View Thread
 Conclusion to "defense field" technology - by Glacialis
|
|
| Inert |
Posted on 27-09-2005 23:22
|
 Posts: 388 Joined: September 08 2005 |
Gravity happens to be the weakest force, so no that's not really a viable option. Gravity on capital ships are partly due to their mass, as they are really huge. Fighters and corvettes don't need gravity. ...but we do have protype gravitic propulsion devices integrated into some new versions of some fighters. |
|
|
|
| MDD |
Posted on 28-09-2005 02:41
|
 Posts: 32 Joined: September 26 2005 |
The capital ships aren't that huge. They still can't compare the the gravity/mass signature of a planet. So is the gravity onboard cap ships fractional gravity? Say .2G? Seems to me that would complicate operation quite a bit. Although, there are probably a lot of automated systems. What are the crew requirements of the various ships? (sorry for the non discussion-pertinent questions) So magnetic and gravitic fields are ruled out. What other kind of fields are there? |
|
|
|
| TelQuessir |
Posted on 28-09-2005 05:04
|
 Posts: 2598 Joined: August 30 2005 |
Assume for requirements of present mode of space warfare that artificial grav generation is somewhat on the mandatory list of capabilities. |
|
|
|
| MDD |
Posted on 28-09-2005 23:34
|
|
Posts: 32 Joined: September 26 2005 |
I was reading through the tech specs of the original homeworld heavy cruiser (on the well of souls Kushan shipyard) and it stated that it had a crew of 150. Is that an accurate figure? |
|
|
|
| Inert |
Posted on 28-09-2005 23:46
|
|
Posts: 388 Joined: September 08 2005 |
It should be, for the Kushan heavy cruiser. Now things are much more automated I believe. So... Fighters usully have 2, corvettes have 2 (3 for minelayers, but we don't have any), frigates have about 10-20, and destroyers should have about 40-50 (about 2/3 of them engineers). I believe battlecruisers should then have about 110 or 120, most of them engineers, and finally nearly 220-230 on a carrier. That's what I think. |
|
|
|
| TelQuessir |
Posted on 29-09-2005 00:11
|
|
Posts: 2598 Joined: August 30 2005 |
Quote I was reading through the tech specs of the original homeworld heavy cruiser (on the well of souls Kushan shipyard) and it stated that it had a crew of 150. Is that an accurate figure? Using that as an accurate figure for Generation One technology, halve the crew requirements for Generation Five technology for baseline operation. Then add the role-specific personnel for today's battlecruisers - remember they double up as carriers for certain classes so add flight engineers, fighter pilots and reserves for the squadrons, Marines etc. So in the end I can accept 150-200 for a PoH class vessel, with (jury-rigged, internal modular expansion or whatever) capacity for a few times that number of onboard personnel if conditions require it. Remember the ship has to function 24/7. We can have a fully automated battleship, but what happens when the brown stuff hits the fan? You need manpower to man relevant positions and equipment or stand by to do so. Consider also the logistics requirements for such a large crew - for instance they will need spacesuits and their support equipment, we're using light powered armour as ship suits for survivability reasons. Edited by TelQuessir on 29-09-2005 00:13 |
|
|
|
| schumador |
Posted on 30-09-2005 14:56
|
 Posts: 70 Joined: September 21 2005 |
Robotech. In the show, they were attempting to translate their Hyperspace capabilities into a Defense Shield of some sort - sometimes with catastrophic consequences for anything close to the ship itself (it overloaded in one episode and destroyed a nearby city). However, at one point they had a kind of "point defense" defense-field system: it was basically a circular energy ring that could travel over the ship's hull and absorb/translate the incoming munition. There were three of these "micro-hull-shields", operated by individuals at Missile Command-style rollerball terminals. So here's the idea: Take a ship and design its hull to be able to act like an inside-out hyperspace gate (ie: areas of the hull are prebuilt to host a temporary HS field, able to absorb/translate incoming munitions). So the outside of the ship's hull is a constant that the ship's computers don't have to keep number-crunching when initializing a defense gate; incoming fire would be intercepted at the hull. This could be overwhelmed, as the capacitor whose job it is to blatt out a Hull-centered HS gate could only do so at a certain frequency, dictated by the power consumption - that power being provided by a separate generator... the higher the frequency of the shielding, the more power, the more power the bigger the generator, = more hullspace... it would get to an equilibrium point where there would be diminishing returns beyond a certain size.... And of course, once the enemy's targetting computers figured out that frequency, they could simply start a "multi-phased" firing scheme... or multi-frequency... a staccato of plasma/munition bursts designed to bypass/overwhelm the shielding system of the targetted ship - this would be in addition to simply overwhelming the system through sheer volume of firepower. At any rate, this might lead to smoother-hulled ships designed primarily to facilitate hosted shielding generators... or maybe they could simply wear a "harness", or "vest" that would include the bulk of the shielding area - this last to help with retrofits of earlier hulls... Just some thoughts |
|
|
|
| Glacialis |
Posted on 30-09-2005 18:29
|
 Posts: 368 Joined: September 02 2005 |
This is somewhat similar to what we have envisioned for PDS, and moreso for Independence War II (play it!). We can't graphically represent it, so we say it's a "field". |
|
|
|
| Cobalt Shiva |
Posted on 01-11-2005 14:35
|
 Posts: 118 Joined: September 07 2005 |
OK, this is what I think we've got. Hyperspace gates are wormholes through four (or eleven, or whatever) dimensional space. Hyperspace transits take time and can be interrupted. Wormholes are the only method of faster-than-light travel supported by modern physics. Outside gravitational influences perturb the wormhole path, leading to an emergency jump abort. Generation of a wormhole requires a 'quantum waveform' - presumably for the expansion of a microscopic wormhole to transitable size. The length of the distance to be covered is NOT linearly related to the time of transit. Defense fields open wormhole gates that swallow, destroy, or relocate incoming fire. Energy weapons are unaffected, and increasing mass and speed decrease the chance of a projectile being 'swallowed.' Homeworld ships have artificial gravity. These same artificial gravity fields prevent hostile wormholes from forming (operating on the same principle as a hyperspace inhibitor, except on a single-ship basis); thus, there are no 'wormhole weapons' used to take chunks out of enemy ships. A ship's wormhole gate can transit through FRIENDLY hyperspace inhibitor zones because the topography of the inhibitor's effect is known and can be compensated for (the 'grav currents' are plotted and can be plugged into the hyperspace equations.) Sound good? Edited by Cobalt Shiva on 01-11-2005 14:41 "This is tactical control..."
|
|
|
|
| Glacialis |
Posted on 01-11-2005 16:09
|
|
Posts: 368 Joined: September 02 2005 |
We are not dealing with modern physics. Wormholes as posited by existing theory provide instantaneous travel. Some other method must be in use -- game cutscenes show travel through some weird region we've come to call "hyperspace" over the last few decades. On artificial gravity and the prevention of hyperspace weapons, I am in complete agreement. |
|
|
|
| Cobalt Shiva |
Posted on 01-11-2005 17:28
|
|
Posts: 118 Joined: September 07 2005 |
Actually, I don't think modern wormholes are instantaneous. They represent 'shortcuts,' not gates - so although the travel time IS shorter, it's not nonexistent. The hyperspace seen in cutscenes could very well be the inside of a wormhole. I'm thinking in particular of the HW2 cutscene immediately following the Oracle recovery in M05. An alternative is that hyperspace is one of the 'extra' dimensions postulated by string theory. That said, is everyone OK with the wormhole theory (Glacialis included), or should I start poking at the extra-dimension Calabi-Yau model? Edited by Cobalt Shiva on 01-11-2005 17:29 "This is tactical control..."
|
|
|
|
| Glacialis |
Posted on 01-11-2005 17:40
|
|
Posts: 368 Joined: September 02 2005 |
We need to get one thing decided first: Are we going with what we know as 21st century humans, or are we going to allow for some amount of fiction in our science? If we're going to go with current human knowledge... I'm not all that up to date on wormhole theory -- 6 years out, heh -- so I'm not going to press further in that direction. As for string theory, I'm partial to it myself. However, I think someone on the last iteration of the board or earlier in this thread pretty conclusively showed that hyperspace can't be one of those dimensions. Or something. From what we've seen in game and in the cutscenes, a gate opens and encloses a ship, which is then transported to Hyperspace(tm). There, travel is fast, the hypercore can't handle a significant gravity field and will drop you out of hyperspace if one is detected. Travel is not instantaneous. HDS/hyperspace defense system, the "inner ring" of PDS, poofs incoming matter to hyperspace, terminally disrupting its molecular structure in the process. Those are the parameters we're operating under I think. Still digesting lunch, sleepy.  With those in mind, we need to figure out if we're using pure science or can add some sci-fi in. Do we want to use an existing theory, modified so that these engine room gadgets can control such a phenomenon, or do we want to leave that alone and just call them "hyperspace field generators" and the like?
Edited by Glacialis on 01-11-2005 17:46 |
|
|
|
| Cobalt Shiva |
Posted on 01-11-2005 17:49
|
|
Posts: 118 Joined: September 07 2005 |
Nice synopsis. I think the 'wormholes = hyperspace' theory meets all these conditions - in fact, it definitely does. Wormhole theory is really easy - the most complicated part is how you'd MAKE one. I think we should allow fiction when necessary, but use present science whenever possible. Any dissenters from the wormhole theory? EDIT: There are some back on page 3.  We need to address those objections.I would say that although the wormhole theory has problems, it's the least implausible of our options. We can excuse any major snags by introducing fiction. Good enough? ...I have to think on this a while. Edited by Cobalt Shiva on 01-11-2005 17:56 "This is tactical control..."
|
|
|
|
| Inert |
Posted on 03-11-2005 04:55
|
|
Posts: 388 Joined: September 08 2005 |
We've discussed the wormhole theory for a while... let me review the problems. 1) Wormholes are instantaneous travel, but cleary there is activity between hyperspace. 2) Wormholes, even with the power of the Hiigarans, is not enough to make anything larger than the size of a fist. 3) Anything going through a wormhole comes out in a spew of unidentifiable atoms components. |
|
|
|
| Cobalt Shiva |
Posted on 03-11-2005 14:37
|
|
Posts: 118 Joined: September 07 2005 |
I can address 1 - it's wrong. Wormholes are 'shortcuts', not 'portals.' They're not instantaneous. The others are established by canon, and are perfectly valid objections. Hmm - perhaps those refer to wormholes generated by a certain method? And the shipboard-hyperspace wormholes are a different type, one that only works outside gravity wells and is VERY power intensive? Edited by Cobalt Shiva on 03-11-2005 14:39 "This is tactical control..."
|
|
|
|
| Glacialis |
Posted on 03-11-2005 15:16
|
|
Posts: 368 Joined: September 02 2005 |
You keep saying this, and from my time as an astrophysics major it just sounds wrong. Please give reference to research that suggests wormholes are not instantaneous. This was oen of my specialty fields, though it was a number of years ago. |
|
|
|
| Inert |
Posted on 03-11-2005 15:32
|
|
Posts: 388 Joined: September 08 2005 |
edit: I can't read. 
Edited by Inert on 04-11-2005 23:32 |
|
|
|
| Cobalt Shiva |
Posted on 04-11-2005 17:28
|
|
Posts: 118 Joined: September 07 2005 |
Glacialis, you may very well be right, and I'm prepared to eat my words. I was operating on the assumption that wormholes, being nothing more exotic than 'shorter-than-usual' paths through spacetime, would require time to transit. Let me do some research on this. "This is tactical control..."
|
|
|
|
| Glacialis |
Posted on 04-11-2005 19:00
|
|
Posts: 368 Joined: September 02 2005 |
Fair enough.  They are generally represented as connecting point X in space to point Y in the same universe, but very different coordinates. However, I don't know any good sources any more either, so I'm going to google it up this weekend.Any knowledgable in string theory around? Great subject, but not one I'm particularly knowledgable in. I want to see if there's some stuff we can do with those . |
|
|
|
| Ryanman |
Posted on 13-11-2005 21:28
|
 Posts: 7 Joined: November 13 2005 |
I always thought that the defense fields were using magnetics to repel or disrupt the path of the railgun rounds.
Look guys, i'm not an expert on space battles(sorry). But I do know about homeworld. Give the kid a break!
|
|
|
|
| Jump to Forum |