>>
|
786012.jpg
Evening Buzzer
786012
>>357233
Er, I'm sorry for nagging but I'm going to request more clarifications on the shields. Because to me it seems that there are... inconsistencies.
First of all, a collection of canon descriptions of the shields:
>reducing sudden forces and energies that pass through it by a moderate amount
Whatever this "moderate amount" is is subject to debate. More on this point further.
>equally effective against kinetic and energy weapons
Looks like some kinetic energy sapping effect.
>cannot be deactivated by firepower
This means that the shield effects all simultaneous incoming attacks equally.
>Infantry shields make small arms much less deadly but do little against heavier munitions, while naval shields can significantly weaken powerful shots from enemy ships.
This means that the shields act not like "multiply attack force by the disruption coefficient" but "subtract a certain amount of potency from the attack".
Now, returning to the first quote. Note the word "sudden". It implies that a gradual buildup of the attacking force will bypass the effects of the shield. That means that, while a bullet or a railgun shell will be subject to the effects of the shield, a laser that gradually increases its potency from "red dot on the wall" to "burn right through said wall and whatever it hides" might go unimpeded.
Now remember the communications. When you said that comms are not effected, did you mean radio? Because if "energy attacks" get affected then "lasers" are too (as a subclass of said energy attacks), and that in turn means that tight-beam communications carriers (laser- or infrared-based) might be affected.
Is all of this correct?
Next, on to inertia compensation issue. What I actually meant was not inertia compensation per se, but providing cushioning for loose objects in a suddenly accelerating vehicle.
Quoting you:
> [shields] do not help much at all when trying to reduce a collision with a massive body.
This is subject to relativity. The shields help quite a lot when trying to reduce a collision of a bullet with a (relatively) massive soldier. I was thinking that maybe we can implement such "interceptors"/"cushions" to help with, including but not limited to:
- Amortization of cargo and/or passengers and/or drivers.
- "Ballistic" transport systems: shoot the crate/cabin/landing pod from one side, catch it on the other side. Experimentation (read: your sanction) needed to determine if the shield on a lighter moving object (landing pod) significantly/noticeably affect collision with a more massive stationary object (planet).
- An extension of the previous is such a "cushion" helping with fighters landing on a carrier. If we can help with braking at the end of the way, we could shave some seconds off by reducing the need to brake along that same way (when approaching the carrier).
But wait, there's more!
Looking at your designs, the shield effect volume is actually a thin "sphere" around the shield generator.
(This is actually quite strange when coupled with your assertions that the shields 1) can't be extended farther from the hull and 2) can't be oriented. On one hand, such proximity requirement implies emitters being situated all over this hull, as otherwise (in the case of a single central generator) the shield radius is only determined by said generator's hardware parameters and/or power, both of which can be altered to increase the radius, contradicting (1). On the other hand, if these are indeed emitters, each individual one is responsible for only a little patch of the whole shield sphere, and that means inherent orientation, contradicting (2). Does not compute.)
Now, suppose a long solid object (say, a long missile) is entering into a hole on a big shielded object (say, a hole previously blown into the side of a ship). Suppose also that its entering velocity is such that the time in which the object intersects the shield effect volume (SEV) is non-negligible (say, a second or two).
Q1: Is the object affected by the shield for the duration of the whole time period when it intersects with the SEV?
Q2, which I should have asked sooner: How thick is SEV?
Q3: Am I right in assuming that this shield does not break physics and affects only the matter that is directly within the SEV?
Now, another thought experiment. Suppose we are throwing a small object into a strong shield with a very small initial velocity.
Q4: Is there a threshold for kinetic energy of the entering material below which the shield does not affect the object? And, generalizing this,
Q5: What is the (at least approximate) dependency of shield effect from entering matter's kinetic energy?
... Actually, now that I've written this wall of text, I'll understand if you just say "stop trying to apply your already defective physics knowledge to a sci-fi future tech and just have fun already dammit!". However, I feel that this discussion will help all of us understand and invent more uses for these shiny new exciting technologies.
|