|
Post by newageofpower on Jan 15, 2017 9:42:33 GMT
Wasn't the service life of current IRL railguns 20-ish rounds? (Compared to 5000-10000 rounds barrel life of conventional cannons.) There are many, many ways around this. For example, rather than replace the entire barrel assembly, have a replacement 'sleeve' every X rounds. Barrel wear could be massively decreased by usage of a conductive plasma 'sabot'. Then there is research into railgun-compatible high-wear materials with mechanical properties orders of magnitude superior to that in current usage. Again, if my assault drones fire off 2000 rounds, they've probably more than paid for their cost.
|
|
|
Post by bigbombr on Jan 15, 2017 9:57:47 GMT
Wasn't the service life of current IRL railguns 20-ish rounds? (Compared to 5000-10000 rounds barrel life of conventional cannons.) There are many, many ways around this. For example, rather than replace the entire barrel assembly, have a replacement 'sleeve' every X rounds. Barrel wear could be massively decreased by usage of a conductive plasma 'sabot'. Then there is research into railgun-compatible high-wear materials with mechanical properties orders of magnitude superior to that in current usage. Again, if my assault drones fire off 2000 rounds, they've probably more than paid for their cost. Coilguns seem less complex than railguns using replaceable sleeves or plasma sabots. Wouldn't this make your railguns more complex and heavier than equivalent coilguns?
|
|
|
Post by newageofpower on Jan 15, 2017 9:59:46 GMT
Again, if my assault drones fire off 2000 rounds, they've probably more than paid for their cost. Coilguns seem less complex than railguns using replaceable sleeves or plasma sabots. Wouldn't this make your railguns more complex and heavier than equivalent coilguns?[/quote] More complex, possibly. Heavier, unlikely. Also, current coilguns have difficulties achieving anything close to their maximum theoretical efficiencies, and are likely to get orders of magnitude more complicated. Well, I can't say for certain (as with many things) but that is my current (imperfect) understanding.
|
|
|
Post by deltav on Jan 24, 2017 19:58:38 GMT
35 km is point blank range for blue water navy? Let's think about this for a second. Yes missiles and aircraft carriers can reach out far beyond 35 km, but that's not what we are talking about. We are talking about using guns. For the old school WW2 Battleships, the longest hit ever made on another ship during combat is 26,260 yards, about 24 km. So using a gun even if it is coil powered, the target has to be tracked and targeted using sensors for exactly where the ship is, and the fact that the target may be gone by the time the round arrives. For comparison, someone who makes a sniper shot at 2500 m, the bullet takes almost 6 seconds to reach the target. If the target is moving erratically the shot will most likely miss wasting rounds. Also space is not completely empty, there is space dust and so on. So taking all this into account, 46 km vs a capital ship (the range of a 39 MW 8mm Turrented Railgun), isn't it a perfectly reasonable range? 50km effective range is a very reasonable range to design your ships around if you like roasted BBQ crew corridors from lasers... If you limit cost and power as the stock weapons do, lasers aren't much a threat to ships at ranges of 50km.
|
|
|
Post by caiaphas on Jan 24, 2017 20:03:53 GMT
50km effective range is a very reasonable range to design your ships around if you like roasted BBQ crew corridors from lasers... If you limit cost and power as the stock weapons do, lasers aren't much a threat to ships at ranges of 50km. ...what? The extremely inefficient stock violet and near-infrared lasers can take ships to pieces at 50 km. I fought my way through Vesta Overkill with a bunch of laser gunships mounting stock lasers. Even cost- and power-limited lasers still have the greatest effective range of any weapon in our arsenal, hands down.
|
|
|
Post by lieste on Jan 24, 2017 21:44:51 GMT
While this is effectively the case - it isn't strictly true.
A hugely inefficient railgun can be built that exceeds the laser's range cap of 1Mm against capital ships (corvette and up), and has a useful traverse rate for long range PD working. It does however suffer from range limitations against smaller targets (100km against the flak missile and ~400km against the hellfire drone, while the laser retains it's full engagement envelope).
Having some kind of fast KE weapon complicates the armouring of sub-capital types (and the turrets of capitals) as there is not much that is good against multi MJ impacts *and* laser fire in a lightweight, thin configuration. (e.g. Aramid is good against lasers, but pricey and does little to resist impact damage.)
|
|
|
Post by apophys on Jan 24, 2017 23:18:55 GMT
If you limit cost and power as the stock weapons do Where the goal is figuring out what works best for serious combat with player-made ships, it makes no sense to consider stock designs at all, as they are so horrifically underpowered. Stock reactors and lasers are the worst offenders in this regard, giving an unfair bias toward everything else. A lot of player optimization needs to be done before passing any judgement. For lag reasons, 10 Mc seems a good point to balance a ship around, with all custom parts.
|
|
|
Post by theholyinquisition on Jan 25, 2017 0:58:46 GMT
If you limit cost and power as the stock weapons do Where the goal is figuring out what works best for serious combat with player-made ships, it makes no sense to consider stock designs at all, as they are so horrifically underpowered. Stock reactors and lasers are the worst offenders in this regard, giving an unfair bias toward everything else. A lot of player optimization needs to be done before passing any judgement. For lag reasons, 10 Mc seems a good point to balance a ship around, with all custom parts. Real point here: why didn't qswitched do this? We've created terrifying, 1TW/m 2, drone-mountable laser systems. 1 gw reactors smaller than stock. Why didn't qswitched make stock designs this good?
|
|
|
Post by caiaphas on Jan 25, 2017 1:41:56 GMT
Where the goal is figuring out what works best for serious combat with player-made ships, it makes no sense to consider stock designs at all, as they are so horrifically underpowered. Stock reactors and lasers are the worst offenders in this regard, giving an unfair bias toward everything else. A lot of player optimization needs to be done before passing any judgement. For lag reasons, 10 Mc seems a good point to balance a ship around, with all custom parts. Real point here: why didn't qswitched do this? We've created terrifying, 1TW/m 2, drone-mountable laser systems. 1 gw reactors smaller than stock. Why didn't qswitched make stock designs this good? qswitched isn't borderline insane like us?
|
|
|
Post by deltav on Jan 25, 2017 1:58:07 GMT
If you limit cost and power as the stock weapons do, lasers aren't much a threat to ships at ranges of 50km. ...what? The extremely inefficient stock violet and near-infrared lasers can take ships to pieces at 50 km. I fought my way through Vesta Overkill with a bunch of laser gunships mounting stock lasers. Even cost- and power-limited lasers still have the greatest effective range of any weapon in our arsenal, hands down. Lasers even stock, greatest effective range period? In game the 100 MW laser vs Capital Ships only kicks in at about 35 km. Can it shoot further? Yes, if you set it at "ignore range" Who knows why it's set like that, but ingame the 100MW laser doesn't reach out to 50 km vs Capital ships. THis is why the laserless Corvette and Ranger beat the Laser Frigate.
|
|
|
Post by theholyinquisition on Jan 25, 2017 2:05:59 GMT
Real point here: why didn't qswitched do this? We've created terrifying, 1TW/m 2, drone-mountable laser systems. 1 gw reactors smaller than stock. Why didn't qswitched make stock designs this good? qswitched isn't borderline insane like us? I mean, he made the actual game. If we're borderline for building things in it, what is he?
|
|
|
Post by deltav on Jan 25, 2017 2:22:57 GMT
Real point here: why didn't qswitched do this? We've created terrifying, 1TW/m 2, drone-mountable laser systems. 1 gw reactors smaller than stock. Why didn't qswitched make stock designs this good? qswitched isn't borderline insane like us? About lasers... Qswitched designed the game to be a realistic depiction of space combat. So all stock designs are limited to designs that are easier to build in real life. The alloys (in stock ships) are mostly simple and not exotic, the mirrors used in lasers are small, etc. On the other hand, all the stock designs are underpowered, not just for ingame reasons, but so they can be run on almost all computers. Also if the stock designs were optimized, well unlocking module design wouldn't be much fun at all would it? So what say you the designer (Qswitched)? On his blog <https://childrenofadeadearth.wordpress.com/2016/04/29/misconceptions-about-space-warfare/> he states... "Next misconception, wouldn’t lasers dominate the battle space? Lasers do not suffer from many of the inaccuracy problems that projectile weapons do, and move at the speed of light, so they are literally impossible to dodge. So lasers are the king of the battle space, right? Wrong. Lasers suffer from diffraction. Badly. The power of lasers in space drops painfully fast with distance, and frequency doubling only ameliorates the issue slightly. Lasers are notoriously low efficiency compared to projectile weapons. But that’s not the main issue. When comparing hypervelocity projectile impact research with laser ablation research, one discovers a stark contrast in their efficacy. Laser ablation is simply less effective at causing damage than projectile impacts." Qswitched seems to feel that Lasers are not the ultimate weapon. Why? You'd have to ask them. This is clearly reflected in the stock game designs.
|
|
|
Post by deltav on Jan 25, 2017 2:46:43 GMT
About reactors... In real life the best of the best costs. Yes it's possible to make a Lambogini, but most people can't afford it. The most optimized reactors, lasers, etc would be very expensive in real life. Same with tech in COADE methinks. COADE is supposed to be realistic Space Combat using only present or near present tech. The stock reactors in COADE are clearly based on Navel designs. They even use U-235 like Naval Reactors instead of U-238 like land based reactors due to the greater heat output of U-235 at the cost of safety. The largest (and newest) naval Nuclear reactors 2016 are 41B Reactors and produce about 1650 MW. The newest class of Aircraft carriers is supposed to carry 2. Thats 3210 MW. That's about 0.00321 TW I can't find the exact weight of the 41B reactor, but similar reactors weigh about 1650 tons. So that's about a ton per megawatt at current tech. If that's true then the stock reactors are perfectly inline with the current tech 2016. (Stock reactors are at the best about 1 MW per ton or less.) Today only the richest of the richest countries can afford nuclear aircraft carriers. If that's all true, then 1TW super lasers are fun and great, but aren't likely to be used significantly in space warfare. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_naval_reactorswww.navycs.com/blogs/2014/12/18/a-new-beefed-up-enginewww.unitjuggler.com/convert-power-from-MW-to-TW.html?val=1650www.alternatewars.com/BBOW/Nuclear/US_Naval_Reactors.htmThat's the reason I think Qswtiched didn't make any TW lasers are anything simliar. Fun but unlikely in a realistic depiction of space warfare. It's kind of like the Death Star.
|
|
|
Post by caiaphas on Jan 25, 2017 3:07:17 GMT
...what? The extremely inefficient stock violet and near-infrared lasers can take ships to pieces at 50 km. I fought my way through Vesta Overkill with a bunch of laser gunships mounting stock lasers. Even cost- and power-limited lasers still have the greatest effective range of any weapon in our arsenal, hands down. Lasers even stock, greatest effective range period? In game the 100 MW laser vs Capital Ships only kicks in at about 35 km. Can it shoot further? Yes, if you set it at "ignore range" Who knows why it's set like that, but ingame the 100MW laser doesn't reach out to 50 km vs Capital ships. THis is why the laserless Corvette and Ranger beat the Laser Frigate. You will notice that I said near-infrared.
This is a 100% stock ship I cobbled together in about five minutes, mounting the stock 300MW Near-Infrared Laser, which by default reaches out to 50 km. I can bring four of these for every gunship I bring to the party, and here's the range on the gunship's stock weaponry against it. About ten seconds after I took this shot they took out half my railguns and one of my coilguns and then murdered me to death. This happened even after I went with a higher-velocity 300 m/s intercept. The only way I've found to beat them is to prelaunch all my flak missiles and saturate their defenses. Here they are killing a drone swarm on Vesta Overkill. It took them two seconds. And guess what, I can make a version with 80% the cross-section mounting two slightly modified 100 MW violet lasers (as in all I did was bring the range up to 50 km) and they're even more viciously effective, because I can bring that many more of them to the party and their reduced intensity is more than made up for by the increase in total power.
|
|
|
Post by deltav on Jan 25, 2017 3:27:07 GMT
Caiaphas Point well made, and thanks for the pics. I love it! And by the way, give it a try vs Rangers for cost. They are the ultimate stock Coilgun/Railgun armed ship, not the Gunship. 2 35 mc Raiders can kill a Gunship. Check out the Ships head to head thread. childrenofadeadearth.boards.net/thread/710/stock-ships-headStock Ships are ranked head to head in battle along with their armaments and cost.
|
|