52 replies to this topic

[Chromoid]

Shalmyan Moonsong, on 20 January 2012 - 02:41 AM, said:

So if the gauss rifle did not have the disadvantage listed above... every single mech in the game would have them, why would anyone use anything else?

{snip}

AC-20 and Arrow IV anyone?

[TekFan]

Well, the formula for the energy needed to accelerate a projectile is:
1/2*m*v²
With m being the mass of the projectile and v being its velocity after leaving the gun.

A gauss-projectile weighs around a hundred kilogramms and is faster than sound(which is about 343 m/s in air).

Let's say the projectile has a speed of mach 2, then it's speed would be 686 m/s.

In total the capacitors would at least have a charge of 23529800 Joules. Around 23.53 MJ...this would be the specific energy of 28.66 kilogramms(about 63.2 pounds) of TNT(if you can trust the values for the specific energy of explosives from the german wikipedia ).

Should give quite a blast.

[Alaric Wolf Kerensky]

If Gauss Rifles are going to blow up when they take a hit, then I want to see a massive explosion if a full rack of LRM-20s or Autocannon/missile ammo takes an impact. A missile's warhead is much more likely to detonate in the position that they take on a 'Mech, sitting in large groupings waiting to be launched. And with this you need to note that CASE will not help much with an in-rack explosion, as it can with the ammunition storage. IT is only fair that if you are going to virtually make Gauss Rifles suicidal to use, that all the other weapons with explosive potential suffer the same risk. However, this would cause the popularity of cxompletely laser-based builds to dominate all other builds, because you do not have to worry about your own weapons tearing you to shreds.

[AlanEsh]

I like the ideas put forth regarding overload/destruction damage being based on capacitor charge level, since this is a real-time game. Also ammo dumping was brought up and it sparked a notion...

I propose the gauss weapon system be modified away from canon to make it "work better" alongside ammo weapons like Autocannons. The devs should move the capacitors to "ammo" bins rather than assuming they are in the weapon. This makes CASE useful, and it makes Gauss ammo work (programatically) like other ammo weapons, so they don't have to write one-off damage/crit code just for the gauss rifle.

- A rail gun would work just as well with capacitors in a remote location feeding power through conduits, just like ammo being hopper or belt fed to a machine gun or AC.
- Massive capacitors are dangerous when damaged, so it makes sense the engineers would isolate them like other ammunition.
- Capacitors wear out. Factors like temperature and operating environment can greatly reduce its life. Being able to quickly swap bad/failing caps out of an "ammo bay" for new ones would be valuable.
- Being able to dump/eject vulnerable capacitors just like you would AC ammo would be prudent.

To differentiate the gauss from other ammo fed weapons, perhaps if any capacitor location is critted, the entire gun is destroyed or disabled due to the power surge.

Just some thoughts

[SilentObserver]

Alaric Wolf Kerensky, on 25 January 2012 - 08:23 AM, said:

If Gauss Rifles are going to blow up when they take a hit, then I want to see a massive explosion if a full rack of LRM-20s or Autocannon/missile ammo takes an impact. A missile's warhead is much more likely to detonate in the position that they take on a 'Mech, sitting in large groupings waiting to be launched. And with this you need to note that CASE will not help much with an in-rack explosion, as it can with the ammunition storage. IT is only fair that if you are going to virtually make Gauss Rifles suicidal to use, that all the other weapons with explosive potential suffer the same risk. However, this would cause the popularity of cxompletely laser-based builds to dominate all other builds, because you do not have to worry about your own weapons tearing you to shreds.

So you like the Gause Rifle. Who wouldn't. But a 20 point explosion is nothing unless you put it in a torso location. Wait till you see a bin full of MG ammo go off.

The Gause Rifle needs some drawbacks to balance it with the rest of the weaponry in the game.

[Strum Wealh]

TekFan, on 24 January 2012 - 09:43 PM, said:

Well, the formula for the energy needed to accelerate a projectile is:
1/2*m*v²
With m being the mass of the projectile and v being its velocity after leaving the gun.

A gauss-projectile weighs around a hundred kilogramms and is faster than sound(which is about 343 m/s in air).

Let's say the projectile has a speed of mach 2, then it's speed would be 686 m/s.

In total the capacitors would at least have a charge of 23529800 Joules. Around 23.53 MJ...this would be the specific energy of 28.66 kilogramms(about 63.2 pounds) of TNT(if you can trust the values for the specific energy of explosives from the german wikipedia ).

Should give quite a blast.

Except Gauss Rifle slugs are often described as hypersonic - a minimum speed of Mach 5.0 (1,710 m/s).
Gauss Rifle slugs come at eight (8) per metric ton (1000 kg), giving each slug a mass of approximately 125 kg.

KE (and, thus, the energy imparted on the slug) at launch should therefore be on the order of (0.5)*(125)*(1710^2) or 1.827x10^8 joules or 0.183 gigajoules - the energy needing to be stored in the capacitors (assuming a 100% efficient system) for each launch.
That energy is equal to approximately 0.04 tons (40 kg, or 88 lbs) of TNT (1 ton of TNT = 4.184 gigajoules).

Electric double-layer capacitors (aka "supercapacitors" or "ultracapacitors") are a variant of electrochemical capacitors similar to conventional electrolytic capacitors that are capable of very high charge densities (0.1 megajoules per kilogram as of 2010).
(See "Fun With Ultracapacitors" for education and fun! )

Given that electrolytic capacitors can and do, in fact, explode under certain conditions, I think the capacitors in Gauss Rifles should also be susceptible to explosion, especially when hit with the energies unleashed by BattleMech-caliber weaponry.

Your thoughts?

[VYCanis]

you know, i always wondered why gauss rifles get the benefit of capacitors to run nice and cool but energy weapons in general (aside from buffed out ppcs) don't

now i know why

not sure i want my mech to be that prone to exploding. I'll take the heat

[TekFan]

Strum Wealh, on 25 January 2012 - 02:10 PM, said:

Except Gauss Rifle slugs are often described as hypersonic - a minimum speed of Mach 5.0 (1,710 m/s).
Gauss Rifle slugs come at eight (8) per metric ton (1000 kg), giving each slug a mass of approximately 125 kg.

KE (and, thus, the energy imparted on the slug) at launch should therefore be on the order of (0.5)*(125)*(1710^2) or 1.827x10^8 joules or 0.183 gigajoules - the energy needing to be stored in the capacitors (assuming a 100% efficient system) for each launch.
That energy is equal to approximately 0.04 tons (40 kg, or 88 lbs) of TNT (1 ton of TNT = 4.184 gigajoules).

Electric double-layer capacitors (aka "supercapacitors" or "ultracapacitors") are a variant of electrochemical capacitors similar to conventional electrolytic capacitors that are capable of very high charge densities (0.1 megajoules per kilogram as of 2010).
(See "Fun With Ultracapacitors" for education and fun! )

Given that electrolytic capacitors can and do, in fact, explode under certain conditions, I think the capacitors in Gauss Rifles should also be susceptible to explosion, especially when hit with the energies unleashed by BattleMech-caliber weaponry.

Your thoughts?

Nice one. Even more boom.
Most of the data I used was stuff I remembered from the novels I've read as a teen(german translations).
Describing the projectiles with a weight of about a hundred kilogramms.
I checked the sarna-wiki, but wasn't sure so I rather chose the smaller value .
Still I'd like to know, where you got your energy-value for the ton of TNT.
With the value I got it would even be 222.6kg of TNT.

[Strum Wealh]

TekFan, on 26 January 2012 - 12:12 AM, said:

Nice one. Even more boom.
Most of the data I used was stuff I remembered from the novels I've read as a teen(german translations).
Describing the projectiles with a weight of about a hundred kilogramms.
I checked the sarna-wiki, but wasn't sure so I rather chose the smaller value .
Still I'd like to know, where you got your energy-value for the ton of TNT.
With the value I got it would even be 222.6kg of TNT.

The specific figure (1 metric ton of TNT = 4.184 gigajoules) came from Wikipedia, but can be verified elsewhere.
1 metric ton = 1000 kg = 2204.62 lbs
1 kg = 2.20462 lbs

(0.183 gigajoules)/(4.184 GJ/ton) = 0.0437 tons

using more accurate numbers:
(0.0437 tons) * (1000 kg/ton) = 43.73 kg
(43.73 kg) * (2.204 lbs/kg) = 96.3987 lbs

using the more even (albeit less accurate) numbers:
(0.04 tons) * (1000 kg/ton) = 40 kg
(40 kg) * (2.2 lbs/kg) = 88 lbs

So, really, 88 lbs of TNT is a not-unreasonable (albeit not actually very good) estimate, while the actual value is closer to 96.4 lbs of TNT.

The point being: when they go "boom", it is a sizable "boom"!

[Gunmage]

More like: "Should mech take damage from destroyed weapons and ammo blowing up?"

I think it should. Those AC/20s shots are no firecrackers, and Gauss rifle's capacitors are not, either.

Strum Wealh, on 25 January 2012 - 02:10 PM, said:

Except Gauss Rifle slugs are often described as hypersonic - a minimum speed of Mach 5.0 (1,710 m/s).
Gauss Rifle slugs come at eight (8) per metric ton (1000 kg), giving each slug a mass of approximately 125 kg.

Modern tank cannons can fire shells with starting speed of ~2000 m/s, and I'd say that it's an eqiuvalent to AC/20 shell speed. And I get the impression that Gauss rifle slug travels visibly faster than that. Also, i think that "1 ton of ammo" includes some sort of ammo feed system. So, the shots should be lighter, faster, and do even more damage than that =)

Edited by Gunmage, 26 January 2012 - 06:51 AM.

[TekFan]

Strum Wealh, on 26 January 2012 - 05:50 AM, said:

The specific figure (1 metric ton of TNT = 4.184 gigajoules) came from Wikipedia, but can be verified elsewhere.
1 metric ton = 1000 kg = 2204.62 lbs
1 kg = 2.20462 lbs

(0.183 gigajoules)/(4.184 GJ/ton) = 0.0437 tons

using more accurate numbers:
(0.0437 tons) * (1000 kg/ton) = 43.73 kg
(43.73 kg) * (2.204 lbs/kg) = 96.3987 lbs

using the more even (albeit less accurate) numbers:
(0.04 tons) * (1000 kg/ton) = 40 kg
(40 kg) * (2.2 lbs/kg) = 88 lbs

So, really, 88 lbs of TNT is a not-unreasonable (albeit not actually very good) estimate, while the actual value is closer to 96.4 lbs of TNT.

The point being: when they go "boom", it is a sizable "boom"!

I think I can imagine why our values differ here: I think I may have picked the expansion-energy only.

But the point is right: Gotta love the big boom

[Fiachdubh]

The more explosions and carnage the better so I vote YES.

[EDMW CSN]

Gauss rifles should go boom. Missiles and AC boats always had that problem until MW4. Now this does not mean energy boat should be the end all be all builds for mechs. With a proper heat system system this problem can be avoided.

Edited by [EDMW]CSN, 27 January 2012 - 07:15 PM.