Energy loss on super high energy impacts
Apr 29, 2017 12:15:40 GMT
SevenOfCarina, bigbombr, and 3 more like this
Post by omnipotentvoid on Apr 29, 2017 12:15:40 GMT
So, I'm having fun building really big guns now that we can change the design limits. The first creation I made after "slightly" increasing the length and width of railguns is this:
Full of joy and anticipation I loaded this thing into a sandbox and fired it at a laser frigate. After the first hit, I was sorely disappointed and somewhat confused.
The round had penetrated the front armour and rad shielding plate as expected and destroyed the crew module behind it. While in itself spectacular damage for a single railgun round, I had expected more from a round that had energy equivalent of almost exactly 1 ton of TNT (4.22GJ to be exact).
Since only the first crew module was destroyed, all of the rounds energy must have been dumped into it (minus the little bit that went into making the little 11mm holes in the front armour and rad plate). And while I agree with the game that (effectively) detonating 1t of TNT in a crew module would completely obliterate it, I would expect an event like that to cause severe structural damage to the front of the ship (at least).
My guess to what's happening here is that the game is checking if the projectile would be stopped by the module. In this case it is and since the projectile is so small it also determines that there is no shrapnel. Then it checks if the energy imparted on the module is enough to destroy it (in this case it is, of course) and deletes the module if it is. It does not take into account that the energy imparted into the module should cause it to detonate.
Also, as a side note: the tracers produced by this gun at long range are wider than the laser frigates. It looks weird as hell.
RailgunModule 17.0 GW 11mm Internal Capacitor Railgun "GodSpear" Turreted
UsesCustomName true
PowerConsumption_W 1e+015
Capacitor
Count 1
DielectricComposition Hafnia
Dimensions_m 5.3 4.1
Separation_m 0.00012
Rails
Composition Vanadium Chromium Steel
Thickness_m 0.95
Length_m 10000
BarrelArmor
Composition Vanadium Chromium Steel
Thickness_m 100
Armature
Composition Vanadium Chromium Steel
BoreRadius_m 0.0058
Mass_kg 0.001
Tracer Gadolinium-157
Payload null
Loader
PowerConsumption_W 1e+008
ExternalMount false
InternalMount false
Turret
InnerRadius_m 250
Extruded false
ArmorComposition Aluminum
ArmorThickness_m 0.0001
MomentumWheels
Composition Osmium
RotationalSpeed_RPM 17
AttachedAmmoBay
Capacity 100000000
Stacks 5000
TargetsShips true
TargetsShots true
Full of joy and anticipation I loaded this thing into a sandbox and fired it at a laser frigate. After the first hit, I was sorely disappointed and somewhat confused.
The round had penetrated the front armour and rad shielding plate as expected and destroyed the crew module behind it. While in itself spectacular damage for a single railgun round, I had expected more from a round that had energy equivalent of almost exactly 1 ton of TNT (4.22GJ to be exact).
Since only the first crew module was destroyed, all of the rounds energy must have been dumped into it (minus the little bit that went into making the little 11mm holes in the front armour and rad plate). And while I agree with the game that (effectively) detonating 1t of TNT in a crew module would completely obliterate it, I would expect an event like that to cause severe structural damage to the front of the ship (at least).
My guess to what's happening here is that the game is checking if the projectile would be stopped by the module. In this case it is and since the projectile is so small it also determines that there is no shrapnel. Then it checks if the energy imparted on the module is enough to destroy it (in this case it is, of course) and deletes the module if it is. It does not take into account that the energy imparted into the module should cause it to detonate.
Also, as a side note: the tracers produced by this gun at long range are wider than the laser frigates. It looks weird as hell.