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    Originally posted by Gormagon View Post
    What about seeking/guided ballistic weapon systems and magnetic/plasmagnetic/E5 shield? These include inert seeking missiles, chemical warheads, fission and fusion.

    Edit- Whats the upward limit of chemical high explosive potential? For bombs and missile warheads?
    I think any electronics passing the shield would need some proper shielding of it's own. But most stuff like that already has shielding of it's own. You don't want errors in your nuke timer.

    as to chemical blast potential: don't know, but i doubt it goes much higher than TNT. most explosives already need to be stabilized before they can be used, or they'll explode willy-nilly.

    Comment


      Now another really annoying part: generating the shield. Based upon the work needed to generate the shield, you're looking at 766GJ. Plus a 1GW reactor just for the shield.
      Something Google cannot seem to answer, though it is an open question with lots of un-included factors and details, what are realistic predicted power output levels of space ship fusion reactors in watts? Or Joules? A Conestoga class vessel (Aliens franchise) outputs 3.6 TW from its lithium hydride reactor for example, and how big/massive would they be?
      sigpicHe who controls the spice controls the universe!(And the kitchen.)

      If you enjoy Minecraft or have never played but like building and exploring please check out Craftyn.com and apply for roamer status on the server at http://www.craftyn.com/forms/2/respond It is a well modded towny type server with a strong core community and lots of mini games and events. My user name is TrueGormagon and you are welcome to join the great city of Eden, Craftyns oldest player made city. (2011)

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        Originally posted by Gormagon View Post
        Something Google cannot seem to answer, though it is an open question with lots of un-included factors and details, what are realistic predicted power output levels of space ship fusion reactors in watts? Or Joules? A Conestoga class vessel (Aliens franchise) outputs 3.6 TW from its lithium hydride reactor for example, and how big/massive would they be?
        The real answer is that we don't know. We haven't actually built a truly working fusion reactor. The most optimistic ones predict commercial fusion by 2050.

        This is made more difficult by the fact that many methods and designs exist, and that the peripherals of a reactor usually take up much more space than the reactor itself. E.g the entire work fluid circuit complete with turbines and heat exchangers.

        However, i can take a look at the various projects and their sizes to get an idea.

        For instance, the ITER reactor (500MW) takes up a round30x30 cylinder, while peripherals take up many times that.

        The National Ignition Facility (NIF) takes up 200x400 to what seems to be about 10-15m. The target chamber is a 10m- across device, the rest houses the lasers. Though i'm of the opinion that when aligned for a spaceship, you'd use about half to a quarter of the facility's volume. It can fire every four hours and releases 150 million joules, so that's about 10.4 KW.

        Lockheed martin is considering a 100 MW reactor that's some 5x3 meters, but they have nothing solid so far.

        There are many other approaches, so it's not exactly a done deal. However, i consider ITER's vaue of a 30x30 cylinder for a 500 MW reactor (note that this is the size of the outer housing and excludes the actual conversion of heat to work) to be a more legitimate one.


        that works out to about 21180 cubic meters. So 42 cubic meters per megawatt.

        Answering your question, that gives 152 million m^3 assuming a linear relationship. That's a cylinder about 580m in diameter and 580m long. That seems way too big for such little power, as i would expect the plasma in the center to be denser than the outer region, especially as the chamber gets bigger. Assuming a cubic relationship (since volume = m^3), the power density would be roughly 19x greater. The reactor would thus have 2.2m^3/MW, or 7.9 million m^3.

        This boils down to a cylinder 215m in length and diameter.

        The ship is 300m long. It seems to have a LxHxW of 5:1:1 suggesting it's 60m high and 60m wide. So this powerplant would never fit. However, this assumes modern day fusion reactors.

        Applying Lockheed Martin's claimed 90% volume reduction to the cubic formula, we get a 100m in diameter, 100m long fusion reactor.

        Unfortunately, we're dealing with a 60x60x300 ship. Forcibly plugging in a 60m diameter, i get a 280m long cylinder.

        So by modern standards, the alien ship would be a flying fusion reactor, not a cargo ship. Reducing the 3.6TW to a more manageable 3.6GW, i would get a 22m x 22m reactor (using Lockheed specifications). Without the 90% reduction it would be a 46x46 cylinder, which seems to fit the model and so can be considered more true. Alternatively, that's 7 ITER reactors.


        In conclusion, modern reactors would need to improve by 3 orders of magnitude to compete with "Alien" reactors.

        If you want to calculate your own sizes, use the 42 cubic meters per megawatt figure for a linear extrapolation. For a cubic, do the cube root of (reactor output / 500MW) times that figure.

        Comment


          Ballistic weapons are a relatively sophisticated weapon system, and this itself can work against the weapons system at times, but against shields they tend to be able to easily track them due to the shields reflecting E.M radiation and radiating energy. To missiles, shields can act as a beacon. However, many warheads need to be preprogrammed to detonate prior to impact.
          So how do shields interact with missile tracking/detection and the energies of the missile itself, being inert, chemical, fission, fusion or antimatter?
          sigpicHe who controls the spice controls the universe!(And the kitchen.)

          If you enjoy Minecraft or have never played but like building and exploring please check out Craftyn.com and apply for roamer status on the server at http://www.craftyn.com/forms/2/respond It is a well modded towny type server with a strong core community and lots of mini games and events. My user name is TrueGormagon and you are welcome to join the great city of Eden, Craftyns oldest player made city. (2011)

          Comment


            Originally posted by Gormagon View Post
            So how do shields interact with missile tracking/detection and the energies of the missile itself, being inert, chemical, fission, fusion or antimatter?
            Tracking/Detection:

            The idea of tracking is that you send out a signal, you keep track of time and you receive a bounced back signal. By taking the time difference one can calculate the distance. By using multiple receivers, one can determine the direction. The plasma shield for any frequency below the threshold will reflect EM. Radar operates at radio frequency (f<<<<< f.plasma), heat seeking operates at IR (f<<<f.plasma) and so it can be determined that most sensors would thus get a perfect reflection of their signal. (and thus they operate properly).

            The question is, does this matter? given the aforementioned problem (read: nonexistance) of stealth in space, well it's not going to matter. An added benefit is that the shield would be a mirror, so all the enemy sensors see is the mirror. Targeting specific subsystems would be impossible (other than manually inserting the (relative) coordinates). Systems like flares would not work, as the ship's "signature" among all frequencies would stand out like a Christmas tree.


            As to defense:

            Kinetic missiles would behave similar to any kind of other kinetic weapon. They'd likely puncture the shield, losing some energy in the process. However, they would still strike with significant energy and so be probably the most effective. Note that missiles can be fitted with the same engines as your ship, and if acceleration restrictions apply (e.g. 10G for human crew), could vastly outspeed any ship. Unlike the aforementioned kinetic weapons, missiles, even kinetic ones, would not have the slowness factor as they could simply keep on accelerating until they hit their target. Obviously, proxy detonation would not work on a kinetic missile, but it would work on a nuclear one.

            Explosive weapons would likely be of little use. Unless they can strike the hull directly, i simply don't think they have enough power to displace the plasma, given the pressure involved. I would need to figure out how to properly calculate a displacement of such a plasma, as my instincts tell me it's not going to be easy.

            Fission/fusion/antimatter: They all work roughly the same, producing a high-energy particle shower and gamma rays. Doing a bit of reading on the subject, i discovered it may actually be pretty complex to assess this. Gamma rays would certainly blast through the shield, but gamma rays can penetrate a lot of matter so they'd also penetrate a lot of the ship. A good amount of radiation would be in the form of high-energy particles, which would probably interact with the shield, ripping a hole in it while residual energy pours through and strikes the hull directly. Similar to kinetic weapons, the plasma shield would act as a secondary hull, just not the kind of infinitely stiff and extremely strong kind we see in most Sci Fi. Because the shield would need a pressure >> the pressure of plasma, the plasma would likely move along the shield "plane" first, then being forced downwards. the effect would thus be more of a "plasma shower" and less of a "plasma spike", which is good.

            The biggest difficulty is exactly how the shield reacts to the particle shower. Some particles could fly right through, damaging the ship or crew, some would be absorbed by the shield. This is difficult to assess, so i'll see if i can find some stuff.

            EDIT:

            I should mention that nukes have two additional aspects for space:

            1: a nuke is always less than 50% effective in space, unless Casablanca Howitzers (shaped nuclear charges) are used. So a 50KT nuke will deliver at most 25 KT to it's target. Unlike an atmosphere, a nuke in space doesn't produce a blast wave, just a highly intense radiation shower. Therefore, one can see it as a perfectly spherical explosion.

            2: Because of the radiation shower and lack of an atmosphere, the inverse square rule applies. A nuke in space will emit lethal amounts of radiation (when not properly shielded) for hundreds of miles if not more. So, a nuke does not actually have to *hit* to do damage: detonating 40km off target could still sterilize the enemy ship of lifeforms.
            http://history.nasa.gov/conghand/nuclear.htm
            Last edited by thekillman; 19 November 2014, 04:46 AM.

            Comment


              ADDENDUM:

              This is just a preliminary note. I'm reviewing the mechanical properties of the aforementioned shield. I am still not sure what to do with the pressure of the shield -that is, how it factors into known equations of strength. The density of a near-Xray shield is 526 kg/m^3 if it were made of hydrogen. In case you don't know, the densest stable element is Osmium at about 20 kg/m^3. Such a dense, high-pressure contained plasma may just be impenetrable for most conventional kinetics. (notable exceptions: penetrator missiles, railguns/gaussguns).

              It's certain that it would act quite nicely as a radiation shield. Hydrogen doesn't seem to stop everything, but for instance neutron radiation would probably be of little concern.

              The thing i'm most bothered with is the abysmal weight of such a shield and the extremely cubersome systems needed to make it run and keep it running.

              Comment


                So, it would be mass intense, got it.

                So, if a shield has a higher operating frequency then the laser, it completely reflects it, no matter how intense the barrage? Or would a powerful enough laser leak through?

                How would such a shield interact with bolts of plasma, would the plasma be worth anything at all weapons wise?

                What about a proton/electron beam, neutral, impacting said shield? Would it go right through?
                sigpicHe who controls the spice controls the universe!(And the kitchen.)

                If you enjoy Minecraft or have never played but like building and exploring please check out Craftyn.com and apply for roamer status on the server at http://www.craftyn.com/forms/2/respond It is a well modded towny type server with a strong core community and lots of mini games and events. My user name is TrueGormagon and you are welcome to join the great city of Eden, Craftyns oldest player made city. (2011)

                Comment


                  Originally posted by Gormagon View Post
                  So, it would be mass intense, got it.

                  So, if a shield has a higher operating frequency then the laser, it completely reflects it, no matter how intense the barrage? Or would a powerful enough laser leak through?

                  How would such a shield interact with bolts of plasma, would the plasma be worth anything at all weapons wise?

                  What about a proton/electron beam, neutral, impacting said shield? Would it go right through?
                  Well, long time no see.

                  From what i understand, yes it would act like a mirror. However, no mirror is perfect. The simplest model would simply have the plasma be a modifier for the energy that goes through. e.g. it reflects 99.99% of the beam back. I think that thermal effects would weaken the shield (the plasma becomes too energetic too contain and the shield sheds some, creating a new equilibrium), magnetic effects would weaken the shield (though you'd be firing MRI scanners, not ferromagnets).

                  Beyond UV you run into pragmatic problems. You see, we don't have anything beyond UV. a Xaser would require a particle cannon to work, and high (99.99 or so %c) speeds. So, you need either a linac (linear accelerator) in the order of a kilometer long, or a circular one about a kilometer across. This, in turn, will push engagement ranges an order of magnitude or so further. At these ranges, Light Speed Lag is getting into tens of seconds to minutes, while maintaining a deadly beam.

                  NOTE: i did some math. As soon as you start taking in thousands of kilometers, projectile weapons are out. Even railguns (at 10-20 km/s, requiring a few hundred megawatt to a few gigawatt) would not fire projectiles fast enough to do anything. Worse, the heat would simply prevent function. You'd be firing pieces of railgun more than you'd be firing bullets. The bullet needs to be a certain size to stay in once piece *due to heat*, the barrel needs to be a certain size to withstand the immense pressure (the force is a function of "wire" length. A bullet has a small crossection and thus "lenght". A barrel is several dozen "bullets" long, so gets several bullet's worth of force). Coilguns have the same problem where the bullet just melts. That, or you need a coilgun of a kilometer long or more.

                  Plasma as a weapon is simply a no-go. The expansion speed of gas in space lies in the order of a kilometer per second if memory serves. Explosions would be mere flashes, and plasma bolts would be thin air before you're halfway.

                  Proton/electron beams would have a charge, which brings some difficulties. You get electrostatic bloom (similar to plasma's thermal bloom -rapid expansion- ). Fortunately the beam goes close to the speed of light so it's less of a problem. However, it would have less range than a neutron beam, but a neutron beam is something we have to yet invent.

                  A neutral beam trades the problem of electrostatic bloom for beam quality. The firing of electrons into the proton beam neutralizes it, but also distorts the beam. In real life it would be a trade-off for a per-case basis. In this case, i'd say neutral has the upper hand unless you keep the distances relatively close.

                  As to what their impacts would be: They're hitting a dense electromagnetically-confined hydrogen plasma. Denser than any known natural material. Any particle beam would likely penetrate, but they would also lose all focus and so cause a wider array of damage. Projectiles would likely penetrate (if given enough energy).

                  Unlike what i thought, the structural strength of the shield would be the difference between the magnetic pressure and thermal pressure. Since we're talking about a LOT of power and a LOT of weight, it's doubtful that the magnetic field would be much more powerful than needed, so the structural strength of the shield would not be very impressive.

                  Lastly, while missiles work always, it's more of a point-defence problem than a damage problem. But in my opinion, battles would be fought with both missiles and lasers.


                  also, holy crap what a long post. sorry.

                  Comment


                    Thank you.


                    So if a biological organism was able to produce a self oxidizing agent, would it be able to generate a chemical fire in space? And perhaps use it as a weapon?
                    sigpicHe who controls the spice controls the universe!(And the kitchen.)

                    If you enjoy Minecraft or have never played but like building and exploring please check out Craftyn.com and apply for roamer status on the server at http://www.craftyn.com/forms/2/respond It is a well modded towny type server with a strong core community and lots of mini games and events. My user name is TrueGormagon and you are welcome to join the great city of Eden, Craftyns oldest player made city. (2011)

                    Comment


                      Originally posted by Gormagon View Post
                      Thank you.


                      So if a biological organism was able to produce a self oxidizing agent, would it be able to generate a chemical fire in space? And perhaps use it as a weapon?
                      Fire? maybe. Chemical reactions are possible in space, and organisms can definitely survive the harsh vacuum.

                      As to weaponizing it, that depends on what kind of weapon you're looking for. Regular explosives wouldn't be much use, so shaped charge weapons of some kind (even shaped charge nukes) would be common. However, if you're looking for a missile deploying some kind of biological nanoweapon, that won't work.

                      Comment


                        Any of the old gang still active? Or newbies interested still?
                        sigpic
                        You are the fifth race, your role is clear, if there is any hope in preserving the future it lies with you and your people ~ 8years for those words
                        Stargate : Genesis |
                        Original Starship DesignThread
                        Sanctuary for all | http://virtualfleet.vze.com/
                        11000! green me




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                          Originally posted by immhotep View Post
                          Any of the old gang still active? Or newbies interested still?
                          Well i'm here.

                          Comment


                            Well that could be a start. I've been a little bored recently. Anything interesting going on GW wise?
                            sigpic
                            You are the fifth race, your role is clear, if there is any hope in preserving the future it lies with you and your people ~ 8years for those words
                            Stargate : Genesis |
                            Original Starship DesignThread
                            Sanctuary for all | http://virtualfleet.vze.com/
                            11000! green me




                            Comment


                              Originally posted by immhotep View Post
                              Well that could be a start. I've been a little bored recently. Anything interesting going on GW wise?
                              To be honest? not much, most of it seems to be in offtopic or in other show's topics.

                              So whaddaya up to?

                              Have you by any chance seen The Expanse (or read it's books?). Been keeping up with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it certainly has a Stargate-y feel to it (it's basically my dose of stargate).

                              Comment


                                I don't normally like to resurrect old threads on forums, but I with this one in particular, it's sad to see that it has become so... dead.

                                I first read through the first 7 pages from back in 2010 and many people who were participating back then had some great ideas. After that, I skipped to the very last page and found nothing. The topic in this thread is very much of interest to me and if anyone else has any interest in it also, then perhaps there can be more discussion.

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