Souldn't mech technology be more advanced?

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CrayModerator
01/26/04 02:22 PM
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Correct me if I am wrong here, but would fighting in a methane-rich enviroment not be potentailly dangerous the moment someone fires off a weapon that generates a flame or excessive heat? Sort of a Double Boom effect - first the autocannon goes "Boom", and then the atmosphere goes "Boom"... along with everything in it, right?



Remember the three things you need for a fire:

1) Fuel (paper, gasoline, coal, hydrogen, methane...)
2) Heat (spark, glowplug, spark plug, muzzle flash...)
3) Oxidizer (oxygen, hydrogen peroxide, some permanganates, fluorine, chlorine, etc.)

Just two of those is not enough. You need all three together.

Now, if you're in a habitable, oxidizer-rich environment...yes, there's a fire/explosion hazard. This kind of environment is what you find when some methane source just ruptured. Maybe a pipeline, maybe a burst well, maybe a fuel tank. The methane will not last long and will, in fact, probably oxidize rapidly and vigorously (it'll burn). If not, it will disperse to harmless, non-flammable levels.

However, methane-rich environments (like those of Uranus...so many jokes, so little time...Neptune, and Saturn's moon Titan) are quite stable - you won't have planet-sized fireballs - because while you might have fuel (methane) and heat (muzzle flash), you don't have free oxygen or other oxidizers. If a sealed, air-filled chamber ruptured, the oxygen would support combustion in the immediate area, at least until the oxygen supply ran out. The situation would be very much like a ruptured gas tank.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
Silenced_Sonix
01/26/04 02:59 PM
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So ejecting from the BattleMech's cockpit would ignite the methane, right? You would have the methane, the air from the cockpit, and the flames from the ejection seat...

Hmmm, that would be an interesting predicament... Burn up inside your 'Mech, or eject and burn up outside your 'Mech.
Evolve or Die
CrayModerator
01/26/04 04:12 PM
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Ejection will probably outpace the flame front - the flames will mostly be in the cockpit, or near it. The limiting factor is how long it takes for the air in the cockpit and methane outside to mix. At equal pressure, they won't mix fast. You'll get a puff of flame as the ejection seat leaves, then a slower, erratic, "puffing" burn around the open hatch as the volumes of gas mix.

The mechwarrior should worry about suffocation more than anything. Light environmental suits might not be adequate for many methane environments. Titan is cryogenic, for example, and its very thick nitrogen-methane atmosphere would require a full space suit, which mechwarriors cannot wear in mech cockpits.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
neven
01/26/04 10:11 PM
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OK......
umm, why are we talking about ejection from a battlemech's cockpit
-***"ADAPT TO SURVIVE"***-
Nightward
01/27/04 12:55 AM
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Awh. Damn you, cold, hard physics! Damn you!

C'mon. The image is so cool.

MW: "Die!"
*Fires SRM Launcher*
MW: "Oh, crap..."
*DEAFENING BOOM*

Certainly better than, say, Fusion Engine Explosions or the "I am Jade Falcon" attack...
Yea, verily. Let it be known far and wide that Nightward loathes MW: DA. Indeed, it is with the BURNING ANIMUS OF A THOUSAND SUNS that he doth rage against it with.
tgsofgc
01/27/04 01:41 AM
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You copuld still do some impressive things though. For instance in one such environement suppose there is oxygen bound with in Rocks/Water/Ice that can be released by something as simple as a Laser hit. Now you have spot fires, that may be able to spread to some extent (though they will use up the oxidizer).
Now lets suppose that the planet with a methane rich atmosphere is cold (very cold) and has extremely deep oceans, and high preasure that makes it so only the tops freeze solid (just enough to support some mechs). Now lets suppose that the oxygen in this frozen water is tied up till shot. Now the mechs exchange fire and hit some of the ice releasing enough oxygen to ignite on the ice for a small amount of time. Now lets suppose the fire is hot enough to vaporize the nearby Ice, also igniting. Meaning each shot starts flare ups and slowly carves up the ice the mechs are fighting on, and may cause it to become unstable allowing them to fall in. Talk about danger.
Of course, I suck at chemistry and don't know just how free the oxygen in such a situation would have to be to react. It may be that something like this could never arise as the methan and oxygen would already react. If not it might be fun to have an ice ship crash into one such methane rich atmosphere planets.
just brainstor...er something
I find that 'pinpoint' accuracy during a bombing run increases proportionally with the amount of munitions used.
-Commander Nathaniel Klepper,
Avanti's Angels, 3058
CrayModerator
01/27/04 06:20 AM
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Quote:

You copuld still do some impressive things though. For instance in one such environement suppose there is oxygen bound with in Rocks/Water/Ice that can be released by something as simple as a Laser hit. Now you have spot fires, that may be able to spread to some extent (though they will use up the oxidizer).



Pure oxygen, or readily heat-released oxygen, does not exist in nature. If you found a "deposit" of oxygen ice, you're probably near some manmade release, like an old research base on a Kuiper belt object. That won't last long.

Even in ultra-cold environments, oxygen is mostly found in water or silicates (silicon-oxygen compounds: rocks, space dust). For example, the ultra-cold environments of Sol's gas giants' moons tend to see a lot of water, whole moons made out of it (see: Europa, Enceladus, Titan, etc). Neptune and Uranus have been referred to as "ice giants" because most of their mass is in the form of water rather than hydrogen. Both water and silicates are very chemically stable.

The problem with finding free oxygen is that it's SO reactive. If a planet had a layer of free oxygen ice (or easily released oxygen) some meteor, geological activity, or lightning strike would've lit it off long ago. Even without humans around, the universe is a very violent place.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
CrayModerator
01/27/04 06:25 AM
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Quote:

umm, why are we talking about ejection from a battlemech's cockpit



Because thread drift brought up the topic of methane-rich atmospheres (not necessarily at the local chili cook off), and the risk of ejecting in them.

Let's see...
*I mentioned fuel cells.
*Somehow methane came up from the discussion of fuel cells.
*I mentioned that in a methane (or hydrogen) atmosphere, an ICE would need to carry oxidizer rather than fuel, because the atmosphere would have the fuel.
*Speculation turned to the risk of getting oxygen into the atmosphere and igniting it.
*The example someone thought of was a mechwarrior ejecting from a cockpit and releasing the cockpit's oxygen into the methane atmosphere with the flames of the ejection seat, creating a fireball around the luckless mechwarrior.

A classic case of thread drift. Neven, are you reading the thread in "threaded" or "flat" mode?
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
Gnome76
01/27/04 04:29 PM
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Quote:


Q: Why do we still use missiles in the 31st century?





Because they get a separate hit location roll for each missile (SRMs) or group of 5 (L/MRMs, rockets, etc.)
which means more chances for a crit or head shot.
neven
01/28/04 12:41 AM
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What the hell is Sol?
what about something else, we could use fusion materials, like deuterium as fuels for dropships, aircraft, and jumpships, since deuterium is easily acquired from water (we could even do this in the present!) then we get a source of fuel that never runs dry, water is so abundant in MW, except on planets like proserpina, liezen etc.
-***"ADAPT TO SURVIVE"***-
Silpheed
01/28/04 12:59 AM
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Sol is the name of our sun, hence the "Solar System". As for fusion reactors on aircraft and dropships, AFAIK many of these vehicles have them. However, as has been mentioned before, even a (relatively) inexhaustable power source such as fusion needs something to push out the back the ship for it to do anything in space. Of course, if you're only disputing the fuel, then I have no idea...
"War is nothing but a duel on an extensive scale." - Clausewitz


Edited by Silpheed (01/28/04 01:02 AM)
tgsofgc
01/28/04 01:29 AM
67.4.200.70

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Neven don't know if you go to any other btech forums but believe me this is mild thread drift... especially with sarnas nice threaded mode. Just try HMP or Battletechuniverse if you don't believe me.
I find that 'pinpoint' accuracy during a bombing run increases proportionally with the amount of munitions used.
-Commander Nathaniel Klepper,
Avanti's Angels, 3058
tgsofgc
01/28/04 01:42 AM
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Quote:

Pure oxygen, or readily heat-released oxygen, does not exist in nature. If you found a "deposit" of oxygen ice, you're probably near some manmade release, like an old research base on a Kuiper belt object. That won't last long.




I guess that puts an end to that, but maybe you know the answer to this... I know you can electrolize water:
Quote:

Passing an electric current through acidified water (such as diluted sulphuric acid) breaks down the water into its constituent elements hydrogen and oxygen



but the question is can/water effect would Lasers have on liquid water, does it simply evaporate it? Similarly what effect does Particle based weapondry have on the water?
Would these effects change based on the atate of the Water, especially the chrystaline structure of ice?
Also what affect would the plasma based mech flamer have in such an environment, and on things like water/ice that may be present.

What about a frozen rock with a methane atmosphere with floating (suspension) algae like life that produces Oxygen. Would these bubbles cause little surface flames. Similarly if this all under Ice sheets accumulating beneath them, woulld/could these cause massive booms when the ice sheets crack and the oxygen is released. Also is such an environment feasible at all, even if temporary?
I find that 'pinpoint' accuracy during a bombing run increases proportionally with the amount of munitions used.
-Commander Nathaniel Klepper,
Avanti's Angels, 3058
CrayModerator
01/28/04 07:45 AM
147.160.1.5

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but the question is can/water effect would Lasers have on liquid water, does it simply evaporate it?



Evaporate it, or cause it to explode simply due to rapid heating, not any chemical effects.
Quote:

Similarly what effect does Particle based weapondry have on the water?



The same as lasers. You'll see some decomposition of water, but even a few kilograms of water converted to oxygen and hydrogen won't make much of a bang compared to the explosion of superheated matter where the beam hit.

Also note that electrolysis of water is a zero-sum game. If you sink X amount of energy into splitting water, you get X amount of energy back out when the hydrogen and oxygen recombine. Therefore, whatever a laser or PPC does with water won't be anymore spectacular than what they would do with rock or armor.

Quote:

What about a frozen rock with a methane atmosphere with floating (suspension) algae like life that produces Oxygen. Would these bubbles cause little surface flames. Similarly if this all under Ice sheets accumulating beneath them, woulld/could these cause massive booms when the ice sheets crack and the oxygen is released. Also is such an environment feasible at all, even if temporary?



Actually, you're working your way toward a real world issue, "methane calthrates." Under high pressure (i.e., deep underwater), methane mixes with water in a funny way to form methane-laced water ice. This is called a "methane calthrate" (calthrate means cage or something: the water cages the methane). It's also called, "the ice that burns." There's a LOT of it on the floor of Earth's oceans, and it's not terribly stable. A good shock (underwater nuke test, a big sea quake, etc.) can release the methane, causing a chain reaction release over a large area of the seafloor.

Then you get a lot of methane bubbling to the surface, where billions of years of effort by terrestrial plants have supplied an oxygen rich atmosphere. This sucks for three reasons:

1) For boats in the immediate vicinity, the dense water they were floating on suddenly turns to a frothing mix of gas and water - a lot of ships will sink, because they were designed with buoyancy to float on water, not on methane bubbles.
2) For boats in the immediate vicinity, you know some dumbass will be smoking a cigarette and will light off those gigatons of methane.
3) For everyone else on the planet, methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and a large scale release can warm the planet several degrees. (You're better off burning the stuff than letting it release.)

Speaking of calthrates, this reminds me. One of the planets wrecked in the Jihad had a lot of methane calthrate rocks that flash-warmed the environment. I'll have to ask Warner which one that was. He wrote it and asked for my input, but I don't recall which planet it was.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
CrayModerator
01/28/04 07:58 AM
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What the hell is Sol?



Step outside your home today and look at the big fusion explosion warming your face. Many speakers of Romance languages (Roman, Romanian, Latin, Spanish, French, etc.) use variations of "Sol" to describe it, while Americans usually call it "the Sun."
Quote:

what about something else, we could use fusion materials, like deuterium as fuels for dropships, aircraft, and jumpships, since deuterium is easily acquired from water (we could even do this in the present!)



Do you know that deuterium is just hydrogen (with an extra neutron)?

There are two ways to get power from deuterium:
1) Use it like normal hydrogen (protium) and burn it in a combustion engine or combine it with oxygen in a fuel cell.
2) Fuse it in a fusion reactor.

As I've said several times in this thread, humans can NOT currently generate power with fusion, and using deuterium in a combustion engine or fuel cell is criminally expensive. (A typical hydrogen powered car would cost about $14.50 per mile driven if it used deuterium. Using normal hydrogen, you could drive about 300 miles for $14.50.)

Quote:

then we get a source of fuel that never runs dry, water is so abundant in MW, except on planets like proserpina, liezen etc.



One of the defining themes of BT is that water is rare. Many planets suffered in the Succession Wars simply because their filtration systems broke down and spare parts were not available. The Ryan Ice Cartel Iceships enabled an explosion in colonization because the many, many water-poor worlds could finally be settled.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
CrayModerator
01/28/04 07:59 AM
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As for fusion reactors on aircraft and dropships, AFAIK many of these vehicles have them. However, as has been mentioned before, even a (relatively) inexhaustable power source such as fusion needs something to push out the back the ship for it to do anything in space. Of course, if you're only disputing the fuel, then I have no idea...



Battletech's fusion reactors actually just use plain hydrogen, not deuterium, for fuel.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
Silenced_Sonix
01/28/04 02:48 PM
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To skip back to something that Cray said about lasers hitting water: last time I checked my chemistry, steam had an energy level approximately seven times that of liquid water. Since these lasers are supposed to be nothing more than very, very warm light, would firing a laser into water not just simply create one gigantic cloud of steam? After all, the beam's energy would essentailly be weakend to one seventh of its previous power, and would there fore take about seven times as much time to inflict the same amount of damage - would that not just make a nice buuble-bath instead of exploding or doing something spectacular like that?

Yes, off-thread and all, but still curious...
Evolve or Die
CrayModerator
01/28/04 03:27 PM
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After all, the beam's energy would essentailly be weakend to one seventh of its previous power, and would there fore take about seven times as much time to inflict the same amount of damage -



Hmm. Thinking.

No. The relation of steam's energy to water's energy has nothing to do with lasers. It just says "steam has this much X times more energy than liquid water."

To figure out how much water reduced a laser beam's energy, you'd need to know some value describing, like, how much laser light was absorbed by water per meter or hex traveled. Even after getting that, the relation of water's energy to steam's energy doesn't really apply. It then might be helpful to know how much laser energy a given amount of water could absorb before boiling, but that'd probably just factor into determining how much weapon-grade laser energy would be absorbed by the water.

If you knew how much laser energy that water absorbed per hex or meter, you could eventually find out where the laser's energy was reduced to 1/7 it's original strength, but that calculation would just be a coincidental match to the figure you provided. Closer to the barrel, the beam would be stronger. Further from the barrel, the beam would be weaker. It wouldn't always have 1/7th the normal beam strength.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
neven
01/29/04 12:09 AM
152.163.253.5

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Ok, umm, hmm,...
cant lasers, ppcs, and all those other wholesome weapons be more powerful, and what about mech armor, does it also use titanium, or some other stuff.
-***"ADAPT TO SURVIVE"***-
neven
01/29/04 12:31 AM
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you now whats cool about this post, there are so many questions, when one is answered, almost 10 more come up, cool eh?
uh oh here come the Kool aid spokesman, oh no! oh no!
Kool aid dude: Oh Yeah!!! LOL!
-***"ADAPT TO SURVIVE"***-
CrayModerator
01/29/04 07:41 AM
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Quote:

cant lasers, ppcs, and all those other wholesome weapons be more powerful



Sure. Look at how Clan lasers and PPCs improved over Inner Sphere/Star League models, and the new Clan "Heavy" lasers.
Quote:

and what about mech armor, does it also use titanium, or some other stuff.



Mech armor is described in several books, starting with the c1986 "Battletech 2nd edition" rule book, then the Mechwarrior 1 RPG, and most recently the "Classic Battletech Companion."

Fortunately, none of them describe mech armor as using titanium in the protective layers, a metal that (as a materials engineer) I can tell you is very over-rated. Only recently (late 1990s) have the best titanium alloys been able to match the best steels' strength on a strength-for-weight basis (one pound of titanium alloy is as strong as a pound of steel alloys available since the 1960s). Titanium alloys remain weaker than the best steels on an absolute strength scale. In fact, the best titanium alloys (yield strength 200000 pounds per square inch) are about half as strong as the best steel alloys (yield strength 350000psi).

The CBT:Companion (like earlier works) describes mech armor as essentially having two layers: a super-steel outer layer and a boron nitride (ceramic) inner layer that's reinforced with diamond fibers.

When I was revising that part of the CBT:Companion draft, I was told to include two additional layers that (apparently) had been described in some sourcebook or novel that I hadn't read. These included a plastic sealant (not to be confused with harjel) and a titanium honeycomb backing that provided structural support to the steel and ceramic layers. The titanium honeycomb is a lightweight, foil-gage layer that offers no armor value by itself.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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