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Post by lieste on Jan 26, 2017 20:10:51 GMT
I do have to question just how fast a 40kt lump of dense rail material is 'shot away' by relatively low powered weaponry though... sure, damage it fast as it would be under high stress during firing... but to actually vaporise it is a bit of a big ask IMO.
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Post by deltav on Jan 26, 2017 20:12:48 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 With that in mind do you think the weapons the way they are configured now is more realistic? Is this possible this change just made weapons even more imbalanced in favor of lasers?
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Post by deltav on Jan 26, 2017 20:15:00 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. Post screenshots! Nerd porn.
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Post by gedzilla on Jan 26, 2017 20:15:07 GMT
nweageofpower, i see that lasers are also very powerful, and are probably the best way to deliver death, on the other hand though, they (and their GW reactors) require tons of Radiators. pretty much every Laser death star ship ive seen looks like a butterfly: really long thin stem in the middle with the reactors, crew, lasers, and then huge Radiators extending out really far, like a butterfly's wings.
The way i see an engagement going down: Needle coilgun drones enter range, they immediately start spewing out a cone of fire. they all get lased very soon after (matter of seconds ?). but the bullets are still on the way, and cant be stopped. the laser death star ship starts to dodge. unfortunately for it, it has very slow acceleration (i have yet to see a laser death ship with non-miniscule acceleration, those radiatiors get pretty massy, altogether). the bullets spend a very long time closing the insanely massive gap. however, by the time they reach the laser ship they have spread out in a cone, and the laser ship doesnt avoid them all. a bunch of radiators get snipped off, even a glancing blow will do them in.
engagement 2: the incoming carrier launches more drones, they enter range, fire, and get lased. but since a some radiators were destroyed in the first engagement, the laser is operating at less power. since its operating at lower power, it takes longer to lase the gun drones, and they get more shots off. they still all die quickly tho. but this larger volley takes out even more radiators.
engagment 3: rinse and repeat
this continues to happen until all the radiators are destroyed and the laser ship is helpless.
this leads me to believe massive laser ships will operate primarily in a defensive role, near a station that could repair, and add on more radiators as they get taken out.
If you could show me a laser death ship that has decent acceleration (and good dV), this entire engagement changes, but every laser death ship that ive seen has had abysmal acceleration.
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Post by deltav on Jan 26, 2017 20:21:37 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. How in the world did a stock laser frigate get anywhere close to a ship armed with a coilgun with a 400km plus range? In my sims with the long range coilguns/railguns (500km plus) , only missiles and drones were a problem sent in a large enough swarm.
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Post by deltav on Jan 26, 2017 20:25:31 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. "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..." Suggestion thread time! You know I wonder how long it takes before some clever programer starts making mods. I really hope Qswitched really stays on tops of listening to our suggestions and making them happen. If modders start fooling around with the program it could be a bad thing although it might be for the best.
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Post by lieste on Jan 26, 2017 20:28:15 GMT
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. How in the world did a stock laser frigate get anywhere close to a ship armed with a coilgun with a 400km plus range? In my sims with the long range coilguns/railguns (500km plus) , only missiles and drones were a problem sent in a large enough swarm. High powered lasers on small ships are a definite threat, and the railguns need either their own PD lasers or an escort with lasers fitted to be safe vs missiles or small drones.
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Post by deltav on Jan 26, 2017 20:31:05 GMT
I do have to question just how fast a 40kt lump of dense rail material is 'shot away' by relatively low powered weaponry though... sure, damage it fast as it would be under high stress during firing... but to actually vaporise it is a bit of a big ask IMO. I'm with you. A 82kt rail gun is basically an almost completely solid huge hunk of the strongest materials we use in game. Hard to imagine what would destroy that in any reasonable time. No matter the power, something like that is probably the strongest part of any ship. Maybe the working parts are vulnerable though.
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Post by Enderminion on Jan 26, 2017 20:36:10 GMT
see, GW railguns massing kilotons compared to a 154MW coilgun massing less then ~100 tons (I think) Post screenshot please. 6:30pm PST and it will be posted, most of the power is used by the turret
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Post by lieste on Jan 26, 2017 20:36:19 GMT
(note I roughly halved the mass of the turreted gun to account for the rail alone, based on my general proportion for high traverse rate guns (in the context of a 40kt rail anyway))...
And meanwhile resistojets can be completely isolated from their armour envelope by damage and remain functional, as can radiators... (i.e. the radiator or resistojet is sat in a void in the hull bulwark and whipple shield caused by erosion by laser fire.
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Post by deltav on Jan 26, 2017 22:06:22 GMT
Coilguns that fire kinetic kill missiles is a really fascinating idea of mixing weapon types together. It makes coilguns even more useful. It's basically a kind of "smart bullet" or "smart shell" if you think about it. Here the range is about 100km, but it's interesting to see if the range could be made even greater. This is an idea I've been trying to build, but have been having problems with. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZm9DWIYXOk
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hast5250
New Member
Location: Nuking you from orbit.
Posts: 26
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Post by hast5250 on Jan 26, 2017 22:32:34 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. Don't know how to.....
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Post by deltav on Jan 26, 2017 22:53:19 GMT
Post screenshots please. Seeing is believing and way more interesting to. Anyone can make any claim. Pics are way better. Don't know how to..... Let me google that for you. lmgtfy.com/Look on your keyboard, there should be a "PrtScn" button. Find the screen you want to show, and press that button a few times. Sometimes you have to press ctrl+PrtScn depending on your particular setup. Edit: Now you have two ways to do it! Thanks. Then you paste that screenshot. Sometimes you can paste it right where you want, or you might have to paste it into "Paint" or some other program to make it into a jpg file you can post here. It's really easy and essential to a board like this. Pics are tons more helpful. www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2475902,00.asp
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Post by theholyinquisition on Jan 26, 2017 22:53:47 GMT
Post screenshots please. Seeing is believing and way more interesting to. Anyone can make any claim. Pics are way better. Don't know how to..... Upload your image to an image site ( I reccomend imgur, because you don't need an account) and then click the link image button, next to the black and white clapboard.
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Post by lieste on Jan 26, 2017 23:10:35 GMT
Lighter versions of the two railguns with light turret traverse and lower power draw: The 134km/s ship after initially firing on the fleet carrier (modified with sharp nose to make it a little bit more survivable), then damages the solar lance with it's first hits on the new target at 1.21Mm and kills it in nearly the same instant.
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