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More from waaagh
Intra-solar missle cruiser, without N-Space translation drive. Nicely visible are the graphite radiators of the magnetic bottle, and the missle launchers just behind the crew module.
Rough-ish sketch, trying to pin this down further. Looks are coming around a little nicer now.
I´m currently debating wether or not the universe will feature shields, since they´re kinda handwavium, but I think they´ll find their way in somehow.
The design is inheritly flawed, though, because I drew before I started thinking. The loader for the misle launchers is the tube on the side of the ship, just behind the rotating launcher, inbetween the bulges that store the foldable main radiator panels. During combat, excess heat generated by the drive and reactor that can´t be processed by the fixed radiators is moved there.
During combat, the radiators are stowed, since they are extremely vulnerable to any kind of attack. A ship without a means to get the heat outboards is a roasted ship... now what happens with all that ammunition and rocket fuel when the radiators are stowed, collecting heat until they glow red-hot...?
PEWF!
Pretty Explosive White Flash.
Other than that, nice.
Rough-ish sketch, trying to pin this down further. Looks are coming around a little nicer now.
I´m currently debating wether or not the universe will feature shields, since they´re kinda handwavium, but I think they´ll find their way in somehow.
The design is inheritly flawed, though, because I drew before I started thinking. The loader for the misle launchers is the tube on the side of the ship, just behind the rotating launcher, inbetween the bulges that store the foldable main radiator panels. During combat, excess heat generated by the drive and reactor that can´t be processed by the fixed radiators is moved there.
During combat, the radiators are stowed, since they are extremely vulnerable to any kind of attack. A ship without a means to get the heat outboards is a roasted ship... now what happens with all that ammunition and rocket fuel when the radiators are stowed, collecting heat until they glow red-hot...?
PEWF!
Pretty Explosive White Flash.
Other than that, nice.
Category Artwork (Digital) / Miscellaneous
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 1024 x 768px
File Size 501.1 kB
Non-handwavium shields can include stuff making use of things we know about - like, say, gravity. Ridiculously heavy gravity points on either end of a ship would yank laserbeams and missiles towards them while 'balancing' in a narrow area between the two. Could do the same with ferromagnetic fragments and all with electromagnets!
Yeah, but that would mean that the shield generators would need to be -insanely- powerful. It´s an interesting concept, though, to use a "bending" shield instead of the typical absorption/deflection "forcefield" things.
What I am pondering about is also using the handwavium FTL I´ve already implemented as a means of "shielding" a ship, but right now that would be more like a point defence weapon, instead of a real shield. I´m using a variant on the "hyperspace" trope, but with some severe restrictions to disallow ships from just jumping point to point instantaneously and r-bombing everything they come across.
Another Idea that popped up while reading "Pandora´s Star" was some sort of device that punctually increases the strength of the affected area on the ship... like, the bond between the atoms. That´s physically impossible, though, at least I think it is, so I´m still a little wavy on that...
what I don´t want it Star Wars or Star Trek style bubbles.
What I am pondering about is also using the handwavium FTL I´ve already implemented as a means of "shielding" a ship, but right now that would be more like a point defence weapon, instead of a real shield. I´m using a variant on the "hyperspace" trope, but with some severe restrictions to disallow ships from just jumping point to point instantaneously and r-bombing everything they come across.
Another Idea that popped up while reading "Pandora´s Star" was some sort of device that punctually increases the strength of the affected area on the ship... like, the bond between the atoms. That´s physically impossible, though, at least I think it is, so I´m still a little wavy on that...
what I don´t want it Star Wars or Star Trek style bubbles.
Hm! That would make for a nice type of shock-absorber for the engines, though, since especially large starships are threatened with being crushed by their own drives unless they get the front moving just as fast as the tail begins to move.
Unless one doesn´t have some sort of Anti-G system, though, because then even a 2G permanent acceleration could be pretty hard on the crew. Not even beginning to think about accelerations in the 3 - 5G range.
I think it´s not necessary to introduce something like that, even though without it any combat engagement could last months at times. With just several seconds or maybe minutes of actual being in weapons range, before having to turn around for a month and having a go at each other again... kind of like a three dimensional jousting match.
Unless one doesn´t have some sort of Anti-G system, though, because then even a 2G permanent acceleration could be pretty hard on the crew. Not even beginning to think about accelerations in the 3 - 5G range.
I think it´s not necessary to introduce something like that, even though without it any combat engagement could last months at times. With just several seconds or maybe minutes of actual being in weapons range, before having to turn around for a month and having a go at each other again... kind of like a three dimensional jousting match.
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