Gravitation

[Grah31]

...And apply them to the game in question and its mechanics. Sheesh.

---

That's the way it’s written up there, in your post, in case *you* haven't noticed.
Sheesh <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

[tarendelcymir]

Originally posted by Jukka Mikkonen:
Iceman,

You're only partly right. Only thing that keeps me from adding armor is BULK, that's what I agree with.

But MASS means nothing in zero-g, and next to nothing in low-g. Let's use a "well-known" (in scifi-terms) substance called neutronium as base. That stuff is ultra-dense, meaning that a mere teaspoonfull of it would weigh several TONS. In ToS terms, its mass would be off the scale (too high), just as its bulk (too low to count).

(As an interesting side note, how come 50mm of Vicenium takes up a lot more SPACE than exactly same 50mm of Titanium? Rather intriguing..)

Now, there's nothing to stop me from building a titan at zero-g, is there? So, I could happily strap on those 50+ mm's of neutronium to protect that light titan of mine and still move it around with bare hands - IN ZERO G!

Naturally, that poor light titan would propably crush under its own weight if moved to Earth. Still, it could propably move just fine on the surface of Charon, having just minimal gravity over there.

Using the same analogy, low-G conditions would favor heavier (=more dense) armors while heavy-G would make you sacrifice everything so that you could shave that extra gram of mass off. Even more so, if it can be expected that a titan chassis will actually snap and fall apart if you put too much WEIGHT on it. How much more, that's what we're here to decide.

---

I almost don't want to say anything, because this whole thread has gone on long enough, especially since it doesn't look like it'll be used anytime soon, but I need to point out that it's not true that mass means nothing in zero-g. Mass means EVERYTHING in zero-g. Mass and inertia are unaffected by the lack of gravity. Yes, you could build a titan in space and use superdense materials like neutronium, but there's a few things to consider about it:
1. You couldn't move a teaspoonfull of neutronium with your bare hands, even in space because your hands can't produce enough force to overcome the inertia of several tons of static material. You would move yourself, not the neutronium. And if by some miracle of extreme strength and secure bracing of feet you did get it moving, you would never be able to stop it or even alter the direction it was moving in.
2. Ignoring all that and saying you used heavy equipment to build the titan with neutronium armor, you would still have the same problem piloting it. Even on the surface of Charon your engine probably wouldn't have the power to get your titan from stopped to moving, and if it did, you wouldn't be able to alter the straigh path of the movement because your titan would mass millions of tons with 50 mm of neutronium on every part of it.
3. A titan-sized object made of neutronium would have such a mass that it would have a substantial gravity field attached to it. Gravity is a function of mass after all, not weight. If you landed on the surface of Charon (or any planetary surface), your titan would sink right through the crust of the surface and proceed on down toward the core of the planet. The formula for gravity is Mass1(the planet) times Mass2(the titan)divided by the distance (between them) squared. If you plug in the mass of Charon (I don't know it, but it's a lot) and the mass of the titan, which would be millons of tons, and the distance would be from the core of the planet to the surface, the attraction would be far greater than the rocks and ice of the surface could counterract. You and your titan would sink to the core of the planet.

[jmikkone]

Tarendelcymir,

Oh gosh, I propably should stick to "normal" substances as I draw my examples, you guys somehow always manage to think I'm completely unaware of the other practical implications of using materials I proposed. <img src="wink.gif" border="0">

Yes, it would be darn hard to move a titan made of Neutronium with your bare hands even in zero-g, but only because inertia makes it impractically SLOW. F = ma, here implicating that if mass goes up radically, you'll have to sacrifice acceleration since your arm power (Force) stays constant. But you'd still be able to, it would just take more time.

Some maths & physics now.. Those that dislike those, please skip the next paragraph. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

The gravity field of a recon titan made of neutronium.. Let's assume neutronium's mass is 5 tons per teaspoonfull? One teaspoon is 5ml, so you get a density of 1 billion kg/cubic meter, right? Say, you want to have ten cubic meters of such matter (one recon titan?), and you get a mass of 10 billion kg. We'll assume the worst case scenario, having all that packed into a ball shape. With a bit of maths, such an object would have a radius of 1.34 meters. Thus the gravitic constant would be 0.37g on the surface. An average 80kg person would feel less than 30kg pull. Noticeable, but still manageable. To have a decent gravity field, you need LOTS of mass, since mass grows on the third power of the radius while gravity only on the second..

Yes, this is way off-topic, I know. <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">

[Lyhrrus]

Teaspoon full of armor? Liquid armor? Sounds intersting. Maybe the titan would be required to have a shield on at all times to hold the darned stuff in place and if the shield was ever blown out you'd lose 1 AP/10 secs or something like that...

*thinks about the code and the things Larkin has to do*

Ahh... never mind. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

[Thorgrim]

Originally posted by Grah31:


That's the way it&#8217;s written up there, in your post, in case *you* haven't noticed.
Sheesh <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

---

Hmmm, maybe you're confusing posts?!
Anyway, if you're talking about what I think you're talking about, then you didn't read it correctly. I used 'stability' in two different ways, to model two different things. You just have to know how to discern them. If you don't, well, what can I say. I was pretty clear I think.

[Grah31]

I wrote &#8216;&#8230;Lets use the game mechanics as you suggest, Iceman&#8230;&#8217;. Nowhere did I say that you had suggested any game mechanics. If I had written &#8216;&#8230;Lets use the game mechanics that you suggest, Iceman&#8230;&#8217; then you have a point. I didn&#8217;t. You don&#8217;t. And to use another little titbit of yours from this thread. Do me a favor and read things correctly please.

Grah

[Thorgrim]

Ok, I stand corrected in the semanthics part. But I wasn't really suggesting using the game mechanics, as that is more than obvious when discussing things about the game. I was keeping his post in line with the game mechanics, which is slightly different. If you like your semanthics so much, you should have understood that. And you wouldn't have posted what you did. And we better stop this right here.