32 replies to this topic

[Sable Dove]

Syllogy, on 27 March 2013 - 02:12 PM, said:

In-game, they would both function the same way. Fire slug at a high speed, Cooldown, repeat.

So why do we have the AC2, AC5, AC10, and AC20? They all fire a single projectile, cooldown, repeat. And yet, there are four of them, and special variants of two of them.

Why wouldn't there be room for two weapons that could be functionally different in every way except having inert ammo and high-speed projectiles?

[Syllogy]

Sable Dove, on 27 March 2013 - 02:20 PM, said:

So why do we have the AC2, AC5, AC10, and AC20? They all fire a single projectile, cooldown, repeat. And yet, there are four of them, and special variants of two of them.

Why wouldn't there be room for two weapons that could be functionally different in every way except having inert ammo and high-speed projectiles?

The Autocannons are classed based on their relative damage vs. armor. The Ultra AC 5 and the LB10X are also based on this principle.

Keeping that in mind, how would the Railgun perform differently than the Gauss Rifle?

[Sable Dove]

Syllogy, on 27 March 2013 - 02:25 PM, said:

The Autocannons are classed based on their relative damage vs. armor. The Ultra AC 5 and the LB10X are also based on this principle.

Keeping that in mind, how would the Railgun perform differently than the Gauss Rifle?

Well, rather than being a virtual no-heat weapon, the Railgun would be very hot (in terms of heat per second; not necessarily heat per shot), have a faster rate of fire, and be less delicate. It would also probably do less damage to avoid destroying the rails. Think AC2 vs AC5; less damage, more heat/second, but higher rate of fire (and thus, DPS). But with inert ammo, and maybe slightly fragile.

Off the top of my head:
Damage - 9
Recycle - 2.0
DPS - 4.5
Heat - 7
HPS - 3.5
HP - 8
Weight - 13
Slots - 5

Nowhere near balanced, but it's a starting point.

[Syllogy]

Sable Dove, on 27 March 2013 - 02:39 PM, said:

Well, rather than being a virtual no-heat weapon, the Railgun would be very hot (in terms of heat per second; not necessarily heat per shot), have a faster rate of fire, and be less delicate. It would also probably do less damage to avoid destroying the rails. Think AC2 vs AC5; less damage, more heat/second, but higher rate of fire (and thus, DPS). But with inert ammo, and maybe slightly fragile.

Off the top of my head:
Damage - 9
Recycle - 2.0
DPS - 4.5
Heat - 7
HPS - 3.5
HP - 8
Weight - 13
Slots - 5

Nowhere near balanced, but it's a starting point.

So it would be the illegitimate child of a PPC and an AC10?

Edited by Syllogy, 27 March 2013 - 02:50 PM.

[Sable Dove]

Syllogy, on 27 March 2013 - 02:49 PM, said:

So it would be the illegitimate child of a PPC and an AC10?

What? It would function very little like either of them. It's more like an up-scaled AC2 than anything.

[Syllogy]

Sable Dove, on 27 March 2013 - 02:59 PM, said:

What? It would function very little like either of them. It's more like an up-scaled AC2 than anything.

Sable Dove, on 27 March 2013 - 02:39 PM, said:

Railgun

• Damage - 9
  
• Recycle - 2.0
  
• DPS - 4.5
  
• Heat - 7
  
• HP - 8
  
• Weight - 13
  
• Slots - 5

AC10

• Damage - 10 (+1)
  
• Recycle - 2.5 (+0.5)
  
• DPS - 4 (-0.5)
  
• Heat - 3 (-4)
  
• HP - 10 (+2)
  
• Weight - 12 (-1)
  
• Slots - 7 (+2)

PPC

• Damage - 10 (+1)
  
• Recycle - 3 (+1)
  
• DPS - 3.33 (-0.66)
  
• Heat - 8 (+1)
  
• HP - 10 (+2)
  
• Weight - 7 (-6)
  
• Slots - 3 (-2)

Looks pretty close to me, but also totally inferior to both.

Edited by Syllogy, 27 March 2013 - 03:09 PM.

[Xerxys]

Sable Dove, on 27 March 2013 - 01:24 PM, said:

So a GAU-8 is the same as an M16? The principal is the same, right? Just the mechanics are different.

For the record, Railguns and Gauss guns are both insanely impractical; however while the Gauss is impractical due to huge energy requirements, the railgun is impractical due to its use as a weapon virtually requiring enough energy to destroy the rails in pretty short order. Would be possible, but the weapon would have limiting constraints on how many times it could fire other than ammunition.

Don't know what a Longtom is, but Plasma cannons, while cool, are also pretty damn impractical due to physics. Plasma cannons would logically be gigantic Flamers. Meaning you'll cook yourself even faster.

A gauss rifle but with the jamming of a UAC? It's a shame that you didn't mention each weapon individually in your poll.

Edited by Xerxys, 27 March 2013 - 11:20 PM.

[Strum Wealh]

Sable Dove, on 27 March 2013 - 02:39 PM, said:

Well, rather than being a virtual no-heat weapon, the Railgun would be very hot (in terms of heat per second; not necessarily heat per shot), have a faster rate of fire, and be less delicate. It would also probably do less damage to avoid destroying the rails. Think AC2 vs AC5; less damage, more heat/second, but higher rate of fire (and thus, DPS). But with inert ammo, and maybe slightly fragile.

Off the top of my head:
Damage - 9
Recycle - 2.0
DPS - 4.5
Heat - 7
HPS - 3.5
HP - 8
Weight - 13
Slots - 5

Nowhere near balanced, but it's a starting point.

Performance-wise, I would imagine that a railgun (BT would likely refer to it as a "Laplace Cannon", since the real-world device works as a function of the Laplace Force ("the magnetic force on a current-carrying wire", where the "current-carrying wire" in a railgun is the projectile (plus rails))) would necessarily have a slower ROF than a coilgun (so named "Gauss Rifle" because it works as a function of the solenoidal vector field described by Gauss's Law of Magnetism), due to the necessarily needing to keep the rails cool to keep them from destroying themselves (as quickly).
I'd also imagine that it would run significantly hotter than a Gauss Rifle (due to both the generally greater energy requirements for railguns vs coilguns, the heating of the rails themselves as large currents pass through them, and friction versus the projectile).

However, the hypothetical "Laplace Cannon" might be typically simpler to construct and operate (thus, arguably, cheaper up-front) than a Gauss Rifle, probably about the same mass or somewhat heavier (the rails must necessarily be very robust for the weapon to have any longevity, which likely means both thick and dense; the barrel must be strong enough to resist the rails' tendency to push away from each other as well as survive the other rigors of BattleMech combat).

"Laplace Cannon" specs:
Weight: 18 tons
Volume: 9 criticals
Ammunition: 8 rounds per ton, APFSDS KE penetrator
Heat: 7 units per salvo
Damage: 18 units per salvo
Max. Effective Range: 750 meters
Maximum Range: 1500 meters
Recycle Time: 4.0 seconds

It weighs as much as a Heavy Gauss Rifle, is slightly bulkier than a standard Gauss Rifle (mid-way between the standard GR and HGR), runs as hot as an AC/20, is mid-way between the standard GR and HGR in terms of damage, would carry a per-ton ammunition load between those of the standard GR and HGR, and has the range of a Light Gauss Rifle.
Like the Gauss Rifles, the gun itself would be subject to explosive risk (railguns use large capacitors as well), while the ammunition itself would not.

Thoughts (aside from it not being included in MWO because it is not a canon weapon)?

[Oppresor]

Sable Dove, on 27 March 2013 - 01:24 PM, said:

For the record, Railguns and Gauss guns are both insanely impractical; however while the Gauss is impractical due to huge energy requirements, the railgun is impractical due to its use as a weapon virtually requiring enough energy to destroy the rails in pretty short order. Would be possible, but the weapon would have limiting constraints on how many times it could fire other than ammunition.

Possibly, the Rail Gun / Gauss Rifle may be impractical (at the moment) however to the Sniper (loosely speaking, me) they represent the pinnacle of weapon technologies. A weapon that can fire a single round containing a DU core slug at a velocity that in theory would go straight through an Atlas or other Assault, taking most of its internals out and maybe a bit of the pilot in one shot would be highly desirable. Due to the limitations imposed by lore, this doesn't happen, that said it should. The closest I have come to seeing a Gauss do what I believe it should be able to do is in MW4. I fitted my Atlas with the Heavy Gauss (Inner Sphere Mech Pak) and took the leg of an Owens off with one shot at 400 meters.

[Sable Dove]

Strum Wealh, on 28 March 2013 - 03:51 AM, said:

Performance-wise, I would imagine that a railgun (BT would likely refer to it as a "Laplace Cannon", since the real-world device works as a function of the Laplace Force ("the magnetic force on a current-carrying wire", where the "current-carrying wire" in a railgun is the projectile (plus rails))) would necessarily have a slower ROF than a coilgun (so named "Gauss Rifle" because it works as a function of the solenoidal vector field described by Gauss's Law of Magnetism), due to the necessarily needing to keep the rails cool to keep them from destroying themselves (as quickly).
I'd also imagine that it would run significantly hotter than a Gauss Rifle (due to both the generally greater energy requirements for railguns vs coilguns, the heating of the rails themselves as large currents pass through them, and friction versus the projectile).

However, the hypothetical "Laplace Cannon" might be typically simpler to construct and operate (thus, arguably, cheaper up-front) than a Gauss Rifle, probably about the same mass or somewhat heavier (the rails must necessarily be very robust for the weapon to have any longevity, which likely means both thick and dense; the barrel must be strong enough to resist the rails' tendency to push away from each other as well as survive the other rigors of BattleMech combat).

"Laplace Cannon" specs:
Weight: 18 tons
Volume: 9 criticals
Ammunition: 8 rounds per ton, APFSDS KE penetrator
Heat: 7 units per salvo
Damage: 18 units per salvo
Max. Effective Range: 750 meters
Maximum Range: 1500 meters
Recycle Time: 4.0 seconds

It weighs as much as a Heavy Gauss Rifle, is slightly bulkier than a standard Gauss Rifle (mid-way between the standard GR and HGR), runs as hot as an AC/20, is mid-way between the standard GR and HGR in terms of damage, would carry a per-ton ammunition load between those of the standard GR and HGR, and has the range of a Light Gauss Rifle.
Like the Gauss Rifles, the gun itself would be subject to explosive risk (railguns use large capacitors as well), while the ammunition itself would not.

Thoughts (aside from it not being included in MWO because it is not a canon weapon)?

I can't say I like those stats; it's inferior in every way to an AC20 except that it takes up one less critical slot and has longer range, while also being explosive, significantly hotter, much heavier, and doing less damage. (Granted, my own stat suggestion was a bit underpowered too.)

My suggestion of a higher fire rate assumes that the super-sci-fi heatsinks of MW can dissipate from the rails themselves fast enough to mitigate damage to the rails, allowing the railgun to fire much faster, as it doesn't have to charge up like a coil gun does. That, and by firing smaller payloads, far less heat is produced.

Maybe heavier than a Gauss, but weaker, faster, and much hotter. If it can explode, I'd have to say it would need to have high HP still; it's not as fragile as the Gauss.

And let's not forget that we don't actually have to make them similar size. The Gauss fits between the AC10/20; why not put the Railgun somewhere between the AC5/10? They don't have to both do high damage per shot. They don't even have to fire the same ammo; give the Railgun flechette rounds like the LB10X, but with virtually no spread, so all the flechettes hit the same component, so it's a crit-seeking weapon that doesn't actually sacrifice usefulness for its effect.There are tons of ways to make it unique and viable.

[Caseck]

How about Long Tom, Sniper and Thumper?

[Oppresor]

The Bible (MechWarrior battleTech Reference MWBTRv.4-AAS) says the LongTom cannon takes 3 slots, puts out 14 Heat, inflicts 28 Damage and has a range of 700m. It goes on to say "Was great against slow and static targets - not the faster ones." it then says "The new Long Tom is awesome. It does serious damage to a target and additional splash damage to anything in proximity. Enjoyed using it and will use it again!!". All in all this is music to my ears and the Long Tom is going to be fitted to my Atlas as soon as it becomes available.

[General Taskeen]

By Plasma Cannon, did you mean the Plasma Rifle?



A lot of Mechs have future variants equipping it.

It does 10 Damage to Mechs + Additional Bonus Damage (2 to 12) to Infantry (Not Relevant Here) + Random amount of Heat Transfer (1 to 6) on target, and uses Ammo.