Recent Posts

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 10
1
I actually find I go 25/10 on my Wolverines because I really do expect them to be in the mix & surrounded.
That said 30/6 isn't a bad option for something "sniperish" like this that feels more like a Griffin than Wolvie with that PPC & 10 LRM tubes.
2
It's the lightest AOE package you can get in 3025... ;)

Though, according to Sarna you can't actually "GET" it in 3025

Quote
Year Extinction   IS = 2819
Year Reintroduced   IS = 3043 FC

Seems it actually went out of production thanks to LRMs till the AMS was reintroduced post Wo39.
3
You use your Mechs (units)??? ... I plan on hording them like some long in the tooth dragon!  (I really need to create some more shelf space in my office (office? oops I mean office turned into my kids lego-zone of pain ... I get it organized and neat looking, she comes in like a freakin' hurricane of legos and other toys).

I do use them :laugh:, I mostly play alpha strike. I've found that I like bigger games (400 points), but I don't like running too many new mechs at once because it bogs things down. So, I'll probably make a lance out of the new units and then try to rotate through all the new stuff over the rest of the year. I've never gotten this many at the once, so we'll see how it goes. 
4
/facepalm

DOH.   

Thanks,  MechMortar.

I was totally lost for the meaning of MM.
5
Can you make a copy of their sheets before they engage the holographic decoys, adjusting ammo expenditure as needed?

Then after they clear the course you hand them back the copies and the troops keep going.

Not really, no.  It would also kind of defeat the purpose, in a kind of, "Why are you making copies?"
6
Off Topic / Re: Naval Pictures X: Underway on Nuclear Power
« Last post by glitterboy2098 on Today at 17:25:28 »




7
But a lot of that extra surface is aimed back at the spaceship.
Let's see if I can dig up some of my thermal systems knowledge from the dusty and possibly-haunted corner of my brain...

A Union-class Dropship has a height of 78m and a diameter of 81.5m.  Being a bit conservative (and a lot lazy), I'll approximate the apparent cross-sectional surface area as seen from the side of the Union as a circle with the larger 81.5m diameter

From droplets X meters away from the Union's hull, the "seen" angle theta is the tangent of the apparent cross-sectional radius divided by the X distance from the hull (basically opposite/adjacent), so theta=arctan(40.75m/Xm).  If the droplet is just 40.75m away, theta is 45 degrees, and the droplet basically "sees" a 45 degree cone from the center of the Dropship's cross section.  At worst case scenarios (X is nearly zero), the droplet would "see" a nearly 90 degree cone (basically a semi-circle).

With a reasonable assumption that the droplet transmits equally in all directions, this is equivalent to a spherical emission.  The "seen" hull is equivalent to a spherical cap cutting into that spherical emission; dividing the "lost" surface area from this spherical cap by the full surface area of the sphere should result in a rudimentary estimate of the % energy returning back to the Union, and 1 - that % = the approximate efficiency of this system.

Total Spherical area: 4*pi*r^2
Spherical Cap area: (1-cos(theta))2*pi*r^2

Spherical Cap area / Total Spherical area = (1-cos(theta))2*pi*r^2/(4*pi*r^2)
||
V
(1-cos(theta))/2

(Note: r^2 = UnionRadius^2+X^2=(40.75m)^2+x^2, but since it cancels out here this doesn't matter in this case)

In its worst case scenario (Droplet right next to the hull, theta ~= 90deg ) about 50% of the energy returns to the Dropship.  Somewhat further away at 40.75m (theta = 45deg, which is still pretty close in terms of the vastness of space tbh) this drops to 14.6% energy return (or 85.4% energy jettisoned away).  Placing the droplets further from the Union dropship will increase efficiency even further, albeit with diminishing returns.

IIRC that is actually pretty high without having to pump the droplets too far away.  For Battletech's level of technological development, it seems feasible.

Note 1: Even though in this test case 14.6% is returning to the Dropship in this example case, that probably doesn't matter in practice.  Unless the Dropship's exterior hull plating is made out of a black body material, not all of that 14.6% returning energy will actually be absorbed; some will be reflected.

Note 2: The energy that is absorbed is being absorbed by a relatively massive area of the Union's exposed hull, which will also tend to eventually re-radiate the energy as thermal radiation (albeit much more slowly per unit area than the superheated droplets since it's "colder").   While that amount of energy stored in a droplet stream can melt Battletech (or real life) plating when concentrated onto a small point like with laser weapons, when not concentrated the energy intensity would be more akin to a glorified flashlight.  It's mostly important to get the waste heat out of your guns and lasers so they don't melt, if a bit of energy is redirected onto the ship's hull and raises it by a degree or two that's still considered a success.
Also the need to concentrate any heat to create the molten metal droplets will be far less energy efficient than the normal cooling system.
BT's normal heat sink systems also involve concentrating heat into material, the difference is that the canonical heat sinks pump it into fluid coolant which goes to a radiator system (SHS using heavy but space-efficient graphite radiators and DHS using lighter but space-intensive polymer radiators), while this version pumps it into molten droplet medium to be temporarily ejected out the ship.  It pretty much has to be since radiation is so inefficient at low temperatures (radiation emission power scales with T^4).
The problem is, exposed to the vacumn space does not let those debris to reduce its heat. Only the radiation works on the space since there is almost no medium to transfer the heat, but for this you don't need to throw away those little debris in the first place and you could do better such as shoot the lasers instead. Add the big heat sink plate on the surface would serves the similar purpose too.

Also it surely pollute the course with those little debris, and although a few of those won't cause much effect but the constant and frequent uses of this may cause catastrophical result.
No, tiny droplets are one of if not the most efficient (in terms of per unit mass) method to increase heat dissipation via increasing surface area.

And the microparticle droplets would be of negligible concern in the vastness of space.  Even if/when small amounts of material escapes the cooling system, the droplets will cool down extremely quickly, so getting hit by these superheated particles is not a major issue, and in Battletech there's already plenty of matter flying around in a fight from matter coming out through the spaceship exhaust, weapons fire, spaceship debris, etc.  Probably far less practical in an atmosphere though, since you'll likely accidentally collect material from the atmosphere into your radiation system which is no bueno.
To the contrary... I think it´s a viable system. Radiating heat only happens on the surface, naturally enough, and lots and lots of tiny droplets have more surface per mass than larger objects of the same combined mass.

The main limitation I see that this would only work as designed in a vacuum and zero-g environment, not in an atmosphere, let alone while landed.
That's basically my take on this as well.

To OP: If you're interested in more hard sci-fi technology, I'd take a look at Terra Invicta for some inspiration.  The technologies are more on the hard sci-fi side with a handful exception (Exotics being the magical alien material that helps some of the plotlines to work and gives them a technological advantage throughout the game), so it could give some ideas of potential technologies rooted in reality.  The game itself is hard and time consuming, but pretty fun if you can get the hang of it.
8
Aerospace Combat / Re: Coventional Fighter with Fusion - Why Fuel?
« Last post by V13w3r on Today at 16:53:14 »
It's not so much FUEL, as reaction mass.  you can use the fusion engine to heat up a given liquid, under compression, and ride the steam.  Basically the advantage of a fusion powerplant in an airframe, is that if you have a reactive liquid (doesn't have to be jet fuel) it'll work as reaction mass. 

battletech doesn't have gravity control, something has to come out the nozzle end, or your airfame isn't going to be flying.

I understand this, its why the aerospace crafts have "Fuel" i think in the lore it says that it's Hydrogen because of its great specific impulse as you heat it, but you can use water too.
What i mean is that today the planes use fuel to move the turbines that ad more impulse thanks to compressing the air that keeps them cool and compress thy air for the combustion. (If not you are a Rocket) but outside of the game mechanics it's relay necessary fuel for conventional fighter that never going to leave the atmo.
We have electric motors that move planes (ok they are RC and Drones but because we dint have a way to produce the obscene energy that fusion engines generate in a compact mode) and as for the heat expansion that its produced by the combustion of the fuel you have the heat produced by the engine that can move or help the turbine to move the blades and as you reach higher speeds you can pass to ram / scram jet engines configurations using the heat/plasma of the engine... no?
9
Yeah, quite a while ago. It was showing high shipping charges relative to my order also for a while, I guess my data hasn't been reimported yet.

Mine's also at $0.00.  Some random person in the comments said this from update #88 was the reason:

Quote
Pre-Orders:

The pre-order store has also been closed to not extend our secondary calculation period.  If you do not have a shipping charge on your order yet, you will be part of this second wave of fulfillment. That second wave will happen as soon as orders are processed and shipped from this first wave.
10
Clan Chatterweb / Re: “Save” the Jags
« Last post by Alan Grant on Today at 16:38:08 »
One or more Khans could have easily gotten the Grand Council to delay a vote. Under any number of pretenses. There is nothing that said they had to vote a replacement that day. Even invoking some obscure procedural thing could have delayed the vote for a while.

My precedent for this is the simple fact that there hasn't always been an ilKhan. So, it isn't a post that must always be filled.

Also, after ilKhan Garrett Sainze was killed in February or March 3071. ilKhan Andrews was elected in December 3071. So the better part of a year had passed between those two events and the ramifications of that first death took time to play out. Between those two events, a lot happened. In any case it's further evidence to that fact that they didn't have to vote a successor immediately.

During this period, what we see Vlad do more than anything was stymie the other Clans. He was blunting their other efforts and playing political games. FM: CC does a decent job of showing the snapshot state of Clan Wolf about 5 months prior to the Great Refusal. What it shows is a Clan Wolf still rebuilding, still looking at a few more years of development before it's front-line galaxies would be fully refitted with Omnis and other Galaxies stood up. Working to regain prominence but still rebuilding. Vlad definitely had ambitions that Clan Wolf would one day resume an invasion of the Inner Sphere, but in 3059/3060 his Clan wasn't in a position to lead that.

In that moment any ilKhan would have been forced, first and foremost, to come up with a response to Operation Bulldog/Taskforce Serpent. Vlad was adamantly trying to ensure that there would be no response from the other Clans. Osis was calling for the other Clans to jump in, to act, and Vlad was one of the voices trying to shut that down. He was one of the voices trying to say this was a Jaguar problem, not an attack aimed at all the Clans.

The actual quote from Vlad in FM: CC is "The Jaguars may die, but the Clans are eternal." (FM: CC page 138)

So Vlad wasn't trying to portray himself as a savior of the homeworlds. He was trying to say this is a Jaguar problem and the other Clans should just stay out of it.

It's very telling that after Osis death, there was no ilKhan election. Which I think also answers your question.

Vlad was quite happy to dodge the outcome of the Great Refusal by abstaining, and quite happy to just maintain the status quo with no ilkhan. Clan Wolf needed more time. My takeaway from that was that even if he did have ambitions to be an ilKhan someday, that just wasn't the right time. But honestly I'm not even sure if he did, he was all about just promoting Clan Wolf above all others. His attitude toward the other Clans was frequently downright scornful, and that's not an attitude the other Clans want from an effective ilKhan.
Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 10