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Rod of God/Kinetic bombardment


Dargotrox

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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.

 

In addition to that are (large) asteroids and satellites completely "different" classes of objects in terms of gravitational stress.

As a satellite generally isnt held together by its own gravity but by its own mechanical construction.

A satellite would "work" in any gravitational environment (excluding movable parts like solar panels) where the gravitational stress over its lenght wouldnt exceed the forces experienced at launch (the 8ish g of acceleration) and then some.

Because thats what all satellites have to endure in their lifetime and that doesnt destroy them outright.

So the minuscule stresses of gravitational shear in whatever terran orbit arent exactly harsh compared to the stresses compared at launch.

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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?

I'd see nothing wrong with that, but tbh cool to use. In the Vietnam War we used Lazy Dog Bombs, which looked like normal bombs, but when they exploded caused an effect like a machine gun fired vertically.

 

As for the Rod of God, the use of Tungsten as the "round" is bc its not volatile so it wouldn't explode for say but it is theorized that the kinetic force from it would have a yield of a small.... very small tactical nuke, think lots and lots of destruction in a very small area. It's also considered to be used as a bunker buster... such as a nuclear bunker buster.

 

While it does bring mass destruction and thus fits to some degree in the WMD area one wouldn't be leaving crators all over a planet using it. Remember Mass Destruction in a small area theorized to be no greater then a two mile radius while as small as 1.78 miles.

 

For a game balancing idea, the rods would have to be made of  rare material and a lot of it, possibly compressed. Also the area effected would have to be smaller.

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I would love to see this kind of action. But I am worried it won't be possible. The devs have chosen to go with a lock on form of ship-ship combat in order to avoid using physics and calculating trajectories for bullets. I could also see them choosing to do the same kind of thing with collisions. Ships and constructs would just "bounce" off of each other like a pair of billiards balls.

 

Hopefully they wouldn't do that, but you never know.

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I would love to see this kind of action. But I am worried it won't be possible. The devs have chosen to go with a lock on form of ship-ship combat in order to avoid using physics and calculating trajectories for bullets. I could also see them choosing to do the same kind of thing with collisions. Ships and constructs would just "bounce" off of each other like a pair of billiards balls.

 

Hopefully they wouldn't do that, but you never know.

Lets  hope not, When designing a ship I find its important on building it based on what you need. As for weapons.. I'm  not talking about weapons in the context of you printed one out, slapped it on a ship and bam... you have kinetic bombardment on a ship, but more of combine all the moving parts, functions, elements, coding, methods and twelve dozen other things I'm  not thinking of to create such a weapon.

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I would love to see this kind of action. But I am worried it won't be possible. The devs have chosen to go with a lock on form of ship-ship combat in order to avoid using physics and calculating trajectories for bullets. I could also see them choosing to do the same kind of thing with collisions. Ships and constructs would just "bounce" off of each other like a pair of billiards balls.

 

Hopefully they wouldn't do that, but you never know.

In the 10 minute gameplay demo done by JC, it looked like he bounced off another ship just slightly when he was landing on the space station.

 

So, we may be dealing with exactly what you stated.

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In the 10 minute gameplay demo done by JC, it looked like he bounced off another ship just slightly when he was landing on the space station.

 

So, we may be dealing with exactly what you stated.

In fact, they did state in a Q&A they won't be taking colission on a 1:1 ratio in damage calculations, because you know, space-jousting. But, there should be a hard limit on mass to mass ratio. A jetfighter crashing on a battleship should be One Hit K.O.

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I would love to see this kind of action. But I am worried it won't be possible. The devs have chosen to go with a lock on form of ship-ship combat in order to avoid using physics and calculating trajectories for bullets. I could also see them choosing to do the same kind of thing with collisions. Ships and constructs would just "bounce" off of each other like a pair of billiards balls.

 

Hopefully they wouldn't do that, but you never know.

 

I am not sure it is to avoid using physics entirely. It may be to avoid to use physics for each one of the countless projectiles that are fired by a turret. Using maths they can process one projectile and replicate to simulate the whole salvo.

 

Collision and kinetic impact of construct against construct are much less of a spam usually. Lets hope it will be possible without performance issue

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I am not sure it is to avoid using physics entirely. It may be to avoid to use physics for each one of the countless projectiles that are fired by a turret. Using maths they can process one projectile and replicate to simulate the whole salvo.

 

Collision and kinetic impact of construct against construct are much less of a spam usually. Lets hope it will be possible without performance issue

The devs want to go for a type of "space-jousting" combat between ships, which takes time, coordination in a fleet and maneuverability in 6 Degrees of Freedom. If you added collision to that, it could end up creating an unpleasant enviroment for players and a cheesy "kamikaze" dive tactic on the losing side.

 

 

Also, calculating collision damage is a simulation that would take A LOT out of a processor, even a cloud one the server tech is based upon, to calculate voxel destruction and momentum dislocation, which is why they also go for the emulation of a tenth to a twenieth of the actual collision damage. Emulations cost FAR less than simulations. You would still grind on an enemy ship, but it would be explained by "inertial dampeners fending off incoming masses" and what-not.

 

 

As for projectiles, they are confirmed to be non physical entities, they are simply visual indicators of a "hidden timer" till you receive the damage, giving you time to deploy chaff or what-ever FutureSpace tech will be available to counter missiles or plasma bolts or whatever. It's like how in WoW, you could see a fireball coming for 3 seconds max in mid-flight, before you used any form of defense you had available, the best example to this being the Warrior's "Shield Reflect" that sent back the fireball to its original caster. 

 

 

It's not an FPS combat in any case, but it sure as heck beats the ever loving jack out of EVE's point and click adventure style of combat.

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@Aetherios

 

 

Do not attempt at debating Archer. He's an ACTUAL rocket scientist. If he told me that rockets can fly side-ways, I would believe him. He proven me wrong on many an occasion.

"I wouldn't dream of it!"

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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.

 

Hello Archer,

have You ever been told that it would be great to have much more players as You are? If not, I'm doing it now.

 

To the point of this thread. I have tried Rods of God in Space Engineers and Kerbal Space program and it's hard to hit anything but it's fun to try anyway.

 

Some kind of collision damage would be nice even if only to have some kind of boarding torpedoes.

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Hello Archer,

have You ever been told that it would be great to have much more players as You are? If not, I'm doing it now.

 

To the point of this thread. I have tried Rods of God in Space Engineers and Kerbal Space program and it's hard to hit anything but it's fun to try anyway.

 

Some kind of collision damage would be nice even if only to have some kind of boarding torpedoes.

 

Or they could make the weapons size Customizable for Torpedoes and Missiles. And to be fair if your shooting it by hand your doing it wrong (not that you have a choice really in those two games, SE you can make it target things but you need the coords of your target and those can be a pain to get) They should be targeted by a human but to compensate for the gravity, the fact you can't see the target and other things they need to be aimed by a computer

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Or they could make the weapons size Customizable for Torpedoes and Missiles. And to be fair if your shooting it by hand your doing it wrong (not that you have a choice really in those two games, SE you can make it target things but you need the coords of your target and those can be a pain to get) They should be targeted by a human but to compensate for the gravity, the fact you can't see the target and other things they need to be aimed by a computer

"If only there was something like a "snap-on" mechanics for some lock-on systems. But your IFF range will need to be huge. What is the thickness of the average planet's atmosphere?"

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"If only there was something like a "snap-on" mechanics for some lock-on systems. But your IFF range will need to be huge. What is the thickness of the average planet's atmosphere?"

Doesn't matter about the lock on could still make it require a computer to actually be able to lock on (even if its out of sight). also the Earth's atmosphere it about 480km thick but most of it is in the 16km closest to the earth

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Doesn't matter about the lock on could still make it require a computer to actually be able to lock on (even if its out of sight). also the Earth's atmosphere it about 480km thick but most of it is in the 16km closest to the earth

"Sixteen kilometres in Dual Universe...the IFF would cover that with ease then--if sixteen kilometres is indeed the average thickness of the atmosphere."

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"Sixteen kilometres in Dual Universe...the IFF would cover that with ease then--if sixteen kilometres is indeed the average thickness of the atmosphere.

well it depends because like I said its the area that the majority of the atmosphere is in not the actual size so if they just go for majority then sure but I doubt you will be able to lock on to anything that far away without some kind of targeting computer

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well it depends because like I said its the area that the majority of the atmosphere is in not the actual size so if they just go for majority then sure but I doubt you will be able to lock on to anything that far away without some kind of targeting computer

"My apologies. I was referring to the IFF as a targeting computer. Even then, as the games matures, things are created and skills develop, distances like this may be breezed through with ease. As for targeting without a computer, I doubt the developers will make the range anything above five kilometres and even that is quite too far."

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"My apologies. I was referring to the IFF as a targeting computer. Even then, as the games matures, things are created and skills develop, distances like this may be breezed through with ease. As for targeting without a computer, I doubt the developers will make the range anything above five kilometres and even that is quite too far."

Ya IFF is identify Friend or foe and is basically just a tag that tells you what org a ship/person would belong to but ya for ground combat maybe 1km and space could be 5km though they should have some kind of advanced targeting computer

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Ya IFF is identify Friend or foe and is basically just a tag that tells you what org a ship/person would belong to but ya for ground combat maybe 1km and space could be 5km though they should have some kind of advanced targeting computer

"For the sake of virtuality, it should be made impossible to target anything from a ship/craft without an IFF. Except your craft is something like the dragonfly from Star Citizen, in which the targeting mechanism should be the same as the one on land. (somewhat fps)"

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you guys saw the video where they showed the freakin /8 kilometer/ long station?

 

when an automatic turret cant even cover the whole length of my ship i'd be very concerned.

 

just from the maximum size of player made constructs i'd guess maximum (automatic) targetting range is more in the range of 50-250km and not in the single digit range.

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you guys saw the video where they showed the freakin /8 kilometer/ long station?

 

when an automatic turret cant even cover the whole length of my ship i'd be very concerned.

 

just from the maximum size of player made constructs i'd guess maximum (automatic) targetting range is more in the range of 50-250km and not in the single digit range.

"For ships, yes. For individual characters, I doubt it."

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Eh, why build different systems/constraints for that? Its only extra work and creates inconsistencies.

 

If you have a sensor(network) that gives you data on that person, why shouldnt you be able to lock onto him?

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Eh, why build different systems/constraints for that? Its only extra work and creates inconsistencies.

 

If you have a sensor(network) that gives you data on that person, why shouldnt you be able to lock onto him?

"It's not realistic for a character to hold a gun or weapon in his hand and lock on something more than a hundred and fifty miles away. For turrets on ships, yes, but not for individual characters. That said, a character shouldn't even be able to see that far."

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Hence why i said "if he has a sensor capable of giving him the data".

 

Its unlikely that he can carry a sensor that gives him 200+km detection range vs people, but when he has a networked sensor that relays the data to him? Let him lock on, he likely wont be able to do anything anyway :shrug:

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Do we call this advanced terraforming or tungstung age territorial management?

"Advanced terra-forming? Tungstung age territorial management? Are you sure you're on the right topic here?"

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