[Flaser]

I will post stuff about Technolgy in Freespacer here - some of it may make it to the fsdoc, since I'm trying to logically expand FS-Tech.

For starters, the first addition: Space ship frames

Frame

The frame is the most critical component of a spaceship. All components are encased in the frame, it takes the bulk of the forces that arise during acceleration, it gives the ship its structural integrity.

The alloy used in the frame is the hardest and most enduring metal in the entire ship. It is actually a mix of fulleran-type carbon filaments molecularly bounded in a titan-ferrum matrix.
Frame components are covered with a soft platinum-iridium casing to prevent corrosion and make the frame electro-magnetically passive. This layer also protects the frame material from radiation.

Frames are also among the most expensive and heavy components of a spaceship.

Exo-Frames

Exo-frames were the first type of frames used, their concept dating to the early space-programs in the 1960'.
They are like the exoskeleton of an insect. All the components are flexibly attached to an outer layer of beams and nets that web the whole surface of the ship.
The frame is also a direct support for the armor

The downside of the design is the perilous manner in which internal components could be fixed. The hull also had a tendency to rapidly collapse at critical stress without preliminary signs. Engineers were forced to incorporate greater safety margins than necessary to ensure the safety of ships built with exo-frames.

Despite its shortcomings these frames are still widely used in the commercial sector thanks to their ease of manufacture, repair and maintenance, which also results in low price compared to skeletal frames.

Skeletons

The self-explanatory name quickly identifies the difference between an exo-frame and a skeleton.
Just like real skeletons these frames are internal and directly suspend critical components.

It was the logical next step in ship design in response to the shortcomings of exo-frames. Internal frames offered more support and direct distribution of strain.

Skeletons can take more strain and to a degree can even accommodate over-margin strains that would immediately destroy an exo-frame. Skeletons instead bend and twist to respond to the hardship.
Each skeletal ship has a dynamic-overstrain period (actually exo-frame ships have too, but it's too small and unpredictable) where the frame will recover its shape once the stress is released.
Beyond the dynamic-overstrain period there is a passive-overstrain period where the frame can withstand even further punishment, but the shape of the frame is irrevocably altered.

Commercial Ships (with a skeletal-frame) rarely go to dynamic-overstrain stress – called DOsS, since most components are not properly suspended to handle the frame distortion.

Non-Capital Racing and Military ships though often operate at DOsS conditions.

Passive-overstrain is a last hitch effort in emergencies and is almost never used. The point where strain transforms into passive-overstrain from dynamic-overstrain is called the D/P-point, and ship computers use a double margin to ensure that even an aged or damaged frame doesn’t come close to it.

Die-Hard Fighter pilots and Racing Devils though have a tendency to set a lower D/P threshold or cut the whole limit and go full-control, full-risk.

Combined Frame

A combined frame consists of a skeleton and a lighter exo-frame wielded together to meld the best features of both design.

This is the common frame used by Military Capital Ships since it offers both the flexibility and powerful internal suspension of a skeleton with the rigidity and good armor hoarding capacity of an exo-frame.

These designs operate below DOsS since the exo-frame wouldn't handle it, but engineers continually try to come up with a design that would allow as much armor as an exo-frame and still handle DOsS.

As a backup feature Pressure-Points are incorporated into the exo-frame that allow it to distort, but after each DOsS overdrive the Pressure-Points have to be replaced.

Some recent Corvette designs incorporated Dynamic-Pressure-Points, incorporating the advancements made with variable frames into the combined frame design allowing constant DOsS drive.

Variable Frames

Variable frames are the pinnacle of frame design, and are the most expensive and maintenance intensive of all frames.

These frames take the flexibility and strain endurance of skeletons to a new level. Instead passively yielding under strains, these frames actively try to accommodate by moving their components to achieve a better strain distribution under varying conditions.

For quite a while such designs were thought – and seemed – impossible to be used at the forces common in space-flight.

First use of variable frames were during the Lunar Rebellion, when the colonists modifies their mobile-suits for warfare, and the nimble suits proved superior to the big battleships employed by the World Court.
However ship design quickly created small fighters with greater performance, and the technology at the time wasn't adequate for building fighters with variable frames.

The concept has been only recently picked up once again when myomers (also used in battle-suits and battle-mechs) presented themselves as the compact high-power motivators necessary for a high performance variable frame.

Variable fighters have proven to offer an unprecedented degree of freedom, since these crafts could accelerate in multiple directions faster than any other ship and still bear their weaponry on their intended target. (Rumors say, the idea comes from the Lunar Aerospace Academy where a small group of developers tried to revive the aged Mobile Suit concept.)

However not everything is all bright with these complicated over-powerful crafts.
Test quickly showed their tendency to go haywire, since their complicated nature offers several possibilities for malfunction or break down – these crafts demand a constant and loving maintenance, and even then it takes a master mechanic to keep them in line.
Moreover the sheer power and complexity also meant an overwhelming job for the pilot. Several otherwise top-notch test pilots failed to keep their craft in check, or couldn't push them to their true potential. Beside the best mechanic, it also takes an ace-pilot with a strong sense of multitasking – and an unconventional sense of 3D space battlefield – to put them on the edge.

[MatthewPapa]

Cool...err...you are definately the right person for this job. If you came up with all of that stuff youself thats pretty damn good.

[aldo_14]

Er.....

why is this sort of thing important, pray tell?

[karajorma]

Flaser's working on an RPG set in the FS2 universe IIRC. You tend to need background material a lot more for that sort of thing.

[Roanoke]

for frames, try chassis. I reckon it sounds better,

[MeekGeek]

Chassis is too 'Homeworld' .... Frames is actually more of a correct ship term anyway. Dates back to the old wooden ship building terminology.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by karajorma
Flaser's working on an RPG set in the FS2 universe IIRC. You tend to need background material a lot more for that sort of thing.

aaaaah

furry muff, then.

[Flaser]

The Myth of Space

"Space is so cold that you’ll immediately freeze, while your blood boils"
It is both impractical and improper to speak of temperature in space, and the space industry has tried to dispel the fallacy for quite some time. Apparently with mixed results:

A simplified thermal guide:

In the following extract, the term particle is often used. It generally represent atoms or ions, since these form all matter made from the elements. However, keep in mind that even though light and radiation has particle qualities only elemental particles act in the manner described below.

"Temperature is a macroscopic value that tries to represent the average energy of particles in the area.
For gaseous phase materials temperature almost entirely as movement energy – the speed of the particle and its spinning if the particle is capable to do so.
The particles inside a solid phase oscillate as if suspended on springs – the springs are the bounds it has with other particles in the solid state - this oscillation is what temperature is for solid particles.

Gas atoms, ions or whatever particles form the gas race around in the available space they have bouncing off each other like pool balls do – until they reach a surface of another phase – like liquid or solid material.
Once they hit solid/liquid state matter, part of their inertia is transmitted to the surface and they bounce off.

The force the myriads of particles maintain on the surface while continuously bumping into it is pressure.
Since pressure is depends on the speed and mass of the particles it is among the indicators of temperature for gases.

The transmitted energy becomes part of the solid particles oscillation, raising its volume. When a particle in solid state has enough "speed" it tears off its bonds and escapes entering gaseous state itself.
This is evaporation and different matters evaporate at different rates depending on pressure and their own temperature.

This form of energy transmission requires direct contact between the gas and the solid/liquid matter.

In space there are no whatsoever atoms or ions, so it is nonsense to speak of the temperature of space. Since there is no medium, heat can’t be transmitted to- and from an object in space.

What’s left is another form of energy exchange – radiation. All solid objects radiate on all wavelengths, the volume of which depends on their temperature. Hotter object radiate more than colder ones.
Object can also receive radiation.

An object left on its own in space will therefore either go cold and freeze if it radiates more than how much it receives, or will go hot and evaporate if receives more than what it can irradiate.

Don’t worry though. All ships in the Kilian space park are equipped with failsafe heat management systems that either generate heat on the ship or irradiate it with efficient heat sinks to maintain a constant temperature at all times."
 - Kilian Space-lines, passenger brochure