BUILD CHALLENGE: Torpedoes, launchers, magazines!

[FireG0dz]

I just make torpedoes, not launchers. Check them out here: The G0dz Torpedo Shipyard

 

[Endal]

(UPDATE 9/8/2016, Changes made to Point 4.)
declassifying Project Trident...
decrypting files...
reformatting text...
File open complete.

I present to you, a report on my latest torpedo.
Now, you might be thinking "Torpedo? Psh, they can't even scratch armour", which is correct in a sense, but definitely does not apply to my torpedoes.
How? Well, intensive R&D of course. The improvements I have made over the past few months were huge breakthroughs and definitely helped to boost my torpedoes into mainstream doctrine.
Some might be unheard of, some are the norm, but they all contribute to the effectiveness of my torpedo.
Without further ado, lets get into it.

First off, My torpedo anatomy

Spoiler: Left, Bottom, Right, Top, Forward

Now, I know that is one big torpedo, but I used to have 7x7x75 torpedoes, which "can't even scratch armour". Here's a comparison photo.

I have really gone a long way in terms of size reductions, and most torpedoes out there that are rated "effective" are much much larger than mine.
Another issue might be "so its a big target?", which I will cover in my 3rd point.

Ok, now the serious stuff.
1. Fleet guidance
New? Maybe. But the way I do it is probably new. Why? Most people don't use the AI for direct attack. However, my torpedo cruise engine is high on fleet,
targetted for extremely long distances with the "Attack Sector" command, which is a direct attack. Something torpedoes are well suited for. Not only that however, fleets can move in unloaded sectors, faster (depending on individual server settings) than the maximum speed, forever.
This is crucial as rendering range is only a piss poor 2 sectors or so, which heavily limits the range of a torpedo before it becomes unloaded trash. With fleets, torpedo ranges are increased by a huge magnitude, technically allowing stations to bombard each other even if they are thousands of kilometers apart. Although fleet speeds are relatively slow compared to missile weapon speeds and the vast expanse of the universe, being able to run while unrendered is a huge bonus. In addition, AI can aim the torpedo against a target with great accuracy, irregardless of the distance it has travelled.
But how do I use the stupid AI when it strafes?

2. Terminal-Velocity-Adder/Shaped-Charge/Drill-Head
Yes, I have many names for it, and I still don't know which to call it, but I prefer the first as seen in the anatomy picture. What the hell is it you ask? Well, heres a picture detailing what happens upon "impact".

Spoiler: Contact, then impact

"Why don't you be a sane person and undock it normally?!"
Well, initial testings with normal undocking proved unreliable as there was little to no clearance between the TVA and cruise engine; along with the cruise engine continuing to push forward, it caused some bad collisions and put the TVA off target.
"Why is the trigger area so long?"
Testing with AI showed weird things. AI with pulse acquired at 40m, but AI without any weapons also acquired at 40m.
After some block placing, I realised that 40m was not the distance between cores, but the distance between centre-of-masses.
Therefore, I had to weigh the back of the torpedo to shorten its standoff distance, but it still had a stupidly long trigger area spike.
Oh well.
But wait, theres more.
"So why call it 'Terminal-Velocity-Adder'? " Well, originally, I was hella happy with my torpedo speed and penetration, but I realised that if it was gonna chase an enemy, it was bound to lose some speed.
Originally the TVA did not have a push engine, just the warhead which seperated at standoff distance so it could hit. So I scrambled to find ways to add more and more and more speed to the torpedo, but it wasn't enough.
One day I was researching on Actual shaped charges and HEAT shells, and something struck me. "The muzzle velocity or velocity down range does not matter as all the speed it will ever need is at standoff distance."
I thought hard at that point, and I realised that in order for torpedoes to be effective, they most certainly cannot fully rely on flight speed to penetrate. So I made the TVA which supplements the initial speed heavily.
The torpedo still needs some initial speed because the TVA isn't perfect, but it makes previously huge differences seem tiny.

3. Overdrive, Radarjammer
You might say "Only manned ships can use these", but thats where you are horribly wrong. Fleet ships keep their passives on as long as they are loaded. This means that torpedoes can go extremely fast and get less lead (or plasma) in their face. Sadly, they drop their passives if they are unloaded, which spells trouble for long range torpedoes.
However, for short range torpedoes, it helps whole loads as OVRD cranks up the speed insanely and RDRJM keeps it hidden (although turrets can still shoot it).
In addition, fleet ships coming out of unloaded sectors assume maximum speed, regardless of their acceleration. This is another huge bonus to torpedoes, making them harder to hit.
(EMERGENCY UPDATE:This is apparently an unintended feature, as such unloaded fleets will continue to lose their passives.)

4. Capped Warhead
"But amidst all this technology, can your torpedo really damage armour?"

Well, I believe I have posted before on capped warheads in this thread, but I haven't really gone into detail.
First off, the torpedo is docked. How does it help? Well along with the cap, it keeps the warhead alive for the explosion. Whats a cap? Just a block on the end of the warhead to prevent it exploding on "contact", so it explodes "inside" the target. When the warhead is docked and capped, it's hits hard. Like, Really hard.
When the warhead hits a target cap on (aka explodes "inside" the target), it destroys itself... under weird conditions. But even this is uncertain as there are 4, yes four different kind of warhead explosions (serious testing, no joke.)

Spoiler: Will change soon

The last one, "Impact burn" (IB) was the most common one I had when I first came to the capped warhead era, it was quite simple. The warhead ignores a few metres of initial layers, then proceeds to rip everything inside up to a certain depth called penetration potential (PP) which is measured in metres. The Volume of damage they do is called Behind-Armour-Effect (BAE). The PP and BAE are mutually exclusive, meaning that a high PP will result in low BAE and vice versa. The PP of IB warheads usually are the lowest as the explosion happens very close to the armour. Now here's the catch, the warheads only die if they are within the BAE, so warheads longer than the Radius of a BAE will have some bits left at the back, but the explosion continues at what was tip of the warhead.
The second last one, "Delayed burn" (DB) is actually a type of impact burn, just that due to extended warhead length and speed, the warhead ignores more and more initial layers and burns later in the target, effectively more PP. Not much else difference.
The second one, "Consecutive burn" (CB) is now a rare occurance. CB happens when the warhead exhibits many explosions, in a straight line inward, decreasing in intensity as it penetrates. The PP isn't so high now, being on par with DB. Furthermore, BAE is usually much less than DB.
"Progressive burn" (PB) on the other hand is now very close to DB, Usually the only slope measurable is of a very small gradient.

Thats pretty much it I think. "That's it?!" Ja, most other things like a push engine and such are norms. Oh wait, one more little thing.
5. Safety
It is most definitely an oxymoron to say a "Torpedo" is "Safe", but I gurantee you that mine are engineered to be as "Safe" as possible. First off, the safety shown in the anatomy picture is actually part TVA part Cruise engine. The plex doors belong to the cruise engine, and they automatically open after the cruise engine is undocked. This allows the docked core on the TVA to move up the pickup rail and activate the act block at the top, effectively "Arming" the TVA. The plex doors covering the warhead don't acutally open until the trigger area activates AND the safety is armed, so it is relatively bump-proof. Of course, the plex doors do add quite a bit of weight on the torpedo, but it is well worth it.

Okay, I believe thats all I have to say. I'd love to get feedback and even criticism because I believe that progress can only be made when you look from every angle.

(Some bugs that affect this torpedo: (Bugs are pending classification))

-Endal

 

[FireG0dz]

(EMERGENCY UPDATE 25/7/2016, Please scroll and read.)
declassifying Project Trident...
decrypting files...
reformatting text...
File open complete.

I present to you, a report on my latest torpedo.
Now, you might be thinking "Torpedo? Psh, they can't even scratch armour", which is correct in a sense, but definitely does not apply to my torpedoes.
How? Well, intensive R&D of course. The improvements I have made over the past few months were huge breakthroughs and definitely helped to boost my torpedoes into mainstream doctrine.
Some might be unheard of, some are the norm, but they all contribute to the effectiveness of my torpedo.
Without further ado, lets get into it.

First off, My torpedo anatomy

Spoiler: Left, Bottom, Right, Top, Forward

Now, I know that is one big torpedo, but I used to have 7x7x75 torpedoes, which "can't even scratch armour". Here's a comparison photo.

I have really gone a long way in terms of size reductions, and most torpedoes out there that are rated "effective" are much much larger than mine.
Another issue might be "so its a big target?", which I will cover in my 3rd point.

Ok, now the serious stuff.
1. Fleet guidance
New? Maybe. But the way I do it is probably new. Why? Most people don't use the AI for direct attack. However, my torpedo cruise engine is high on fleet,
targetted for extremely long distances with the "Attack Sector" command, which is a direct attack. Something torpedoes are well suited for. Not only that however, fleets can move in unloaded sectors, faster (depending on individual server settings) than the maximum speed, forever.
This is crucial as rendering range is only a piss poor 2 sectors or so, which heavily limits the range of a torpedo before it becomes unloaded trash. With fleets, torpedo ranges are increased by a huge magnitude, technically allowing stations to bombard each other even if they are thousands of kilometers apart. Although fleet speeds are relatively slow compared to missile weapon speeds and the vast expanse of the universe, being able to run while unrendered is a huge bonus. In addition, AI can aim the torpedo against a target with great accuracy, irregardless of the distance it has travelled.
But how do I use the stupid AI when it strafes?

2. Terminal-Velocity-Adder/Shaped-Charge/Drill-Head
Yes, I have many names for it, and I still don't know which to call it, but I prefer the first as seen in the anatomy picture. What the hell is it you ask? Well, heres a picture detailing what happens upon "impact".

Spoiler: Contact, then impact

"Why don't you be a sane person and undock it normally?!"
Well, initial testings with normal undocking proved unreliable as there was little to no clearance between the TVA and cruise engine; along with the cruise engine continuing to push forward,it caused some bad collisions and put the TVA off target.
"Why is the trigger area so long?"
Testing with AI showed weird things. AI with pulse acquired at 40m, but AI without any weapons also acquired at 40m.
After some block placing, I realised that 40m was not the distance between cores, but the distance between centre-of-masses.
Therefore, I had to weigh the back of the torpedo to shorten its standoff distance, but it still had a stupidly long trigger area spike.
Oh well.
But wait, theres more.
"So why call it 'Terminal-Velocity-Adder'? " Well, originally, I was hella happy with my torpedo speed and penetration, but I realised that if it was gonna chase an enemy, it was bound to lose some speed.
Originally the TVA did not have a push engine, just the warhead which seperated at standoff distance so it could hit. So I scrambled to find ways to add more and more and more speed to the torpedo, but it wasn't enough.
One day I was researching on Actual shaped charges and HEAT shells, and something struck me. "The muzzle velocity or velocity down range does not matter as all the speed it will ever need is at standoff distance."
I thought hard at that point, and I realised that in order for torpedoes to be effective, they most certainly cannot fully rely on flight speed to penetrate. So I made the TVA which supplements the initial speed heavily.
The torpedo still needs some initial speed because the TVA isn't perfect, but it makes previously huge differences seem tiny.

3. Overdrive, Radarjammer
You might say "Only manned ships can use these", but thats where you are horribly wrong. Fleet ships keep their passives on as long as they are loaded. This means that torpedoes can go extremely fast and get less lead (or plasma) in their face. Sadly, they drop their passives if they are unloaded, which spells trouble for long range torpedoes.
However, for short range torpedoes, it helps whole loads as OVRD cranks up the speed insanely and RDRJM keeps it hidden (although turrets can still shoot it).
In addition, fleet ships coming out of unloaded sectors assume maximum speed, irregardless of their acceleration. This is another huge bonus to torpedoes, making them harder to hit.
(EMERGENCY UPDATE:This is apparently an unintended feature, as such unloaded fleets will continue to lose their passives.)

4. Capped Warhead
"But amidst all this technology, can your torpedo really damage armour?"

Well, I believe I have posted before on capped warheads in this thread, but I haven't really gone into detail.
First off, the torpedo is docked. How does it help? Well along with the cap, it keeps the warhead alive. Whats a cap? Just a block on the end of the warhead to prevent it exploding on "contact", so it explodes "inside" the target. When the warhead is docked and capped, it's hard to kill. Like, Really hard.
When the warhead hits a target cap on (aka explodes "inside" the target), it doesn't destroy itself, but does damage to the target. But even this is uncertain as there are 4, yes four different kind of warhead explosions (serious testing, no joke.)

Spoiler: Strictly not to scale, only to show pattern

The last one, "Impact burn" (IB) was the most common one I had when I first came to the capped warhead era, it was quite simple. The warhead ignores a few metres of initial layers, then proceeds to rip everything inside up to a certain depth called penetration potential (PP) which is measured in metres.
The PP of IB warheads usually wasen't so high, but the warhead doesn't die this way, so it keeps eating away as long as it is in target. When the warhead somehow comes out of the target, there is a chance that it will explode in a flame of glory, but there have been many a time they keep living, the stubborn bastards.
The second last one, "Delayed burn" (DB) is actually a type of impact burn, just that due to extended warhead length and speed, the warhead ignores more and more initial layers and burns later in the target, effectively more PP. Not much else difference.
The second one, "Consecutive burn" (CB) is one of the most common burns that happen on my new torpedoes with TVA. Without TVA, the warhead tends to just exhibit DB or IB. With TVA however, things get very complicated.
CB happens when the warhead exhibits many explosions, in a straight line inward, decreasing in intensity as it penetrates. Usually the PP is extremely high for CB, as high as 10x the warhead length. However, the Behind-Armour-Effect (BAE) aka the volume of damage it does usually isn't high when the PP is high.
The reverse applies to "Progressive burn" (PB), which exhibits continous (seamless) explosions in a straight line inward, increasing in intensity as it penetrates. "OP!!!!!" Hold on to your horses, because the PP of this burn is almost surely much lower than CB, comparable to DB.
However, the BAE of this burn is much more than all the other burns. Now, somehow, when the warheads exhibit PB, they actually destroy themselves after impact, honourable warheads they are, so they effectively are legitamate warheads. Additionally, it is diffiult to exhibit PB as it requires a lot of speed (>1km/s).
(EMERGENCY UPDATE: In the latest version I have not been able to achieve CB nor PB, I will start an intensive testing to confirm this. Note: In the latest version there is much less lag when my torpedoes collide, so I am assuming that Schema did some backend collision rework which removed the causes of PB and CB. I will prepare a full emergency report on new burn patterns soon)

Thats pretty much it I think. "That's it?!" Ja, most other things like a push engine and such are norms. Oh wait, one more little thing.
5. Safety
It is most definitely an oxymoron to say a "Torpedo" is "Safe", but I gurantee you that mine are engineered to be as "Safe" as possible. First off, the safety shown in the anatomy picture is actually part TVA part Cruise engine. The plex doors belong to the cruise engine, and they automatically open after the cruise engine is undocked. This allows the docked core on the TVA to move up the pickup rail and activate the act block at the top, effectively "Arming" the TVA. The plex doors covering the warhead don't acutally open until the trigger area activates AND the safety is armed, so it is relatively bump-proof.

Okay, I believe thats all I have to say. I'd love to get feedback and even criticism because I believe that progress can only be made when you look from every angle.

(Some bugs that affect this torpedo: (Bugs are pending classification))

-Endal

You're next step is effectively equipping it to a ship or some type of enclosed launcher:

like so with my Mk44 WarSong Torpedo

 

[Zekester81]

(EMERGENCY UPDATE: In the latest version I have not been able to achieve CB nor PB, I will start an intensive testing to confirm this. Note: In the latest version there is much less lag when my torpedoes collide, so I am assuming that Schema did some backend collision rework which removed the causes of PB and CB. I will prepare a full emergency report on new burn patterns soon)

Those types of explosion were caused by clipping, glad it's been fixed. Anything other than an impact burn should not happen ever, unless you have collision damage on in the server config. Then delay burn is the norm if you cap your warheads.

Nice safety system.

In addition, fleet ships coming out of unloaded sectors assume maximum speed, irregardless of their acceleration.

Oh, and Irregardless isn't a word. The word is regardless, IE without regard.

 

[Groovrider]

cool

 

[Endal]

You're next step is effectively equipping it to a ship or some type of enclosed launcher:

like so with my Mk44 WarSong Torpedo

All my service ships so far have hardpoint mounts for torpedoes, I also have Automated torpedo turrets. I do not show them because they are under development.

 

[AtraUnam]

All my service ships so far have hardpoint mounts for torpedoes, I also have Automated torpedo turrets. I do not show them because they are under development.

You realise turrets almost always point their barrels about 15 degrees away from where they're aiming so logic fired weapons on a turret will almost never hit right? Unless your using guided torps of course.

 

[Endal]

You realise turrets almost always point their barrels about 15 degrees away from where they're aiming so logic fired weapons on a turret will almost never hit right? Unless your using guided torps of course.

"However, my torpedo cruise engine is high on fleet,
targetted for extremely long distances with the "Attack Sector" command, which is a direct attack. Something torpedoes are well suited for." I long knew that firing non-guided torpedoes from turrets would be foolish, so I crammed guidance in. However for turrets, the command is "Sentry idle".