tech is bunko when we have pretty efficent materials technology available now to create a decent protective material, which we can easily extrapolate this to a much more efficent material in the EP universe without having to resort to all this complicated and energy hungry field technology. But, if you have a burning desire to be able to say "Shields up!" when tracked by your nemesis de jour, then go for it. G.
Incorrect. Gamma rays can very much ionize objects by way of the photoelectric effect. That said, I know that you won't get an actual field with a gamma ray emitter, which is why I put layer in quotes; it isn't a layer so much as it is a wide beam of gamma radiation. The biggest issue with this is the threat it might pose to habitats. Such ships would need to be cautious and prevent their ray from pointing directly toward their desination, instead missing it by a miniscule degree. Ionizing radiation of a lower frequency might be better, since it would ionize the side of an oncoming mass that faces the ship and that might be enough to repel it, as well as having less of a penetrating effect and therefore being a lower threat to other ships and habitats. Alpha waves may completely suffice for this purpose, if the repelling force is great enough. As for antimatter, storing it is one hell of an issue. Today, we need only moderately strong fields, but we also only store very small quantities of it. Vast quantities of positively or negatively charged antimatter will either have one of two issues. If they are free-floating antiparticles, they will repel themselves and expand quickly, meaning that the repulsion strength of the magnetic container will have to overpower the repulsion strength of the free-floating antiparticles on each other. If we somehow can create quantities of solid antimatter chunks, then the issue of mass and momentum becomes a problem; the magnetic containment field will need to be able to prevent the solid mass from colliding with the sides of the container during any change in velocity. Either way, storage has high requirements in the EP universe since ships can have amounts of antimatter on the order of tons, and even transhuman implants can store small quantities of it.
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Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
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Fri, 2010-04-16 08:55
GJD GJD's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
Decivre wrote:
Incorrect. Gamma rays can very much ionize objects by way of the photoelectric effect. That said, I know that you won't get an actual field with a gamma ray emitter, which is why I put layer in quotes; it isn't a layer so much as it is a wide beam of gamma radiation. The biggest issue with this is the threat it might pose to habitats. Such ships would need to be cautious and prevent their ray from pointing directly toward their desination, instead missing it by a miniscule degree. Ionizing radiation of a lower frequency might be better, since it would ionize the side of an oncoming mass that faces the ship and that might be enough to repel it, as well as having less of a penetrating effect and therefore being a lower threat to other ships and habitats. Alpha waves may completely suffice for this purpose, if the repelling force is great enough.
Yes, that is true, but that's not going to help us. The ionizing "beam", be it a gamma ray source or a particle accelerator, will liberate ions from the material, but won't give it a charge that the magnetic field will be able to deflect. When ionised, objects tend to either emit particles to regain equilibrium, or briefly remain excited before returning to a lower energy state - using the "energy bank". The beam will liberate ionised particles from the object, which might get caught and deflected by the magnetic field, but the main mass will have to be totally ionised i.e. converted to a plasma, to be deflected by the magnetic field. That's why earths magnetic field will trap the charged particles from the solar wind and create auroras, but micrometeorites sail straight through it even if they are being bombarded by cosmic rays and charged particles from the solar wind. Much easier to just put a decent strength barrier in the way. G.
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Fri, 2010-04-16 10:37
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
GJD wrote:
Yes, that is true, but that's not going to help us. The ionizing "beam", be it a gamma ray source or a particle accelerator, will liberate ions from the material, but won't give it a charge that the magnetic field will be able to deflect. When ionised, objects tend to either emit particles to regain equilibrium, or briefly remain excited before returning to a lower energy state - using the "energy bank". The beam will liberate ionised particles from the object, which might get caught and deflected by the magnetic field, but the main mass will have to be totally ionised i.e. converted to a plasma, to be deflected by the magnetic field. That's why earths magnetic field will trap the charged particles from the solar wind and create auroras, but micrometeorites sail straight through it even if they are being bombarded by cosmic rays and charged particles from the solar wind. Much easier to just put a decent strength barrier in the way. G.
Actually, the photoelectric effect will liberate photo-electrons from the material without removing the any actual atoms, leaving a positively-charged ion surface. Agreeably, most matter will try to regain equilibrium, but continued battery should push enough electrons out of the mass to induce a decent positive charge. As for micrometeorites, remember that while they are bombarded with gamma radiation, it is in fairly insignificant amounts from the sun. In order for this sort of system to work, it would require a significantly more potent amount, perhaps induced from a gaser (gamma laser, so to speak). Moreover, the Earth's magnetosphere is potent but not on the scale that such shielding would need to be (around 0.58 gauss near the Van Allen belt). I'd imagine that the shielding would need to be around twice the strength of an MRI output (30-60 thousand gauss), if not far more. However, I agree that a thick nose plating combined with self-repair technologies would probably be a better way to shield a ship. It would probably have to be built out like a large disk in front of the rest of the ship, so it can protect the flimsier radiators that stick out of the ship's hull to assist in heat dispersal (unless they are made of smart metals and can retract during peak travel speeds).
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Fri, 2010-04-16 11:08
GJD GJD's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
Decivre wrote:
Actually, the photoelectric effect will liberate photo-electrons from the material without removing the any actual atoms, leaving a positively-charged ion surface. Agreeably, most matter will try to regain equilibrium, but continued battery should push enough electrons out of the mass to induce a decent positive charge.
I doubt it. I doubt very much that you would be able to concentrate a beam long enough onto a mass for it to absorb enough energy to gain any kind of charge - we are talking millions of atoms that need to be converted by a spray of energetic particles. The charge needs to be built up on individual atoms, which would then start to repell one another, and absorb particles liberated from other, nearby ions to achieve equilibrium. I also think that simply because of the high closing velocities of the mass and the ship and the difficulties of getting enough energy onto a small body at range would reneder the system inefficent - plus that dosen't even take into acount any kind of targetting. You really can't just spray a massive ammount of high energy particles out of the front of the ship to hope to catch stuff. You'd need to try and direct a concentrated beam at something. The wasted energy and danger to other travellers would be huge. G.
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Fri, 2010-04-16 21:29
UpliftedOctopi UpliftedOctopi's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
So, could we just say it's alien tech ( a gift from the factors or a treasure from gatecrashing). And as for why they developed it (with strength shielding being better) we could just say that ship-ship warfare relied largely on high output energy weapons, thus necessitating energy shielding (or energy armor, in game terms). Using this, we could say it's tech we barely understand but we know it works!
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Fri, 2010-04-16 22:39
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
UpliftedOctopi wrote:
So, could we just say it's alien tech ( a gift from the factors or a treasure from gatecrashing). And as for why they developed it (with strength shielding being better) we could just say that ship-ship warfare relied largely on high output energy weapons, thus necessitating energy shielding (or energy armor, in game terms). Using this, we could say it's tech we barely understand but we know it works!
Except we've had space travel technologies for longer than we've been in contact with aliens. Plus, as I mentioned before, I don't think this sort of tech is needed at the speeds that humanity travels. An antimatter engine going from Uranus to the Sun is going to reach a maximum speed of 0.00828c at its halfway point (I corrected a previously given and vastly incorrect number, as I found a far more accurate space travel calculator). As significant a speed as that is, I don't think it will render dust as lethal as one might think.
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Sat, 2010-04-17 05:04
GJD GJD's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
Decivre wrote:
UpliftedOctopi wrote:
So, could we just say it's alien tech ( a gift from the factors or a treasure from gatecrashing). And as for why they developed it (with strength shielding being better) we could just say that ship-ship warfare relied largely on high output energy weapons, thus necessitating energy shielding (or energy armor, in game terms). Using this, we could say it's tech we barely understand but we know it works!
Except we've had space travel technologies for longer than we've been in contact with aliens. Plus, as I mentioned before, I don't think this sort of tech is needed at the speeds that humanity travels. An antimatter engine going from Uranus to the Sun is going to reach a maximum speed of 0.00828c at its halfway point (I corrected a previously given and vastly incorrect number, as I found a far more accurate space travel calculator). As significant a speed as that is, I don't think it will render dust as lethal as one might think.
Well... I can do the math if you like? ;) G.
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Sat, 2010-04-17 05:29
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
After a week of fusion drive thrust at 0.05 g, you're moving at 300,000 m/s. A 0.1g speck at that speed carries about 4.6MJ of kinetic energy, which is about the same as an APFSDS kinetic penetrator from a Abrams tank.
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Sat, 2010-04-17 19:37
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
Smokeskin wrote:
After a week of fusion drive thrust at 0.05 g, you're moving at 300,000 m/s. A 0.1g speck at that speed carries about 4.6MJ of kinetic energy, which is about the same as an APFSDS kinetic penetrator from a Abrams tank.
The odds of you hitting such a speck in most of the Solar system is pretty low. Fundamentally, space travel comes down to one major point; avoiding other larger bodies during high-points of travel. The majority of dust in the system either sits in close orbit around another body, in the asteroid belt, or at a lagrange point. Avoid those regions and you're relatively safe with a negligible chance of collision. Traveling ships, rather than taking a straight path to their destination, are likely to make a shallow arc, flying at an upward or downward angle from their destination and utilizing the gravity of larger system bodies to "correct" their trajectory. This way large quantities of debris can be largely avoided. By the time the ship reaches near its destination, where dust is most likely to be a factor, the ship's speed will be slow enough that it is a non-issue again.
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Sun, 2010-04-18 04:00
UpliftedOctopi UpliftedOctopi's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
@ Decievre, nu-uh! Cus... information that I don't cite, laced with ambiguous terminology, to support points that are usually proven invalid rather quickly (see how annoying that is?).
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Sun, 2010-04-18 04:36
GJD GJD's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
Decivre wrote:
The odds of you hitting such a speck in most of the Solar system is pretty low. Fundamentally, space travel comes down to one major point; avoiding other larger bodies during high-points of travel. The majority of dust in the system either sits in close orbit around another body, in the asteroid belt, or at a lagrange point. Avoid those regions and you're relatively safe with a negligible chance of collision. Traveling ships, rather than taking a straight path to their destination, are likely to make a shallow arc, flying at an upward or downward angle from their destination and utilizing the gravity of larger system bodies to "correct" their trajectory. This way large quantities of debris can be largely avoided. By the time the ship reaches near its destination, where dust is most likely to be a factor, the ship's speed will be slow enough that it is a non-issue again.
Well, I'm confused now. We spend half a dozen posts arguing about if an EM shield would work or not - then you say "but you won't need it, 'cos you drive round the bumpy bits"? Don't get me wrong, I agree that the risk in interstellar space is lower than in orbital space, and i think radiation shielding is more of a persistant threat, but it's not one that can be ignored. I would suggest that the need for protection is required because even though you can avoid the major bodies, it's the stuff you can't see that is the problem. A low density, low albedo object is going to be hard to detect at high speed, especialliy if the closing angle is low, as it's releative motion will be small. Reduce, avoid, mitigate accept - the four pillars of risk management. Reduce the impact if you do get hit - armour of some kind. Avoid the risk - check you micrometiorite "weather reports" and known hazzards before you leave. Mitigate the effects: compartmentalisation, redundancy. Accept the risk. Well, if we get hit by anything big - whaddayagonnado? Kablooey! G.
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Sun, 2010-04-18 09:57
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
UpliftedOctopi wrote:
@ Decievre, nu-uh! Cus... information that I don't cite, laced with ambiguous terminology, to support points that are usually proven invalid rather quickly (see how annoying that is?).
Not really. It's actually rather amusing. Hell, I'm probably more offended by the fact that you didn't spell my pseudonym correctly more than anything. Besides, there have only been three people who have used citations this entire thread... and I was one of them. They don't get used too often, so I was under the understanding that it was just a discussion. Believe it or not, I'm not here to insult or demean anyone. If I have at some point directly offended you, and this is the direct reasoning for you mocking my statements, then let me know. Show me where I did it, and I will retract my statements. If, however, you're just insulting me because you'd decided that conversation is not worth it, then you might be better off ignoring my posts. I would rather there was no dialog between us than this conversation get pulled down by ad hominem attacks.
GJD wrote:
Well, I'm confused now. We spend half a dozen posts arguing about if an EM shield would work or not - then you say "but you won't need it, 'cos you drive round the bumpy bits"? Don't get me wrong, I agree that the risk in interstellar space is lower than in orbital space, and i think radiation shielding is more of a persistant threat, but it's not one that can be ignored. I would suggest that the need for protection is required because even though you can avoid the major bodies, it's the stuff you can't see that is the problem. A low density, low albedo object is going to be hard to detect at high speed, especialliy if the closing angle is low, as it's releative motion will be small. Reduce, avoid, mitigate accept - the four pillars of risk management. Reduce the impact if you do get hit - armour of some kind. Avoid the risk - check you micrometiorite "weather reports" and known hazzards before you leave. Mitigate the effects: compartmentalisation, redundancy. Accept the risk. Well, if we get hit by anything big - whaddayagonnado? Kablooey! G.
Actually, from the very beginning my stance was that simple nano-repair systems would likely be the best way to mitigate such damage. I offered up the magnetic shield and gamma ray combo because the discussion shifted to what shielding might be like for ships moving at massive speeds. I personally don't think they are all that necessary if the crew is smart enough to plot a good course, but I do think them plausible to create. I can see a battleship having such a system, for instance. Besides, radiation shielding is a bit easier to implement than shielding against space debris. Layers of depleted uranium in the ship's hull would do the trick nicely. If that's not an option, then the steel hull should mitigate that just fine. The biggest problem with armor on these massive ships is the cost to do so. While room is not really an issue when dealing with ships (you can always make a ship bigger), mass is a serious factor that has to be weighed. It decides momentum, and just how big an engine you need for a certain amount of acceleration. The amount of armor necessary to stop debris at high speeds is immense. Plus, armor would likely not be able to work on the flimsier external components, like heat radiators. But luckily, when reduction isn't an easy option, there's always avoiding and mitigating.
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Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
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Sun, 2010-04-18 10:44
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
UpliftedOctopi wrote:
@ Decievre, nu-uh! Cus... information that I don't cite, laced with ambiguous terminology, to support points that are usually proven invalid rather quickly (see how annoying that is?).
And when you do prove his points invalid, he changes position into something else, which must a) contradict what you just said and b) again be easily proven invalid.
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Sun, 2010-04-18 11:31
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
Smokeskin wrote:
And when you do prove his points invalid, he changes position into something else, which must a) contradict what you just said and b) again be easily proven invalid.
How dare I disagree with you! What kind of a monster am I?! Seriously folks, let's talk about the topic at hand (or at least the topic as it has evolved) rather than the people discussing it.
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Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
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Sun, 2010-04-18 13:11
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
Decivre wrote:
How dare I disagree with you! What kind of a monster am I?!
Some subspecies of troll, I think.
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Sun, 2010-04-18 13:44
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
Smokeskin wrote:
Some subspecies of troll, I think.
Every single person who disagrees with you is a troll? That's a very grim way to look at the internet, or world for that matter.
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Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
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Sun, 2010-04-18 13:47
GJD GJD's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
Decivre wrote:
Actually, from the very beginning my stance was that simple nano-repair systems would likely be the best way to mitigate such damage. I offered up the magnetic shield and gamma ray combo because the discussion shifted to what shielding might be like for ships moving at massive speeds. I personally don't think they are all that necessary if the crew is smart enough to plot a good course, but I do think them plausible to create. I can see a battleship having such a system, for instance. Besides, radiation shielding is a bit easier to implement than shielding against space debris. Layers of depleted uranium in the ship's hull would do the trick nicely. If that's not an option, then the steel hull should mitigate that just fine. The biggest problem with armor on these massive ships is the cost to do so. While room is not really an issue when dealing with ships (you can always make a ship bigger), mass is a serious factor that has to be weighed. It decides momentum, and just how big an engine you need for a certain amount of acceleration. The amount of armor necessary to stop debris at high speeds is immense. Plus, armor would likely not be able to work on the flimsier external components, like heat radiators. But luckily, when reduction isn't an easy option, there's always avoiding and mitigating.
For both of these (radiation and impacts) I don't think that the brute force approach (DU or steel shielding) is the best that could be used. The link I provided earlier also discusses radiation proofing, and discusses a polypropylene medium laced with various mineral salts as being an effective barrier. Whilst Wikipedia will advise that DU is a great absorber of radiation - it's because it's dense - that's a simplistic view. Concrete is nearly as good as DU, but we don't see the ISS equipped with either concrete or DU plating (yes, I know it's in orbit and thus not subject to the same radiation as interplanetary space). Mineral salts trap ionizing radiation and high energy particles through a different way than just putting lots of atoms in the way and hope they block it. Work smarter, not harder an all that. I also think that impact armouring would be non existant for weapons grade impacts. Micrometeorites and small particles on the pointy end of a ship - yes, everybody needs that and we've talked about various stuff that could assist (technobabble jelly sandwiches, nano-dudes with sticky guns and flowerpot hurling drones). However, something proof against a kinetik kill weapon or grazer? Nuh-uh. I would suggest not. G.
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Sun, 2010-04-18 15:29
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
GJD wrote:
For both of these (radiation and impacts) I don't think that the brute force approach (DU or steel shielding) is the best that could be used. The link I provided earlier also discusses radiation proofing, and discusses a polypropylene medium laced with various mineral salts as being an effective barrier. Whilst Wikipedia will advise that DU is a great absorber of radiation - it's because it's dense - that's a simplistic view. Concrete is nearly as good as DU, but we don't see the ISS equipped with either concrete or DU plating (yes, I know it's in orbit and thus not subject to the same radiation as interplanetary space). Mineral salts trap ionizing radiation and high energy particles through a different way than just putting lots of atoms in the way and hope they block it. Work smarter, not harder an all that. I also think that impact armouring would be non existant for weapons grade impacts. Micrometeorites and small particles on the pointy end of a ship - yes, everybody needs that and we've talked about various stuff that could assist (technobabble jelly sandwiches, nano-dudes with sticky guns and flowerpot hurling drones). However, something proof against a kinetik kill weapon or grazer? Nuh-uh. I would suggest not. G.
Well, depleted uranium has the nice advantage of a very high halving mass. Even though it is dense, a far thinner and lighter sheet of it is needed to get the same effective shielding (a sheet of concrete would need to have a layer 20 grams heavy for every square centimeter it protected, but depleted uranium only requires 3.9 grams and can be 30 times thinner; yeah, I too am using the chart off the wiki). Plus, since we are looking for materials resistant to impact, depleted uranium is often used by the military as tank armor. That gives the uranium surface a double-purpose, which the mineral salt method might not be as effective for. But I agree that armor of total weapons-grade immunity would probably not exist. That's why I find this issue impossible to cover; any shielding that would be absolutely effective in protecting ships at such massive speeds from debris impact would be just as effective in protecting ships from railgun rounds, if not more so. The books never mention anything about these ships being immune to such weapons, so I doubt that such effective armor is out there.
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Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
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Sun, 2010-04-18 19:09
GJD GJD's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
Decivre wrote:
Well, depleted uranium has the nice advantage of a very high halving mass. Even though it is dense, a far thinner and lighter sheet of it is needed to get the same effective shielding (a sheet of concrete would need to have a layer 20 grams heavy for every square centimeter it protected, but depleted uranium only requires 3.9 grams and can be 30 times thinner; yeah, I too am using the chart off the wiki). Plus, since we are looking for materials resistant to impact, depleted uranium is often used by the military as tank armor. That gives the uranium surface a double-purpose, which the mineral salt method might not be as effective for. But I agree that armor of total weapons-grade immunity would probably not exist. That's why I find this issue impossible to cover; any shielding that would be absolutely effective in protecting ships at such massive speeds from debris impact would be just as effective in protecting ships from railgun rounds, if not more so. The books never mention anything about these ships being immune to such weapons, so I doubt that such effective armor is out there.
Actually, I wasn't using wiki, but I guessed you were. Lugging all that DU mass around just makes no sense. It USED to be used as tank armour in certain areas (as the wiki article mentions) but most 3rd generation tanks now use some form of laminate sandwich armours to shatter the incomming projectile, then absorb the KE, then shatter the fragments and so on (oh, wait, didn't I mention something like that a while ago?) We know that already have materials that weigh less and are as efficent at absorbing rads and KE through other means, and, considering the other materials tech advantages we have in EP, I can't see any reason that the same technobabblium material that protects from micrometeorite impacts couldn't do equally well at rad shielding too. G.
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Mon, 2010-04-19 01:40
RobBoyle RobBoyle's picture
Re: Eclipse Phase!= space ship combat game...
[color=#FF0000]At 170+ posts, I think this thread has outlived it's usefulness, not to mention diverted from the original topic. So I'm closing it off here. Feel free to start new threads to continue any of the tangents that were taken.[/color]
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Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios

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