SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread I

[Norade]

Aside from confirming my math I'm going to drop the whole numbers thing. I mean, fuck if I expect anybody else to do pointless math so we can have our spaceships fly around a pew pew the first guy that pisses off a large enough alliance of players.

[Dark Hellion]

Everybody on the numbers tangent, calm the fuck down, smoke a bowl and repeat after me,"it's fucking magic!"

All problems now solved.

[Norade]

I live in BC and I don't part take, that said I am still mostly chill and have already dropped the numbers while your baked ass was typing. xD

[K. A. Pital]

Main character shall be a Communist Alucard.

[Ryan Thunder]

Steve has told me that it is not to be used in the actual game, and I accept the ruling.

Fine by me.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Steve has told me that it is not to be used in the actual game, and I accept the ruling.

Fine by me.

Look Ryan. If you are going to go all paranoid and antsy over the slightest perceived provocation, you aren't going to get much sympathy if someone decides to nuke you out of spite.

[Ryan Thunder]

Steve has told me that it is not to be used in the actual game, and I accept the ruling.

Fine by me.

Look Ryan. If you are going to go all paranoid and antsy over the slightest perceived provocation, you aren't going to get much sympathy if someone decides to nuke you out of spite.

Wait, wait, it's paranoid of me to be concerned if it looks like Lonestar's trying to set up a fucking cold war scenario again?

[Norade]

Wait, wait, it's paranoid of me to be concerned if it looks like Lonestar's trying to set up a fucking cold war scenario again?

Wouldn't a cold war just give you a nice story to work through off the bat? After all even losing a war is only a problem if you're playing to win.

[Ryan Thunder]

Wait, wait, it's paranoid of me to be concerned if it looks like Lonestar's trying to set up a fucking cold war scenario again?

Wouldn't a cold war just gibe you a nice story to work through of the bat? It's only a problem if you're playing to win.

You would think so, but the end result was pretty much dire boredom last time.

[Norade]

Wait, wait, it's paranoid of me to be concerned if it looks like Lonestar's trying to set up a fucking cold war scenario again?

Wouldn't a cold war just gibe you a nice story to work through of the bat? It's only a problem if you're playing to win.

You would think so, but the end result was pretty much dire boredom last time.

Then quit whining, form an alliance, and kick his ass back. You might not always be alone and cut off if you were a bit more proactive.

[Siege]

Why do you even care, Ryan? You're half a galaxy away on the other bloody side of the UN from Shep, Lonestar et al. What's your beef?

[Ryan Thunder]

Why do you even care, Ryan? You're half a galaxy away on the other bloody side of the UN from Shep, Lonestar et al. What's your beef?

Well fuck it, if you don't even give a shit about it I must be overinflating it in my mind.

[Siege]

Well fuck it, if you don't even give a shit about it I must be overinflating it in my mind.

Way I'm looking at it, if Shep, Lonestar, Skimmer and Beowulf want to have a cold war, or blow up planets, or do whatever in their little corner of space, they can go right ahead. They're on the other side of the map from me, their actions are very much unlikely to affect me in any significant way. If I were sitting next to them I might be slightly worried, but as it stands? Not so much.

'Sides and more generally speaking, we got mods to deal with any unwarranted dickery. Right?

[Steve]

Okay everyone, we are one week from official start (next Saturday).

Anyone hear from Shroom? I know he was going to spend June mostly off-line due to education or something....

[Force Lord]

Shroom is MIA as far as I know.

What things should we have ready by the time the game starts?

[Coyote]

Agent Sorchus and I have been putting together a first-contact post fairly slowly.

I know many people dislike 1st-contact stuff, but I enjoy them. [shrug]

[Steve]

Shroom is MIA as far as I know.

What things should we have ready by the time the game starts?

Ideally? Opening OrBat of some sort, if just listing how you've divvied your GDP-worth of starting military value points, a nice opening post, and maybe your military expansion plans for 3400.

[Beowulf]

I have an issue, I designed my mainline capital ships to be armed with lasers, but doing some poking around it seems that for the same energy a mass driver will damn near always give you more bang for your buck. I mean, why bother using your wattage for lasers when that same energy does more damage if put towards launching a chunk of metal at something. The issue I have is that a 1.08e16 W laser imparts 2.6 megatons to a target, that same force used to accelerate a mass of 50,000 tons would accelerate it to around 70% the speed of light and cause your 5.5m by 27m chunk of magnetically coated Tungsten to impart hundreds of teratons of energy. Changing to a system like this hows that given the right focus technology wise even Mater/Anti-mater can deal serious damage to damn near anything.

This of course assumes my math isn't grossly wrong.

The same goes for an efficient VASIMR engine using compressed Xenon as a fuel, using a capacitor that would get 1 kiloton from a 60% efficient laser will propel a rather heavy warhead very quickly into things for high gigaton to low teraton energy transfers.

Your math is grossly wrong.

I had guessed as much, as it seemed pretty off to me. However I think I did the math for my missiles right, I haven't had to do much with physics since back in high school though so please correct me on my horrible mistakes.

Mass of a fully fueled missile = 44,000kg
Mass of a missile that has expended all propellant = 11,200kg

The Xenon compressed by the force of 500 gravities is forced through a VASIMR style engine that is feed 1.67 x 1012 W at a rate of 1312kg per second. That we can convert 80% of that wattage into accelerating the gas we then get that 1,312kg of gas being forced out of the rocket at a velocity of 124.6 million m/s. If my math is right this means that, assuming 100% of this force is translated into forward momentum we get a force of 1.6728 x 10[sup]11[/sup] N acting against a mass of 42,688kg thus propelling it forward at 3,918,666m/s after the first second of engine burn. Even assuming that the missile doesn't accelerate faster as the missile loses fuel mass we end up with a final velocity of 97,966,650m/s after a full 25 second burn. I am aware that some velocity should be lost at this percentage of light speed, but as I did not increase the acceleration after each second to account for lost mass I think it is a good rough estimate.

Plugging 11,200kg and 97,966,650m/s into the calculator on the main site gives me a kinetic energy of 14 gigatons as a rough estimate for energy that would be imparted to a target when the missile strikes after a full burn.

This is assuming that the missile starts at a velocity of 0 m/s and my math isn't horribly wrong again.

None of the above actually makes much of a difference. The resultant gain in kinetic energy cannot be greater than the amount of energy used to accelerate the object in the first place. If it does, then conservation of energy is blown, and physics doesn't work as we think it does. 1.67 x 10[sup]12[/sup] W for 25 seconds is ~10 kilotons. Therefore the maximum energy of a projectile accelerated by that amount of power, for that amount of time, is 10 kilotons. If the engine is only 80% efficient, then it's 8 kilotons max. Ergo, the maximum dV of your projectile is 27km/s.

The initial error you have is that your exhaust velocity is incorrect. It is not 124.6 million m/s, but rather 20km/s. Derivation of this figure is left as an exercise for the reader.

[Norade]

Just goes to show that I didn't retain much of my high school physics and google in the wee hours of the morning likes to fuck me over. Even then it looked like I was fucking up conservation of energy badly but couldn't place it.

[Akhlut]

Anyone hear from Shroom? I know he was going to spend June mostly off-line due to education or something....

Shroom's out for some HUEG NUERSING FINALS until the first week of July, as I recall.

[Akhlut]

I'm still in this, BTW. I've just been busy, as my car's been fucking up and I have a toddler. I'll try to get an OrBat up soonish.

Also, who wants to be friends with Space Dinosaurs?

[Simon_Jester]

Got nothing against Space Dinosaurs, especially Space Dinosaurs that are willing to buy really big particle cannon. Or custom-tailored sub-sentient "expert system" AI packages.

Well, in the Commune, the distinction between civilian and military ships is going to be hazier- no private property, at least not on the scale of a starship, right?

Private starships? You're kidding, right?

That's my point. The very idea is laughable. Therefore, the distinction between civilian and military ships is sort of arbitrary- accomodations for Comrade Soldier and Comrade Computer Technician are going to be broadly identical, and so forth. The only difference is that ships will not be armed if there is no foreseeable need for them to defend themselves, because they're rear area units that will either operate only in secure space or under convoy.

There's no reason to distinguish between "unarmed civilian" and "armed military" ships, though.

[K. A. Pital]

Yeah, that's true. BTW, Steve, can I mess with Commune wiki page (rename ships, add some info and illustrations), and how do I make international relations with others? I see a chart - should I perhaps just assume neutrality and allow everyone else to define their own relations with me?

Oh, and also - for those who think the Commune is all roses... that's not so. We don't cannibalize people or aliens, but those who are kidnapped or taken prisoner during military or intel operations don't have a brilliant future... or any future at all, for that matter.

[Steve]

Yeah, that's true. BTW, Steve, can I mess with Commune wiki page (rename ships, add some info and illustrations), and how do I make international relations with others? I see a chart - should I perhaps just assume neutrality and allow everyone else to define their own relations with me?

Okay, anyone fluent in spreadsheets please alter the one Teleros set up to add Stas and Katr_Kana? Then people can start marking our mutual relations with them.

And sure, go ahead and set up wiki pages. If you'd like to I like to see people register on wikia to do their contributions and stuff.

[Ryan Thunder]

Done.