AC3D Forums - View Single Post

Cynic · 21st August 2007, 09:46 PM

My weekend is coming up soon. I spent a bit of the past few days trying to conceptualize a sublight propulsion system for my game.

Chemical, aka solid fuel, is out because it's ineffecient. You have to burn tons of it just to get into sapce. However, from my physics studies, I remember them basing rockets on the concept of momentum, p = m*v, leading me to think, what would make an ideal momentum replacement for a solid fuel system...what produces a massive amount of force on a small amount of matter...rail guns.

The idea is that a projectile is propelled via an electrostatic system, rather than expanding gas, so you can get a mass moving at much higher velocities.

A bit of research turned up coil and gauss guns, so I now started looking at a solenoids, superconductors, the Meissner effect, etc.

Hmmm...If I can model gauss or coil drives, so cooool...

21st August 2007, 09:46 PM	#21
Cynic Member Expert member Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 71	Re: I'm new and learning. My WIP. My weekend is coming up soon. I spent a bit of the past few days trying to conceptualize a sublight propulsion system for my game. Chemical, aka solid fuel, is out because it's ineffecient. You have to burn tons of it just to get into sapce. However, from my physics studies, I remember them basing rockets on the concept of momentum, p = m*v, leading me to think, what would make an ideal momentum replacement for a solid fuel system...what produces a massive amount of force on a small amount of matter...rail guns. The idea is that a projectile is propelled via an electrostatic system, rather than expanding gas, so you can get a mass moving at much higher velocities. A bit of research turned up coil and gauss guns, so I now started looking at a solenoids, superconductors, the Meissner effect, etc. Hmmm...If I can model gauss or coil drives, so cooool...