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Post by goduranus on Oct 13, 2016 7:01:09 GMT
The default guns in game look like they fire at several thousand RPM(16.6ms on the 60mm cannon), and everything that get hit get overkilled. Wouldn't it be better to draw less power but fire more slowly, or in bursts?
Also, i don't think it's physically possible for conventional guns to reload that fast, wouldn't the breech bend from the mechanical stress?
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Post by nerd1000 on Oct 13, 2016 8:05:24 GMT
16.6ms reload time corresponds to 3600 rounds per minute, a rate of fire somewhere between single barrel revolver cannons (which manage around 2500 rounds/min) and gatling style cannons (which can exceed 4000 rounds per minute without too much trouble). I think it's believable when you consider the low mass of the rounds fired by most in-game conventional guns- the stock 33mm cannon fires a 5g DU 'coin' wheras the A-10 Thunderbolt's notorious GAU-8 'Avenger' 30mm rotary cannon fires 395g steel slugs with a DU core (admittedly at around 1/3 the velocity).
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Post by cuddlefish on Oct 13, 2016 12:32:06 GMT
Notably, these aren't recoil operated devices - they've got some sort of linear accelerator (?) throwing shells in and presumably opening/closing the breech as well.
In terms of power supply, usually the loader on a conventional cannon as implemented is a trivial power cost compared to the turret traverse via reaction wheels.
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Post by morrigi on Oct 13, 2016 13:42:02 GMT
And the reaction wheels are ridiculous. Who the hell uses reaction wheels to traverse a turret?
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Post by RA2lover on Oct 13, 2016 14:40:53 GMT
I actually think cannons fire too slowly, though i guess that's due to breech size being automatically picked and having the same material as the barrel.
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Post by ross128 on Oct 13, 2016 16:34:52 GMT
A belt feed can feed the ammo as fast as is necessary (as many miniguns have proven). The main thing I'd be worried about is overheating the barrel, especially since we can't count on air-cooling in space.
Fortunately our gun barrels cool off really fast for some reason. Is it set up to sink the heat into the hull of the ship or something?
(also can we get forced-cooling systems?)
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Post by argonbalt on Oct 13, 2016 18:12:29 GMT
 Another thing to consider tin the high rate of fire is that ALL ammunition in game is caseless, this speeds up the process by eliminating a huge chunk of the mechanism in regards to case ejection/spent casing removal or containment. It can also cycle far faster, though there were certain issues like heat sensitivity and cap blockages with initial caseless technology, compared to the far more insane technologies used in this game it would be a small step to solve and use these rounds instead of cased munitions. In the above image they show how by simply eliminating the brass container and using caseless rounds they quintuple the amount of ammo for the exact same weight. It also had fire rates of 2100 in burst mode as well as a recoil "storing technology" which i don't even fully understand. |
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Post by concretedonkey on Oct 13, 2016 18:19:39 GMT
From what I remmember the recoil storing you are talking about is that the whole mechanism was moving freely unitll the third bullet leaves the barrel. Sort of fires in series of three and every third round the recoil of all rounds reaches you in one push. Edit: Yep www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_didDgUjn0 |
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Post by morrigi on Oct 14, 2016 17:17:51 GMT
The problem with caseless ammunition is that cased ammunition allows the case to function as an automatically-ejecting heat sink. However, it appears that barrel overheating really isn't a thing in the game, despite the vacuum of space.
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Post by ross128 on Oct 14, 2016 17:28:14 GMT
Ejecting cases externally could have some rather amusing side-effects in a high-speed pass.  Though I guess if they survived the guns in the first place there isn't much reason to believe the casings would kill them, even if they are impacting at over 10km/s. |
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Post by argonbalt on Oct 14, 2016 18:07:04 GMT
I know it is not too much of an issue in game but casings would also be a Kessler syndrome nightmare, you are practically creating copper kill clouds with that many projectiles.
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Post by nerd1000 on Oct 15, 2016 0:49:31 GMT
I know it is not too much of an issue in game but casings would also be a Kessler syndrome nightmare, you are practically creating copper kill clouds with that many projectiles. A lot of modern aircraft mounted cannons collect the cases and either dump them in a storage bin or return them to the magazine, as it is rather difficult to eject a shell case into mach 2 airflow without it subsequently colliding with the aircraft. I expect any space based warship would do the same- not much point fighting over low Titan orbit if your civilian ships won't be able to use it for 1000 years afterwards. |
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Post by captinjoehenry on Oct 15, 2016 0:56:27 GMT
Well post battle in universe the victor deals with the debris. I mean all of those projectiles and flack that doesn't hit is going to be in orbit and all of the fragments of the enemy ship and your own so space clean up is very much a thing in the universe it just isn't mentioned.
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Post by argonbalt on Oct 15, 2016 1:28:19 GMT
I know it is not too much of an issue in game but casings would also be a Kessler syndrome nightmare, you are practically creating copper kill clouds with that many projectiles. A lot of modern aircraft mounted cannons collect the cases and either dump them in a storage bin or return them to the magazine, as it is rather difficult to eject a shell case into mach 2 airflow without it subsequently colliding with the aircraft. I expect any space based warship would do the same- not much point fighting over low Titan orbit if your civilian ships won't be able to use it for 1000 years afterwards. Hmm i guess, it's still a ton of brass to haul around, compared to how simple and effective caseless ammunition would solve the problem. |
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Post by blothorn on Oct 15, 2016 11:07:06 GMT
The official fluff is that guns are cooled by radiation from their barrels. Given how much heat is being put into them and the amount they can radiate at their melting point I do not think it plausible, but it is easy to calculate...
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