CEC Ship Designer

By GandofGand, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

6 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

My “geometric thinking” is just fine.

2 solid objects not being able to occupy the same location in 3 space is a simple concept. A less offensive assumption than you failing to grasp that extremely simple concept (as in an explanation backed up by your past by hand attempt at deck plans) is that you have problems with "puzzles" involving mentally assembling 3D geometric shapes when you don't have the physical (or virtual on a computer) pieces in front of you

No, but the capabilities of those objects can be combined. I can use some of those engines simply for their capabilities even if they’re completely covered by something else. In essence it’s using the internal systems of those engines and combining them with other engines. In other words, if it’s not visible it’s just there as internal components for the larger, more visible systems.

Frankly, if you can’t accept that, tough .

1 hour ago, Tramp Graphics said:

No, but the capabilities of those objects can be combined. I can use some of those engines simply for their capabilities even if they’re completely covered by something else. In essence it’s using the internal systems of those engines and combining them with other engines. In other words, if it’s not visible it’s just there as internal components for the larger, more visible systems.

Frankly, if you can’t accept that, tough .

You don't know much about jet or rocket engines. I'll be using a turbo fan engine as an analogy (incredible cross sections uses gas turbines engines relabeled as ion turbines).

I'm going to gloss over the complicated details to keep things simple but I got my master's degree in MIT's gas turbine labs, so I know what I'm talking about.

A turbo jet engine is a inlet (that slows incoming air increasing temperature density and pressure), a compressor that slows air and further increases temperature density and pressure, a combustor (including fuel injector and mixers) that burns the fuel increasing temperature and pressure, a turbine which extracts energy from the combusted gas air mixture to turn the compressor, and a nozzle to expand the combusted air fuel mixture (decreasing temperature pressure and density) which makes it go faster providing thrust.

Nobody uses turbo jets anymore, their too inefficient... the exhaust is moving really fast... energy is proportional to mass times velocity squared but momentum (thrust) is mass times velocity... to get more efficient you want to move more air a slower speed.

Modern fighter jets use turbo fan engines with a bypass ratio of about 1. That means that there is an air duct wrapping the turbo jet core with an extra stage on the compressor (called a fan) and turbine, the extra turbine stage extracts energy from the core jet slowing it to turns the fan which pushes the extra air through the duct, the streams merge before the nozzle and result in more air moving slower than a turbo jet but providing more thrust for the same amount of fuel. The f22 can "super cruise" or fly supersonic without using an afterburner and it's doing it with a bypass ratio of about one (the amount of air through the outer duct is about the same as the air going through the turbo jet core).

A modern comercial turbofan engine uses a bypass ratio between about 7 and 9. High bypass ratio turbofan engines are incredibly efficient at moving a lot of mass at comparatively slow speeds but they can't go supersonic no matter how many of them you strapped on a plane because their exhaust is traveling subsonic.

The point is that adding slow engines or even the parts of slow engines to a fast flying vehicle is counterproductive, it will slow you down rather than speed you up. However adding comparable engines to the ones moving the flying vehicle at a fast speed will make it go faster but there is a law of diminishing returns, there's a top speed that you will asymptotically approach as you add more same speed engines).

Note that I don't fault you for not being a "rocket scientist" but I have the advanced degree in "aeronautics and astronautics" to literally qualify me to be a rocket scientist (MIT's gas turbine lab also did stuff with rocket engines).

But the bottom line is that your plan to use the parts of a lot of slower (than the conqueror) engines to speed it up is a pipe dream for gas/ion turbine engines.

It's also not supported by the app.

Edited by EliasWindrider

That’s your point of view. And the point is more a matter of adding faster engines to slower engines, not the other way around. Not only that, but the more thrusters the faster you go.

Edited by Tramp Graphics
2 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

That’s your point of view. And the point is more a matter of adding faster engines to slower engines, not the other way around. Not only that, but the more thrusters the faster you go.

It's engineering, there's room for creativity and flexibility in choosing objective functions etc., but it's not subjective. view points don't matter, rules (regarding the nature and behavior of the universe) do.

For example the combination of engines rather than the order in which you added them is what matters. The conqueror is the fastest of available options in the app. If you add others close to it you can increase speed. But you can't combine them with the cr-90 engines.... they don't fit.

There's a reason star wars has ion drives and hyperdrives. Continuously adding thrusters doesn't keep making you faster. There's diminishing returns, eventually you max out for a given engine design. And eventually comes pretty quickly in practice. Off the top of my head I can't think of any "modern" plane with more than 6 and the conqueror has 8 total... 4 large 4 small. The cr-90 has a crapton of engines too and it only gets up to speed 3 in ffg's system which is a lot like 6 in weg.

Edited by EliasWindrider

Of course CR-90 engines wouldn’t fit, and I’d never use them anyway. They don’t look right. However that is not the case with most of the others. Most of them you can easily combine into various configurations or simply fudge it if a particular set is completely consumed by another. In this case you’re not literally stacking the actual engines together. You’re simply stacking the capabilities of them together while using the aesthetics of the visible engines.

I’ve summarized this argument as a "who would win" meme.

Edited by Yaccarus
2 hours ago, Yaccarus said:

I’ve summarized this argument as a ‘who would win’ meme.

Link won't load for me. :( . But I'm just going to assume it's funny and on point and like your post on principle :D

5 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Of course CR-90 engines wouldn’t fit, and I’d never use them anyway. They don’t look right. However that is not the case with most of the others. Most of them you can easily combine into various configurations or simply fudge it if a particular set is completely consumed by another. In this case you’re not literally stacking the actual engines together. You’re simply stacking the capabilities of them together while using the aesthetics of the visible engines.

Most GM's have enough commwon sense to not allow the uncommon nonsense you're spewing. But if you can find one that doesn't more power to you.

52 minutes ago, warchild1x said:

Link won't load for me. :( . But I'm just going to assume it's funny and on point and like your post on principle :D

D'oh! Maybe this one works?

25 minutes ago, Yaccarus said:

You're underselling me, I also have a PhD in mechanical engineering and work at a government lab doing R&D on multiple topics many related to satellites e.g. orbits/sensors/geolocation/etc.

5 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

You're underselling me, I also have a PhD in mechanical engineering and work at a government lab doing R&D on multiple topics many related to satellites e.g. orbits/sensors/geolocation/etc.

I worked with what I knew. Maybe I’ll make an updated version of the meme but I don’t feel like doing that right now.

2 minutes ago, Yaccarus said:

I worked with what I knew. Maybe I’ll make an updated version of the meme but I don’t feel like doing that right now.

No worries.