Cockroach BattleMech by deva4242 on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

Okay I’m gonna write a bit and prove you don’t need anything better than our current nuclear fission technology to power that Cockroach mech I drew.

I’ll show you why I think its possible now.

Then I’ll simply state - DONT

Shelve this shit after a REAL scientist with a real degree tells you how much of what I’ve said is correct, doable, and also incredibly dangerous to anyone near this fucking thing

But then again, I did give mine electron-beam particle cannons, so… forget the weapons that’s your problem

I want to talk power plant tonight.

Okay, the nuclear reactor powering the city Pheonix is using fuel rods containing approx 23.5% to 30% u-235 at best (when new, and they’re probably kept lower for safety now that I think about it), right now due to neutron embritlement and poisoning/dopping I’m guessing shes got an out-put about 1/3 that because those rods half already split a bunch of useless u-233 and so on

Now, to power something like the Cockroach, take the SNARE criticality limited reactors for NASA’s proposed reuseable nuclear shuttle program, slap two of them together, wwith steam turbine outputs using molten-salt as a working fluid for coolant/energy transfer

These things come loaded with weapons grade 90% pure pu-238 that’s why we can shrink the damn things down to 2 tons and still power a nuclear sub I mean space shuttle…..

Those fuel rods were designed for intermittent use, in vacuum, with cryogenics instead of 1350 degree sodium flouride, so were’ gonna change that fuel rod design

Someone somewhere fucked up and out of the closet of the Iron Curtain I spotted a fuel rod design utilizeing a new helix-screw shaped fuel rod - it’s surface area in the atomic interaction range actually grants a higher output per kilogram because more u-235 is split per second, and the rods are thinner each so embrittlement, while occuring more rapidly, actually doesn’t interferre with continuing fission

So by swapping the fuel rod shape for this Russian design, which again was meant for some sorta space propulsion system, we swap the material u-235 for super pure just on the edge of BOOM pu-238.

Then you cross-link two of those reactors….but that wont get me the power I wanted so I brainstormed and went further….

Let me see I want giga-watt out put, but I only really need that to briefly charge my energy weapons when I fire. Honestly if this thing weighs as much as an M1A2 while standing as tall as the apartment building im in then…. I only need 1 of these reactors throttling between 50% to 75% to move this thing, 100% throttle allows enough power those memory metals in the ankles are the real weak point. You’ll definitely out maneuver and out fire an M1A2, but you might not be as fast “on foot” without the other reactor

Which brings me to my powerwall for the weapons systems

To get our reactors to, albiet only briefly, spike to high enough levels to charge and fire particle cannons, you’ll need both reactors functioning in pulsed mode. What this means is we literally zapped the damned fuel rods over and over with lasers, super exciting them and allowing them to “burn” fuel rods way faster. So military guys, you’ll actually HAVE to refill these things if you want them running around at 60mph while blasting the enemy with missiles and cannons without toppling over like a badly designed toy

For our power - oops forgot to mention we’re dangerously close to liquid-core temps when we do the above, thats why the pulsed mode is only used for charging the power bank -

Anyway - powerwall - don’t use batteries use ultracapacitors and very few cryogenically cooled superconducting storage loops to hold the reactors output just long enough for the twined reactor system to charge just 1 particle cannon for just 1 shot

I’m guessing this is very similar to what that railgun frigate is doing inst it?

Look I’m not a genius I’m a relatively smart SMI idiot-savant that reads too much and doesn’t bother to learn the math, not due to lazieness, but because OTHER SCIENTIST ALREADY CAN

So don’t call me Genius as a fucked up nickname I don’t deserve that.