[wEvil]

one Carbon isotope:

Buckminsterfullerine? Nanotubules?  A little hard to come by but great if they could be manufactured in large quantities.

And as for solid diamond..i was thinking more of modular plates on top of some kind of segmented flex lattice.

THe problem with rendering refractive objects in space, which is black...iss..the fact space is black.  Theres nothing to reflect/refract and unless you go overboard on self illumination/falloff controls and the old cliched glow effects i'm afraid it wont happen.

Transparency only works really well in bright, busy environments unless you use a whole bunch of tricks like whitecards or environment bitmaps.

[Stryke 9]

Narol: Nope. ST. Transparent aluminum- features in one of the movies. And I'm ****ing humiliated to admit I know that.

[Kitsune]

Transparent aluminum was not only mentioned, but Scotty GAVE it (the chemical compound/formula) to the plastics manufacturer as payment for the sheets of plastic needed to contain the whales so they could save earth.  (The Journey home?)

Edit:  Force Shielding?
What happens if they bring back the old disrupter missle?  
"Sir we collapsed their shields!"  
"Good man, keep firing."
"But sir you don't understand, their ship was nothing BUT shields!"
After a long moment, "Hot damn, hit that one over there with it too!"

[wEvil]

Originally posted by Kitsune
Transparent aluminum was not only mentioned, but Scotty GAVE it (the chemical compound/formula) to the plastics manufacturer as payment for the sheets of plastic needed to contain the whales so they could save earth.  (The Journey home?)

Edit:  Force Shielding?
What happens if they bring back the old disrupter missle?  
"Sir we collapsed their shields!"  
"Good man, keep firing."
"But sir you don't understand, their ship was nothing BUT shields!"
After a long moment, "Hot damn, hit that one over there with it too!"

and that, boyz and girlz, that is an example of...err something.

[KillMeNow]

Originally posted by wEvil
THe problem with rendering refractive objects in space, which is black...iss..the fact space is black.  Theres nothing to reflect/refract and unless you go overboard on self illumination/falloff controls and the old cliched glow effects i'm afraid it wont happen.

Transparency only works really well in bright, busy environments unless you use a whole bunch of tricks like whitecards or environment bitmaps.

this is why i not had great results

as for the buckminsterfullerine - yup best contruction material ever conceived - as for diamond shattering - yes it is possible but i imagine that it would need a very hard imapact to convince it to do so it is incredibully tough stuff athough they are small noonter ever really done stress test on a support beam of it since that beam would be the msot valuble thing on earth lol

anwyah back to the fullerines - i heard they were one posibilty for the contructions or orbital towers ( a tower that streaches from the equator all the way to geostationary orbit so a skyscrapper oh 24 thousand miles high or there abouts =) cool stuff

[ZylonBane]

Taelon Mothership (Earth, Final Conflict)--

[Zeronet]

Thats more organic material though.

[ZylonBane]

And... your point is?

[Carl]

Originally posted by wEvil
diamond.  hardest material known to man.

Energy beams?  would YOU want to be in a massively refrative contruct when hit by a PetaWatt X-ray beam?

diamonds are the strongest material known to man, but they burn up pretty easily.

[Shrike]

Originally posted by KillMeNow
as for the buckminsterfullerine - yup best contruction material ever conceived - as for diamond shattering - yes it is possible but i imagine that it would need a very hard imapact to convince it to do so it is incredibully tough stuff athough they are small noonter ever really done stress test on a support beam of it since that beam would be the msot valuble thing on earth lol

Actually, diamonds are easy to shatter.  All you have to do is hit them along the right plane and they split.

[Kamikaze]

Originally posted by Kitsune
Transparent aluminum was not only mentioned, but Scotty GAVE it (the chemical compound/formula) to the plastics manufacturer as payment for the sheets of plastic needed to contain the whales so they could save earth.  (The Journey home?)

Edit:  Force Shielding?
What happens if they bring back the old disrupter missle?  
"Sir we collapsed their shields!"  
"Good man, keep firing."
"But sir you don't understand, their ship was nothing BUT shields!"
After a long moment, "Hot damn, hit that one over there with it too!"

This somehow produced the vision of a force shield ship with water and... dolphins.... and then the GTVA send 'em out... Don't ask me how that came up...

[icespeed]

oh, cool stuff guys. well done. you deserve a prize which i havent got.

okay, so maybe transparent ships aren't too good an idea in terms of fighting and stuff.
it was just an idea, after all.

but why diamond? why can't someone synthesise something? and im sure all the other problems can be solved some how... (im saying this because 1. im too lazy to propose solutions myself and 2. i dont know enough about ships to solve them anyway)

and yeah, transparent gravy would be cool...

[Kamikaze]

Originally posted by icespeed
2. i dont know enough about ships to solve them anyway

I don't really think most of us know what we're talking about anyway


So basically to make a nice, working millitary ship transparent there really would be no point (unless and uber-powerful clear solid material is found) so that should be ruled out.

However, it would be pretty as a tourist kind of thing. (you know: cruise liners and such) But still we don't want our tourists frying so there would be some kind of material used. Diamond is a bit bad because of some of its weaknesses (shatters, burns etc.). So either we find some transparent metal or transparent plastics of some kind. Plastics would be simpler because we already have them - so we could just make them super-strong (somehow) and then you'd have your nice, pretty transparent ship.

Did that make sense or do I not know what I'm saying either?

[icespeed]

yeah, you sound like you know what you're talking about. but that doesn't mean you do.

what exactly do you mean when you say that the tourists would fry? fry from what?

[Setekh]

Originally posted by KillMeNow
this is why i not had great results

Tried doing it inside a nebula?

[Nico]

Originally posted by Setekh


Tried doing it inside a nebula?

space is black, but inside a ship, tehre could be a lot of lights
think about those fishies in the abyss, they're transparent, but because they have some kind of inside lightning ( they work with Duracel I bet ), they still have all those pretty effects ( that's if you don't look at how their "face" looks like, that is "oh, darling, what's wrong with your teeth?" )

[Styxx]

Originally posted by Kitsune
Edit:  Force Shielding?
What happens if they bring back the old disrupter missle?  
"Sir we collapsed their shields!"  
"Good man, keep firing."
"But sir you don't understand, their ship was nothing BUT shields!"
After a long moment, "Hot damn, hit that one over there with it too!"

Well, if you can build shields strong enough, the fact that your shields dropped would mean that you're screwed anyway, so it would be a nice idea. Just imagine those Culture GSVs that are a lot of separate parts floating inside a huge hullfield.

[mikhael]

Originally posted by wEvil
one Carbon isotope:

Buckminsterfullerine? Nanotubules?  A little hard to come by but great if they could be manufactured in large quantities.

Buckminsterfullerine and carbon nanotubes are similar geometrically but are, in fact different things. Buckminsterfullerine, or 'buckyball' as its so often called, is a geodesic carbon sphere surrounding a molecule of water. Groovy stuff.

Carbon nanotubes, or 'bucky tubes' as they are sometimes called, are regular latticework tubes on the order of several microns long. They are not hard. They are like threads. They have a higher tensile strength than any other material yet concieved by man, but they have a low yield in manufacture. You could not make hull plating or the like from them. You could make, however, really strong ropes, or better yet, Beanstalk wire.

[wEvil]

Originally posted by mikhael


Buckminsterfullerine and carbon nanotubes are similar geometrically but are, in fact different things. Buckminsterfullerine, or 'buckyball' as its so often called, is a geodesic carbon sphere surrounding a molecule of water. Groovy stuff.

Carbon nanotubes, or 'bucky tubes' as they are sometimes called, are regular latticework tubes on the order of several microns long. They are not hard. They are like threads. They have a higher tensile strength than any other material yet concieved by man, but they have a low yield in manufacture. You could not make hull plating or the like from them. You could make, however, really strong ropes, or better yet, Beanstalk wire.

BEANSTALK WIRE!!! OMG!!!

still, buckies would be great if you could make them.

[Corsair]

I'm still waiting for someone to invent the clear gravy...
Yeah, icespeed is right, why doesn't somebody just synthesize it so it's strong and not easily shatterable? That would probably be easiest.