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Post by Enderminion on Jan 26, 2017 14:41:00 GMT
see, GW railguns massing kilotons compared to a 154MW coilgun massing less then ~100 tons (I think)
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Post by lieste on Jan 26, 2017 15:29:14 GMT
Railguns are fairly scalable though. My "light" PD railgun which I use as secondary weapons on most ships, and also as the primary battery on the PD class of frigates is less than 100t, 100MW and 32.4km/s with no discernable spread. A retired local PD weapon was sub 10t with 90MW giving 21km/s, but it didn't offer a useful range against improved drones/missiles and was replaced by the heavier version accordingly.
I've got rails at 60km/s for 450t @ 100MW, 70km/s for 1.5kt and 300MW, 80km/s for 2kt @ 260MW, 90km/s for 4kt and 800MW (rail 300MW, the traverse running at the higher rating, which also accounts for much of the mass penalty). By compromising traverse rate down to around 0.05 dps I got the 134km/s gun to 43.5kt and the ship to 50.3kt - don't really like such low rates though.
Particularly for the heavier rails/coils/conventional cannons, having a spinal mount and a reasonably brisk geared/linear traverse over a few degrees* would be more sensible than the momentum wheel turrets with 45+ degree traverse at glacial rates. Just sufficient to remove the reliance on main engines for aim refinement, but requiring thrusting for gross adjustment, but with a saving of ~40-50% (or more) in overall mass.
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Post by argonbalt on Jan 26, 2017 16:45:12 GMT
I just made a railgun that shoots 113 km/s that can hit capital ships at about 1000-800 km, and missiles at about 200-100 km. The numbers look less, but in war games the ranges are higher. Of course it costs 1.82 Gc, weighs 80kt, and uses 1Gw of power. What is the longest range anyone has gotten with a gun of any type? You were not around when coiguns were laughably overpowered, if i remember correctly we were getting speeds of several dozen Mm/s (1000 km)/s, the ranges were downright inter orbital with you being able to shoot down enemy ships in LEO from low lunar orbit, by that point they were not really coilguns, more like particle beam weapons. Of course this was exploiting physics loopholes this is before we even got the GW reactors going. It was basically the first (broken) meta
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Post by Enderminion on Jan 26, 2017 16:55:31 GMT
the poll says damage over range which means coilguns or cannons because they can punch big holes in ships and lots and lots of little holes
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Post by darkwarriorj on Jan 26, 2017 17:07:40 GMT
I may soon be forced to eat my own words with my own actions, because I just made an amorphous carbon based coilgun weighing at just a couple dozen tons, can hit capships at 410km, shoots 20g slugs at 52km/s, has 10cm of amorph carbon barrel armor and whose combined ammo and gun cost is slightly less than my equivilent laser and radiators setup. No tests yet, and I suspect equivilent cost missiles are still a far better investment, but for the ranges we currently deal with in game, this could be rather useful.
I was used to railguns scaling horribly with their mass and cost for higher velocities. Mostly due to a lack of barrel bracing. Turns out coilguns are probably the answer there.
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Post by argonbalt on Jan 26, 2017 17:29:42 GMT
the poll says damage over range which means coilguns or cannons because they can punch big holes in ships and lots and lots of little holes Yeah but most of those coilguns need magnetic metal glass, which sure is damaging in a sand caster coilgun, but also damn expensive.
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Post by argonbalt on Jan 26, 2017 17:38:46 GMT
I may soon be forced to eat my own words with my own actions, because I just made an amorphous carbon based coilgun weighing at just a couple dozen tons, can hit capships at 410km, shoots 20g slugs at 52km/s, has 10cm of amorph carbon barrel armor and whose combined ammo and gun cost is slightly less than my equivilent laser and radiators setup. No tests yet, and I suspect equivilent cost missiles are still a far better investment, but for the ranges we currently deal with in game, this could be rather useful. I was used to railguns scaling horribly with their mass and cost for higher velocities. Mostly due to a lack of barrel bracing. Turns out coilguns are probably the answer there. What are you using it against though? If it's just stock ships then sure you will blast them away, but try testing against 1 Mm 1 GW equipped laser ship and see how long your guns lasts. Of course if we had better barrel armouring options or embedded cannons inside the spine of the ship+protective shutters coil guns would be better off, currently the laser still holds the advantage.
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Post by lieste on Jan 26, 2017 17:38:52 GMT
I've not used MGM in anything that I've kept beyond the optimisation cycle. The Molybenum alloy armature is superior in some configurations and though expensive compared to railgun ammunition (VanChrome or AmCarbon most often) is much cheaper than MGM.
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Post by darkwarriorj on Jan 26, 2017 18:00:01 GMT
I may soon be forced to eat my own words with my own actions, because I just made an amorphous carbon based coilgun weighing at just a couple dozen tons, can hit capships at 410km, shoots 20g slugs at 52km/s, has 10cm of amorph carbon barrel armor and whose combined ammo and gun cost is slightly less than my equivilent laser and radiators setup. No tests yet, and I suspect equivilent cost missiles are still a far better investment, but for the ranges we currently deal with in game, this could be rather useful. I was used to railguns scaling horribly with their mass and cost for higher velocities. Mostly due to a lack of barrel bracing. Turns out coilguns are probably the answer there. What are you using it against though? If it's just stock ships then sure you will blast them away, but try testing against 1 Mm 1 GW equipped laser ship and see how long your guns lasts. Of course if we had better barrel armouring options or embedded cannons inside the spine of the ship+protective shutters coil guns would be better off, currently the laser still holds the advantage. That's the thing. I haven't tested it yet. I intend to pit it against my own 1gw lasership sometime soon. Given its composition and armor thickness, I am highly optimistic of its chances against my own lasership. Of course, I have yet to actually test this, so I'll get back to you on this. Update: Well, that was incredibly anticlimatic. Following a consistent failure to get my laserstar to actually target the coilguns only and not shread the much weaker rest of the test ship's armor, I used a stock laser frigate instead which, when allowed to get close, used its violet laser on the coilguns. 10cm of armor bought about 10 seconds worth of time only, so while it did far better than every other gun I've ever made against lasers, it still didn't hold a candle to even stock lasers. The biggest problem with guns remains how easily they are sniped off by lasers it seems. Followed by how they are outcompeted by missiles.
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Post by deltav on Jan 26, 2017 19:51:29 GMT
What's the power consumption if the momentum wheels of it? 0.03°/s still sounds like a lot considering the small size of the turret. Is it also up to a GW? Talking about me? If so yeah it's the momentum wheels that take most of the power. That's the fastest I could get them to move with 1GW of power. Without them, the power consumption is only like 30 MWs. Since the guns uses a ton of power no matter what I raised the loader and other figures to use just as much power to get the best possible performance. The thing is the gun weighs 82 ktons. So the power is crazy if you want a good rate of movement in the turret. I tried to not have a turret, but the gun won't lock on or fire without the turret. I would love if someone would show how to get a gun to work without a turrent. I haven't been able to do it.
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Post by deltav on Jan 26, 2017 19:57:53 GMT
I just made a railgun that shoots 113 km/s that can hit capital ships at about 1000-800 km, and missiles at about 200-100 km. The numbers look less, but in war games the ranges are higher. Of course it costs 1.82 Gc, weighs 80kt, and uses 1Gw of power. What is the longest range anyone has gotten with a gun of any type? My railgun *ship* has a 129km/s gun, "some" delta-v and all neccessary crew and equipment to support the weapon for 1.04Gc and 73.5kt. Cross section is 846m^2, smaller than most stock capitals, but 3 times the size of my common line of ships. There was a slightly faster no-spread 134km/s type in the optimisation group but it was too heavy for my tastes (overall something like 79.5kt, and with pitiful turn rate). Half the ship mass is reaction wheels for the gun... makes me wonder whether a non-turreted gun and the same reaction wheels wouldn't work better for the whole ship Traverse rate is 0.193dps, but the reaction wheels use much more power than the rails do to get this - turn around time of 4 minutes from thrusting is only slightly better than a third of the traverse rates... so I might have overcooked something in there... It will reach out to beyond 1.2Mm against the solar lance, and to beyond 1.1Mm vs the fleet carrier, and gunship/laser frigates. Accuracy is 'adequate' with no misses against the hull of a steady target within range when working over turrets, and fairly rapid removal of turrets and other 'bulk' items. Seeing is believing. Please post a screenshot of the details/ stats. Maybe can leave out the settings shot with the "formula" how to make the gun if you don't want to share. Not that I don't believe you, but pics a ton better than just claims.
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Post by deltav on Jan 26, 2017 20:00:28 GMT
I have made a gun that shoots 10 kg flak rounds, it shreds the gunship within seconds! Post screenshots please. Seeing is believing and way more interesting to. Anyone can make any claim. Pics are way better.
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Post by deltav on Jan 26, 2017 20:01:40 GMT
see, GW railguns massing kilotons compared to a 154MW coilgun massing less then ~100 tons (I think) Post screenshot please.
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Post by lieste on Jan 26, 2017 20:02:37 GMT
What are you using it against though? If it's just stock ships then sure you will blast them away, but try testing against 1 Mm 1 GW equipped laser ship and see how long your guns lasts. Of course if we had better barrel armouring options or embedded cannons inside the spine of the ship+protective shutters coil guns would be better off, currently the laser still holds the advantage. That's the thing. I haven't tested it yet. I intend to pit it against my own 1gw lasership sometime soon. Given its composition and armor thickness, I am highly optimistic of its chances against my own lasership. Of course, I have yet to actually test this, so I'll get back to you on this. Update: Well, that was incredibly anticlimatic. Following a consistent failure to get my laserstar to actually target the coilguns only and not shread the much weaker rest of the test ship's armor, I used a stock laser frigate instead which, when allowed to get close, used its violet laser on the coilguns. 10cm of armor bought about 10 seconds worth of time only, so while it did far better than every other gun I've ever made against lasers, it still didn't hold a candle to even stock lasers. The biggest problem with guns remains how easily they are sniped off by lasers it seems. Followed by how they are outcompeted by missiles. When the laser is mounted on small vessels or drones, the laser will win out over the gunship. If the laser is fitted to a larger multi-purpose warship then the highest power railguns can smite it from well outside the Mm range limit of the laser, and can be fitted to ships which mirrored would limit their own weapon to ~700km range.
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Post by deltav on Jan 26, 2017 20:08:48 GMT
the poll says damage over range which means coilguns or cannons because they can punch big holes in ships and lots and lots of little holes What I meant by "damage over range" is not just long range, but having power to take out ships at that range. At least that's how I meant it. For instance a 300MW stock laser that takes an hour to destroy a ship isn't damage over range even if it can reach 100 km. Railguns, cannons, coilguns, and lasers all have that ability. No?
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