Babylon 5 Mod

[Suicide Junkie]

I'll get some more results for you in about 8 hours.

Val: could you post some example weapons for me to use? Just one light, medium and heavy gun would do. I need to get a rough size & hitpoint value in order for the test to be accurate.

[Val]

I'll post some average weapons in each department for you this afternoon

[Val]

Sorry, haven't had a chance to post much today or get the weapons up for you

Massive project at work that the due date was moved from 2/8 to 2/1, and they only let us know Last night - typical!

I will try to get some posted this weekend - though it will more likely be Monday - I'm really sorry

On the brighter side my OT more than pays for the new cable modem I wanted to get

[Suicide Junkie]

No prob. Could you mention what the hitpoints of the typical classes of guns & engines are? That's all I need.

[Andrés]

I mentioned this in the Sci-Fi crossover mod, but probably you didn't see it.
Starwars engines are: first Atomic Drive, then Implosion Drive, and finally HK Ion Drive.

Now it would be nice if atomic drives were similar to b5 fission engines and ion drives similar to standard ion engines.
Would it be ok to make fission engines worse?
I was thinking of 1.5 times size and cost.

[Suicide Junkie]

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Now it would be nice if atomic drives were similar to b5 fission engines and ion drives similar to standard ion engines.
Would it be ok to make fission engines worse?
I was thinking of 1.5 times size and cost.

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You want the fission drive to be weakened, so it matches up with an "atomic drive".

Is there any reason why the "atomic drive" must be fusion? It could be a fission drive and still be called "atomic"

Also, SW engines can't be designed into B5 hulls, and vice versa, so there is really isn't any point of comparison except the final speed of the ship, which depends on many other factors.

[ 02 February 2002: Message edited by: suicide_junkie ]

[Suicide Junkie]

Somebody tell me what the problem here is:
All ships defaulted on design to "Optimal Firing Range".

I edit the Optimal firing range strategy, and set targeting priority to "Least damaged, Least damaged, Least damaged, Least damaged."
I uncheck "damage targets until weapons gone".

Simmed combat: Every freaking ship attacks the same target, and pounds the crap out of it until the weapons are gone or it is destroyed.

I check the "damage until weapons gone"

Combat again: Same stupid thing.

What am I doing wrong here? Does the simulator just ignore strategies or something?!?

[Fyron]

The simulator is screwed up. Don't trust it to test strategies and ship designs under computer control, because it often doesn't work properly.

Also, I don't think that giving the ships multiple targeting priorities that are the same is a good idea. It might confuse the AI.

[ 02 February 2002: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Andrés]

Atomic Drives are described to use a fission reactor to generate electromagnetic waves that reflect off the space-time fabric of realspace, creating momentum. They are extremely radioactive, and must be stored in a pod that is kept away from the living and working areas of the rest of the ship.

Implosion Drives and High-Pressure Implosion Reactors emit an intense gravitic field that dimples the space-time continuum of realspace, causing the vessel to move. These engines are extremely high-maintenance drives.

Both of them are also described to be out-dated and not in use anymore.

And what everybody uses now are Hoersch-Kessel Ion Drives that use a power source to generate ions, which are expelled through an exhaust nacelle to create thrust. The fuel is first broken down into nuclear energy and converted to ions. These ions are then expelled from the ship, which causes the ship to move in the direction opposite the thrust. Given that the H-K Ion Drive creates radioactive nuclear energy, any ship that is equipped with one must require towing or the addition of a repulsorlift to travel within a planet's atmosphere. Their use is extremely widespread, and they are low-maintenance drives.
And they Solar Ionization or "Fusion" Reactors to feed them. These reactors are strange because they are described to be fusion reactors that can use any fuel as power source, but are more efficient with heavy metals.
The one that first wrote about them didn't know what fusion means.
It's been corrected later by just saying that the word "fusion" doesn't mean nuclear fusion, but some other kind of reaction such as fusing matter into hypermatter (whatever that means).

I just thought that it would make the mod more consistent if similar devices that work with the same principle were similar.
The problem is that Fission Engines in the B5 mod are not only equivalents of standard Ion Engines in performance but also cheaper in price.

I was thinking about making Atomic Drives 1.5x price and size, Implosion Drives 2x in price and supply usage and HK Ion Drives equivalent of standard Ion Engines and get cheaper at higher levels.

[Suicide Junkie]

PS: Sorry to all the modem-Users out there. This is a tad long

quote:

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Also, I don't think that giving the ships multiple targeting priorities that are the same is a good idea. It might confuse the AI.

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Yeah, I was just angry.

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"The fuel is first broken down into nuclear energy and converted to ions."
"Given that the H-K Ion Drive creates radioactive nuclear energy"
"The one that first wrote about them didn't know what fusion means." I can tell .

Let me see if I can convert that stuff into something high-school physics students can believe .

quote:

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Atomic Drives are described to use a fission reactor to generate electromagnetic waves that reflect off the space-time fabric of realspace, creating momentum. They are extremely radioactive, and must be stored in a pod that is kept away from the living and working areas of the rest of the ship.

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OK, we have a fission drive. Possibly using uranium/plutonium type materials. Naturally very dirty, and leaves toxic, radioactive materials as waste.
The distance from living areas makes sense, since you want to keep the weight of shielding material (heavy water or thick lead bulkheads) down. You don't want to have to haul to much of that around.
The actual propulsion would suck if you just directed EM radiation out the back. You're spending lots of energy, but not getting much momentum. Use the energy of the atomic decay to fling the waste atoms out the back. Much more momentum, for less energy expenditure, and you don't have to store the waste.

quote:

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Implosion Drives and High-Pressure Implosion Reactors emit an intense gravitic field that dimples the space-time continuum of realspace, causing the vessel to move. These engines are extremely high-maintenance drives.

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If we accept the ability to generate gravity, then OK. The ship gets a forward push, and the reaction would be to give all the objects behind the ship the same force in the opposite direction. The thrust of a ship or fleet, spread out among half the stars, planets and nebulae in the universe; nothing noticable happens to them .

quote:

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And what everybody uses now are Hoersch-Kessel Ion Drives that use a power source to generate ions, which are expelled through an exhaust nacelle to create thrust. The fuel is first broken down into nuclear energy and converted to ions. These ions are then expelled from the ship, which causes the ship to move in the direction opposite the thrust. Given that the H-K Ion Drive creates radioactive nuclear energy, any ship that is equipped with one must require towing or the addition of a repulsorlift to travel within a planet's atmosphere. Their use is extremely widespread, and they are low-maintenance drives....

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Well, it looks like a step backwards in technology (gravity manipulation down to ion drives???), but what the hey.
Ions are easy to generate with electricity.
Ions are easy to fling out with electricity.
We get the electricity from a nuclear reactor. Since the end products are radioactive, we do not have a fusion reactor as we know them.
Fusion reactors don't generate fuel. Something that looks tangentially like fusion would be the formation of a Bose-Einstein condensate.
At the very least, you would have a insanely high density fuel source.
Now, we've got a nuclear reactor with ultra-potent fuel to drive our ion engine.
Along with a more efficient (likely superconducting) ion manipulation, you get a cheap, high-power density drive. Certainly not the ultimate in fuel efficiency (0.1%), but you can pack in tons of BEC fuel.


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quote:

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I was thinking about making Atomic Drives 1.5x price and size, Implosion Drives 2x in price and supply usage and HK Ion Drives equivalent of standard Ion Engines and get cheaper at higher levels.

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Forget about size as a defining characteristic.
Make it "movement points per KT", "$ per movement point", and "supplies used per movement point".
You can then easily find the stats for biggie-sized drives of the same type. (EG: 3 large main engines & 4 smaller engines.)

quote:

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The problem is that Fission Engines in the B5 mod are not only equivalents of standard Ion Engines in performance but also cheaper in price.

I was thinking about making Atomic Drives 1.5x price and size, Implosion Drives 2x in price and supply usage and HK Ion Drives equivalent of standard Ion Engines and get cheaper at higher levels.

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From what you posted before, and what I've translated, the difference between the Fission engines and the HKIDs would be the fact that the HKIDs can store 1000x more supplies

Atomic drives == fission engines.
Basic average engine.

Implosion drives == gravitic drives
More MP/KT, but much higher cost, maybe lower fuel efficiency.

HK Ion drives ?? fission engines
(SW only) Slightly more MP/KT than Atomic drive, but nearly unlimited supplies, and almost zero maintenance.

Antimatter powered drives:
(B5/trek) Lower Supplies/MP, average size/MP, expensive

"Hyperspace taps", I have no idea about.

I could imagine that SW engine technology stagnated when no-maintenance engines came out.
If, when you bought a car, it came with 10 years of gas, and wouldn't break down, alternative engine technologies would be unlikely to progress. They could make them beefier, but just not any more efficient.

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B5 & trek forked off on a different path, squeezing every drop of fuel efficiency possible.
I don't think B5 has antimatter widespread, just clean & efficient (though large) fusion reactors.
Antimatter, of course is 100% fuel to energy, and the Romulan singularity (aka Black Hole) ("Hawking Reactors", I believe) are too.

The tradeoff between antimatter & black holes is:
- antimatter is relatively safe, and can be stored passively.
- holes use any fuel; even dirty socks & toxic waste will do.

Both have no waste, theoretically, but the "Dilithium" used as a catalyst eventually wears out into toxic "Trilithium".

[ 03 February 2002: Message edited by: suicide_junkie ]