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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Elerium


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What is funny is that a lot of what I do involves Carbon Nanotubes...in fact I should be reading a paper published on how people are working on improving production techniques right now....but I'm not...The thing is, carbon nanotubes involve technology where the theory is super new and the combination of multiple fields...People do mass produce these and you can buy a small tube of them for a couple thousand dollars...not super expensive...but not cheap.

 

Synthesizing elements isn't a new thing, we've been doing it since we understood nuclear reactions. We even 'discover' new ones using nuclear chemistry. Processing is a good point, but what processing can you do to an element? Especially if you use it as pure crystal...

 

Making it magical and beyond our science and laws of physics might be a better idea as we could synthesize small quantities of it rather easily...and larger ones if we turned out minds to it.

Edited by Khai
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Another idea is that while synthesis is theoretically possible, it requires such high energy levels that we can't actually meet them yet...maybe postulate that a small amount of dark matter or blah blah blah is required to start the original synthesis reaction.
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  • 2 months later...

Give the HWPs unlimited ammo and don't make them use up Elerium.

 

E-115 when reacted is an antimatter-esque annihilation and is 99.9% efficient. Each gram of E-115 reacted with 1 gram of matter would give about 45 *kilotons* of energy, about as much as the nukes dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Thus, even 1 gram would be enough to sustain most units/craft/whatever for a looooooooong time.

 

Reading into the science too much here...

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Give the HWPs unlimited ammo and don't make them use up Elerium.

 

E-115 when reacted is an antimatter-esque annihilation and is 99.9% efficient. Each gram of E-115 reacted with 1 gram of matter would give about 45 *kilotons* of energy, about as much as the nukes dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Thus, even 1 gram would be enough to sustain most units/craft/whatever for a looooooooong time.

 

Reading into the science too much here...

That's very true. Antimatter is insanely powerful, so a craft would likely need only one load of fuel for its entire lifetime. But some other processes may not use elerium so efficiently:

- Guns. Need high output in a short time for heavy bursts, then a sudden drop in power needs. This could put a stress on the Elerium, so not all of it can properly make the antimatter before going inert. The low power standby mode has to keep drawing a controlled small amount of power, and it could be deadly to try to run the Elerium at maximum efficiency during that time. Also, the Elerium may decay over time after being activated in such a weapon.

 

- Bombs. Similar to guns, but possibly more inefficient. Elerium may only give out maximum output over a long time. A bomb requires massive output in a short period. Because of this, only a tiny fraction of the Elerium may actually be processed and provide antimatter for the bomb. Also, due to the space warping properties of Elerium, there's no way to know where all the energy might end up if it is released in an explosive burst. For all we know, 90% of that explosive power is being released in Anthropodville. :devillaugh:

 

- Gravity. There's no telling how much energy is consumed when using Elerium to manipulate gravity waves. Craft and such that rely on these gravity waves to function can consume gobs of Elerium.

 

So, when working under perfect lab conditions, Elerium can produce energy with a whopping 99.9% efficiency. But on the battlefield, you'd likely sacrifice that efficiency in favor of better control of the antimatter. Guns and bombs may be only able to give a paltry 5%-20% efficiency. A full-sized power source, on the other hand may give the better of 80-90%.

Edited by Robo Dojo 58
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