April 23, 2024: Dwarf Fortress 50.13 has been released.
News: February 3, 2024: The February '24 Report is up.
News: February 4, 2021: Dwarf Fortress Talk #28 has been posted.
News: November 21, 2018: A new Threetoe story has been posted.
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Blood Red Cross (6): Cronos5010, TricMagic, Madman, Strider, Empiricist, Twinwolf
-name them the Knights Reliquar instead (2): Twinwolf, Madman
Guérillas sans Frontières/Happy Days (1): MoP
The Blood-Red Cross (3): Cronos5010, TricMagic, Madman
Guérillas sans Frontières/Happy Days (1): MoP
Plasma Laser Deflection System
Military R&D has often gone hand in hand with the study of physics. In light of the recent battles with laser warships, the conventional understanding of compensating for focused laser fire, that of trying to actively cool the hull and armor, to be insufficient. So again we turn to physics to find a way to negate the advantages of our enemy.
The observation that laser frequencies can be thinned or stopped altogether by plasma is one of those technologies. With the advances and perfection of our understanding of fusion and plasma drive systems, the idea has arisen to use powerful electromagnets embedded in a facing of a ship to manipulate gas plasma into a shield from which we may shelter a ship during it's operation to within striking distance of a laser capable warship, without interfering with our own firing system.
More info: https://www.blogarama.com/technology-blogs/1277695-techdigg-blog/18976469-physics-student-proves-real-life-star-wars-deflector-shield-possible
Plasma Laser Deflection System
Difficulty: Hard
Roll: 2 + 3 - 1 = 4 Below Average
Plasma can be good at absorbing incoming light, since it's made of a whole lot of ions and electrons floating around and available to absorb a wide variety of wavelengths. We also know more or less how to contain a plasma inside a reactor. Unfortunately, it's not all that easy to do externally, but we've more or less managed it.
The PLDS siphons plasma (quite a bit of plasma) and energy (quite a bit of energy) to run the electromagnetics that then form the plasma into a shieldish shape in front of the ship. Unfortunately, we've yet to find a reliable way to confine the plasma and rely instead on pumping plasma into a sort of magnetic "bowl", the plasma being forced to remain inside the "bowl" by the ship's own combat acceleration. A shield cannot presently be established on any other facing and cannot be run when the vessel is not accelerating, and the shield becomes denser and more powerful with a faster-moving ship, as the acceleration forces the plasma closer together in the magnetic "bowl".
It's effective, however. Depending on the ship and how much of a shield system is mounted some versions can dissipate an immense amount of laser energy before basically "evaporating", or rather being heated to a high enough energy to escape confinement entirely faster than the plasma can be replenished.
There are problems, of course. Shipwide fire rates and accelerations tend to be lower overall due to the massive power draw, the system is insanely expensive, it can only protect one facing of the ship at a time, and of course any change of course forces a complete shield reset. And the plasma cannot be "recycled" in any way whatsoever, so the ships also require more internal storage to hold more fusion fuel. But there is great potential in it.
Plasma Laser Deflection System: Generates a bowl-shaped shield of plasma in front of an accelerating warship. Effectively reduces reactor power output by a substantial amount and is lost when hit by too much laser fire or when the ship changes direction or if you'd like to use your direct plasma drive or weapons at full speed and power.
Cost: +2 SPP to a Logos' base cost to add PLDS
+4 SPP to a Peitho's base cost to add (more powerful but mostly larger) PLDS
+3 SPP to add a sufficiently huge system to an ITC (um....why would you even bother?)
"Delta Lofstrum Loop"
When it comes to getting materials out of the ground, we have refined that down fairly well. However, what we continue to brute force is the moving of materiel to orbit. There are conceptually, and practically better ways to accomplish the task. The more shuttle craft can dedicate to cargo vs fuel, the more we can move to orbit.
The proposed solution for Planet D or Delta is to build a Lofstrum Loop. Easily 2000 km long and a maximum altitude of 80 km. "The loop runs along at 80 km above the earth for 2000 km then descends to earth before looping back on itself rising back to 80 km above the earth to follow the reverse path then looping back to the starting point. The loop would be in the form of a tube, known as the sheath. Floating within the sheath is another continuous tube, known as the rotor which is a sort of belt or chain. The rotor is an iron tube approximately 5 cm (2 inches) in diameter, moving around the loop at 14 km/s (31,000 miles per hour). Although the overall loop is very long, at around 4,000 km circumference, the rotor itself would be thin, around 5 cm diameter and the sheath is not much bigger.
"When at rest, the loop is at ground level. The rotor is then accelerated up to speed. As the rotor speed increases, it curves to form an arc. The structure is held up by the force from the rotor, which attempts to follow a parabolic trajectory. The ground anchors force it to go parallel to the earth upon reaching the height of 80 kilometers. Once raised, the structure requires continuous power to overcome the energy dissipated. Additional energy would be needed to power any vehicles that are launched.
"To launch, vehicles are raised up on an 'elevator' cable that hangs down from the West station loading dock at 80 km, and placed on the track. The payload applies a magnetic field which generates eddy currents in the fast-moving rotor. This both lifts the payload away from the cable, as well as pulls the payload along with 3g (30 m/s²) acceleration. The payload then rides the rotor until it reaches the required orbital velocity, and leaves the track."
Delta Lofstrum Loop
Difficulty: Very Hard
Roll: 2 + 3 - 2 = 3 Buggy Mess
Well, we've successfully installed some metal on the surface of Delta. Theoretically, a Lofstrum loop is a totally doable form of surface-to-orbit transfer. Practically, it is an immense engineering challenge beyond anything we've ever attempted requiring advanced materials science and also an absolutely incredible amount of resources in order to construct. We're sure it's doable, it just...kinda broke. Um, that is to say, the scale model demonstrator assembled on Delta's surface kind of broke and smashed the entire camp to pieces. However, we've still laid out basic plans and figured out the failure, so there's that.
Continued investment into infrastructure on the planet will likely improve its defensibility as we build on the surface, but at present the failure of the Lofstrum loop is not going to really change anything.
Delta Lofstrum Loop: Several huge pieces of broken metal from a scale model, some crushed hopes and torn dreams.
High-Velocity Ordinance Caseless Machine Gun (H-VOC Machine Gun
The H-VOC Machine gun is a belt-fed heavy machinegun designed for emplacement onto vehicles and fixed positions. It is technically man-portable, weighing in at just under 32 kilograms or 70 pounds: Best Practice is ot not issue it to infantry that is expected to assault a fixed position. The furniture, tri-pod, elements of the casing, and liquid-cooling shroud/radiator for the barrel are made out of modern composites and plastics to reduce weight. the Action is made out of ceramic materials that quickly wick heat off into the metal barrel and its cooling shroud, while the propellant of the rounds is made out of a non-crystalline powder with a higher ignition point to prevent premature detonation. the rounds are large but not as large as original proposal specs due to little-to-no expected enemy armor. It is designed to fight infantry, light vehicles and low flying aircraft.
To that end, it almost mimics the ballistic profile and energy of the .50 BMG of old earth, with a reduction of energy to 9,000 and 13,500 foot-pounds force (12200~ and 18300 J) from 10,000 and 15,000 foot-pounds force (14,000 and 20,000 J). It fires caseless telescoped munitions.
In atmospheric operations, the liquid cooling shroud can be replaced with an air-cooled barrel that is just as effective at radiating heat while reducing the system's base weight to 28 kilograms. While the weapon is not as light as it could be compared to a traditional cased weapon, The weight from replacing a brass cartridge with an outer layer of solidified propellant allows for twice as many rounds to be carried in 60% of the volume and 50% of the weight. Combined with its recoil-operated open-bolt (open bolt reduces accuracy but reduces heat concerns) feed system, it is able to fire 1000 rounds a minute.
High-Velocity Ordinance Caseless Machine Gun
Difficulty: Easy
Roll: 3 + 1 + 1 = 5 Average
It's a .50 caliber machinegun. It uses fancy caseless rounds and it has slightly less energy and it's smaller and it's really just a .50 caliber machinegun that fires lightweight bullets giving reduced energy. It is perfectly serviceable as a weapon. The caseless ammunition gives it heating issues particularly in airless environments, but that problem can be dealt with by firing less when necessary.
High-Velocity Ordinance Caseless Machine Gun: It's a reasonably lightweight caseless .50 caliber machinegun that does lots of damage and shoots lots of bullets fast. Easy to ship as it's not that big.
Size: 0 TC
Cost: 2 GPP
SID Starship Interceptor Destroyer Balor Prototyping
The Balor is a test bed with the explicit purpose of engineering Evrasium-based fusion systems into a functional system, and utilizing its power for ship-based propulsion. Half-finished chassis of Chords are lifted from their construction beds and into the research directorates clutches. All armor excepting structurally critical pieces are lifted from the chassis and replaced with miles of cable and infrastructure to support the beating heart of a star.
the ass-end of the Chord is ripped out and replaced with an Evrasium fusion reactor & a direct fusion drive. The pulsating beats of the Starfire Power Plant are the tempo at which gouts of plasma a half-mile long is ejected from the DVD. For power concerns, newly revised magnetoplasma drive turbines enable the drive reactor to be significantly more efficient than traditional evrasium systems to justify its cost. The Balors fusion reactor represents the maturity of design techniques and the implementation of evrasium fusion reactor.
With the systemic stripping of armor, the craft is much more maneuverable, with only a partial decrease in endurance: enemy projectiles over penetrated through Chords in traditional conflicts, thereby making armor worse than useless as it hampered ability to effectively dodge. To make up for a decrease in survival capability, drop tanks are added, designed to be disposed of after traversing to deployed systems allow for a safer system with a smaller chance likelihood of internal detonations from fighting in the field. a revision will be required to increase its manuverability through a augmented manuvering system and improve its EWAR capabilities so as to cement its role as a agile craft.
The result is a craft that is able to accelerate to speed three, dodge enemy fire with a much higher percentage of success while keeping the enemy where their railguns cannot do the most damage and return fire without being blown out of the sky.
Starship Interceptor Destroyer (SID) Balor Prototyping
Difficulty: Very Hard
Roll: 4 + 1 - 2 = 3 Buggy Mess
Increasing speeds beyond what is presently attainable has resulted in a remarkable series of failures. It's doable, for sure, but at present it's not going so hot. The Balor attempts to convert a Chord into an engine assembly with a warship's emaciated front half bolted on, and it shows. Most of the ship works as expected...sort of. Drop fuel tanks for a more or less inert fuel, carried by a vessel in a vacuum, are illogical, but they still made it on and now with the single accidental press of a button in the bridge, all the ship's fuel tanks will separate, bouncing around behind the hull plates on their way out and causing damage while also leaving the ship with less than five minutes of combat endurance.
The main drive system tends to leak plasma, burning holes in the ship and limiting its maintenance lifetime to "constantly under maintenance", though it technically can be deployed. Sort of. Problems within the drive system, in addition to the plasma leaks, lead to serious chronic underperformance. The ship is theoretically capable of achieving Speed 3, but at present struggles to reach Speed 2 in most conditions.
The Chord's three lasers are all located around the widest portion of the vessel to give them the best firing arcs, and so are retained. Three lasers is actually a much more reasonable armament for a ship like this, optimized for speed instead of mass and armor. However, the ship's structure is loaded with weak points where too much was taken out in the process of lightening the ship, making it absolutely fragile in combat. Improvements to the structure will render it somewhat more durable, but the engine system is just too big and cannot take huge amounts of damage without failure, potentially catastrophic.
If reworked, the Balor stands to be a very competent combat ship with its immense thrust potential allowing it to outmaneuver enemies with ease while making a good railgun firing solution nearly impossible to acquire. Given more powerful lasers or other standoff weapons, it could become nearly immune to railguns by kiting enemies at extreme ranges where its constant course changes can dodge any number of railgun rounds.
For now, though, the Balor is an broken and expensive boondoggle.
Starship Interceptor Destroyer (SID) Balor: An attempt at a high-speed starship based on the Chord and a massive direct fusion drive. Riddled with faults and failures, it cannot attain its goal but promises to be a capable combatant, if much more expensive than a Chord.
Special: could attain +1 Speed over present engine tech (Speed 3 right now) if it worked. It doesn't work.
Cost: 5 SPP
Lanes
Mountain: (1) Madman
Central: (1) Madman
- Focus Xi Shan: ()
- Focus Iqua: (1) Madman
Jungle: (0)
Weather
Mountain:
Abnormal Heat (reducing snowfalls and making people suffer for marching...a thing that we don't do): (1) Madman
Central:
Cold Snaps (to finish off the trifecta of "things going bad for crops" since that's a theme now): (1) Madman
Jungle:
Heat, Humidity, and Storms (maybe hopefully hastening the regrowth of the jungle by lengthening the growing season and providing lots of water, maybe?): (1) Madman
