36 replies to this topic

[banesbreath]

the capacitor doesn't have to be anywhere near the weapon that is using it.
so you blow the laser and the capacitor sits with a full charge.

[Felicitatem Parco]

banesbreath, on 05 February 2012 - 09:03 AM, said:

the capacitor doesn't have to be anywhere near the weapon that is using it.
so you blow the laser and the capacitor sits with a full charge.

If the capacitors weren't nearby, then weapon swapping would be very difficult because changing the arm laser would require removing the capacitor from the torso somewhere. And this is Mechwarrior - it's a Mech sim based on a boardgame. It's not a Mech sim based on reality, and I know that could make this entire topic sound moot, but I was just trying to keep in spirit with the aspect of the boardgame official rules that say Gauss Rifles can explode if they take a critical hit; ctheir capacitors are integral to the weapon itself... and lasers should do the same because they would be capacitor fed, too. This never made it into the boardgame for one reason or another, but it is conceptually in non-disagreement with the spirit of the rules.

Maybe the authors were afraid of people complaining that "Every weapon in the game can explode! If it's not my ammo, it's my missiles or my capacitors!" and so they decided to make the Laser class of weapone critical-proof. I'm saying that having a risk of lasers exploding (and the explosion would not be very large, but it would be "significant") in the low-probability-event that they take a critical hit would be amusing. They don't have to pop every time the weapon is destroyed through damage, but they should pop if the capacitor takes a ctirical hit.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 05 February 2012 - 09:13 AM.

[Liam]

The whole construction and concept of battlemech was good thought, but the implementation of it was very simplified which is good for TT based game.
In my opinion for MW game especially in case of science fiction simulation game, there should be a new beginning with BT as fundamental base and simple physical background. The problem is most people resist and are afraid of deeper insight how it could work ... and try to argue about BT being its own universe with its own physics.
But well its going to be OT.

[IceSerpent]

First things first - not all capacitors explode, only electrolytic ones do. Yes, there are other kinds (which don't look like small barrels on your circuit board), and they would at most crack due to overvoltage (rarely). More often they would simply stop working without any flashy effects.

IMHO, lasers and PPCs in BT should not have any capacitors at all, because they tend to spike the reactor output when fired. There would be no obvious reason for that spike if energy weapons used a simple capacitor discharge. Gauss rifles are kind of contradictory - in some places they are explicitly described as having banks of capacitors (which can explode or mess up electronics when damaged) while in other places it's mentioned that they also cause a reactor spike and therefore firing multiple gauss rifles has a delay between shots (i.e. reactor can't provide enough energy to fire 2 of them simultaneously). Same goes for bracing when firing a heavy gauss rifle - one of the features of a magnetic accelerator is that it by design has very little recoil, practically none compared to a similar firearm.

[Liam]

IceSerpent, on 05 February 2012 - 10:43 AM, said:

IMHO, lasers and PPCs in BT should not have any capacitors at all, because they tend to spike the reactor output when fired. There would be no obvious reason for that spike if energy weapons used a simple capacitor discharge.

This is simply wrong assumption. They spike reactor output when fired because reactor load their capacitors ...
Thats why as long your capacitors will be loaded reactor will produce heat losses ... so cool running gauss is also wrong.
If you fire a gauss rifle reactor will load your capacitors and producing heat. The weapon itself does not produce any significant heat.
This problem with BT descriptions is because of coupled heat /energy model ... that was adapted and simplified to nothing for TT use.

Edited by Liam, 05 February 2012 - 10:59 AM.

[IceSerpent]

Liam, on 05 February 2012 - 10:59 AM, said:

This is simply wrong assumption. They spike reactor output when fired because reactor load their capacitors ...

Charging a capacitor is not an instantaneous process. More than that, it's actually very easy to regulate the speed of that process - charge time is R*C (where R is resistance of the circuit and C is the capacity of the capacitor in question), so soldering in a resistor with higher restance rating increases the time it takes to charge the capacitor (thus decreasing the "spike" on the energy source). In this case it would be possible to have all mechs run cool as ice cubes by simply increasing the charge time on energy weapons.

[DragonClaw]

this was looked at in cbt as biofeed back to the nerohelmet causing damage to the pilot. but as a sims make it all sparky in the cockpit. make it hard to look past to fire your next shot. or wait and have a clear veiw for the next shot.

[Liam]

IceSerpent, on 05 February 2012 - 12:24 PM, said:

Charging a capacitor is not an instantaneous process. More than that, it's actually very easy to regulate the speed of that process - charge time is R*C (where R is resistance of the circuit and C is the capacity of the capacitor in question), so soldering in a resistor with higher restance rating increases the time it takes to charge the capacitor (thus decreasing the "spike" on the energy source). In this case it would be possible to have all mechs run cool as ice cubes by simply increasing the charge time on energy weapons.

Again this also makes less sense, why do you try to argue into wrong direction? Its not about how to load capacitor ... you miss another stuff. Off cause you make your capacitor loading slow, but does it makes sense?
You want have competitive energy weapon to ballistic one. That means if your coilgun should have something about 7 MJ initial kinetic energy you will need about ~ 10MJ stored in your capacitors (due to efficiencies). Competitive means fast fire rate. And this means at 4 sec. reload you will need 2,5 MW and from this power you will need to reject thermal losses (thats where your heat spike comes from).

As for PPC, Lasers and Railgun they would have their own "heat spikes". At least gauss itself will stay cool.

So long your reactor is in idle mode (myomer work, sensors, life support systems etc.) heat generation and energy generation will be low, but while loading capacitors you also generate heat ...

Your argumentation doesn't make sense, because you try to argue slow charging gauss with reload time of some hours ...

Edited by Liam, 05 February 2012 - 04:54 PM.

[IceSerpent]

Liam, on 05 February 2012 - 04:34 PM, said:

Again this also makes less sense, why do you try to argue into wrong direction? Its not about how to load capacitor ... you miss another stuff. Off cause you make your capacitor loading slow, but does it makes sense?

Liam, you are missing the point - in your scenario the actual firing of a laser (or PPC) doesn't spike the reactor, all heat is generated by recharging the weapon. Given that it's dead simple to regulate the rate of capacitor charge and therefore equally simple to regulate the rate of heat buildup, heat becomes a non-issue. I can pack enough ERPPCs to guarantee an insta-kill if I hit the target and deal with heat/recharge later as I see fit - I can slowly charge all of them sumultaneously or quickly charge them one-by-one or charge 2 of them at a time...etc. The combat shifts from "what weapons can I fire now without shutting down the reactor" to "what is the best position to ensure that I can take cover and recharge after alpha striking with 10+ ERLLs".

You certainly can make lasers explode just for looks, kind of like they make cars explode on each fender bender in the movies, but this would have nothing to do with real life.

[Liam]

I think you miss the point of energy conversion. By saying “heat became a non-issue” is simply wrong. Every energy conversion process has losses.
Once again:

1. Your weapons are loaded (capacitors are loaded)
2. You fire your weapons
3. They have heat losses > weapon heat
4. Your reactor start to charge your weapons (capacitors) > heat losses > heat

You can switch off your loading process yes, but then you are “weapon less”
You can go in cover, but there are not only mechs … air units, infantry etc.
Off cause you can charge your weapons slowly … but the one who can do it faster will have higher chance to win. Your argumentation with 10 ERLL makes only on a paper sense, but not if it comes to efficiency /costs / mobility and at least effectiveness. That’s why there are no modern main battle tanks with 2-5 guns, because it is an optimization issue. You can sacrifice some mobility to firepower, but there are still limits in terms of effectiveness.

Do some simple math of energy conversion, heat rejection, reload etc. and you will see.
To me ... you trying to argue into direction which has less practicability. But well do what you want to do ...
I quit here because everything was said.

And sorry I hope you don't take it so personal, I'm not for flame wars or something like that.

[IceSerpent]

I am not taking it personal, but I still believe that you are wrong here. Realistically it makes more sense to fire an alpha strike (if possible) than to fire weapons at a slower rate, simply because alpha strike gives me a chance to cripple the target (if not destroy it completely) before it can return fire. 10 ERLLs are very easy to pack on an assault mech - a Dire Wolf has 55 tons of pod space (if I remember correctly) and clan ERLL weighs 4 tons...55 - 40 = 15 heatsinks to cover weapon heat and if most of the heat is generated by recharge, I can easily alpha-strike with all 10 and tweak the recharge rates afterwards to make sure that I don't shutdown. Sure, I would be "weaponless" for a bit, but if have just destroyed my opponent, I wouldn't be in a lot of trouble. Same goes for, let's say, Nova Prime - fire all 12 of medium lasers, then jump away to a safer spot and take your time recharging.

[Ravn]

Correct me if I'm wrong (I'm a mechanical engineer, not electrical), but most lasers use capacitors as an AC filter and not a battery. You can not charge a capacitor to more than the source voltage. Their purpose is to only allow a certain bandwidth of generated AC energy to the emitter which radiates energy upon activation. Your energy is coming from the generators attached to the engine. The delay in shots is heat dissipation rather than to recharge capacitors. Capacitors recharge in micro-seconds... even the very large ones.

[Liam]

Ravn the Idea of capacitors is only there, because of lack of available power. As I already wrote in Gauss example (see above).
It is a big difference to try to quench a 1GW reactor or one with 10MW. Off cause energy storage systems are not for free and have their mass and volume specific values, but at the end it is about an optimum, as everywhere else in engineering.
There are many different ways to store energy, some are viable some not, but this not of relevance, because we talk about advanced energy systems of the future. However these advanced energy storage systems will have also there physical limits and belong to standard physical laws. In my opinion there is no point to argue how a standard main stream capacitor work, because in BT they use maybe something different maybe SMES or something based on high temperature superconductors or maybe based on carbon nanotubes etc. AT the end it doesn't matter, because all what can be changed is probably how to charge/discharge and specific values.

[IceSerpent]

In BT gauss rifles don't really explode, but rather cause an unregulated electrical discharge when damaged. This discharge may screw up neuro-feedback to the pilot and knock him/her out. I think it was done to give gauss rifles some sort of a drawback - other than that you have a pretty much perfect weapon that runs cold, has non-explosive ammo, has long range, and packs quite a punch. I never really liked the "fluff" explanation for this drawback, but it is what it is I guess. Lasers and PPCs already have a built-in drawback - they generate a lot of heat, so the question is really why would you want them to explode or cause electrical discharge to begin with? In other words, how would it make the game better?

@Ravn: You are correct about real life capacitors. Although, as Liam said, we are talking sci-fi, so we can imagine better ones that can be used as a battery.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

The BT value for an exploding Gauss is pretty low really - it's only 20 damage which is minor compared with an ammo explosion. Unfortunately many "fluff" explanations don't really stand up to close examination. Lets face it the original was drwn up by gamers who presumably asked various people for "realistic" explanations. It's like wanting damage "tail off" after max weapon range rather than the slugs drop to the ground or laser beam dissipates 1cm past max range.

[MaddMaxx]

Thank to the mans that we do not have to try and figure out how a "Fusion" engine converts its production of Raw Heat into Electrical energy.

Plasma coverted to electricty to power capacitance? Neat trick for an engine that can weigh as little as a 5T Omni 145 (or 2.5T in XL mode)

[Ravn]

Well then, just use a flux capacitor. As long as your traveling faster than 88 mph it should work just fine. If it blows up, it sends you back in time and you make out with your mom.