Author Topic: How do ships fly? (revisited)  (Read 8296 times)

Offline Richard LeMoon

  • Muse Games
  • Salutes: 284
    • [Muse]
    • 33 
    • 45
    • 45 
    • View Profile
How do ships fly? (revisited)
« on: September 18, 2016, 12:52:38 pm »
When viewing the ships, we have four things to consider.

1. The balloons are too small for any normal gas to make the ships buoyant.

2. Ships fall slowly even when the balloon is broken, so the balloons are not creating the bulk of the buoyancy.

3. Balloons deflate downward instead of upwards, meaning the gas itself is not buoyant.

4. The ships all have a lot of very hefty metal parts.

My original proposal was that the gas inside the balloons does not matter, and it is a special machine (the balloon fixpoint) and the actual shape of the balloon that creates the ship lifting force. I am abandoning that thought. On the other hand, I am sticking with the hull machine (which consists of all the random gears and seemingly pointless pipes and pistons around the ships), creating almost neutral buoyancy, since the ships do fall slowly even when the balloon is broken. The weight of the massive amounts of metal is negated by the hull machine, which only effects metal to a great extent and makes it 'buoyant' to surrounding air. A wood ship, or anything not made out of metal, would have a much lower, if any, effect.

So, what is causing these effects? I have abandoned my balloon shape thought in favor of a silly idea from a movie. This movie being 'The Absent-Minded Professor', and the idea being Flubber. The hull machine is literally the flubber machine from the movies, only giving neutral buoyancy to the metal of the ship structure instead of full motion. Since the hull access point is mostly pipes, I would wager this material is a liquid. So, how does this apply to the balloon?

There have been mentions of 'balloon gas" at several points, and adding hydrogen somehow damages the balloon while giving it much higher upwards force. The green gas escaping from the Chaladonian ships is said to be an advanced or concentrated version of this gas. This means the balloon does not contain hydrogen, nor any known gas, but adding hydrogen makes this gas more effective.  So, the GOI Universe is obviously using some sort of gaseous version of the the hull machine 'flubber' in some way. However, it can not be using the gas itself for lift, since the balloon sags when damaged. This sagging effect may come from the gas inside shrinking, rather than escaping.

This would explain the Mobula balloon collapsing upwards because it is attached to the top and must pull upwards as the gas inside shrinks. This would also help explain why the Mobula does not tip over, since the hull metal itself is almost neutrally buoyant, and the balloon does not actually produce lift. The turbofans are there just to stabilize the ship's forward and backward roll while changing directions. Some ships may be using some helium in their balloons for stability, like in the Goldfish or Junker. They have larger balloons over the ships, and adding a positively buoyant gas would keep that end up. There could be smaller helium balloons inside the main flubbergas envelope.

So, perhaps the 'flubber' liquid is even more powerful in gas form, and can be used to precisely control vertical movement. Increasing or decreasing the mix in the balloon adds to or subtracts from the strange buoyancy force effecting the metal on the ship. This makes sense from the game sounds as well. Going up makes a hissing sound of adding gas, while going down produces a pump sound of pulling gas out. Adding hydrogen is a catalyst that increases this force by quite a bit, but also reacts with it. Basically like turning oxygen into water by chemically bonding it to hydrogen.

The design of all the Alliance ships supports this mechanic of massive metal ships being held aloft by small balloons in odd places.

The original Icarus was made mostly out of wood, and had a huge balloon, so did not use this technology to great effect. He likely did use hydrogen or helium in his balloon, and a rudimentary hull device.


Offline Solidusbucket

  • Member
  • Salutes: 93
    • [SkBo]
    • 29 
    • 45
    • 45 
    • View Profile
Re: How do ships fly? (revisited)
« Reply #1 on: September 18, 2016, 01:25:12 pm »
Chemists of Icarus

Offline Swizy

  • Member
  • Salutes: 20
    • [T.Pr]
    • 32 
    • 45
    • 30 
    • View Profile
    • FacePunch
Re: How do ships fly? (revisited)
« Reply #2 on: September 18, 2016, 04:16:23 pm »
I think we had the same discussion back in like '13.
It's probably most safe to say that it's a hot air balloon and that there's some magic device that lowers gravity. there's no reasonable way to explain why a 300t heavy ship lifts from the ground just like that. If it would be liquid you could simply incase it in a tank with a hard shell. Exposing it like on a hot air balloons or zeppelin wouldn't be neccessary.

Offline Richard LeMoon

  • Muse Games
  • Salutes: 284
    • [Muse]
    • 33 
    • 45
    • 45 
    • View Profile
Re: How do ships fly? (revisited)
« Reply #3 on: September 18, 2016, 07:16:29 pm »
That is not how pseudoscience works, dammit!

Could be that putting the gas inside of a metal casing blocks its effects. It is like Superman. It can't fly if it is not exposed to sun stuffs. Or, it needs to react to air (reacting to low levels of ambient hydrogen?), so the balloons are just there to diffuse the gas. The balloon is not air tight, and small amounts of gas escape. The reaction happens right at the envelope where the gas meets the ambient air.

Offline Huskarr

  • Member
  • Salutes: 29
    • [Rydr]
    • 32 
    • 45
    • 42 
    • View Profile
Re: How do ships fly? (revisited)
« Reply #4 on: September 18, 2016, 08:01:19 pm »
Warning brace for rambling and loosely collected ideas that make alot more sense in my head, because I'm too lazy to type all of my thoughts.

What if the air itself was heavier.
Lighter than air flight is a lot easier if there are more heavier gases floating around.

This could also explain the different height ceillings of maps.
We know that the world was created by chemicalwarfare.

Essentially artificially created heavy gasses which allow us to use easily accesable lighter gasses to fly our airships.

And to anyone arguing that we'd have trouble breathing I present following sollution:
The balloon component splits water into Hydrogen and Oxygen. Hydrogen goes into balloon and Oxygen into lungs.

Tl;dr: Heavy air makes ships with small balloons fly better.

Offline Daft Loon

  • Member
  • Salutes: 47
    • [◕_◕]
    • 45 
    • 45
    • 45 
    • View Profile
Re: How do ships fly? (revisited)
« Reply #5 on: September 18, 2016, 11:21:16 pm »
Some additional heavy air/chemical war thoughts.

The gas has an equilibrium reaction with both oxygen and water

-It reacts with oxygen at the top the pollution layer and releases it near ground level due to temperature/pressure changes, allowing the heavy air to be breathable

-It reacts with water leeching it out of the ground and turning large areas to desert, it releases the water to form clouds that can move due to changing reaction conditions not just with the wind

-The Chaladonian green fog is a catalyst or modifier for these reactions, releasing water back into the ground but also 'releasing' oxygen from the air into anything that can possibly rust

-Sometimes the water crystallizes out of the air to form implausibly massive ice structures in cold areas

Offline HamsterIV

  • Member
  • Salutes: 328
    • 10 
    • 45
    • 45 
    • View Profile
    • Monkey Dev
Re: How do ships fly? (revisited)
« Reply #6 on: September 19, 2016, 11:49:18 am »
I like the Heavier air hypothesis. My own theory is that the planet we fight on is not earth, and the atmospheric composition has much denser gasses. The native life forms of the planet would have evolved to breathe just fine in this pea soup atmosphere, but the lightest gasses like helium and hydrogen would have to displace far less atmosphere to get the enough buoyancy to lift one of the GOI air ships.

Offline Swizy

  • Member
  • Salutes: 20
    • [T.Pr]
    • 32 
    • 45
    • 30 
    • View Profile
    • FacePunch
Re: How do ships fly? (revisited)
« Reply #7 on: September 19, 2016, 05:27:26 pm »
but heavy air thing wouldn't explain why balloons deflate to bottom. If we accept that it's a design flaw on muse side then maybe. But still "heavy air" would need to be very dense and have high pressure difference to lift anything. think of a stone underwater. alot of air is needed to lift it from the ground proportionally to its volume. So if we believe the wiki that states a pyra has a 300t mass it's only safe to assume that it would need a much bigger balloon to travel between gas layers. So i'll stick with anti gravity apparatus^^

Offline Richard LeMoon

  • Muse Games
  • Salutes: 284
    • [Muse]
    • 33 
    • 45
    • 45 
    • View Profile
Re: How do ships fly? (revisited)
« Reply #8 on: September 19, 2016, 05:37:52 pm »
So i'll stick with anti gravity apparatus^^

Another vote for Flubber!

Offline GurasOguras

  • Community Ambassador
  • Salutes: 30
    • [GwTh]
    • 38 
    • 45
    • 45 
    • View Profile
Re: How do ships fly? (revisited)
« Reply #9 on: September 19, 2016, 10:30:25 pm »
Chaladonians have their magic gas, right?