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Neutronium

Fixed already Wes, after talking to Fian about why I couldn't find it on the wiki.

All future posts I edit will replace Neutronium as well, if needed..
 
We should substitute it on the Damage Rating Scale then -- that's where the primary source of its mention is located.

Do we just call it something else and slip it into the damage ratio, or do we need more than that?
 
I'm honestly not sure.

On the damage guide, it lists Neutronium as a DR 6 material. If we change it to Durandium (DR 5) it might be too weak than what was originally planned, while if we bump it up to Nerimium (DR 7), it might be considered too strong for a simple transport vessel.

:?
 
A new type of armor for middle-class ships would be nice.

I mean, for non-Yamataian ships, the choice pretty much boils down to Durandium or Nerimium. I'm all for a new armor type to replace the DR 6 slot.
 
You don't have to stick with just alloys, you know. Some ideas I've been playing around for armor:

(Carbon) Buckypaper: Carbon nanotubes, each with extremely high tensile strengths, "weaved" together like a cloth or paper. Makes a low-weight, high-tensile material incomparable to anything else known (not including fictional materials, of course). This high tensile strength could make it effective at flat out nullifying projectile weapons and concussions from explosive weapons. It has a high thermal and electrical conductivity which could make it vulnerable to energy weapons -- Or excellent at absorbing them, if you add some sort of heat sinks.

sp3 Buckypaper: Similar principles as the above. By trading out the sp2 (nanotubes) bond for a sp3 (diamond) bond, you reduce tensile-strength-per-nanotube somewhat, but allows you to create a much more densely-packed armor weave.

Energized Tungsten: ( https://stararmy.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=41065 ) I used Tungsten because it is one of the toughest substances on the elemental table (against both kinetic and energy weapons), and I didn't want to try mucking about with the physics of using some made-up alloy. But the energized armor system should be able to work in conjunction with most metal to increase a pounding a ship can take.

This would be an extreme effective second line defense for ships with shielding; when the shield emitters break, your primary reactor will still be pumping out huge amounts of energy. Just divert all the power into your Energized Armor capacitor to increase its defensive potential exponentially.

"Plan B": An idea of mine for damage control, rather than damage prevention. Have all hulls and bulkheads lined with a gel substance. When the hull is breached, atmosphere (probably oxygen) will leak through the breach, thereby contacting the in-between gel layer. The gel would react with the oxygen, cause it to rapidly expand and eventually harden, turning a breached room into a temporary block of armor. Or plugging up a hole in the hull. Not really a construction material, but an interesting idea nonetheless.

Electroactive Polymers: The basis for artifical muscles used by Freespacer machines; Metals whose shap is modified when voltage is applied. Theoretically this could have a military application, by having an armor that "hardens" (contracts) when you pump power into it.
 
How about "Nepleslium" or "Elysium" for a new Level 6 armor?

I mean, why not? After all, the other major "humanoid" (i.e. not the Mishhu) nations - the Nerimian Confederation and the Yamatai Star Empire have armors named after them, so why not the Nepleslian empire? Nepleslian technology is at a slightly lower level (keyword: slightly) that Yamataian or Nerimian technology, so it makes sense that their namesake armor should offer protection (L 6) slightly, but not greatly, inferior to Nerimium (L 7) or Yamataium (L 8, or L 9 when "reinforced").

The previous paragraph would work equally well with all instances of the word "Nepleslian" replaced by the word "Elysian" - or perhaps it would work even better, since the gap between Nerimian/Yamataian and Nepleslian tech appears likely to shrink much faster (thanks, in part, to Nerimian assistance) than that between Nerimian/Yamataian and Elysian technology.

A related question to this discussion is about "Reinforced Yamataium" as an armor type. Is "Reinforced Yamataium":
a) a special type of Yamataium that is somehow different from ordinary Yamataium?
b) Yamataium armor only in much greater quantity, "Yamataium +1", or something along those lines? If so, are "reinforced" varieties of other armors, say Reinforced Durandium @ Armor Level 6, available, or at least possible if not currently on the market?
c) Yamataium reinforced with something else to compensate for its shortcomings (whatever those may be), like reinforced concrete - correction: steel-reinforced concrete - and if so, reinforced with what? Yamataium reinforced with Zesuaium should be called "Zesuaium-reinforced Yamataium", etc.

@Leutre Veressis:

If you look at the damage rating table, nanotube-based armor is already listed at armor level 5.

The problem with armor that contracts when you pump power into it is that someone else can deliberately pump too much power into it and watch it either squeeze/crush your ship ito a little ball or rip itself apart trying.
 
Nerimium (which the Nerimians call Hephestium) isn't an alloy - it's a raw material from which other materials such as Durandium (what the NDI calls Solanium) and Leptonium (Yamataium) are derived.
 
Lady Xerena said:
@Leutre Veressis:

If you look at the damage rating table, nanotube-based armor is already listed at armor level 5.

The problem with armor that contracts when you pump power into it is that someone else can deliberately pump too much power into it and watch it either squeeze/crush your ship ito a little ball or rip itself apart trying.
Click to expand...

Aren't Carbon rings just rings of carbon atoms (e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzene)? As in a chemical compound? I don't think they're exactly on par with nanoscale engineering, certainly not on the scale of buckypaper. Plus, Andrium is a made up material, so its hard to determine what its strength is in comparison to 'real' ones.

As for electroactive polymers, they might not necessarily 'overcontract.' If muscles were aligned in certain patterns to control maximum contraction, it wouldn't be an issue.

I know they're not perfect, but I'm just trying to be more creative than yet another Bob-ium, Frank-ium, or JohnDoe-ium. Its a sad state of affairs if we can't even think of creative names for metals, yet alone unique materials in themselves.
 
the carbon-ring armor used in this setting is pretty much the thought experiment of some physicists or other (I am sure someone else could provide a link to, I never cared to keep it) who stated (in like 1 paragraph of a several page text) that if a interlocking mesh of C6H6 atoms where made it would posses a incredibly high tensile strength (hundreds of times higher than steel). However, he didn't out word one out about how one might make it (and it seemed no one else really cared about that fact).
 
The interesting thing about buckypaper is that, while it would be just another armor against projectiles or antimatter, it would behave less like armor and more like a shield against energy weapons - such weapons would be able to destroy every square inch of buckypaper armor on your ship at once with enough power over a long enough time, but until that point no actual damage would occur.
 
I would like to point out I did question the carbon ring armor's construction methods when it was first put on the board and the person who submitted it did a great job of defending both it and its construction process.

I'm too lazy to link to it, though.
 
Carbon rings in themselves have very little application for construction. However, three-dimensional carbon structures do exist...but because he hasn't clearly explained what sort of structure his carbon rings interconnect as, its nigh impossible to guess its characteristics. It could very well be anything from pencil graphite (flat sheets of interlinked hexagons), to single-walled carbon nanotubes (flat sheets of hexagonal "rolled" into cylinders), to C-60 (ball-like structure of interlinking hexagons and pentagons) to C-540 (ball-like structure of hexagons). They each have very different properties from one another, despite all being carbon molecules. Though none of them are called carbon rings, to my knowledge.

Just because two materials are composed of carbon allotropes, it by no means their product will be anything even remotely similar. Just compare graphite (yes, the kind used in pencils) to nanotubes (strong tensile strength than steel), for example. Having a carbon allotrope armor of DR5 strength, and another carbon allotrope armor of DR6 strength wouldn't be that far fetched, would it?

Of course, if you hate the idea of using two types of carbon allotropes as armor, we could always drop to the standby of old; Making another fictional material of some vague composition, and giving it another generic but picked-at-random name that sounds very sci-fi.

... I vote Frankium.
 
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