What about the heat buildup of absorbing or even just deflecting the Death Star? That weapon destroys an entire planet. Whatever the Borg Cube uses, it would build up absurd amounts of heat going against the Death Star.
Tangentially related: I love the concept of a ship or space superweapon that uses excess heat itself as an additional means of attack.
Something a ton of sci-fi ignores is that heat can’t dissapate in a vacuum the same way it does planetside. If you have to put it somewhere, and if we assume you’ve re-captured/reused as much as is reasonable… then you could fire/railgun superheated stuff at the enemy. Literally make your excess heat someone else’s problem. Either hardened solid slugs to penetrate with the heat assistance, or materials engineered to “splash” and glom on on impact like ship sized space napalm.
Battletech has flamers, which are basically like if you took one of those WWII flamethrower tanks and powered it with nuclear fusion instead of napalm. The lack of a WarShip-class flamer for space combat seems like an oversight, though…
You know your stuff. I sorta knew about the heat massing, but I’m only remembering because you mentioned it here.
This is me imaginary friend requesting you
Star Trek is downright magical with heat, anyway. The TNG tech manual does give a glance to the laws of thermodynamics by sprinkling heat sinks here or there, but it’s almost comical. Even at 99% efficiency, warp cires are putting out so much power that warp 5 would cook the crew.
We pretty much have to assume they have some way sinking heat into subspace.
What about the heat buildup of absorbing or even just deflecting the Death Star? That weapon destroys an entire planet. Whatever the Borg Cube uses, it would build up absurd amounts of heat going against the Death Star.
Tangentially related: I love the concept of a ship or space superweapon that uses excess heat itself as an additional means of attack.
Something a ton of sci-fi ignores is that heat can’t dissapate in a vacuum the same way it does planetside. If you have to put it somewhere, and if we assume you’ve re-captured/reused as much as is reasonable… then you could fire/railgun superheated stuff at the enemy. Literally make your excess heat someone else’s problem. Either hardened solid slugs to penetrate with the heat assistance, or materials engineered to “splash” and glom on on impact like ship sized space napalm.
Their main armament? A heat pump.
Battletech has flamers, which are basically like if you took one of those WWII flamethrower tanks and powered it with nuclear fusion instead of napalm. The lack of a WarShip-class flamer for space combat seems like an oversight, though…
You know your stuff. I sorta knew about the heat massing, but I’m only remembering because you mentioned it here. This is me imaginary friend requesting you
Star Trek is downright magical with heat, anyway. The TNG tech manual does give a glance to the laws of thermodynamics by sprinkling heat sinks here or there, but it’s almost comical. Even at 99% efficiency, warp cires are putting out so much power that warp 5 would cook the crew.
We pretty much have to assume they have some way sinking heat into subspace.
Put Star Trek ships and people into the MechWarrior/Battletech universe, and watch the consoles explode before they get hit.