Babylon 5 Mod

[oleg]

Good question. It can be traced to two tween's problem. Once we get to aceleration/breaking, we move from special relativity theory to general relativity and that is out of my field of expertise.

[Nomor]

That is incorrect Imperator. A sleek and smooth spaceship requires less thrust for the same acceleration than a bulky spaceship. There is ALWAYS resistance (stray space dust, small meteorites).

Is that why Thunderbird 3 was pointy at one end?

[Jamorobo]

Originally posted by Nomor:
Would it not be relative. If a pea came hurtling at you at .99c and hit your 6 foot steel hull would that not be the same as a 6 foot steel hull hitting a pea at .99c. The greater mass would win?
I think this was why energy shields were "invented", to push the debris of space out the way or deflect it?

Well The Challenger space shuttles windscreen was cracked in 1982 by a 0.02mm piece of paint, of course it was traveling at 32,000 kph. So a pea sized chuck of metal would do a hell of a lot of damage to a ship

[Nomor]

Ha...... That's what they tell you....... I think a mechanic dropped a spanner and they just wanted to claim on the insurance!
(I think the USA end has all gone to bed.) It is 10.30pm after all!

Does anyone know what a fleck of paint travelling at 32,000 KPH would do to a 6 foot steel hull?

To borrow a quote: "NEVER argue with fools, they only bring you down to their level and beat you... with experience."

[ September 17, 2002, 22:31: Message edited by: Nomor ]

[Jamorobo]

naa USA is about 5 hours behind the uk so it's 5:30 on the east coast, therefore they should be getting back from work (The word "work" is sooo misleading)

Also Val, will the mod be done by the end of the week? Perhapse with new ai???

[pathfinder]

Werk? what that?

New AI? *passes out*

[Val]

Val is still at work and probably will be until laaaate tonight, hence my lack of frequent Posts. One of the team had a heart attack so I'm picking up the slack and working something on the order of 14-17 hour days. Bleck

I'm still hoping to get out of here early on a few nights in the later half of the week to get this next release for the mod done. Regardless, I will have something by the weekend (or real early Monday morning) that will be of considerable worth.

I'm still mulling on Ph-D's whole external/internal mass thing, oy my head hurts!

Internal/External
Consider it more effective cargo storage. So a strut is mounted on the ship and the increased cargo capacity are large cargo containers that are attached to the ship. How's that? Ditto for the external fighter catapults. The reason they kind of act as armor is that they are more exposed and easier to target, and who wouldn't want to cripple a ship's ability to launch/recover fighters?

Gregbowman
The current target is a lot of PBW stuff, but PF, Simon and I have also been hard at work on the AI side of things. The PBW/M is important, as it will let us test the mod as a whole in ways I would never think. It will help us to root out abussive weapons or make useless weapons useful. It also gives us some insight into what to have the AI do. My 'ultimate' goal is a solid AI with a quality mod, something that is challenging, but not impossible. Ah, to dream!

Killer
What type of errors?

AGoetz
I downloaded your save and am trying to fix up the AI to avoid the errors.

Lighthorse
What I 'really' want is one shot missiles/weapons, or has that been added and I missed it? I know I can make it fire once per combat giving it a reload of 30. Could also make it destroyed after use, or is that only for components used on the main screen of buttons?

Nomor
Heh, good story

Pathfinder
I'm sure he is referring to having all of your AI in one easy to use capsule - not actual new AI again

[ September 18, 2002, 00:14: Message edited by: Val ]

[jimbob]

Nomor asked:

Would it not be relative. If a pea came hurtling at you at .99c and hit your 6 foot steel hull would that not be the same as a 6 foot steel hull hitting a pea at .99c. The greater mass would win?

If my Newtonian physics memory serves me, the equation for momentum is p=0.5 x mass x velocity^2. Therefore an increase in velocity has far more effect than mass in determining the total kinetic energy delivered. Of course this only applies at lower (Newtonian) velocities. I think that the energies required to accelerate a mass into the higher velocity realms would be much higher, imparting a greater kinetic energy, and so a higher damage potential than would be expected by Newtonian equations.

As to how well a 6 foot steel hull would stand up to this, you would need to determine how much kinetic force it could withstand (steel grade, reinforcement, any curvature for ablative effects, etc. all would come into play).

Val: I think that the intention of ship size is to indicate how much mass could be held within the confines of the ship (that is "inside" the ship). So while anything bolted onto the exterior should, in purely physical terms, count towards the mass limit for the ship type, the game simply doesn't allow us to model the difference between total ship mass and interior volume.
So, for the sake of gameplay, reducing the mass of external components remains the best method for modelling the fact that it is on the exterior, leaving more room inside the ship for other components. I suppose there should be a limit to how many externally mounted items there are (maybe limit of 1-2 of each item per ship) to indicate that you can't just keep stapling on more and more parts - there should be a theoretical limit to how much surface area a ship has afterall.

Just a few pennies worth...
Edited some sentences, now my pennies make more cents

[ September 18, 2002, 00:31: Message edited by: jimbob ]

[Nomor]

I still think someone dropped a spanner.. It's 12.45 AM Time for bed. I agree with your pennies worth...

[ September 18, 2002, 00:50: Message edited by: Nomor ]

[President_Elect_Shang]

I must point out my original post (Sep. 17 at 5:09) in that my “external” component was 0 tonnage space and 1 tonnage structure. It would absorb some damage (hence giving the armor ability) but would not take up any “internal” space of the ship. So why did this open a can of worms? Val said that the component needed the tonnage increased. I still say no it does not. This component works as I have tested it but now the AI Moding gurus need to see if they can make something like this work. The problem I was referring to in my original post is that without tight limits placed on each hull size I would think that the AI could run away and place hundreds of such components on a ship. This is also (if you were wondering) how the topic of mass and the affects of mass got started. This was not my intention.

*Edited after reading Jimbob's post again* Ya, what he just said!

[ September 18, 2002, 02:11: Message edited by: President Elect Shang ]