Mule

[chuck_starchaser]

Well, it was going great; it would be terrible pity for it not to be finished; so indeed, pass me
the file; I'll finish it for you after the llama.
Sorry, Nate.

[nphillips]

...sorry for what? Not being persuasive enough to get Phlogios on the modeling team?

Anyway. Here's my promised greebled-thruster shot.



55k polys for the whole shebang, so far. LOTSA room for more greebles

[chuck_starchaser]

That's looking REAL! Is that a maintenance door and a catwalk back there?
I'm gonna have to land there, undertween the engines, and explore the whole
place. Be sure there's door bell button

[Fendorin]

is well made
About the "design" it's look nicely vintage thruster as Apollo booster

[nphillips]

That's looking REAL! Is that a maintenance door and a catwalk back there?

Yep, there's a catwalk. There are going to be ladders and other scaffolding, too. Though, I think I may remove some of the detail and leave it for textures and normal maps. It's not an area that anyone could physically access in the game, so I'm not sure how necessary the extra polys are back there. I'd leave the scaffolding as a couple polys, and just put the railings on a single-poly with alpha and normal mapping.

I'm gonna have to land there, undertween the engines, and explore the whole
place. Be sure there's door bell button

Good luck getting past the collision detection

is well made
About the "design" it's look nicely vintage thruster as Apollo booster

Thanks I've been using a combination of Apollo and Space Shuttle thruster images. Since we don't know what is providing thrust for these ships, and this one is big enough to have a whole bunch of detail, I figured those would be good items to use for reference pics

[chuck_starchaser]

There are going to be ladders and other scaffolding, too.

You'll need some light back there, to make them visible; but that's good.

Though, I think I may remove some of the detail and leave it for textures and normal maps. It's not an area that anyone could physically access in the game, so I'm not sure how necessary the extra polys are back there.

The player has limited angle to see what's back there, so, indeed, the normalmap could be used to represent the door-frame, for example. In fact, might as well go to town and have evelnly spaced columns, pipes and boxes in the back wall, all in the texture. But one cheap way to add a lot of "detail" with little work, as you know, is radiosity baking. A couple of lights well placed can project intricate shadows from the greebles onto the walls.

I'd leave the scaffolding as a couple polys, and just put the railings on a single-poly with alpha and normal mapping.

You shouldn't do that. Using alpha over big areas. It's much cheaper to have sticks holding the railing (a few extra quads is not going to break the GPU). Alpha holes are good for little holes and gaps; but having a big polygon where most texels are invisible is a) a huge waste of texture space, and b) a bandwidth drain not unlike large polygons covering large polygons; --essentially it is "overdraw". I,E.: the decision whether to paint foreground or background is made on a per-pixel basis, which takes almost as much time when foreground (railing) pixels are NOT drawn, as it takes when they are. IOW, if you have a large box covering a surface, you have overdraw; and if you make it transparent by painting it with alpha = 0, you still have overdraw.

[Deus Siddis]

Since we don't know what is providing thrust for these ships, and this one is big enough to have a whole bunch of detail, I figured those would be good items to use for reference pics

The thrusters in VS are plasma thrusters drawing great energy from a fusion reactor(s), so as to generate as much thrust as possible while ejecting as little of limited stored matter as possible.

[chuck_starchaser]

Okay, so, I guess VASIMR's would be the only real world reference for us. That's good, because at the
end of the day a VASIMR doesn't look too different from a chemical rocket thruster. Just needs a few
coils added; and the pipes are okay, since it needs a lot of circulating liquid helium to cool the
superconducting coils.

[nphillips]

heh....VASIMIR, eh? When do I get to pull out this one?


Frankly, the VS ships couldn't handle anything other than traditional rocket engines. IIRC, that VASIMIR thruster is ~100m long, which puts the main plasma chamber's radiators at what...10-15m tall? And that model was built fairly meticulously against existing diagrams and technical info...Plus, it's made to push something the size of a Llama at .5Gs. there's no way it could push a full-loaded Mule at an acceleration that any VS player would tolerate

But I really just wanted a reason to resurrect that pic

And to affirm chuck's comment: a VASIMR cone looks a lot like that of a modern rocket. (though it should be tapered more at the end, rather than bell-shaped)

[chuck_starchaser]

Hehehe; indeed I meant just the rearmost end of a vasimr. As for heat dissipation, the Vegastrike universe seems to have heat teleporting technology, anyhow
Damn nice pic...

[Deus Siddis]

I think the assumption is that there are great and temporary limitations to modern day plasma thruster technologies do to a combination of their relative newness and more importantly the lousy power sources we have available at this time to hook them up to.

As for heat dissipation, the Vegastrike universe seems to have heat teleporting technology, anyhow

Actually, significant radiator surfaces are now considered a canon requirement, along with retro/lateral/rotation thrusters. The trouble is the content inertia of so many space planes from six or seven years ago does a good job of hiding these sorts of facts.

So if you folks want to add more of these surfaces to any of the ships you are updating as you work on them, that should be very much in line with VS canon.

[chuck_starchaser]

Actually, significant radiator surfaces are now considered a canon requirement, along with retro/lateral/rotation thrusters. The trouble is the content inertia of so many space planes from six or seven years ago does a good job of hiding these sorts of facts.

How "significant", exactly?
Asking because, no matter what we do, we're only going to be paying lip service to the heat issue.
There were a couple of physicists here before your time; and one of them actually calculated heat
dissipation for some ship he picked at random. He figured that if the power plant and thrusters
were 99% efficient, which is already hugely optimistic, there would be enough waste heat that
if we used the entire surface of the ship as a black body radiator, the temperature would still go
to about 1000 degrees C to reach thermal balance. To be really realistic, we'd have to have
ships towing a few kilometers long chain of radiators. We could go to town with the rads; but
I think there might be complaints coming from all directions. On the llama I'm putting MetaBlack
on the wings and on those nacelles on the top, and the vertical stabilizer on the bottom. I think
that's enough, from a purely aesthetic POV.

[charlieg]

I don't think it's unrealistic to think that appropriate materials have been developed to provide some form of super insulator that attaches the thrusters to the ship, that the thrusters are surrounded by reflective material to reduce radiation from thruster to ship, that the vacuum prevents heat getting otherwise conducted to the ship, and that the thrusters are built out of materials that can withstand the incredible temperatures of the plasma reaction.

All this talk of radiator fins seems a bit like science fiction-less folly.

[chuck_starchaser]

I don't think it's unrealistic to think that appropriate materials have been developed to provide some form of super insulator that attaches the thrusters to the ship, that the thrusters are surrounded by reflective material to reduce radiation from thruster to ship, that the vacuum prevents heat getting otherwise conducted to the ship, and that the thrusters are built out of materials that can withstand the incredible temperatures of the plasma reaction.

You're missing the point entirely.
It's not heat going from the thrusters TO the ship; it's heat generated inside the ship. In space, it is very hard to get rid of. Take the Space Shuttle, for example. Once in orbit, it is not thrusting. Maybe a little burst here and there. The only heat generated is from computers and human bodies, and yet it is a major problem. The cargo door of the shuttle is one huge thermal radiator when opened, of the highest efficiency money can buy; and they have to open it quickly after reaching orbit, or the heat builds up and becomes unbearable. Same thing the ISS has huge rads, just to get rid of computer and body heat.
Here we're talking about ships having fusion power plants pushing dozens of megawatts, to power thrusters that push the ships at *completely un-imaginable* accelerations; and weapons that melt titanium from miles away. It's a colossal energy budget. Unless we assume 100% efficiency, any waste heat above 0.1% of the energy budget would heat up the ship to incandescent within seconds, probably.
Of course this won't bother someone who isn't aware at all about the issue; but some people are.
Now, like I said to Deus, there's no way to reach sanity from where we are; we're going to have to just pay lip service to the thermal question. The question is, how much lip service?; that's all.
It's an artistic question. A practical question.
IOW, did JackS hint at radiators that are half the size of the rest of the ship?, about the same size?, twice the size? And I need to know now, because I'm getting more and more committed to the way the llama is now. And apparently the LIHW are low-tech and low-budget; so no MetaBlack for them; just plain, passive rads; and for such, the wings' sizes are a joke as rads in space go. And Nate needs to know ASAP too.

[charlieg]

So you don't think that at some point in the future they won't work out how to create these power generators that generate power on demand, with some kind of capacitor in between the generator and the weapons etc, or coolant systems that turn excess heat into additional power, or... that instead they'll just have these 'always on' heat pumping blobs that melt the ships?

(Could I get any more patronising? I can try...)

Science fiction, as in, they've worked out ways of doing things we can't know, because it's the future.

[nphillips]

Science fiction, as in, they've worked out ways of doing things we can't know, because it's the future.

Yeah. This is science fiction. But we're trying to avoid science bullshit.

Space travel and combat that VS portrays is already pushing the lines of BS. Chuck (and myself) is just trying to minimize the rest of the BS. The stuff we argue for is based on modern knowledge, with the assumption that, yes, new things will be discovered, but no, they don't completely contradict what we already know. MetaBlack is one of those compromises. It's a completely fantastical material/process, but it's not mind-bendingly impossible. 100% efficient reactors are.

Honestly, this is a totally irrelevant argument for VS. It's already established that their technology is mind-bendingly impossible. So, to reiterate chuck's question: How much lip-service do we pay to the radiator issue?

IOW, did JackS hint at radiators that are half the size of the rest of the ship?, about the same size?, twice the size? And I need to know now, because I'm getting more and more committed to the way the llama is now. And apparently the LIHW are low-tech and low-budget; so no MetaBlack for them; just plain, passive rads; and for such, the wings' sizes are a joke as rads in space go. And Nate needs to know ASAP too.

Seriously. How big are these rads?

Personally, from a completely artistic standpoint, half the ship is pretty large, and leaves us with little room for texturing any other details, especially on a ship as small as the llama.

Like chuck said -- we need to know soon because we're at the point where we would need to scrap a LOT of work in order to accommodate massive rads.

[Deus Siddis]

Of course this won't bother someone who isn't aware at all about the issue; but some people are.
Now, like I said to Deus, there's no way to reach sanity from where we are; we're going to have to just pay lip service to the thermal question. The question is, how much lip service?; that's all.
It's an artistic question. A practical question.
IOW, did JackS hint at radiators that are half the size of the rest of the ship?, about the same size?, twice the size? And I need to know now, because I'm getting more and more committed to the way the llama is now.

I am not sure exactly, all I know for sure is ships must have them to some degree for canon, but I would say you can add about as much as you want as long as you don't think it is dominating aesthetics or other practical concerns like if the ship could easily dock or land or not suffer damage too easily.

But don't sweat it, I only mean you have the option to go beyond the designs you are renovating if you want. (Just have some amount of radiator surface, even if it isn't significant).

There is also the fact that the Mule and Llama, while intended to see some hostile scenarios, are not warships, so their heat generation would probably be less, naturally.

Plus, jackS did mention what might be lower profile methods for heat radiation in This Thread. Might also offer some ideas for greebles with the same stroke.

Finally, if memory serves me jackS indicated that the max acceleration for ships would be lowered to 5 or 10 gs, which should lower energy requirements a bit. I would think the Mule could do everything it would possibly need to do if it could do something like 2.5 gs on a temporary basis, or whatever is enough to land and lift off from the largest rocky planets we know of today (which might also make coolant dumping an option, since you could probably resupply it planet-side). Acceleration for a cargo ship like the Mule could be a great deal lower than that most of the time.

[chuck_starchaser]

So you don't think that at some point in the future they won't work out how to create these power generators that generate power on demand,

No; as a matter of fact I don't, if by that you mean 100% efficient, or even 90+% efficient. There's a point at which basic laws are transgressed. If progress was linear as you seem to think, will there be 110% efficient generators?, and then 120...200%? No. And 100% is not the theoretical limit; less than 100%; and progress, if it happens, will by asymptotic; not linear. The belief that science is omnipotent; that it will eventually conquer the very laws of nature, that is not a scientific theory or belief; it's a religion. It is a blind faith in science that you'd be surprised most scientists do not subscribe to.

with some kind of capacitor in between the generator and the weapons etc,

I'm an electrical engineer, CharlieG, and a capacitor has nothing to do with this; and if it's an electrolytic it will blow up first, if there's any heat.

or coolant systems

I was taking coolant systems for granted; the problem is making it smaller than the ship.

that turn excess heat into additional power,

WHAT???!!! Now, that does it, CharlieG. Now you want to violate thermodynamics. You see, the problem is getting heat from A to B across a barrier X. A is the inside of the ship. B is the outside, the universe and everything. Barrier X is the for that heat to flow, to get from A to B.
Follow so far?
Barrier X is highly resistive, in space, because there is no air to put the heat into; no wind, and no convection. Vaccum is a heat insulator. So the only thing you can do is radiate that heat, which is hard.
So the problem is how to make Barrier X less resistive. One way is to increase the size of the radiators.
A slight improvement could be obtained by heat pumping into the radiator. Heat pumping is inherently inefficient and consumes extra power.
But now, look at what you just said, or implied: "Making electricity out of the excess heat." You draw energy by obstructing. When you make a hydroelectric plant, you ***restrict*** the flow of water, to take energy out of it. The same thing applies to drawing energy from heat. Heat tries to flow towards coldness; and by restricting that flow, you can draw energy. Also very inefficient, since heat has the highest entropy of any form of energy.
So, that is completely at cross-purposes with reducing Barrier X's resistance to the flow of heat. You are proposing to exacerbate the problem by trying to convert a fraction of that energy to electricity.

or... that instead they'll just have these 'always on' heat pumping blobs that melt the ships?

Lost me.

(Could I get any more patronising? I can try...)

Go ahead; but it will look bad on you. If science doesn't interest you at all, that's fine; but don't argue science, then. It's like this young guy I met once who thought that when things fall, they take a fraction of a second to begin falling. It took me two hours to explain to him that there's no "time-delay"; but rather a gradual acceleration. I finally asked him if by any chance he got the idea from watching cartoons, and he said "yes". Well, this is similar: You get your science ideas from science fiction. Hey, I read science fiction all the time; about a book a week. But I know the difference between plausible future technologies and complete non-sense.
There will NEVER BE ships dogfighting in space like in Vegastrike or Wing Commander. It's a complete absurdity. Doesn't mean there can't be space wars or even piracy; but it will NEVER involve joystick and adrenaline fast-maneuvering of ships dodging shots. One part per million of the energy needed for that would have you boiling in no time.
But we're not trying to kill Vegastrike; just pay lip service to a problem, as a way of tipping our hats to those players that are sensitive to the issue. As a science fiction reader I'm quite happy when an author at least acknowledges a problem that others would ignore, even if the solution is not 100%.
And JackS agreed to pay some lip service to the thermal problem. That's not what's being discussed; it's the size of the rads.

Science fiction, as in, they've worked out ways of doing things we can't know, because it's the future.

This urban legend about "the future" has to stop. Science Fiction started in earnest early last century, as we proceeded through fast progress in industrialization and science, and there were new inventions galore... Well, that fast rise tapered off in the 1960's, my friend; nothing worth noting has been invented since. The internal combustion engine, the plane, telephone, radio, satellites, rockets, alloys, plastics... even the computer. Just about everything was invented before the 60's. Progress since then has been quantitative; not qualitative or revolutionary. Phones got better, became wireless, and so on; but they are still phones. And we haven't even gone back to the moon, for all the "manned mission to mars" dreaming. And in the meantime we've been de-volving physically, due to the lack of exercise that's come from all our cars and power machinery. Ever had an old Roman sword in your hand? You could not lift one with both hands, I tell you. We've become shadows of ourselves; and the time of reckoning is now close. Science Fiction was fantasy, after all.

[Phlogios]

I don't know about Roman swords, but medieval swords and viking swords weren't that heavy at all. That's a stupid myth, just like the fraction of a second before falling myth.
A regular viking sword was about 900 grams. One of the biggest sword designs ever, the Zweihänder (two handed sword of pikemen's doom) was roughly 3.5 kg (held one with one hand). Roman swords (afaik) were smaller than viking swords. And I don't think bronze is that much more heavy than steel.
Ever been to a medieval festival?

[Neskiairti]

on this thread of conversation.. my favorite little ship engine is a kettle rocket

Ships produce heat, through many means, channel this heat in to a chamber of water to produce steam, eject that steam for propulsion. Your fuel is just a large chamber of pressurized water used for both drinking, and propulsion, and potentially power generation by restricting its escape (if you need it). More likely solar energy would be utilized though.

[chuck_starchaser]

I am not sure exactly, all I know for sure is ships must have them to some degree for canon, but I would say you can add about as much as you want as long as you don't think it is dominating aesthetics or other practical concerns like if the ship could easily dock or land or not suffer damage too easily.[/list]Hmmm... So, a vague directive... Well, I guess we'll have to play it by ear. If it was up to myself, I'd increase the size of those wings on the llama; but with a vague directive the problem would be that in the end only my ships, and Nates, would have sizable rads... Maybe I'm just going to turn the bottom of the llama into a big rad, and hope other artists will do something along the lines.

Plus, jackS did mention what might be lower profile methods for heat radiation in This Thread. Might also offer some ideas for greebles with the same stroke.

I'll check it out.

Finally, if memory serves me jackS indicated that the max acceleration for ships would be lowered to 5 or 10 gs, which should lower energy requirements a bit. I would think the Mule could do everything it would possibly need to do if it could do something like 2.5 gs on a temporary basis, or whatever is enough to land and lift off from the largest rocky planets we know of today (which might also make coolant dumping an option, since you could probably resupply it planet-side). Acceleration for a cargo ship like the Mule could be a great deal lower than that most of the time.

I'd make that 2G on afterburner...
I lie; I'd make it 0.5 G with afterburner; 0.2 without. But okay..
Coolant dumping wouldn't help much. Heat capacities of materials are small, even the highest among them; you might be able to store 2-seconds worth of heat; not much more.

[chuck_starchaser]

I don't know about Roman swords, but medieval swords and viking swords weren't that heavy at all. That's a stupid myth, just like the fraction of a second before falling myth.
A regular viking sword was about 900 grams. One of the biggest sword designs ever, the Zweihänder (two handed sword of pikemen's doom) was roughly 3.5 kg (held one with one hand). Roman swords (afaik) were smaller than viking swords. And I don't think bronze is that much more heavy than steel.
Ever been to a medieval festival?

Never been to a medieval festival, but I had an Archeology amateur and collector friend from Venezuela who had acquired an old roman sword (among many other things) and I tried to lift it with one hand, and it was just impossible; so I don't think it's a myth; and in fact I had never heard it said; I was talking from my single personal experience.

on this thread of conversation.. my favorite little ship engine is a kettle rocket

Ships produce heat, through many means, channel this heat in to a chamber of water to produce steam, eject that steam for propulsion. Your fuel is just a large chamber of pressurized water used for both drinking, and propulsion, and potentially power generation by restricting its escape (if you need it). More likely solar energy would be utilized though.

You don't realize that you're not transcending the laws of thermodynamics, but simply introducing a new variable: a water reservoir. How long before you run out of water?

[Neskiairti]

who said anything about defeating thermodynamics?
its all fuel, and kettle rockets are just my favorite
-edit-
these would be in/system ships only, getting ice from moons, comets, kuiper belt.. and so forth.

[snow_Cat]

^- - ^ Reaction mass is important in hard sci-fi, but I would caution that actually tieing energy to mass in our space ship designs would have tend to make all ships resemble the same thing.

freefall.purrsia.com:Starship 0018: The Asimov

[Deus Siddis]

Hmmm... So, a vague directive... Well, I guess we'll have to play it by ear. If it was up to myself, I'd increase the size of those wings on the llama; but with a vague directive the problem would be that in the end only my ships, and Nates, would have sizable rads...

Well everything has to start somewhere, and the ships you both have taken on are some of the most common and visible in the game. Also I will certainly build noticeable radiator fin and hull surfaces into the ships I model to an extent that doesn't interfere with the other practical concerns of a ship's function and aesthetics of course.

I'd make that 2G on afterburner...
I lie; I'd make it 0.5 G with afterburner; 0.2 without. But okay..

A while back you mentioned burst-maneuver chemical rockets being used in the fighters in your tadpole universe. Maybe a similar concept of a limited time maneuvering system that doesn't draw juice or therefore create massive heat, could be used in VS. Like a panel of many small, self contained, one use "solid fuel" rocket engines based on alternating layers of matter/anti-matter and reaction mass (pure matter). They could be used one at a time for bursts of multiple g acceleration measured in seconds maybe?

Coolant dumping wouldn't help much. Heat capacities of materials are small, even the highest among them; you might be able to store 2-seconds worth of heat; not much more.

Well planets with high gravity also have atmospheres that might help with heat dispersal during take off and landings. Maybe there could be some radiator structures specialized for this purpose built into ships that are meant to handle landing and takeoff and low altitude maneuvering?