NationStates Jolt Archive

Alright, I want to know how people got around this when using them on their battleships and such. I must admit that I use them as well, however, although I knew that there was no fuse that could power the shell, I didn't expect that the problem would be as huge as I read today. So, the problem is the following:


Rail Guns in the Real World: The above situation describes an ideal rail gun. Unfortunately not everything in this world is ideal, and thus rail guns cannot be ideal. The following section describes some problems with rail guns in the physical world.

Power, Heat, and Fusing: Because the rails in a rail gun are not super conductors they have a resistance. When current is run through a rail power (heat) is produced according to the equation P = i^2 * R, where P is the power produced, i is the current, and R is the resistance of a rail. Since the current that must go into a rail gun is so massive the amount of heat that is produced this way is very high and thus may fuse the projectile to the rails which will either render the rail gun useless or slow down the acceleration of the projectile. A solution to this problem is to make the rails in a rail gun super conductors.

Repulsion: Each rail in a rail gun carries a current anti-parallel to the current in the other rail. The laws of physics show that two anti-parallel currents repel each other. Since the currents in a rail gun are large the repulsion between the two rails is very large. Rail guns thus have the tendancy to break after a few uses, which makes them not very cost effective.


As far as I know there's only one known superconducter, and that requires it to be cooled to thirty degrees above absolute zero.

So, any people want to step up and give me a reason to continue using them on my ships? Hell, I sure hope so - because I love the range on them.

Ok,

I feel pretty stupid asking this, but could someone actually give a good explanation as to what a railgun is?

Well
http://www.railgun.org/images/rg_front_2.jpg
http://www.railgun.org/

Not that hard at all, and if memory serves me correctly, the US navy is planning to have railguns on ships in the next 10 years.

What is a rail gun? Simply put, a rail gun is a gun that launches projectiles using magnetic fields and current instead of consumed fuel. Not only do rail guns not consume any standard fuel, but they accelerate projectiles to a much higher velocity (the figure on the left depicts a rail gun firing a project at extremely high velocity).

The idea of a rail gun has been around for many years, but it was not until the mid 1970's that people started seriously developing rail gun technology. During the late 1970's the University of Texas began developing rail gun technology which became popular due to the strategic missile defense system that the U.S. government wanted to use rail guns in.

http://www.rit.edu/~dih0658/images/texasrailgun.gif

Rail guns, like everything else in the physical world, are based on physics. This section will describe the technology and physics that make rail guns work. A basic working knowledge of electrical current and magnetism is assumed.

An Ideal Rail Gun:The basic scientific setup of a rail gun is as follows:

http://www.rit.edu/~dih0658/images/simplerail.jpg

As one can see from the above diagram, a rail gun consists of two conducting rails connected to a power source. The two rails are then also connected by a conducting projectile. When the power source is turned on current will run through the rails and the projectile. The force between two parallel currents is dictated by the equation F = i * L x B, where F is the net force, i is the current, L is the legth of the rails in the circuit, and B is the magnetic force produced by the current. The force that is produced by the rails is perpendicular to the current and magnetic field, this force accelerates the projectile to velocities as high as 10 km/s. Looking at the above equation one can deduce that larger currents will yield larger forces and thus higher velocities. Increasing the length of the rails will also increase the force and thus velocity of the projectile. The magnetic field B is increased with the increase of current as dictated by the Bio-Savart law.

Well
http://www.railgun.org/images/rg_front_2.jpg
http://www.railgun.org/

Not that hard at all, and if memory serves me correctly, the US navy is planning to have railguns on ships in the next 10 years.


The problems with that is that they still haven't solved the super conducter problem, and nobody knows who close they are to doing so - refer to the first post of this thread for more information on this.

You would have to find a stronger material to make the gun out of. Something stronger than even diamond. But not sure what. Just comments. :)

Compressed, buckminsterfullerene (buckyballs) are stronger than diamond.

Compressed, buckminsterfullerene (buckyballs) are stronger than diamond.

But they tend not to combine with other material very good. So thats really out of the question.

Compressed, buckminsterfullerene (buckyballs) are stronger than diamond.


The C60 buckyball is used as a center for a matrix, in which you weave diamond around it, thus hardening the diamond. The problem is that buckyballs don't bond with anything, meaning that the diamond can't weave itself around the buckyball. I already talked about it with several proffessional chemists about it - and they all said the same thing. That's why I don't use it anymore.

Actually full sized rail-guns exist but they have to be repaired after each shot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_gun

Actually full sized rail-guns exist but they have to be repaired after each shot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_gun

Oh, it's know that they have been built. But what's the point of military application, if so? That's the question.

I would advise going with either a coilgun or quench gun as they would be more practical than a traditional railgun.

What is the rate of fire on a traditonal railgun? Does it take a long time to reload between launches, or are there multilaunch "magazine" type systems?

Its true, a full sized railgun exists. It is currently undergoing trials with DERA (the UK equivalent to ARPA in the US) in Scotland. They can get it to work but it is a one shot gun only, a usable prototype is on the board but details are heavily classified. What I am telling you now is my project group's speculation on the technology and how it could be made effectively.

As already mentioned there are some problems with railgun technology.
Firstly the superconductors. They are using some copper-niobium alloy that works at around -120oC, about 150oC above absolute zero, so colling it with liquid nitrogen is just fine. These are the same magnets as are used in hospital NMR scanners, but somewhat more powerful. So, problem solved.

Secondly, materials...
Tannenmille, you were close. We feel that a simmilar material, carbon nanotubes, would be ideal for the barrel as they not only conduct electricity but are incredibly strong and can be bound to other materials in the same way as normal carbon fiber if necessary. However, since they are also incredibly expensive a titanium alloy would work if suitably reinforced, it doesn't actually need to be that strong so long as you don mind refitting the railguns after a couple hundred firings. To be honest, since the projectile need not be in contact with the magnets you could just suspend the projectile in air, by using a tripole magnet you would get the same accuracy, which is what the barrel is there for, this could be further increased by inducing a spin on the projectile by rotating the magnets as it is fired, an interesting prospect which I had only just considered..

Finally, power...
Even though we are using superconductors for the magnets we still need a significant amount of power to fire the projectile with any reasonable velocity. The US navy plans to put a railgun cannon on its new DDX class destroyer. They are talking about a 2,000 + km range by firing the projectile into orbit, this is excessive. For any real naval battle, space or sea 500km direct line of sight fire is more than enough, otherwise your accuracy is pathetic. To do this and still be able to punch through some armour needs alot of power, something in the region of a couple of nuclear reactors running at full capacity, this then adds problems to the superconductors...
The advantage of having such a high power system is that if a target gets within say 200km a single salvo will probably cut clean through it, nearly regardless of the armour they may have.

Overall this is some very interesting weapons technology. We will see it on larger ships easily in the next decade and definitely on spacebourne weapons platforms whenever they appear.
Keep the railgun alive. :)

Railguns are mostly dependent on the power source.

For example, if you run a railgun off a fusion reactor, you can fire very quickly, due to the huge output of the reactor recharging your capacitor banks quickly.

If you run it off a coal burning generator or something, chances are, it'll take forever between shots.

Why not cool the copper coils with liquid nitrogen? ;)

We did this in physics class just last week. We put a iron rod in the middle of a coil of copper wire, with one end hanging out. We hooked it up to a rather large current source, and upon turning the tihing on the iron rod was dragged in.

Turn it off while the rod is still in motion, and is headed toward another coil which will just accelerate it more, and you've got yourself a gun. They must be turned off though, or the rod will just stay in the middle.

They did heat up quick though.

PS - There's more than one superconductor, Macabees. *LINK* (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconductor)

General Unpleasantness. STAY AROUND, NS needs more people like you.

If there were a legitimate and scientifically backed up reason for the continuance of the use of railguns on your ships then the real world would be using railguns as a practical weapon.

Which is exactly why America is building a railgun ship for its navy in the next few years.( I believe, can't remember exactly, but belive it was something like 09 or 2010 it was going to come out?? Maybe someone else knows more about this and can confirm teh date but it is coming out.) Point is railguns are legitimate even though their not in current use.

There is a rumor that the DDX is going to play around with that, and I see it happening just because our navy loves spending industrial amounts of money one things that many never pay off.

Myself, because of primarily the large power considerations, I tend to not use railguns on naval platforms. Instead, I use them with dedicated power plant systems for coastal defence. It's admittedly tremendously expensive, which is why I feel it's better to place them on land. If the hillside around the gun is destroyed, any damage can be repaired - takes time, but can be repaired. If the rest of the ship is blown to pieces, you lose a very expensive piece of equipment that in my thoughts should be... not expendable, but more readily replaced.

That's why my big ships use ETCs, if you come near my coastline, however... you best be holding on to your sailor's cap...

Surely a railgun could be made using the same principles of that japanese train that runs on magnets, if it actually exists, that is.

Someone i know is doind a 3D programming course at a university, and some technicians there have made a titanium-bolt firing railgun the size of an accoustic guitar.

I think your talking about the Malgev, and ya it exists. Theres one in Germany and I believe S Korea and there going to build one in America soon.

I think your talking about the Malgev, and ya it exists. Theres one in Germany and I believe S Korea and there going to build one in America soon.

OOC:

I believe that America already has one. I recall seeing on Modern Marvels that an university has already built a mag-lev train system for transportation of its students. I forgot where the university is located, though. I think it's in either Arizona, California, or Oregon.


That aside....

I've been wondering when would be a feasible time period for infantry railguns? 2020? 2030? 2040?

Just wondering, as I thought it'd be nifty to have infantry finally render tanks obsolete, and usher into a new age of infantry warfare. :p

There are already infantry carrying shells designed to go through the sides of armored vehicles, and I would wager for some infantry loads being able to penetrate armor.

However, at this point, I do not see the tank going obsolete, for the simplest of reasons - large mobile firepower has mobility infantry cannot match.

There are already infantry carrying shells designed to go through the sides of armored vehicles, and I would wager for some infantry loads being able to penetrate armor.

However, at this point, I do not see the tank going obsolete, for the simplest of reasons - large mobile firepower has mobility infantry cannot match.

However, when infantry can effectively negate all conventional armor vehicles, then the Age of Tanks will have passed on.

What I refer to is when it would become too inefficient and expensive to produce tanks for use aganist rail-gun wielding infantry who have weapons capable of effectively negating 4000+ mm RHA tank armor.

I truly wonder how long the Tank will stay around then pass by, like what happened to single bullet muskets, sailing vessels, steam machinery, etc. :p

However, when infantry can effectively negate all conventional armor vehicles, then the Age of Tanks will have passed on.

What I refer to is when it would become too inefficient and expensive to produce tanks for use aganist rail-gun wielding infantry who have weapons capable of effectively negating 4000+ mm RHA tank armor.

I truly wonder how long the Tank will stay around then pass by, like what happened to single bullet muskets, sailing vessels, steam machinery, etc. :p

Well, let's see... we're playing with carbon nano-whiskers and moving to an age when a plate as thick as a pencil will have 15,000 RHA defense... not soon, but if we manage to create "nanofactories", it's certainly a given (carbon ring structures being what they are).

Ever since man learned to ride a horse, no one has ever managed to completely remove a "cavalry" from the battlefield. That today's is an armored machine does nothing to negate that lesson - mobility is a great advantage.

Muskets became machine guns. Sailing ships gave way to Battleships - and Submarines. Steam machinery became nuclear - it all evolved to adapt to the new format.

And this is what I see coming in the future. Tanks will still exist in some format - a "primative" defense shield of x-rays and magnetic coils isn't that farfetched, and you can't penetrate what your bullet can't hit.

Sharina, railguns wont be seen on infantrymen until we've minaturised nuclear reactors so they fit on someone's back, ie. not for a very long time. Think that the average mobile phone only lasts a few hours on the best battery technology available right now, and then imagine trying to power something powerful enough to shoot a dart through several inches of advanced armour.

PS. Nice thread, Mac.

Sharina, railguns wont be seen on infantrymen until we've minaturised nuclear reactors so they fit on someone's back, ie. not for a very long time. Think that the average mobile phone only lasts a few hours on the best battery technology available right now, and then imagine trying to power something powerful enough to shoot a dart through several inches of advanced armour.

PS. Nice thread, Mac.

Thanks for the clarification, Praetonia.

However, I remember from when I read through some websites about railguns, there were several prototype railguns with 10 car batteries powering them.

Also, wouldn't a miniaturized pebblehead nuclear reactor be a reasonable way to go for a good portable power source? Aren't NS'ers using those reactors in mobile land units?

What about a central "re-charger" generator, then have infantry charge up their railguns for one shot, store the energy from that generator into batteries for one shot? With one shot per infantry soldier, even 20 infantry guys would put "The Hurt" on modern MBT's.

Again, I'm just throwing around ideas here, to see what would be possible and what can't be possible.

ZPE.... burst battery system... I can think of power sources that won't go mushroom if shot...

Thanks for the clarification, Praetonia.

However, I remember from when I read through some websites about railguns, there were several prototype railguns with 10 car batteries powering them.
Oh you can make a railgun with a few pieces of metal and some AAs, but that doesnt mean it'll be any good against a tank (think: fires coins a few metres). I don't know if a miniturised pebblebedded reactor would be possible, but it would be extremely expensive and if it gets hit it'll spray seering hot radioactive water at high pressure across the battlefield, and then leak irradiated dust particles and uranium.

I truly wonder how long the Tank will stay around then pass by, like what happened to single bullet muskets, sailing vessels, steam machinery, etc. :p

http://stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Myths/Myths_Tech_Examples.html

Single shot muskets developed into modern rifles, the technology never left us, we just added to it.

Sailing vessels had engines added, lost their sails, but the technology never left us, we just added to it.

A modern Nimitz class carrier is driven by steam turbines. That technology hasn't left us at all.

Tanks will evolve to meet whatever threatens them on the battlefield. They will not go away, they will just change. No Star Trek ground combat with infantry only, thank God.

I would suggest doing the math. I'm using... Well, claiming, given that all of it is imagination and (Very) optimistic math, and not actually existing, friggin Robots with micronised fission reactors in their chest powering their railguns, and still their equivalent of a modern infantry rifle (Firing 9 gram projectiles) manages an e0 of only about 450 Kilojoule in its absolutely highest wankmode imaginable (Something I intend to downscale, as I made several mistakes while calculating this), with a muzzle velocity of about 10km/s (For comparison: NATO standards manage between 3- 5 Kilojoule). Compare this to the about 11 Megajoule an Abrams main gun manages... While recognising that I upwanked my railguns quite a bit (An inductivity of 1 Millihenry, rather than the (Realistic) Microhenry, to name one example).

I'm sorry, but modern, existing tanks would still be able to shrug off Infantry Railguns, with casual ease. Now, make this a postmodern/ futuristic tank, and, well... Yeah. Forget it.

Der angst is right. There is no way in anyone's hell an infantryman could carry one of these babies and do more that cause minor scrapes and bruises. I have physically been hit with the railgun that praetoria is talking about (an amusing accident) and it didn't do anything much.
In fact I don't ever see railguns being used on land, standard rifles and cannon are still far more effective than a realistic tank size railgun would ever be, unless we had mech/titan style stuff crawling around the battlefield.
As I mentioned in my earlier post you want anything that happens to come within 500km to seriously regret it, think cleaving a large dreadnaught class starship in two with a single salvo. This really limits railguns to space and sea, but don't forget bombardment from space with these beasties, gravity would make the resulting explosion even more impressive.

The trouble if they did work at all, it that they would be large to move around anyway. In space, they might work well but you'd need reactor attached to it. On Earth, current weapons are more cost effective.

With suitable superconductors, I wonder if you might be able to get a capacitor-"magazine" for a support-type coilgun. Instead of firing from a generator, have a limitted charge superconducting loop (it would have to hold a charge for about three days to be worthwhile, and I don't know if we even HAVE any materials that could do that yet) being "loaded" into the gun. When you activated the weapon (like taking off a safety before battle), the capacitor would then charge the coils.

In firing, instead of charging the coils, the projectile would be held against the coils, and propelled by the coils "burping" in sequence as they overloaded. This way, the powerup problems in a coilgun would be negated, since it would be powering down.

My concerns would be controlling the rate of coil failure in sequence, and the damage that might result from consistently blowing out the interior each shot.

Eh, my two cents.

Oh, and about buckyballs... in addition to the valid points already made, they're also toxic. If you breath in particles, it's bad for you, since your body can't do anything with it.

And since the railgun would be generating such a large magnetic to fire it's projectile, all electronics attached to would have be heavily shielded to stop being totally scrambled. You'd have to stop power surges from blowing up the same electronics as well.

Ok,

I feel pretty stupid asking this, but could someone actually give a good explanation as to what a railgun is?

Well, based on my own knowledge, its a device that fires a high velocity shell at such force it pierces and destroys at least 90% of all known armors.

Well, based on my own knowledge, its a device that fires a high velocity shell at such force it pierces and destroys at least 90% of all known armors.
Not necessarily. A railgun is just two rails which propell a magnetic object using electromagnetic fields. It can be as weak or (depending on your power source and rail material) powerful as you like.

And pebblebedded nuclear reactors are already quite PMT, so can you imagine all the technical difficulties?
Well, let's see... we're playing with carbon nano-whiskers and moving to an age when a plate as thick as a pencil will have 15,000 RHA defense... not soon, but if we manage to create "nanofactories", it's certainly a given (carbon ring structures being what they are). At that time maybe guns are invented that use controlled anti-matter slugs to shatter armour, looking into the future that distant is pointless - stop speculating.

Okay... so railgun infantry would be a few decades into the future?

Perhaps not an effective anti-tank weapon, but I could use these railguns to counter body armor, exo-suits, or full armor like Star Wars stormtroopers.

Or would applying MT industrial cutting lasers be a better alternative to railguns? IIRC, we already have lasers that can cut through metal and material, to carve precise sculptures and stuff. I saw that on Modern Marvels a few months ago.

And pebblebedded nuclear reactors are already quite PMT, so can you imagine all the technical difficulties?

In addition to my post right above this one, I took note of Guffingford's post and felt I had to comment on it.

You claim that pebblehead nuclear reactors are "quite Post-Modern" so this effectively means most MT players wouldn't be MT. This is because many NS'ers use pebblehead nuclear reactors, most significantly in their naval vessels.

So either everbody with pebbleheads are Post-MT, or we suspend the Post-MT "label" on pebbleheads to fit them into the MT era for RP'ing and such.

Since when are Pebblebeds PMT? South Africa, Germany and China have all built working systems, the first two lost them to budgets and tree-huggers and China is only starting with the technology but has already fielded a working prototype.

All it would take is a well funded nuclear program to put pebblebeds in service, because in NS you don't need to bend over to the green lobby.

Meh. This NS, the definition of PMT on NS and in RL is really quite different.

Let's examine a few PMT technologies that are prevalent in NS.

*ETC cannons.
*Pebblebedded Nuclear Reactors
*Carbon Computers
*Nanocarbon derivatives.
*Coilguns
*SCRAMjets
*Autotargeting infantry rifles
*Advanced Infantry Armor (VEPR, Kodiak, Aloysius)
*Superdreadnoughts
*Active radar cancellation
*Godlike ship CIWS systems.
*Superalloys

There are whole bunch of others i'm too lazy to name too, but they're all there.

Sorry MassPwnage, ETC cannons, pebblebeds, and some superdreadnoughts are MT.

Pebblebeds are going to be built be the south Africans in 2008! The South Africans! They've been around in some form or another since the '80s and the only reason they're not built now is that regulatory commissions are surprisingly skittish about getting them. It's MT.

ETC, same, at least for age. Ask others more about that, but basic gist is that it;s completely possible. Just a tad cost prohibitive right now.

Dreads, well, depends. Load it up with carbon-nanotubed armor, pebblebeds in the multi-hundreds MW range, huge 40" ralguns with little to no re-load time, and super-advanced computers and yes, it's PMT. But put on guns, a somewhat standard armor scheme, and run it off normal pebblebeds and it's completely MT.

As for rail guns, question is this. Is there a capacitor around today to enable railguns to be built with military applications if fired from a ship? That seems to be the biggest thing holding railguns back.

Okay... so railgun infantry would be a few decades into the future?

Sharina, you're not thinking about this enough. By the time you get railguns to infantry level they'd already be small enough to mount on battleships, tanks and even technicals!

For railguns to get down to infantry, they'll have to have been a few other places first in your tech history.

Incidentally, I do use infantry railguns [15 x 150mm], but since their performance is roughly the same as a modern anti-material rifle and they cost almost as much as the tanks they're fired at [and sometimes more; US$4 million / gun], they're highly limited in issue and I don't pretend it's a very practical idea.

Perhaps not an effective anti-tank weapon, but I could use these railguns to counter body armor, exo-suits, or full armor like Star Wars stormtroopers.

Or you could use a standard .50 cal or $wankier AMAT rifle to do the same thing and cost much, much less.

Or would applying MT industrial cutting lasers be a better alternative to railguns? IIRC, we already have lasers that can cut through metal and material, to carve precise sculptures and stuff. I saw that on Modern Marvels a few months ago.

Industrial cutting lasers cut from a distance of a few inches, getting a laser to focus at any useful distance and still be a man-portable unit is significantly more difficult.

The closest thing we have to a portible laser technology, is a working anti-missile laser built into a 747. The power source takes up the entire cargo area and the passenger compartement. Effective yes, portible, not as yet.
Take a look @lockheed's homepage (http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2005/050506-lockheed-laser.htm)

Sharina, you're not thinking about this enough. By the time you get railguns to infantry level they'd already be small enough to mount on battleships, tanks and even technicals!

For railguns to get down to infantry, they'll have to have been a few other places first in your tech history.

The US Navy is supposedly going to test naval railguns within the next 10 years, as I think someone here has already pointed out a few posts ago. The testing will be done with a DDX ship, I believe.

I've been thinking of using a hyper-battery mounted on the back of the infantry soldier in a backpack of sorts. 5 years ago, we didn't have batteries powerful enough to sustain a laptop for 3+ hours running on DVD's. Now we do... so that means within 20 - 30 more years, we can develop batteries strong enough to hold the necessary power needed for an infantry railgun.

An infantry railgun would be far smaller than naval railguns, and consquently require far less power. Also, the ranges for my idea of infantry railgun would only need max range of 1 - 2 kilometers at most, while naval railguns try for distances of 200+ kilometers. Less range = less power needed.

I believe infantry railguns are far easier to replace once they wear out than naval railguns. Naval guns would need big refit effort, or being in dry-dock to do so. With infantry, you just grab a new railgun and discard / recycle the old railgun.

Incidentally, I do use infantry railguns [15 x 150mm], but since their performance is roughly the same as a modern anti-material rifle and they cost almost as much as the tanks they're fired at [and sometimes more; US$4 million / gun], they're highly limited in issue and I don't pretend it's a very practical idea.

You gotta be kidding me. $4 million for an infantry railgun? How come? I could envision an infantry railgun going for $50,000 - $100,000 a pop at the max, but $4 million? Again, how?

Or you could use a standard .50 cal or $wankier AMAT rifle to do the same thing and cost much, much less.

I remember hearing that .50 cal guns are inaccurate as compared to .40, .30, and lower cal's. Also, I don't see me building or making a 1.00 or 2.00 caliber handgun / rifles as that would be unwieldly and recoil would be bad.

Industrial cutting lasers cut from a distance of a few inches, getting a laser to focus at any useful distance and still be a man-portable unit is significantly more difficult.

Perhaps craft a better focusing lens... maybe using diamond or crystals instead of glass? Or would increasing the power of the laser work (raise the laser from 10 kilowatts to 1 megawatt for example)?

Again, I'm just throwing around ideas, as I'm not a Doctorate's degree in weapon engineering or anything like that. I'm just working with what I know from Modern Marvels, Discovery Channel, Popular Mechanics, etc.

I've been thinking of using a hyper-battery mounted on the back of the infantry soldier in a backpack of sorts. 5 years ago, we didn't have batteries powerful enough to sustain a laptop for 3+ hours running on DVD's. Now we do... so that means within 20 - 30 more years, we can develop batteries strong enough to hold the necessary power needed for an infantry railgun.

Yes, but we'll also need to miniturise the capacitors, and, more to the point, produce rails small enough to fit in an infantry weapon but strong enough to survive the stress of firing. The main problem with most modern railguns is the ones that shoot usefully sized projectiles at useful velocities currently destroy themselves during firing. This will scale down, so infantry guns will appear after tank-sized and then mounted versions.

You gotta be kidding me. $4 million for an infantry railgun? How come? I could envision an infantry railgun going for $50,000 - $100,000 a pop at the max, but $4 million? Again, how?

EVERYTHING in an infantry railgun would have to be exotic materials for it to function well; the rails would have to be light but incredibly strong, the power cell would have to be man-portable but have a huge capacity, the capacitors likewise. It'd be a piece of precision equipment rather than a weapon any idiot could use, at my tech level.

$4 million represents what is basically an interesting proof-of-concept forceably adopted anyway, much like the US$2 billion the US taxpayer has paid for each B-2 Spirit.

I remember hearing that .50 cal guns are inaccurate as compared to .40, .30, and lower cal's. Also, I don't see me building or making a 1.00 or 2.00 caliber handgun / rifles as that would be unwieldly and recoil would be bad.

That's because accuracy isn't really an issue when you're shooting out of a prepared position at a tank a relatively short distance away. A 50 cal bullet should go through most non-wanked body armour.

Perhaps craft a better focusing lens... maybe using diamond or crystals instead of glass? Or would increasing the power of the laser work (raise the laser from 10 kilowatts to 1 megawatt for example)?

Well, a weapon that doesn't work in the rain is never really going to be practical...

Okay... so railgun infantry would be a few decades into the future?

Perhaps not an effective anti-tank weapon, but I could use these railguns to counter body armor, exo-suits, or full armor like Star Wars stormtroopers.

Or would applying MT industrial cutting lasers be a better alternative to railguns? IIRC, we already have lasers that can cut through metal and material, to carve precise sculptures and stuff. I saw that on Modern Marvels a few months ago.*Mutters something about SW armour being about as useful as tissue paper*

Ahem. Anyway. Lasers will never be able to replace projectiles as a close-range anti-material weapon. Why?

1. Efficiency. The energy eficiency of a railgun or a conventional, chemical-explosive propelled projectile is vastly superior to that of any given laser.

2. As GMC mentioned, lasers have problems with fog, rain, the likes.

3. Contrary to popular belief, lasers are not excessively accurate. over longer ranges, wind, as well as thermal blooming, can effect them.

4. Damage criteria. A kinetic projectile will rip right through something. By way of doing this, it will cause secondary damage (Shrapnels, the likes). Unlike the laser, the energy stays focused on one point, while the laser will, after a while, expand. An infantry-portable laser with an aperture of, say, 1cm and a wavelength of 0.6 micrometers will stay coherent for slightly more than 300 metres, after that, it will expand, with the energy density decreasing.

And following this, if the laser hits the target, it will, well, burn through it. No shrapnels (The things that result in tanks blowing up when it by anti tank guns, due to the very hot shrapnels hitting, say, fuel, although hitting the crew/ other important stuff is nice, too).

The laser just makes a funny hole.

5. Following 1., what to do with the waste energy that is created due to the inefficiencies? It will heat the weapon, and it will heat it quickly. Not a good thing.

Or would increasing the power of the laser work (raise the laser from 10 kilowatts to 1 megawattApart from aforementioned inefficiencies becoming more of a problem, you also have to produce that power. How exactly is infantry supposed to produce said megawatt?

This is a really stupid question.

In Warhammer one of the armies has rail guns as a weapon.
Tau Rail gun (http://www.starshipmodeler.com/rv/pg_tau/pg_tau_fig02.jpg)

They are used as a form of sniper,or a large anti tank gun. Would it be possible in the near future to actually use a hand held rail gun as a weapon. If you need to force electrical energy into this gun could this actually make it into a dangerous weapon for anyone using it. Wouldnt a gun with such power actually be impossible to fire as the recoil would be of significant force.

Stupid question over.

I am only stupid dont hurt me.

Yes, but we'll also need to miniturise the capacitors, and, more to the point, produce rails small enough to fit in an infantry weapon but strong enough to survive the stress of firing. The main problem with most modern railguns is the ones that shoot usefully sized projectiles at useful velocities currently destroy themselves during firing. This will scale down, so infantry guns will appear after tank-sized and then mounted versions.

No worries on that. I was planning on implementing railguns not just for infantry, but on naval vessels and either tanks or in anti-aircraft duty. I could RP the navy and "big mobile chassis" things coming first, then infantry stuff coming last.

EVERYTHING in an infantry railgun would have to be exotic materials for it to function well; the rails would have to be light but incredibly strong, the power cell would have to be man-portable but have a huge capacity, the capacitors likewise. It'd be a piece of precision equipment rather than a weapon any idiot could use, at my tech level.

$4 million represents what is basically an interesting proof-of-concept forceably adopted anyway, much like the US$2 billion the US taxpayer has paid for each B-2 Spirit.

Ahh... thanks for clearing that up.

I wonder, isn't it normal for expensive things to become cheaper as the materials become easier to mass-produce at cheap prices? This happens as technology advances, correct?

Back in Roman times, steel was expensive to produce and not of today's quality, but now its cheap to produce with good quality. Ditto for brass, tin, etc. in gun production in the 1600's - 1700's until better furnances and such allowed cheap production of metals, and start to use steel, iron, etc. in guns which are better than tin and bronze. Then aluminum was expensive 80 - 100 years ago, then very cheap today as can be seen in soda cans and cars.

So using this principle, wouldn't carbon nanotubes or similiar exotic materials be significantly reduced in price in 20 - 30 years?

That's because accuracy isn't really an issue when you're shooting out of a prepared position at a tank a relatively short distance away. A 50 cal bullet should go through most non-wanked body armour.

Gotcha.

What about un-prepared positions?

Or what if I set up snipers with railguns to take out tanks? These snipers can target the fuel containers inside the tanks, and then after the railgun slug punctures it, the fuel container would leak. The tank would run out of fuel, then become a sitting duck for either easy destroy or capture.


Well, a weapon that doesn't work in the rain is never really going to be practical...

Wouldn't a laser bolt hot enough instantly vaporize rain / fog / water particles?

I wonder, isn't it normal for expensive things to become cheaper as the materials become easier to mass-produce at cheap prices? This happens as technology advances, correct?

Usually, though it doesn't follow that the cheaper mass-produced material will be as useful; synthetic diamonds are dirt cheap but are still fairly crappy-looking in rings, for example.

So using this principle, wouldn't carbon nanotubes or similiar exotic materials be significantly reduced in price in 20 - 30 years?

We should presume so, but at that time there will be newer exotic materials at the top of the price range, and it's those materials that are used in my railguns.

What about un-prepared positions?

Not generally a good idea. You really want to hide somewhere where you have a chance to conceal yourself properly and take your shot, since if a tank spots you beforehand you're in for a grand cremation.

Or what if I set up snipers with railguns to take out tanks? These snipers can target the fuel containers inside the tanks, and then after the railgun slug punctures it, the fuel container would leak. The tank would run out of fuel, then become a sitting duck for either easy destroy or capture.

Well, if you can get that far inside the tank it'd make more sense to go for the ammo, really...Most likely your man-portable railgun will be the equal of a modern AMAT rifle and you'll be aiming for the side / rear of the tank or the turret ring [to jam the turret and force the tank to abandon it's mission]; it's doubtful you'd ever be able to aim accurately enough to hit a specific deep internal component anyway, and you might not even know where the fuel is.

In addition, it might have multiple fuel tanks [Soviet T-55 looked like it had about six, IIRC].

Wouldn't a laser bolt hot enough instantly vaporize rain / fog / water particles?

Not really. Lasers vapourise by heating a surface, and the effectiveness varies with the specific heat capacity of the material in question; this is the amount of heat energy (measured in joules) required to raise the temperature of one kilogram of the substance by one kelvin. Here's the rub; water has ten times the specific heat capacity of steel! That means rain is an effective barrier to a laser weapon, and also means that since a human is mostly water a laser that would vapourise a hole through a steel plate would only give a human a painful but superficial burn.

This would mean your laser would either have to be horribly overpowered [heating problems] or not work in the rain.

Usually, though it doesn't follow that the cheaper mass-produced material will be as useful; synthetic diamonds are dirt cheap but are still fairly crappy-looking in rings, for example.

They may not be suitable for jewelery, but might still be useful in other applications.

We should presume so, but at that time there will be newer exotic materials at the top of the price range, and it's those materials that are used in my railguns.

What kinds of exotic materials? Carbon nanotubes, buckyballs, and carbon rings are the only "exotic" materials I know of that can be used for military applications 20 - 30 years down the line.

Not generally a good idea. You really want to hide somewhere where you have a chance to conceal yourself properly and take your shot, since if a tank spots you beforehand you're in for a grand cremation.

True. However, there are times that the enemy can catch you by surprise, catching you flatfooted.

Well, if you can get that far inside the tank it'd make more sense to go for the ammo, really...Most likely your man-portable railgun will be the equal of a modern AMAT rifle and you'll be aiming for the side / rear of the tank or the turret ring [to jam the turret and force the tank to abandon it's mission]; it's doubtful you'd ever be able to aim accurately enough to hit a specific deep internal component anyway, and you might not even know where the fuel is.

In addition, it might have multiple fuel tanks [Soviet T-55 looked like it had about six, IIRC].

Good point.

My intelligence services can find out the specs for the enemy tanks, like where their ammo, fuel tanks, weak points, or "turret-kill" like you suggested. Afterwards, they distribute that intelligence to my railgun snipers, so they'd know where to hit the enemy tanks or uber-armored targets.

Not really. Lasers vapourise by heating a surface, and the effectiveness varies with the specific heat capacity of the material in question; this is the amount of heat energy (measured in joules) required to raise the temperature of one kilogram of the substance by one kelvin. Here's the rub; water has ten times the specific heat capacity of steel! That means rain is an effective barrier to a laser weapon, and also means that since a human is mostly water a laser that would vapourise a hole through a steel plate would only give a human a painful but superficial burn.

This would mean your laser would either have to be horribly overpowered [heating problems] or not work in the rain.

Ohh. I was thinking along the lines of melting / boiling / vaporization tempature points. For water its 212 degrees celsius, while steel is over 1000 degrees celsius (I think, I may be wrong though).

That was where I was coming from.

Sharina - out of interest, why not just use an ATGM / regular rifle? They're much cheaper, much lighter and much more readily available. They also dont require hours and hours of charging at a base station just to reload either. What's the point in a railgun when you can use something cheaper?

They may not be suitable for jewelery, but might still be useful in other applications.

Yes, they are. The point was they're not suitable for the same application, and so synthetic diamonds, while they have reduced the cost of diamonds in one application, have not reduced the cost in all applications.

What kinds of exotic materials? Carbon nanotubes, buckyballs, and carbon rings are the only "exotic" materials I know of that can be used for military applications 20 - 30 years down the line.

Ya, that's because we haven't discovered or developed the new exotic materials that will be around 20 or 30 years down the line, much as we didn't know about the carbon-60 forms until fairly recently.

True. However, there are times that the enemy can catch you by surprise, catching you flatfooted.

At those times you'll want to run or use a different weapon.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v453/GMCMA/Other%20stuff/EMG-55small.jpg

This is not suitable for being caught out, hee. [And yes, I know the curve of the shoulder rest isn't right and it's drawn without a ruler]

My intelligence services can find out the specs for the enemy tanks, like where their ammo, fuel tanks, weak points, or "turret-kill" like you suggested. Afterwards, they distribute that intelligence to my railgun snipers, so they'd know where to hit the enemy tanks or uber-armored targets.

Yes, but you can't rely on such intelligence being available every time. Plus, as said, there are limits to how accurately a weapon can be aimed.

Ohh. I was thinking along the lines of melting / boiling / vaporization tempature points. For water its 212 degrees celsius, while steel is over 1000 degrees celsius (I think, I may be wrong though).

That was where I was coming from.

Yes. The problem is to heat water by one degree takes ten times as much energy as it takes to heat the same mass of steel by one degree.

Sharina - out of interest, why not just use an ATGM / regular rifle? They're much cheaper, much lighter and much more readily available. They also dont require hours and hours of charging at a base station just to reload either. What's the point in a railgun when you can use something cheaper?

I would use ATGM and regular rifles to combat armored targets if my enemy are using tanks comparable to M1A1 Abrams, Challenger-II, etc. However, in NS, people have to develop Tank+1, which has anywhere between 2x to 5x the armor of conventional MT tanks.

I do not know how to build or construct my own ATGM's or rifles to combat those crazy armored stuff. Hence, the reason why I'm looking towards railguns as a good penetration weapon that essentially nullifies the wanked Tank+1's in use nowadays.

I can't imagine how regular rifle bullets or AT rounds can go through 2 meter thick armor... IIRC, some tanks out there have 2000mm RHA, which translates into 2 meter thick armor. Not pretty.


===================================

I have a question for ya, GMC Arms.

When I re-read your previous post about lasers not having much of an effect on humans / water stuff.

Suppose I create a laser weapon that emits a laser beam 3 meters tall and 3 meters wide. Then I can simply vaporize all MBT's, naval vessels, etc. then watch the humans inside them just plop onto the ground or drown into the water.

Now that'd be like a Looney Tunes cartoon with Wiley E. Coyote style of stuff. Haha. :p



On the other hand, I believe lasers have a few advantages over conventional bullet weapons.

1. No bullet casings, as the "ammo" is energy instead of metal bullets.

2. The "ammo" can be recycled, by recharging the batteries or use a small portable power generator. With bullets, its "one use only".

3. Somewhat better logistics, as it'd be less complicated by not having to transport millions or even billions of bullets / ammo boxes during a war, or even peace-time.


There could be some other advantages that I haven't thought of. I wonder, are there any plausible energy weapons other than lasers and particle cannons?

I'm thinking of "advancing" my nation to a Post-MT era, but use realistic Post-MT tech, infrastructure, and society. I don't want to go FT yet, because I know I'll be FT-wanked to death via nanites, planet-killers, 20 kilometer long spaceships, etc. If I go Post-MT, I'll be able to RP with the MT crowd, while not having to worry about uber-tech or the "death-wank" crap of FT.

Suppose I create a laser weapon that emits a laser beam 3 meters tall and 3 meters wide. Then I can simply vaporize all MBT's, naval vessels, etc. then watch the humans inside them just plop onto the ground or drown into the water. Well, the power requirements for a 3m*3m (Personally, I would suggest goign with radius, though. Rectangular apertures? eh?) would mean that you need a nuclear power plant right next to it... And a laser effects only a veeeeeery thin area on the surface of the target, so vaporisation will always take time.

One can of course either increase the wavelength to, say, microwaves (IIRC, a little more penetrative, at least when it comes to organic materials), but then the range would be reduced to... I think for 0.5cm thingies and a 30cm/ diameter perture it was 35m coherent beam and an effective energy density for about 70m. So, pointless, or decrease the wavelength. But then you're ionising the atmosphere, and depending on the energy you pump into it, you might actually create a little blast at the aperture.

In the end, well, lasers as a hard kill weapon tend to suck, with rare exceptions (Say, point defence against weakly armoured targets).

1. No bullet casings, as the "ammo" is energy instead of metal bullets.Battery instead of the bullets. No real difference.

2. The "ammo" can be recycled, by recharging the batteries or use a small portable power generator. With bullets, its "one use only".Not quite an acceptable comparison. The energy resource (Fossil fuels, Uranium, whatever) can not be recycled.

3. Somewhat better logistics, as it'd be less complicated by not having to transport millions or even billions of bullets / ammo boxes during a war, or even peace-time.
Instead you're having vastly more complicate and prone to maintenance lasers, energy needs that boggle the mind, the likes.

im no physics expert, but if you had a rail gun on a battle ship and fired t, wouldnt it propel the ship backwards?

In the end, well, lasers as a hard kill weapon tend to suck, with rare exceptions (Say, point defence against weakly armoured targets).To be fair, that's where pulsing comes in. Those nifty carved glass blocks (http://www.aspencountry.com/aspen/assets/product_images/product_lib/30000-39999/30071.gif) are made with pulse lasers. For some reason (I don't remember the physics behind it), when the laser pulses, it ignores outer layers and penetrates, which is how they can carve the inside of the block without marking the outside.

Granted, current frequencies are pulsing every nano-second or so (on for a nano-second, off for a nano-second, etc.). They have highly experimental pico- and femto-pulse lasers. Of course, these are used for... carving glass blocks. They're also researching for no-incision surgery. Modifying them to military levels is definately post-modern.

Of course, since I'm decidedly post modern, I've wanked them up to atto-pulse (that's a quintillionth of a second). These are not man-portable, as they require their own power generation systems and their own targeting computers to make them pulse that fast. They're point defence for buildings, and little else.

im no physics expert, but if you had a rail gun on a battle ship and fired t, wouldnt it propel the ship backwards?Well, controlled explosions don't propel the ship backwards, why would magnetic acceleration? The force is lateral anyway.

Edit: Random extra info on attoseconds, from wiki:
An attosecond is an SI unit of time equal to 10-18 of a second.

The current shortest measurable period of time (as of February 2004) is 100 attoseconds.Since mine use singular attoseconds, you can see why its wanky. We can't even measure time periods that short, let alone use them.

im no physics expert, but if you had a rail gun on a battle ship and fired t, wouldnt it propel the ship backwards?
Yes, if you fired it broad side. However if you fired it in the direction of your travel there would be no problem...
Actually, I havn't considered what the recoil would be like on a railgun, i don't think newtons third law applies here because we're using magnetic fields...hmm :confused:

Yes, if you fired it broad side. However if you fired it in the direction of your travel there would be no problem...
Actually, I havn't considered what the recoil would be like on a railgun, i don't think newtons third law applies here because we're using magnetic fields...hmm :confused:

Put two magnets of equal mass and charge near each other. Both push away, and both move an equal distance from the other.

Newton's third applies to magnetic fields.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_gun#Theory_and_construction

Basically, the force drives the shell down the barrel while also attempting to push the rails apart. It's not going to push the ship in any direction, even if fired broadside.

To put myself in the laser debate..
Vissible lasers are pretty useless. Industrial cutting lases tend to be infrared lasers which are really good over a range of a couple of meters. There are two alternatives currently under investigation: Microwave lasers (masers) are pretty cool, they work by actively vbrating molecules apart so would do a fair amount of dammage to anything in the way. The other is the X-ray laser, used by the americans in their star wars defense scheme (it was the only one of their planned weapons that actually worked). These are very powerful and can still cause a bit of havoc up to 1000m in atmospheric conditions, big problem is focusing the beam.

To be perfectly honest lasers are fairly useless as aweapon in my view, short of strapping the bugger to a fusion reactor you'll never get anything pwerful enough to do anything serious to some armour at an appreciable distance, however, with an X-Ray laser you could kill the occupants without damaging the rest of the target.
THey look cool but are really just a gimmick for the SF writers.
:sniper:

I would use ATGM and regular rifles to combat armored targets if my enemy are using tanks comparable to M1A1 Abrams, Challenger-II, etc. However, in NS, people have to develop Tank+1, which has anywhere between 2x to 5x the armor of conventional MT tanks.

Well, as said, those tanks would have their own problems; namely that the armour on them would be useless extra weight and at the same level of technology you could build a tank the same weight without all the extra armour that was faster, more agile and hit harder by investing the saved weight in a better gun and engine.

Further, the RARTANK will cost more and take longer to build.

I do not know how to build or construct my own ATGM's or rifles to combat those crazy armored stuff. Hence, the reason why I'm looking towards railguns as a good penetration weapon that essentially nullifies the wanked Tank+1's in use nowadays.

The problem with trying to nullify wank is it misses the point; if someone is dead set on their tank being indestructable in FFRP then nothing you can do will be able to beat it; it's either be IGNORE FUTURETECH or they'll pull out technocrap as to why it won't penetrate. Your best bet is just to find more reasonbale people to RP with, in those instances.

Suppose I create a laser weapon that emits a laser beam 3 meters tall and 3 meters wide. Then I can simply vaporize all MBT's, naval vessels, etc. then watch the humans inside them just plop onto the ground or drown into the water.

Um...Be a little hard to move or aim such a weapon on anything smaller than, say, an Air Destroyer, and as DA said, horrible power requirements.

On the other hand, I believe lasers have a few advantages over conventional bullet weapons.

1. No bullet casings, as the "ammo" is energy instead of metal bullets.

2. The "ammo" can be recycled, by recharging the batteries or use a small portable power generator. With bullets, its "one use only".

3. Somewhat better logistics, as it'd be less complicated by not having to transport millions or even billions of bullets / ammo boxes during a war, or even peace-time.

They also have some disadvantages, namely:

[1] They require highly volitile capacitors to turn their battery power into fast-discharge power.

[2] They can be defended against with aerosol water dispensors on tanks that surround the tank in a cloud of mist, and with highly reflective coatings.

[3] They are strictly limited to direct fire missions; a tank can fire a shell over an intervening object because it's bullet flies in a parabolic arc, with a laser you can only shoot a target you can see.

[4] They generate extremely large amounts of heat while running, making you a big IR target.

Also, in your 1 it is possible to make caseless bullets, and cases perform several important functions; they protect the charge from being damaged or contaminated, and also absorb heat, helping to keep the gun cool [caseless ammo used to suffer from serious 'cook off' problems where the chamber would get so hot the bullets would trigger by themselves]. 2 is technically false; while the battery can be recharged, you still need to use new energy to do this. This means there's a flaw in 3; while you don't need to move bullets, you do need to move new batteries, or fuel for generators.

It's because these disadvantages outweigh the advantages that nobody's seriously tried to mount lasers for anything other than defending from missiles. This is because of one of the key advantages of a laser weapon; it's fast. Laser beams travel at the speed of light, which makes shooting at a fast-moving object easier because it has less time to move out of the way.

There could be some other advantages that I haven't thought of. I wonder, are there any plausible energy weapons other than lasers and particle cannons?

There's the laser family [Laser / Maser / Graser / Xaser], the various types of particle weapons [Neutron / proton / electron / ion / positron cannon], wanky Tesla death-rays, silly plasma cannons [various], and then there's even less sensible stuff like gravity blast cannons.

Broadly, as long as you remember to give things logical and sensible weaknesses, people accept stuff. The problem you have a lot at the moment is you tend to look for advantages and forget disadvantages. While it's true that a lot of other people do that too, that doesn't mean it's right.

Everyone has been useing the turm rail gun.
Do we all aggree the better term is Gauss gun?
If your still trying to build a railgun, stop.
Take the same concept, but instead of useing two magnets and a rail. Using a tube of magnets and a magnetic projectile. It will draw even more power but if the projectile can be suspended completely in the magnetic field you can practically eliminate friction from the equasion, giveing better acceleration and a lower heat output.

Tell me if im wrong.

Everyone has been useing the turm rail gun.
Do we all aggree the better term is Gauss gun?
[...]
Tell me if im wrong.

You're wrong. Railguns and Gauss guns are completely different.

Well, as said, those tanks would have their own problems; namely that the armour on them would be useless extra weight and at the same level of technology you could build a tank the same weight without all the extra armour that was faster, more agile and hit harder by investing the saved weight in a better gun and engine.

Further, the RARTANK will cost more and take longer to build.

I have built my own tank which only has 50 centimeter thick armor or 500mm RHA, I think.

It was one of my very first two custom miilitary projects. Here's the link to my tank....

http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=7987783&postcount=1

The problem with trying to nullify wank is it misses the point; if someone is dead set on their tank being indestructable in FFRP then nothing you can do will be able to beat it; it's either be IGNORE FUTURETECH or they'll pull out technocrap as to why it won't penetrate. Your best bet is just to find more reasonbale people to RP with, in those instances.

Thats true. However, what if those kinds of wankers or "OMG! Uber-ness!" players choose to invade me?

I've been told that in any RP, the defender usually decides on what stuff to be allowed and not to be allowed. Is this true?

Um...Be a little hard to move or aim such a weapon on anything smaller than, say, an Air Destroyer, and as DA said, horrible power requirements.

I was only making it as a semi-joke of sorts. I was joking that if I built such a laser, I could make cartoon stuff a reality, vaporing the entire car, tank, or APC and having the humans inside just drop to the ground just like in cartoons.

Ever watched Looney Tunes? These funny scenes with dynamite bombs or acid goo? Wiley E. Coyote's silly antics blowing up his own vehicles? :p


They also have some disadvantages, namely:

[1] They require highly volitile capacitors to turn their battery power into fast-discharge power.

[2] They can be defended against with aerosol water dispensors on tanks that surround the tank in a cloud of mist, and with highly reflective coatings.

[3] They are strictly limited to direct fire missions; a tank can fire a shell over an intervening object because it's bullet flies in a parabolic arc, with a laser you can only shoot a target you can see.

[4] They generate extremely large amounts of heat while running, making you a big IR target.

Also, in your 1 it is possible to make caseless bullets, and cases perform several important functions; they protect the charge from being damaged or contaminated, and also absorb heat, helping to keep the gun cool [caseless ammo used to suffer from serious 'cook off' problems where the chamber would get so hot the bullets would trigger by themselves]. 2 is technically false; while the battery can be recharged, you still need to use new energy to do this. This means there's a flaw in 3; while you don't need to move bullets, you do need to move new batteries, or fuel for generators.

I'm not a small arms or "guns" genius, and the only things I know about guns are...

1. They kill people.
2. They use bullets.
3. Bigger caliber = more damage
4. Guns use gunpowder in old times and now use chemical powder.

Thats pretty much all I know about bullet-type guns, unfortunately.

It's because these disadvantages outweigh the advantages that nobody's seriously tried to mount lasers for anything other than defending from missiles. This is because of one of the key advantages of a laser weapon; it's fast. Laser beams travel at the speed of light, which makes shooting at a fast-moving object easier because it has less time to move out of the way.

This raises an interesting concept for me. I'm also in the process of looking for a good air defense system that can take down stealth planes, ICBM's, and missiles. This is only so that I'll have a solid defense aganist invasion, as I'm aiming to make my nation a defensive one, not "Warmonger! Rawrrr!" nation.

There's the laser family [Laser / Maser / Graser / Xaser], the various types of particle weapons [Neutron / proton / electron / ion / positron cannon], wanky Tesla death-rays, silly plasma cannons [various], and then there's even less sensible stuff like gravity blast cannons.

Broadly, as long as you remember to give things logical and sensible weaknesses, people accept stuff. The problem you have a lot at the moment is you tend to look for advantages and forget disadvantages. While it's true that a lot of other people do that too, that doesn't mean it's right.

I heard Microwave weapons would be decent anti-air and anti-nuke defense. I can only envision my Sharina nation researching laser, microwave, particle cannon, and perhaps plasma weapons. Neutron bombs are an option as well.

As for the disadvantages part, I prefer to see what the technology or stuff *CAN* do before the "can't do" part. It pays to be optimistic, and trying to work around the "can't do" part.

Thats true. However, what if those kinds of wankers or "OMG! Uber-ness!" players choose to invade me? Ignore them?

I've been told that in any RP, the defender usually decides on what stuff to be allowed and not to be allowed. Is this true?It's supposed to be consensual, so you should probably work it out between you.

I heard Microwave weapons would be decent anti-air and anti-nuke defense.Microwaves have a nasty habit of bouncing off metal. Kinda why you aren't supposed to stick metal in microwave ovens.

As for the disadvantages part, I prefer to see what the technology or stuff *CAN* do before the "can't do" part. It pays to be optimistic, and trying to work around the "can't do" part.When that can't part is terminally fatal to the project, it's a good idea to pay attention to it.

Ignore them?

Thats the problem. Suppose I ignore them, then they continue RP'ing as if my IGNORE never happened? Then more RP'ers consider my nation "destroyed" or "wanked-to-death" despite my IGNORE.

A chain reaction I do not want to have happen aganist me.

It's supposed to be consensual, so you should probably work it out between you.

Consensual fails if one side refuses to accept what the other side says. For example, an invader uses MT, but the defender is a Post-MT nation, thus having better defenses. The invader demands the Post-MT nation reverts to MT, but then I ask, why should the defender submit to the invader's OOC demands / requests?

Without a defender nation, there can be no invasion, correct? So this is why I believe in the general idea of "defender decides what is and isn't allowed in RP" that I was told about.

Microwaves have a nasty habit of bouncing off metal. Kinda why you aren't supposed to stick metal in microwave ovens.

Yes, but many missiles and aircraft have plastic parts, like insulation wires, ceramic wings, glass cockpits, engine interiors, etc. A microwave hit into these areas can damage or destroy the missile / aircraft.

1. Microwaves cooking the inside of engines = dead plane / missile.
2. Microwaves cooking pilots inside cockpits = dead pilot and consquently plane.
3. Microwaves heating ceramic surfaces, expanding it, causing damage via ruined aerodynamics.

And so on.

When that can't part is terminally fatal to the project, it's a good idea to pay attention to it.

Agreed.

Thats the problem. Suppose I ignore them, then they continue RP'ing as if my IGNORE never happened?

Then you post in moderation and the thread gets locked.

Without a defender nation, there can be no invasion, correct? So this is why I believe in the general idea of "defender decides what is and isn't allowed in RP" that I was told about.

Yes, defender is the one who has the ultimate say over technology used in a war RP, though it should be agreed in advance, really.

Yes, but many missiles and aircraft have plastic parts, like insulation wires, ceramic wings, glass cockpits, engine interiors, etc. A microwave hit into these areas can damage or destroy the missile / aircraft.

Um...Microwave safe pots are made of plastic, dude. And in all the three points you mention, the microwaves would have to pass through metal surfaces [they can't] in order to do the damage you describe.

It's much like saying that a man standing on top of an M1A2 Abrams could used a pair of bolt cutters and a pistol to kill the driver and disable the tank. Maybe so, but how did he get there to begin with?

More to the point, if you can aim so accurately you can hit individual components on a moving plane, why not use this technology to fire actual bullets at it?

Um...Microwave safe pots are made of plastic, dude. And in all the three points you mention, the microwaves would have to pass through metal surfaces [they can't] in order to do the damage you describe.

It's much like saying that a man standing on top of an M1A2 Abrams could used a pair of bolt cutters and a pistol to kill the driver and disable the tank. Maybe so, but how did he get there to begin with?

More to the point, if you can aim so accurately you can hit individual components on a moving plane, why not use this technology to fire actual bullets at it?

I've seen microwaves deform plastics, when I accidentally microwave a conatiner for longer than I was supposed to. I remember I was cooking a pile of chicken in a plastic storage container, a few months ago and I accidentally pressed one extra number without realizing it. Then later I smelled plastic burning, and I ran into the kitchen and opened the microwave, and saw the plastic semi-melting.

Not pretty.


I've been trying to think of a reasonable energy weapon that can actually excite the atoms and molecules of materials. I remember in chemistry class a long time ago in high school that solid things have molecules and atoms packed densely together while gases have atoms + molecules loosely packed.

So if I can figure out a way to "excite" metal surfaces, to make their molecules spread apart, causing loss in strength and other properties. Thus, this is why I've been looking at microwaves, as they exicte molecules, heating them up in the process.

So if I can figure out a way to "excite" metal surfaces, to make their molecules spread apart, causing loss in strength and other properties. Thus, this is why I've been looking at microwaves, as they exicte molecules, heating them up in the process.The problem is that microwaves can't.

"I'd like to make a vitamin that will make it so people don't need to eat. I'd like to make it out of arsenic."

There are some things that just don't work. Using microwaves to evaporate tanks is one of these things. If you want a beam weapon, make a particle beam. They're far better for this sort of thing.

Or, hell. Scrap the overpowered beam weaponry and use good old fashioned DU shells. Seriously, beam weapons (in atmosphere) are overrated. Yes, I use them, but I realise that they're horribly silly and largely a waste of money, time and energy. I use them only because they fit my national idiom.

You're wrong. Railguns and Gauss guns are completely different.
Care to expand on that?
If im wrong what powers a gauss gun?
And what am i thinking of?
I have heard them called a coil gun, or mass driver, but i thought these were the laymans term.

Or, hell. Scrap the overpowered beam weaponry and use good old fashioned DU shells. Seriously, beam weapons (in atmosphere) are overrated. Yes, I use them, but I realise that they're horribly silly and largely a waste of money, time and energy. I use them only because they fit my national idiom.

As I recall, microwave waves do heat stuff up and cook stuff via exciting the atoms inside. That is how we can cook our meals, heat up cups of liquid, etc. in our microwave ovens everyday.

However if we microwave our food too much in our microwave ovens, it goes splat as it "explodes". Imagine what it can do in military applications or ubran centers, making the enemy soldiers explode like over-cooked food in microwave ovens. Nasty concept. :p

I also heard that microwaves might be a good power source or power generation tool in post-MT times. Stuff like microwave satellites or microwave power plants?

However if we microwave our food too much in our microwave ovens, it goes splat as it "explodes". Imagine what it can do in military applications or ubran centers, making the enemy soldiers explode like over-cooked food in microwave ovens. Nasty concept. :p

The problem is that cooked food is inside a box designed to reflect microwaves into it; it's much, much harder to produce an equal effect by heating just one surface of a target as you would with a beam weapon.

I also heard that microwaves might be a good power source or power generation tool in post-MT times. Stuff like microwave satellites or microwave power plants?

The proposed microwave power plants don't actually use microwaves to generate power; they propose to build a large satellite solar array to collect and store power, then convert the energy to microwaves and 'fire' them in a beam to a collecting station on Earth.

Care to expand on that?
If im wrong what powers a gauss gun?
And what am i thinking of?
I have heard them called a coil gun, or mass driver, but i thought these were the laymans term.
A rail gun uses two rails to accelerate the shell. A gauss gun uses coils.

Train tracks vs. a Slinky.

The problem is that cooked food is inside a box designed to reflect microwaves into it; it's much, much harder to produce an equal effect by heating just one surface of a target as you would with a beam weapon.

So does this mean I can make people inside metallic "containers" explode into bloody, fried, and gooey chunks? Or fry soldiers inside their "ever-so-mighty" body armor? :p

This does sound appealing, especially for Post-MT, doesn't it?

The proposed microwave power plants don't actually use microwaves to generate power; they propose to build a large satellite solar array to collect and store power, then convert the energy to microwaves and 'fire' them in a beam to a collecting station on Earth.

So you're telling me that I could build 10 nuclear power plants on the Moon, then have them beam all that energy to Earth via microwave beams?

If this is indeed how it works, it sounds like a kick-ass energy system for Post-MT times. :p

A rail gun uses two rails to accelerate the shell. A gauss gun uses coils.


Then I WAS right they are two different versions af a magnetically powered device. :D ( I never thought they were the same thing)
The coil gauss gun is the far superior design, due to the reduction in friction. The down side is it uses more power than the allready power hungry rail gun.( Im thinking 4-8 times the power needed)

However the up side is better stopping power. And that is the name of the game

Of course in my humble oppinion, you would need a nuclear reactor to give either of them a decent rate of fire. Other battery/cappacitator devices will allow use, but drain too quickly to fire multiple shells

EDIT: or a "linear gun"? as the person below is speaking of. (yet another term for a magnetic cannon I guess)

As a post-modern nation, I generally tend to recognize that railguns in the conventional sense are useless; I use linear guns instead.

A linear gun is a weapon which, like a railgun, uses electromagnetic forces rather than gunpowder to fire its projectiles. However, the conductive projectiles fired from a linear gun don't come into physical contact with the firing mechanism, and are instead accelerated using attractive and repulsive magnetic forces, as in a so-called magnetic levitation (maglev) train. Although the acceleration produced is relatively small compared to that of a railgun, a linear gun can yield similar muzzle velocities if its barrel is long enough, and the lack of physical contact eliminates friction heat and wear on the barrel.

Power requirements are generally gotten around either via onboard fusion reactors, or very high capacity capacitors (hyper capacitors for short) that are used in vehicles small enough to not be able to use their own fusion reactor. The smallest size such weapon in my military is shoulder-fired, and requires both a clip of slugs and a capacitor pack.

The advantage of using capacitors in this matter is that they can store a very large amount of energy, and can also be recharged as many times as needed.

So does this mean I can make people inside metallic "containers" explode into bloody, fried, and gooey chunks? Or fry soldiers inside their "ever-so-mighty" body armor?

Provided you can get the microwaves to pass through the armour and provided the majority of the armour is empty space...Have you looked at a microwave oven recently?

but either way the rail gun is almost perfect for FT nations because if my memory serves me correct theres not force pushing back on the ship, and thus moving it.

but then again thats assuming you can figure out a way to fix the problems

Provided you can get the microwaves to pass through the armour and provided the majority of the armour is empty space...Have you looked at a microwave oven recently?

There are always weak points in any given armor scheme. No armor is fool-proof.

If I do create a microwave "cannon" to fire upon armored infantry, the armor can act as an insulator (like the outside of the microwave oven) while the microwave rays and waves bounce inside the armor, cooking whatever organic stuff that is inside.

Just find a small spot in the armor where the "micro-wave proof" material doesn't cover or isn't present, then pump that area full of microwave beams. Then these microwave beams would go through the weak spot and bounce all around inside the armor. This way, I can use the enemy's armor aganist himself.

Nifty, eh? :p

Just find a small spot in the armor where the "micro-wave proof" material doesn't cover or isn't present, then pump that area full of microwave beams. Then these microwave beams would go through the weak spot and bounce all around inside the armor. This way, I can use the enemy's armor aganist himself.

Nifty, eh? :p


While i aggree that no armor is foolproof. Its not as easy as that. Tanks dont need "microwave proof material" the ballistic armor they allready employ is good enough against microwaves.
I personally think that the car you drive would offer decent protection, if you just duck your head below the window level (just estimating metal content in the door)
You could allways try to focus it through a viewslot or something but if you can get that clear a shot, using an explosive shell is easier

If it will bounce inside the armor, it will bounce off the armor

There are always weak points in any given armor scheme. No armor is fool-proof.

If I do create a microwave "cannon" to fire upon armored infantry, the armor can act as an insulator (like the outside of the microwave oven) while the microwave rays and waves bounce inside the armor, cooking whatever organic stuff that is inside.

Um...Doesn't work so well if the surface is relatively form-fitting [like armour]. Notice there's a big space in a microwave oven between the inside of the oven and the food? Doesn't work so well without it, I shouldn't think.

If you're looking for something to totally vaporize the materials of the enemy, I think the positron beam would work best. The positron is the antiparticle of the electron. On contact with an electron within the material, both will be annihilated. This has the effect of:

1. Releasing large amounts of energy.
2. Removing chemical bonds between atoms. The chemical bonds exist only as interactions between the electrons of different atoms. If all of the electrons are removed, the atom is effectively turned into plasma. Even if only some are removed, the crystaline structure is irreversably altered.

Disclaimer: In real life or fiction, positrons are extremely hard to fabricate and/or store in any useful quantity. My FT nation has harnessed Hyperspace and the Strong Nuclear Force. Positronics is still among the most arcane technologies we possess...

Now, assuming that you have the magical energy source (And a reasonably small apparatus) to create a sufficient amount of positrons...

How in the world do you magically prevent them from interacting with the electrons in the air, immediately, within the first few nanometres they propagate from $gun, releasing a few mega- or gigajoules of energy, irradiating/ burning/ blasting you to death?

Yes, you, as in the one firing.

Oh, and given your OMG FTness (Supposedly in space), there is also the question as of how you keep the positrons within a coherent beam, given that they carry equal charges, and, well, as I'm sure you will remember from high school physics... Equal charges repel each other.

No beam for ya.

How in the world do you magically prevent them from interacting with the electrons in the air, immediately, within the first few nanometres they propagate from $gun, releasing a few mega- or gigajoules of energy, irradiating/ burning/ blasting you to death?



Cant say im a positron expert. But theoretical plasma weapons (plasma being so hot it would melt any launcher it was fired from, as well as anything 50 paces in every direction) use a magnetic field to hold the plasma stationary within a sealed vacumm unit, commonly referred to as a magnetic containment field. Sadly power constraints, again, make this a hard one to test in real life.



p.s. all, im really enjoying this thread.

A rail gun uses two rails to accelerate the shell. A gauss gun uses coils.

Train tracks vs. a Slinky.





And it could possibly have exploding round from super light wieght chemicals with nuclear possiblites (or however you spell it) by removing protons or something i cant remember i read it on a website and isotons or something i cant remember it all

Micropulsed microwaves would not work - they'd still be too long to effectively penetrate - but what of another energy level?

And it could possibly have exploding round from super light wieght chemicals with nuclear possiblites (or however you spell it) by removing protons or something i cant remember i read it on a website and isotons or something i cant remember it all

Anything quoting 'isotons' is Trekish nonsense. 'Iso' is a prefix meaning one, incidentally meaning the Borg's most terrifying weapon is a five megaton bomb.

I SAID it was difficult. Besides, my FT empire/republic/junta/entente is FAR from uber. We're stuck using some imaginable velocity while others cross the galaxy in seconds.

But theoretical plasma weapons (plasma being so hot it would melt any launcher it was fired from, as well as anything 50 paces in every direction) use a magnetic field to hold the plasma stationary within a sealed vacumm unit, commonly referred to as a magnetic containment field.1. You have to heat the plasma to begin with. This means that in essence, any kind of plasma weapon will have plasma as an effect of the weapon, not as the actual energy source of the weapon. An example for this would be, well, a nuclear detonation.

2. The magnetic containment field works when you have, say, the plasma within a confined space (Fusion reactor). How you're intending to create a sufficient containment field that propagates with the plasma stream is beyond me, though.

Anything quoting 'isotons' is Trekish nonsense. 'Iso' is a prefix meaning one, incidentally meaning the Borg's most terrifying weapon is a five megaton bomb.No, it isn't. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iso#Prefix)

If anything, it means standardised tons, which even makes some minimal amount of sense (Galactic standard ton?). Of course, nobody knows 1. How much this 'ton' actually weights, or 2. What the reference explosive is.

I SAID it was difficult. Besides, my FT empire/republic/junta/entente is FAR from uber. We're stuck using some imaginable velocity while others cross the galaxy in seconds.Wasn't accusing you of wanking. I was simply pointing out that it isn't only difficult but, for all intends and purposes, impossible, assuming that you recognise a bare minimum of real physics.

The level at which it becomes possible (Removing the air out of the way as well as keeping the beam coherent in a vacuum), the means you use to do this ought to be more destructive than the positrons themselves.

1. You have to heat the plasma to begin with. This means that in essence, any kind of plasma weapon will have plasma as an effect of the weapon, not as the actual energy source of the weapon. An example for this would be, well, a nuclear detonation.

2. The magnetic containment field works when you have, say, the plasma within a confined space (Fusion reactor). How you're intending to create a sufficient containment field that propagates with the plasma stream is beyond me, though.


All true.
Also very difficult( read impossible, but nothing is IMPOSSIBLE) to project a large magnetic field from weapon to target for plasma to stream down.
Dont know myself why scifi plasma weapons dont just balloon firey death in a sphere at the end of the weapon barrel. The plasma will expand like an explosion AS SOON as the field is released.
MY answer would be to create a tiny containment device that acts as a projectile, when the device hits the field collapses allowing the plasma to consume the device and target. A mirracle of miniturisation, i admit.

Lets get a couple of things straight here:
1.Microwave beams, lasers etc.
Lasers a right out, they are nowhere near powerful enough in any frequency for even a PMT nation to use them effectively, unless of course you which to gently heat your target or toast some bread ore something. At the risk of sounding a little hitlerish, if I hear them mentioned again I may do something unplesant.

2.Gauss/Rail guns
I forget who mentioned 'linear guns'. It is nice to know that your guns fire in straight lines as the name tells us, that is quite evidently PMT. What you are actually talking about is a gauss gun. Gauss guns are currently the way forwards in terms of magnetic weaponry as there is no friction with the barrel and so everyone is happy. I've done a little research as well, magnetic fields are not affected by newtons laws of motion as that applies to forces. But we have moved on from such dreams.

3.Positron beams?
Excuse the vulgarity here but I feel it is entirely justified...
WTF???
I'm sorry but anyone whose done just a tiny bit of physics will tell you that this is trekie nonsense of the worst kind. There is no such thing as maintaining beam cohenerence when takling about anti-particles unless of course you like dressing up as a klingon in your spare time. The positrons will anihilate with any electron that hapens to be in the way, releasing energy in slightly scary proportions in all directions, sodding up all magnetic fields in the process. There are quite a few electrons floating about even in the depths of space so any atempt to fire such a beam (read lots of positrons) will probably end up in tears for the firers as their equipment is renderd to sub-atomic particles from the relaease of energy. For such a weapon to work would need a serious divergence from reality. Stick that in your trekkie, Pmt pipe and smoke it.

4.Plasma
A personal favourite of mine. What I envisage for plasma weapons is effectively a shell that incorporates containment field generators plasma and all. This should work so long as the shells don't get left in EMPs. So you fire it and a couple of moments later the sell hits the ground/water/ship/whatever and shaters like the proverbial glass phial releasing a plasma inferno to lightly barbecue everything within a kilometer or so. Think sub-nuclear weapons, big destruction without the radioactive after effects.

I appologise for the long post and occaisional offensiveness but I've been away a while and needed to add my bit to this.

In space, every weapon that is propelled has infinite range unless it hits an object, thus making things like railguns pretty much useless.

In space, every weapon that is propelled has infinite range unless it hits an object, thus making things like railguns pretty much useless.

Actually, projectile guns and railguns would be effective. Simply park a railgun platform or projectile gun platform in orbit of the moon or Mars or something, then fire projectiles aganist space stations, planetary targets, etc. while staying out of the ranges of most counter-fire weapons and defenses.

Why use an expensive railgun when you could use a cheaper conventional gun or a rocket? You can't stay out of their range because unless you use cover, range has no meaning in space.

Why use an expensive railgun when you could use a cheaper conventional gun or a rocket? You can't stay out of their range because unless you use cover, range has no meaning in space.Time on target? You want $Really_seriously_high_v0 (Multiple km/s as the bare minimum) to reach the target within a reasonably timeframe (< A minute). And honestly, the moment you have working, efficient railguns, you're not too far from a level that allows for particle beam weapons to make a neat little defence line by way of being capable of vaporising incoming projectiles. Which means that you need double- to tripledigit km/s in order to be fast 'nough.

Edit: And of course, railguns reduce the annoying recoil problem.

Actually, projectile guns and railguns would be effective. Simply park a railgun platform or projectile gun platform in orbit of the moon or Mars or something, then fire projectiles aganist space stations, planetary targets, etc. while staying out of the ranges of most counter-fire weapons and defenses.It's somewhat unlikely that you can stay out of range when you try to shoot an opponent of equal technological abilities...

Time on target? You want $Really_seriously_high_v0 (Multiple km/s as the bare minimum) to reach the target within a reasonably timeframe (< A minute). And honestly, the moment you have working, efficient railguns, you're not too far from a level that allows for particle beam weapons to make a neat little defence line by way of being capable of vaporising incoming projectiles. Which means that you need double- to tripledigit km/s in order to be fast 'nough.

It's somewhat unlikely that you can stay out of range when you try to shoot an opponent of equal technological abilities...

Why all being true I think that there is a line that gets crossed when you take weapons into space that is rarely dealt with. Such weapons like Rail Guns will have extreme recoil depending on the system, not to mention requiring huge amount of electrical charge.

Cannons and other weapons that have the force are subject to the law "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction"! This means that you fire something in space, the same force used to fire, like a cannon would be subject to the same force back on the object, even a object with large mass like a spaceship could be thrown back a little to cause small misses over long ranges. Ah..but in space this is fun!

Example: A man in space fires a cannon. The cannonball holds a steady course and continues on in a straight line. Now the cannon itself would spin and move backwards endlessly. Spinning is bad for targeting in space! Such reactions would make projectile weapons useless on spaceships.

So while Rail guns, using magnetic fields are up the projectile weapons that Sharina mentioned are completely out of the question. Barkozy's comment while it seems good that there is no 'range', but there is such things as faster then light messages in future-tech and light speed messages in Modern-tech. This would allow for data to be collected, identify the unchanging course of the weapon and predict a course to destroy it since nothing will change its path. This will put an 'effective' range back on the weapon themselves based on speed. This range would vary based on speed and messages and reactions of the ships themselves. Effective Range will always be present with rail guns in space.

**I had to make the word "effective range" as to put this into perspective. There is no limit to distance in a space with no resistance on a object, but there is a limit on its speed and the time needed to determine where it will be and when, making it easy to destroy. Such information will not take more then a second or two for a ship's computer to calculate the speed, vectors and path, then line up a countermeasure to the threat, find a point of intersection, fire the counter to it. This limits the 'effective range' of any weapon based on speed of the firing and countering.

So while there is no 'range' on a weapon as in an Earth sense, there is one of range that it cannot be destroyed within. This will be the 'effective range' of that weapon before it stands a high chance of failing, so high that it might as well be 100% failure rate past a certain distance.

Why all being true I think that there is a line that gets crossed when you take weapons into space that is rarely dealt with. Such weapons like Rail Guns will have extreme recoil depending on the system, not to mention requiring huge amount of electrical charge.

Cannons and other weapons that have the force are subject to the law "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction"! This means that you fire something in space, the same force used to fire, like a cannon would be subject to the same force back on the object, even a object with large mass like a spaceship could be thrown back a little to cause small misses over long ranges. Ah..but in space this is fun!

Example: A man in space fires a cannon. The cannonball holds a steady course and continues on in a straight line. Now the cannon itself would spin and move backwards endlessly. Spinning is bad for targeting in space! Such reactions would make projectile weapons useless on spaceships.

So while Rail guns, using magnetic fields are up the projectile weapons that Sharina mentioned are completely out of the question. Barkozy's comment while it seems good that there is no 'range', but there is such things as faster then light messages in future-tech and light speed messages in Modern-tech. This would allow for data to be collected, identify the unchanging course of the weapon and predict a course to destroy it since nothing will change its path. This will put an 'effective' range back on the weapon themselves based on speed. This range would vary based on speed and messages and reactions of the ships themselves. Effective Range will always be present with rail guns in space.

**I had to make the word "effective range" as to put this into perspective. There is no limit to distance in a space with no resistance on a object, but there is a limit on its speed and the time needed to determine where it will be and when, making it easy to destroy. Such information will not take more then a second or two for a ship's computer to calculate the speed, vectors and path, then line up a countermeasure to the threat, find a point of intersection, fire the counter to it. This limits the 'effective range' of any weapon based on speed of the firing and countering.

So while there is no 'range' on a weapon as in an Earth sense, there is one of range that it cannot be destroyed within. This will be the 'effective range' of that weapon before it stands a high chance of failing, so high that it might as well be 100% failure rate past a certain distance.

There's something that I don't agree with here in this post, and that's where you said projectile weapons would be useless in space due to recoil. In that sense, no weapon would would in space, as they will all exert a certain amount of force back on the ship that's firing it.

But of course, we all know that a ship can simply use thrusters, or the inertia it already has in a certain direction, which would neutralize whatever bad effects that recoil would have.

Unless you have a gun, or any other type of weapon so massive, and generates so much force that you could use the damn thing as a main engine, I think that the effect of the recoil on targeting a space borne weapon on the type of space ship's we have here in NS is negligible.

On a side note though... I do know that of course recoil does in fact affect the ability to target something accurately, especially in Human hands. I'm just saying that in a massive spaceship, under most circumstances, you can pretty much ignore it.

Alright, I want to know how people got around this when using them on their battleships and such. I must admit that I use them as well, however, although I knew that there was no fuse that could power the shell, I didn't expect that the problem would be as huge as I read today. So, the problem is the following:



As far as I know there's only one known superconducter, and that requires it to be cooled to thirty degrees above absolute zero.

So, any people want to step up and give me a reason to continue using them on my ships? Hell, I sure hope so - because I love the range on them.

Railguns are most certainly a PMT/NFT/FFT technology, and probably shouldn't be used in an operational capacity on MT equipment (at this time).

I'm FFT, RailGuns are used for MissileLaunch capabilities, in limited roles on my BattleStars, Cruisers, Frigates/Destroyers and Corvettes... The "projectile" is a "Torpedo"/"Missile", generally with either a MAM (Matter-Anti-Matter) or Quantum/ZP (Zero-Point); MAM Assisted warhead; while "yeilds" are variable (set at pre-launch); effective maximum yields are between 900 megatons, and a couple gigatons.

Heat from launch is decreased by using super-conducting magnets; as well as "sinks" to trap, and radiate heat.... (Which even super-conductors would have during launch)...

I'd imagine PMT surface navies would use the sea as their heat-sink...

In proper operations the projectile should not be on the "rails" when launching; as the magnetic field should hold the projectile off of them (It should "float" in the field)....

This is obviously easier with PMT/NFT/FFT advanced materials technologies; but does still present operational concerns for MT states trying to reliably impliment the technology...

Alright, I want to know how people got around this when using them on their battleships and such. I must admit that I use them as well, however, although I knew that there was no fuse that could power the shell, I didn't expect that the problem would be as huge as I read today. So, the problem is the following:



As far as I know there's only one known superconducter, and that requires it to be cooled to thirty degrees above absolute zero.

So, any people want to step up and give me a reason to continue using them on my ships? Hell, I sure hope so - because I love the range on them.

A simple fix for the fusing problem involves the use of a thin ceramic veneer
made of similar matierial to reentry tiles. needs to be replaced often,
but better than replacing the rail itself-remember-electromagnetism is what
moves the projectile-not electricity so indeed one requires no metal to metal
contact. As long as the veneer is the proper thickness, the magcharge will get through, yet heat conductivity will be minimalised

1. You have to heat the plasma to begin with. This means that in essence, any kind of plasma weapon will have plasma as an effect of the weapon, not as the actual energy source of the weapon. An example for this would be, well, a nuclear detonation.

2. The magnetic containment field works when you have, say, the plasma within a confined space (Fusion reactor). How you're intending to create a sufficient containment field that propagates with the plasma stream is beyond me, though.

No, it isn't. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iso#Prefix)

If anything, it means standardised tons, which even makes some minimal amount of sense (Galactic standard ton?). Of course, nobody knows 1. How much this 'ton' actually weights, or 2. What the reference explosive is.

Wasn't accusing you of wanking. I was simply pointing out that it isn't only difficult but, for all intends and purposes, impossible, assuming that you recognise a bare minimum of real physics.

The level at which it becomes possible (Removing the air out of the way as well as keeping the beam coherent in a vacuum), the means you use to do this ought to be more destructive than the positrons themselves.

Isotons are estimated at being about 1 Isoton = 5.14 megatons of explosive... Assuming the yield is still measured based upon the yeild of trinitrotoluene (TNT). Which is at least somewhat consistent (mathmatically) with the ammount of material contained in Star Trek Weapons [since it is a ST unit of yield measurement)....

I concur with your extrapolation regarding ISO meaning.

To GMC; ISO does not mean "one"; it means "singular" or "only" or "equal"; it is a term of standard, and not numerical... Iso is greek, the numerical name "one" in Greek is "oo-ah" (ua) (Phonetic), not "ee-soh" (iso)... Historically Iso is a term equivalent to "equal" in English; as opposed to "one". It is an adoption of standardization (Like the I.S.O. name (International Organization of Standards)... The "name" is derived from the Greek/ Word, as opposed to being the actual abbreviation)... And is a definitive term/prefix for "standard".

It can be found as a prefix in many words:
isolate (Equally apart)
isometric (Equally proportionate)
isomer/isomeric (Chemical term; compounds which share the same elements [Methane, Ethane, and Octane are isomers])

Time on target? You want $Really_seriously_high_v0 (Multiple km/s as the bare minimum) to reach the target within a reasonably timeframe (< A minute). And honestly, the moment you have working, efficient railguns, you're not too far from a level that allows for particle beam weapons to make a neat little defence line by way of being capable of vaporising incoming projectiles. Which means that you need double- to tripledigit km/s in order to be fast 'nough.

Edit: And of course, railguns reduce the annoying recoil problem.

It's somewhat unlikely that you can stay out of range when you try to shoot an opponent of equal technological abilities...

Why use an expensive railgun when you could use a cheaper conventional gun or a rocket? You can't stay out of their range because unless you use cover, range has no meaning in space.

Ah, you two make valid points, assuming that the enemy has railguns and is a near FT or full FT nation.

However, if I park railguns or projectile weapons next to the Moon, or base them on Mars, they are effectively out of reach of most MT weapons. Nuke ICBM's, SDI satellites, etc. can't reach Mars, and they can't quite reach the Moon within a quick time-frame.

Ground based anti-space stuff and "war-satellites" orbiting Earth would be limited in their range, as they cannot reach for hundreds of thousands of miles, much less millions of miles. Unless the "war-satellites" employ railguns of their own, then if that should happen, the guy who fires first would usually score more hits or do more damage than the victim.

Railgun projectiles would be tiny, probably just a meter across, not much different than a speeding meteorite. Even if MT sensors were good enough to detect objects between 10 centimeters to 1 meter (100 centimeters) big, they could mistake these objects for harmless meteorites. The sensors will believe that the "meteorites" would burn up in the atmosphere, and dismiss the threat.

I think I remember someone here somewhere in this thread or another weapon discussion thread said that it would be difficult to distingish tiny objects from space debris, meteorites, or micro-asteroids.

The fundamental problem however, Sharina, is that you can't expect someone to RP with MT (or even PMT) sensors, weapons, and eqipment or any other technologies of the same nature against you when you are, in the same RP, roleplaying with something (aka railgun on the Moon or even, Mars) that is only pretty much feasible in FT. Thus, unless you are in a MT/PMT vs FT situation, the point about "out of range" and evading detection is pretty null and void.

The fundamental problem however, Sharina, is that you can't expect someone to RP with MT (or even PMT) sensors, weapons, and eqipment or any other technologies of the same nature against you when you are, in the same RP, roleplaying with something (aka railgun on the Moon or even, Mars) that is only pretty much feasible in FT. Thus, unless you are in a MT/PMT vs FT situation, the point about "out of range" and evading detection is pretty null and void.

Ah, but I am not a FT nation. I'm on the fence between MT and Post-MT, around 2020 - 2030 timeframe.

Even if I don't use railguns, there are plenty of other alternatives for MT / Post-MT projectile weapons.

1. Tiny asteroids of 1 - 2 meter width, coated in heat-resistant ceramics.
2. Employ large cannon projectiles, similiar to a 30 - 40 inch Doujin cannon.
3. Collect several space debris, then hurl them from the Moon towards Earth with boosters strapped on.

There are several other possible MT / Post-MT ideas I haven't thought of yet. But I do believe that these are much more feasible than FT lasers, particle cannons, or my Asteroid WMD's from a few weeks ago.

Whoever said that space weapons have an infinite range is speaking from a serious lack of knowledge. All weapons have a maximum range due to the loss of energy in various ways, colectively known as entropy. In stellar environments (ie. around stars) there is also friction from solar wind to be worried about.

Vo as suggested by Der Angst is also very important, the faster the projectile is the harder it is to track and therfore the harder it is to move out of the way.

In terms of MT/PMT, anything with a railgun on it that does more than lightly tickle the target is definitely at least late MT to PMT in my view, read around 2020. If you can moumt these on space platforms or other space bases they are definitely PMT, simply because it would be so difficult to keep them supplied or make them self sufficient, at least 2080 - 2100. Even if they are PMT a particle beam is not necessarily better. The point has already been mentioned, but old technology surrrounds us, especially in the military, as it is cheaper and more reliable. A case in this point are the computers on Royal Navy ships which date to the early 90s even though it would not cost much to upgrade them, they are harder to hack, more reliable and easier to repair in the heat of battle. Railguns on moon bases are definitely better as they are much simpler than a particle beam and do the same thing just as well.

There's something that I don't agree with here in this post, and that's where you said projectile weapons would be useless in space due to recoil. In that sense, no weapon would would in space, as they will all exert a certain amount of force back on the ship that's firing it.

But of course, we all know that a ship can simply use thrusters, or the inertia it already has in a certain direction, which would neutralize whatever bad effects that recoil would have.

Unless you have a gun, or any other type of weapon so massive, and generates so much force that you could use the damn thing as a main engine, I think that the effect of the recoil on targeting a space borne weapon on the type of space ship's we have here in NS is negligible.

On a side note though... I do know that of course recoil does in fact affect the ability to target something accurately, especially in Human hands. I'm just saying that in a massive spaceship, under most circumstances, you can pretty much ignore it.


Such a beautiful, clean, arguement! I love it! I haven't seen such an Einstein argument!

Yes, in terms of the force/mass, the directional change of the ship will be small and not a large deal. This however becomes a larger problem with multiple weapons firing or intense power behind them. Such would be battleships, the massive cannons firing at sea have enough power to kick up big waves and push the ship in the water.

The effect of a MOVING vessel when firing will only enhance the movement, as common when we factor speed into it. So while a stopped object will move a little, a speeding object firing would change the vector to a less desirable one. Firing infront of you would slow the ship down, sides would spin the ship, behind would enhance the speed for a short time. Such matters would be trivial in short distances, but for trying to 'snipe' out enemy ships such things would pose a dangerous move. A small cruiser with a capital ship weapon would have a much higher force and would be blown away and not be able to line up another shot in time!

These extremes come with the over adaption of a weapon and ship to perform a task exceedingly well. Though small vector changes can still disrupt the accuracy enough to miss small objects from great distances!

...Though small vector changes can still disrupt the accuracy enough to miss small objects from great distances!


Yes, yes, great distances...

...and that's why we have missiles. Auto-guided...heh, heh...

Thank you, that is all. O_O

Yes, yes, great distances...

...and that's why we have missiles. Auto-guided...heh, heh...

Thank you, that is all. O_O

Its true though, you supported my idea with an arguement with proof behind it that has physics and science behind it! Using the human body as a aid to the arguement is something which was very keen and true.

Missiles still have a range though! =P

Its true though, you supported my idea with an arguement with proof behind it that has physics and science behind it! Using the human body as a aid to the arguement is something which was very keen and true.

Missiles still have a range though! =P

The missiles are in space, and they have no set range. Only a range of effectiveness.

If you want to talk about how far they can go in space, then there is no range to speak of.

At least that's how my missiles are. They have a nearly infinite power supply for their inertial engines, and therefore can make a nearly infinite number of course corrections indefinitely on it's flight plan.

Inertial engines, and ZPMs are the key here, that's why I say that this only really applies to my missiles.

The missiles are in space, and they have no set range. Only a range of effectiveness.

If you want to talk about how far they can go in space, then there is no range to speak of.

At least that's how my missiles are. They have a nearly infinite power supply for their inertial engines, and therefore can make a nearly infinite number of course corrections indefinitely on it's flight plan.

Inertial engines, and ZPMs are the key here, that's why I say that this only really applies to my missiles.

Correct. :)

*flashes him* You wouldn't hit me, now would you! :)

(Inside joke, doubt you'll get it! Though you wouldn't want to damage your rep by double-crossing an ally, would you?)

Correct. :)

*flashes him* You wouldn't hit me, now would you! :)

(Inside joke, doubt you'll get it! Though you wouldn't want to damage your rep by double-crossing an ally, would you?)

Yeah, thanks. I already know I'm right! :p

Actually, We've only ever agreed in RL that we'd remain allies. Seeing as how one member of the KRT is out for the most part, making the alliance we had in MT kinda irrelevant, I'd say that I wouldn't actually damage anything by attacking you

But then again, same goes for Huntaer, and a few other nations that I feel I'm on particularly good terms with.

But don't worry, I won't attack, unless I really felt the need to. Until then, you'd better bump up that diplomacy thing you had going if you don't want to risk the chance of getting completely wiped out.
(Joking of course... -.> )

EDIT: Make this the last post between us here that's off topic. The thread is cluttered enough.

Isotons are estimated at being about 1 Isoton = 5.14 megatons of explosive... Assuming the yield is still measured based upon the yeild of trinitrotoluene (TNT). Which is at least somewhat consistent (mathmatically) with the ammount of material contained in Star Trek Weapons [since it is a ST unit of yield measurement)

No, it's just meaningless Treknobabble designed to stop them having to use reasonable numbers.

In proper operations the projectile should not be on the "rails" when launching; as the magnetic field should hold the projectile off of them (It should "float" in the field)....No confusing railguns with coilguns, please.

Ah, you two make valid points, assuming that the enemy has railguns and is a near FT or full FT nation.

However, if I park railguns or projectile weapons next to the Moon, or base them on Mars, they are effectively out of reach of most MT weapons. Nuke ICBM's, SDI satellites, etc. can't reach Mars, and they can't quite reach the Moon within a quick time-frame.And if you use uninterceptable weaponry against $opponent (Without either being attacked first or having explicit consent), you're a bloody wanker, simple as that. There's a reason why I always assume opponents of relatively equal technological expertise. Everything else is just horribly wanky and IMHO unacceptable. Hence, why potentially lower technological abilities of $Opponent should never play a role in your theoretical IC (Or ooc) considerations.

Thus, while your thoughts are somewhat logical in an RL scenario (Where it would just be 'Try winning'), they are completely irrelevant in NS, due to things like, ya'know, fairness, and game balance.

Oh, and basing them on Mars (Which isn't exactly orbiting Earth) would be a bad idea, really...

Railgun projectiles would be tiny, probably just a meter acrossI will have this stand alone, for its sheer ridiculousness.

Even if MT sensors were good enough to detect objects between 10 centimeters to 1 meter (100 centimeters) big, they could mistake these objects for harmless meteorites. The sensors will believe that the "meteorites" would burn up in the atmosphere, and dismiss the threat.Modern Radar has zero problems tracking objects a millimetre across in orbit. They would see them. With casual ease.

And the projectiles would indeed burn up in the atmosphere. Railgun fired or asteorid, not much of a difference. To manage actually hitting the ground, you need rather expensive, heat-resistent projectiles of 1 ton+. Utterly unfeasible in (P)MT, due to costs.

And while I freely admit to field guns firing 10- 90 ton heavy projectiles with a density of 13.565g/cm^3, at a v0 of 100km/s, I'm not particularly modern. Or postmodern. Oh, and I don't bomb random MT nations with them.

I think I remember someone here somewhere in this thread or another weapon discussion thread said that it would be difficult to distingish tiny objects from space debris, meteorites, or micro-asteroids.Not really. Asteorids tend not to fall by the hundreds over an area of a squarekilometre, they tend not to come out of GIANT GUNS in orbit your radar can see from millions of kilometres away, and space debris tends to orbit Earth, rather than coming directly at you.

So, actually, rather easy to distinguish.

Ah, but I am not a FT nation. I'm on the fence between MT and Post-MT, around 2020 - 2030 timeframe.Irrelevant. Proper RP etiquette dictates that you don't use uninterceptable/ unreachable weapons (And frankly, personally, I would be terribly bored by fighting a war with such a ludicrous level of superiority).

Even if I don't use railguns, there are plenty of other alternatives for MT / Post-MT projectile weapons.

1. Tiny asteroids of 1 - 2 meter width, coated in heat-resistant ceramics.
2. Employ large cannon projectiles, similiar to a 30 - 40 inch Doujin cannon.
3. Collect several space debris, then hurl them from the Moon towards Earth with boosters strapped on.Technologically feasible. Unfortunately, you would blow more money on this than you could ever hope to inflict as damage/ monetary loss on your opponent.

There are several other possible MT / Post-MT ideas I haven't thought of yet. But I do believe that these are much more feasible than FT lasers, particle cannons, or my Asteroid WMD's from a few weeks ago.The thing is that both, lasers and particle beams, exist.

For lasers, we're experimentally up to 25 kilojoule pulses for weaponised thingies (MTHEL), and we can quite easily calculate the range of a laser in the vacuum (The beam stays coherent for Pi W^2/ wavelength, with W being D/ (cubic root 2) (D = Diameter of the aperture). Incidentally, for those interested in the semen I spill in my spacedyships, this gives 'em a coherent range of 500000- 4.5mio kilometres, or 50000- 450000 if I made some terrible mistake).

For (neutral) particle beams, we can do the same, as the beam intensity decreases with (w0/ (w0 + zx))^2 (w0 = original radius, z = distance, x = divergence, divergence in radians, they managed less than 10^-6 radians in the late eighties/ early nineties), and it is easy enough to calculate the energy-on-target over a given distance.

So, as you can see, the theory is there, the (Experimental) technology is there (Admittedly, they're having problems actually aiming particle beams), and they're technologically about as feasible as railguns, with their v0 of (L'*I²*t)/(2*m) (V = velocity L' = inductance of rods (Usually about a microhenry) I = current t = time length of current pulse m = mass of projectile). Sure, monetary problems make them utterly unfeasible for MT, and unfeasible for spacedyness in PMT, but...

The "name" is derived from the Greek/ Word, as opposed to being the actual abbreviation)... And is a definitive term/prefix for "standard".

Great. So it means "equal ton", which makes even less sense.

And if you use uninterceptable weaponry against $opponent (Without either being attacked first or having explicit consent), you're a bloody wanker, simple as that. There's a reason why I always assume opponents of relatively equal technological expertise. Everything else is just horribly wanky and IMHO unacceptable. Hence, why potentially lower technological abilities of $Opponent should never play a role in your theoretical IC (Or ooc) considerations.

And is it okay for NS nations to pull 100,000 nukes out of their asses? Transport hardware or send ships + planes (Planes on carriers) 10,000 miles in just 1 - 3 days? Or even in hours?
Invade with 5, 10, 15, or 20+ million men armies?

If NS nations can do all of these, I might as well be allowed to employ extra-long range space weaponary to even up the odds aganist those kinds of numbers / magic-teleporting stuff.

Thus, while your thoughts are somewhat logical in an RL scenario (Where it would just be 'Try winning'), they are completely irrelevant in NS, due to things like, ya'know, fairness, and game balance.

Really? Fairness and game balance in NS? You gotta be joking.

The day that NS actually enjoys full fairness and gameplay balance is the day I will relinquish my efforts to even the playing field. When there are no more uber-dogpiles, n00bfests, huge nations beating up smaller nations for the hell of it, etc. then come back and call NS fair and game-balanced.

Oh, and basing them on Mars (Which isn't exactly orbiting Earth) would be a bad idea, really...

I was referring to Mars as a range thing. Stuff launched from Mars orbit can hit Earth, while most conventional weapons on Earth cannot hit Mars (Nukes, ICBM's, SDI satellites, etc.)

I will have this stand alone, for its sheer ridiculousness.

Modern Radar has zero problems tracking objects a millimetre across in orbit. They would see them. With casual ease.

I never said that modern sensors would be 100% unable to detect those projectile weapons. What I was referring to is the fact that those sensors would need to work to distinguish said projectiles from a meteor shower, or space debris falling to Earth.

And the projectiles would indeed burn up in the atmosphere. Railgun fired or asteorid, not much of a difference. To manage actually hitting the ground, you need rather expensive, heat-resistent projectiles of 1 ton+. Utterly unfeasible in (P)MT, due to costs.

I could coat the asteroids or railgun projectiles in heat ceramics like those used on Space Shuttles and re-entry vehicles (like ones that land on Mars). The Space Shuttle is more than 10 meters big, while I'm looking for projectiles of 1 - 5 meters big for railgun or projectile "bullets" (not counting asteroid weapons).

Not really. Asteorids tend not to fall by the hundreds over an area of a squarekilometre, they tend not to come out of GIANT GUNS in orbit your radar can see from millions of kilometres away, and space debris tends to orbit Earth, rather than coming directly at you.

Asteroids do fall by the hundreds at particular times. That situation goes by the words "Meteor Shower".

I can hide my weapons in radar-absorbent material, or hide them behind space debris. There's ways to fool radar in space, by creating false signatures or silohuettes or the like.

Space debris do fall to Earth. However, if we're talking about NS Earth, there's easily 10,000x the amount of space debris floating around, not to mention all these Space Progams of 1000's of nations that leave trash floating around. Plenty of space debris to fall down to NS Earth. Even if only 1% of, say, 1,000,000 defunct satellites falls down to NS Earth per year, that's easily 10,000 satellites or "trash-bins" to camouflage or mask my projectile weapons with.

Irrelevant. Proper RP etiquette dictates that you don't use uninterceptable/ unreachable weapons (And frankly, personally, I would be terribly bored by fighting a war with such a ludicrous level of superiority).

Proper RP etiquette dictates that huge nations do not wipe out newbie nations within their first few weeks or months on NS.

Proper RP etiquette dictates that people should not god-mod.

Proper RP etiquette dictates that people shouldn't massively dog-pile aganist a 5 - 100 million population nations (like what was done aganist Feline Catfish, Call to Power, and several others).

Proper RP etiquette dictates that the older NS'ers should give the newcomers a chance at NS before smashing them into oblivion.

Proper RP etiquette dictates that nations cannot launch invasions with 10 million man infantry armies, 3,000 naval warships, 100,000 nuke ICBM's, and so forth.

Proper RP etiquette dictates a good number of other things as well.

However, these things keep on happening, and most of I.I. doesn't even bother to "band-together" to try to stop these things from happening. Believe me, I know. I speak from experience, from all my "Proper RP please!" threads and complaints aganist those who don't RP properly. So if people are gonna be assholes or turds with RP, disregard RP etiquette, or number-wank, I will take and use my uninterceptable/ unreachable weapons to even the playing field.

Technologically feasible. Unfortunately, you would blow more money on this than you could ever hope to inflict as damage/ monetary loss on your opponent.

Ah, but small asteroids would make for great terror weapons and city-destroyers. I watched National Geographic last week, and they said that even a 10 meter wide asteroid can devastate a good portion of a city. A 100 meter asteroid means complete city-wipeout.

I would only need to fire asteroids the size of, say, the Space Shuttle or a large satellite in groups to really ruin my enemy's day. Moving small asteroids would be far more feasible and do-able than my 1 kilometer wide asteroid WMD's from the other thread. What's more, the uber-cities of NS nations are much larger than normal cities, meaning a much higher chance of an asteroid or two hitting even with horrible inaccuracies.

Nothing like a "scatter-shot" of several 25 meter wide asteroids across huge hyper-urban cities of my NS enemy nation to ruin his morale and war effort. The money will be well spent, as for maybe $500 billion, I can wipe out several multi-trillion dollar value mega-cities.

OOC:

Sharina, I think when Der Angst is referring to "fairness" and "game balance" he is assuming that the involved participants actually do believe in those things. Do the dogpiles and other things occur? Yes. But countering it with OMG tech doesn't work since nobody wins a godmode war. A consistent ignore does work wonders, and a person doesn't even have to post "I ignore you". They can just go ahead and do it.

I would like to hear more on railguns.

OOC:

Sharina, I think when Der Angst is referring to "fairness" and "game balance" he is assuming that the involved participants actually do believe in those things. Do the dogpiles and other things occur? Yes. But countering it with OMG tech doesn't work since nobody wins a godmode war. A consistent ignore does work wonders, and a person doesn't even have to post "I ignore you". They can just go ahead and do it.

I would like to hear more on railguns.

True, but there has to be a line for high tech and fewer numbers over low tech and higher numbers.

If this was taken literally USA and China would be called godmodding because of USA's OMG tech, and China's OMG numbers.

Have stealth bombers in the sky and unmanned fighters that kill you before you even see them would be called OMG tech and godmodding to some. Your dead before you can even SEE or detect it! Such things NEED to be addressed in some way, fairness of these are completely fair based on the levels of the nation. If every nation was exactly equal those newer nations would have the same army as a 5 bil nation, and the same tech to. Since this is obviously impossible you need to draw a line and learn when not to ignore.

True, but there has to be a line for high tech and fewer numbers over low tech and higher numbers.

If this was taken literally USA and China would be called godmodding because of USA's OMG tech, and China's OMG numbers.

Have stealth bombers in the sky and unmanned fighters that kill you before you even see them would be called OMG tech and godmodding to some. Your dead before you can even SEE or detect it! Such things NEED to be addressed in some way, fairness of these are completely fair based on the levels of the nation. If every nation was exactly equal those newer nations would have the same army as a 5 bil nation, and the same tech to. Since this is obviously impossible you need to draw a line and learn when not to ignore.

The sad fact is that in NS, people do number-wank, so that leaves the newbie or newcomer the only option left to "survive". Use higher tech to counter the number-wank to even the playing field to a 50 / 50 even odds.

The sad fact is that in NS, people do number-wank, so that leaves the newbie or newcomer the only option left to "survive". Use higher tech to counter the number-wank to even the playing field to a 50 / 50 even odds.

Or you could not play with people you know are wankers rather than waving their names around in an attempt to justify your own excesses, of course.

The sad fact is that in NS, people do number-wank, so that leaves the newbie or newcomer the only option left to "survive". Use higher tech to counter the number-wank to even the playing field to a 50 / 50 even odds.

I use a large droid army of much lower tech for 90% of my FT forces. This may be called godmodding, but its a cross between USA and Chinese tech to counter many larger threats.

And is it okay for NS nations to pull 100,000 nukes out of their asses? Transport hardware or send ships + planes (Planes on carriers) 10,000 miles in just 1 - 3 days? Or even in hours?
Invade with 5, 10, 15, or 20+ million men armies?

If NS nations can do all of these, I might as well be allowed to employ extra-long range space weaponary to even up the odds aganist those kinds of numbers / magic-teleporting stuff.
Gotta love the way you're constantly justifying the stuff you pull out of your ass by way of accusing others (Incidentally, I miss examples) of being worse. Personally, I find it somewhat odd that you're apparently wanting to be as much of a fuckwit as $Undefined_But_Surely_Worse_Player_must_exist_Person. News for you: If you're a fuckwit, only fuckwits will play with you.

But hey, if you enjoy bitchfests, be their guest.

Nonetheless, to put it really, really simple: It doesn't make you any less of a bloody wanker if the other side wanks, too.

Really? Fairness and game balance in NS? You gotta be joking.

The day that NS actually enjoys full fairness and gameplay balance is the day I will relinquish my efforts to even the playing field. When there are no more uber-dogpiles, n00bfests, huge nations beating up smaller nations for the hell of it, etc. then come back and call NS fair and game-balanced.
Once more: Just because there are assholes around you have the burning desire to be an asshole, too? Instead of leaving the assholes where they are and doing fun things? If you're so fixated on NS' less enjoyable sides, why the hell are you playing NS? It must be a pain in the ass.

I could coat the asteroids or railgun projectiles in heat ceramics like those used on Space Shuttles and re-entry vehicles (like ones that land on Mars). The Space Shuttle is more than 10 meters big, while I'm looking for projectiles of 1 - 5 meters big for railgun or projectile "bullets" (not counting asteroid weapons).And this helps the lack of cost efficiency... How?

Asteroids do fall by the hundreds at particular times. That situation goes by the words "Meteor Shower".

I can hide my weapons in radar-absorbent material, or hide them behind space debris. There's ways to fool radar in space, by creating false signatures or silohuettes or the like.

Space debris do fall to Earth. However, if we're talking about NS Earth, there's easily 10,000x the amount of space debris floating around, not to mention all these Space Progams of 1000's of nations that leave trash floating around. Plenty of space debris to fall down to NS Earth. Even if only 1% of, say, 1,000,000 defunct satellites falls down to NS Earth per year, that's easily 10,000 satellites or "trash-bins" to camouflage or mask my projectile weapons with.1. ... Which can be predicted, because you see them coming from millions of kilometres away, not to mention that they're periodic, which means that you will notice it when they're suddenly coming randomly.

2. Awww, cute, boosting costs by another few orders of magnitude. Oh, and you can launch and maintain them stealthy, too? Not to mention that they remain stealthy when firing, thus producing heat, I.e. a metric fuckton of infrared radiation, surely?

Oh, and you can't hide behind space debris. Might have to do with space debris being small, with you, being behind space debris, moving with a different velocity, and other such things.

3. Your projectiles are magically fired the same way a satellite deorbits, have the ame velocity, AND on top of that still manage to achive significant damage and accuracy?

*Laughs*.

Oh, and before I forget it... You want to hide this things... Why? It's kinda like wanting to hide this one here:

http://www.persuaders65.org/TTArchives/dora.jpg

There's just no point in hiding it.

Proper RP etiquette dictates that huge nations do not wipe out newbie nations within their first few weeks or months on NS.

Proper RP etiquette dictates that people should not god-mod.

Proper RP etiquette dictates that people shouldn't massively dog-pile aganist a 5 - 100 million population nations (like what was done aganist Feline Catfish, Call to Power, and several others).

Proper RP etiquette dictates that the older NS'ers should give the newcomers a chance at NS before smashing them into oblivion.

Proper RP etiquette dictates that nations cannot launch invasions with 10 million man infantry armies, 3,000 naval warships, 100,000 nuke ICBM's, and so forth.

Proper RP etiquette dictates a good number of other things as well.

However, these things keep on happening, and most of I.I. doesn't even bother to "band-together" to try to stop these things from happening. Believe me, I know. I speak from experience, from all my "Proper RP please!" threads and complaints aganist those who don't RP properly. So if people are gonna be assholes or turds with RP, disregard RP etiquette, or number-wank, I will take and use my uninterceptable/ unreachable weapons to even the playing field.I think I addressed this above. But still. You're going to be an asshole just because others are assholes, too, instead of leaving them alone? Oh, and by way of this, you're of course effectively ruining your chance to be recognised as anything but an asshole by the occasional non-asshole? Good plan. Really, I'm curious. How do you manage to actually have fun in this game? Personally, if I was thinking like you, I would most likely have quit NS in february '03.

Ah, but small asteroids would make for great terror weapons and city-destroyers. I watched National Geographic last week, and they said that even a 10 meter wide asteroid can devastate a good portion of a city. A 100 meter asteroid means complete city-wipeout.Just like volcanoes make for great terror weapons and city estroyers. You just have to ignore issues like acceleration, maneuverability, cost efficiency, availability, accuracy, usability, infrastructure requirements...

I would only need to fire asteroids the size of, say, the Space Shuttle or a large satellite in groups to really ruin my enemy's day. Moving small asteroids would be far more feasible and do-able than my 1 kilometer wide asteroid WMD's from the other thread.Not exactly. You also have to catch an asteorid moving with about 17 km/s, carrying a kinetic energy of ~140 kilotons (Assuming a 10m wide sphere of iron), slow it down, keep it in orbit, then accelerate it again.

OR you have to wait until an asteorid comesflying by, in exactly the right moment to change its course. Well, the chance for this is kinda infinitesimal.

Nothing like a "scatter-shot" of several 25 meter wide asteroids across huge hyper-urban cities of my NS enemy nation to ruin his morale and war effort. The money will be well spent, as for maybe $500 billion, I can wipe out several multi-trillion dollar value mega-cities.25m asteorid, huh?

Lesse...

4/3*pi*r^3*7870 (Assuming a spherical iron asteorid) = 64.386 tons. Moving at 17km/s (Typical asteorid velocity), that's only 2.2 megatons of kinetic energy you have to deal with.

Now, disregarding the thing about energy being lost in the atmosphere, care to explain how you're going to catch such a thing with a postmodern techbase? Or, heck, to change its course, although this is a bit ludicrous, given that you would have to wait for asteorids flying by in exactly the right moment to use them.

Once more: Just because there are assholes around you have the burning desire to be an asshole, too? Instead of leaving the assholes where they are and doing fun things? If you're so fixated on NS' less enjoyable sides, why the hell are you playing NS? It must be a pain in the ass.

Der Angst always puts these things better than I can, hee. :D

True, but there has to be a line for high tech and fewer numbers over low tech and higher numbers.

If this was taken literally USA and China would be called godmodding because of USA's OMG tech, and China's OMG numbers.

Have stealth bombers in the sky and unmanned fighters that kill you before you even see them would be called OMG tech and godmodding to some. Your dead before you can even SEE or detect it! Such things NEED to be addressed in some way, fairness of these are completely fair based on the levels of the nation. If every nation was exactly equal those newer nations would have the same army as a 5 bil nation, and the same tech to. Since this is obviously impossible you need to draw a line and learn when not to ignore.

*Sigh*

I never once suggested that nations are equal. What I mean by “game balance” and “fairness” is this: each nation participating in an rp would have a weakness that could possibly be exploited by the other participants. That is, the weakness can be discovered. Every nation has their own strengths and weaknesses since no nation can be the master of all and a resourceful opponent can take advantage of a weakness. It comes down to what the participants in the thread want to live with. I also think an effective ignore is better than countering OMG tech with even more OMG tech. Or better yet, when there is a dispute try to calmly talk it out (the common practice of running a parallel ooc thread with the ic thread to keep the ic thread free of ooc clutter - the "talk it out" place) instead of pressing the ignore button.

For the record, I have only soft ignored one person i(that I can honestly remember) in my years of being here. I'm pretty damn accepting of all tech levels, which is why I play it pretty cool around nations that are in FT land (and I'll include fantasy "tech" since wizards summoning demons would be completely alien to Vrak - which is mostly modern and some PMT elements). I also am trying to resist going all out FT because I don't want to start wanking just to be in that league in order to keep my nation intact.

I would like to get back to the topic at hand.

WOW.....all I can say about that!

Der Angst that was a really strong arguement.

Now that asteroids as weapons seem pretty much killed...why would a rail gun be great?

Magnetic fields! With enough energy one could have a non-stop railgun that would pound the crap out of everything.

A several mile long rail gun internally built into a ship with multiple loading sections could have pre-accelerated lines merge into the chamber, then accerlate in unison, spaced by mere inches between each one and fired. This reduces drag if were to be on earth or in space, a deadly gun of unmatched physical weaponry to pierce any armor or shield easily.

A several mile long rail gun internally built into a ship with multiple loading sections could have pre-accelerated lines merge into the chamber, then accerlate in unison, spaced by mere inches between each one and fired. This reduces drag if were to be on earth or in space, a deadly gun of unmatched physical weaponry to pierce any armor or shield easily.

You could call it 'The Compensator.'

Seriously, at that level of engineering such a massive ship with so much internal space and power taken up by the spacewang would be torn to shreds by ships with sensible armament.

You could call it 'The Compensator.'

Seriously, at that level of engineering such a massive ship with so much internal space and power taken up by the spacewang would be torn to shreds by ships with sensible armament.

Umm...something says you didn't get the fact it was a sacastic comment...

Though...based in a circular system of 2 miles in diameter as a donut, much like a particle accelerater, this could be easily possible. Though such things as ammo and energy production would have to be in the center, a much smaller space then the curved outter ring.

Space this is possible only. It has a powerful possibility as it can fire from any direction and spin, having artifical gravity also. This weapon would need to be heavily researched and developed slowly before any acceptance would be spread.

And is it okay for NS nations to pull 100,000 nukes out of their asses? Transport hardware or send ships + planes (Planes on carriers) 10,000 miles in just 1 - 3 days? Or even in hours?
Invade with 5, 10, 15, or 20+ million men armies?
See, this claim of yours is a direct contradiction of a later statment of yours here:
Proper RP etiquette dictates that people should not god-mod.

Proper RP etiquette dictates that nations cannot launch invasions with 10 million man infantry armies, 3,000 naval warships, 100,000 nuke ICBM's, and so forth.

Now tell me, ever heard of "an eye for an eye and the world will be blind"? By countering godmodery with something that is unfeasible, you are putting both parties at fault, and it doesn't make you any better anyways. This is what exactly this is - since you are apparantly actually justifying the existance and employment of your so-called "invincible asteroids of doom" with the presence of godmods (aka 10 million man invading armies) in some particular RPs.
Simple fact is: if you justify godmoding with a piece of similar technology as if that piece of technology is just as invincible and destructive, you aren't getting any better. It is getting worse when you apparantly try to claim that this will be the weapon "that ends it all for a nation" and support its deployment, when you are against things like dogpiles, number-wanks, and other things that does not create fairness for the player. A paradox, isn't it. Or otherwise, with the total and utter unfeasibility aside, how are you going to justify this as something that isn't n the level of "100 million man armies" and "100,000 nukes" when you are claiming this as an "end-it-all weapon" yourself? Or maybe it is.

See, this claim of yours is a direct contradiction of a later statment of yours here:


Now tell me, ever heard of "an eye for an eye and the world will be blind"? By countering godmodery with something that is unfeasible, you are putting both parties at fault, and it doesn't make you any better anyways. This is what exactly this is - since you are apparantly actually justifying the existance and employment of your so-called "invincible asteroids of doom" with the presence of godmods (aka 10 million man invading armies) in some particular RPs.
Simple fact is: if you justify godmoding with a piece of similar technology as if that piece of technology is just as invincible and destructive, you aren't getting any better.

Der Angst said all that better in one post :)

Der Angst said all that better in one post :)
I don't have much time in reading all of the counter-arguments, but regardless of that, you are quoting an obsolete version of my post (I've later re-edited it to prevent a repeat of the same points). Regardless of whether you think it's "worse" or not, I think that I've got my point across.

EDIT: In the end, you still simply don't justify the usage of unfeasible weapons by reciting the presence of godmoding - and since this justification has been used, it is evident that the person responsible for the proposal of the weapon does realize its unfeasibility. Tell me, is it better to report to the police or to storm his own home and steal his possessions, during an encounter with a thief? By opposing "10 million man armies", "100,000 nukes", and "OMG stealth UCAVs that will HORROR shoot down everything in existance" with something that is just as unfeasible, you are not achieving your purpose, and the opposing side won't be able to learn what his/her own mistakes are. Thus, it's counterproductive for both sides.

Great. So it means "equal ton", which makes even less sense.

"Standard" Ton would be the appropriate translation...

The assumptions I made off of the value was based off of observation of destructive power upon at least partially known objects....

For all that is known, the "Isoton" could be a value we already know of (Like MetricTon with a Different Name), or a value from some other race/species; or based off of some arbitrary value we don't know of (like the explosive potential of some compound)... Since they are known to use "MetricTon" when measuring vessel masses, it is probably something different, likely based off the explosive potential of a previously used material or weapon.... Though there is no definitive answer to what it numerically is (not really important to the plot line)...

Oh, and before I forget it... You want to hide this things... Why? It's kinda like wanting to hide this one here:

http://www.persuaders65.org/TTArchives/dora.jpg

There's just no point in hiding it.

I don't know, a couple well placed shrubs, cusions and a few throw rugs, and it would blend right in...

j/k...

That's as bad as my "Mauler" mobile Ion Cannon..... Cami works on it for visual distances, but it does little good if you're close....

http://thecomputerman.dyndns.biz/fleet/fleet/mauler.jpg

I don't know, a couple well placed shrubs, cusions and a few throw rugs, and it would blend right in...

j/k...

That's as bad as my "Mauler" mobile Ion Cannon..... Cami works on it for visual distances, but it does little good if you're close....

http://thecomputerman.dyndns.biz/fleet/fleet/mauler.jpg

What the heck is that!?

That cannot possiblely be a mobile Ion Cannon! It would take too much power to move and charge! The thing seems impractical...

Gotta love the way you're constantly justifying the stuff you pull out of your ass by way of accusing others (Incidentally, I miss examples) of being worse. Personally, I find it somewhat odd that you're apparently wanting to be as much of a fuckwit as $Undefined_But_Surely_Worse_Player_must_exist_Person. News for you: If you're a fuckwit, only fuckwits will play with you.

But hey, if you enjoy bitchfests, be their guest.

Nonetheless, to put it really, really simple: It doesn't make you any less of a bloody wanker if the other side wanks, too.

Once more: Just because there are assholes around you have the burning desire to be an asshole, too? Instead of leaving the assholes where they are and doing fun things? If you're so fixated on NS' less enjoyable sides, why the hell are you playing NS? It must be a pain in the ass.

See, this claim of yours is a direct contradiction of a later statment of yours here:

Now tell me, ever heard of "an eye for an eye and the world will be blind"? By countering godmodery with something that is unfeasible, you are putting both parties at fault, and it doesn't make you any better anyways. This is what exactly this is - since you are apparantly actually justifying the existance and employment of your so-called "invincible asteroids of doom" with the presence of godmods (aka 10 million man invading armies) in some particular RPs.
Simple fact is: if you justify godmoding with a piece of similar technology as if that piece of technology is just as invincible and destructive, you aren't getting any better.

Yes, I am aware of the hypocriscy of these statements.

Think of it as my own version of IGNORE cannon if you'd like, but more creative than "Fire IGNORE Cannon! End of story". ;)

On another note, I never said my asteroids or space weapons were invinicible. There are plenty of counter-measures to be taken aganist them, such as actually seeking out my mass drivers, use space platforms to hopefully intercept my weapons, and the like. Once again, I have never claimed that any of my stuff is invinicible. I am merely employing a different kind of weapon, much more radical than anything else in RL times.

What if a nation developed blimps that mounted cannons? Or convert classical wooden naval ships to airships using internal combustion engines (like the Koopa Airships in Mario games and Cid's airships in Final Fantasy games)? Or what if a nation developed a steam-driven tank or walking "golem" (employing hydraulics to do so) in 1880 or 1890?

Suppose the USA never cut funding to NASA, and instead, boosted NASA's budget to like $50 billion a year back in 1970's, then we could easily have had more space technologies and such by now. NASA made most of its advances, like the Space Shuttle and the like during the Cold War to try to keep an edge over the USSR.

Competition always helps accelerate technology and large projects. Without it (competition), we'd still be in the Dark Ages.

1. ... Which can be predicted, because you see them coming from millions of kilometres away, not to mention that they're periodic, which means that you will notice it when they're suddenly coming randomly.

That is true. However, I also watched on National Geographic that we still don't know 40% of possible Near-Earth asteroids. For all we know, there could be one hurtling towards us, and we wouldn't know it until 5 seconds before impact when we see the sky light up.

2. Awww, cute, boosting costs by another few orders of magnitude. Oh, and you can launch and maintain them stealthy, too? Not to mention that they remain stealthy when firing, thus producing heat, I.e. a metric fuckton of infrared radiation, surely?

I was merely posting this as a suggestion / throwing around ideas. However, to answer your question about heat, I could install heat sinks and the like to reduce infrared signatures.

Oh, and you can't hide behind space debris. Might have to do with space debris being small, with you, being behind space debris, moving with a different velocity, and other such things.

Yes, I am aware that my stuff would be moving at different velocity and trajectories, but I can easily put camouflage on it. Make it appear as a old derelict space station, or a large derelict satellite. The act of camouflage has been around for thousands of years, and has been used on everything from infantry to big tanks and camps.

In B.C. times, people could camouflage themselves with branches, shrubbery, and the like. Fast forward to 1900 - 2000. People put camouflage netting on tanks and aircraft, making them look like shrubs, hedges, or a boulder. Then now in 2005, we have been developing technologies to fool sensors more sophisciated than the Mark One naked eyeball. Refrigation to defeat infrared sensors and Stealth materials to defeat radar.

Surely, there are ways to camouflage space stuff as either asteroids, derelict space junk, or something else to fool both the human naked eye (spacecraft pilots and gunners) and computer sensors (Radar, infrared, etc.). Humans have always found and discovered ways to camouflage themselves and their equipment throughout history, so why should outer space be any different?

3. Your projectiles are magically fired the same way a satellite deorbits, have the ame velocity, AND on top of that still manage to achive significant damage and accuracy?

*Laughs*.

I never said that I'd be firing them the same velocity and trajectory of satellites de-orbiting. I was only saying that satellites do drop to Earth, and sensors will have to seperate my asteroid or projectile weapons from the actual derelict satellite. Every second helps when high velocity weapons are involved.

Just like volcanoes make for great terror weapons and city estroyers. You just have to ignore issues like acceleration, maneuverability, cost efficiency, availability, accuracy, usability, infrastructure requirements...

Not exactly. You also have to catch an asteorid moving with about 17 km/s, carrying a kinetic energy of ~140 kilotons (Assuming a 10m wide sphere of iron), slow it down, keep it in orbit, then accelerate it again.

OR you have to wait until an asteorid comesflying by, in exactly the right moment to change its course. Well, the chance for this is kinda infinitesimal.

25m asteorid, huh?

Lesse...

4/3*pi*r^3*7870 (Assuming a spherical iron asteorid) = 64.386 tons. Moving at 17km/s (Typical asteorid velocity), that's only 2.2 megatons of kinetic energy you have to deal with.

Now, disregarding the thing about energy being lost in the atmosphere, care to explain how you're going to catch such a thing with a postmodern techbase? Or, heck, to change its course, although this is a bit ludicrous, given that you would have to wait for asteorids flying by in exactly the right moment to use them.

I have a solution to most of these problems.

1. I can build up several asteroid mining bases and space stations in the asteroid belt.

2. Map out the asteroid belt, looking for suitable asteroids to exploit.

3. Gather as many small asteroids as possible, preferably 10 - 50 meters wide. I might include a couple of 100 - 150 meter wide ones.

4. Mine out these asteroids of valuable metals and resources.

5. Gather the depleted asteroids into a "rubble pile" of sorts.

6. Deploy a vessel to carry the asteroids back to either my space stations in the asteroid belt or in orbit of the moon. The ship will drag the asteroids with it similiar to a fishing trawler or something like it.

7. Install boosters (or propulsion systems) and ceramic coating at my space stations at either asteroid belt or moon orbit. To cut down on costs, I can use the materials I mined out of the asteroids. Even if the materials from the asteroids aren't enough, I can save millions or hopefully billions even with just 30% asteroid material and 70% Earth-manufactured material.

8. Get my asteroid mass drivers ready, fill them with the asteroid ammo, and keep them at readiness.

9. Should I ever get invaded, I can fire these asteroid weapons aganist the enemy invasion fleet, major factory cities, or "prime" targets. Those weapons will only be used if my back is aganist the wall, facing imminent defeat or similiar situations. This wouldn't be any different from a nation using WMD's as a last-gasp attack.



Asteroids hitting water would create huge and super-hot waves (combined with an expanding ring of steam), capable of flipping over naval vessels. Asteroids hitting NS hyper-cities would be much more devastating than if they hit RL modern cities. Mountains can be flattened instantly. Reinforced concrete bunkers capable of withstanding nuclear blasts can be crushed into fine powder from the kinetic energy and "crater'ing" of the asteroid weapon.

Beautiful weapons, if you ask me.

Think of it as my own version of IGNORE cannon if you'd like, but more creative than "Fire IGNORE Cannon! End of story". ;)
It might be your version, but that doesn't mean that you are not at fault yourself for hypocrisy either. If someone's so rigid to the point where he/she will just outright reject any objection to his technology/war moves/etc, then there's absolutely no point in RPing with them. Agreed, sometimes you need compromise, but "an eye for an eye" certainly isn't helping one bit either. Just consider this: in a multiplayer game, you see a cheater. Do you counter that cheater's 92328 kills by cheating yourself, or do you just leave the server and leave it for the admin staff and anti-cheating software?
EDIT: This is also why "an eye for an eye and the world will be blind" statement aplies to the situation here. By countering godmodery with something taht is just as "invincible" and "all-powerful OMG!!1", not only will you fail to achieve your purpose (aka prevent godmoding), but you will be guilty of the exact thing yourself, and in turn, becoming "blind" so to say since you are going against your own beliefs.

What the heck is that!?

That cannot possiblely be a mobile Ion Cannon! It would take too much power to move and charge! The thing seems impractical...

I'm FFT.... Power is generally provided through ZPM (Quantum) based technologies... And I have strong "light" materials available... Not totally impractical.... They are pretty much deployable Anti-Ship cannons used for Extended Anti-Seige purposes.... So they are abit limited in where they are ever deployed (heck, they're not even normally carried by our marine units; rather "shipped" with them on specialized missions)..

It might be your version, but that doesn't mean that you are not at fault yourself for hypocrisy either. If someone's so rigid to the point where he/she will just outright reject any objection to his technology/war moves/etc, then there's absolutely no point in RPing with them. Agreed, sometimes you need compromise, but "an eye for an eye" certainly isn't helping one bit either. Just consider this: in a multiplayer game, you see a cheater. Do you counter that cheater's 92328 kills by cheating yourself, or do you just leave the server and leave it for the admin staff and anti-cheating software?
EDIT: This is also why "an eye for an eye and the world will be blind" statement aplies to the situation here. By countering godmodery with something taht is just as "invincible" and "all-powerful OMG!!1", not only will you fail to achieve your purpose (aka prevent godmoding), but you will be guilty of the exact thing yourself, and in turn, becoming "blind" so to say since you are going against your own beliefs.

Good points, and I do appreciate your perpsective, Omz222.

However, lets look at your MP game example. Suppose the admin or mod's don't do anything about the cheater, and the cheater keeps hacking or entering any server at will? The admin or mod can't be on 24/7, and sometimes the admin / mod doesn't care (burned out).

I speak from personal experience, as I've played several MP games, and I've seen this very thing happen more than I'd like from both cheaters and admin / mod's.

At that point, you and the other honest players would get pretty fed up with the cheater ruining otherwise great games when there isn't an admin / mod around. That is when tempers flare and people get so mad they'd actually think about cheating aganist the cheater.

"Standard" Ton would be the appropriate translation...And since a "standard ton" is still only one ton, your semantic argument is little more than a smoke screen.

5 "isotons" == 5 "standard tons" == 5 tons

For all that is known, the "Isoton" could be a value we already know ofOr it could just be more technobabble to make it sound more impressive than it really is. "I'm an emergency communications operator at the Central Command Center at a major industrial complex that is a critical piece of the national infrastructure" vs. "I'm a security guard at a refinery"

since the muzzle velocity of a electromagnetic projectile weapon is a function of barrel length, they tend to make rather awkward infantry weapons. I decided it was just as easy to modify standard firearms to use HE cartriges, true, the weapon is a little heavier that way, but your troops can carry more ammo in the same size crate, which simplifies logistics.

<blah>A proper trekkie would argue that Isoton == Federation Standard ton, with a ton being a metric ton of $Material, and the yield of an Isoton being the E=m*c^2 result of its complete annihilation, read: 21.5 gigatons/ isoton :P

[/fap]

Think of it as my own version of IGNORE cannon if you'd like, but more creative than "Fire IGNORE Cannon! End of story".Was tried before. Specifically, by a player called Whispering Voices (One of the best writers NS has ever seen) who found himself $Supership and dissolved $Wankier_Civilisations into free hydrogen. He lost a metric fuckton of respect for it. Personally, I would advise against this particular kind of creativity, and suggest a simple non-interaction policy. Vastly less hurtful to ones' reputation.

PS: and 'OMFG IGONRE CANUNZ!' are stupid. It works far simpler. It works by not postingto people one doesn't want to interact with.

What if a nation developed blimps that mounted cannons? Or convert classical wooden naval ships to airships using internal combustion engines (like the Koopa Airships in Mario games and Cid's airships in Final Fantasy games)? Or what if a nation developed a steam-driven tank or walking "golem" (employing hydraulics to do so) in 1880 or 1890?*Checks* Have the blimps with Smoking Pits, have the airships with The Kremling Horde, have the steam-driven tank with Smoking Pits.

Now... Litte difference to your scenario. In the timeframe and with the constructions in question, those would still be beatable, interceptable. They are odd, they are (Partly) unfeasible, but they don't kill balance.

Now, to fit the example to what you're intending to do, it would be equivalent to, say, me using Smoking Pits against a Sumerian civilisation. And this would be wank and entirely ignorable.

Conversely, if you want to use your asteorids against an opponent who has them 8or equivalents) themselves, they're of course entirely acceptable. However, for the scenarios (And technology level/ timeframe) you're supposing them to be in, they're wank and entirely ignorable.

Suppose the USA never cut funding to NASA, and instead, boosted NASA's budget to like $50 billion a year back in 1970's, then we could easily have had more space technologies and such by now. NASA made most of its advances, like the Space Shuttle and the like during the Cold War to try to keep an edge over the USSR.Might. we don't know. And money isn't everything. Spending trillions on a given construction (Say, a MiG 15) isn't going to make it any better than spending billions or just millions on it, as you're operaing within a given technological base available to you. And rising it does require more than just money.

Competition always helps accelerate technology and large projects. Without it (competition), we'd still be in the Dark Ages.Yes. And this is relevant for this... How?

I was merely posting this as a suggestion / throwing around ideas. However, to answer your question about heat, I could install heat sinks and the like to reduce infrared signatures. But the heat has to go somewhere (Or do you have a thermodynamics escape pod?). Worse, keeping the heat means that the gun overheats. You want it gone, and you want it gone quickly. Being visible is a minor issue.

Yes, I am aware that my stuff would be moving at different velocity and trajectories, but I can easily put camouflage on it. Make it appear as a old derelict space station, or a large derelict satellite.Apart from you not exactly explaining why you want to hide them to begin with...

The thing will be HUGE. No way of just shooting it into orbit in one go. You will have to assemble it there. This will be noticed, inevitably so. Trying to camouflage it is like trying to camouflage a battleship in the open sea, after it has been spotted and is continually watched by just about everyone.

so, while yu can certainly make it apear old and derilict... yeah.

I never said that I'd be firing them the same velocity and trajectory of satellites de-orbiting. I was only saying that satellites do drop to Earth, and sensors will have to seperate my asteroid or projectile weapons from the actual derelict satellite. Every second helps when high velocity weapons are involved.
It wouldn't even take a second. The computer can just analyse trajectories in a millisecond and give out the result. 'Projectile weapon, act of war'.

I have a solution to most of these problems. <snip>You did realise that you just left the realm of 'Between modern/ postmodernness' and entered vaguely hard science fictionness, yes?

Of course, there is nothing wrong with it, but I seem to recall you being firmly interested from a (P)MT perspective...

And since a "standard ton" is still only one ton, your semantic argument is little more than a smoke screen.

That's quite a jump. A "Standard" Ton (which we don't know in what way this "Standard" was achieved) is not neccessarily anymore than a "Ton" than a "MetricTon" would be a "ton".


Or it could just be more technobabble to make it sound more impressive than it really is. "I'm an emergency communications operator at the Central Command Center at a major industrial complex that is a critical piece of the national infrastructure" vs. "I'm a security guard at a refinery"

Or it could be that the terminology was developed in an enviroment in consideration of a multitude of differing races, species and historical backgrounds; combined into a single governmental form (Federation of Planets) and their subsequent military and exploration technolgies into a system of sorts (Star Fleet); whereby decisions were made to standardize values accross the individual member-planets.

"Heat Sinks" aren't an end-all.... They may story excess heat for brief periods; but unless you have a way of offloading that heat (aka radiating intospace, or convection into some other medium (air/water)... You're only going to have limited capacity in firing before the heat-sink's capacity is reached.

If you're trying to "mask" heat; heat-sinks are only the interim; you need to "spead" the radiation out so it's not as "visible" (Kind of like many of the modern stealth equipment does with its jet-exhaust).

Cloaks are good, but also not completely invisible.... To quote Uhura "The thing's got to have a tail-pipe..." The is, despite your technology; power generation, shields or cloaks; everything cannot be masked; you're going to have radiated energy and you're likely to have some form of exhaust plasma, and some effect on space around you (EM or gravitic)...

Even the US's super-quiet T-hull "boomers" can be found if you know HOW to look..... Look for the spot in the ocean that's "too quiet"...

What if your ship is a perpetual motion machine?

If your heat sink transforms heat into some form of usable power, then your cloaking technology would end up saving energy.

What if your ship is a perpetual motion machine?Then you would be very badly written science fiction.

That's quite a jump. A "Standard" Ton (which we don't know in what way this "Standard" was achieved) is not neccessarily anymore than a "Ton" than a "MetricTon" would be a "ton".Are you even listening to yourself? Dance! Dance!

Or it could be that the terminology was developed in an enviroment in consideration of a multitude of differing races <snip>Except that Star Trek isn't real. Therefore, it was story writers with a rather weak grasp of science tossing a worthless prefix onto a word to make it sound more scientific.

What the heck is that!?

That cannot possiblely be a mobile Ion Cannon! It would take too much power to move and charge! The thing seems impractical...

That is the 3,000 ton 80cm 'Dora' railway gun built by the Germans in World War 2. And yes, even Krupp [who built it] admitted that while it was an intriguing design study it was fairly useless as an actual weapon.

Cloaks are good, but also not completely invisible.... To quote Uhura "The thing's got to have a tail-pipe..." The is, despite your technology; power generation, shields or cloaks; everything cannot be masked; you're going to have radiated energy and you're likely to have some form of exhaust plasma, and some effect on space around you (EM or gravitic)...

While I know a lot of Trekkies try to block out Nemesis from their memory, Shinzon did have a canon perfect cloak in the Trek-verse with no emissions at all.

That is the 3,000 ton 80cm 'Dora' railway gun built by the Germans in World War 2. And yes, even Krupp [who built it] admitted that while it was an intriguing design study it was fairly useless as an actual weapon.

No...I was refering to the CGI one...I know the Germans built such massive railway guns. Those things would have scared the shit out of me if they were accurate! The Germans posessed many psychological weapons like the V2, but they used them completely the wrong way. Example is using V2s to attack cities instead of the incoming army, if one of those things hit a fuel depot the blast alone would render the supply lines to be greatly damaged and slow the incoming forces. Instead they pissed off the soldiers more by the attack on civilians and made them press harder then before to stop it!

No...I was refering to the CGI one...

Ah, that didn't display for me for some reason. :confused:

Ah, that didn't display for me for some reason. :confused:

No problem, but that thing would be a better rail gun then an Ion Cannon....something about that screams friendly fire and slow-moving target.

I'm not sure if anyone has thought of this before. And if they haven't I'm will get a NS patent on it. But could a linear gun be used to fire a cruise missile at similar muzzel velocites to that of naval cannons? The trade off would be a shorter time to the target, less of a need for so much fuel, and more warhead to take the place of the lost fuel. You wouldn't even have to have complex targeting systems as you would just point the gun in the general direction, (read: to the degree or half a degree) fire, and let the missile guidence systems take over.

No, I'm serious. If you develop the technology (very) well enough, you can have the ship's systems running on little-to-no net power production. Your ship becomes much harder to detect as an inevitable consequence. The only time you have to use power in large amounts is when you use the weapons, and possibly the engines, since you have to project power beyond the ship.

Granted it requires extremely advanced technology, and by today's limited understanding, isn't theoretically possible. Still, that's never stopped science before.

I'm not sure if anyone has thought of this before. And if they haven't I'm will get a NS patent on it. But could a linear gun be used to fire a cruise missile at similar muzzel velocites to that of naval cannons?

[1] Nobody cares about NS patents [unless you're stealing people's entire designs rather than just an idea for something a weapon can do] and

[2] People have been firing missiles out of cannons since World War 2; the Dora gun pictured above did so, for a start, and

[3] A lot of my ships already fire rocket-assisted rounds from magnetically accelerated guns.

[1] Nobody cares about NS patents [unless you're stealing people's entire designs rather than just an idea for something a weapon can do]

I'll still patent it.

[2] People have been firing missiles out of cannons since World War 2; the Dora gun pictured above did so, for a start.

I know that have been firing missiles out of cannons, but they haven't been firing cruise missiles out of them. By using a low-power linear gun, you'll eliminated the heat, and friction on the missile itself.

[3] A lot of my ships already fire rocket-assisted rounds from magnetically accelerated guns.

RAP rounds are a whole lot different than cruise missiles. Cruise missiles go father, carry a larger payload, and are more accurate than RAPs.

I'll still patent it.

Well, nobody will care. Seriously, it's not worth the hassle and there's no system for doing such things anyway. The moderation staff might take action if people start stealing entire designs off each other because that's trolling. Launching a missile out of a gun isn't something that I'd be willing to enforce a 'patent' of because there's simply not enough work there.

By using a low-power linear gun, you'll eliminated the heat, and friction on the missile itself.

Up until it leaves the barrel, when it's just an ordinary cruise missile.

RAP rounds are a whole lot different than cruise missiles. Cruise missiles go father, carry a larger payload, and are more accurate than RAPs.

Faster than a [i]mach twenty railgun-launched semi-guided missile? ROFL!

Are you even listening to yourself? Dance! Dance!

Except that Star Trek isn't real. Therefore, it was story writers with a rather weak grasp of science tossing a worthless prefix onto a word to make it sound more scientific.

Ahh, you mean like attaching "Metric" to "Ton" when it really should read "Mega-gram"...

Except that Star Trek isn't real. Therefore, it was story writers with a rather weak grasp of science tossing a worthless prefix onto a word to make it sound more scientific.

Perhaps it saves them from having to place a limit on what they can and can't do because no one has yet. No one (to my knowledge) has ever blown up an asteroid; how much energy does it take? 100 kilotons? 100 megatons? If a starship can withstand traveling 1,500 times the speed of light(warp 9, if I remember right), how much energy is needed to penetrate the hull, not to mention the shields? How much data is needed to run a starship, what processor speeds? How strong do materials need to be to sustain interstellar travel? What are the properties of materials needed to create warp fields? What is warp field strength mesured in? Isotons, kiloquads, cochranes, duranium, dilithium, tricobalt, &c allow the writers to create plots without having to stick to pure reality, especially when it is so far beyond anything we have today. How much writing can be done when the writers have to start going to their calculators to figure out "A photon torpedo, 30 kg of matter and antimatter, impacts a shield, absobtion 150 terajoules per square metre per second, with excess energy impacting a hull with strength 5 mega-newtons per square meter per centimeter of thickness re-enforced by a structural integrity field strength... And all these values are unfounded and pull out of a hat anyways." How well can you write under such circumstances? These units and materials allow the writers to create a story in the future that still gives the watchers or readers some link to reality (I may not know what an Isoton is, but a 5 isoton warhead makes more sense than a 5 Dilthren warhead).

That said, I sense you really don't like Star Trek. I can understand that. There are those who do, and those who don't. Your choice.

I hope I don't come across as insulting or agressive. That is not my intent. I just wanted to put in my two cents worth.

Go ahead and patent it... I already use EM assisted missile for preventing exhaust damage to stealth ships' RAM coatings. :P

That would be all fine and dandy. If it were not for the fact that I dont use railguns in MT.

Up until it leaves the barrel, when it's just an ordinary cruise missile.

No, because it is launched out of a linear gun, it can go the same distance farther as it is leaving the gun at a higher velocity than a normal cruise missile.

When it first leaves the barrel, the missiles rockets dont kick in. It allows itself to follow a ballistic trajectory. When it slows down to a point where the missiles own propulsion system would be faster, the rockets kick in.

BTW tell me how you can semi-guide anything traveling at mach 20. I would LOVE to hear how your working this out. We havent even made bullets that can guild themselves, let alone control anything at mach 20.

Somethin I think the military ignores is the enviromental impact of weapons, I mean, if say the projectile misses, lands in a pond, doesnt explode, what about toxins or the material it's made of? Take a look at teflone (or however it's spelt), it breaks down into this material that is cancer causing and goes around the entire world.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know the maximum velocity a coilgun has produced? I've been tinkering around the web for a while and have found several examples of homemade coilguns firing at 25-30 m/s with only 400 v. of power, and while that is good, I was thinking that there may be some higher-funded designs that have reached weapons-grade speeds. Thus far, however, I have found no examples of militarily effective (or plausable) coilguns.

No one (to my knowledge) has ever blown up an asteroid; how much energy does it take? 100 kilotons? 100 megatons?

We can calculate how much energy it would take based on the composition and mass of the asteroid. Asteroids tend to be mostly iron, and we know a hell of a lot about iron since it's one of industrialised society's favourite elements.

If a starship can withstand traveling 1,500 times the speed of light(warp 9, if I remember right), how much energy is needed to penetrate the hull

Very little, it seems, since the Enterprise-E suffered *horrendous* damage from hitting the Scimitar incredibly slowly, and the -D was once destroyed totally by a slow-moving starship clipping one nacelle slightly. Further, the systems that allow it to travel at warp aren't actually part of the ship's armour, and neither is the infamous 'structural integrity field.'

not to mention the shields?

Again, not a lot. Low-energy physical impactors have been shown to be enough to penetrate Trek shields [Jem'Hadar fighters in DS9 ramming Fed and Klingon ships]. The non-canon technical manual says the D's peak shield heat dissapation is 3,311 gigawatts.

A photon torpedo, 30 kg of matter and antimatter, impacts a shield, absobtion 150 terajoules per square metre per second...

Trek has broken you. :D A shield should be rated in watts, not joules, making the 'per second' part unnecessary. It's that kind of basic terminology error coupled with the awesome command of quantum neutreonic nonsense that makes for bad Trek [especially late Trek where they used technobabble as the entire plot rather than to explain away obnoxious technology, *coughOmegaParticlecough*].

Trek is better when they just name the device / phenomenon / etc and don't bother inserting a ream of useless technobabble to explain how it works.

That would be all fine and dandy. If it were not for the fact that I dont use railguns in MT.

Well, that'd be because they're in no way modern tech, hee.

When it first leaves the barrel, the missiles rockets dont kick in. It allows itself to follow a ballistic trajectory. When it slows down to a point where the missiles own propulsion system would be faster, the rockets kick in.

So essentially a two-stage engine with the first stage a gun launcher?

BTW tell me how you can semi-guide anything traveling at mach 20. I would LOVE to hear how your working this out. We havent even made bullets that can guild themselves, let alone control anything at mach 20.

Some form of post-postmodern wanky vectored-thrust exhaust thingy, I assume. By 'semi-guided' it means that the shell's arc can be adjusted so it lands within a narrow angle of the point of launch rather than dead ahead of it, there's no way a bullet / missile travelling that fast would actually be able to do any serious course changes or sudden turns without burning up in the process.

Somethin I think the military ignores is the enviromental impact of weapons, I mean, if say the projectile misses, lands in a pond, doesnt explode, what about toxins or the material it's made of? Take a look at teflone (or however it's spelt), it breaks down into this material that is cancer causing and goes around the entire world.

The fields in Belgium and France are full of unexploded ordinance, including nerve gas shells; I know because I've been there and seen rusted artillery shells lined up by the side of the road and farms with yards full of dug up shell casings. Strangely, people still build farms there and nobody dies horribly any more often than usual.

And seriously, when thousands are dying in a full scale war, nobody's going to give a shit about a pond.

Somethin I think the military ignores is the enviromental impact of weapons, I mean, if say the projectile misses, lands in a pond, doesnt explode, what about toxins or the material it's made of? Take a look at teflone (or however it's spelt), it breaks down into this material that is cancer causing and goes around the entire world.
The environment can go to hell when war is concerned. A bunch of peasants getting cancer is far outweighed by the benefit of winning, or just surviving. No logical commander would sacrifice troops for a river or some trees.

We can calculate how much energy it would take based on the composition and mass of the asteroid. Asteroids tend to be mostly iron, and we know a hell of a lot about iron since it's one of industrialised society's favourite elements.

Correct... And it takes alot...


Very little, it seems, since the Enterprise-E suffered *horrendous* damage from hitting the Scimitar incredibly slowly, and the -D was once destroyed totally by a slow-moving starship clipping one nacelle slightly. Further, the systems that allow it to travel at warp aren't actually part of the ship's armour, and neither is the infamous 'structural integrity field.'

Missed one point: You don't know the composition of the Scimitar... Therefore you don't know how much energy it would take even to make an estimate to begin with.



Trek has broken you. :D A shield should be rated in watts, not joules, making the 'per second' part unnecessary. It's that kind of basic terminology error coupled with the awesome command of quantum neutreonic nonsense that makes for bad Trek [especially late Trek where they used technobabble as the entire plot rather than to explain away obnoxious technology, *coughOmegaParticlecough*].

Except the shields are designed to repel force; and watts per second (comparible to a Newton-meter) is a measure of force; and not power. Joules measure energy... If you're responding to the strength of the shields; you'ld reply in Newton-meters or watts per second; and not energy consumtion (joules)...

Missed one point: You don't know the composition of the Scimitar... Therefore you don't know how much energy it would take even to make an estimate to begin with.

We saw the Scimitar's hull crumple as though it was made of aluminium as the Enterprise hit it, it obviously wasn't that strongly armoured either. In a collision between two ships with extremely strong armour there would be almost no visable damage, the Enterprise would have pushed the Scimitar back, not buried her nose into her hull. Were the Scimitar's armour much stronger than the Enterprise's we would have seen enormous impact damage to the Enterprise but almost none to the Scimitar, which, again, we didn't see.

Except the shields are designed to repel force; and watts per second (comparible to a Newton-meter) is a measure of force; and not power.

Watts are the measurement of power and include 'per second;' a single watt is one joule per second. Force is measured in Newtons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt

Joules measure energy... If you're responding to the strength of the shields; you'ld reply in Newton-meters or watts per second; and not energy consumtion (joules)...

There's no such thing as 'watts per second.' And Newton-metres, a measurement of torque? What's supposed to be rotating here?

There's no such thing as 'watts per second.'
Errr... yes, there is. It's the rate of change of power (delta-power, if you'd like). It's nonstandard, sure, but it exists.

Ya, but it's still not the correct measurement for the strength of a shield at a given time. Meanie. :p

Could be a measurement of shield degridation, although something more reasonable would be the nondimensional unit of efficiency (output power over input power). Moral of the story: don't get into a discussion on units with an aerospace engineer.