Semi-OT: A General Tech Question Thread for me :)

[Starhawk]

Thanks for the info BM that's probobly why the guy's work I read just called it a "bullet" because the military its self doesn't call it a grenade.

M-16 is a pissy little 5.56? lol I got my AKs and my M's confused hehe the AK series fires 7.62 because the Russians prefer a heavier punch, interesting.

Oh and El-Phil as far as the subject of Kinetics vs Energy weapons goes I've done some reading inspired by your points and I find it interesting to note that in effect an "energy weapon" is still using Kinetic kill principles it's just different somehow.
I think a gravity based anti-bullet shield could slow down a bullet and reduce it's KE enough for the armor to stop the actual damage, however I do after reading agree with you that it could simply not stop ALL KE without using so much energy its self that the shield would require as much energy as the ship's entire systems.


Now on to the plausibility of shields using gravitic principals that doesn't actually require "physics defying" technology as it simply involves (not simply but you know what I mean) a race learning how to create an artificial gravity well around the ship. And I think you'd need to learn how to manipulate gravity to shoot a black hole at someone (and you said that's quite possible) so hehe.


As far as gravity without constant acceleration or rotation goes, no my ships don't have rotating sections but they are very often accelerating and the compensators drain off enough of the gravity effects to give the crew 1g on ship while the ship may actually be going 200 gravities.

However to not "fudge" that too much (using your favorite word lol) the compensators don't have infinite drainability and the faster the ship accelerates the more G force gets through to the crew so for an SD going 600 gravities the crew would be getting slammed with 5 G.

I know the very principal of an inertial compensator "defies physics" but at least here I'm trying to make one slightly more reasonable then the ST infini-compensator right .

And the reason I get mad at you El-Phil is because I don't like being talked down too simply because I'm younger then a lot of you folks, if you are going to say something is "utterly impossible" give me more reasons then just "because physics says so" okay, like WHY physics says so.

I mean to be honest physics is a head-in-vice sort of science because you've got newtonian, relitivistic and some third one I can't remember lol and all of them have different principals and crap so it's hard to keep track of it all right .

[El_Phil]

The explanations are never simple, or the details of it aren't, and in general people do tend to go 'Arrrrrrrrrrrgh!' and run off screaming at the concepts. The maths are worse. You can simplify things, but then you risk lose the meaning. "Things should be as simplified as far as possible, but no further." Einstien I believe.

As for the gravity when a ship stops or is at constant speed your crew should be floating around. Now this isn't really very neat, honour guards drifting around the room, coffee drifting towards the screens etc, but it's the way it goes.

Just as a side point, I do remember something about G force tolerance being massively variable. A big naval aviation study ,if I recall, had variance from 2.5 to 7.5 for blackouts in pilots/personnel. Of course you'd hope it was the pilots at 7Gs and the cleaners at 2.5 but still.

[Starhawk]

Well someday maybe someone will figure out how to create a gravity field so for the sake of keeping things nice in this story I'll just assume that I Know not very "scientific" but I don't want to have to deal with the even more complicated and pain in the butt problems that come about when you have rotating sections.

[El_Phil]

Nothing wrong with a rotating section, except when it stops rotating of course...

Now I remember a name 'Alistar Reynolds.' anyone read any off his stuff? There's a guy who takes things seriously. As in journeys take years/decades as light speed is the limits and people have to wear exo-suits when the ship accelerates at high Gs. Masochisticly hard science really.

[Starhawk]

Trust me El Phil I've read a few different opinions on the "problems" that come in with rotating sections, which is in part why I asked about that idea here.

I've heard any number of things like friction, amount of power required yadda yadda that people threw at one another as to why or why not rotating sections would work.

[kerensky]

Rule number 37: There is no such thing as overkill. There is only "Open Fire" and "Time To Reload".

[El_Phil]

Given the choice between floating into scalding hot coffee when the ship stops accelerating or a rotating section I know what I'd choose... Full on artificial gravity.

If you don't like rotating sections then perhaps consider the rotating ship. An idea I got from a Heinlein book, essentially the enire ship 'rolls' along. No friction or bearings to think about, full gravity for the whole ship (admitedly variable strength, but you can't have everything) it seems clever. I haven't put that much thought into practical issues, but none are jumping up at me right now.