90 replies to this topic

[Albino Boo]

Yeonne Greene, on 27 February 2017 - 08:00 PM, said:

Bruh, am disappoint.

Recoil is all about kinetic energy and Newton's Third Law. Am I releasing 10 MJ of kinetic energy? Am I releasing it in a split second? Then it doesn't matter how massive the projectile is, because you are going to feel it kick back. A dense stream of protons accelerated to near light-speed for a discharge of 10 MJ would have the same system energy as a 5-inch shell from a 5/54 Mk. 48. Recoil would be identical if the discharge occurred over the same interval. You'd also probably get a nice thunder-clap from the PPC beam as the air around the beam is explosively superheated.

As for where it gets its mass to accelerate, who knows. It could just be a store of hydrogen whose capacity is large enough that there is no reasonable expectation that you'd deplete it during battle. Or it could just ionize particles taken from the atmosphere.

Tlords, on 27 February 2017 - 03:08 PM, said:

OH... I agree. A small particle of mass accelerated to near light speed has incredible force. Less speed, bigger mass = same effect. The plasma ball in MWO from a PPC is the size of of an AC10 round.

Those particles have mass traveling at 1200-1300 m/s. Thus they have impact. Thus they cause recoil.

Apart from the small but important fact that the PPC recoil is only going to come from the mass of particles fired not the energy that they are at. A 2000lb bomb has the same KE whether that mass is TNT or a nuke. You are talking about the same sort of energy as 1939 tank gun. If 15 ton tanks can handle the recoil 80 odd years ago, why can't 35 ton mechs a 1000 years into the future. Once again don't make real world arguments in battletech, they just don't work.

[Y E O N N E]

Albino Boo, on 27 February 2017 - 09:39 PM, said:

Apart from the small but important fact that the PPC recoil is only going to come from the mass of particles fired not the energy that they are at. A 2000lb bomb has the same KE whether that mass is TNT or a nuke. You are talking about the same sort of energy as 1939 tank gun. If 15 ton tanks can handle the recoil 80 odd years ago, why can't 35 ton mechs a 1000 years into the future. Once again don't make real world arguments in battletech, they just don't work.

The "energy they are at" is dependent upon how fast they are traveling, and the damage is done through kinetic transfer. It's not that fancy, it's just a Gauss rifle firing nanoscopic projectiles, really, and the projectiles are so small they make fantastic penetrators that are able to burrow past the skin of the target before they've bled enough energy into it to stop...which heats up the surrounding area and causes it to melt, maybe even explode, and possibly emit bremsstrahlung depending on the material. So hey, at the end of the day the recoil from a PPC might be less than that of an AC/10 because the 10 points of damage are partially due to secondary effects. Even the AC/10 doesn't do all of its damage through kinetic energy alone, it has an explosive warhead.

That being said, no, there was no tank in 1939 firing a 5-inch naval shell. There is no tank today firing a 5-inch naval shell. And the tanks of 1939 didn't handle the recoil; they had to adjust the gun again after firing. Tanks today still shake under the fire, they've just automated the gun-laying.

Real world arguments work just fine for BattleTech if we throw out the rulebook. Which we should, because it's stupid and boring. The real versions are infintely more interesting.

[Albino Boo]

Yeonne Greene, on 27 February 2017 - 10:35 PM, said:

The "energy they are at" is dependent upon how fast they are traveling, and the damage is done through kinetic transfer. It's not that fancy, it's just a Gauss rifle firing nanoscopic projectiles, really, and the projectiles are so small they make fantastic penetrators that are able to burrow past the skin of the target before they've bled enough energy into it to stop...which heats up the surrounding area and causes it to melt, maybe even explode, and possibly emit bremsstrahlung depending on the material. So hey, at the end of the day the recoil from a PPC might be less than that of an AC/10 because the 10 points of damage are partially due to secondary effects. Even the AC/10 doesn't do all of its damage through kinetic energy alone, it has an explosive warhead.

That being said, no, there was no tank in 1939 firing a 5-inch naval shell. There is no tank today firing a 5-inch naval shell. And the tanks of 1939 didn't handle the recoil; they had to adjust the gun again after firing. Tanks today still shake under the fire, they've just automated the gun-laying.

Real world arguments work just fine for BattleTech if we throw out the rulebook. Which we should, because it's stupid and boring. The real versions are infintely more interesting.

Again apart from the small; but important part 1200m/s isn't enough energy to turn gas in to plasma. Tanks rounds don't turn into gas let alone plasma at the same speed. For the weapon to work you must create the high energy particles and then accelerate them. The mean speed of a hydrogen atom at room temperature is 480 m/s, 1200m/s wouldn't even boil water.

[Y E O N N E]

Albino Boo, on 27 February 2017 - 11:13 PM, said:

Again apart from the small; but important part 1200m/s isn't enough energy to turn gas in to plasma. Tanks rounds don't turn into gas let alone plasma at the same speed. For the weapon to work you must create the high energy particles and then accelerate them. The mean speed of a hydrogen atom at room temperature is 480 m/s, 1200m/s wouldn't even boil water.

I think we're talking past each other.

I am not at all talking to how fast the PPC round is in MWO. I don't give a hoot. Conceptually, a PPC has to be firing a beam at near light-speed. If we're already decoupling BT from reality for this conversation, then you can decouple the fact that the PPC isn't firing properly for what it is with the fact that it should produce recoil.

[Albino Boo]

Yeonne Greene, on 27 February 2017 - 11:56 PM, said:

I think we're talking past each other.

I am not at all talking to how fast the PPC round is in MWO. I don't give a hoot. Conceptually, a PPC has to be firing a beam at near light-speed. If we're already decoupling BT from reality for this conversation, then you can decouple the fact that the PPC isn't firing properly for what it is with the fact that it should produce recoil.

As I said in previous post 1g of protons traveling at 11kmh if lightspeed will have the energy equivalent to 9 gigatons of TNT.

[Clownwarlord]

Tlords, on 25 February 2017 - 07:45 PM, said:

There is a saying that "Physics is a *****."

Here's the problem... Today, the best jump sniping mechs in the game are Hunchback II-Cs, Night Gyrs, Blackjacks, and Summoners. I might be missing a few other mechs - yet when you look at these mechs they have one of two things in common.

1. Either high mounted torso weapons or...
2. High mounted arm weapons with no lower arm actuators.

Yet something is amiss with the physics... A Phoenix Hawk firing a PPC has its lower arm actuator and the upper arm actuator working in concert to absorb the recoil. A Hunchback II-C with high mounted ERPPCs has nothing similar. You could argue and say, it has a recoil chamber built into the ERPPC housing, yet it would not be as effective as the same recoil chamber, paired within an arm with a upper and lower arm actuator. I'd like to see these mechs with lower mounted weapons be better jump snipers over those with high-mounted weapons.

So here is my thought on how to address it. And what is my crazy idea idea to do this... heat of course. Its the great mechwarrior/battletech equalizer.

If you are like the Phoenix Hawk and firing ballistic weapons from your arms. There is no change and no penalties.

If you are like the Hunchback II-C, when you fire during your jump or coming down after your jump - your mech compensates for the recoil by venting an intense and short burst of super heated air. The heat coming from this is equivalent to the pin-point-damage (PPD) damage the ballistic/ppc does. Fire a gauss - generate 15 additional heat. Fire a PPC or ERPPC, generate 10 additional heat.

This turns jump sniping into an option for mechs with superior weapons placement. Not the primary option. It also brings in physics.

I'm sure there are other ideas to counter the current the jump sniping kings.

What are yours?

What jump sniping kings? I think you need to stop smoking weed, or doing whatever other mind altering drugs of your choice may be. Why? because PGI has already handled the issue with jump jet shake, leg damage from falling, and oh before I forget all the jump jet nerfs for every mech class above medium. This was all done because jump sniping should be in the game, but difficult to do. So ultimately my opinion is if jump snipers are still a problem for you then you really do suck at this game.

[Y E O N N E]

Albino Boo, on 28 February 2017 - 12:21 AM, said:

As I said in previous post 1g of protons traveling at 11kmh if lightspeed will have the energy equivalent to 9 gigatons of TNT.

Okay, not sure how that matters, since you are pulling up an arbitrary mass for who knows what reason. Also, you might want to check your units...11 kmh of lightspeed? Is that supposed to say 11% of lightspeed?

Actually, I don't even know why I let myself get dragged into this conversation. I was merely answering Gas's pondering over whether or not a PPC should have recoil. The answer is yes; action and reaction. We are getting caught up in the minutiae.

[Albino Boo]

Yeonne Greene, on 28 February 2017 - 12:36 AM, said:

Okay, not sure how that matters, since you are pulling up an arbitrary mass for who knows what reason. Also, you might want to check your units...11 kmh of lightspeed? Is that supposed to say 11% of lightspeed?

Actually, I don't even know why I let myself get dragged into this conversation. I was merely answering Gas's pondering over whether or not a PPC should have recoil. The answer is yes; action and reaction. We are getting caught up in the minutiae.

Here is the post in question.
If you want to use real world physics each proton would the energy of 4x10^-7j . Therefore 1 gram of protons energy would be 6x10²³ x 4x10^-7 = 2.x10¹⁷j or roughly equivalent to 9 gigatons of TNT.

The 11kmh of the speed of light is what the speed that cern the Particle Accelerator gets to. The measured energy level of the protons is again from the cern Particle Accelerator. 6x10²³ is Avogadro's constant which is used to to calculate molar mass. So in 1 g of protons, a Hydrogen atom, striped of its electron with atomic weight 1, there are 6x10²³ protons. Therefore the energy of required to power a PPC at near light speed would require enough energy to destroy half a continent. Not a practical weapon that works in the real world. You decided that energy level was that of 5 inch shell based on maths whatsoever. I have provide you with maths for both the speed of light and 1200m/s and proving that your theories are wrong. So the only practical way a PPC could work would by creating plasma and then accelerating to the desired velocity using magnetic fields, similar to a gauss rifle. The recoil would based on the mass of the projectile not the energy level of the projectile. A 1kg mass with the velocity of 1200m/s with a range 1200 m is closest approached by the German 37mm tank gun and the British 2lb tank gun of 1939. Incidentally the KV2 tank had a 6 inch gun in 1939. The IS-2 was armed with a 5 inch naval gun with barrel shortened which had been previously used as a land artillery piece.

[Gas Guzzler]

Yeonne Greene, on 27 February 2017 - 08:00 PM, said:

Bruh, am disappoint.

Recoil is all about kinetic energy and Newton's Third Law. Am I releasing 10 MJ of kinetic energy? Am I releasing it in a split second? Then it doesn't matter how massive the projectile is, because you are going to feel it kick back. A dense stream of protons accelerated to near light-speed for a discharge of 10 MJ would have the same system energy as a 5-inch shell from a 5/54 Mk. 48. Recoil would be identical if the discharge occurred over the same interval. You'd also probably get a nice thunder-clap from the PPC beam as the air around the beam is explosively superheated.

As for where it gets its mass to accelerate, who knows. It could just be a store of hydrogen whose capacity is large enough that there is no reasonable expectation that you'd deplete it during battle. Or it could just ionize particles taken from the atmosphere.

I didn't dispute there was recoil, I was just trying to figure out whether or not it would be significant. The amount of recoil is proportional to the mass of the projectile and the velocity. A proton weighs 1.67 * 10^-27 kg. How many protons are fired by a PPC? Once you figure out the mass, you know the velocity (1300m/s) and you can figure out how much kinetic energy is there.

PPCs are supposed to do damage through kinetic and thermal energy. I'm just saying that depending on how many Protons a PPC is firing, the recoil could be very small, or effectively nothing when you compare to the mass of the arm and weapon (7 tons for just the weapon, plus the arm structure) to the mass of the "stream of protons". This is just a fun thought track, it ultimately doesn't matter for the game. Did I miss the folks saying "duuuude Mechs totally shouldn't be able to fire PPCs in the air because of all their recoil" because that's dumb.

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 28 February 2017 - 08:17 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Gas Guzzler, on 28 February 2017 - 08:17 AM, said:

to the mass of the "stream of protons".

Now I want a Proton gun like from Ghostbusters in Mechwarrior, thanks for that.

[Foxwalker]

OK, I don't get this discussion of recoil at all. Why would that be an issue in the Video game? As far as I can tell an recoil we get is simply to allow us an "experience" giving us a satisfying quality to weapons fire.

If you really wanted to do real world for recoil, we would be having experience like the Borderlands Shotgun Midgets. Could you image that everytime you fired your AC20 in a Urban Mech the sucker would spin 360 degrees. Your AC20 BlackJack would fall down. Or even better, putting a PPC on a Spider, you could use it to fire behind or toward the ground to give you added lift speed for Jumping!.

Actually the mechanic that is hit or miss for me is getting damage. Sometimes you get reaction from being hit and sometimes none at all. Running along in a Mech and looking up to the left and seeing you have lost 10-20% total without knowing it is ridiculous. A Locust running up behind a Direwolf and tagging it for 30 points in the butt should shudder your mech a little.

Edited by Foxwalker, 28 February 2017 - 12:57 PM.