|
Post by elouda on Feb 21, 2017 16:42:42 GMT
Agreed with the above, that would probably be a saner way to do it, and probably easier to handle. At the end of the day projectile energy is the 'business end' of the weapon, and thus that number is interesting from a weapons standpoint.
Thus the weapon listing could become something like '32MJ 3mm Railgun (16MW)', as an example for a system firing a 32MJ projectile every 2 seconds, resulting in a power draw of 16MW (in a perfect system anyway).
If we also get separate handling for capacitors, then the options for how to design these also expand quite a bit.
|
|
|
Post by deltav on Feb 21, 2017 16:56:02 GMT
Thanks for everyone who is commenting. Yes what I wanted is really try to understand what is happening in our railguns, backwards and forwards, break the idea down, and try to look at it from all sides, really understand it, because nothing I could find online addressed our problem of rate of fire in railguns, and the Dev Blog doesn't address it. There is no mention of why a 1 MW loader somehow speeds up rate of fire, and also why power to the rails relates to rate of fire, when the rails themselves do not directly load the rounds. The whole concept is very murky I think for most non STEM members of this board. When I bring it up, older members go right to "you should already know this" mode, and I think new members are afraid to ask about it, or afraid to upset anyone with too many questions. But I would venture to say, 99% of the people who are not engineers or scientists, would not have any idea how rate of fire affects our computer modeled railguns from the data we have unless they have a long background in studying STEM as a hobby. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On a personal note... I will freely admit I am missing a lot of concepts in physics, after all, I haven't taken it for 15 years, and even then I was studying Architecture, and I learned it just enough to pass the class. Plus, we never talked about electricity and electrical motors, or anything similar to a railgun, at least we barely covered it. So I would just say, thanks for all comments, but the ones that are most helpful from those who "get it" and have a STEM background, are to focus on COADE and science. Please bypass the personal judgements like "You should already know this", or "Go get a textbook", or "this or that action is dubious" because it just turns people off, after all we are all here for fun. Your opinion/knowledge is relevant to the discussion, but that doesn't give you the right to speak freely and say whatever comes to mind. No one is getting paid here except Qswitched. And no one is interested in your personal opinion of them, if you share it, most people will just stop reading. So my request for those of superior knowledge when confronted with a person who in your eyes is clearly has holes in theirs, is to take a second and think. Do you want to try to break down the ideas in your words and explain them like they would in a classroom, going for application to COADE specifically and in detail? If yes, then take your time and try to share your points in the nicest and least confrontational way you can, PM them if you have to first. Then you can talk things out without making anyone feel silly. And if you don't have the patience, ignore the "physics noobs" looking for help, and just ignore them completely. That's my two dollars We are all here for fun.
|
|
|
Post by Easy on Feb 21, 2017 17:10:29 GMT
deltav college undergraduate physics (200 level) and calculus 1&2 should allow familiarity with almost all concepts in CoDE. You're still going to get confused by coilguns and lasers and general nonlinear systems weirdness but knowing how physical systems can be related to an electrical circuit with resistance, capacitance and inductance, the parts can be understood. Of course algebra, trigonometry/geometry and the SI unit system can get you most of the way there. Personally I mostly just fiddle with sliders to make the numbers bigger or smaller. But my academic background helps me understand what the slider actually means.
|
|
|
Post by deltav on Feb 21, 2017 17:16:23 GMT
deltav college undergraduate physics (200 level) and calculus 1&2 should allow familiarity with almost all concepts in CoDE. You're still going to get confused by coilguns and lasers and general nonlinear systems weirdness but knowing how physical systems can be related to an electrical circuit with resistance, capacitance and inductance, the parts can be understood. Of course algebra, trigonometry/geometry and the SI unit system can still get you most of the way there. Yes I am sure, but how that applies to COADE directly is worthy of discussion and deserves to be addressed in detail, and nowhere on this Board, nor on the internet (as far as I could find) is this subject of rate of fire of railguns based on MW provided to the system addressed. Don't you agree? I mean think of KSP. It really helps the layman understand all matter of space/ aeronautical science, and I think COADE has the potential to be as popular as KSP, and to do even more. So if you have the time, please think about creating something comprehensive, something that explains all the weirdness involved, (stock railguns that break physics, etc.) and why if this is really so, why Qswitched would leave these in the game, etc. In fact I really want to be a part of writing a guide to COADE for noobies, to save them so much time and frustration explaining basic concepts in game, what the graphs in whatnot in game design mean, materials and best uses, missiles, railguns, coilguns, cannons, etc best uses, flare best uses and so on. If you aren't interested, man I get it, it's a lot of work. Then I would say just ignore us noobies asking our noobie questions. But for those (not saying you or anyone in particular) who just say, "You should already know this or that", well that is frankly obnoxious and unhelpful. A little goes a long way. You don't have to teach a physics course, just explain how this works in regards to railguns in your own words, and why you think "the most scientifically accurate space warfare game ever" might model railguns in this way.
|
|
|
Post by vegetal on Feb 21, 2017 17:18:06 GMT
The fact electromag guns are broken is pretty obvious. A fact indeed.
What isn't clear to me, and I don't recall someone with a good explanation in the forums, is WHY they are broken.
For that I guess we would need access to the underlying equations programmed in the game. I hope Q has figured it out for the upcoming patch.
|
|
|
Post by deltav on Feb 21, 2017 17:21:38 GMT
Yes vegetal, that's exactly what I am wondering. Why are they broken, how can we prove in a deep and comprehensive way they are broken, and also why Qwitched would leave even stock railguns ,like the 3mm, this way, even after many patches.
|
|
|
Post by vegetal on Feb 21, 2017 17:25:48 GMT
Yes vegetal, that's exactly what I am wondering. Why are they broken, how can we prove in a deep and comprehensive way they are broken, and also why Qwitched would leave even stock railguns ,like the 3mm, this way, even after many patches. No need to prove, it has already been proven. Like I said, it's fact. Basic thermodynamics. The problem is why.
|
|
|
Post by caiaphas on Feb 21, 2017 17:26:04 GMT
deltav college undergraduate physics (200 level) and calculus 1&2 should allow familiarity with almost all concepts in CoDE. You're still going to get confused by coilguns and lasers and general nonlinear systems weirdness but knowing how physical systems can be related to an electrical circuit with resistance, capacitance and inductance, the parts can be understood. Of course algebra, trigonometry/geometry and the SI unit system can still get you most of the way there. Yes I am sure, but regardless, how that applies to COADE directly is worthy of discussion and deserves to be addressed in detail, and nowhere on this Board, nor on the internet (as far as I could find) is this subject of rate of fire of railguns based on MW provided to the system addressed. So if you are up to the challenge, please try to create something comprehensive, something that explains all the weirdness involved, (stock railguns that break physics, etc.) and why if this is really so, why Qswitched would leave these in the game, etc. If you aren't interested, ignore posts by physics noobs trying to break down the subject. But for those (not saying you or anyone in particular) who just say, "You should already know this or that", well that is frankly obnoxious and unhelpful. A little goes a long way. You don't have to teach a physics course, just explain how this works in regards to railguns in your own words, and why you think "the most scientifically accurate space warfare game ever" might model railguns in this way. Rounding errors, probably. Algorithms get funky when you have values really close to mathematical singularities.
|
|
|
Post by deltav on Feb 21, 2017 17:37:18 GMT
Saying "this is a fact, no need to address it", isn't helpful to anyone. Those who see it clearly don't need the subject addressed, and those who don't understand it are still in the dark about it. So either way, this kind of statement or comment, it sets the conversation back, not moves it forward.
I'll leave off here for now. Thanks everyone.
|
|
|
Post by ross128 on Feb 21, 2017 17:39:42 GMT
Well, what exactly is wrong with the underlying formula that *causes* it to break conservation of energy, I don't know. Because I don't know what formulas the game uses under the hood.
For why the end results are wrong though, there's two things to consider:
1: Energy can only be imparted on the round while it is in the barrel, obviously. The time the round spends in the barrel is all the time you have to do this, so peak power is total energy divided by time spent in the barrel. For most EM guns in the game, this value is significantly higher than displayed value in. This can be explained away with capacitors, however, that brings up the second thing.
2: While the gun is firing continuously, it needs to supply energy to each and every projectile to accelerate it. It has a certain amount of time between shots to draw this energy, which gives you an average rate of power consumption. For most EM guns in the game, this is also higher than power in, which can't be explained by any mechanism but can be mitigated by simply lowering the rate of fire (thus giving the capacitors used to explain away point 1 time to charge).
One way to visualize it is with water. Let's say you have a big bath tub, and the tub has a trap door on the bottom that you can use to dump all the water in it at the same time. The bath tub is your capacitor. You have a faucet that is feeding water into the tub, that's your reactor. The power in is how fast the water is flowing through the faucet, the total energy is all the water in the tub, the power out is how fast the tub can dump that water.
Now let's say you have a conveyor belt with buckets on it, and it's going under your capacitor tub. As each one passes by, you want to open the trap door and fill it up before the conveyor belt moves it away. Those are the bullets. The time each one spends under the capacitor tub is the time in the barrel, while the spacing between them on the belt is the time between shots.
Although the tub can dump all of its water extremely quickly, it can't dump water it doesn't have. You need to wait for the faucet to fill it up. If you pull the lever on the trap door so fast that the faucet can't keep up, you'll never have enough water to fill any of the buckets on the belt. You need to space the tubs on the belt out enough so that when the next one is under the tub, the tub will be full.
If you don't have a capacitor, then you're really in a pickle. You'll either need a really huge faucet (lots of power in), or you'll have to slow the conveyor belt down so that each bucket spends more time under the faucet (more time in the barrel, which if you don't want to change the exit velocity means a longer barrel).
|
|
|
Post by Easy on Feb 21, 2017 17:47:23 GMT
deltav college undergraduate physics (200 level) and calculus 1&2 should allow familiarity with almost all concepts in CoDE. You're still going to get confused by coilguns and lasers and general nonlinear systems weirdness but knowing how physical systems can be related to an electrical circuit with resistance, capacitance and inductance, the parts can be understood. Of course algebra, trigonometry/geometry and the SI unit system can still get you most of the way there. Yes I am sure, but regardless, how that applies to COADE directly is worthy of discussion and deserves to be adressed in detail, and nowhere on this Board, nor on the internet (as far as I could find) is this subject of rate of fire of railguns based on MW provided to the system addressed. So if you up to the challenge, please try to create something comprehensive, something that explains all the weirdness involved, (stock railguns that break physics, etc.) and why if this is really so, why Qswitched would leave these in the game, etc. If you aren't interested, ignore posts by physics noobs trying to break down the subject. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_forceForce = current*(cross product of magnetic field and a vector relating to the length of wire.) Simplified where the current flowing through the projectile is perpendicular to the magnetic field: Force = current * width of projectile * magnetic field strength. But the magnetic field strength comes from the current moving between the rails. So you have to calculate that magnetic field strength. But you already know the current is equal to the current flowing through the projectile and the width of the projectile is equal to the distance between the rails. So each rail is an electromagnet and the projectile itself is an electromagnet. The rails are attracting each other and the projectile is being flung by the above equation. Also F=ma, and its derivatives where position=initial position + velocity*time + 0.5*acceleration*time^2.
|
|
|
Post by deltav on Feb 21, 2017 17:49:26 GMT
ross128 This is great, breaking down the concepts the way you see them simply. I will spend quite a bit of time breaking this down, thanks a ton. I had an idea about #2, but I know it's a stretch. "2: While the gun is firing continuously, it needs to supply energy to each and every projectile to accelerate it. It has a certain amount of time between shots to draw this energy, which gives you an average rate of power consumption. For most EM guns in the game, this is also higher than power in, which can't be explained by any mechanism but can be mitigated by simply lowering the rate of fire (thus giving the capacitors used to explain away point 1 time to charge)." Perhaps energy cells with high capacity, or flywheels that are spun up and store vast amounts of what is needed for extended rates of high rates of fire. The Navy is developing something similar. "Navy wants electromagnetic railgun to pump out 100s of rounds per minute." "The Navy apparently wants to take the system a step further and develop a high-average-power pulsed power system able to store up to 200MJ of energy and deliver this energy to the launcher at a rate of once every 6 seconds... for bursts of 100's of shots." "The system must also include all the required ancillaries (prime power, charging, cooling, and controls) and must be modular and transportable." "System must be scalable - a fraction of the total system can operate independently and the energy capability can be increased/decreased by adding/subtracting modules as necessary. Reducing system volume is important, but this has to be balanced with system fault tolerance and cost. The energy density goal for the pulsed power component (excluding bus-work to launcher) is 1 MJ/m3 or better," the Navy stated." www.networkworld.com/article/2221638/security/navy-wants-electromagnetic-railgun-to-pump-out-100s-of-rounds-per-minute.htmlSo with a system like this, I wonder how that would come into play. Anyhow, thanks for this, I will really ponder your post and read it a bunch of times, this is gold.
|
|
|
Post by vegetal on Feb 21, 2017 17:55:39 GMT
Saying "this is a fact, no need to address it", isn't helpful to anyone. Those who see it clearly don't need the subject addressed, and those who don't understand it are still in the dark about it. So either way, this kind of statement or comment, it sets the conversation back, not moves it forward. I'll leave off here for now. Thanks everyone. You get a bit emotional sometimes. I just said that the "prove" part has been addressed to death here. Like I, and many before me, have already said many times, it's a matter of conservation of energy, basic physics, and we spent quite some time explaining that, yes? Is it that you didn't understand the concept still? I can be very patient, no problem. But beyond that, I can't add much. Maybe no one here can without looking under the hood, I don't know.
|
|
|
Post by ross128 on Feb 21, 2017 18:04:20 GMT
That's what I was pointing out with my bathtub analogy. We have those "energy cells", they're called capacitors. Well, we don't have them in-game, but we pretty much assume any EM weapon is using them because otherwise that peak power is ridiculous.
But like the bathtub, the capacitor can't dump energy it doesn't have. So while the capacitor solves problem 1, you still have problem 2: you can't fire another shot until you've given your capacitor time to recharge.
Now, that said, if you have a very large surplus of capacitors, you *could* use them to fire a rapid burst until they are depleted. But once that burst is done, you'll be back to one-shot-per-charge because now all your capacitors are empty. You won't be able to do another burst unless you spend the same amount of time charging as you would have spent firing those shots.
And I assure you, no ship is carrying enough capacitors to fire their entire ammo reserve without charging. That would just be way too much mass and volume.
|
|
|
Post by deltav on Feb 21, 2017 18:05:48 GMT
vegetalPlease be a part of this if you want. If not, ignore, cause this is all about fun right? Totally understand if you aren't interested.
|
|