Gateworld Virtual Fleet 4.0 - Discussion thread

[puddlejumperOZ]

Still here, went home ate dinner slept, woke up came back to work and here i is.

Colony infrastructure: I've been thinking and KM I know you're going to stay that is a dangerous road, but nonetheless.

Are we going to transport pre-fab buildings, factories etc. Mining: Road transport or rail?

And on the shields for the fighters, what protects them from atmo re-entry burn if they are not equipped with even a marginal type of shield?

[Davidtourniquet]

Well heat from re-entry only occurs when you're using the atmosphere as an aero-brake.

[puddlejumperOZ]

Well heat from re-entry only occurs when you're using the atmosphere as an aero-brake.

Partially true Dave. Even at velocity a crafts hull is still subject to re-entry burn simply because of atmospheric friction. And if you're not using atmoshphere to slow you down, you're going to need a pretty cool air-brake to pull you up before you hit Terra Firma.

[thekillman]

when using inertial dampeners, just do a 180 and fall down backwards while doing a burn

[puddlejumperOZ]

You'll still have hull degradation KM no matter which way you turn your ship. There has been a theory which went untested because the Shuttle programme is ending, but basically it involved "skipping" the ionosphere". Think of it as throwing a flat stone across a pond. You have several bounces and then the stone slowly settles in the water as the the water tension releases. I suppose our pilots could be trained in theoretical technique such as that. And did you read my questions on colony infrastructure?

[Davidtourniquet]

reverse thrust plus anti-grav technology.

[guppy338]

Colony infrastructure: I've been thinking and KM I know you're going to stay that is a dangerous road, but nonetheless.

Are we going to transport pre-fab buildings, factories etc. Mining: Road transport or rail?

And on the shields for the fighters, what protects them from atmo re-entry burn if they are not equipped with even a marginal type of shield?

the colonys should be looked after by a civel athoraty not by the miltery

and for pre fab why not just land them like moduels and for transport or bikes their small and more portble

[puddlejumperOZ]

reverse thrust plus anti-grav technology.

And David how does anti grav tech help with re-entry. Wouldn't that be just as expensive to implement as "borrowed" shielding tech?

the colonys should be looked after by a civel athoraty not by the miltery

and for pre fab why not just land them like moduels and for transport or bikes their small and more portble

So if you have a 200 tonne load of ore from your mine, you're going move it to your foundry with bikes?

[guppy338]

i ment of pearson transport

[Davidtourniquet]

I'm just saying PJ that there are ways around the heating problem. If you get rid of using the atmosphere as an aero-brake then you get rid of most of the heat energy going into the ship.

[blackluster]

Are we going to transport pre-fab buildings, factories etc. Mining: Road transport or rail?

Prefabs for homes/offices makes sense. The factory thing is a tough one. I'm tempted to suggest factory ships that touch down and start work, but I don't think Earth's ship building capacity will be by the means to do that, even by 2025. One could maybe try modular factories with prefab areas that slot together like lego. The only issue with that would be that production probably wouldn't be particularly high. Maybe low to medium. The other option is maybe the route they take in the 'Alien' fiction, where factories are massive ships that pick up ore and process it on route back to Earth making use of the long travel time essentially. That means that your colonies are based around mines and orbital lifts rather than full blown starports.

For colony infrastructure I'd recommend roads, since they are faster to build properly, they can be simple and you only need compacted earth and baked bricks which can all be manufactured on site with relatively small machines. You can't move as much as by rail but it makes more sense for such a remote location.

And on the shields for the fighters, what protects them from atmo re-entry burn if they are not equipped with even a marginal type of shield?

That is an extremely strong point. I'm guessing trinium or naquadah alloys could probably take the heat and wear but with conventional fighter configurations, that probably wouldn't save you since the fuselage structure probably can't take the loading. The shielding makes more sense to me, even in a combat sense if your enemies predominantly use plasma, non-homing projectile or flak weaponry.

In the sense of what the fighter might be used for as well, it doesn't make sense to me to be trying re-entry at any speed so slow where aero-braking heating doesn't happen. I'd think one would want to be into the atmosphere as quickly as possible and fighting, not spending 30min just trying to come into the upper atmosphere slow enough so the fuselage doesn't melt or simply come apart.

[puddlejumperOZ]

Now we're getting somewhere, good. Dave, as Blacky has said, you cannot in any capacity negate atmo re-entry unless you have 1/ shielding, even if low tech, simply as a means to protect your hull from friction burn and not as a defensive capability, though it would serve some purpose their. Or 2/ super alloys for the hull, but that would mean your cockpit canopy would still be exposed, so that problem would have to be addressed as well.

Colony set ups. Factory ships are inherently expensive. A good example is in the 60's they tried using mobile processsing for iron ore. It didn't work because your whole structure re:maintainance etc was centred around this massive machine. It's actually very cheap nowadays to have pre-fabbed rail, complete with sleepers attached in 30 mtr lenghts, transported and ballasted. You can lay a 100km of track in a week and have a pre-fabbed processing factory assembled and working in a month. Your economies then come by 1/ ore shipments from mine to processing at 80,000 tonne pre train consist. 2/ finished ore product back to Earth in almost any type of ship in convenient loads, rather than bulky raw material.

[thekillman]

You'll still have hull degradation KM no matter which way you turn your ship. There has been a theory which went untested because the Shuttle programme is ending, but basically it involved "skipping" the ionosphere". Think of it as throwing a flat stone across a pond. You have several bounces and then the stone slowly settles in the water as the the water tension releases. I suppose our pilots could be trained in theoretical technique such as that. And did you read my questions on colony infrastructure?

the trinium hulls all around will probably do a fine job. also i'd say keep atmospheric entries and exists to a need-to basis. additionally there is such a thing as "maintenance".


colony infrastructure: yes probably mostly prefabs and tents, but i suspect the people who are there from the beginning are already in the process of building new, real houses.
additionally i believe the makeup will be similar to a roman fort, all straightforward. additionally like a suburb: plenty of space and plants and trees. the first people probably settled close to the gate, the next batch moves out to form "suburbs" and that way we expand. no need for uber-crowded cities like on earth. considering we're probably going to colonize uninhabited planets, i believe there will be plenty if not too much forest.

people will go cut wood, build log cabins out of them, use it as construction materials. additionally materials from earth (like concrete, steel) will be used for new factories etc. initial infrastructure probably isn't very impressive. but i think that, as soon as asphalt factories are up, proper roads can be built. again, it'll take some time.

by 2025 our colonies are ten years old i believe, so by then i think the Main Colonies will be big, but also quite powerful.

the reason why is, that i'd like to include immigration of human aliens: people from other planets wishing to live there. that's why the biggest colony is so big.


my other idea was that some countries set up a joint colony. a planet is something massive and well, not everyone can defend it that easily. countries like the Netherlands, Belgium, they can join.

actualy i believe the biggest colony should be a European colony.

Prefabs for homes/offices makes sense. The factory thing is a tough one. I'm tempted to suggest factory ships that touch down and start work, but I don't think Earth's ship building capacity will be by the means to do that, even by 2025. One could maybe try modular factories with prefab areas that slot together like lego. The only issue with that would be that production probably wouldn't be particularly high. Maybe low to medium. The other option is maybe the route they take in the 'Alien' fiction, where factories are massive ships that pick up ore and process it on route back to Earth making use of the long travel time essentially. That means that your colonies are based around mines and orbital lifts rather than full blown starports.

depends on the type, size and neccesities. i suggest we DONT produce everything on the colonies because, well, manpower is gonna be a problem.

colonies can mine naquahdah, but also other materials like Chromium which are getting rare yet desperately needed on earth, in exchange for goods.

it's probably a hellofalot cheaper too

For colony infrastructure I'd recommend roads, since they are faster to build properly, they can be simple and you only need compacted earth and baked bricks which can all be manufactured on site with relatively small machines. You can't move as much as by rail but it makes more sense for such a remote location.

rail can work, but i suggest it as a long-distance infrastructure only. a train can accellerate to be much faster than a truck. it can ship much, much more per run. i think some remote mine will probably have conveyer or rail transport

In the sense of what the fighter might be used for as well, it doesn't make sense to me to be trying re-entry at any speed so slow where aero-braking heating doesn't happen. I'd think one would want to be into the atmosphere as quickly as possible and fighting, not spending 30min just trying to come into the upper atmosphere slow enough so the fuselage doesn't melt or simply come apart.

yet the F-302's don't have this problem either. i believe the Inertial Dampening Field simply removes a lot of the friction. i mean, inertia is the resistance of an object with mass against accelleration. if the air does not resist accelleration, there is little to no friction.

[puddlejumperOZ]

Ah yes I forgot about the inertia dampening, good call KM. That will work.

And i agree on the colony structure, the Europeans led the world in colonisation a long time ago, some successful some not, but experience would have taught them where they went wrong. And rail for mining transport makes sense. If you can ship an entire train consist from the US to Australia in two merchant ships, it would be a snack for our civil fleet.
BHP Biloton: A typical train will have six, 6,000 horsepower locomotives pulling more than 26,000 tonnes of ore. Most trains are 208 cars, each carrying approximately 125 tonnes of ore.The trains are up to 3.75 kilometres long and the journey from Newman to Port Hedland takes approximately eight hours.

[thekillman]

trucks have their limits and are often only used for short-ranged ore transport.

also considering we're colonizing uninhabited worlds, these will have LOTS of forest and easy-access ore. as in, most ore deposits will be easily found on the surface.

large mining vehicles will take care of getting the stuff, in a stripmining fashion, while the trains are filled up. trains leave, next train moves in, gets filled, and at the end of the track the train unloads all the goods to one of many factories where the stuff is refined etc.