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Rod of God/Kinetic bombardment


Dargotrox

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"It depends on the level of in game physics that the game contains. If the orbit it too high: say for instance outer space orbit, the gravitational field of the planet will tear the object apart before it even reaches the surface. However, from the looks of it, in Dual Universe, it may work if the developers code orbital scripts into the game engine. But, you have to be painstakingly accurate: satellites orbit the earth at around 15000 mph--and that's at Low Earth Orbit. If your script is even a split second late in releasing the payload, and it drops on the wrong piece of dirt, you may have a war on your hands."

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"It depends on the level of in game physics that the game contains. If the orbit it too high: say for instance outer space orbit, the gravitational field of the planet will tear the object apart before it even reaches the surface. However, from the looks of it, in Dual Universe, it may work if the developers code orbital scripts into the game engine. But, you have to be painstakingly accurate: satellites orbit the earth at around 15000 mph--and that's at Low Earth Orbit. If your script is even a split second late in releasing the payload, and it drops on the wrong piece of dirt, you may have a war on your hands."

Oh for sure, just wondering if the Devs have given any info on something like this, such as no or yes and why etc.  Tho I'd love to see such an idea on orbital bombardment ships XD

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"Well, I have a suggestion: why don't you message Nyzaltar and find out? He'll reply as soon as he can! Orbital bombardment is a great idea, one that I very well support, but, satellites are going to be easy prey for spaceships, even with self defense systems. "

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So the devs have said no to nukes, would having a satellite above the planet that drops tungsten rods down letting gravity do its work have any affect on the surface? 

 

Why not add explosives to it ? :)

 

With such a system, i believe the problem would be logistic.

 

"3D printing" the projectile in a loop can be done in Space Engineer, not sure if this will be the case here,

anyway, it requires the construction materials to be on board the launch platform in order to feed the printer.

 

Or you could simply create a ballistic bomber with X projectiles already in the bomb bay, and reload it from your base somehow.

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Why not add explosives to it ? :)

 

With such a system, i believe the problem would be logistic.

 

"3D printing" the projectile in a loop can be done in Space Engineer, not sure if this will be the case here,

anyway, it requires the construction materials to be on board the launch platform in order to feed the printer.

 

Or you could simply create a ballistic bomber with X projectiles already in the bomb bay, and reload it from your base somehow.

"There is nothing stopping anyone from looting the satellite of its essential production factory. Except it has ample security.

Ample security means that the satellite would be heavier to launch into the atmosphere and if it is launched from space, well, I know some "raid-happy" pirates who will be more than happy to remove the satellite from your list of worries!"

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"There is nothing stopping anyone from looting the satellite of its essential production factory. Except it has ample security.

Ample security means that the satellite would be heavier to launch into the atmosphere and if it is launched from space, well, I know some "raid-happy" pirates who will be more than happy to remove the satellite from your list of worries!"

Cant wait to face down the "raid happy" pirates, will make my life "interesting", especially when we get to enjoy "spacing em" at the end of their "trial".

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If the orbit it too high: say for instance outer space orbit, the gravitational field of the planet will tear the object apart before it even reaches the surface.

trees sit pretty comfortably very deep in our gravity well and arent being ripped apart by gravitational forces of earth.

 

What kind of gossimer strands are you using for bullets? :P

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trees sit pretty comfortably very deep in our gravity well and arent being ripped apart by gravitational forces of earth.

 

What kind of gossimer strands are you using for bullets? :P

"Depending on the size of the object, I mean. Take for instance, comets/meteroids/asteroids that explode/fragment even before they reach the earth's outer atmosphere. A good example is what happens between Io and Jupiter for instance."

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Cant wait to face down the "raid happy" pirates, will make my life "interesting", especially when we get to enjoy "spacing em" at the end of their "trial".

"For your sake, I hope you know what you're doing. They are a powerful lot, those pirates."

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"For your sake, I hope you know what you're doing. They are a powerful lot, those pirates."

Don't worry bruh, I got many structural ideas that'll make inexperienced in in-engine physics pirates be ineffective against law enforcement. 

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"Depending on the size of the object, I mean. Take for instance, comets/meteroids/asteroids that explode/fragment even before they reach the earth's outer atmosphere. A good example is what happens between Io and Jupiter for instance."

 

Thats not "when the orbit is too high", but okay, that makes more sense.

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Don't worry bruh, I got many structural ideas that'll make inexperienced in in-engine physics pirates be ineffective against law enforcement. 

"This pre-alpha anticipation gets better by the post."

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Thats not "when the orbit is too high", but okay, that makes more sense.

"The point is that, an object within the gravitational field of a larger body won't be subject to the same strain as on object trying to enter the gravitational field from the outside. That's why satellites, though fragile maintain their structural integrity, in most cases, till the end of their lifespan. A probable factor could be that they orbit within or just outside of the earth's atmosphere. Both locations are well within the earth's gravitational field--an asteroid coming from outer space: not so much.

I'm glad you understand."

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So I'm pretty sure I have read about this somewhere, just can't remember where. But I'm pretty sure something like this will not be possible due to 1 mechanic. There will not be construct to construct collisions in the game. This means you can not ram other ships to cause damage and these types of weapons will not be possible. Then again i could be wrong not sure.

 

This is also being discussed in this thread.

Question about energy and projectile weapons

And here

Few questions on ship and ground mechanics.

where Nyzaltar said:

In short, the basic mechanics to make possible "planet ground vs orbital" combat will already exist in-game.

The transition between planet ground, planet atmosphere and space is seamless in Dual Universe (no instances, no loading screen).

So yes, this kind of combat is technically possible. However, to really become a gameplay possibility, the team will need to develop specific Elements for this kind of battle scale (very long range and powerful weapons, very large and powerful defenses, stats associated to these elements, game balancing, etc). This won't be trivial to develop (that would be a complete new territory in the MMO field as no one has ever made that before, from our knowledge. A challenge as big as exciting!) and that's not in the first priorities right now. But that could definitely be on the roadmap sooner or later. Maybe as a stretch goal for the crowdfunding campaign ?  ;)

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"The point is that, an object within the gravitational field of a larger body won't be subject to the same strain as on object trying to enter the gravitational field from the outside. That's why satellites, though fragile maintain their structural integrity, in most cases, till the end of their lifespan. A probable factor could be that they orbit within or just outside of the earth's atmosphere. Both locations are well within the earth's gravitational field--an asteroid coming from outer space: not so much.

I'm glad you understand."

 

This isn't really how it works.  Large objects are indeed subject to greater stresses than small objects when in orbit, but the effects are backwards.

 

Any object in orbit around a larger object experiences a certain amount of tidal stress.  Essentially this is the difference in the force of gravity on the near side of the object relative to the force on the far side of the object.  Given a fixed diameter object, such as a moon, the difference between the near and far sides is much greater in a low orbit than it is in a high orbit.  If we increase the diameter of this moon then we also increase this difference.  Earth's moon, for example, experiences enough tidal stress at a relatively high orbit to keep one side facing our planet at all times and create a bulge on the near side.If the Moon were brought closer to Earth then the tidal forces would increase, the bulge would be exaggerated and we could start seeing seismic activity on the Moon (as well as Earth).  If it were brought too close then those tidal forces would rip it apart and, instead of a single moon, we would have rings.  The distance at which this happens is called the Roche limit.  The stress isn't related to "entering" the gravitational field or how high the object is when it "starts," what matters is the object's distance relative to the Roche limit at any given time.

 

On the opposite end we have small objects, such as spacecraft, satellites, most asteroids, meteors, etc.  These objects are so small that the tidal forces they experience are negligible even at extremely low orbits.  If someone were to try to launch a huge object at us, such as Ceres, then it might break up during its approach (though the effects would still be devastating, intact or otherwise).  If, on the other hand, someone picked one of the small asteroids then it would likely remain intact right up until it hit the atmosphere.  Actually redirecting the object towards the planet is the real challenge; in addition to the high energy requirements this kind of attack would probably result in a tug of war between attackers and defenders trying to redirect a specific asteroid months or years in advance of the actual impact.

 

As for game purposes things get a bit more difficult.  I highly doubt this game will have anything resembling orbital mechanics and it sounds like we won't normally have collision damage.  It is possible that the devs could code a special exemption to have objects which fall from space and hit the ground at sufficient velocity to explode, though it would be a lot of extra work on their end to code both this system and a method to push asteroids around.  On the other hand bombarding a planet with conventional weapons could be made as simple as pointing your guns directly at the target and firing.  This wouldn't work with orbital mechanics (unless you use lasers or particle beams) but it might work in DU's physics with the main concern being game balance.

 

EDIT:  One thing I should also mention, if someone does manage to throw an object at a planet that is large enough for the Roche limit to actually be a factor then it probably doesn't matter whether it breaks up before impact or not.  Either way you can pretty reliably count on wiping out all life on the surface.

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I would have to say that this idea will not be allowed, as they said they are not going to allow weapons of mass destruction, etc...  but it would be sweet as hell to crack a planet with one of these.

 

maybe something along the lines of a surface killer type weapon (kills basically everything on the surface but leaves the surface relatively unharmed)

 

would also like planet mining (as in mine the whole planet) but doubt that will be a thing. at least at the beginning

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maybe something along the lines of a surface killer type weapon (kills basically everything on the surface but leaves the surface relatively unharmed)

 

would also like planet mining (as in mine the whole planet) but doubt that will be a thing. at least at the beginning

A neutron bomb is a WMD as well. A dirty bomb as well. The destruction part extends to people on the Weapon of Mass Destruction.

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So much destruction, what ever happened to trying to kill each other with turbo jeeps and knife fights.

 

Sorry I didnt mean to de-rail the topic.

 

Maybe this isnt as destructive as your tungsten rod drops, but what do you think of having small ships loaded with volatile parts, using an ai script to reign terror down over a planet as a bunch of small kamikaze craft slam into it?

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