[Grey Wolf]

I was wondering: How exactly do the the engines on the fighters and capships work? Is it a reaction drive, an ion drive, a fusion torch, what? (Note: I'm talking about normal space, not subspace)

[Bobboau]

well they must bend the ships inerta to keep it aligned with it's forward vector somehow, based on the games weird ass physics

[Knight Templar]

*Guesses some sort of Fusion

*Has nothing to back that up, other than it just sounds right.

[FoxHound]

maybe its the burning of fart?

makes you wonder what that 'nebula' beyond gamma draconis was...

[Starks]

Fusion reactors, subspace coils, ion boosters, plasma cores, nuclear fission, kinetic drives.

[Atlur]

As the gas mining ships in the game suggest, it would have to be some sort of fusion engine. Probably as simple as running a stream of hydrogen through the center 'spoke' of a fusion reactor (does anyone remember the proper name for the machinery in the center of a toroid fusion reactor?) and spitting it out the back superheated and at high velocity.

[Solatar]

Thought I remebered a reference to a ship's "fusion drives" but I could be wrong.

Uses fusion reactions to generate thrust? Small intertial balancers or something inside the ships keep the ship on it's forward vector.

'course then there's the Colossus...I don't know how to explain the baseball bat thingy it does...

[Knight Templar]

Originally posted by Solatar

'course then there's the Colossus...I don't know how to explain the baseball bat thingy it does...

Blame it on Command. That seems to be the trend with the Colossus...

[Kosh]

Fusion drives.





But knock the Colosuss considering that it can take down a Ravana by itself while taking no more than 8% damage.

[diamondgeezer]

I already explained this back on the VBB - FS ships use Walkers reactors, which basically consist of a magnetic bottle thingy in which the elementary particles 'cheese' and 'onion' are mutually anihilated to produce tremendous ammounts of energy and flavour.

Even an0n laughed the first time around.

[Black Wolf]

They run off Fusion, I'm sure of it. The tech room entry for one the the gas miners mentionssomething about how they're designed to collect and process deuterium to power the fleets fusion drives or somesuch.

[Krackers87]

What i wonder is how they need so much damn crew.

10,000 crew for one orion?!?!

I dont even know how they fit that many people in there...

Maybe They put them inbetween bulkheads for extra armour?

[Nico]

well, It's easy. Take the Bismark ( largest Nazi cruiser ):
it had a lenght of 251 meters ( so roughly the lengh of the Titanic ), a weight of 50 400 tons ( twice the Titanic ).
all that is ridiculously small compared to your average Orion.
the Crew on the Bismark? 2065 men ( they all died save for 3, btw ).

[Clone]

Originally posted by diamondgeezer
I already explained this back on the VBB - FS ships use Walkers reactors, which basically consist of a magnetic bottle thingy in which the elementary particles 'cheese' and 'onion' are mutually anihilated to produce tremendous ammounts of energy and flavour.

Har har. That is funny.

Do they sell Walkers in the US? If not, I doubt many people get it.


But I subscribe to the MacGyver Theory, that everything runs off a variation of simple Duct-Tape/Rubber-Band dynamics.

[Atlur]

Originally posted by Krackers87
What i wonder is how they need so much damn crew.

10,000 crew for one orion?!?!

I dont even know how they fit that many people in there...

Maybe They put them inbetween bulkheads for extra armour?

Actually 10,000 is a pretty low number when you look at it. A Nimitz class carrier today is 332 meters long, supports 85 aircraft and has a crew of 5680 when you include the air wing. Also, if the Nimitz had to carry ship-to-ship weaponry in the way an Orion does, it's crew compliment would be even higher. The 2km+ Orion must be using fairly sophisticated automation, or some very efficient systems to keep the crew level down.

[Knight Templar]

Not that it's hard to put 10,000 in 2km's length of anything...

[diamondgeezer]

Well, they reckon the population of the world could be stuffed on to the Isle of Wight...

[Clone]

Would they all be alive though, or would you have to mush them into a fine pulp first?

[FoxHound]

my question is: how many do they shove into the escape pods?

and where do they store their oxygen, and how do they store it so that they dont explode to hell when their oxygen supply gets shot, or do they recycle their air (pretty efficent setup if they do)

[Flipside]

Modern Nuclear subs recycle their air, that's how they manage to stay underwater for so long, FS2 ships probably use an advanced version of the same technology. As for 10,000 people, the Orion serves no single purpose, it is Carrier, Heavy Cruiser and Troop Ship all rolled into one, so I wouldn't be surprised to find about 60% of that crew is pilots and GTVA Troops. Not to mention the Emergency docking bay, so that guy from command can always be in the area, no matter which part of the Galaxy you are in
I also recall Cmdr Snipes saying something about fitting bombs to the fighters Fusion Reactors

Flipside