- Joined
- May 29, 2013
- Messages
- 1,255
- Reaction score
- 432
Here's an idea based on the Radiation warnings near stars.
We're only warned about solar radiation when it is already causing damage. I'd love to be able to install a RAD Detector or K-Meter or w/e on my bigger ships. Put it on the hotbar and it tells me what the ambient radiation looks like. In sectors populated with a lot of ships it could get pretty high but as long as the ships are intact their contribution wouldn't be enough to damage anything. Ships that are overheating or are spawned in graveyards are a different matter.
Ship Graveyards:
An alternative to hunting pirate bases and mining benign asteroids. The dead ships would be created like asteroids and mostly be twisted looking things made of hull, displays; Non-essential equipment. The core of these wrecks would be an unharvestable ruined core. Finding it and destroying it would have no effect on the radiation contributed by the hulk. It would only need to be there for the initial calculation when the sector is spawned. Naturally occurring asteroids should also be distributed inside graveyard sectors. They would serve as a place to hide from radiation damage for smaller ships.
How wrecks would contribute to background radiation:
Cosmic Background Radiation starts at 3 Kelvin while our nearest star (Sol) has a surface temperature of 5800 Kelvin. Steel melts at 1750 Kelvin which is likely where we'd see the beginning of hull damage. When the ship core overheats it's temperature in Kelvin would start someplace at the 1100 mark and skyrocket to 1500 just before meltdown. Every malfunctioning core, tho stable, could contribute more radiation to the background in excess of the sun's surface.
Now this is with short lived cores that had no plating at all. Let's add some mass and add the Cosmic Background Radiation.
Removing mass by salvage or manually does not decrease the meltdown timer or increase radiation. So no recalculations should be needed at any step. Once the HP is depleted the calculations of meltdown time and radioactivity contribution happen and stay static for the doomed vessel. This means that a graveyard of large derelicts with ruined cores (not overheating, so they have no timer, but still have a radiation contribution) would produce enough radiation to damage passing ships and be a great temporary hiding place for pirates hiding behind asteroids.
Effect of Radiation on Salvage cannons:
The radiation contribution should affect salvage speed.
TL : DR; You should bookmark this and read it later.
Some of my math might be off. Math isn't my first language, so there you have it.
We're only warned about solar radiation when it is already causing damage. I'd love to be able to install a RAD Detector or K-Meter or w/e on my bigger ships. Put it on the hotbar and it tells me what the ambient radiation looks like. In sectors populated with a lot of ships it could get pretty high but as long as the ships are intact their contribution wouldn't be enough to damage anything. Ships that are overheating or are spawned in graveyards are a different matter.
Ship Graveyards:
An alternative to hunting pirate bases and mining benign asteroids. The dead ships would be created like asteroids and mostly be twisted looking things made of hull, displays; Non-essential equipment. The core of these wrecks would be an unharvestable ruined core. Finding it and destroying it would have no effect on the radiation contributed by the hulk. It would only need to be there for the initial calculation when the sector is spawned. Naturally occurring asteroids should also be distributed inside graveyard sectors. They would serve as a place to hide from radiation damage for smaller ships.
How wrecks would contribute to background radiation:
Cosmic Background Radiation starts at 3 Kelvin while our nearest star (Sol) has a surface temperature of 5800 Kelvin. Steel melts at 1750 Kelvin which is likely where we'd see the beginning of hull damage. When the ship core overheats it's temperature in Kelvin would start someplace at the 1100 mark and skyrocket to 1500 just before meltdown. Every malfunctioning core, tho stable, could contribute more radiation to the background in excess of the sun's surface.
- CBR = 3k
- Overheating core adds 1100-1500k reduced by mass left of vessel and overheating cores in sector
- Damage begins at excess of 1750k
- 1 core = 100%
- +1 cores = 50% contribution (2 cores total for 1703k including CBR)
- +2 cores = 25% of each
- +3 cores = 12,5% of each
- 5 cores = 6.25% of each
Now this is with short lived cores that had no plating at all. Let's add some mass and add the Cosmic Background Radiation.
- 1 mass = -1% (or 1501.5k max contrib)
- 1 core with 343 mass = -7% (or 1398k max contrib)
- 1 core with 32768 mass = -32% (or 483 max)
Removing mass by salvage or manually does not decrease the meltdown timer or increase radiation. So no recalculations should be needed at any step. Once the HP is depleted the calculations of meltdown time and radioactivity contribution happen and stay static for the doomed vessel. This means that a graveyard of large derelicts with ruined cores (not overheating, so they have no timer, but still have a radiation contribution) would produce enough radiation to damage passing ships and be a great temporary hiding place for pirates hiding behind asteroids.
Effect of Radiation on Salvage cannons:
The radiation contribution should affect salvage speed.
- -10% efficiency for every 1000k of radiation.
- Stacks to a maximum of -50% (exceeding 5000k radiation, nearly solar surface temperature.)
TL : DR; You should bookmark this and read it later.
Some of my math might be off. Math isn't my first language, so there you have it.