To the engineering types here

[Tenacity]

Pardon?

I think he means that my laziness paid off because it got someone to pull up the infocard for me instead of having to look for it myself =P

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[n00bl3t]

Where's the <strike>catalytic</strike> cracker?

Or is the big chamber it?

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Anything I say is not intended as offensive, and to try and deliberately misinterpret it as such would be an attempt at trolling via misrepresentation.

It's not a conspiracy, it's localised bias. They're not intelligent enough to form a conspiracy.

[Tenacity]

Where's the <strike>catalytic</strike> cracker?

Or is the big chamber it?

you mean the process known as 'cracking' which creates water from oxygen and h-fuel?

That's caused by the combining of oxygen and hydrogen molecules during sparking at the rear of the chamber, when the fuel stream is 'ignited' it creates water vapor which gets pulled down the pipe at the back of the chamber and is moved into the water tank for storage.

Heat, Radiation, and Electromagnetic energy from the fuel stream ignition is absorbed by the 'hamster wheel' at the center of the chamber, which converts it all into electrical energy and stores the leftover energy in the power cells. Energy that isnt stored is consumed by the electromagnetic coils lining the chamber - which condense the fuel stream from the injectors and propel it out of the rear of the engine towards the igniters.

Altering the coil frequency (i.e. the rate at which they activate and deactivate) increases the velocity of the fuel stream, resulting in the ship moving faster. Reducing the coil frequency slows the stream down, resulting in the ship moving slower.

=P

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[n00bl3t]

That is a classic copy and paste, and then slight edit.:P

XD at the hamster-wheel.

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Anything I say is not intended as offensive, and to try and deliberately misinterpret it as such would be an attempt at trolling via misrepresentation.

It's not a conspiracy, it's localised bias. They're not intelligent enough to form a conspiracy.

[MB52]

Sorry.. I'm the wrong type of engineer to be of help.. as a Civil engineer we don't get to design many space ship engines... now if you engine is built out of concrete.... maybe then we can talk.

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I’ll carry this flag
To the grave if I must
Because it’s flag that I love
And a flag that I trust

[Tenacity]

That is a classic copy and paste, and then slight edit.:P

XD at the hamster-wheel.

Actually it's simple chemistry =P If you combine hydrogen and oxygen gasses in a sealed chamber and create an ignition, you get water vapor.

It's how these new hydrogen powered cars work. They have 'zero emissions' because the only byproduct the vehicle produces when running is water.

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[sovereign]

If you've got skype, I can drag a few of the technical RP minds into a convo to work out the schematics enough to write a small essay on the stuff (not that you need to, but we get a little enthused sometimes:P). I'm Sovfalcon (whether its capitalized or not I don't remember), by the way, please add me if you've got skype. If you don't, get it here.

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[Monk]

ok...some things

We already mix hydrogen and oxygen to create thrust in today's rockets...yep them boosters are full of hydrogen and the oxygen is readily available in the air.

Hydrogen Fuel cells are way different...in a hydrogen fuel cell Hydrogen acts as..well fuel...and oxygen..simply enough..as an oxidant. Fuel on the anode side and oxidant on the cathode side. Introduce an electrolyte between them like sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide which act as catalysts for bringing fuel (hydrogen) and oxidant (oxygen) together. The electricity results in a sort of convoluted way. As the hydrogen comes in contact with the catalyst the protons and electrons are diffused. The protons will travel through the catalyst membrane while the electrons are routed through a circuit which goes to power whatever. When the electrons return from powering whatever they meet up with the protons and the oxygen to form water vapor.

I always though H-fuel had a more nuclear nature in FL but I'm not sure. As for nanobots those are machines built out of some nano-size material...probably carbon tubes or continuous planes. These could feasibly take on the shape of some repair vessel but on a very small scale.

[Tenacity]

Meh, it sounded feasible when I typed it at least =P

As for nanobots those are machines built out of some nano-size material...probably carbon tubes or continuous planes. These could feasibly take on the shape of some repair vessel but on a very small scale.

I always thought of nanobots like small versions of the replicators from stargate... little spider-like lego creatures made out of basic blocks joined together, with the ability to deposit and fuse small amounts of steel to the hull in order to seal ruptures and such.

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[Monk]

Yeah the nanobots could be that...the only requirement that they must be measured by the nanometer scale. Otherwise the name doesn't make sense.

Lessee...shields...shields are tricky to provide a real physical basis for. First off, you've got sever different kinds of shields operating off of, essentially, the same power supply. S'pose I'll take a crack at it...

So we have graviton, molecular and positron. I'll start with what the names should mean.

Positrons are electrons having a sort of gender identity crisis in that they are positively charged instead of negatively charged. They fall under the category of anti-matter, basically a world of opposites. As a shield positrons can annihilate incoming electrons.

Molecular seems direct enough. Molecules...check

Gravitons are particles that mediate or carry gravitational force. Similar to how photons mediate or carry electromagnetic force. Gravitons, if they exist, must by massless b/c gravitational force has unlimited range.

Now creating clearly finite spheres of these fields would be a feat in of itself. You would not only have to emit these fields but you would also have to create some sort of opposite field to create a boundary. I could possibly imagine this for positronic or molecular fields. For a positron shield I would imagine creating a strong negative EM field around the ship and then disperse positrons around the ship. The positrons can be easily generated from certain radioactive decays or interactions with photons. The positrons would be attracted to the ship by the negative EM field but some sort of further protection would be needed to keep the positrons from annihilating the electrons on the hull and creating a dangerous plasma. A molecular shield could operate in a similar way if the molecules were ionic. No idea how one could create a graviton field since gravitons have no mass and interact with matter very very weakly, as compared to other forces.

Ok so how do they stop the pew pews? Well Particle guns are strong against graviton shields. This makes sense since gravitons barely interact with matter and, therefore, particles. They are weak against a molecular shield because they ram into the molecules and bounce away most of the time.

Laser weapons are strong against positron shields probably because the photons in the laser don't carry a charge and pass by the positrons most of time. Laser weapons are weak against graviton shields perhaps b/c...well i dunno...photons carry mass and are particles which I said gravitons barely interact with...hmm.

Neutron guns slice through molecular shields. Neutrons are used to initiate nuclear reactions. And if you fire neutrons at molecules then those molecules become radioactive and a chain reaction occurs since those molecules would then release more neutrons. Devastation. Neutron weps are weak vs. positron shields prolly b/c they would keep knocking into the positrons which would transfer more kinetic energy to them making a massive torrent of swirling positrons that would be increasingly difficult to penetrate.

Plasma does well against gravitons. Plasma is pretty much just any form of matter that is so highly energized that it throws off its electrons leaving the nucleus bare. I'm thinking graviton shields should be the ultimate fail shield since gravitons pretty much interact with nothing but other gravitons and even then it is fairly weak. Plasma is weak against molecular since those nuclei would be bumping into some fairly sturdy molecules and would probably end up bonding with them creating bigger heavier molecules.

Pulse weapons are weak against graviton shields...again no idea why. They are strong against positrons prolly because, I am assuming by pulse they mean pulses of electricity or electrons, the electrons annihilate with the positrons creating large numbers of hot gamma rays while eating away at the positron supply.

Not even going to touch tachyons as that is pretty much pure science fiction. A tachyon is a particle that travel faster than light...which is something a I cannot wrap my head around. Travelling faster than light but not violating causality b/c information carried on tachyons would not go faster than light therfore creating the situation where one tachyon actually appears as two tachyons with one going one direction and the other going the opposite sheesh (run on sentence used purposely to intimate frustrations:P) There is a different kind of tachyon in quantum field theory. It is used to represent a quantum of a field that cause symmetry breaking or random quantum fluctuations. The tachyon itself is a local maximum in a field that quickly releases potential energy to become a normal part of a field and no longer a tachyon. The most common example of tachyons is the ferromagnet. Take a block of Iron, when it is not magnetized the magnetic dipoles point in every which direction. Occasionally tachyons will develop where and cause a dipole to become an unstable local maximum in potential energy. As this energy is then released the dipole will align to a local minimum determined by the average dipole direction of its neighbors. Introduce a strong magnetic field and these tachyons will produce dipoles that align with the strong magnetic field eventually creating a copy introduced field. Tachyon activity can be increased with higher temps so magnetizing a piece of Iron goes more quickly at higher temperatures. Not sure that any of that has anything to do with creating a weapon but well...ramble over