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Post by mavericksawyer on Sept 29, 2016 20:08:33 GMT
So, per the below: Pocket nuke: Any questions? XD You are now obligated under space law to design a coilgun that fires pocket nukes. ... Deal. XD I am attempting to create a coilgun capable of spitting the above mininuke at a reasonable velocity to get it to the target in a timely manner. THAT SAID: Coilgun optimization is a right pain in the ass. I keep hitting a magnetic saturation wall at far less than my initial target of 1 km/s. And that's with an even smaller, 477 tons equivalent nuke that weighs a mere 12.6 kilos and is 10.3 cm in radius... Any bright ideas to improve performance?
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Post by quarkster on Sept 29, 2016 20:32:05 GMT
I have a gun that fires nuclear missiles. The trick is using gunpowder. The coil guns just don't scale up that well.
Also, you may have better luck using magnetic glass for the armature.
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Post by blothorn on Sept 29, 2016 20:33:48 GMT
Back of the envelope, firing a 12.7kg projectile at 1km/s every 2.5s requires 5.08MW, so you might want to start by upping power.
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Post by mavericksawyer on Sept 29, 2016 20:44:04 GMT
Tried it. It hit that magnetic saturation point about where I stopped. ANd yeah, wound up using a traditional cannon to get the velocity I wanted. I call it the Casaba Howitzer, for obvious reasons.
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acatalepsy
Junior Member
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Posts: 97
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Post by acatalepsy on Sept 29, 2016 22:41:54 GMT
How's this?
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Post by blothorn on Sept 29, 2016 22:44:15 GMT
That is mildly terrifying. How effective is it in practice?
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acatalepsy
Junior Member
Not Currently In Space
Posts: 97
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Post by acatalepsy on Sept 29, 2016 22:58:26 GMT
That is mildly terrifying. How effective is it in practice? I am about to find out!
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Post by strikedragon on Sept 29, 2016 23:01:40 GMT
The main limiting factor for building longer and faster coilgun Is the coils yield strength Versus That materials Resistance, so I used Maraging steel. Also how did you guys get yours' to load Custom payloads, I Couldn't get mine to do that? Also In practice My Nukes were getting destroyed by leases before they got near the target most of the time. Attachments:
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Post by blothorn on Sept 29, 2016 23:32:26 GMT
You need to go to the ship designer and make a payload containing it. Be sure to add some good thermal armor; I have no idea what the stock nuke has, but the reinforced c-c a lot of stock designs use is simply terrible.
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acatalepsy
Junior Member
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Posts: 97
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Post by acatalepsy on Sept 29, 2016 23:35:13 GMT
The main limiting factor for building longer and faster coilgun Is the coils yield strength Versus That materials Resistance, so I used Maraging steel. Also how did you guys get yours' to load Custom payloads, I Couldn't get mine to do that? Also In practice My Nukes were getting destroyed by leases before they got near the target most of the time. Okay, so, you need to actually build a payload in the ship builder, not just a module. Basically, just the payload weapon, whatever armor you want, and a remote control so it actually detonates (don't forget that!) - and rockets if you want it to be a missile. Mine are armored with a centimeter or so basalt fiber, so they're basically impervious to lasers for as long as is really necessary. As to how well this worked in practice? Well, my methodology was to take a stock gunship, and do nothing but replace its four default coilguns with a pair of mininuke launchers, then pit it up against an unmodified gunship in lunar orbit. I did a low velocity intercept, usually less than a hundred meters a second, then turned off range limitations and disabled all weapons except for the nuke gun. I then let that nuke gun fire fifty shots before disabling it as well (I upped the loader power from what you see in the screenshot, halving the reload time at the cost of 10MW). How well did fifty nukes do, fired at a range of 50km? I was noticing how few bombs were actually going off - it must have been a couple total - so I decided to up the detonation range to something more like fifty meters, repeat the experiment and see what that did. I'll take "what is mission killed" for 200, Alec. Still, we can do better. I think it's possible to up the accuracy, either by making this sucker guided, or upping the velocity even more with an even more ridiculous cannon.
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acatalepsy
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Posts: 97
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Post by acatalepsy on Sept 30, 2016 0:34:08 GMT
Addendum: This is not without weaknesses, not the least of which is "what if some asshole snipes it with a laser". And while it is a good deal of fun, it's also very heavy, and very expensive. As a certain farmboy said, "we could almost buy our own ship for that!". Another thing - the nuclear payload isn't really all that critical? At this velocity, flak bombs work just as well (I tried, they sniped the enemy ship just as quickly if not faster), and you might as well use a smaller coilgun with a lighter, cheaper flak bomb. The main advantage this thing has over flak is that it possibly engages better at long range. But for when you absolutely have to nuke it from orbit - accept no substitutes.
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Post by Wesreidau on Sept 30, 2016 13:26:51 GMT
Your only mistake is not selecting "Targets Shots". What good is a nuclear coilgun if you can't use it for CWIS duty? Answer: one that didn't turn low Io orbit into a green nuclear Kessler cloud and ground my PC to a halt tracking N-Body orbits for 400 atomic shells...
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Post by shiolle on Sept 30, 2016 13:53:28 GMT
Does this weapon really cost 58Mc? I mean there are a lot of warships costing much less than that? I can surely understand why, seeing this thing is covered in 20 centimeters of diamond.
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acatalepsy
Junior Member
Not Currently In Space
Posts: 97
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Post by acatalepsy on Sept 30, 2016 13:59:59 GMT
Does this weapon really cost 58Mc? I mean there are a lot of warships costing much less than that? I can surely understand why, seeing this thing is covered in 20 centimeters of diamond. Yes, but the armor isn't a huge part of the cost. The armor is there because it's already so expensive and heavy that it's practically begging to be sniped by lasers or extreme range railgun. Really, you need to use a smaller nuke - there are a couple of them out there - to make this actually work. Redundancy rather than size is the name of the game.
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Post by 123nick on Sept 30, 2016 15:08:19 GMT
Quick question- how do you get a custom payload as an option to be fired from a cannon? All the times i have made a payload it does not show up in the options after i save it, only the generic HE , flak, the 2 nukes and the 2 decoys options.
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