I didn't know that CERN had managed to make anti-hydrogens! Sweeeet. All I had heard were individual anti protons and positrons (not put together though). And this is how the EVC torpedoes work : Anti matter elminating normal matter... Some ion drives are being similarly designed to take us to distant worlds where only 15 milligrams of antimatter would take you to Mars and I believe back as well.

Not all chemical explosives require oxygen to proceed. In fact all that you really need is a suitable oxidizing-reducing pair of chemicals to react with each other. Napalm (as has already been suggested) may burns in/underwater because it is reducing water and becoming oxidized thus liberating energy/heat to continue the reaction (or is it oxidizing water and becoming reduced?... I can never remember... I think it's what I said earlier). Okay, so having established that there are some chemicals that will react entirely within themselves eliminating the need for any other chemicals. An example of this would be "Octanitrocubane". It requires nothing but itself (and, to the purists out there, an activation energy as well) to explode. It supplies its own oxygen in a manner of speaking by liberating the oxygen atoms from itself. It is also the most potent explosive known to man outside of nuclear explosives. I like to think that the Hell-Fire missiles in nova have this chemical in them, but I doubt it is so. And why does it do this? BECAUSE IT'S LOWER IN ENERGY! (That's a joke from my gen-chem classes)

Let's see... anything else I can make you all go cross-eyed with?

I think another idea behind hyper-gates is that they maintain a wormhole or fold in space (kind of like a thread in the seams of your clothing) so that you're not actually travelling very far when you go through one, but you end up a very far conventional distance away.

Questions? Suggestions? readers: "Yeah! We've got a suggestion; Shut UP!"

This post has been edited by Astronomerob : 17 October 2007 - 06:24 PM

It's hellHOUND. Hell-Fire missiles sounds cool, though.

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An example of this would be "Octonitrocubane". It is shock-sensitive (meaning you hit it and it goes boom). It requires nothing but itself (and, to the purists out there, an activation energy as well) to explode. It supplies its own oxygen in a manner of speaking by liberating the oxygen atoms from itself. It is also the most potent explosive known to man outside of nuclear explosives.

Holy crap! That's COOL! That is going into the next thing I make.

@astronomerob, on Oct 17 2007, 03:46 PM, said in The Physical Workings of the EV Universe:

Not all chemical explosives require oxygen to proceed. In fact all that you really need is a suitable oxidizing-reducing pair of chemicals to react with each other. Napalm (as has already been suggested) may burns in/underwater because it is reducing water and becoming oxidized thus liberating energy/heat to continue the reaction (or is it oxidizing water and becoming reduced?... I can never remember... I think it's what I said earlier). Okay, so having establighed that there are some chemicals that will react entirely within themselves elinating the need for any other chemicals. An example of this would be "Octonitrocubane". It is shock-sensitive (meaning you hit it and it goes boom). It requires nothing but itself (and, to the purists out there, an activation energy as well) to explode. It supplies its own oxygen in a manner of speaking by liberating the oxygen atoms from itself. It is also the most potent explosive known to man outside of nuclear explosives. I like to think that the Hell-Fire missiles in nova have this chemical in them, but I doubt it is so. And why does it do this? BECAUSE IT'S LOWER IN ENERGY! (That's a joke from my gen-chem classes)

Let's see... anything else I can make you all go cross-eyed with?

I think another idea behind hyper-gates is that they maintain a wormhole or fold in space (kind of like a thread in the seams of your clothing) so that you're not actually travelling very far when you go through one, but you end up a very far conventional distance away.

Questions? Suggestions? readers: "Yeah! We've got a suggestion; Shut UP!"

Several notes: the part about napalm is that it has oxygen in its chemical structure, and hence it doesn't need an external source. The hypergate thing is exactly what the previous post on this said. The octonitrocubane thing was quite interesting, but I doubt it applies to EV so much. It is highly unlikely that that is the explosive they use, as it is apperantly extremely hard to make. Admittedly, in 4000 years they might have some technical advances, but the fact that they haven't started making radiation pulsers or that sort of thing indicates to me that they aren't that advanced. Do you have any more information on why it explodes, though? I would be interested, and somebody might want to make a plug based on it. Also, it's Hellhound, not Hell-Fire. And I don't get the joke.

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Also, it's Hellhound, not Hell-Fire.

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It's hellHOUND

cough way ahead of you cough

(edit) Oh, that joke. Nevermind.

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"Yeah! We've got a suggestion; Shut UP!"

Don't, actually. That last was interesting.

This post has been edited by Shlimazel : 17 October 2007 - 06:19 PM

The default answer for when you don't know why something happens in gen-chem is to answer that it happens because it is lower in energy... I guess you had to be there.

Thanks for catching me on the hellhound thing... didn't sound right when I was writing it, but couldn't figure out why.

I believe it explodes like that because it's molecular structure is extremely unstable as is the case with all cubanes, but I think there's a wikipedia page that has the structure in 3D so I'd check that out if you're interested. Also the nitro groups don't like being so close together so all that coupled together equals one very unhappy chemical.

Had a mis-spelling in there "Octanitrocubane" with an a, not an o

And it's shock INsensitive not shock sensitive... where did I get that from???

And for my fourth post in a row I have figured out why it doesn't need oxygen:

Octanitrocubanes chemical formula is C8(NO2)8 when it decomposes (an explosion is extremely rapid decomposition) it degrades into 8(CO2) and 4(N2) molecules, so everything comes from within itself. And an interesting little tid-bit which may make it useful in some fashion to EV developers is that there is no water vapor when it explodes so there is not any condensation/puffs when it goes boom, unless of course there is incomplete burning or it blows up something else, etc...

This post has been edited by Astronomerob : 17 October 2007 - 06:31 PM

I vote to pin this topic. Übertastic.

@astronomerob, on Oct 17 2007, 04:30 PM, said in The Physical Workings of the EV Universe:

And for my fourth post in a row I have figured out why it doesn't need oxygen:

Octanitrocubanes chemical formula is C8(NO2)8 when it decomposes (an explosion is extremely rapid decomposition) it degrades into 8(CO2) and 4(N2) molecules, so everything comes from within itself. And an interesting little tid-bit which may make it useful in some fashion to EV developers is that there is no water vapor when it explodes so there is not any condensation/puffs when it goes boom, unless of course there is incomplete burning or it blows up something else, etc...

That is like the napalm, actually. That is so cool, Astronomerob, where do you find all this? Do you work for the governments explosives reasearch department or something?

@cosmic_nusiance, on Oct 17 2007, 05:27 PM, said in The Physical Workings of the EV Universe:

I vote to pin this topic. Übertastic.

What is pinning?

@0101181920, on Oct 17 2007, 07:22 PM, said in The Physical Workings of the EV Universe:

That is like the napalm, actually. That is so cool, Astronomerob, where do you find all this? Do you work for the governments explosives reasearch department or something?

Hahaha :laugh: No I don't. I don't think they hire many nineteen year-olds. I've taken many college classes. Organic chemistry is where most of this knowledge comes from. I highly recommend that class for anyone going into any science field. It's alot of work, but you learn ALOT. Octanitrocubane isn't actually part of the course curriculum (it should be! :p), I first head about it in my gen-chem book and I've thought it was amazing ever since, ochem allowed me to understand it.

Naplam is palmitic acid... something else and gasoline... what's the something else?

@astronomerob, on Oct 17 2007, 08:13 PM, said in The Physical Workings of the EV Universe:

Napalm is palmitic acid... something else and gasoline... what's the something else?

NAPALM = Na pthenic and Palm itic Acids. Source

Also, fixed.

Also:

Wikipedia Article said:

Modern napalm is composed primarily of benzene and polystyrene, and is known as napalm-B.

This post has been edited by Warlord Mike : 17 October 2007 - 10:24 PM

Ah, okay. We don't have anything like that in EV do we?

I'm interested to learn how the ramscoops (or however they were spelled) in EVC worked. What method did they use to draw in fuel? Was the fuel hydrogen ions?

@0101181920, on Oct 17 2007, 10:22 PM, said in The Physical Workings of the EV Universe:

What is pinning?

Permanently sticking the topic to the top of the board with the Cool Nova Hacks, Unemployment Thread, All The Important Links You'll Ever Need, and Rules For Posting to The Addons Directory.

@0101181920, on Oct 15 2007, 08:42 PM, said in The Physical Workings of the EV Universe:

The velocity of travel in hyperspace is affected by the mass of your ship, as larger ships take longer to jump that distance.

‘Velocity’ isn’t quite the right word; it’s more that heavier ships produce a greater variance between your personal time and the universe’s. It’s easy to forget (and even the Nova developers sometimes have) that hyperjumps are meant to be instantaneous from your point of view, even though several days may pass in the rest of the universe.

@0101181920, on Oct 15 2007, 08:42 PM, said in The Physical Workings of the EV Universe:

The fact that energy is not used or affected by the standard electricity power of the lighting and other such things indicates that energy is not electricity.

Or that the amount of energy used by such things is negligible compared to that consumed by the hyperdrive.

@david-arthur, on Oct 18 2007, 03:41 PM, said in The Physical Workings of the EV Universe:

‘Velocity’ isn’t quite the right word; it’s more that heavier ships produce a greater variance between your personal time and the universe’s. It’s easy to forget (and even the Nova developers sometimes have) that hyperjumps are meant to be instantaneous from your point of view, even though several days may pass in the rest of the universe.
Or that the amount of energy used by such things is negligible compared to that consumed by the hyperdrive.

It's easier to understand. In theory, you are still moving at a finite speed, it just seems instantaneous from your point of view. Unless you just are trapped in a sort of cosmic blackhole. And it does seem to me that the energy would still drain some, because if you have no energy restoration items, then you still use energy. Or maybe it's suspention of disbelief .

@david-arthur, on Oct 18 2007, 03:41 PM, said in The Physical Workings of the EV Universe:

'Velocity' isn't quite the right word; it's more that heavier ships produce a greater variance between your personal time and the universe's. It's easy to forget (and even the Nova developers sometimes have) that hyperjumps are meant to be instantaneous from your point of view, even though several days may pass in the rest of the universe.

Well put.

I've only been playing EVC in any recent time (got to if I want to make the animation) and something that I found interesting was how quickly you burn through fuel while using an afterburner. The description says that the afterburner has fuel dumped directly into it (to burn I assume) and that provides you with thrust. Oh, and if any of you were interested in an equation for how this works then I will tell you it off the top of my head:

Vf - Vi = Ve*ln(Mf/Mi)

It works on the conservation of momentum. What the equation says is that the change in velocity is equal to the velocity of the ejected (or burning and expanding) fuel vapors multiplied by the natural logarithm of the final mass divided by the inital mass.

So that's how an afterburner works and it is extremely inefficient when you compare it to a hyperdrive/jump. Why? And why did the creators of EVC ignore the fact that you would keep accelerating faster and faster the more your afterburners burned? Yes, eventually they would be right when you take into account relativity, but for the velocities that EV is concerned with you should be able to accelerate as long as you're burning fuel in the afterburners.

@david-arthur, on Oct 18 2007, 03:41 PM, said in The Physical Workings of the EV Universe:

‘Velocity’ isn’t quite the right word; it’s more that heavier ships produce a greater variance between your personal time and the universe’s. It’s easy to forget (and even the Nova developers sometimes have) that hyperjumps are meant to be instantaneous from your point of view, even though several days may pass in the rest of the universe.

Just realized how this might work: the theory of relativity. If the systems are far enough apart, and you are moving fast enough, time on board might seem like less than a second, but time in sub-space would take much longer. This would also sort of explain why larger ships take longer: they actually do move slower, so the trip takes a day or two more in sub-space, but to you on board, it might take only a second or two longer. This is assuming that it is about a second in your ship. A second is not really long enough to be noticed very easily on this scale. Relativity would have time seem one-86400th of sub-space time.

EDIT:
Well, I thought through the explosives thing. The idea that would make the most sense to me is that the explosive has small gaps in it that contain oxygen.

This post has been edited by 101181920 : 24 October 2007 - 09:21 PM