30 replies to this topic

[Karl Streiger]

I've read another MilSicFi story lately and i think the handling of their main guns - tappered bore ECT weapons fits perfectly into BattleTech. Those guns are not labeled by caliber but by kinetic energy they can deliver. Was strange at the beginning thought the 41 MegaJoule Main gun must be a laser gun....but with the glossar i did understand the idea behind.

So instead of MWO or BT caliber the value is just the "energy delivered in a time frame" - this means against common lore the AC 2 could of course have a bigger caliber but mabye less propellant while the AC 20 is a ~40mm gun with maxium possible propellant and a plasma burner - that fires HV projectiles

[Koniving]

Nebfer, on 30 March 2016 - 12:37 PM, said:

For references in canon material of ACS, look at the author's work. http://www.whkeith.com/battletech.html
Any of those books.

Since he wrote the first book, I believe that as the initial creator of the lore and being the first to shape our vision and ontegration of battletech beyond the boardfame, he does have precedence over those who follow and rewrite as they see fit.

Will add more later.

Its worth noting Justin dumped his ammo. When? How much did he consume before? Its easy to dump all 200 rounds if that is what you have left after firing say another three hundred or so.

[Koniving]

Karl Streiger, on 30 March 2016 - 11:30 PM, said:

I've read another MilSicFi story lately and i think the handling of their main guns - tappered bore ECT weapons fits perfectly into BattleTech. Those guns are not labeled by caliber but by kinetic energy they can deliver. Was strange at the beginning thought the 41 MegaJoule Main gun must be a laser gun....but with the glossar i did understand the idea behind.

So instead of MWO or BT caliber the value is just the "energy delivered in a time frame" - this means against common lore the AC 2 could of course have a bigger caliber but mabye less propellant while the AC 20 is a ~40mm gun with maxium possible propellant and a plasma burner - that fires HV projectiles

From what I understand there are ranges of calibers for each class. 30-90 for ac/2. 20-? For light ac/2.
40 to 120mm for ac/5.
80 to 120mm is all I ever hear of for ac/10
X to 185mm for ac/20.
Up to 210mm for UAC/20.

As such this ac/20 is functionally different from that ac20, but in about the same amount of time it will rival the other. Its my manufacturer versus yours!

For Rifles, which are tank-like cannons the sizes seen are heavy 190mm, and one shot is really devastating even to a hardened target. (6 damage). 165mm medium (3 damage), and have not seen a light rifle yet.

[Karl Streiger]

Well in the end the caliber is just a measurement of "payload" transported. A bigger caliber gun carries more payload in one round - smaller projectiles are faster but have less HE.

So Giving the "magical" penetrationproof ablative armor of BattleTech - bigger caliber is better in breaking things.
Well like the club is the perfect tool to kill a guy that is protected by paper armor (there is a clip in German: http://www.prosieben...erruestung-clip - its biased as hell but quiet intersting
a armor of folded paper is though enough to prevent piercing and slashing attacks - while weighting almost nothing.

Transfrom this paper stuff into BT means to overcome a paper protected BattleMech you have to smash or destroy single lamella. Today KE ammunition is 100% piercing maybe those darts will just get stuck in a single armor plate without destroying the structural integrity of this armor plate.

So the rifles are a good example to prove it very very huge bore rather than High Velocity rounds - while BT is not logic tech - its also somehow nice that HV auto cannons do not deal more damage they only have more range.

So speed of the projectile is not a big importance for BT. Its just size and the bang the weapon can deliver.

[Nebfer]

Koniving, on 31 March 2016 - 01:10 AM, said:

For references in canon material of ACS, look at the author's work. http://www.whkeith.com/battletech.html
Any of those books.

Since he wrote the first book, I believe that as the initial creator of the lore and being the first to shape our vision and ontegration of battletech beyond the boardfame, he does have precedence over those who follow and rewrite as they see fit.

Will add more later.

That is irrelevant, What goes into Battletech is what the owners and developers say goes, and they have declared the B-tech magazine to be not canon, William Keith has little to say in that matter. And Yes I know who he is and the books he's done, I've read them my self. Furthermore anything written by him is not any more special than the later guys, he did not create the universe he just helped flesh it out, like the others.

Quote

Its worth noting Justin dumped his ammo. When? How much did he consume before? Its easy to dump all 200 rounds if that is what you have left after firing say another three hundred or so.

He did not have a chance to use his autocannon at all, so the only way for to be less ammo than typical is if he was short on ammo to begin with. In short it was a full load of ammo, unless it was already low (unlikely as it's his primary weapon, and he was facing a Riflemen).

[Koniving]

A few things. The mag is canon yet not, acknowledged yet not. The reason for this is one: some outdated, conflicting data (mainly in ppcs and some mech specs/custom rules now considered void). The other and by far larger reason is its canonicity changed as the phoenix set began. The flamboyant use of copyright contested materials is More prominent than rainbows at a certain parade.
_______
Most of its content is found in canon sources including the aurocannom entry in the tech manual.

The entry is worded differently but the comparisons are almost identical.

That said I believe you may be misinterpreting the entry some. We are not comparing to VADS. That's the ams. We are talking about cannons, not Gatling guns. What you should compare is if a rifle functions like an a1 Abrams, most ACS fire like the airburst cannons on infantry fighting vehicles. Not ammo-wise but rates. A cassette, both tech manual and the mag, is termed as a rou d and functions like a magazine holding multiple shots to be fired off in bursts or in an autofire style.

Later will use my computer and get some references to show.

If he never got to fire, then his 3 tons at 200 is 200/5/3 = 13.33 bullets per cassette. Figure that is 13+13+13+13+13-ish and assume error on having it at 3*5=200.

12 shots for 20 damage according to the overall collected data is in the range of 120mm, so these must be some really fast bullets to make up for it. Seriously though Pontiac 100s are known for insane fire rates at extremely high shot counts. It'd fit if those are cassettes rather than bullets.

But that is OK. Will use the tech manual and if possible TAC,strat, and max. Who never it was that advocates split fire for ACS to spend half a round(cassette) each on 2 separate targets.

[Karl Streiger]

Spend lots of time to calculate some ammunition values
Problem is the caliber and shot count per cassette is very seldom sound.

Perfect example the crusher super heavy 150mm high precision burst of 10 bullets - bullets are Armor Piercing HE
The issue is to have armor piercing effect you need high density material = more weight

I can make a 4 shot burst plausible - with 1100m/s acceptable.

However the crusher might be almost impossible the 5shot 120mm whirlwind however is a wonder - given the artwork a tapered bore with 120mm that ends as a 80mm high velocity projectile

Compared to a 5shot burst of the maybe 75mm Defiance Class 5 the whirlwind has only 2 rounds per shot.
The difference is that the whirlwind would be surplus fighting heavy armored targets, where as the Defiance might work best as a multipurpose gun (lucky us raufoss and their mp ammunition)

So while their performance in the CBT game is equal they might work complete different in "lore"

And it's not just the ACs

[Lily from animove]

Hit the Deck, on 02 February 2016 - 07:59 AM, said:

In lore there are 'Mechs like the Rifleman which are designed to fill AA role. Now, in TT the range of weapons are actually not that far if I get it correctly. Then how could such weapons/Mechs reach aerospace fighters flying high up in the sky? Unless they are flying really low which would be dumb....

I guess there are more things in the lore which need to be translated into a game environment so you could have a working game. Am I correct in my assumption?

funny is, Aerofighters had the same wepaons so tho hit soemthign they had to come flying down too. overall the TT values are a heavy range reduced abstraction thats why you can't take their ranges serious. think about how large a TT, or would it then be a footballtop game, had to be for proper weapon range scales.

[Karl Streiger]

Koniving, on 18 February 2016 - 04:56 AM, said:

While working on BT Laser conversions, I searched this topic but this time I realized that either I have made a grave mistake or this table is complete nonsense.

watt = J / s
so a 600 kJ output beam over 0.2sec should deliver 3000kW or 3 mW.

thanks to Luke Campbell we might get a good idea about performance - and those numbers are either total insane (energy) or "hardly able to heat coffee"

Edited by Karl Streiger, 12 April 2017 - 05:50 AM.

[Koniving]

Karl Streiger, on 12 April 2017 - 05:47 AM, said:

While working on BT Laser conversions, I searched this topic but this time I realized that either I have made a grave mistake or this table is complete nonsense.

watt = J / s
so a 600 kJ output beam over 0.2sec should deliver 3000kW or 3 mW.

thanks to Luke Campbell we might get a good idea about performance - and those numbers are either total insane (energy) or "hardly able to heat coffee"

1 MJ = 1,000 KJ.
Those are supposed to be for handheld laser rifles.
Some of those rifles are also listed as being non-lethal.

The table itself is accurate in its conversions. However, doing a little bit of research, 1,000 kilowatts is the minimum required to kill a human target in about 3 seconds.

Another thing to remember is that these are laser pistols which means they don't have a lot of power, if you were to churn the full amount of power into a shot you wouldn't have very many of them. The laser pistols are described more for self-defense, you're wanting to disable or at least stagger opponents.



-------------

Far as laser weapons on mechs and tanks..
One megawatt is similar to the power produced by 10 car engines.
Over an hour, it can power between 240 and 650 homes for that length of time.

Another thing to remember is that akin to autocannons, the full rated damage is not delivered in a single shot but over the course of several shots. The same goes for the heat produced. The exception is PPCs.

I believe it is plausible. But it would definitely require several shots to get the intended damage. I also need to note that colliding with a particularly strong tree at high speed causes about 2 damage. Consider this for a minute, armor might not be as strong as some might think. Kicks can do up to around 20 damage.
Then there's this, for fun.


Side note: Real current military systems go up to 30 kw, firing multiple shots for up to 2 seconds to disable engines, destroy explosives, etc through armored targets.
Last thing to note, that sheet was written in 1986.

Edited by Koniving, 12 April 2017 - 07:20 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

Oh the conversion is based on a turn of 10sec. So its the average power output - and the total energy output in 10sec.
The pulse/delivery is only for a single shot.

So for example the Harmon Medium Laser can fire a single shot in 10sec - with a peak output power of ??? 2000 MJ can't be true. In a single 10ms pulse that would be 200 GW!!!!.... well with the pistols the 10sec did make sense.

But what do we have with the BattleTech Weapons.

Considering the output of 5MW for my favourite Laser weapon. I love the sound of the word Sunglow Type 2..... pure Sex. (not so much considering the laser stump on my loved D-keil)
Ehm ok...well:
This could be 500kJ per sec. 500kJ*10s = 5000kW = 2MW. For a total of 5000kJ = 2MJ delivered output.
Of course it could also be 5 MJ in 10ms - but the other 9.990 sec are idle time.

Considering that I already recognized the time factor of BT damage I can total live with this.
(a 60mm Pontiac might be able to hit targets at the same range as a Zeus Bolt - but the chance that it could put the whole clip in a single location is highly unlikely.

To split the total output in multiple shots would also help much to "tune" down the Killer Light. Because as I thought a single shot of 5 MJ with a 10ms pulse....ok lets take a closer look.
- say we want to burn through 20cm armored steel as reference - so the beam diameter on target is 1.8cm
next calculation on the page (link in other post)
....color - asked my wife she said green - ok the Sunglow Typ 2 is green....green...0.58µm
....20cm focus seems adequate-

ok.... 80's you said.... 2.82km.... at 2.82km the sunglow typ 2 burns through 20cm armored steel. This is strangely similar to the advanced range rules from those magazines.

Edited by Karl Streiger, 12 April 2017 - 12:14 PM.