Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Grey Wolf on November 17, 2004, 08:57:57 pm
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Has anyone attempted to figure out how long GTVA ships would be able to go without returning to base?
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Well they have fusion reactors, so they ought to be able to go for many years without refueling. In terms of maintanace, I'd wager they're built to last a while before they need touch-ups; space isn't exactly the most corrosive environment compared to the ocean or even the air.
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a large destroyer im pretty sure has the resources to do repairs on the move. im sure they keep cargo bays full of replacement hull plates and other spare parts and machine shops to fabricate whatever they dont have. that in conjunction with redundant systems could allow a destroyer to fly for some amount of time before a return to base is required. the only limits i could think of the availability of foodstuffs. not sure if the fs universe has food replicators. but you cant feed a crew of 100000 withour huge onboard greenhouses. i wonder what the vasudans eat.
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Originally posted by Ford Prefect
Well they have fusion reactors, so they ought to be able to go for many years without refueling. In terms of maintanace, I'd wager they're built to last a while before they need touch-ups; space isn't exactly the most corrosive environment compared to the ocean or even the air.
No, but solar radiation (x-rays, gamma rays, small meteorite impacts, etc) can eat away a hull´s strenght if it´s not protected against it.
And those who think a greenhouse can feed 10.000, you should check on the experience done in the Arizona desert, the geo-bubble or some other silly thing. They had a huge greenhouse, there were only 5 or 6 people inside, and they even considered aborting the experiment because they were short on food. And if 5 people can´t feed for a year over a greenhouse the size of 2 football fields, just imagine the size a greenhouse would have to be to feed 10.000...
The only viable solution would be cryogenic chambers, or putting most of the crew in hibernation or something like it. If you have 10000 mouths eating at the same time, not even if you turn the Colossus into a giant freezer would you keep the crew alive for a year. The quantity of food is immense. You should see how big the food stock is in a navy ship with 200 crew, and that lasts them for about 1 month before needed to re-supply.
:rolleyes:
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Hull degradation is a problem long term though. I forget the name of the process, but an enviroment such as the one that exists in space eats away at the molecular structure of everything. I remember reading somewhere that after 20 years of flight most of Voyager 2's hull was less than paper thin and the slightest pressure, even something as light a hand brushing against it would cause the entire structure to fall apart. That's not really a problem on a ship with several feet of hull. But who knows how long the GTVA built them for, I mean destroyers are a massive investment. Probably something on the order of the GDP of some modern first-world countries.
As far as food goes, with freeze-drying, you could probably cruise for maybe a month.
3 x 10,000 = 30,000 meals per day
A freezedried meal weighs maybe 3oz.; there are 16oz in a lb.
30,000x4=90,000oz and 90,000/4 =22,500 lbs of food per day
and there are 30 days in the average month
22,500 x 30 = 675000 lbs or 337.5 short tons of food consumed every month.
The average destroyer probably has a dozen consumables depots
337.5/12 = 28.125 tons per depot
That is a lot of food, but there are a lot of operations we never see., waste disposal for instance. Liquid waste can be recycled, but solid waste would have to be stored until an appropriate time. *pictures a surprised shivan flying though a cloud of crap after a wayward shot puncured waste facility 5*
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no, poo gets recycled too im sure. the space shuttle will remove anything from poo that can produce electricity in a fuel cell. anything left over can be thrown in a fusion reactor and magrinally increases power output. seeng as poo is flamable (they formed poo bricks and used it to power fire places in the middle ages) it you remove moisture and add oxydizer you got rocket fuel :D poo is a very usefull material.
hull deterioration does not seem to be as big a problem as feeding the crew. other ways to keep a crew fed:
whole crue lives on supplements, which would eleminate the poo
genetically engineered plants that grow really fast
canibalisim
shivan bbq
recycled poo
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It's not sanitary though(the poo), the bricks of poo used for heating in the middle ages were one of a myriad of reasons that the average lifespan was about 35.
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that, and the fact that people never bathed.
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Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
No, but solar radiation (x-rays, gamma rays, small meteorite impacts, etc) can eat away a hull´s strenght if it´s not protected against it.
On modern craft fair enough but on a hull that can shrug off nuclear impacts I'm not so sure.
If a ship was out of contact for years that might become an issue but problems to do with maintaining the crew will limit the lifespan long before that sort of thing affects the ship.
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I quite like the idea of GTVA ships having to resupply. I'm not sure it tallies with the crew numbers, but it would add a nice extra tactical dimension to campaigns. They must require some form of supplies, though - anyone remember what the supply convoy to the Collosus in FS main was carrying as cargo?
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The Colossus had to wait for gas miners to refuel after one campaign. The smaller vessels may be more fueal efficient, but this indicates that they don't last forever.
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The Colossus was the SUV of the warship world.
15 lightdays per refuel. That's why it was disabled at the end, it ran out of gas.
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Originally posted by Nuke
i wonder what the vasudans eat.
:wtf: you're kidding, right?
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Originally posted by Liberator
The Colossus was the SUV of the warship world.
no, it goes like this:
cruiser=car
corvette=SUV
destroyer=truck
Colossus=Semi
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He meant SUV as in gas-guzzler.
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Yeah, Semis get good mileage anyway. They can go from New York to Los Angeles and only have to stop once if it's team drivers.
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Originally posted by karajorma
On modern craft fair enough but on a hull that can shrug off nuclear impacts I'm not so sure.
If a ship was out of contact for years that might become an issue but problems to do with maintaining the crew will limit the lifespan long before that sort of thing affects the ship.
Just what ship withstands nuclear blasts? Even if :V: added some example of where a ship does resist a nuclear blast, is that realistic or just something that sounds cool? A nuclear blast carries a lot of energy. It can blow up a mountain of granite like a twig. I don´t think there is any alloy. now or in the future, that can fend off a 10 megaton blast, not even if you make a hull 50 feet thick.
As for repair crews going on EVAs on deep space, read this:
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970228a.html (http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970228a.html)
Unless you get some sort of robot or machine doing those repairs, there isn´t much you, as a human, can do about it.
This means that you have to take your damaged ship to a proper shipyard for repairs, because you can´t just get outside and do it yourself as you go.
anyone remember what the supply convoy to the Collosus in FS main was carrying as cargo?
Probably food and water, and Bosch beer, of course. FS ships don´t need much ammo, they all use energy based weapons anyway. And the reactors don´t need re-fueling for long periods of time. The only thing that grants the need to have a constant convoy travelling behind you to re-supply your ship is food products. And some machine parts that the ship´s workshops can´t manufacture themselfs.
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Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
Just what ship withstands nuclear blasts? Even if :V: added some example of where a ship does resist a nuclear blast, is that realistic or just something that sounds cool? A nuclear blast carries a lot of energy. It can blow up a mountain of granite like a twig. I don´t think there is any alloy. now or in the future, that can fend off a 10 megaton blast, not even if you make a hull 50 feet thick.
This has been discussed before.
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,22983.0.html
FS Missiles/bombs are incredibly powerful. The effects on the ships are, IIRC, fairly realistic, as well.
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Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
Just what ship withstands nuclear blasts? Even if :V: added some example of where a ship does resist a nuclear blast, is that realistic or just something that sounds cool?
Nuclear weapons are only effective in an atmosphere, due to the air displacement. The Apollo spacecraft survived all kinds of nuclear radiation on their way to the moon and back.
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I still think that is bogus. A direct impact with the ships hull - air or no air, you should be picking the ship up with pincers...
the shockwave doesn't even come in play..
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Originally posted by Goober5000
Nuclear weapons are only effective in an atmosphere, due to the air displacement. The Apollo spacecraft survived all kinds of nuclear radiation on their way to the moon and back.
Then why are scientists planning to use nukes to thwart any possible asteroid in a colision course with Earth? Nuclear blasts don´t create shockwaves alone, they create a massive fireball hotter than the sun, and more than enough to melt any metal alloys we have on Earth. They also create a massive electro-magnetic pulse that fries any electronic devices for miles around.
More than enough reasons to think such a blast might be hazzardous to any ship´s health.
We are trying to be realistic here, not like Independence Day...
PS:The Apollo didn´t survived "nuclear" radiation, it survived radiation, period. There wasn´t any blast around it. The closest nuclear chain reaction was a million miles away, the sun. Not exactlly your best example...
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An average person only needs 2500 calories/day, proteins and micronutrients to stay alive. I think that with futuristic industrial capabilities you can have that all in just a small bar of war ration/day.
It's small, light, easy to store and perfect to feed a crew of thousands (and boring as hell of course, but, hey, you are just a low-life soldier! Do you think command cares! :hopping: :D )
Water can be recycled. You just have to forget from where exactly that cup of water came. :nervous:
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True but FS2 ships are insanely resistant to damage. Even a pegasus can survive the explosion of a Helios at relatively close range.
That amount of gamma radiation really ought to fry them (especially if the shield is down).
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Another factor you have to consider is the size of the fuel bunker and how far they can compact the needed hydrogen and helium isotopes. After all, the bigger the fuel bunker, the less space fore everything else...
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Originally posted by Carl
no, it goes like this:
cruiser=car
corvette=SUV
destroyer=truck
Colossus=Semi
You forgot:
Iceni=Hummer (millitary grade, not those lame-ass retail knock-offs)
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Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
PS:The Apollo didn´t survived "nuclear" radiation, it survived radiation, period. There wasn´t any blast around it. The closest nuclear chain reaction was a million miles away, the sun. Not exactlly your best example...
It survived nuclear radiation. Radiation from a nuclear reaction - the sun. This was only intended to illustrate that you can't necessarily apply nuclear reactions on Earth to nuclear reactions in space. Of course the Apollo spacecraft wouldn't survive a direct hit from a nuclear missile in space... the heat alone would melt it.
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To say an FS2 ship can't withstand a measly nuke is ludicrous. The Helios is an anti-matter warhear. We'll also conviently forget that PBCs are potent enough to penetrate a Luci's sheath deflector when a triple-salted fusion bomb couldn't.
A 50 megaton nuke in space would be maybe 1/10th as powerful from a raw destructive standpoint. The radiation is a different matter. However I would remind everyone that we can make nukes today that destroy everything and the area is permanently inhabitable again in 2 years as radiation has decreased back to background levels.
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Originally posted by Carl
Originally posted by Nuke
i wonder what the vasudans eat.
:wtf: you're kidding, right? [/B]
:lol:
Vasudans wuv fishes. I thought everyone knew that.
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Even 1/10 of power is still more than enough to level any warship.
Todays nukes are more than capable of leveling entire cities flat.
And you meant 50-100 years, right? Radiation doesn't dissipate so fast..
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Originally posted by Grey Wolf 2009
Has anyone attempted to figure out how long GTVA ships would be able to go without returning to base?
Probably about the same as modern navel ships, about 6 months to a year, depending on whether they're in combat or not. Destroyers can probably go longer, but likely aren't since their escorts (cruisers and vetts) will have to stop more often. One year deployments are probably the norm during peacetime, longer otherwise.
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i said 20 yrs without combat, every other weekend with combat.
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you must also remember that subspace drive makes it possible to cross the fs universe in a mater of days. they are not like star trek where they must criuse for days or weeks to get from one place to anther. therefore fresspace ships need only a short criuse duration. sience vessels poribly have the longest duration upwards to a year, to scout for new supspace nodes.
as for nukes they are quite damaging, the reason we dont have fusion reactors is because they have a tendency to vaporize any kind of fuel feed system and therefore prevent a continueous maintainable reaction. nukes can vaporize metal, atmosphere or not. and though a nuclear shockwave can blast through houses and concrete bunkers, it is still merely a side effect of the blast. the heat alone would leave a mile wide crater in any block of any metal or composite. one thing few people know about h-bombs, is the yeild is proportinal to the amount of deutrium surrounding the initiating nuke.tritium is a control that actually limits the size and radiation output of the blast. more deutrium, more boomb!
now vasudans might like to own aquariums, but i very much doubt fish as being their primary diet. seeing as vasuda was a desert, (at least before it was rendered a smoldering ruin by the lucifer). they probibly eat snakes, bugs, and stuff.
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and you can take raw organic materials, such as poo, and convert them to edible foodstuffs. all you need is the right technology.
speaking of which, all this "a ship couldn't withstand a nuclear bomb" stuff is assuming that the ships are made of 21st century materials.
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the reason we dont have fusion reactors is because they have a tendency to vaporize any kind of fuel feed system and therefore prevent a continueous maintainable reaction
Actually, the reason why our fusion tokamaks don't work well is because when the containment fails and the plasma touches the wall of the tokamak, the plasma cools off and cannot sustain fusion anymore.
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Originally posted by Carl
speaking of which, all this "a ship couldn't withstand a nuclear bomb" stuff is assuming that the ships are made of 21st century materials.
Not to mention ignoring the fact that we've all seen nukes hitting capships in FS1 and FS2.
If people don't think it makes sense fine but neither is most of the science behind the game. Either live with it for find something more sensible to play.
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only reason nukes dont punch holes in capships, is because v hadnt invented geomodding yet :D in reality once we crack the fusion nut, the military will convert over to laser weaponry.
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For all future nuclear issues please keep this page bookmarked:
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/
It has extensive material. Such as the following FAQ which is internationally aprooved by the nuclear scientific community:
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq0.html
The following section deals with the relevant issue here:
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq5.html#nfaq5.4
I'm still looking for stuff on space specific stuff.
However what can already be safely conducted is that nukes in space will only and exclusivly emmit radiation, and beside a direct impact all their damage capacity amounts to this.
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Bomb hits in Fs2 are direct impacts.
Shochwaves are only a bonus...
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when metal vaporizes, it has to go somewhere, thats why u-238 shells are so devistating.
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Originally posted by Nuke
when metal vaporizes, it has to go somewhere, thats why u-238 shells are so devistating.
U238 shells are kinetic weapons. No nuclear chain reaction takes place during a hit.
The only reason why uranium is used, 'casue its one of the heaviest known metals and it is in "abundant" quantities.
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I think he may be referring to the vaporization of the slug when it embeds itself which then forces apart whatever the slug is in.
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u-238 auto detonates on impact because it is such an unstable material. this causes a molten metal jet effect which can eath through armor (see an a-10 straif on a tank). this is why i dont like the maxim, it doesnt go boomb on impact like it should.
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^the DU shells dont detonate, it's just that DU is ultradense so it casues better penetration. You are probably thinking of HEAT warheads.
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one who watches the history chanel as much as me cannot be wrong. ive seen multiple documentries that concure on what ive said. auto-detonation is not the same as detonation, auto detonate means that kinetic energy is converted directly into intense heat, thus melting the u-238. when you conver solid metal into vapor that fast the explosive results are huge. its not nuclear but it does go boomb. put simply u-238 shells explode on impact. api rounds work on the same principle but encase the uranium in a metal with a higher melting point, the result is a shape charge that has better penetration characteristics than the standard u-238 he shells. its a more fucused hit and is alot better for shooting up fuel tanks.
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(looks confusedly around at the devastated thread, different people are demonstrating thier choice of WMD)
u-238 auto detonates on impact because it is such an unstable material. this causes a molten metal jet effect which can eath through armor (see an a-10 straif on a tank). this is why i dont like the maxim, it doesnt go boomb on impact like it should
(then glances at thread title)
Cruise Duration for GTVA ships
(shakes head and walks away)
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Originally posted by Carl
and you can take raw organic materials, such as poo, and convert them to edible foodstuffs. all you need is the right technology.
speaking of which, all this "a ship couldn't withstand a nuclear bomb" stuff is assuming that the ships are made of 21st century materials.
:lol:
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what's funny?
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If i knew the food on my plate was once poo, i wouldn´t eat it no matter how much sugar you add to it, that´s for sure!
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its been throu a poo->food converter, its totally safe :D
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poo->dirt converter == bacteria and bugs
dirt->food converter == plants
plant->meat converter == herbivores
Never eat again.
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Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
If i knew the food on my plate was once poo, i wouldn´t eat it no matter how much sugar you add to it, that´s for sure!
Hate to break this to you but all your food has been poo at some point in the last few hundred million years :D
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Actually, if the axiom of matter not being creatable and destroyable is true, then you have no idea where you 'food' may have been ;)
As for cruise times, I would reckon ships are designed to go for around 6 months without supplies. Chances are that basic repair facilities would be on destroyers, but I suspect anything beyond hull-damage would require a Dry-dock at some point.
I didn't pick 6 months for any real reason other than it's a nice human value, and sounds about right :)
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Originally posted by karajorma
Even a pegasus can survive the explosion of a Helios at relatively close range.
it will survive an direct hit from ingame...
one of the more bizzare things that happened to me:
i actually managed to lock with cyclopses on an basilisk and fired...
it actually hit it :ha: !
then i realize it didnt even scratch it :mad2: !!!
cyclops should be able to knock it out!
whats even worse they didnt even scratch the shields...:sigh:
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I just thought of something. We know it has to be at least as long as the trinity was in the nebula.
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what?
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Originally posted by Carl
I just thought of something. We know it has to be at least as long as the trinity was in the nebula.
That doesn't help much. The Trinity defected to the NTF only 10 days before it was found in the nebula. We don't know how much of that 10 days was spent in the nebula.
Unless it mentions somewhere how long was spent between the attack on that Aeolus in Gamma Draconis and the Aquitane going through the node itself.
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i believe they said they had been in the nebula for a few weeks.
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Ehh...no.
"Your designation is incorrect, Roemig. Your ship defected to the NTF ten days ago. Surrender the Trinity, or be destroyed."
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Originally posted by Nuke
one who watches the history chanel as much as me cannot be wrong...
Odd. I would have expected epistemological infallibility to be accompanied by a better mastery of linguistic skills such as spelling and grammar. ;)
Are you familar with the concepts of hubris and nemesis, Nuke? ;)
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Originally posted by karajorma
Hate to break this to you but all your food has been poo at some point in the last few hundred million years :D
Yeah, but that´s not what i meant. You and me we were poo too, once. As every one else in this god forsaken planet...
What i meant is this:
*pictorial image*
A crewman passes some gas in his quarters, the guy next to him complains and tells him to go take a crap. So the crewman goes to the bathroom, and dumps 2 kilos of poo down the shute.
Meanwhile, in a level below the bathroom, there´s a guy with a plastic bag and a gas mask, waiting with the bag open to catch the falling lump of poo. Then he takes it, places it in a machine called poo converter.
Two hours later, the crewman´s friend feels hungry and heads to the messhall to lunch. He gets the french fries and hamburgers. He is also given a little package that says on the bottom in a little label "fresh poo converted ketchup: place it on top of your french fries".
Bon apetit!
:nervous:
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disgusting...
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Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
Yeah, but that´s not what i meant. You and me we were poo too, once. As every one else in this god forsaken planet...
What i meant is this:
*pictorial image*
A crewman passes some gas in his quarters, the guy next to him complains and tells him to go take a crap. So the crewman goes to the bathroom, and dumps 2 kilos of poo down the shute.
Meanwhile, in a level below the bathroom, there´s a guy with a plastic bag and a gas mask, waiting with the bag open to catch the falling lump of poo. Then he takes it, places it in a machine called poo converter.
Two hours later, the crewman´s friend feels hungry and heads to the messhall to lunch. He gets the french fries and hamburgers. He is also given a little package that says on the bottom in a little label "fresh poo converted ketchup: place it on top of your french fries".
Bon apetit!
:nervous:
It's not that much worse than McDonalds, then. They have **** (literally) in the burgers.
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sad but true... but you dont get poo in the ketchup.
you get it only in the actuall meat...
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You can't recycle waste in that matter too long. You body actually takes chemical energy out of the stuff, so even with recycling you'll have to revert to synthesis after a while.
...though I don't believe in trekkie replicators and their convenient magic.
Astronauts fed recycled/synthesised food will probably get contant jokes about babyfood, since that contains about what a human needs - as for the taste...meh it will be industrial **** for quite a while.
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Well, not really, it just depends how you do it.
The trekkie idea of a replicator is "plausible" in that they use energy to manipulate matter back into a usable form. In that sense it's "possible" (of course they're a myriad of reasons why it's really rather quite impossible).
In any case, it's true that pure recycling wouldn't really work for food and that you'll need a source of energy. Water on the other hand is quite workable.
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Originally posted by Flaser
You can't recycle waste in that matter too long. You body actually takes chemical energy out of the stuff, so even with recycling you'll have to revert to synthesis after a while.
not if it breaks down the waist into basic elements and rebuilds the proteins and acids. they can do it in a laboratory today. in 300 years, i'm sure computers will be able to do it on a much more complexed level.
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Originally posted by pecenipicek
sad but true... but you dont get poo in the ketchup.
you get it only in the actuall meat...
How do you know? Can you tell how they make the ketchup, and what´s in it?
;7 ;7
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Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
How do you know? Can you tell how they make the ketchup, and what´s in it?
;7 ;7
:shaking:
holy ****!
youre right!:D
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I imagine that poo converted in food will be actually more healthy than anything Ronald MacDonald and his gang can do. :D
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Not to derail this intersting topic, but an Orion is 2.2 kilometers long, I think they probably have a hydroponics bay or two. Hell, they might even have an acre of farm land somewhere for all we know.
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we already ruled that out eshtmo, the crews of freespace vessels are too large to feed with onbored gardens. it would be feasable if the crews were smaller though.
crew members either eat manufactured high energy foods. which take very little space and are oversaturated with nutrients to the point they taste like ****. or they live on supplemental pills.most of what we eat is eccess bulk, eleminate the bulk and the foods can be made small enough to store in large quantitiies.
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With the level of technology they have, I suspect that rations bars would actually taste good.
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They may have dehydrated food, so before serving they add water to make it somewhat more edible.
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if you look at the food nasa uses dehydration saves alot of space, and sence water is always replentishable it makes sence. most military food comes in powder form anyway. :D
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That kind of food can maintain the human body for small periods of time, but to sustain you for longer periods you need fibres. Powder food doesn´t have any. You can artificially induce tablets with proteins, sugars, and vitamins, but you need fibres, hydrocarbons, and other stuff only found in meat and vegetables. There is no way around it.
There is also one key factor that everybody forgot to take into account: moral.
You try to feed 5000 men with tablets and dehidrated food for a year or so, and you have a mutiny on your hands! If any of you had ever spent time cucked up in a ship, surrounded by guys 24 hours a day, and with no land in sight for months on end, you would know just how much the meals are important to the crew of any vessel. Trust me, i´ve been there. That´s why they feed you so well aboard a battle ship. Food is important to keep moral up. Feed them ****, and you have 5000 grumpy men with zero will to fight. That´s just asking for trouble.
Of course, you could always feed them Prozac, mixed with all the other food tablets, to make them not care... But then again, you wouldn´t want 5000 zombies as a crew when the time came to face a fleet of Saths coming at you.
Wich is actually true in a sense, the US Army is feeding chopper pilots and tank crews with "speed" and other stymulants in Iraq, to keep them awake longer and more alert. They got so strung up on that crap that they can´t tell who´s a friend or who´s the enemy anymore, hence the huge number of friendly fire incidents.
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im sure the gtva has better ways to improve morale that good meals. android hookers for example.
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Dude, the only person more powerfull on any ship is the cook.
And seriously, pill food just isn't good, not for morale, not for health if you ask me.
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(sigh) The wonders of logistics.
In terms of resupply, the GTVA could have Particle accellerators. I know the one we have today in sweeden is the size of a small town but in the future miniturization could have an effect. If a Triton met up with a Destroyer say, every six months, and exchanged a cargo of foodstuffs for the ships rubbish and waste, then all that could go back to the local Arcadia, which either has a particle accellerator, or can have another Triton take it to a planet-based facility. Then they can be broken down and reformed into resources (food and other supplies) and then shipped back to the front line for conversion into waste.
As for the shivans...ever wondered what really happened to Bosch? ;7
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Noob poster here. For the sake of argument, you could go on quite a wile using recycled goods, but it wouldn't last. You would still loose something very important, heat. Unless they've found a way to perfectly insulate their starships they can't recycle 100% of their stuff. I think they work much like today's ships, since they can get from one side of a solar system to another just about instantaneously.
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Not really.
They could tap ambient heat from stars (directly, or maybe via solar panels embedded in the hull somehow), and of course off of electronics & the crew.
The space shuttle actually has to dissipate the heat from electronics and crew, for example (some is used to heat other mechanical equipment, the rest is radiated out to space).
And, of course, they would doubtless have heaters powered off of the fusion reactor.
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Originally posted by Nuke
we already ruled that out eshtmo, the crews of freespace vessels are too large to feed with onbored gardens. it would be feasable if the crews were smaller though.
Hydroponics are not gardens. Basically you grow plants in boxes of water on shelves with big light bulbs in them. Think of it as folding an acre of land into the space of a bedroom. Now I'm not saying it would be the only source (that's just plain silly), but it would be an important, long term source of food, one that can be used for variety of purposes (including the making of alcohol).
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Yes, we know that. Since you insist on not reading the thread...
And those who think a greenhouse can feed 10.000, you should check on the experience done in the Arizona desert, the geo-bubble or some other silly thing. They had a huge greenhouse, there were only 5 or 6 people inside, and they even considered aborting the experiment because they were short on food. And if 5 people can´t feed for a year over a greenhouse the size of 2 football fields, just imagine the size a greenhouse would have to be to feed 10.000...
Now I know that's not exactly the same as hydroponics, but you're kidding yourself if you think that hydroponics are even 200% better than those greenhouses.
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with hydrophonics you can pretty much simulate all seasonal conditions but hte fact still remains that you would need to turn out tonnes of food daily. and to do that you would need alot of cabnets and alot of people to tend them. ive seen a set of hydrophonic cabnets and i know for a fact that you have to change your florescent bulbs every 3 months. so we need space to store those lightbulbs as well.
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Future hydroponics would probably also use genetically engineered plants designed for that exact purpose.
And they'd probably have lightbulbs or such which last longer than 3 months in the 24 century dontyathink?
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Allthough you would do away with earth in hydroponics, the plants themselfs still take a whole lot of space. Just imagine a tomatoe plant. The plant is the size of a small child, and you would get like 6 or 7 tomatoes out of it for a period of 6 months. But 6 or 7 tomatoes would feed one guy for one day, at most.
So imagine the space needed to feed 10.000...
The question here is not wheter you can grow food in a ship, the question is how much space you would need to grow food to feed 10000 hungry guys.
Just as a comparison, my parents have a vegetable garden, about 600 square meters. They plant tomatoes, turnips, potatoes, and other such bulbs. Now, you know how much food that garden produces in a year? About enough to feed a family of 4 for a week, at most! Do your math.
Hydroponics could work for a trip to Mars today, with a crew of 3 or 4. But for a crew of 10000, not even if you stripped the Colossus and used every single space inside its hull to grow food, you would still go hungry after a week in space.
And let´s not forget that plants need to eat aswell. Light alone won´t do it, you need water, massive ammounts of it. You need potassium, calcium, and dozens other minerals. There is just no way it can be done.
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Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
Allthough you would do away with earth in hydroponics, the plants themselfs still take a whole lot of space. Just imagine a tomatoe plant. The plant is the size of a small child, and you would get like 6 or 7 tomatoes out of it for a period of 6 months. But 6 or 7 tomatoes would feed one guy for one day, at most.
So imagine the space needed to feed 10.000...
The question here is not wheter you can grow food in a ship, the question is how much space you would need to grow food to feed 10000 hungry guys.
Just as a comparison, my parents have a vegetable garden, about 600 square meters. They plant tomatoes, turnips, potatoes, and other such bulbs. Now, you know how much food that garden produces in a year? About enough to feed a family of 4 for a week, at most! Do your math.
Hydroponics could work for a trip to Mars today, with a crew of 3 or 4. But for a crew of 10000, not even if you stripped the Colossus and used every single space inside its hull to grow food, you would still go hungry after a week in space.
And let´s not forget that plants need to eat aswell. Light alone won´t do it, you need water, massive ammounts of it. You need potassium, calcium, and dozens other minerals. There is just no way it can be done.
Ignoring the possibility of dehydrated food packs and recycling; you're talking about vegetables (and assuming they are Earth veggies) which would have a very high food-to-stalk ratio, and which would be engineered to produce super-large vegetables very, very rapidly (possibly using specially engineered & synthesizable growth hormones); and also engineered to function on a very, very low level of nutrients (could also use ships sewage as fertiliser).
Basically,I think you can stretch the science of 300 years time enough to make a hydroponic based solution viable. The idea of breeding or genetically engineering super-productive plant breeds is far from new, after all; and there may be some alien plant life able to act even more effectively. Hell, maybe you could develop a form of edible algae which can be aggresively cultivated over a tiny space.
Water, is a key thing though, which you're right in pointing out; there's no substitute for it, so there must need to be some form of huge tank somewhere.
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Just like to point out that plant that take in very little nutrients, in turn, contain very little nutrients as well.
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Originally posted by ChronoReverse
Just like to point out that plant that take in very little nutrients, in turn, contain very little nutrients as well.
Depends on the plants. There are lots of high energy plants out there (don't know any specific ones off hand), and like aldo said, they've got 300 years on us, so they might have developed higher energy foods.
Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
Just as a comparison, my parents have a vegetable garden, about 600 square meters. They plant tomatoes, turnips, potatoes, and other such bulbs. Now, you know how much food that garden produces in a year? About enough to feed a family of 4 for a week, at most! Do your math.
First of all, your parents are limited to a specific range of times when such plants can grow, usually between March (at the earliest) to Septemeber or so, perhaps six months, on one section of land with all the trials and tribulations which come with gardening outdoors. Now, lets say that you can plant year round with no problems, no bugs, no random rainstorms or animals to interfer with the growth cycle, as well as 24 hour sunlight. Now you're looking at a crop of food every 3-6 months (depending on the response of the plants to constant sunlight and near ideal growth conditions). That, based on your example, would feed 4 people for 4 weeks at maximum, or 16 for one.
Not a lot, true, but the numbers start going up from there. A proper hydroponics bay will use shelves and remove the soil completely. That 600 square meters now increases by several fold in size thanks to stacking (how much would depend on the design of the the bay). Assume 4 shelves, which increases things to 64 for a week. Now, an Orion is 2.2 kilometers long, and if we make the bay about 25x24 meters (not a perfect square, but those are hard to work with), we can get, in a row for half a kilometer (500 meters) something like 20 bays, cranking it up to 1280 people per week.
Of course, we don't know how many bays an Orion could actually have compared to the other equipment on board ship, including food stores, weaponry, recycling equipment, fighter bays, the main reactor, communications and, of course, sleeping quarters for the crew. Still, 1280 people a week is nothing to sneeze at, and that's assuming you give them a full ration of product from the fields and don't suppliment them with dehydrated food, stored food, recycled rations etc, etc etc. And on top of all that, we're forgeting that they are 300 years in the future, having probably developed high energy, high yield fruits and vegatbles for the various colonies of the Terran race, which could increase it significantly. Plus you have rotating crops, growth cycles, and effectively a near constant crop cycle for the entire cruise and while you probably couldn't feed the entire crew fresh corn every day, you could do it often enough to treat them, or just serve it to the officers, which would easily match the numbers we have.
Could they live on it exclusivily? Nah, probably not, but it would certainlly help on extreamly long term cruises.
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they probably have geneticly modified plants that pump out raw nutrients on one side and oxygen on a nother. All from C02 and water, with sunlight added
Then again these guys have a freaking bar on the ship, who the hell says they dont get daily food shipments from a posiden.
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Of course, we're also assuming future-people haven't themselves been genetically modified for space travel - for example for better endurance under low light or unnatural gravity conditions, or obviously just to use less food.
There may also be use of cryogenics to either store food or keep crew on rotation without requiring feeding them. (Why a crew would volunteer to work where their off-shift free time was frozen, I don't know... but if needs must...)
EDIT; you know it doesn't say if there is a bar on an Orion. The fsref bible describes it simply as "It becomes apparent that this bar is on a military installation or ship of some sort".
Given that a later cutscene mentions a fight with Vasudans in the same bar - and the GTA would probably be reticent to allow Vasudans to come and get pissed on an Orion (no officer exchange, HoL threat still present) - I reckon it's most likely the bar is on an Arcadia; it's more likely that way that the Vasudans would simply be stopovers from a resupplying/under-repair ship.
EDIT2; actually, balls to that :o. The text for Act 2 1B makes it pretty clear that the bar is located in a cruiser which the player will be escorting.
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:wtf: That makes very little sense. The Arcadia would be the best bet.
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Originally posted by Goober5000
:wtf: That makes very little sense. The Arcadia would be the best bet.
i may have jumped the gun on assuming it referred to a cruiser, but;
Act 2 Misc 1A
Scenes opens with a shot of the bar used earlier. There are two Vasudans at a table close to the bar. The table next to them has two Terrans drinking. The scene opens with a far shot and then cuts to a close up of the two Terran pilots in the midst of conversation.. A newscast hums on in the background.
Will: I dunno Jake. I just think that you’re a damn pessimist.
Jake: Oh come on man! How much will it take before you realize how badly we’re doing! I mean our butts are getting kicked! Just look around…we’ve got more refugees from surrounding colonies than trained pilots here! Did you hear about that huge Shivan Destroyer that popped up and nailed Tombaugh station and that Cruiser we captured? Didn’t stand a chance. All that’s left now is a bunch of scrap metal and vapors…
Will: Oh there we go….more rumors…
Jake: I’m telling you it’s true…I heard from a good source, he said he’s seen the footage! You know what I think. I think it’s those damn cow-faced Vasudans… You know they’d just love to kill us all. You know if the Shivans hadn’t shown up, we’d still be blasting them out of the sky!
Will: You really think so don’t you? If that’s the case then why are their scientists helping us out?
Jake: Helping! They’re probably studying us…taking notes. Trying to figure out how to hit us after the Shivans are gone. That’s why everything is so damn ominous here! [Jake gets a little louder] We’ve got to share our quarters with those damn snot nosed sand crawlers!
[This gets a look from one of the Vasudans at the other table. They look for a moment but then ignore the Terrans and continue talking…]
Will: Jake, keep your voice down! I agree that morale does seem to be a bit low here…but that doesn’t mean we’re losing because of the Vasudans. Everyone’s just getting tired of fighting is all…
Jake: Oh yeah, tired. Tired of losing battle after battle. Tired of seeing their best friend become a piece of space debris. Tired……tired….
Jake suddenly gets quiet and looks at his glass. We hear the newscast clearer as they both look up at the monitor.
[Cut to closer shot of monitor]
Anchor: Early last night the Terran shipyard outside of the Rodine System was destroyed by unknown sources. Apparently a distress signal was sent, but by the time support arrived the attackers had left the area.
The Vasudan “Hammer of Light” group has claimed responsibility for the attack stating that all those who fight the Shivans are resisting the divine plan. However military officials state that there is no proof the radical movement was involved.
[The newscast continues as Jake starts up again]
Hammer of Light leader “CCC” issued a statement to the….
Jake: See! It’s those damn sand eating bastards! I tell you man. We ought to kill em all. They’re causing more trouble than the Shivans.
Will: I don’t know about that, Jake. I’ve heard some evil **** about the Shivans…
Jake Oh they’re all in it together. First those stinking Shivans show up. That’s why they signed that treaty. They knew they would lose. They’re in it together I tell you.
[The two Vasudans look over again]
Jake: Yeah buddy! What are you looking at?…
[You see the two groups eyeing each other suspiciously as the video fades to black]
[Missions after this scene concern covering the retreat of a Terran Cruiser and its escorts to an alternate system.]
AP 2/26: Also cut. In fact, all scenes following this are cut except for the endgame cutscene, which is intact. Also intact are the 6 “Ancients” readings that explain the life and downfall of the Ancients that discovered the Shivan weaknesses. I’ll include the text from those at the end of this section, but before the Species Descriptions.
Act 2 Misc 1B
[Same as A, but the hard stares to the Vasudan’s table ends in violence. Act 2 Misc 1A continues from the two parties staring at each other here:]
Vasudan1: You have a loud mouth, human. If you knew the truth you would not say such things.
Will: Hey man…he just had a bit too much to drink…give him a break.
Jake: Yeah! Give me a break! In fact I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you come over here and I’ll give you a break! I’ll break your face into little alien pieces and flush it down the toilet!
[Jake gets up and nears the other table. The two Vasudans stand. Will mumbles something but then gets up too…]
Vasudan2: You should leave now.
Jake: Me leave! Ha! This is our damn ship you stupid bastards! You think you own it! Here own this!
[Jake takes a swing and hits the Vasudan. The other Vasudan starts to fight with Will. The fight starts up and we heard shouts in the background as other people get involved. The camera cuts to the anchor as we see a shot of the radical Vasudan leader giving some speech and the scenes fades out with the fight sounds in the background.]
[Missions after will cause the Cruiser to become crippled, and the player will then have to escort escape transports as they flee the dying ship].
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Damn... that would've been an awesome cutscene for FS1.
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it would have been way to difficult to animate given the budget and time restraints.
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Well, I figure all decent-sized ships will have some sort of hydroponics, but that will only supply, at best, half of what the ship needs. The rest will be accounted for via supply runs and stuff...
What's the average away-time for a military naval aircraft carrier? That would make a good starting point for trying to gauge this sort of thing...
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it might help if we knew how much food the average adult eats per day.
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There were Vasudans on the Galatea for the Command Briefing cutscene about the Taranis. Which is also what the missing cutscene was talking about, I believe.
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I'm still trying to think of a sensible reason to have a pub on a military vessel, though. Of course, the pilots being drunk all the time would explain a few things about the AI.........
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Serving alcohol is an age old tradition on military vessels - on some modern AEGIS cruisers that offer great comfort compared to older ships, you may get away without one, but ships as crowded and unbearable as the ones in the GTA/PVN/GTVA will definitly need one.
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But do they have a dedicated pub for it, with neon lights et al?
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Power is more or less abundant - so why not use fancy neon lights for illumination - or lack of. Space is more of an issue, so I think the bar depicted in the cutscene is on an Arcadia.
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Except the cutscene states it's on a ship in the dialogue. I think it should be on an arcadia - that would make a lot more sense IMO - but it isn't.
Unless, of course, 'ship' refers to an Arcadia, which would just be wierd.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
I'm still trying to think of a sensible reason to have a pub on a military vessel, though. Of course, the pilots being drunk all the time would explain a few things about the AI.........
In a word, moral! Every military ship in today´s Navy has several bars inside it. One+ for the enlisted and low rank seamen, one+ for sargeants, and one for officers. And you ARE allowed to drink alcohol, you just aren´t allowed to get drunk, that´s all.
I used to work in those bars, i was in charge of repairing the coffee machines, dish washers and everything else in Navy bars. We worked for the Navy full time. My partner spent more time drinking scotch at the bars than he spent working on them. Obviously, i kept him company!
:p
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What, a bar with puggies and everything? I mean, I figured there would be whatever the naval equivalent of a mess hall was, and obviously the officers bit, but I never reckoned there would be a full-on dedicated drinking establishment.
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What´s a "puggie"?
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Originally posted by aldo_14
But do they have a dedicated pub for it, with neon lights et al?
*smacks aldo*
Et al is used for people. You want et cetera. :p
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Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
What´s a "puggie"?
http://members.lycos.co.uk/maevedixon/maeve/puggies.html
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Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
seamen
now that that's out of the way:
MREs could work. they may not be classy, but they are real food, and you can store them forever. 3 MRES a day for a crew of 10,000, you'd need a 50 foot by 50 foot wall of them to last you a day.
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An Orion's crew and its physical dimension mean it amounts to a small city, really. It makes perfect sense they'd have a bar.
I imagine the punishments for showing up drunk for your watch are pretty ferocious. That's how the Royal Navy does it.
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713|744|2023, the dimensions of an orion in metres, you could store a lot of food in that thing.
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You need to store a lot of people, computers, munitions, power cabling and fighters in it too, though.
Can someone enlighten me on the size / crew ratio of an average submarine?
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Originally posted by Carl
now that that's out of the way:
No, it´s not. You must be thinking of "semen", wich is that milky stuff you find in your shorts in the morning.
"Seamen" is the conjugation of sea+men, men from the sea.
Don´t you feel silly now?
:p :p
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Last I heard, aldo, a standard US attack sub has a crew at or around 80 and cruises for about 3 months at a go.
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What size is it, though? I'm thinking of the cubic dimensions.....
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Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
In a word, moral! Every military ship in today´s Navy has several bars inside it. One+ for the enlisted and low rank seamen, one+ for sargeants, and one for officers. And you ARE allowed to drink alcohol, you just aren´t allowed to get drunk, that´s all.
I used to work in those bars, i was in charge of repairing the coffee machines, dish washers and everything else in Navy bars. We worked for the Navy full time. My partner spent more time drinking scotch at the bars than he spent working on them. Obviously, i kept him company!
:p
Unless it changed very recently, not the US Navy. They don't allow alcohol on ship at all and haven't since WWI.
The size of a US attack sub in cubic meters is approx. 12,678 m^3 (115x10.5x10.5). Exact figures vary per ship, and this is a simple box, where the sub is actually more a tube. Comparing them to an Orion is a bit of a problem given that the Orion is the shape of a pointing finger (or whatever you pervs come up with), which is also not a box.
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Not a box, but a rectangle.
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The Royal Navy still allows alcohol onboard ship, but they are one of the last.
Given the apparent lack of creature comforts on an Orion, however, I imagine they have to distract the crew somehow from just how bad their life is.
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Originally posted by Eishtmo
Unless it changed very recently, not the US Navy. They don't allow alcohol on ship at all and haven't since WWI.
Then i´m sorry for you guys, and all those poor funless seamen out there...
:lol:
Our navy allows alcohol, but you can´t drink while on duty and heavens forbidd if the catch you drunk.
Also, wine drinking is actually advized while at sea, because of its properties. It even prevents the human system from absorbing so much radiation, in nuclear powered ships obviously. Wine also prevents some desieses, like "scurvy" or what the hell its called in english (Escorbuto). That desiese that seamen used to get from not ingesting enough fruit and vegetables. Whatever...
:nervous:
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Scurvy is called scurvy in English.
(Caused by not having enough vitamin C; I'm not sure why wine would have any particular advantage over any other preventative measure, though.)
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Well, at least it's alcohol...
And it's a lot easier to keep then fresh veggies.
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Originally posted by ngtm1r
Given the apparent lack of creature comforts on an Orion
what leads you to believe this?
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remember that a quarter the crew on any gtva vessel, are hookers. i fail to see why that many people are required to run a vessel. next generation naval vessels are so well automated that crew sizes are dropping from thousands to hundreds (and in some cases tens). so i guess they are mostly crack whores.
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The way i see it most of the crew of destroyer size vessels is devoted to command and control
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if you get druk in the gtva, they'll keelhaul you.
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Originally posted by Carl
what leads you to believe this?
Interior shots of an Orion, and other Terran ships, look like, well, a modern naval vessel, only not as clean. Lots of exposed pipes and such, but also kinda dingy, like it all needs a good scrubbing and a coat of paint.
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but they have massive space wasting bars
(http://www.descent-freespace.com/goodies/gallery/cut/bartest.jpg)
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I suspect that was once an auxilary hanger or weapons-storage area.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
What size is it, though? I'm thinking of the cubic dimensions.....
Well, I couldn't find cubic dimensions, but after some digging I found this (http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/slbm/ssbn-726.htm). It list the length of an Ohio class missile sub as 560 feet (170.69 meters) and the beam(width) as 42 feet (10.06 meters). Of course, this is +/- the twice the distance between the main hull and the pressure hull, but it's at most a foot. She's manned by a crew of 15 officers and 144 crewmen. One SSBN combat employment cycle includes a 70-day patrol and 25-day period of transfer of the submarine to the other crew, between-deployment maintenance, and reloading of munitions.
So basically, the Ohio has 2 full crews one at sea and one in port, training and attending other duties. A cruise last a little over 2 months and they have a month between cruises when they perform maintenance and reload spent munitions and supplies. We could probably extend this to a 3 month cruise and a month in dock following each cruise for a Fenris/Leviathan since they are sligthly larger and probably have a smaller crew.
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1,073,144,856 Metres Cubed, the Cubic dimensions of an Orion. (at least that's what you get if you multiply Height, Width and Depth)
P.S. Where is that screenie from?
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Wiggy...Wiggy...Wiggy...:D
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WTF?
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Originally posted by kietotheworld
1,073,144,856 Metres Cubed, the Cubic dimensions of an Orion. (at least that's what you get if you multiply Height, Width and Depth)
because the Orion is a huge featureless 6 sided brick.
i remember there being a plug-in for truespace that will tell you the volume of an object. i can't be arsed to find it, but if you import the model into truespace and scale it to the appropriate dimensions, it should come out as being right, unless there is some intersecting geometery.
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Originally posted by kietotheworld
WTF?
Look at the cylinder on the left. ;)
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:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:
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(http://www.descent-freespace.com/goodies/gallery/cut/bartest13.jpg)
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yeah, so then, what does it mean?
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http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=wiggy
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http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wiggy+wiggy&r=s&pos=2