willis936 Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 Every time I play defense and I defend this wiffleball I have to wonder if it's intended to be a fusion reactor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mesyra Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 :O Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xFayt Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 Well, you are a Hydroid. Might as well steal it and make a proper ship out of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Somedude1000 Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 (edited) I believe I am either too young or too ignorant to get the reference. Time for some googling :D Aaand I'm back, a polywell fusion reactor is a set of electromagnets generating a magnetic field which puls positive ions to the negative voltage center, increasing ntheir kinetic energy to the point where if a positive ion hits the negatively charged centre, fusion occurs. It has been cited as some sort of low cost fusion reactor as well in a few places Edited October 7, 2014 by Somedude1000 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToT-Fenrir-ToT Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 IT'S HARLOCK! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taiiat Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 it's possible. though it is referred to as an Artifact, not a Power source. if it is Fusion Reactor though, s... needs to hit the fan when it's destroyed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willis936 Posted October 7, 2014 Author Share Posted October 7, 2014 (edited) It has been cited as some sort of low cost fusion reactor as well in a few places Well, yes, but obviously it doesn't work yet or else we wouldn't be burning so much coal to power our hefty gaming PCs. Break even fusion's been twenty years away for a century. There's about a dozen designs for plasma confinement and every single one of them requires materials that don't exist. The polywell is definitely the most promising one but the ion gun tip was obliterated after a few hundred 200 us test shots. Hardly steady state. But hey if the keep making wiffleballs and continue to impress investors they may get somewhere at some point. if it is Fusion Reactor though, s... needs to hit the fan when it's destroyed. One cool thing about fusion reactors is that they require a huge amount of input energy to stay lit. They have the potential to release more than you put in but if it ever gets damaged the most that will happen is that it will cease to operate. Typical reactions would have tons of lithium surrounding the reactor however to catch neutrons and breed tritium so if that ever got damaged you'd be looking at a sizeable explosion (youtube: lithium oxygen). Edited October 7, 2014 by willis936 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yazeth Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 it's possible. though it is referred to as an Artifact, not a Power source. What if the artifact is able to act like a power source? This could make sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MechaTails Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 That just looks like you got a Green Lantern Star Sapphire battery there lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
direcyphre Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 Always just looked like a box with a random circle texture on it to me. Thrown together as an 'artifact for retrieval' and all that back in the ol' Raid days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeadX65 Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 It has been cited as some sort of low cost fusion reactor as well in a few places Well, yes, but obviously it doesn't work yet or else we wouldn't be burning so much coal to power our hefty gaming PCs. Break even fusion's been twenty years away for a century. There's about a dozen designs for plasma confinement and every single one of them requires materials that don't exist. The polywell is definitely the most promising one but the ion gun tip was obliterated after a few hundred 200 us test shots. Hardly steady state. But hey if the keep making wiffleballs and continue to impress investors they may get somewhere at some point. you should probably look up recent advances...like say the fusion test reactors currently being built...it's not materials as much as keeping confinement fields stable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LunchBoxKilla Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 No that is an old relic of CBT. it was once an object that we would have to capture and escape with. That game mode has beeen long taken out but it seems DE let it in to remind us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elenortirie Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 It has been cited as some sort of low cost fusion reactor as well in a few places Well, yes, but obviously it doesn't work yet or else we wouldn't be burning so much coal to power our hefty gaming PCs. Break even fusion's been twenty years away for a century. There's about a dozen designs for plasma confinement and every single one of them requires materials that don't exist. The polywell is definitely the most promising one but the ion gun tip was obliterated after a few hundred 200 us test shots. Hardly steady state. But hey if the keep making wiffleballs and continue to impress investors they may get somewhere at some point. if it is Fusion Reactor though, s... needs to hit the fan when it's destroyed. One cool thing about fusion reactors is that they require a huge amount of input energy to stay lit. They have the potential to release more than you put in but if it ever gets damaged the most that will happen is that it will cease to operate. Typical reactions would have tons of lithium surrounding the reactor however to catch neutrons and breed tritium so if that ever got damaged you'd be looking at a sizeable explosion (youtube: lithium oxygen). actually there are working fusion reactors - google for tokamak (hope spelled correctly) issue with tokamak is - that heating plasma needed to operate tokamak reactor comsumes so much energy that the reactor iteslf does not "produce" to much of it (energy) when you do the math aka far most of its energy output is consumed to keep it running although I heard that CERN is working on newer prototype that is supposed to double tokamaks output.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taiiat Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 -thank you doctor obvious/wikipedia snip- that sums it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willis936 Posted October 7, 2014 Author Share Posted October 7, 2014 By working you mean they successfully fuse hydrogen isotopes? If that's the definition of working then they've been working since the 40s. Nobody has a use for a glorified plasma lamp though. People want a star in a jar. The tokamak has historically been the most well funded and popular fusion reactor design but it's really, really expensive and would never be a viable economic solution (partly because the design isn't very efficient). But hey it keeps the scientists funded. Really fusion has been an engineering problem rather than a science one for a long time now but it's still treated as a science problem which is part of the reason it hasn't gone very far. Looking at polywell results makes feel a little hopeful. EMC2 recently changed their site to be an ambiguous "we'll update you soon" after publishing expected results earlier this year. Even if we hit break even fusion we won't be able to crack the champagne yet because more than likely each facility will cost 10s of billions of dollars to make and have unsustainable operation costs for the amount of energy it makes in the case of tokamak or will require overcoming the biggest engineering hurdles since we landed on the moon (making an ion gun that doesn't blow itself to bits after at least days of steady use, creating an enclosure that lets you put your reactants in and products out in a controlled way as well as catch protons for direct conversion and somehow make that 10 million volt pulse into useable energy). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrazyCatLad Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 All hail the Whiffle Ball! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHIR0B0N Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 lol @ wiffle ball Though it makes me think of those stupid Death Orbs in the void towers more than anything Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S.T.M.P.D Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 I believe I am either too young or too ignorant to get the reference. Time for some googling :D Aaand I'm back, a polywell fusion reactor is a set of electromagnets generating a magnetic field which puls positive ions to the negative voltage center, increasing ntheir kinetic energy to the point where if a positive ion hits the negatively charged centre, fusion occurs. It has been cited as some sort of low cost fusion reactor as well in a few places Wait, if it's small, cheap, and this is the far far future... That's your Fusion Core, right there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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