Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: kajanov on January 22, 2012, 01:52:11 PM
-
So in the release notes it states the following:
Changed Assault Chaingun to use animated spinning barrels
On a minigun, that is used on earth the barrels spin, in order to better dissipate heat into the air arround them. What is the point of spinning barrels in an airless environment? I can think of 2 reasons why never to make your barrels spin in an airless environment:
1. your bullets will fly everywhere, but where you are aiming
2. you produce heat via friction, which needs to be dissipated on top of the heat produced by the projectile movig through the barrel.
Thoughts?
Off topic: is there any way to set sound volume(s)?
Edit: Typos and stuff
-
From Wikipedia:
Multiple barrels allow for a greater capacity for a high firing rate, since the serial process of firing/extraction/loading is taking place in all barrels simultaneously. Thus, as one barrel fires, two others are in different stages of shell extraction and another three are being loaded.
Also, it looks really cool :D
Off topic: is there any way to set sound volume(s)?
Not at the moment, no.
-
From Wikipedia:
Multiple barrels allow for a greater capacity for a high firing rate, since the serial process of firing/extraction/loading is taking place in all barrels simultaneously. Thus, as one barrel fires, two others are in different stages of shell extraction and another three are being loaded.
Also, it looks really cool :D
Yes, this. :)
I like that you can turn sound off completely in the launcher. There's some missions that are fun to just watch on autopilot, haha.
-
Spinning barrels make it more "lively".
If the barrels were static they would be less interesting.
-
Perhaps its a solid barel with no breach and the bullets are loaded in then rotated into firing position? (its space ships we dont know, how space machine guns work)
First post, so excited for this game.
(what happens if i registerd for this site and had lost one of my ears in some kind of accident? would i not be able to register if i awnsered 1 to that question on registration?)
-
I found another fun anti-fighter-multi-barrel gun design:
(http://lh6.ggpht.com/_kIWY2DV0KnE/S6WgwQOzRXI/AAAAAAAAGGc/KqdrpB7avqk/Quadruple%20AA%20mount%20aboard%20USS%20Pennsylvania%2C%201942.jpg)
Instead of a spinning animation, each of those barrels recoil in succession as they are each shot providing a stream of bullets without having to worry about the pointless spinning :P. What would make this even more old school is if there was an animated gunner sitting on the outside of the ship in a bulky spacesuit firing at fighter wings, kinda like how Mel armed that deck gun in the final arc of Serenity.
-
That looks awesome...What type of gun is it some sort of anti aircraft gun i assume.
-
Yep, AA gun in the pacific during WWII.
-
Why are there two chairs? Is one rotation and one tilt? Are all four guns controlled with one control? I feel like I should know these things, haha.
-
I've no idea, I've seen a lot of AA guns have more than one chair especially if the gun has more than one barrel. Aside from controlling the pitch and yaw, it could also be the spotter though I have no idea how you can make yourself heard over the boom of the cannons.
-
Maybe is just for redundancy. Looks like the controls are duplicated on both sides.
-
I found another fun anti-fighter-multi-barrel gun design:
(http://lh6.ggpht.com/_kIWY2DV0KnE/S6WgwQOzRXI/AAAAAAAAGGc/KqdrpB7avqk/Quadruple%20AA%20mount%20aboard%20USS%20Pennsylvania%2C%201942.jpg)
Instead of a spinning animation, each of those barrels recoil in succession as they are each shot providing a stream of bullets without having to worry about the pointless spinning :P. What would make this even more old school is if there was an animated gunner sitting on the outside of the ship in a bulky spacesuit firing at fighter wings, kinda like how Mel armed that deck gun in the final arc of Serenity.
I agree with that!! that would look f**king awesome!
-
So in the release notes it states the following:
Changed Assault Chaingun to use animated spinning barrels
On a minigun, that is used on earth the barrels spin, in order to better dissipate heat into the air arround them. What is the point of spinning barrels in an airless environment? I can think of 2 reasons why never to make your barrels spin in an airless environment:
1. your bullets will fly everywhere, but where you are aiming
2. you produce heat via friction, which needs to be dissipated on top of the heat produced by the projectile movig through the barrel.
Thoughts?
Off topic: is there any way to set sound volume(s)?
Edit: Typos and stuff
To dissipate the heat from the top exposed firing barrel into the heatsink at the bottom of the gun, while maintaining a rapid rate of fire without pause for heat reasons (or the sides, or wherever we imagine they are) of course.. :D
While I appreciate your realism-approach, there's plenty of imaginary explanations to be made that would still fit with real-life physics, all it takes is a bit of imagination :)
But frankly, I think it's safe to say that pretty much every single projectile weapon in space that aren't self-propelled like missiles, will be shot out from railguns.
Magnets = no heat what so ever, not even friction as the bullet never even touches the barrel. Heck we even build them today irl. Check for "Metal Storm" on youtube, they even fire grenades..... Nor would there be any explosion sound, it'd be a completely silent weapon (even inside the walls of the ship near the gun) constantly hailing bullets at the enemy. But that wouldn't be much fun in a pew-pew boom-boom game :)
So in that sense I agree, no need for spinning barrels :D
(http://tonyrogers.com/images/weapons/metalstorm/metal_storm.jpg)
A million rounds a minute, have fun =D
I mean, imagine a version of that weapon in just 50 or 100 years.. Imagine 1 million grenades being launched at a target, per second, per 1 metalstorm turret emplacement.
Let's say a futuristic space frigate has 10 turrets, that's 10 million explosive or armor piercing rounds being fired every second. Have fun, and that's with todays tech. =P
And it scales up to any scale, since it's simple magnetic fields. You could launch artillery shells with that tech.
Future warfare will be ridiculous, especially in space.
-
So in the release notes it states the following:
Changed Assault Chaingun to use animated spinning barrels
On a minigun, that is used on earth the barrels spin, in order to better dissipate heat into the air arround them. What is the point of spinning barrels in an airless environment? I can think of 2 reasons why never to make your barrels spin in an airless environment:
1. your bullets will fly everywhere, but where you are aiming
2. you produce heat via friction, which needs to be dissipated on top of the heat produced by the projectile movig through the barrel.
Thoughts?
Off topic: is there any way to set sound volume(s)?
Edit: Typos and stuff
To dissipate the heat from the top exposed firing barrel into the heatsink at the bottom of the gun, while maintaining a rapid rate of fire without pause for heat reasons (or the sides, or wherever we imagine they are) of course.. :D
While I appreciate your realism-approach, there's plenty of imaginary explanations to be made that would still fit with real-life physics, all it takes is a bit of imagination :)
But frankly, I think it's safe to say that pretty much every single projectile weapon in space that aren't self-propelled like missiles, will be shot out from railguns.
Magnets = no heat what so ever, not even friction as the bullet never even touches the barrel. Heck we even build them today irl. Check for "Metal Storm" on youtube, they even fire grenades..... Nor would there be any explosion sound, it'd be a completely silent weapon (even inside the walls of the ship near the gun) constantly hailing bullets at the enemy. But that wouldn't be much fun in a pew-pew boom-boom game :)
So in that sense I agree, no need for spinning barrels :D
(http://tonyrogers.com/images/weapons/metalstorm/metal_storm.jpg)
A million rounds a minute, have fun =D
I mean, imagine a version of that weapon in just 50 or 100 years.. Imagine 1 million grenades being launched at a target, per second, per 1 metalstorm turret emplacement.
Let's say a futuristic space frigate has 10 turrets, that's 10 million explosive or armor piercing rounds being fired every second. Have fun, and that's with todays tech. =P
Future warfare will be ridiculous, especially in space.
I can imagine shields being a problem for that sort of weaponry though :) Even if they use shield piercing rounds, they would use more resources to build and would probably be bigger to bypass the shields if possible lol.
-
That's not a railgun. It's just a tube with a stack of bullets/propellant that is electrically triggered.
It is incredibly awesome, though. :)
-
Give the practialities of running a fleet of ships on a shoe string, I think powder powered projectiles fit the bill nicely. Railguns to my knowledge is probably going to be much more expensive than bullets propelled by gunpowder. I imagine there should be one more advantage and that would be the fact that they don't, or shouldn't, create any flux to fire. Turning the gun around remotely might take some power, or not if you have some poor sod man it outside of the hull, but the power needed to fire a weapon where the energy is stored inside of the projectile's casing itself should be minimal sompared to railguns and lasers. Much like a smaller unguided version of lasers, they really shouldn't cause much flux to be generated. These weapons are the sort where you can leave it on auto-fire to shoot down missiles and bombers and not worry about raising your flux level while the ship is direct ship to ship combat.
Although on the other hand you take something as complex and powerful as a railgun, they might be suited for a different purpose than shooting down small fighters or missiles. The sheer speed at which rounds can be discharged from the railgun are going to be magnitudes greater than something that has to take into consideration the expansion of gases. The ratio of space to the momentum of the shell is going to favor railguns greatly. The flux on a railgun might be incredibly high, but because of this I think such guns should be ship killing instruments or have specialized roles rather than shooting down something that a cheap battery of flak or AA fire can take down.
But frankly, I think it's safe to say that pretty much every single projectile weapon in space that aren't self-propelled like missiles, will be shot out from railguns.
Magnets = no heat what so ever, not even friction as the bullet never even touches the barrel.
I disagree, the amount of current flowing through the rails is going to be immense. Unless it's a material that can conduct electricity without any resistance whatsoever, the sheer amount of power you need to send through those rails often leads to, as of today's technology, the rail gun having only a few shots before it wears out.
Heck we even build them today irl. Check for "Metal Storm" on youtube, they even fire grenades..... Nor would there be any explosion sound, it'd be a completely silent weapon (even inside the walls of the ship near the gun) constantly hailing bullets at the enemy. But that wouldn't be much fun in a pew-pew boom-boom game :)
As far as I know, metal storm is a gun that uses the technique of stacking bullets on top of each other to create a incredibly rate of fire. They do not produce any rail or gauss weapons that I know of.
I mean, imagine a version of that weapon in just 50 or 100 years.. Imagine 1 million grenades being launched at a target, per second, per 1 metalstorm turret emplacement.
Let's say a futuristic space frigate has 10 turrets, that's 10 million explosive or armor piercing rounds being fired every second. Have fun, and that's with todays tech. =P
The amount of space needed to house that 10 million rounds of explosives is going to dwarf those 10 turrets. You're far better off making a really accurate turret and launching only a few rounds to destroy the target rather than spraying material at th direction of the opposing fleet.
-
That's not a railgun. It's just a tube with a stack of bullets/propellant that is electrically triggered.
It is incredibly awesome, though. :)
Feel sorry for the person receiving the rounds haha
-
Give the practialities of running a fleet of ships on a shoe string, I think powder powered projectiles fit the bill nicely. Railguns to my knowledge is probably going to be much more expensive than bullets propelled by gunpowder. I imagine there should be one more advantage and that would be the fact that they don't, or shouldn't, create any flux to fire. Turning the gun around remotely might take some power, or not if you have some poor sod man it outside of the hull, but the power needed to fire a weapon where the energy is stored inside of the projectile's casing itself should be minimal sompared to railguns and lasers. Much like a smaller unguided version of lasers, they really shouldn't cause much flux to be generated. These weapons are the sort where you can leave it on auto-fire to shoot down missiles and bombers and not worry about raising your flux level while the ship is direct ship to ship combat.
Hm, it is all about efficiency. I am pretty sure that the theoretical energy efficiency of a railgun should be much higher then that of powder weapons, i don't see where large energy losses would be absolutely necessary. So if you have a sufficiently efficient energy source, the fuel + bullet for a railgun should take up a lot less space then powder + bullets for a powdered gun.
However, i think one important factor should also be style. A railgun feels far "cleaner" than a powdered gun, where you are basically producing a lot of additional unwanted trash in the form of shell hulls, gases, additional heat, and so on, when compared to the railgun which basically takes a lump of metal and energy and without a lot of byproducts accelerates the bullet.
Although on the other hand you take something as complex and powerful as a railgun, they might be suited for a different purpose than shooting down small fighters or missiles. The sheer speed at which rounds can be discharged from the railgun are going to be magnitudes greater than something that has to take into consideration the expansion of gases. The ratio of space to the momentum of the shell is going to favor railguns greatly. The flux on a railgun might be incredibly high, but because of this I think such guns should be ship killing instruments or have specialized roles rather than shooting down something that a cheap battery of flak or AA fire can take down.
I don't really agree with this. If you have efficient railguns, they should be more effective then gunpowder weapons in pretty much any situation. Worst case, you need another additional reactor (or a larger one) for the additional power, but since you also need a lot less space for the bullets (you don't need bullet hulls and powder, just good shaped pieces of metal), that should balance out to still having more space left over. Also, i am pretty sure that heat, or more specifically getting rid of it, is a very important aspect in space combat. And i just can't see a railgun ever producing more excess heat than a gunpowed weapon. Sure, you have pretty high currents to induct the necessary magnetic fields, but as long as you have good enough conductors that should still work out. Using superconductors might be problematic because of the formerly mentioned heat problems, but it is pretty easy to increase the conductivity of any conductor by simply increasing its size.
Though you might have a case if for some reason it is only possible to build effective railguns from a certain size upwards.
-
Give the practialities of running a fleet of ships on a shoe string, I think powder powered projectiles fit the bill nicely. Railguns to my knowledge is probably going to be much more expensive than bullets propelled by gunpowder. I imagine there should be one more advantage and that would be the fact that they don't, or shouldn't, create any flux to fire. Turning the gun around remotely might take some power, or not if you have some poor sod man it outside of the hull, but the power needed to fire a weapon where the energy is stored inside of the projectile's casing itself should be minimal sompared to railguns and lasers. Much like a smaller unguided version of lasers, they really shouldn't cause much flux to be generated. These weapons are the sort where you can leave it on auto-fire to shoot down missiles and bombers and not worry about raising your flux level while the ship is direct ship to ship combat.
On a pointless realism point of order gunpowder technonolgy dosnt work in space because of the lack of oxeygen, you have to use self feeding types of propelent or compressed gas weapons. Energy weapons are one of the few things which become more practicle in space because there is far less obsticles (mostly micro scopic) to disapate the beam potential.
-
Give the practialities of running a fleet of ships on a shoe string, I think powder powered projectiles fit the bill nicely. Railguns to my knowledge is probably going to be much more expensive than bullets propelled by gunpowder. I imagine there should be one more advantage and that would be the fact that they don't, or shouldn't, create any flux to fire. Turning the gun around remotely might take some power, or not if you have some poor sod man it outside of the hull, but the power needed to fire a weapon where the energy is stored inside of the projectile's casing itself should be minimal sompared to railguns and lasers. Much like a smaller unguided version of lasers, they really shouldn't cause much flux to be generated. These weapons are the sort where you can leave it on auto-fire to shoot down missiles and bombers and not worry about raising your flux level while the ship is direct ship to ship combat.
On a pointless realism point of order gunpowder technonolgy dosnt work in space because of the lack of oxeygen, you have to use self feeding types of propelent or compressed gas weapons. Energy weapons are one of the few things which become more practicle in space because there is far less obsticles (mostly micro scopic) to disapate the beam potential.
mmm guns work underwater why not in space... ::)
-
mmm guns work underwater why not in space... ::)
Because of the oxygen in the water...H20
Just kidding, but it seemed too funny to me at the time to avoid the silliness on my part. I'm a silly person to the core. ;D
-
thing is they dont, the only ones that do are weapons purposefully built to do so by having a self contained breach that is completely airtight. These weaponry are naturally prohibativly expensive.
*edit* on reflection I believe they get one shot off before filling with water and making any attempt to fire dangerous.
*edit edit* well my pointless point of order was pointless aparantly modern gunpowerder carries its own oxeydizer.
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcS09dBSrvc
Throwing chunks of metal or streams of particles sound the most efficient.
-
thing is they dont, the only ones that do are weapons purposefully built to do so by having a self contained breach that is completely airtight. These weaponry are naturally prohibativly expensive.
*edit* on reflection I believe they get one shot off before filling with water and making any attempt to fire dangerous.
If I'm not mistaken the original reason he mentioned a gun firing in water, is to ask why a gun couldn't fire in a vacuum. I guess the only thing you would need is to provide some oxygen to the ammo or the barrel for the combustion effect, because if I'm not mistaken an average cartridge in a modern firearm uses the oxygen in the barrel of the gun to interact with the propellant right? I could be way off, but I think an average modern bullet wouldn't be able to react with anything in a vacuum, and would be inert with no explosion to speak of and thus no thrust?
* Edit* Oops, I clearly didn't do my homework before posting, tsk tsk, they carry their own oxidizer? Sweetness, looks like our space cannons are ready to rock and roll! ;D
-
Looks like I beat your to the punch by 3 minets :D. Still yes you are correct, baring heating issue's guns do work in space.
-
So in the release notes it states the following:
Changed Assault Chaingun to use animated spinning barrels
On a minigun, that is used on earth the barrels spin, in order to better dissipate heat into the air arround them. What is the point of spinning barrels in an airless environment? I can think of 2 reasons why never to make your barrels spin in an airless environment:
1. your bullets will fly everywhere, but where you are aiming
2. you produce heat via friction, which needs to be dissipated on top of the heat produced by the projectile movig through the barrel.
Thoughts?
Off topic: is there any way to set sound volume(s)?
Edit: Typos and stuff
To dissipate the heat from the top exposed firing barrel into the heatsink at the bottom of the gun, while maintaining a rapid rate of fire without pause for heat reasons (or the sides, or wherever we imagine they are) of course.. :D
While I appreciate your realism-approach, there's plenty of imaginary explanations to be made that would still fit with real-life physics, all it takes is a bit of imagination :)
But frankly, I think it's safe to say that pretty much every single projectile weapon in space that aren't self-propelled like missiles, will be shot out from railguns.
Magnets = no heat what so ever, not even friction as the bullet never even touches the barrel. Heck we even build them today irl. Check for "Metal Storm" on youtube, they even fire grenades..... Nor would there be any explosion sound, it'd be a completely silent weapon (even inside the walls of the ship near the gun) constantly hailing bullets at the enemy. But that wouldn't be much fun in a pew-pew boom-boom game :)
So in that sense I agree, no need for spinning barrels :D
(http://tonyrogers.com/images/weapons/metalstorm/metal_storm.jpg)
A million rounds a minute, have fun =D
I mean, imagine a version of that weapon in just 50 or 100 years.. Imagine 1 million grenades being launched at a target, per second, per 1 metalstorm turret emplacement.
Let's say a futuristic space frigate has 10 turrets, that's 10 million explosive or armor piercing rounds being fired every second. Have fun, and that's with todays tech. =P
Future warfare will be ridiculous, especially in space.
I can imagine shields being a problem for that sort of weaponry though :) Even if they use shield piercing rounds, they would use more resources to build and would probably be bigger to bypass the shields if possible lol.
rail guns produce a ridiculous amount of heat, from the fact that the current moving through the rails is so massive that as long as the rails have any resistance at all they will get extremely hot and also from the rails requiring contact with the projectile to work.
on a separate note, metal storm is one of the impractical systems for weaponry ever designed, they fire at an extremely high rate when you look at a single firing, but in a protracted battle the reload times make them useless, combined with the differing barrel length each shot requiring either re aiming between shots or each round carrying a different amount of propellant and being loaded in the correct order, which would make reloading even more time consuming
-
rail guns produce a ridiculous amount of heat, from the fact that the current moving through the rails is so massive that as long as the rails have any resistance at all they will get extremely hot and also from the rails requiring contact with the projectile to work.
True. They probably mean magnetic accelerators or whatever. The kind that uses fields instead of being a true rail gun.
on a separate note, metal storm is one of the impractical systems for weaponry ever designed, they fire at an extremely high rate when you look at a single firing, but in a protracted battle the reload times make them useless, combined with the differing barrel length each shot requiring either re aiming between shots or each round carrying a different amount of propellant and being loaded in the correct order, which would make reloading even more time consuming
Meh. These things will be sorted in time. You can stick all the propellant and projectiles in a tube and solve the reload rate. Plus the point is rate of fire, not accuracy.
-
Hm, it is all about efficiency. I am pretty sure that the theoretical energy efficiency of a railgun should be much higher then that of powder weapons, i don't see where large energy losses would be absolutely necessary. So if you have a sufficiently efficient energy source, the fuel + bullet for a railgun should take up a lot less space then powder + bullets for a powdered gun.
However, i think one important factor should also be style. A railgun feels far "cleaner" than a powdered gun, where you are basically producing a lot of additional unwanted trash in the form of shell hulls, gases, additional heat, and so on, when compared to the railgun which basically takes a lump of metal and energy and without a lot of byproducts accelerates the bullet.
You raise a very good point, if rail-guns do one day become efficient, weapons relying on gunpowder discharge to function may well go away. I guess I'll have to appeal to the lore to prop up this argument. Given how many high-technologies have been on the decline for many centuries, the ability to produce or maintain railguns might have become too expensive for everyone without a functional government backing them. Thus powder discharge weapons might make a comeback due to how easy it might be to produce these types of rounds and barrels. Although, since I've not known anything about the lore that specifies this, I think I'll leave this point to speculation :P.
I don't really agree with this. If you have efficient railguns, they should be more effective then gunpowder weapons in pretty much any situation. Worst case, you need another additional reactor (or a larger one) for the additional power, but since you also need a lot less space for the bullets (you don't need bullet hulls and powder, just good shaped pieces of metal), that should balance out to still having more space left over. Also, i am pretty sure that heat, or more specifically getting rid of it, is a very important aspect in space combat. And i just can't see a railgun ever producing more excess heat than a gunpowed weapon. Sure, you have pretty high currents to induct the necessary magnetic fields, but as long as you have good enough conductors that should still work out. Using superconductors might be problematic because of the formerly mentioned heat problems, but it is pretty easy to increase the conductivity of any conductor by simply increasing its size.
Some areas may become efficient, and others may be stagnant. Perhaps these rail-guns though highly energy efficient, are produced in materials that are prohibitively expensive, or ammunition that doesn't harm the barrel is, or their maintenance might be staggering or require a great deal of expertise whereas a chain gun or simple gunpowdered weapons might not. In any case, I don't know whether any of my objections are true on this point, so I'll concede this part of the argument :D.
On a pointless realism point of order gunpowder technonolgy dosnt work in space because of the lack of oxeygen, you have to use self feeding types of propelent or compressed gas weapons. Energy weapons are one of the few things which become more practicle in space because there is far less obsticles (mostly micro scopic) to disapate the beam potential.
It was surprising to me when I found out, but apparently gunpowder contains its own oxidizer as well as many other explosives. C4 for instance. We may not get the shockwave and the sound may not travel all that far in a vacuum before its dissipated, but igniting a charge inside a barrel where the discharge is focused and sheltered away from the vacuum the bullet will fire; guns will work perfectly well in space (potential tweaks may be needed, but the theory is the same :P).
-
I found another fun anti-fighter-multi-barrel gun design:
(http://lh6.ggpht.com/_kIWY2DV0KnE/S6WgwQOzRXI/AAAAAAAAGGc/KqdrpB7avqk/Quadruple%20AA%20mount%20aboard%20USS%20Pennsylvania%2C%201942.jpg)
kinda like how Mel armed that deck gun in the final arc of Serenity.
first serenity quote I see in 6 years of love for that series.
-
Hm, it is all about efficiency. I am pretty sure that the theoretical energy efficiency of a railgun should be much higher then that of powder weapons, i don't see where large energy losses would be absolutely necessary. So if you have a sufficiently efficient energy source, the fuel + bullet for a railgun should take up a lot less space then powder + bullets for a powdered gun.
However, i think one important factor should also be style. A railgun feels far "cleaner" than a powdered gun, where you are basically producing a lot of additional unwanted trash in the form of shell hulls, gases, additional heat, and so on, when compared to the railgun which basically takes a lump of metal and energy and without a lot of byproducts accelerates the bullet.
You raise a very good point, if rail-guns do one day become efficient, weapons relying on gunpowder discharge to function may well go away. I guess I'll have to appeal to the lore to prop up this argument. Given how many high-technologies have been on the decline for many centuries, the ability to produce or maintain railguns might have become too expensive for everyone without a functional government backing them. Thus powder discharge weapons might make a comeback due to how easy it might be to produce these types of rounds and barrels. Although, since I've not known anything about the lore that specifies this, I think I'll leave this point to speculation :P.
I don't really agree with this. If you have efficient railguns, they should be more effective then gunpowder weapons in pretty much any situation. Worst case, you need another additional reactor (or a larger one) for the additional power, but since you also need a lot less space for the bullets (you don't need bullet hulls and powder, just good shaped pieces of metal), that should balance out to still having more space left over. Also, i am pretty sure that heat, or more specifically getting rid of it, is a very important aspect in space combat. And i just can't see a railgun ever producing more excess heat than a gunpowed weapon. Sure, you have pretty high currents to induct the necessary magnetic fields, but as long as you have good enough conductors that should still work out. Using superconductors might be problematic because of the formerly mentioned heat problems, but it is pretty easy to increase the conductivity of any conductor by simply increasing its size.
Some areas may become efficient, and others may be stagnant. Perhaps these rail-guns though highly energy efficient, are produced in materials that are prohibitively expensive, or ammunition that doesn't harm the barrel is, or their maintenance might be staggering or require a great deal of expertise whereas a chain gun or simple gunpowdered weapons might not. In any case, I don't know whether any of my objections are true on this point, so I'll concede this part of the argument :D.
On a pointless realism point of order gunpowder technonolgy dosnt work in space because of the lack of oxeygen, you have to use self feeding types of propelent or compressed gas weapons. Energy weapons are one of the few things which become more practicle in space because there is far less obsticles (mostly micro scopic) to disapate the beam potential.
It was surprising to me when I found out, but apparently gunpowder contains its own oxidizer as well as many other explosives. C4 for instance. We may not get the shockwave and the sound may not travel all that far in a vacuum before its dissipated, but igniting a charge inside a barrel where the discharge is focused and sheltered away from the vacuum the bullet will fire; guns will work perfectly well in space (potential tweaks may be needed, but the theory is the same :P).
Railguns generate an insane amount of heat, therefore I can imagine them being used to deliver powerful killing blow and nothing more.
I'm surprised weapons like mass drivers, also known gauss cannon or coil cannon, that are actually already famous, are often misjudged as conventional weapons. These weapons are on the same league of rail guns, and are better then them under many aspects... like having the projectile suspended all the time in a magnetic field, therefore nullifying any kind of heat for friction with the barrel. They are also very easy to realize and to operate energy wise.
So whenever I see a gauss cannon, I suppose that kind of tech was developed instead of the rail one.
-
Both of those have problems with the fact that the magnets would need to be replaced frequently at least in today's testing designs. Gunpowder weapons require very little in a technical way and require very little training to operate and repair to keep functioning while a rail gun is much more complicated.
-
On the note of metalstorm, they were being considered as aircraft or missile based weapons (As opposed to field weapons), to disperse a very large number of projectiles over a relatively large area very quickly, and then they would be reloaded at base (For the aircraft version, the missile version I suppose would just self-destruct)
ALSO, on the note of flying and spinning barrels, I suggest that Alex add a feature allowing us to...
DO A BARREL ROLL!
*collective audience groan* :D
-
Hm, it is all about efficiency. I am pretty sure that the theoretical energy efficiency of a railgun should be much higher then that of powder weapons, i don't see where large energy losses would be absolutely necessary. So if you have a sufficiently efficient energy source, the fuel + bullet for a railgun should take up a lot less space then powder + bullets for a powdered gun.
However, i think one important factor should also be style. A railgun feels far "cleaner" than a powdered gun, where you are basically producing a lot of additional unwanted trash in the form of shell hulls, gases, additional heat, and so on, when compared to the railgun which basically takes a lump of metal and energy and without a lot of byproducts accelerates the bullet.
You raise a very good point, if rail-guns do one day become efficient, weapons relying on gunpowder discharge to function may well go away. I guess I'll have to appeal to the lore to prop up this argument. Given how many high-technologies have been on the decline for many centuries, the ability to produce or maintain railguns might have become too expensive for everyone without a functional government backing them. Thus powder discharge weapons might make a comeback due to how easy it might be to produce these types of rounds and barrels. Although, since I've not known anything about the lore that specifies this, I think I'll leave this point to speculation :P.
I don't really agree with this. If you have efficient railguns, they should be more effective then gunpowder weapons in pretty much any situation. Worst case, you need another additional reactor (or a larger one) for the additional power, but since you also need a lot less space for the bullets (you don't need bullet hulls and powder, just good shaped pieces of metal), that should balance out to still having more space left over. Also, i am pretty sure that heat, or more specifically getting rid of it, is a very important aspect in space combat. And i just can't see a railgun ever producing more excess heat than a gunpowed weapon. Sure, you have pretty high currents to induct the necessary magnetic fields, but as long as you have good enough conductors that should still work out. Using superconductors might be problematic because of the formerly mentioned heat problems, but it is pretty easy to increase the conductivity of any conductor by simply increasing its size.
Some areas may become efficient, and others may be stagnant. Perhaps these rail-guns though highly energy efficient, are produced in materials that are prohibitively expensive, or ammunition that doesn't harm the barrel is, or their maintenance might be staggering or require a great deal of expertise whereas a chain gun or simple gunpowdered weapons might not. In any case, I don't know whether any of my objections are true on this point, so I'll concede this part of the argument :D.
On a pointless realism point of order gunpowder technonolgy dosnt work in space because of the lack of oxeygen, you have to use self feeding types of propelent or compressed gas weapons. Energy weapons are one of the few things which become more practicle in space because there is far less obsticles (mostly micro scopic) to disapate the beam potential.
It was surprising to me when I found out, but apparently gunpowder contains its own oxidizer as well as many other explosives. C4 for instance. We may not get the shockwave and the sound may not travel all that far in a vacuum before its dissipated, but igniting a charge inside a barrel where the discharge is focused and sheltered away from the vacuum the bullet will fire; guns will work perfectly well in space (potential tweaks may be needed, but the theory is the same :P).
Railguns generate an insane amount of heat, therefore I can imagine them being used to deliver powerful killing blow and nothing more.
I'm surprised weapons like mass drivers, also known gauss cannon or coil cannon, that are actually already famous, are often misjudged as conventional weapons. These weapons are on the same league of rail guns, and are better then them under many aspects... like having the projectile suspended all the time in a magnetic field, therefore nullifying any kind of heat for friction with the barrel. They are also very easy to realize and to operate energy wise.
So whenever I see a gauss cannon, I suppose that kind of tech was developed instead of the rail one.
the issue with gauss/coil guns need to be extremely long to reproduce similiar power to a railgun, it's the main reason we aren't focusing on them for potential usage in weapons
-
the game already has both rail guns (high velocity cannon) and gauss cannon (gauss cannon)
-
OK, to get a few things out of the way:
1. I agree that spinning guns look cool (as far as I am concerned the only advantage I could think of (I meant to mention that in the OP, somehow slipped my mind)).
2. As or oxidizer(saltpeter in gunpowder(black powder)), it is (and must be) present in every explosive, however it is not the thing that stores oxygen for the combustion, but rather it is what makes the explosion actually happen in that it is a catalyst, that makes oxygen from air react with the fuel(coal and sulfur in black powder) producing and exothermal reaction(one that produces heat) which creates a lot of gas as a product of high speed burning(oxidizing) of fuels in the powder. So projectile weapons we use today would still require air or oxygen in order to fire in an environment without oxygen (yes, even atmospheres that don't contain oxygen). But that is not to say, that pressurized oxygen can't be stored in the actual bullet case.
Other than this, I believe, that high ROF guns with a barrels arranged such as the pictures show with a proper automatic loading mechanism are more feasible and more accurate than a spinning barrel gatling mechanism.
Note this is a personal opinion and I am by no means asking to change anything in the game because of me. I just want to put want you to consider looking at it from a different angle.
-
Both of those have problems with the fact that the magnets would need to be replaced frequently at least in today's testing designs. Gunpowder weapons require very little in a technical way and require very little training to operate and repair to keep functioning while a rail gun is much more complicated.
not really, the coil needed for the mass driver is not a magnet but a conductor. And the what generates the ele.magnet field is the shape of the coil itself, whenever you discharge the impulse to fire. That is why they are actually not so hard to produce/use.
-
2. As or oxidizer(saltpeter in gunpowder(black powder)), it is (and must be) present in every explosive, however it is not the thing that stores oxygen for the combustion, but rather it is what makes the explosion actually happen in that it is a catalyst, that makes oxygen from air react with the fuel(coal and sulfur in black powder) producing and exothermal reaction(one that produces heat) which creates a lot of gas as a product of high speed burning(oxidizing) of fuels in the powder. So projectile weapons we use today would still require air or oxygen in order to fire in an environment without oxygen (yes, even atmospheres that don't contain oxygen). But that is not to say, that pressurized oxygen can't be stored in the actual bullet case.
Even if gunpowder doesn't ignite or expand in a vacuum, there are chemical compounds that do, many of them in fact. For example, the fuel used for the space shuttles, underwater rocket propelled torpedo, pretty much all ballistic missiles, and just basic rocket motors that you can attach to stuff and let them fly. It's relatively simple to substitute the fuel in the rounds for one that does ignite in a vacuum, and this is considering that you can't modify gunpowder itself ignite in a vacuum.
As you've said, the oxidizer releases the gases needed for the rest of the fuel to ignite itself and releases the gases that push the bullet out of the barrel. The amount of oxygen needed for the combustion of the fuel isn't all that great. We have rounds that can function underwater without any need to make a separate compartment for the oxygen for example, and high altitude aircraft have cannons that aren't affected by the low oxygen density.
-
I think this is because modern bullets actually have quite a bit of room to spare in there for plain old air. So that provides the needed oxygen. But obviously most bullets aren't really designed with this in mind. It would probably be trivial to do so, though.
-
I think this is because modern bullets actually have quite a bit of room to spare in there for plain old air. So that provides the needed oxygen. But obviously most bullets aren't really designed with this in mind. It would probably be trivial to do so, though.
As kajanov tried to explain, it's not actually the oxygen that expels the projectile forward, it's the gases that are released when the rest of the gunpowder mix is ignited. Not much oxygen is needed, in fact the little oxygen that the saltpeter produces is all that is needed to set the rest of the fuel mix alight.
-
Bah... I need to brush up on my chemistry...
What are the gases actually being produced in modern smokeless gunpowder? Heck what is the propellant, haha. It's an "oxidation" reaction I assume, though you are correct that it doesn't mean any actual oxygen is needed.
-
What are the gases actually being produced in modern smokeless gunpowder? Heck what is the propellant, haha. It's an "oxidation" reaction I assume, though you are correct that it doesn't mean any actual oxygen is needed.
I don't quite know myself :P. I've tried looking into it on the subject of the thread and couldn't find anything apart from a few posts on a gun forum deriving an article one of them read that said smokeless gunpowder was contributing to global warming.
-
Modern real-life bullets no longer use black gunpowder. They use something called cordite most of the time. Still, the actual list of components to smokeless powder is way too complex to get into. You can read about it here if you wish: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokeless_powder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokeless_powder)
In Starfarer, Domain advances in chemical engineering, nanotechnology and industrialization have led to the development of even more advanced chemical propellants. Of course, not all guns in the game use chemical propellants, as people have noted in the thread. Some are rail guns, others are much more exotic and use Lorentz force to propel their projectile (Mjolnir cannon).
They key thing to remember is that the technology at use in the sector was actually developed during different Epochs of the Domain. And, unlike real life, new tech is not almost always better than the old.
-
They key thing to remember is that the technology at use in the sector was actually developed during different Epochs of the Domain. And, unlike real life, new tech is not almost always better than the old.
Man this game even has some 40k in it...my my my
-
Or is it the other way 'round. ;)
-
Or is it the other way 'round. ;)
This thread is full of spinning 'rounds. ;D