66 replies to this topic

[Pariah Devalis]

Mister D, on 11 July 2015 - 07:28 PM, said:

Isn't that newton's law?

Gauss would have the same ballistic properties as anything of equal mass and still be subject to gravity. right?
Its not creating its own lift and obviously its quite heavy, so it should drop at the same rate traveling forward as if an object of equal mass just fell straight down?

Or am I talking out of my ass?

Even if the rate of descent is correct, the horizontal distance it travels before dropping a given amount is tremendous. Given Gauss slugs in MWO are sabot, they could be relatively light compared to an AC2 shell, and just do the damage they do because of the v^2 portion of m*v^2.

[Templar Dane]

Flash Frame, on 11 July 2015 - 05:00 PM, said:

If you try to make battletech realistic, you're gonna have a bad time ok.

It still bothers me how good heat dissipation is in a vacuum in this and the previous games.

A lot.

[TheCaptainJZ]

Mister D, on 11 July 2015 - 07:28 PM, said:

Isn't that newton's law?

Gauss would have the same ballistic properties as anything of equal mass and still be subject to gravity. right?
Its not creating its own lift and obviously its quite heavy, so it should drop at the same rate traveling forward as if an object of equal mass just fell straight down?

Or am I talking out of my ass?

All objects drop to earth at the same acceleration, regardless of mass. The only thing that makes a difference is drag from air based on the shape of the object. Gauss has a very high speed and gravitation drop is based on time, so if a gauss hits in .5 seconds and an AC round hits in 2 seconds, the AC round will have time to drop 4 times the distance as the gauss round.

[Bishop Steiner]

Pariah Devalis, on 11 July 2015 - 07:34 PM, said:

Even if the rate of descent is correct, the horizontal distance it travels before dropping a given amount is tremendous. Given Gauss slugs in MWO are sabot, they could be relatively light compared to an AC2 shell, and just do the damage they do because of the v^2 portion of m*v^2.

Though it better have a very high sectional density, since it is a kinetic penetrator, not using an explosive charge, and low weight needs a good long spike, and to be very dense/heavy for it's size. The Tungsten nickel ball they describe would be stupidly inefficient a projectile for penetrating armor. A Tungsten spike, is much more the real thing.

[Pariah Devalis]

Bishop Steiner, on 11 July 2015 - 07:38 PM, said:

Though it better have a very high sectional density, since it is a kinetic penetrator, not using an explosive charge, and low weight needs a good long spike, and to be very dense/heavy for it's size. The Tungsten nickel ball they describe would be stupidly inefficient a projectile for penetrating armor. A Tungsten spike, is much more the real thing.

That said, the old melon shells from lore would be fantastic for transference of energy from the projectile to the target. Less penetrative damage, more crushing. Same reason musket balls do significantly more damage than modern day bullets for the speed they traveled at. If you want to put a hole through something, make it as close to needle like as possible. If you want to stop something, make it a brick.

[Bishop Steiner]

TheCaptainJZ, on 11 July 2015 - 07:36 PM, said:

All objects drop to earth at the same acceleration, regardless of mass. The only thing that makes a difference is drag from air based on the shape of the object. Gauss has a very high speed and gravitation drop is based on time, so if a gauss hits in .5 seconds and an AC round hits in 2 seconds, the AC round will have time to drop 4 times the distance as the gauss round.

Thought density affects drop velocity? (I could be very wrong on this, am accessing a part of my brain not used since....high school?, lol) Because I thought a lead bowling ball would achieve terminal velocity faster than a kleenex box (and yes I know air resistance is part of this part, so maybe no difference if no air resistance?)

[Pariah Devalis]

Bishop Steiner, on 11 July 2015 - 07:40 PM, said:

Thought density affects drop velocity? (I could be very wrong on this, am accessing a part of my brain not used since....high school?, lol) Because I thought a lead bowling ball would achieve terminal velocity faster than a kleenex box (and yes I know air resistance is part of this part, so maybe no difference if no air resistance?)

The bigger concern for drop rate in atmosphere is surface area, as far as I understand it. For example, in that video above, minus any air friction, the bowling ball and feather fall at the same rate despite one being much more dense.

Admittedly, I suck at math.

Edited by Pariah Devalis, 11 July 2015 - 07:43 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Pariah Devalis, on 11 July 2015 - 07:40 PM, said:

That said, the old melon shells from lore would be fantastic for transference of energy from the projectile to the target. Less penetrative damage, more crushing. Same reason musket balls do significantly more damage than modern day bullets for the speed they traveled at. If you want to put a hole through something, make it as close to needle like as possible. If you want to stop something, make it a brick.

And why a Miniball (aka the basis for a modern handgun bullet) was the best of both worlds, as the large frontal diameter of the meplat combined with the higher sectional density allowed for a harder hitting, deeper penetrating, more accurate round, overall. And why such a set up, with a dense metal base (high antimony lead) is still the design of choice for stopping large dangerous game like Rhino's, water buffalo and Elephant. The also suffer less deflection and are less likely to shatter when shooting against water.

Pariah Devalis, on 11 July 2015 - 07:42 PM, said:

The bigger concern for drop rate in atmosphere is surface area, as far as I understand it. For example, in that video above, minus any air friction, the bowling ball and feather fall at the same rate despite one being much more dense.

Admittedly, I suck at math.

I usually get the theory fine, but admit to being bad at the math part. Not stuff I have a lot of call to use daily, ya know, LOL? (Some of this is just ingrained from years of competitive long range shooting, big game hunting, etc)

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 11 July 2015 - 07:45 PM.

[YueFei]

Bishop Steiner, on 11 July 2015 - 07:31 PM, said:

Yes, at 13 NM, you need to compensate. On a MWO map? Not anywhere near 13 NM.

Shooting Gauss at someone 1km away, takes a half second for the projectile to arrive, with Earth-like gravity, the projectile would drop 1.2 meters or so.

This is why it seems like Gauss has no drop, because for all practical purposes in MWO it doesn't.

[DeathWaffle]

TheCaptainJZ, on 11 July 2015 - 07:36 PM, said:

All objects drop to earth at the same acceleration, regardless of mass.

Ding ding ding ding and we have a winner
Everything else is fine but don't mess with ballistics physics please
regardless of game title

So unless the ammo has a propellant of some sort, it just doesn't fly straight

Edited by DeathWaffle, 12 July 2015 - 12:34 AM.

[LordNothing]

you can use aerodynamic forces to keep the round from falling, and this requires active stabilization (fins, servos, a gyro and a microcontroller, which are probibly not lostech). this robs velocity over time at an increased rate (because lift induces drag). but with battletech's medieval weapon ranges are so short that such loss in velocity over time would not be noticeable.

now why dont they fall on airless worlds? hover thrusters perhaps. now things are just getting weird. the whole airless thing opens an entirely different can of worms. like hpg manifold everything should be so well insulated by vacuum that heat sinks would be very bad at their job. this is why the iss has a lot of radiators on it. so manifold should be worse than therma. hell mechwarrior 2 got this right.

Edited by LordNothing, 12 July 2015 - 01:13 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

What a bunch of damn nerds!

TheCaptainJZ, on 11 July 2015 - 07:36 PM, said:

All objects drop to earth at the same acceleration, regardless of mass. The only thing that makes a difference is drag from air based on the shape of the object. Gauss has a very high speed and gravitation drop is based on time, so if a gauss hits in .5 seconds and an AC round hits in 2 seconds, the AC round will have time to drop 4 times the distance as the gauss round.

DeathWaffle, on 12 July 2015 - 12:23 AM, said:

Ding ding ding ding and we have a winner
Everything else is fine but don't mess with ballistics physics please
regardless of game title

So unless the ammo has a propellant of some sort, it just doesn't fly straight

Dude... we are not fighting on Earth. Gravity is not the same on every planet.

[Bregor Edain]

Night Thastus, on 11 July 2015 - 04:47 PM, said:

To remind you, those rounds are shot out of gigantic magnets the size of skyscrapers that are powered by a nuclear fusion engine.
So yeah, powerful stuff.

We are fighting in battlemechs that are at most around 12 meters in lenght in lore. Just another thing PGI fails at when it comes to scaling

[Satan n stuff]

Zaccheus, on 11 July 2015 - 05:12 PM, said:

I think it's technically supposed to be traveling at near light speeds. All my battle tech lore though is derived from the video games so I'm not positive

It it were traveling near light-speed it would hit with about 1000 megatons of kinetic energy. That's a lot more than you'd need to kill a mech, obviously.

[Joseph Mallan]

Satan n stuff, on 12 July 2015 - 02:28 AM, said:

It it were traveling near light-speed it would hit with about 1000 megatons of kinetic energy. That's a lot more than you'd need to kill a mech, obviously.

See... Nerdliness!

[Bishop Steiner]

DeathWaffle, on 12 July 2015 - 12:23 AM, said:

Ding ding ding ding and we have a winner
Everything else is fine but don't mess with ballistics physics please
regardless of game title

So unless the ammo has a propellant of some sort, it just doesn't fly straight

And actually..... No. Because you're winner only has hand the equation. The other half had been discussed quite thoroughly. But in typical internet manner you ignore what didn't fit your agenda. Velocity.

The drop is the same. How far the projector had moved while it drops, differs greatly based on projector velocity.

Move a projectile fast enough, and for all practical purposes, at practical ranges, you can ask but remove visual drop. Especially at the scale of 15m war machines

[Piney II]

Real world physics vs MWO.......LOL!

[Rampancy]

Bregor Edain, on 12 July 2015 - 02:23 AM, said:

We are fighting in battlemechs that are at most around 12 meters in lenght in lore. Just another thing PGI fails at when it comes to scaling

Depends on what lore you use. There are varying sizes for most of the mechs in lore depending on what material you're referencing.

[Appogee]

Satan n stuff, on 12 July 2015 - 02:28 AM, said:

It it were traveling near light-speed it would hit with about 1000 megatons of kinetic energy. That's a lot more than you'd need to kill a mech, obviously.

Unless it was a Firestarter.

[Vellron2005]

Battletech was created a bunch of years ago and set in the far future..

To me, that "far future" doesent seem that "far", in fact, the setting dosen't have many of the things we now take for granted..

things like:
1) Targeting computers the size of laptops (instead of multi-ton computers that only slightly increase range and accuracy)
2) Lasers that DON'T have efective range (becouse lasers don't lose potency with range, unless going through a light-inhibiting medium, and air or empty space is not one of those)
3) Rapid-fire (and I mean 3000+ rounds / minute) autocannons / gattling guns.
4) Computer-enhanced lead targeting (target lead)
5) Wide-area spread bombs / missles / rockets that do hundreads of meters of area damage instead of just 30 meter artillery shell expolosions that are on a level of tech present duting WW2
6) Modern high-tech looking mech cockpits with holographic displays instead of cockpits that look like those commonly found in WW2 russian tanks. (Tina explained why this is so, but still)
7) Hackable and generaly high-grade electronic warfare, not just lowsy ECM..
8) Unmanned hunter-killer drones with on-board weapondy and high explosives for suicide bombings
9) Shields - I'd expect that in the year 3000+ we would have a means to shield agains a common cannon shell
10) More humanoid and syfi looking mechs instead of walking tanks that are so easy to hit it's like your shooting at skyscrapers
11) Infrared heat tracking instead of that gray-white thing we call heat view
12) Satelite-guided missle tracking (they can drop them in orbit from dropships over a battlezone)
13) Jam-free rapid-fire autocannons
14) Modular easy-to-repair mech design (omnipods are only logical, and yet, no omni mechs for IS till later in the century)
15) Camera-based cockpits instead of easy to shoot "please shoot me in da face" huge glass surfaces

So yeah, why should gauss drop-off when so much doesn't make sence?

Its Battletech.. enjoy it as is.