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[fredgiblet]

Might as well put it here, part 2 of the scrape of the old forums is complete.

https://rapidshare.com/files/458440410/ ... aid....txt

There might be some overlap or a few that fell between the cracks, but combine this with the old one and you've got a pretty comprehensive collection (minus the posts that were purged).

[Arioch]

Thanks, fredge. Here's a locally hosted version:

http://www.well-of-souls.com/temp/fredg ... ns_mk2.txt

[Mjolnir]

The ship itself would conduct the heat and the ship is full of air so pressure waves would also happen. The blast it self would make a expending pressure waves strong enough to fight the vacuum of space and move into the rest of the ship.

The thermal conductivity of the ship's materials is finite. Only the surface participates in direct conduction, and the fireball just doesn't last long enough for that to do much. The depth of radiant heating depends on the penetration of the radiation, which might not be nearly as high as that from a matter-antimatter reaction. And vacuum isn't something that has to be fought by a pressure wave, it's just an absence of matter to transmit a pressure wave.

Anything approaching complete vaporization requires sustained heat or pulverization of the ship by blast effect first. There'd be a large blast effect in this case because of the large amount of vaporized material from the reactor and surrounding structure, but given the weapons these ship are protected against, it's not a certainty that nothing survived.

again that small whit ball is only the start of the blast because Arioch showed as time goes on in the last panel on that line which so many people seem to over look.

I'm not overlooking that. Fireballs in vacuum expand. It means the fireball filled the panel, nothing more.

There’s also the logistical problem of where the rest of the anti-matter fuel had to be kept. This stuff is hard to handle so he has to be kept near the two engines and the logical place would be the back which was completely destroyed in that blast.

The volatility of the fuel means they would protect it well, and they carry enough for an extended voyage. They needn't have more than a small fraction of their total fuel in the engines at any time, and given that the ship isn't almost entirely fuel tank, the rate of transfer is low, so they could have the main store of propellant extremely well protected from any incidents happening in the reactors, which would be highly desirable specifically because of the damage that can be done by an exploding reactor.

So one way or the other all that anti-matter reacted.

Again, you simply do not know that from the information given.

But The heat made from a matter anti matter reaction would be far worse then that made by a thermonuclear device it may even be worse then touching to the sun. This reaction could form a quark–gluon plasma that is so hot it starts to braking down the fundamental forces of nature. It doesn’t matter how much of that heat was lost to space because the amount hitting the ship would be more then enough.

Thermonuclear devices...even plain old fission devices already achieve temperatures far greater than the surface of the sun. Even antimatter explosions won't get around the fact that most of the heat just won't have time to conduct into the interior of the ship through the vaporized and rapidly expanding material that was in contact with the fireball. And no, antimatter's not going to make a quark-gluon plasma, at worst it may induce some photodisintegration, and that only in the portion of the ship the high-energy, high-power gamma radiation actually reaches...if it's there to begin with.

All that plasma even you said could have rushed into the main body where the main tanks of anti matter would have been held.

It would have been forced in that direction, but the designers would have been able to anticipate that this might occur. It's not a given that the main fuel tanks were destroyed.

sorry Arioch has said it was anti-matter not some other form of exotic material.

It's described in the Insider as being some exotic material like antimatter, and I recall discussions on the forums where it was said that it was probably something different but similar in energy density. I do not recall that it was ever specifically stated that it was in fact antimatter.

edit: I see I was a bit late...and we have Word of God on the fate of Winter Tide and her crew.

[osmium]

Yeah my unclarity on the explosion was is this a sensor reading from another ship, or is the viewer floating in space. If it was a sensor, the explosion might not need to get that big to cause it to white out, just think about home movies that pan towards the sun for a bit.

I wasn't entirely complete, I was saying that I thought radiation was the major problem mostly because I'd expect there to be some sort of relief valve as well as extensive isolation between the living/ working quarters of the ship and the engineering sections (to borrow various sci fi parlance a la star trek et al). I would expect a loss of containment (or whatever they mean to imply) as being an event that is designed against, somewhat like a car impact or roll-over is designed for, not necessarily desired. Although this case of containment loss is certainly of significantly larger magnitude. Not sure it would be worth the weight to have significant armour there, or if engine hits usually cause only large explosions (or not enough damage) and that small explosions are unlikely (and hence there is little reason to spend that many resources on such a small probability event).

The difficulty in terminology to me is that disabled in naval terms means easily towed as it's still floating, whereas foundered means you need to dredge it up (unless it's in deep waters and then for most intents and purposes it's not coming back). In space there is no such thing as the surface of the water that neatly divides these two statuses. In my mind I think foundered has some conditional information carried with it. Almost like an order or proclamation from a leader that this vessel is disabled beyond means of recovery at the present time. Sure you *could* piece it together but any recovery or rescue is not a tactically sound idea (or perhaps you do not have the resources to pull off said operation due to acquired velocity). I sort of think that any Loroi can say a ship is disabled or decimated (powdered, whatever is the term for say direct kinetic hits by a multitude of torpedoes that turn a ship into a few million shards of shrapnel) but that someone in command needs to designate a ship foundered as it, to me, carries the further implication of recovering said vessel being too much effort (certainly to carry out on the tactical timescale) where in space it is hard to determine exactly what "too much effort" is but in naval combat the waterline conveniently does it for us, if a ship isn't sinking too fast you can tow it, tie it to another ship or two etc and it's pretty clear when a ship is easily recoverable or not. It's pretty simple to get to a ship in any condition (as noted by the Loroi now easily picking apart the Bellarmine and the Umiak coming along for the ride without specialized equipment (like say deep sea submarines as you might need in the ocean to root around in a foundered ship).

-O

[anticarrot]

edit: I see I was a bit late...and we have Word of God on the fate of Winter Tide and her crew.

Out of interest, would it be fair to say that Winter Tide was built with the possibility of surviving such a critical failure?

*The engine is in an armored pod outside the main hull. That come with a significant penelty of additional armor weight, and off axis thrust problems. Enhanced surival woudl seem a good reason. (Unless like NERVA, the reactors can only operate so close to each other.)
*In addition antimatter (as an example) only explodes when it encounters matter. It might not be too complex to build a blow-out panel system that ensures that 99% of the fuel doesn't contact anything reactive on the way out of the ship.
*Antimatter radiation largely pions, which are unreactive with matter for several dozen meters, and decay into 60% neutrinos, which are completely unreactive with normal mater. A more exotic material might produce even less reactive radiation. IIRC, the Winter Tide is relatively small, and large pieces of it might be inside a (relative) safety zone.

Yes she ship is toast, but is there a chance in similar circumstances some of the crew might have survived?

[icekatze]

hi hi

If you look at the schematic of the Tempest, you'll see that a lot of the fuel is stored in the pylons that connect the engine to the primary hull.

[fredgiblet]

Out of interest, would it be fair to say that Winter Tide was built with the possibility of surviving such a critical failure?

Sure. If an Abrams gets hit in the ammo storage it's designed to blow out in a way that won't kill the crew. It's entirely possible that the ship is designed with an eye towards surviving a reactor failure. However the amount of energy that appears to have been released is likely more than can be reasonably handled. There may be survivors in the front or the opposite pylon, or perhaps in the CIC (since it's typically in an extra armored subsection). I'm not holding my breath for more than a couple survivors though.

[Mjolnir]

Sure. If an Abrams gets hit in the ammo storage it's designed to blow out in a way that won't kill the crew. It's entirely possible that the ship is designed with an eye towards surviving a reactor failure. However the amount of energy that appears to have been released is likely more than can be reasonably handled. There may be survivors in the front or the opposite pylon, or perhaps in the CIC (since it's typically in an extra armored subsection). I'm not holding my breath for more than a couple survivors though.

In this case, it'd be more a matter of building things to deflect blast so it doesn't blow *in*. An armored wedge to deflect the blast away from the main fuel storage, for example. Best case, though, large chunks of the ship are just gone...it's no longer a functioning ship, it's wreckage. This was my interpretation of "foundered"...a catastrophic event that rendered the vessel completely non-functional as a spacecraft. Equating "foundered" with "completely destroyed as a solid object" by making an analogy with a ship going under the water still seems a stretch to me...to reference another example from the comic, I would say Bellarmine foundered after the first strike. Even if there were a friendly, secure shipyard in the system to tow her to, she'd be scrap. By this definition, Bellarmine hasn't foundered yet...and she's nothing but a collection of bits and pieces the Loroi ships have been picking over.

Given that they were being shaken around by the plasma weapon hits, I didn't really expect survivors...but there's recovery of the bodies if that is customary, and parts of the ship might still be worth salvage. Including the fuel itself...stuff with that energy content is probably valuable, and there may be equipment for doing a ship-to-ship transfer that would allow it to be recovered quickly.

[Arioch]

Out of interest, would it be fair to say that Winter Tide was built with the possibility of surviving such a critical failure?

Was the ship itself built to survive a reactor failure? Not really. In most combat situations, any damage that causes unrecoverable loss of main power is usually going to mean loss of the ship, unless one happens to be in friendly territory, or there are salvage assets nearby and there is a means of calling for them. Note that Stillstorm approved the request to scuttle the crippled Thunderbolt without questions. So warships are engineered around preventing such a failure in the first place, as much as is practical.

Was the ship built so that the crew could survive such failures? As much as is practical, but crew safety is a secondary concern to combat effectiveness. Features like ejectable reactor cores or blow-out fuel storage seem to me to be incompatible with protecting the reactor from external damage in the first place. However, most of the features designed to protect the ship from weapons fire will also be useful in protecting the crew from minor reactor mishaps.

I have the engines out in nacelles because I figure you want these reactors as far away from your crew as possible, just to reduce radiation exposure from normal operation. Putting them at the end of a long linear stalk makes your ship longer and harder to turn, whereas moving them out on both sides of the centerline can actually increase turn rate by allowing for differential thrust. And it looks cooler.

The fact that the Umiak have their engines within the body of the ship suggests that a) the Umiak reactors are better shielded, which follows to a degree with ships that have heavier armor and more extensive compartmentalization, and/or b) the Umiak just don't care as much about long-term health effects of radiation on their crews.

If you look at the schematic of the Tempest, you'll see that a lot of the fuel is stored in the pylons that connect the engine to the primary hull.

I think those would be propellant rather than reactor fuel (even a "mostly" reactionless drive still requires reaction mass, and a matter-annihilation reactor probably doesn't produce any on its own); the struts seem too vulnerable a place to store reactor fuel. I have a notion that the propellant tanks and the engine struts operate as part of the ship's cooling system, which might explain why they seem to be relatively unprotected, and why some ships seem to have redundant struts adjacent to each other.

Yes she ship is toast, but is there a chance in similar circumstances some of the crew might have survived?

I don't see why not.

[Trantor]

The fact that the Umiak have their engines within the body of the ship suggests that a) the Umiak reactors are better shielded, which follows to a degree with ships that have heavier armor and more extensive compartmentalization, and/or b) the Umiak just don't care as much about long-term health effects of radiation on their crews.

...or c) since they´re kinda insectoid, they can take far more radiation. See Cockroaches or Wasps.

[manticore7]

The fact that the Umiak have their engines within the body of the ship suggests that a) the Umiak reactors are better shielded, which follows to a degree with ships that have heavier armor and more extensive compartmentalization, and/or b) the Umiak just don't care as much about long-term health effects of radiation on their crews.

...or c) since they´re kinda insectoid, they can take far more radiation. See Cockroaches.

not to mention the extensive mdifications the Umiak made to their bodies, who knows what kind of protection that gives them.

[anticarrot]

Was the ship built so that the crew could survive such failures? As much as is practical, but crew safety is a secondary concern to combat effectiveness.

Actually in a modern military it isn't. Combat effectiveness is often directly proportional to training and combat experience. if you considder crews to be expendable then you never get that experience. Thats why modern NATO tanks have blow out panels, not to save the tank, but to ensure the crew survives. Logistically speaking, equipment is far easier to replace then people.

Actually, don't the Loroi have a bit of a problem in this reguard? I got the impression that the righer ranks are a century or more in age, but the bulk of the rank and file are barely 20. I assumed that a lack of trained and trustworthy (EG: Loroi) crew was one of the big Loroi bottlenecks. Of course that doesn't stop the Loroi elders from creating what amounts to a conscript navy, but that seems a little silly to me.

I have the engines out in nacelles because I figure you want these reactors as far away from your crew as possible

No arguement with the 'looks cooler' thing - but from an engineering point of view, not exactly. In anything like a torch drive the contaiment system has to act as a mirror for radiation as well. Otherwise not only will you lose most of your ISP but your ship will melt in seconds. Besides which all your super weapons are basically directed nuclear radiation anyway. If your hull can stop that without killing the crew then radiation is a non issue.

If it can't then a fist-sized 50gigaton antimatter bomb will suddenly make even pesky human torpedoes become much more useful. Even at 40G, it would still take Tempest 5 minutes to escape the lethal zone of a single bomlet. A cluster bomb torpedo would become a fast moving mine field tens or hundreds of miles across. Which is one of the reasons I assume radiation is a non issue.

[NOMAD]

Was the ship built so that the crew could survive such failures? As much as is practical, but crew safety is a secondary concern to combat effectiveness.

Actually in a modern military it isn't. Combat effectiveness is often directly proportional to training and combat experience. if you considder crews to be expendable then you never get that experience. Thats why modern NATO tanks have blow out panels, not to save the tank, but to ensure the crew survives. Logistically speaking, equipment is far easier to replace then people.

anitcarrot, you do have a point about today's western vehicles, I've read about the striker LAV vehicle that the US is counting on for their Fast deployment, high mobility forces. The book stated that eh strike have survived some very big IED's and most ( emphsis on most) of the time, they usually lose a wheel or two, with the suspension, but are recoverable. You could even make the same argument for todays ships that have little armour but are more survivable. next these vehicles don't have extreme High-energy power sources that ships in outsider have. with respect to Arioch comments, and echo them, their only some much a loroi or umaik ship right can make any ship survivable with a near A-matter reactor(s) for crew survivability. ( On earth example would be the larger battleships of WWI and WWII eras as their main gun magazines and power room could only be protect so much ( usually the belt armour was complemented with less thicker magazine room walls and limit blast containment and fire suppression ( read anything on HMS Hood vs Bismark).

Actually, don't the Loroi have a bit of a problem in this reguard? I got the impression that the righer ranks are a century or more in age, but the bulk of the rank and file are barely 20. I assumed that a lack of trained and trustworthy (EG: Loroi) crew was one of the big Loroi bottlenecks. Of course that doesn't stop the Loroi elders from creating what amounts to a conscript navy, but that seems a little silly to me.

now here I don't agree, since the loroi battle doctrine, loroi biology factor and cast structure work against your point.

1) the loroi gen OOB ( order of battle) is using long range attacks and fast movement against an opponent. This sort of hit and raid approach, to my mind, implies a less-casualty taking thinking ( and loroi ship are designed for fast movement and turning: IE the wide engine placement)

2) the Loroi biology, if you read the Insider guide is that Loroi are "adult" by 8 and complete stand education at around 12-14, depending on the cast a loroi warrior might find themselves ( herself ???) in. As well as, the high birth rate of the loroi, means that they can replace ( most or all, I don't know which) their loses quickly every 9 t- 12 years. besides the loror are facing the numerically superior Umiak and they need ever warrior they can muster.

3) As well, the loroi are highly trained force that is very disciplined ( and I'm sure the mizol ( intelligence services) and far-seers are keeping an eye on the loroi population ( but military and civil) for any decent. as well the loroi cast structure is very strict is discipline ( despite the truthfullness of Loroi telepathy); while the loroi maintain their active military forces even in peace time ( found in Loroi Warrior Rites within the insider guide), so I would assume that discipline is maintained regardless of military.

If it can't then a fist-sized 50gigaton antimatter bomb will suddenly make even pesky human torpedoes become much more useful. Even at 40G, it would still take Tempest 5 minutes to escape the lethal zone of a single bomlet. A cluster bomb torpedo would become a fast moving mine field tens or hundreds of miles across. Which is one of the reasons I assume radiation is a non issue.[/quote]

but then you have the issue of A) lack of adquete propulsion of human missiles ( at 12G max using fusion torch) B) loroi don't give "handed down" tech to thier allies C) 50 gigaton A-matter weapon would be approaching the size of the torol blisters or be very large torpedo and thus easier to shoot down, even for the umiak limited PD weapons.

[CptWinters]

Thats why modern NATO tanks have blow out panels, not to save the tank, but to ensure the crew survives. Logistically speaking, equipment is far easier to replace then people.

I think the idea is that after a certain point, concern with crew survivability begins to interfere substantially with the ability of a unit to perform its function.

Actually, don't the Loroi have a bit of a problem in this reguard? I got the impression that the righer ranks are a century or more in age, but the bulk of the rank and file are barely 20. I assumed that a lack of trained and trustworthy (EG: Loroi) crew was one of the big Loroi bottlenecks. Of course that doesn't stop the Loroi elders from creating what amounts to a conscript navy, but that seems a little silly to me.

The war has created a situation where there is a large age gap, with some older members surviving, and others perishing. There's no "higher ranks" vs. "rank and file" dichotomy, as far as I know; some of the higher ranks are young and some are older--I think many of the commanders in Group 51 are actually fairly "young" by Loroi standards.

[Karst45]

The fact that the Umiak have their engines within the body of the ship suggests that a) the Umiak reactors are better shielded, which follows to a degree with ships that have heavier armor and more extensive compartmentalization, and/or b) the Umiak just don't care as much about long-term health effects of radiation on their crews.

...or c) since they´re kinda insectoid, they can take far more radiation. See Cockroaches.

not to mention the extensive modifications the Umiak made to their bodies, who knows what kind of protection that gives them.

what if radiation is actually vital to their modification function? what if those implant would actually absorb radiation to create the energy needed for them to work?

[Arioch]

Actually in a modern military it isn't.

We are not talking about the modern Earth ground military. The Loroi are not the modern United States; they are not a democratic, civilian, free-press, war-hating liberal society that is the world's lone superpower, always assured of total superiority in every conflict, concerned only about the level of human casualties incurred, and caring little about the material cost. The Loroi are a totalitarian, closed, military society without freedoms of press or self-expression in which civilians are second-class citizens, engaged in a total war which they are in very real danger of losing and facing total annihilation. Casualites are never desirable, but they don't drive Loroi military policy in the way that they drive the policy of the United States.

You would always like for your veteran crews to survive, but starship battles in Outsider are often fought out in nowhere-space where rescue is nearly impossible. In order to be in a position to recover survivors, you have to win the battle and "hold the field"... and even given those conditions, the terrific energies of the drives and weapons involved don't leave much margin of error for fragile organic creatures. Crew safety measures that compromise combat effectiveness don't save any lives, when the victorious enemy watches the survivors die. Crews of a failed vessel most often die... they don't usually live to fight again. The best way to protect your crews is to build a vessel that doesn't get destroyed.

Logistically speaking, equipment is far easier to replace then people.

This is a modern Western assumption. It has not been true for most of human history, and is still not true in much of the world where life is cheap and materiel is expensive.

If it can't then a fist-sized 50gigaton antimatter bomb will suddenly make even pesky human torpedoes become much more useful. Even at 40G, it would still take Tempest 5 minutes to escape the lethal zone of a single bomlet.

How did this bomb get in point-blank range of the Loroi ship? Any decent warhead at this tech level will destroy a ship at point blank range. The trick is the delivery method.

[Rosen_Ritter_1]

Actually in a modern military it isn't. Combat effectiveness is often directly proportional to training and combat experience. if you considder crews to be expendable then you never get that experience. Thats why modern NATO tanks have blow out panels, not to save the tank, but to ensure the crew survives. Logistically speaking, equipment is far easier to replace then people.

I'm not sure if that's really true when you consider that Warships in the Outsider verse are.

A: Huge, massively expensive investments to manufacture and maintain (A Outsider warship is MUCH more complex than a modern warship)
and
*B: Require comparatively small crews. (a 300 meter long Loroi ship has only a fraction of the crew of a 300 meter long modern aircraft carrier).

And this is a species that has a warrior recruitment pool that's somewhere in the tens of billions, and the ability to replace it quickly with a 9-1 female to male ratio and rapid maturation. So I wouldn't say it's realistic to say that it's more resource costly for the Loroi to train a ship crew than it is for them to manufacture a gigantic state of the art warship.


This doesn't mean the Loroi try to take unnecessary casualties, and aren't more averse to it than the Umiak. But there's only so much you can do to keep a crew alive after the shields fall and you start taking hits from these kind of weapons.

[osmium]

I do think along the same lines as mjolnir that some sort of wedge of armour between the main ship and the engines might help the ship survive loss of containment in an engine by sparing much of the ship from the resulting blast. It could allow a ship to continue functioning somewhat (perhaps under certain levels of the resulting explosion), protect the crew and perhaps other high value parts of the ship, although the latter is only useful if specialized equipment is not required to salvage the remainder of the ship.

Just as there are many ways for an engine to fail (blown gasket, cracked engine block, seizing due to heat, oil degradation/too much friction, failure of fuel pump, a poorly located clog in a number of these sub systems etc) there will be a variety in the degree of how bad a loss of containment is, all of them won't result in such a catastrophic explosion. Designing for these explosions I think might help out in the long run. If the ship survives the blast, at least they can fire off any unspent munitions or get a few more shots of with their main cannons. If they are lucky the velocities involved in the next joust place the enemy fleet away from their location and they may only marginally participate in or be completely ignored by the remaining combat... While they can't be jumped out of the system I would assume with free time guns, fuel, munitions and personnel could be salvaged and jumped out aboard other ships as they will likely be modular. A lot of the ship would have to be scuttled, but some key potentially expensive components could be saved and similar ships *might* be able to be fitted with still functioning parts from the ship that is being cannibalized, such as how with some effort and a few tools you should be able to field strip and replace say a tank's treads, strip off some of it's armour and take all the ammo.

-O

[Rosen_Ritter_1]

I do think along the same lines as mjolnir that some sort of wedge of armour between the main ship and the engines might help the ship survive loss of containment in an engine by sparing much of the ship from the resulting blast. It could allow a ship to continue functioning somewhat (perhaps under certain levels of the resulting explosion), protect the crew and perhaps other high value parts of the ship, although the latter is only useful if specialized equipment is not required to salvage the remainder of the ship.

What good will that do when 5.2 kilotons of anti matter equivalent goes off in your ship? I'm REALLY doubtful that it's remotely practical to try to armor/shield your ships internally from that kind of blast going off from the inside.

Just as there are many ways for an engine to fail (blown gasket, cracked engine block, seizing due to heat, oil degradation/too much friction, failure of fuel pump, a poorly located clog in a number of these sub systems etc) there will be a variety in the degree of how bad a loss of containment is, all of them won't result in such a catastrophic explosion.

Losing containment on a couple of pounds of this stuff results in nuclear level detonations inside your ship. Any loss of containment results in a vital explosion, which will destroy the containment measures for the rest of the ships destroying it outright.

[Mjolnir]

What good will that do when 5.2 kilotons of anti matter equivalent goes off in your ship? I'm REALLY doubtful that it's remotely practical to try to armor/shield your ships internally from that kind of blast going off from the inside.

And the portion of the ship it was inside would likely be a total loss. That's the engine pod.

Losing containment on a couple of pounds of this stuff results in nuclear level detonations inside your ship. Any loss of containment results in a vital explosion, which will destroy the containment measures for the rest of the ships destroying it outright.

Assuming measures aren't taken to prevent this from happening...such as an armored wedge to direct the blast around the main fuel store. The reflected blast will likely do even more severe damage to the surrounding parts of the ship, but that's still an improvement over the main fuel store, inside the main body of the ship, losing containment.

Yes, it's an antimatter explosion, or at least the equivalent of one. That doesn't mean it'll magically go through everything in its way. It's a violent but very brief event. Temperatures of the fireball are extremely high, but there's little time for conduction to transfer heat to the ship, and those high temperatures will cause extremely fast radiation of heat to surrounding space. The blast effect and shrapnel from the former engine module are harder to deal with, but coming from a predictable location. The ships carry sufficient fuel for operating the engines at full power for on the order of a hundred hours, only a tiny fraction of the total fuel need be involved in a reactor failure. We're talking about massive damage and almost certain loss of the ship as a member of the fleet, yes...we're talking about total destruction of an engine module and quite possibly breaking up of the remainder of the ship. You just don't have grounds for saying that such a failure must cause loss of the main fuel store.