NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC comments for the RP to be posted here, and also requests to join and what not. However, because we've got a good supply of victims, I mean players already, probably only going to accept one or two more.

So when should we start vaporis-er... Gathering the various players together with their dignitaries?

Simmer down you two.

o hai liek wut b goin on in dis hear thred

Asking a race that specializes in plasma to simmer down... can't help but find that ironic. :3

Anyway, finished my orientation at work, so I'll be posting more on weekdays. :3

I am simmered down >.> just contemplating who'll get vaped first.

Okay, because I can't resist:

Couple of things I've noticed, starting with the mirror hulls. Most lasers aren't actually part of the visible light spectrum, especially not combat lasers. Gamma and X-Ray are popular frequencies for combat lasers, and neither are effectively stopped by mirrors. Gamma rays, you will recall, are produced by nuclear explosions/reactions in RL, and are best blocked by A Metric Fuckton of heavy metals such as lead. X-ray lasers are essentially a focussed beam of X-ray radiation, and have an exceedingly long range. On the other hand, they can't really be directed in any sense, so you have to aim your ship rather than your 'x-ray laser turret'. Whatever, you've still got a ravening beam of laser death out to over one light minute.

So... mirror hulls will block UV wavelength lasers and above (visible light wavelengths, Infra-red), I guess, but certainly not gamma/X-ray lasers.

Plasma, I'm sorry to say, doesn't work at all. Plasma is essentially superheated gas, and gas wants to equalize its pressure with its environment. In space, that means 'expand into a diffuse cloud of nothing'. Imagine a gun shooting a jet of hot steam, and you've got a fair idea of a plasma gun. Will it work at exceedingly short ranges? (on the order of a few meters?) yes, of course. Space combat, unfortunately, takes place on the light-second scale, which is roughly 3x10^8 (or 300,000,000) meters.

Many people claim to contain their plasma within a magnetic bottle or field of some kind, but then we run into the following problem: said field needs to be maintained. In other words, for every bolt of plasma, your ship must generate a roughly spherical bubble of force that travels from the plasma gun to the target. This, charmingly enough, is impossible.

I'm not saying that you can't use plasma guns, I just like ranting about physics.

To whomever took issue with my sensors, I direct you to this page (http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3w.html). Again, I'm perfectly fine with having my fleets be massively confused by RT's cloak, but I'm also sticking by my guns on this one. My entire space navy fleet is tiny, it has nine capital ships which mass rather less than a Star Destroyer (they are, in fact, smaller versions of the Battlestars in BSG 2003). I think I can afford a little bit of sensor wizardry, no?

I'm actually quite aware of the limitations on plasmas blooming effect, and as soon as I found out about this started thinking of ways around it.

It was always my intention to have the Sertians plasma weapons be hypervelocities, or rather, half way between a plasma bolt and a particle beam. This was the reason behind their Emprium armor being resistant to kinetic and thermal damage, as a race's primary weapons/defenses would be based off of their own tech. After they researched the Emprium, it has been their best armor, so it hasn't changed.

Now I know this still limits their range, and just makes the problem worse in an atmosphere (fireclouds are nice...), and thinking about it I came up with another solution. Given the fact that that plasma is such a magnetic substance, and also the fact that the Sertians mix metal atoms with their plasma (turning it into a plasma as well), I utilized a dynamo effect for their plasma bolts.

In a sense, their plasma weaponry is set in a rotating manner, such that the rotation generates a magnetic field which in turn keeps the plasma rotating so that it continues to create the field. This prevents it from spreading out, and combined with the high speeds allows it to be an effective weapon.

However, in an atmosphere since there's so much aerial resistance their plasma weapons have less range than modern day firearms, a combination of aerial resistance and lack of arc. In space however, it's got an impressive range due to the high speeds, limited by the bleed off of energy and the limited resistance of the interstellar medium.


On another note, that stealth in space site you showed me gave me an idea for a stealth droid frigate utilizing a plasma beam core engine and cold plasma shields to absorb active sensors and to diffuse the heat, making it seem around 10-20 kelvins or whatever a comet/asteroid might be from the sun.