Newtonian Aurora

[voknaar]

Since missiles can now be fired from any range in system does this mean Missile Fire Controls have no limits apart from a active sensor contact? Will this mean beam fire controls have the same unlimited range?

[UnLimiTeD]

anti anti missile missile missiles

Creation of the day. 

[Mel Vixen]

Well, non-FTL sensors will be problematic to code. 

In any case, if this is going to remain newtonian, I forsee a particular kind of megaproject:

Build a ship and speed it up to lightspeed. 

Non-ftl sensors can still be somewhat usefull if the turn and accelaration respecktive deceleration speeds are limited. You (or the game) could precalculate a certain "area" where your target object passes through with a certain "chance" (calculated via the intel on the object?). Well you may have a problem if the object is on direct course to you but for that you could do a triangulation with a second sensorship.

Laser-, Carronade-, Particlebeam -shots as well as Rail and coilgunslugs would maybe have to be handled like objects for that. 

[Rastaman]

Couple if thoughts:

With ships being able to fly directly to any target system (FTL doesn't consume fuel), there is no need to fly into one of the systems inbetween, not even for refuel and resupply. Uninteresting systems with few bodies will never be visited at all and fall completely to the wayside. That also means that there are no frontlines and few chokepoints. Every point needs its own defenses, and these defenses must be considerable as an enemy battlefleet can pop out of nowhere anytime. Friendly assets cannot spot the enemy a few systems out or ride to the rescue. The frontline is everwhere, no safe back-areas, shipping is always under threat. You need eyes everywhere. You have to spot any fleet or even any ship that accelerates into the direction of one of your systems.


Then there are FTL missiles:

- Build ships with an FTL drive and magazines.
- Build tugs which are all-engine and fuel.
- Using the tugs, accelerate the FTL ships to 100 000 km/s into the direction of the enemy home star.
- You can do this at your leisure in a system under your control. The high entry speed will
propel your ship to the enemy in a couple of weeks maximum.
- Once in the enemy home system, jettison the missiles. Using Sol as an example,
the missiles need about 8.3 hours to reach Earth, with a maximum needed course correction delta-V of 5000 km/s
(1AU/3 billion km*100 000 = 5000).
5000km/s in 8 hours should be doable with antimatter drives, judging the ion engine missile examples and estimating
fuel and payload. Also 5000 is the maximum. You could time the attack in a way that you do not need much course correction at all.
- The FTL ships drive into the sun or are lost in space.

- The defenders now have a time window of 8 hours before the drive-by nuclear holocaust. That means only defensive assets on and around the target planet are able to intervene.

[Napoleon XIX]

It's entirely realistic. The problem is that Aurora's diplomacy engine is not currently configured to deal with such things. After all, if you kill someone that way, the rest of the galaxy might not look too favourably on your actions. There is a good treatment of the problem  here.

Also, some sort of gravitational-wave/handwavium based means of detecting approaching FTL ships/missiles, ought to be possible.

[UnLimiTeD]

Well, I think that FTL drives should indeed have fuel requirements or a maximum range.
An object should only have unlimited range by standard means of movement, which means it'll be traveling for many years.

[Rastaman]

Fuel requirement is maybe necessary, but then it must be hefty. Like Traveller - each parsec of range takes 10% of ship volume. So in case of the Daring class with Jump-3 (parsecs) capability it has about 45% of its volume devoted to tanks. Extremely prohibitive. With even more fuel consumption, fuel sources need to be everywhere (like Traveller). And if they are everywhere, fuel logistics might become only a repetitive task, not a strategic problem (in addition to a repetitive task). If fuel can't be found almost everywhere, most of your shipbuilding is bound to be supertankers.

With a maximum range, it could become much like the stargate system where most ships hop from one system to the adjacent one. Something I would want to avoid.

Two possible solutions:

1. FTL drives do not need engine fuel but a different FTL drive fuel. Maintenance parts come to mind. These can be build everywhere and hopefully tansported in normal cargo holds. Maintenance space is felt sharply by ship designers. Should these parts be special FTL parts or just regular parts?

2. Ships in hyperspace can be detected by hyper-surveillance stations in real space and become visible on the galaxy map. Hypersensors can be active or passive. STL ships can be there too, albeit not detectable by hypersensors and only known to the owner. Total surprise can only be achieved by STL ships.

[boggo2300]

I like the 2300 or Renegade Legion answers to limiting FTL range, after a certain distance (7.7LY for 2300) or time (30 Days for RL) you need to spend time in a gravity well to dissipate the unwholesome icky hyperspace luugies (or possibly radiation) before entering hyperspace again

Matt

[GeaXle]

Another idea against Nuclear Holocaust bypass could be planetary shields like in David Weber's Mutineer's Moon series.  Where they protect earth from alien asteroid bombardment with such thing.

[shadenight123]

mmm one new type of weapon could be a ship with tractor beam+inertia+ASTEROID.
that could be funny.
you set the course for the planet with a tractor beam ship with an asteroid attached.
you then remove the ship from orbit and from the asteroid. Voilà...an incoming weapon of mass destruction

[PTTG]

As is required at these times..

Rocks are NOT ‘free’, citizen.

Firstly, you must manoeuvre the Emperor’s naval vessel within the asteroid belt, almost assuredly sustaining damage to the Emperor’s ship’s paint from micrometeoroids, while expending the Emperor’s fuel.

Then the Tech Priests must inspect the rock in question to ascertain its worthiness to do the Emperor’s bidding. Should it pass muster, the Emperor’s Servitors must use the Emperor’s auto-scrapers and melta-cutters to prepare the potential ordinance for movement. Finally, the Tech Priests finished, the Emperor’s officers may begin manoeuvring the Emperor’s warship to abut the asteroid at the prepared face (expending yet more of the Emperor’s fuel), and then begin boosting the stone towards the offensive planet.

After a few days of expending a prodigious amount of the Emperor’s fuel to accelerate the asteroid into an orbit more fitting to the Emperor’s desires, the Emperor’s ship may then return to the planet via superluminous warp travel and await the arrival of the stone, still many weeks (or months) away.

After twiddling away the Emperor’s time and eating the Emperor’s food in the wasteful pursuit of making sure that the Emperor’s enemies do not launch a deflection mission, they may finally watch the ordinance impact the planet (assuming that the Emperor’s ship does not need to attempt any last-minute course correction upon the rock, using yet more of the Emperor’s fuel).


Given a typical (class Bravo-CVII) system, we have the following:

Two months, O&M, Titan class warship: 4.2 Million Imperials

Two months, rations, crew of same: 0.2 MI

Two months, Tech Priest pastor: 1.7 MI

Two months, Servitor parish: 0.3 MI

Paint, Titan class warship: 2.5 MI

Dihydrogen peroxide fuel: 0.9 MI

Total: 9.8 MI


Contrasted with the following:

5 warheads, magna-melta: 2.5 MI

One day, O&M, Titan class warship: 0.3 MI

One day, rations, crew of same: 0.0 MI

Dihydrogen peroxide fuel: 0.1 MI

Total: 2.9 MI


Given the same result with under one third of the cost, the Emperor will have saved a massive amount of His most sacred money and almost a full month of time, during which His warship may be bombarding an entirely different planet.

The Emperor, through this – His Office of Imperial Outlays – hereby orders you to attend one (1) week of therapeutic accountancy training/penance. Please report to Areicon IV, Imperial City, Administratum Building CXXI, Room 1456, where you are to sit in the BLUE chair.


For the Emperor,

Bursarius Tenathis,

Purser Level XI,

Imperial Office of Outlays.

[shadenight123]

where did you find that? O_O

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Change to Fuel Modifier for Engines:

Until now I have been working on a thrust boost vs fuel use modifier of  (10 ^ Engine Power Modifier) / 10. So if you double engine power you use 10 times more fuel and if you triple engine power you use 100 times more fuel. This is similar to the fuel use multiplier in standard Aurora. However, I have now changed it to  (4^ Engine Power Modifier) / 4, which means if you double engine power the fuel use is x4 and if you triple engine power the fuel use is x16, etc.. This is because the old formula resulted in low thrust missiles being superior to high thrust, because the amount of fuel required actually gave low thrust engines a better overall power to weight ratio once you included the fuel

I have also upped the rate at which engine power increases between at different technology levels. Engine power for TL3 (Ion engines) is now 50% higher than before and engine power for TL12 (Photonic Drive) is about 300% higher. Each new engine tech will increase power from the previous one somewhere at a rate between 30% and 50%. This is because with absolute top speeds, a small increase made a significant difference. Now the difference is in acceleration rates so a larger increase is possible without it being tactically overwhelming.

This means the previously displayed engine designs are out of date. Here are the four two-ton missile engine designs using Ion engine technology and a base fuel efficiency of 14 that I described in the post on missile engines. Below each one is the updated version using the same parameters but with the new numbers. The four designs use engine power modifiers of x1, x2, x3 and x3.5 respectively.

Msl #1  80 KN Missile Engine - old numbers
Power Output: 0.08 MN     Fuel Efficiency: 14    Thermal Signature: 0.8
Base Acceleration: 40 mp/s (4.08G)    Per Min: 2.4 km/s    Per Hour: 144 km/s
Fuel Use at Full Burn: 1.12 litres per hour
Engine Mass: 2 tons    Cost: 0.4    Crew: 0
Materials Required: 0.1x Tritanium  0.3x Gallicite
Development Cost for Project: 40RP

Msl #1  120 KN Missile Engine - new numbers
Power Output: 0.12 MN     Fuel Efficiency: 14    Thermal Signature: 1.2
Base Acceleration: 60 mp/s (6.12G)    Per Min: 3.6 km/s    Per Hour: 216 km/s
Fuel Use at Full Burn: 1.68 litres per hour
Engine Mass: 2 tons    Cost: 0.6    Crew: 0
Materials Required: 0.15x Tritanium  0.45x Gallicite
Development Cost for Project: 60RP

**********************

Msl #2  160 KN Missile Engine - old numbers
Power Output: 0.16 MN     Fuel Efficiency: 140    Thermal Signature: 1.6
Base Acceleration: 80 mp/s (8.16G)    Per Min: 4.8 km/s    Per Hour: 288 km/s
Fuel Use at Full Burn: 22.4 litres per hour
Engine Mass: 2 tons    Cost: 0.8    Crew: 0
Materials Required: 0.2x Tritanium  0.6x Gallicite
Development Cost for Project: 80RP

Msl #2  240 KN Missile Engine - new numbers
Power Output: 0.24 MN     Fuel Efficiency: 56    Thermal Signature: 2.4
Base Acceleration: 120 mp/s (12.24G)    Per Min: 7.2 km/s    Per Hour: 432 km/s
Fuel Use at Full Burn: 13.44 litres per hour
Engine Mass: 2 tons    Cost: 1.2    Crew: 0
Materials Required: 0.3x Tritanium  0.9x Gallicite
Development Cost for Project: 120RP

**********************

Msl #3  240 KN Missile Engine - old numbers
Power Output: 0.24 MN     Fuel Efficiency: 1400    Thermal Signature: 2.4
Base Acceleration: 120 mp/s (12.24G)    Per Min: 7.2 km/s    Per Hour: 432 km/s
Fuel Use at Full Burn: 336 litres per hour
Engine Mass: 2 tons    Cost: 1.2    Crew: 0
Materials Required: 0.3x Tritanium  0.9x Gallicite
Development Cost for Project: 120RP

Msl #3  360 KN Missile Engine - new numbers
Power Output: 0.36 MN     Fuel Efficiency: 224    Thermal Signature: 3.6
Base Acceleration: 180 mp/s (18.35G)    Per Min: 10.8 km/s    Per Hour: 648 km/s
Fuel Use at Full Burn: 80.64 litres per hour
Engine Mass: 2 tons    Cost: 1.8    Crew: 0
Materials Required: 0.45x Tritanium  1.35x Gallicite
Development Cost for Project: 180RP

**********************

Msl #4  280 KN Missile Engine - old numbers
Power Output: 0.28 MN     Fuel Efficiency: 4427.1892    Thermal Signature: 2.8
Base Acceleration: 140 mp/s (14.28G)    Per Min: 8.4 km/s    Per Hour: 504 km/s
Fuel Use at Full Burn: 1239.613 litres per hour
Engine Mass: 2 tons    Cost: 1.4    Crew: 0
Materials Required: 0.35x Tritanium  1.05x Gallicite
Development Cost for Project: 140RP

Msl #4  420 KN Missile Engine - new numbers
Power Output: 0.42 MN     Fuel Efficiency: 448    Thermal Signature: 4.2
Base Acceleration: 210 mp/s (21.41G)    Per Min: 12.6 km/s    Per Hour: 756 km/s
Fuel Use at Full Burn: 188.16 litres per hour
Engine Mass: 2 tons    Cost: 2.1    Crew: 0
Materials Required: 0.525x Tritanium  1.575x Gallicite
Development Cost for Project: 210RP

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I'll post the section on missile design soon but I have been diverted a little into looking at railguns. I think based on my research so far you can safely forget everything about standard Aurora's energy weapons because the Newtonian Aurora weapons are likely to be completely different

Railguns (in the real world) are rated for their muzzle energy in megajoules (MJ). This is based on the kinetic energy of the projectile. An object's kinetic energy in joules is determined by the formula 0.5 x mass (kg) x velocity^2, which means an object moving twice as fast has four times the kinetic energy. Which in turn means that if you wish to fire a railgun projectile with twice the muzzle velocity you need four times as much energy to fire it.

For example, if you want to launch a 1 kilogram projectile at a speed of 5000 m/s, the muzzle energy required is 0.5 x 1 x 5000^2, or 12.5 million joules, or 12.5 megajoules. If you double the projectile size, it will require muzzle energy of 25 MJ. However, if you double the velocity instead, the 1 kg projectile at 10,000 m/s will have a muzzle energy of 50 MJ. The most powerful real world railgun tested so far (at least that we know about) has a muzzle energy of 33 MJ. (US Navy last December).

The damage inflicted by a railgun is based on the kinetic energy of the projectile in MJ. For comparison purposes, one kilogram of TNT release 4.184 MJ of energy, so we can therefore rate a railgun both in the energy required to fire it and the TNT equivalent of a hit. So the 1 kg projectile moving at 5,000 km/s (a 12.5 MJ railgun) has the same destructive force as 3 kilograms of TNT. Increase the muzzle velocity to 92,000 m/s and that 1 kg projectile has the destructive force of 1 ton of TNT. Even that is a relatively slow velocity in Aurora terms of 92 km/s. Unfortunately, that also requires a railgun with a muzzle energy of 4,232 MJ.

That energy has to come from somewhere. 1 joule is equal to 1 watt for one second, so the 4,232 MJ of energy has to be generated as 4,232 Megawatts of electricity. That can be generated gradually and stored in capacitors or (for Newtonian Aurora) homopolar generators (HPG). So a 100 Megawatt reactor could generate enough energy to fire the railgun every 42.32 seconds, assuming a 100% energy efficiency - which is unlikely (but you can improve it through a new tech line . Other tech lines include the MJ you can store per ton of HPG and the reactor output in MW per ton.

All this is fairly theoretical at the moment. The railgun launch speeds are going to be a LOT lower than the light speed railguns in standard Aurora but the weapon will be completely different anyway. Actual speeds will depend on what I come up with for power generation and storage. In fact, I am likely to introduce the concept of an integrated power grid for ships. A ship will have reactors which generate power in MW. That will be stored in HPG, which are rated in MJ storage capacity. Any system on the ship can draw power from the HPGs. I will likely extend power requirements to weapons, active sensors, FTL drives and several other systems. A major design decision is going to be how you allocate power generation and power storage. Power storage in MJ is likely to be about 25-30x greater than power generation in MW on a per ton basis. So do you have a huge storage capacity that can sustain you in combat for a while but can only be slowly regenerated by your weak power reactors, or do you have limited storage but a high rate of power generation to feed power to energy-intensive systems, or somewhere in between.

With regard to the comparatively slow (in Standard Aurora terms anyway) speed of kinetic weapons, I am starting to believe that it may be prudent for ships to actually slow down if they are expecting combat. Otherwise, if your 50,000 ton battlecruiser is hurtling into the system at 20,000 km/s (20,000,000 m/s), then a caveman lobbing a rock into its path may be able to take it out. A stationary 1 kg object in the path of the ship will have the same effect as if the ship were struck by a 47 megaton thermonuclear device.

Interesting....

Steve

[chuckles73]

a caveman lobbing a rock into its path may be able to take it out. A stationary 1 kg object in the path of the ship will have the same effect as if the ship were struck by a 47 megaton thermonuclear device.

That's actually one of the main issues with realistic combat at relativistic speeds. One of the others is that due to the power, fuel and speed requirements, a "missile" is almost indistinguishable from a "ship".