UFO:Alien Invasion
General => Discussion => Topic started by: Another Guy on June 15, 2009, 11:35:28 pm
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I see some realism in the logic that a base needs both power plant and a command centre to work, but its redundant in terms of gameplay.
Command Centre is important as a requirement for other buildings to work because it adds a 12 days cooldown for any new base to get operational. Very nice gameplay idea.
Power plant on the oher hand, gets built on same 12 days and is only required for command center to work (or for some buildings that require both) being simply redundant in terms of gameplay and spending an precious base construction slot.
Maybe Power Plant should be removed and command center get its upkeep costs raised a bit, freeing a base slot and eliminating a gameplay redundancy. At the moment, I don't see any gameplay reason for Power Plant to exist.
Obs: However, If powerplant gets any gameplay reason to exist, it starts to get interesting, for instance as a requirement for one particular building type like Missile Battery and supporting SAM sites around the base (they would require power from a nearby base as an adittional prerequisite to be operational).
Other suggestions would be good too, but for any of them, Power Plant function would have to be very specific for one kind of role only. This would add some tatical variety and make Power Plant useful again for gameplay porpouses.
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The power plant will be a strategic target during base invasions (this is not implemented yet).
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That seems nice.
Adding an objective for a mission seems enough role for me :P
Can't wait to try it out.
Cheers!
Obs: On the other hand, couldn't this role be fulfilled by the Command Centre? Or there is a base defense objective for it too?
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It's a little more complicated than that, the player may choose to shut down the power plant when the base is attacked. The base will be out of commission for several days, but there is no risk of it exploding when attacked.
Anyway, the power plant and the command center will not be merged. It doesn't make sense for either of them not to be on the base grid.
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It's a little more complicated than that, the player may choose to shut down the power plant when the base is attacked. The base will be out of commission for several days, but there is no risk of it exploding when attacked.
Anyway, the power plant and the command center will not be merged. It doesn't make sense for either of them not to be on the base grid.
Although I still don't uderstand why not to merge it, I liked the power shutdown idea very much.
Is there an entry for it on wiki so I can read more about it?
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Well, there is now: http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/Gameplay_Proposals/Pre_Base_Attack_Options
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Well, there is now: http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/Gameplay_Proposals/Pre_Base_Attack_Options
I just read this myself, I like it so far, although shouldn't there also be an option (and related risk) for anti-matter as well if such a facility exists in a base?
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What would you do with it though? Vent it? It'd just explode anyway.
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If an Alien Containment facility is present and in use in the base, the player may choose to terminate all specimens currently held. Should the player choose to do this, all aliens in Containment will die, and new specimens will have to be captured to replace them. If the player chooses to leave the aliens alive, the AI may attempt to rescue the confined specimens. Freed aliens will join the battle against PHALANX.
This seems very cool (and realistic), but some questions:
How would it work? Aliens would have to shoot down some mainframe at Alien Containment? And how would the freed aliens arm themselves?
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I thought the whole point of these thorium based reactors is that they can't explode because they rely on active particle bombardment to trigger fission. Even a regular Uranium reactor is pretty hard to blow up if it has normal passive safety systems. And the shutdown time is unrealistic. Fission reactors are generally pretty easy to restart after a shutdown, even one that used an active particle emission to accelerate nuclear decay.
The antimatter containment is another concern, since shutting down your power supply would drop the containment fields, and...well (or rather, the very opposite of well). Venting is not actually all that unrealistic, if you used an anti-particle beam to shoot the stuff straight up into space. It would be very nasty for anyone outside at the time due to the amount that would react with the atmosphere, but at least your base wouldn't explode. Difficult to evacuate very large quantities of antimatter with a particle beam, though (maybe there should be off-base antimatter containment, and a 'safety limit' on in-base storage?).
Power plant takes a separate facility from Command Center for the same reason that the large hanger takes two tiles. Just because it makes sense from a realism perspective.
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Perhaps Anti-matter, instead of being "vented" could be locked down with an emergency seal of some kind that makes it more difficult to access or damage, but at the cost of being un-accessible (can't get anything in or out of it) for a few days afterward.
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sorry, this has nothing really to do with the topic, but i just saw star trek the other week:
Phalanx base under attack
"Commander! Aliens have breached the base defences!"
"Quick, eject the warp core!"
"Sir?"
"Uh, I mean seal off the anti-matter containment facility!"
hmm, since this is a game and all, you could simply say the anti-matter containment emergency purge actually creates a tiny one-way dimensional rift to an anti-matter universe that sucks in the stored anti-matter.
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We could say that, but it'd be bullshit.
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sorry, this has nothing really to do with the topic, but i just saw star trek the other week:
Phalanx base under attack
"Commander! Aliens have breached the base defences!"
"Quick, eject the warp core!"
"Sir?"
"Uh, I mean seal off the anti-matter containment facility!"
hmm, since this is a game and all, you could simply say the anti-matter containment emergency purge actually creates a tiny one-way dimensional rift to an anti-matter universe that sucks in the stored anti-matter.
This sounds like soft/fantisy-ish sci-fi, no offense.
On the other hand, what I'm proposing is closer to how some emergency systems work on real reactors, storage for dangerous and sensitive materials, and such. (No offense.)
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This sounds like soft/fantisy-ish sci-fi, no offense.
On the other hand, what I'm proposing is closer to how some emergency systems work on real reactors, storage for dangerous and sensitive materials, and such. (No offense.)
What do you guys think of this:
During base lockdown (during invasion / intrusions), all doors are shut immediately and locked down. Humans will have to open door (and may be surprised) to get to nx room. Same thing with aliens. But aliens perhaps have to 'blow down door' or we can keep it at open / close? (Same surprise elements should exist).
As for facilities like antimatter storage and storage - they should be totally locked down and should otherwise not be able to be 'damaged' (contents that is). If u wan the facilities damaged, maybe we can consider implementing a 'hull integrity' for each facilities? - Allows repair and see damage level. This can even be damage during the UFO att Base phase.
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I like what Odie's talking about - perhaps if there is a breakable model of a blast/containment door that aliens go toward and shoot at to destroy, so that they can access the inside of such places and cause damage - that would be nice.
Regarding Antimatter storage, here's an alternative: Could the antimatter be (permanently) rendered into something inert and harmless with some chemical reaction or process as an emergency measure (as an option)? Not being a science major, I really don't know how possible such a thing is...
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Nope, if anti-matter comes into contact with any matter of any kind it will annihilate. I suppose you could basicly try to fit the containment into a rocket as long as you could keep containment for a few minutes without an external powersupply damages could be pretty small assuming that the amount of anti-matter is rather small.
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Instead of the powerplant blowing up, why not have it power some sort of anti-personel defense system? Cameras or something of the sort. If aliens gain control of the command center, then they can use the camera system and thus create the need to shut down the power plant. A powerplant exploding, like others have mentioned, isnt really likely unless the aliens put a bomb on the fuel supply, be it anti-matter or not. There are always some sort of emergency measure in place to prevent power-plants from exploding, whether they are active measures (ejecting the fuel) or passive (fuel is blocked off by something that, in non-emergency situations, is held up by a powered motor for that single purpose)
And I like the idea of alien blasting down doors. If there are security locks on the doors, then the aliens have no choice but to blast them down. Perhaps there should be the option of preparing a base for invasion.
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The antimatter containment is another concern, since shutting down your power supply would drop the containment fields
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makes perfect sense imho, when power plant goes boom, antimatter goes boom also.
and the only difference is that the base goes boom if antimatter gets attacked, and boom-boom if the power plant gets attacked.
unless the antimatter storage is also a power plant.
you would need power plant to build am storage but when am storage is built you could remove power plant.
you are using am power anyway to fly your aircraft.
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cooooooooool
we may have the option of an exploding base! :D
or at least a badly damaged one, could burn through some money the player stored,
and could give aliens a reason to seek out that nasty player who killed so many aliens already hehe
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makes perfect sense imho, when power plant goes boom, antimatter goes boom also.
and the only difference is that the base goes boom if antimatter gets attacked, and boom-boom if the power plant gets attacked.
unless the antimatter storage is also a power plant.
you would need power plant to build am storage but when am storage is built you could remove power plant.
you are using am power anyway to fly your aircraft.
Again, some sort of counter-measure would be in place. Power supply on a different grid from the rest of the base (A small gas-powered generator supporting high-capacity batteries) or something
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Wow!
So mani ideas all of a sudden. lol.
So in summary so far, can i propose: (Of course subject to review and adaptation and etc etc)
1) Have base where doors are implemented. Humans can open em auto. Aliens have to blast em down. This is known as security lockdown.
2) We might have to consider remodeling items in the rooms to define inert objects, and 'damageable' objects' which has an "HP" attached to em..... This can be repaired for most cases, for time / money.
3) We can consider leaving antimatter alone - its SUPER HIGHLY secured, and cannot be damaged in any way?
4) Re: Power Plants, our initial discussion starter - I am proposing this be like any other 'non-inert' objects, damageable, and must be fully repaired if damaged, for base to be functional again.
Then again, we wanna focus on the current 2.3 branch's priorities first, and consider these for 2.4, if its too difficult, esp the remodeling part - the graphics team always find such ideas a nightmare. lol.
Oh yes, one last thing, i know this is not yet on the drawing board - are we considering bombs - like the ones in xcom - where it can be proximity / timed. It simply blows down doors or *aliens / humans* alike, this can come in helpful in future missions AND base take down.
For all we know, it would be a reverse situation - we are STOMPING DOWN THOSE ALIENS' Butts in their holes! Whoeeoeooeoeoeoeeeeeeeeeeee!
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As far as I'm concerned the only matter up for discussion is the antimatter storage. I recognize the argument that it too can be targeted and destroyed like the power plant, but treating it like a second power plant in terms of gameplay mechanics seems kind of lame. Maybe it just can't be secured so you'll always run a risk if you have one.
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I tend to agree with BTAxis. Of all the proposals the one that makes sense to me is making the antimatter storage behave like the power plant; take enough damage and it goes boom with the entire base. Perhaps also, and this a very big perhaps, making the area around a blown base a radioactive wasteland from the explosion of both the power plant and the antimatter. This should also have a big effect on the happiness nation on whose territory such an event takes place.
Cheers!
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I tend to agree with BTAxis. Of all the proposals the one that makes sense to me is making the antimatter storage behave like the power plant;
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somehow i fail to see where he mentioned that he liked the idea of am storage being an alternative power plant.
for the sake of clarity.
if am storage is not also a power plant, i think it should certainly explode in the case of power plant malfunction (like when power plant gets damaged).
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I disagree with the AM storage blowing up. It doesnt necessarily have to power the entire bse, but it should be able to power its own containment fields. Like I said, power supply on a different powergrid that the rest of the base.
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I tend to agree with BTAxis. Of all the proposals the one that makes sense to me is making the antimatter storage behave like the power plant; take enough damage and it goes boom with the entire base. Perhaps also, and this a very big perhaps, making the area around a blown base a radioactive wasteland from the explosion of both the power plant and the antimatter. This should also have a big effect on the happiness nation on whose territory such an event takes place.
Cheers!
This is a bad idea.
Remember how the alien's original description was?
They can eject it in emergency when needed. Thats one.
They have it so sealed up that should it explode, it would be contained.
Plus, here's something from the original text:
The outer shell's design borrows heavily from that of UN nuclear ammo dumps. In case of problems in the inner shell, there's an automatic security system which will lock down the instant containment drops below safe levels. The facility will first close its blast doors, then secure every airlock with tungsten locking rods, fill the outer shell atmosphere with radiation-retardant gas and inject anti-shock foam behind the walls, and then try to contain the inevitable blast.
This procedure will not give any personnel caught inside time to escape, but that's the price we'll have to pay if we want to have a chance of saving the entire base.
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Just to clarify, the base is NOT powered by AM in any way.
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nor should it be, but it shouldnt blow up when the powerplant is shut down
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no the anti-matter storage shouldn't blow up if the power plant goes down. i highly doubt they would design a containment facility for an extremely dangerous material without taking that into account. it would probably have its own backup generator and "lockdown" mode (probably something like encasing the core with several meters of quick-hardening sealant). of course take several days to days to get it back up and running after a lockdown (similar to construction time).
it might be a good idea to put the alien containment next to anti-matter storage to discourage the aliens using high explosives...
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Hey guys, from the description it looks to me that the AM containment should be able to lock itself down and if it does blow up it only takes itself out. I would however propose this:
Powerplant is damageable and may have to be repaired if aliens get to it, this is part of the original concept
If the powerplant is destroyed then the AM containment building gets destroyed as well (needs to be rebuilt)
If the aliens get to the AM itself then they can wipe out the base
If the powerplant is shutdown properly (lets call this just "securing the base"), the AM gets put on backup/droppeed down/secured/flooded with foam/whatever and can at most be destroyed, but it won't blow up the whole base
so:
base online:
powerplant destruction will destroy both buildings and they will have to be rebuilt (maybe an active powerplant can also destroy some adjacent buildings)
AM destruction will eliminate the base
base offline:
powerplant destruction hard/impossible to accomplish, and will only destroy that building (maybe set it to only damage it 50% max?, we can say everything gets flooded with impact foam and then has to be cleaned out for 5 days or so, this is already in the storyline for the AM [impact foam injections into the walls])
AM destruction will eliminate the AM building and nothing else
this introduces some cool choices and good reasons to turn the base off
there should be some penalties for turning the base off in-mission, but maybe the cooldown penalties are sufficient
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I'm not a physics person or anything, but I thought nothing we know could stop a proton anti-proton or electron negatron reaction, which is probably what the antimatter is, a bunch of anti-protons and negatrons.
So, if whatever energy barrier we're using to try to keep antimatter from contacting any matter fails, we probably lose a lot more than just the base.. I don't know how foam could stop it, or anything else.. like burying the thing.. An AM storage would probably always be running on its own (internal) power, so I think we can leave out any connection between the power plant and AM storage. Or, uh, is it something we're creating that we say can stop it? Which I guess is ok now that I think about it.. Who knows what the future will bring... but right now, as far as I've ever heard, there's no way to stop it, not even theories. anti-matter will basically react with any matter, of any type... I think.
I guess, if we really would to figure this out, we can find the explosive power generated by a single anti-proton proton reaction, we know the exact weight of the anti-proton, and we can simply calculate if there is enough power there to destroy the base. If there isn't, we simply destroy whatever percentage of the base the reaction would destroy, and place the center of the explosion on the anti-matter storage. Well, it will be quick to look up all this information anyway, and quick to calculate the damage.. I guess the only long part would be to calculate how much hp a base would have...
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From what I understand, anti-matter or not, it still reacts to magnetic fields, which is why strong magnets can contain in and prevent contact with non-anti-matter. Ofcourse, it has to be in a vaccum or else oxygen will cause the reaction.
But this is where the biggest thing comes from. The magnet is stronger than any that is naturally found on earth (Its an electro-magnet), and so it needs a constant supply of power, or else it will loose magnatism. Any naturally-ocuring magnets probably wouldnt even be strong enough in an emergency
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I think the best idea I have is destroy the anti-matter by using it. You can do whatever you want with the energy. If you want it to be controlled, it can't be instantaneous, but we could calculate how long it would take to safely consume the amount of anti-matter we have stored, and then during the mission, we start the countdown from when the order to consume the anti-matter is given.
If the anti-matter storage gets destroyed before the timer is up, we can then calculate the explosive power that remains, and.. err... I'm making this too complicated, aren't I?
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Yes.
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If the AM storage is made out of alien materials I'd imagine it could hold more or less of the explosion, at least with all the extra shielding the article talks about. And if only for gameplay purposes only AM storage should blow itself up if the powerplant is lost. 470 kilotons worth of TNT does make a big explosion but it would be really stupid otherwise.
Also Destructavators idea of covering it with more shielding to make it even more secure seems like a good idea to implement.
PS: It's positron, not negatron ;).
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Oh yeah, it is. XD Hehe. Positrons, only heard of those from Data's brain. >.>
I wonder how they contain the explosive power.. Granted, they have an extra few hundred years on us.
I actually have no idea how much explosive power anti-matter can produce. Nor do I know how much explosive power 1 kiloton of anything produces. I figure if you make the shielding strong enough to withstand an anti-matter explosion, the aliens aren't going to destroy it by randomly shooting it anyway.. Not even if they throw anti-matter grenades at it...
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Well, 1 kiloton is about the amount our smallest nukes would make when detonated. I'd think with lots of stuff to block the explosion they could contain it to some extent but with 470 kilotons of TNTs worth of force I doubt it could be contained enough to save the base. However IMO, if only for purely gameplay reasons, it should only destoy itself if power is lost or otherwise it should have a backup power that lasted enoufg time to get power plant back up (this would actually also make more sense if aliens attack AM storage, instead of trying to make the container swiss cheese they would shoot the backup power and make it lose containment). Or is it meant to become the most important building in a base?
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um, a 1 kilogram antimatter/matter reaction generates 47 MEGAtons of energy, not 470 kilotons. That's about the equivalent of 9 of the largest thermonuclear bombs. I'm not sure if it is enough possible to shield against that much power...
*numbers from wikipedia articles on antimatter and nuclear bombs.
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um, a 1 kilogram antimatter/matter reaction generates 47 MEGAtons of energy, not 470 kilotons. That's about the equivalent of 9 of the largest thermonuclear bombs. I'm not sure if it is enough possible to shield against that much power...
*numbers from wikipedia articles on antimatter and nuclear bombs.
In light of this perhaps we should change the scale of all the amounts of antimatter in the game, meaning UFOs would have less, the amounts the facility would hold would be less, etc. The devices that use and contain them could stay the same though, and the argument and reasoning for that would be that a lot of shielding and effort to safely contain antimatter would be necessary. I've heard in real life of dangerous materials where a huge, special container and lots of machinery is needed to hold and/or transport a tiny amount of the stuff.
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Note that antimatter in the game isn't quantified anywhere. There's just a number, but that doesn't say anything about how much it actually is. And, in my opinion, it should stay that way.
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Actually it does. UFOpaedia says an antimatter storage facility holds up to 10 grammes of antimatter. Simply divide 10 grammes per antimatter storage facility max units and u have urself an exact quantity per unit.
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Should have known. Maybe we need to take that out then.
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Or let antimatter storage hold an ulimited amount of antimatter, thus u'll never know how much (anti)matter each unit represents and give the impression that it is a tiny one. It's beeing discussed on this topic (http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=3680.0).
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Yeah, sounds okay to me.
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In light of this perhaps we should change the scale of all the amounts of antimatter in the game, meaning UFOs would have less, the amounts the facility would hold would be less, etc. The devices that use and contain them could stay the same though, and the argument and reasoning for that would be that a lot of shielding and effort to safely contain antimatter would be necessary. I've heard in real life of dangerous materials where a huge, special container and lots of machinery is needed to hold and/or transport a tiny amount of the stuff.
Yupz its logical.
And yes, in real life, hazardous materials are actually stored WELL AWAY from populations. And prob heavily guarded.
See that thread (http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=3792.0) for more inputs from me.
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Hello people,
I'm in a physics major and I just want to say somethings.
First of all, AM is really difficult to contain, with or without technology way ahead of us. But for the sake of the game we are considering that the alien technology is really a good one :P
Second, the anti-matter related "explosion" comes from the annihilation of matter by anti-matter, the numerical values are easy to obtain: E=MC^2 . I say "explosion" since there is no chemical reactions, it is not an explosion per se.
Joining these two points, assuming the existence of a way to "consume" AM in order to produce energy, explosive material, etc, we are considering different levels of magnitude, example: a grenade should not have more than a little amount, although AM thrusters might use more.
Nevertheless, let's assume that the AM storage keeps AM for all the usages possible and imaginary, we are talking about a considerable amount of AM per base, which consists of a considerable potential of danger. In fact, I assume that any storage has the enough AM to produce really messy shit.
With this I can only see to possible options:
1) shutting down the power plant leads the AM storage to fail and AM consumes all of the base, plus both invading and defending teams and aircraft. Big explosion, no one gets to tell the story, base get's destroyed.
2) for the game's sake, and to keep the strategy interesting: shutting down the power plant leads the AM storage to fail and AM consumes the storage and/or the nearby facilities and/or soldiers.
I guess if we would want a game 100% scientifically correct we would have to change a lot and risk the game to loose interest.
On the other hand why do a game with real scientific nomenclature and references?
I let you to continue the debate.
Just on more thing, keep up the awesome work!
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IMO AM-storage should have a backup generator/power in case of main power failure. If and when aliens first knock powerplant out or you shut it down the storage goes to backup power. Since the AM-storage itself is well shielded it would be pretty stupid to try to blow it up directly. So instead aliens would try to blow the backup power making the AM-storage lose containment and AM explode with the base/part of it.
@slothlord: So then 10 grammes would make a 470 kiloton explosion, right?
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Okie,
We also need to consider this:
Lets stand in the shoes of the aliens.
Do we want to destroy the humans (and possibly us - the aliens) altogether (aka kamikaze mission).
Do we want to capture the aliens' facilities (and gain more insights) and possibly rescue our POWs?
Either way will decide if aliens want to kamikaze, rescue and capture, or rescue and goof off.
Then we can decide if they wan to blow up the place at all..... and if AM is 'destroyable'.
Yupz.
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no wonder the original x-com team decided to make elerium as the alien power source.
maybe you could say that the antimatter building in the base is just the "access point" for the REAL storage facility which is buried way, way deep down. i dont think theres any practical way to shield the base from an antimatter reaction of any scale (10 grams, 100 grams, whatever.).
unless...wait a sec, what do the aliens use to store antimatter? cant Phalanx just copy whatever the aliens use? we should stop thinking in terms of earth tech, since Phalanx is using the antimatter to power alien tech therefore alien tech should be used to store it. hell, it doens't even matter that the engineers don't understand how it works so long as it can be reproduced and made to work for us. simple, elegan't solution dont you think?.
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It all depends in which way they decide. If the container itself is at the normal height along the other base, it should defianetly have backup power instead to be destoyed (this also solves what happens if you shut down the powerplant before the mission). This would also destroy the base/part of it in case both power sources are knocked out.
If it is deep underground and the "facility" is no more than entry point, a power failure means "only" lost antimatter but the base is safe. Backup is recommended but not necessary, since a beforehand shutdown of powerplant doesn't mean your base will get destroyed in the ensuing explosion.
Personally I like the former suggestion more. [/IMO]
slothlord, if I remember correctly, alien containment means basically the way they keep AM from touching matter (ie. very strong magnets/how they are made). And their solution to AMs dangerous nature is to jettison it when necessary which obiviously isn't an option.
Edit: And even then they only keep a minimum amount of AM in their "fuel" tanks which again isn't really an option for PHALANX.
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alien containment, as far as i remember, is where you store live and dead aliens, not antimatter, huh.
someone here said the am storage would be shielded and the aliens would rather attack the backup power source.
but then, the backup power source could be shielded as well.
maybe the backup would have enough power tho enable getting rid of the am in the am storage without an explosion, and in that case, when power plant fails, and you switch am storage to backup power, you will loose am.
and while we are at it, i think we might want to consider renaming the game from ufo-ai to ufo-am.
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I'd rather have a timelimit in which you must restart/rebuild the powerplant in case it fails (remember that, while not stantard procedure, you can shut the powerplant off yourself as a precaution) and in case you are not able to you will lose it all. If it's rare, it should not be lost too easily IMO. And if they are even going to hope to block the explosion they are going to make the storage itself as shielded as heck but in-game you can say that thanks to cooling problems the backup power needs to be more lightly armored or else it would probably break.
What we/I referred here as alien containment was the thing aliens use to store their antimatter in-flight, not the facility in which you keep your captured aliens.
Also, was that last line a joke or something? If it was, I didn't get it.
E: Or was it meant to poke fun at all this talk about antimatter? If that's the case then :D.
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afaik, people usually pay most attention to the beginning and the end, and the middle part is mostly skipped.
that's why the beginning and the end is the best place for (friendly) insults, (friendly) deliberate misunderstandings and some (friendly) sarcasm.
the downside is that those could create some real confusion, and i should be sorry for that.
the last remark (ufo-am would be short for ufo-antimatter) was about the many pages long discussion splitting hairs about the details of how the am storage should blow up, although you can see i am contributing to the spam myself.
the reason why i think backup power should just enable to dispose of the antimatter safely is because building a new power plant would take a long time.
and you might not even have the finances to start building the power plant right away.
i think the countdown on tactical screen after switching off am-storage would be extremely cool and all, but then the game as it is now would become somewhat am-storage centered imho, and i would suggest to call it ufo-am accordingly.
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I get what you mean. That might be what you get when you aim to do hard scifi/realistic stuff. The only thing I really would like to see as much as gameplay is concerned is the antimatter being safe even if you shut your powerplant down. Backup power seems to be the most convinient for this. (Also I do realise that I'm continuing talking about AM.)
Also sorry for being slow, as I sometimes might be.
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May be we should think about some self-containing shield...
Let's say, normally the AM-storage is powered by the base's plant.
In case of a power outage, the storage will behave like an AM-reactor - it will consume AM to hold up the shield (and ONLY that) until external power is restored or the antimatter is exhausted.
This way we'll never see "KA-BOOM", only the amount of AM will drain.
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Our only major successes have come from studying how the aliens store their antimatter. We're confident we can employ the same magnetic storage techniques, creating special facilities for safely storing up to ten grammes of antimatter. I've sent you a set of blueprints in a separate message to peruse at your convenience. We've also designed antimatter fuel tanks that should fit in our interceptors given some major overhaul. Of course we'll need a full understanding of the alien engines before we can begin incorporating it.
that's an excerpt from the wiki(ufopaedia) on antimatter research.
The Antimatter Storage facility is designed to safely store antimatter for later use, at least as safely as antimatter can possibly be stored. It is based around an advanced magnetic containment system we've derived from alien antimatter technology, which we call the 'inner shell'. The 'outer shell' consists of several radiation airlocks over the main passages, a heavily-armoured control room, and a host of other security and containment measures -- all designed to keep any radiation inside the outer shell.
The outer shell's design borrows heavily from that of UN nuclear ammo dumps. In case of problems in the inner shell, there's an automatic security system which will lock down the instant containment drops below safe levels. The facility will first close its blast doors, then secure every airlock with tungsten locking rods, fill the outer shell atmosphere with radiation-retardant gas and inject anti-shock foam behind the walls, and then try to contain the inevitable blast.
This procedure will not give any personnel caught inside time to escape, but that's the price we'll have to pay if we want to have a chance of saving the entire base.
To understand how dangerous this facility really is, building an Antimatter Storage at one of our bases will require us to list that base with the UN nuclear site register. At full capacity -- 10 grammes of antimatter -- just one storage facility will be containing the equivalent of nearly half a megaton of TNT. While this isn't much compared to modern thermonuclear weapons, it's enough to turn the entire base and everything inside to cinders in less than a second. It's difficult to 'blow up' antimatter, but under the wrong circumstances, it can happen.
Even if no explosion occurs, a loss of containment would result in the annihilation of the stored antimatter with the normal matter of the containment system. If there were any fault or damage in the outer shell at this point, then the ensuing blast of gamma radiation and high-speed particles would escape and strip the area clean of life. The base would be poisoned and rendered uninhabitable for centuries to come.
and that's from the wiki(ufopaedia) on the antimatter storage base facility.
seems like the safety measures (what little possible that is) are already built in...what was the point of this thread again?
the only way to shield the base would be to create some kinda force field or alter the curvature of space (like a black hole) around the antimatter storage building.
although it might be possible to simply purge the antimatter a microgram at time into a sealed blast room made of alien alloy.
but frankly, if you didnt bury the antimatter building in a corner of your base then let the aliens blow it up...you probably deserved it.