146 replies to this topic

[Volthorne]

Kartr, on 12 April 2012 - 10:28 AM, said:

<snip>

Your whole passage is essentially wrong.

LRM-20's and LRM-5's deal the same amount of damage per missile, and have the same amount of ammo per ton. x4 LRM-5's are less efficient in tonnage than x1 LRM-20.

SRMs are MADE to be dumped into an enemy mech in a brawl. SRM-6 deals 2 damage per missile (SRM standard), fires salvos of 6, has 15 salvos per ton of ammo, and is very weight efficient (3 tons + 1 ton ammo). That's 180 up-front damage (per ton of ammo) that a good pilot won't miss with. Now spread it over an area and factor in crits, and possibly multiple salvos being fired at the same time.

Gauss Rifles (AKA Coilguns) have very little recoil or kickback as there is no explosive force involved.

AC's of any caliber WILL have physical impact effects, which will directly translate into reticule shift of the mech being hit. Larger calber = larger impact force. You fire lasers? I say "meh" and shoot you right in the CT because there's no physical impact from your lasers, and then your lasers start going wide. I'd say that's quite a significant advantage over energy weaponry that CAN'T be nullified (other than destruction of the weapon).

As far as choices go, why have like, 10 different brand name manufacturers of weapons if they all crank out the same generic product? I think there should be SOME variation in stats for different brands.

Edited by Volthorne, 14 April 2012 - 02:15 PM.

[Mechteric]

I'd love to see autocannons have similar behavior to the ones in Mechwarrior 2, but with properly adjusted damage and ammo count for proper DPS and whatnot. Also capturing the sound of the AC's is crucial as well, as Mechwarrior 2 had great sounds as well for them.

Edited by CapperDeluxe, 13 April 2012 - 10:46 AM.

[Ivan Whackinov]

Volthorne, on 13 April 2012 - 10:43 AM, said:

Gauss Rifles (AKA Coilguns) don't have ANY recoil or kickback as there is no explosive force involved.

Newton would like to have a long, serious talk with you about his laws of motion. You make him cry.

[Kartr]

Volthorne, on 13 April 2012 - 10:43 AM, said:

Your whole passage is essentially wrong.

LRM-20's and LRM-5's deal the same amount of damage per missile, and have the same amount of ammo per ton. x4 LRM-5's are less efficient in tonnage than x1 LRM-20.

Incorrect, 4 LRM-5s take up 8 tons and 4 criticals, an LRM-20 takes up 10 tons and 5 criticals. 1 ton of LRM-5 ammo lets 4 LRM-5s fire 6 times, 1 ton of LRM-20 lets the LRM-20 fire 6 times. The total potential damage in both cases is 20 pts. The LRM-20 will do more damage on average if it hits than 4 LRMs if they all hit. However the LRM-20 has one chance to hit per turn while the LRM-5s have 4 chances to hit per turn, which means the LRM-5s are 4 times as likely to hit. So my point stands, 4 LRM-5s gives you the chance to hit more often at the cost of doing less damage every time you hit, balanced by the fact that you save criticals and tonnage vs an LRM-20s higher damage per hit but fewer total hits.

Volthorne, on 13 April 2012 - 10:43 AM, said:

SRMs are MADE to be dumped into an enemy mech in a brawl. SRM-6 deals 2 damage per missile (SRM standard), fires salvos of 6, has 15 salvos per ton of ammo, and is very weight efficient (3 tons + 1 ton ammo). That's 180 up-front damage (per ton of ammo) that a good pilot won't miss with. Now spread it over an area and factor in crits, and possibly multiple salvos being fired at the same time.

SRM-s are missiles and if modeled correctly and following TT rules then the turbulence from rocket wash, the turbulence from the flight, cross currents, head winds, etc., then even a good pilot will have trouble putting all the missiles on target. If crits are in the game then using them as crit seekers might be worth while, but if the game doesn't have crits and the only way to knock out another 'Mech is to destroy armor and internals then the fact that SRM/s spread the damage out over the entirity of the 'Mech makes them less desirable than AC/s which can do equivalent or more damage to a single location with every hit.

I haven't played enough TT to know how common crits are and if I want to try and get them, so I would much rather have 2 medium lasers and a heat sink save a ton, get all of my damage on two locations at most, not worry about ammo consumption or ammo explosions and just deal with the extra 1 heat and only sacrifice 2pts of damage, which would most likely be made up by individual missiles missing anyway.

Volthorne, on 13 April 2012 - 10:43 AM, said:

Gauss Rifles (AKA Coilguns) don't have ANY recoil or kickback as there is no explosive force involved.

Not true, according to Sir Isaac Newton (the deadliest sonofa ***** in space!) the Gauss rifle is exerting force on the slug to accelerate it, and the slug is exerting the exact same amount of force back on the Gauss rifle. Since the Gauss rifle is attached to the arm and the arm is attached to the 'Mech the force the slug exerts is transferred to all of the above.

The Gauss rifle will have less recoil than a conventional weapon using chemical propellants to accelerate the same mass to the same velocities, because there will be no force from the explosion of the propellants.

Volthorne, on 13 April 2012 - 10:43 AM, said:

AC's of any caliber WILL have physical impact effects, which will directly translate into reticule shift of the mech being hit. Larger calber = larger impact force. You fire lasers? I say "meh" and shoot you right in the CT because there's no physical impact from your lasers, and then your lasers start going wide. I'd say that's quite a significant advantage over energy weaponry that CAN'T be nullified (other than destruction of the weapon).

Larger caliber =/= larger impact force. Force is determined by mass times acceleration not simply mass alone. If the acceleration is the same then yes the larger caliber weapon will have greater force, however if the larger caliber has less acceleration then it will not necessarily have greater force. Smaller AC/s presumably have much greater acceleration because they have much greater range.

Also if the acceleration on the larger caliber AC/s was the same the recoil forces on the 'Mech would be much much greater. In fact if the acceleration on AC/s is the same across all calibers, the higher calibers are going to have a much higher proportional recoil because the explosive force to accelerate the mass is going to be much higher.

Sure knockback is an advantage, but is if your AC rounds are already tracking all across my torso because of the recoil and relative movement of our 'Mechs and the knockback your AC/s are doing is it really worth it?

My lasers are hitting all over you and your AC rounds are hitting all over me. You have an AC/20 doing 20pts spread out across my 'Mech I have 5 medium lasers and 6 heat sinks and I'm doing 25 pts of damage spread out across your 'Mech and I have 4 extra tons of armor. You can fire 5 times before you run out of ammo while I can fire indefinitely, you have to worry about ammo explosions I don't. I have 5 chance to score a crit, you have 1, if I score a crit on your AC you can't fire it any more, if you score a crit on one of my lasers I have 4 others and am still doing 20pts of damage and only generating 6 heat (1 less than you). The more ammo you carry the cooler I can run by adding HS to make up the tonnage/critical difference or increase the damage by adding more medium lasers. The only thing I have to worry about is my heat curve.

That's why it is so important that AC/s do all their damage in one spot and UAC/s do their damage in two spots. Otherwise you can pack enough lasers and HS to do more damage with only a little more heat and none of the ammo based drawbacks that AC/s have. And you save enough tonnage to where you can add extra armor making it harder to kill you on top of you having more firepower and greater endurance.

Volthorne, on 13 April 2012 - 10:43 AM, said:

As far as choices go, why have like, 10 different brand name manufacturers of weapons if they all crank out the same generic product? I think there should be SOME variation in stats for different brands.

I have no problem with having 10 different companies that make 10 different variations of the weapons. What these weapons have to do is have the same damage output, same ammo capacity, same range and deal their damage in the same way. After all that's why all AC/20s regardless of manufacturer, caliber, number of rounds per burst, etc,. are all classified as AC/20s. They all do 20pts of damage in one location, they all carry 5 shots per ton, they all have the same range and they all fire bursts.

If the devs make a super large caliber AC/20 that fires three shots in less than a tenth of a second (closer to 3 hundreths of a second), and another version with a smaller caliber that fires 7 shots in a tenth of a second (closer to 5 or 6 hundreths of a second) and yet another that fires a different number of shots of a differing caliber still under a tenth of a second, then that's cool. If they make them so that one fires a constant stream of low caliber rounds for half a second, that's a problem.

[Volthorne]

Kartr, on 13 April 2012 - 02:26 PM, said:

Incorrect, 4 LRM-5s take up 8 tons and 4 criticals, an LRM-20 takes up 10 tons and 5 criticals. 1 ton of LRM-5 ammo lets 4 LRM-5s fire 6 times, 1 ton of LRM-20 lets the LRM-20 fire 6 times. The total potential damage in both cases is 20 pts. The LRM-20 will do more damage on average if it hits than 4 LRMs if they all hit. However the LRM-20 has one chance to hit per turn while the LRM-5s have 4 chances to hit per turn, which means the LRM-5s are 4 times as likely to hit. So my point stands, 4 LRM-5s gives you the chance to hit more often at the cost of doing less damage every time you hit, balanced by the fact that you save criticals and tonnage vs an LRM-20s higher damage per hit but fewer total hits.

You forget that for every ton of ammo for the LRM-20 you need 4 tons of LRM-5 ammo to match. Also, this isn't TT, so per-turn accuracy and shot count doesn't matter.

Kartr, on 13 April 2012 - 02:26 PM, said:

SRM-s are missiles and if modeled correctly and following TT rules then the turbulence from rocket wash, the turbulence from the flight, cross currents, head winds, etc., then even a good pilot will have trouble putting all the missiles on target. If crits are in the game then using them as crit seekers might be worth while, but if the game doesn't have crits and the only way to knock out another 'Mech is to destroy armor and internals then the fact that SRM/s spread the damage out over the entirity of the 'Mech makes them less desirable than AC/s which can do equivalent or more damage to a single location with every hit.

Ton for ton, SRMs can deal more damage than AC's can, granted it may be over a larger area. We've seen in-game footage of SRMs being fired (from the GDC in-game footage), and they appear to fly very straight. So, no, landing a volley shouldn't be as hard as you're making it out to be.

Kartr, on 13 April 2012 - 02:26 PM, said:

Not true, according to Sir Isaac Newton (the deadliest sonofa ***** in space!) the Gauss rifle is exerting force on the slug to accelerate it, and the slug is exerting the exact same amount of force back on the Gauss rifle. Since the Gauss rifle is attached to the arm and the arm is attached to the 'Mech the force the slug exerts is transferred to all of the above.

The Gauss rifle will have less recoil than a conventional weapon using chemical propellants to accelerate the same mass to the same velocities, because there will be no force from the explosion of the propellants.

I don't see any moving parts (aside from the loading mechanism), nor do I see any chemical propellant. Do you? It appears as though an electromagnetic current is PULLING the round through the barrel... Almost as if there's no physical force involved (which would, co-incidentally, mean no equal and oppostie reaction)! Have you actually ever seen a coilgun fire? Very little recoil. If we were talking railguns, I'd be singing the same tune as you.

Kartr, on 13 April 2012 - 02:26 PM, said:

Larger caliber =/= larger impact force. Force is determined by mass times acceleration not simply mass alone. If the acceleration is the same then yes the larger caliber weapon will have greater force, however if the larger caliber has less acceleration then it will not necessarily have greater force. Smaller AC/s presumably have much greater acceleration because they have much greater range.

OR they have greater range because of the smaller projectile size. Less drag, weight, etc. I wonder... Perhaps the difference in tonnage of the different AC/s is simply due to the barrel and loading mechanism sizes? Think of this from a corporate viewpoint: "Why make everything different in each AC when we could get away with (semi-)universal weapon? We could make SO much more money by making one base model and then fitting X parts for X caliber and Y parts for Y caliber!"

Kartr, on 13 April 2012 - 02:26 PM, said:

Also if the acceleration on the larger caliber AC/s was the same the recoil forces on the 'Mech would be much much greater. In fact if the acceleration on AC/s is the same across all calibers, the higher calibers are going to have a much higher proportional recoil because the explosive force to accelerate the mass is going to be much higher.

Yep, that's kinda how guns work. This is also why we don't see soldiers dragging around guns that can fire tank shells. They'd get blown off their feet and into the nearest hillside (or thrown a really long distance if no hill is available).

Kartr, on 13 April 2012 - 02:26 PM, said:

Sure knockback is an advantage, but is if your AC rounds are already tracking all across my torso because of the recoil and relative movement of our 'Mechs and the knockback your AC/s are doing is it really worth it?

My lasers are hitting all over you and your AC rounds are hitting all over me. You have an AC/20 doing 20pts spread out across my 'Mech I have 5 medium lasers and 6 heat sinks and I'm doing 25 pts of damage spread out across your 'Mech and I have 4 extra tons of armor. You can fire 5 times before you run out of ammo while I can fire indefinitely, you have to worry about ammo explosions I don't. I have 5 chance to score a crit, you have 1, if I score a crit on your AC you can't fire it any more, if you score a crit on one of my lasers I have 4 others and am still doing 20pts of damage and only generating 6 heat (1 less than you). The more ammo you carry the cooler I can run by adding HS to make up the tonnage/critical difference or increase the damage by adding more medium lasers. The only thing I have to worry about is my heat curve.

Where's all this weapon drift on my end comming from? Movement and...? But if AC/s are supposed to deal all their damage in one spot, that would imply that there should be little to no bullet spread. I do get your point though.

Kartr, on 13 April 2012 - 02:26 PM, said:

That's why it is so important that AC/s do all their damage in one spot and UAC/s do their damage in two spots. Otherwise you can pack enough lasers and HS to do more damage with only a little more heat and none of the ammo based drawbacks that AC/s have. And you save enough tonnage to where you can add extra armor making it harder to kill you on top of you having more firepower and greater endurance.

I totally agree with you, I never disputed this at all.

Edited by Volthorne, 14 April 2012 - 01:22 AM.

[guardiandashi]

Volthorne, on 14 April 2012 - 01:22 AM, said:

1 You forget that for every ton of ammo for the LRM-20 you need 4 tons of LRM-5 ammo to match. Also, this isn't TT, so per-turn accuracy and shot count doesn't matter.

2 Ton for ton, SRMs can deal more damage than AC's can, granted it may be over a larger area. We've seen in-game footage of SRMs being fired (from the GDC in-game footage), and they appear to fly very straight. So, no, landing a volley shouldn't be as hard as you're making it out to be.

3 I don't see any moving parts (aside from the loading mechanism), nor do I see any chemical propellant. Do you? It appears as though an electromagnetic current is PULLING the round through the barrel... Almost as if there's no physical force involved (which would, co-incidentally, mean no equal and oppostie reaction)! Have you actually ever seen a coilgun fire? Very little recoil. If we were talking railguns, I'd be singing the same tune as you.

OR they have greater range because of the smaller projectile size. Less drag, weight, etc. I wonder... Perhaps the difference in tonnage of the different AC/s is simply due to the barrel and loading mechanism sizes? Think of this from a corporate viewpoint: "Why make everything different in each AC when we could get away with (semi-)universal weapon? We could make SO much more money by making one base model and then fitting X parts for X caliber and Y parts for Y caliber!"

Yep, that's kinda how guns work. This is also why we don't see soldiers dragging around guns that can fire tank shells. They'd get blown off their feet and into the nearest hillside (or thrown a really long distance if no hill is available).

Where's all this weapon drift on my end comming from? Movement and...? But if AC/s are supposed to deal all their damage in one spot, that would imply that there should be little to no bullet spread. I do get your point though.

I totally agree with you, I never disputed this at all.

re # 1 complete fabrication and straw man arguement
under battletech rules you DO NOT need a seperate ammo bin for each weapon just for each weapon type, now granted under weapon type a lrm 5 is treated as a seperate weapon type from an lrm 20 but I can have up to 24 lrm 5's pull ammo from 1 ammo bin the reason more cannot pull from that 1 ammo bin? because 24 lrm 5's pulling 1 ammo reload from the same ammo bin will completely empty it. I am not saying it wouldn't be stupid to have that many launchers with that limited of an ammo supply but it is possible.

#2 srms are "scatterpack" launchers in that EACH individual srm that (can hit) makes its own hit location determination in the tabletop game the net effect is that if that mechanic is brought over faithfully it would more or less be just as easy to have each individual srm behave as a seperate attack.

#3 by this statement you IMO just demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of neutonian physics. To whit "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Coilguns DO deal with the equal and opposite forces they just transfer the energy through magnetic fields instaid of through mechanical contact. let me try another scenario to see if we can show why your previous statement sounded so ignorant. lets say we are working with a magnet (which is all a coilgun is is a series of electromagnets) would you agree that if you have a magnet that weighs 10 lbs, and can pick up 30lbs that if I move the magnet near enough to a 25lb container of nails or other ferromagnetic reactive object (container of nails is just the easiest) that the object WILL be lifted off the surface it is sitting on? and that if I then proceed to move the magnet that is holding the 25lb object that I will have to exert enough force to lift and move all 35lbs of material (the 10 lb magnet, AND the 25lbs of "nails" even if the container of nails is not actually touching the magnet? It is just being manipulated by its magnetic field?

[Mr MEAN]

You Believed Your Reasons
But Now Forget The Argument
The Explosion Tears You
My AC 20's Destroy Your Cockpit
'Cause Thats MEAN

[Siilk]

Johannes Falkner, on 13 April 2012 - 07:37 AM, said:

You are forgetting stationary targets. Hey,that's defended by a turret, no problem.
Or, try assaulting a position defended by AC/2 turrets with clear lines of fire...

Again, the same turret can mount LLs to have twice more damage at the cost of insignificant range reduction. It doesn't matter where you mount it, AC2 would still be too bulky and heavy, compared to other weapons of similar range bracket.

[Bongo TauKat]

While I am not very proficient in gaming physics or balancing, I do remember a note in the BT novel "The Sword and the Dagger". Sandoval drove a VTR Victor with a Pontiac 1000 AC20. He states that there were 20 clips in the mechs torso, each with 100 shells each. Each clip was referred to as a "round" by the astechs. He fires it a couple of times, commenting how it went through the clip in just a "few" seconds.

I know it is just a novel and they are not always compatible with the gaming universe, but I just thought it was worth mentioning here. Also, they never indicated the cailber of the rounds at anytime during the story.

[SumthinBurnin]

the novels were all written by different people who appear to have not cared about physics or anything other than their stories. In th original game if i remember correctly the ac/20 was a 200mm shell.

If u fire that at 1 round per second u are gonna fry your barrel and possibly your ammo. Whoever came up with this Super Heavy AC/20 was an *****.

[Volthorne]

guardiandashi, on 14 April 2012 - 05:10 AM, said:

#3 by this statement you IMO just demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of neutonian physics. To whit "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Coilguns DO deal with the equal and opposite forces they just transfer the energy through magnetic fields instaid of through mechanical contact. let me try another scenario to see if we can show why your previous statement sounded so ignorant. lets say we are working with a magnet (which is all a coilgun is is a series of electromagnets) would you agree that if you have a magnet that weighs 10 lbs, and can pick up 30lbs that if I move the magnet near enough to a 25lb container of nails or other ferromagnetic reactive object (container of nails is just the easiest) that the object WILL be lifted off the surface it is sitting on? and that if I then proceed to move the magnet that is holding the 25lb object that I will have to exert enough force to lift and move all 35lbs of material (the 10 lb magnet, AND the 25lbs of "nails" even if the container of nails is not actually touching the magnet? It is just being manipulated by its magnetic field?

Your example is fairly poorly written, considering that moving the container and magnet horizontally requires no lifting force. If it were moving in an upwards slope, then lift could be applied.
I worded my last statement improperly, I should go back and fix that. What I was trying to say is that a coilgun has a small, lightwieght projectile being fired out of a substatially larger gun (which would scale along with projectile size). The projectile DOES exert an opposite force on the gun. The gun, however, is accelerated backwards at a massively lower rate than the projectile is accelerated forward, so any recoil or kickback would be negligible (now apply this over a +50t mech. Recoil? pffft). I can only verify this for hand-held coilguns, but I'd assume that the same is true on any scale.

How about we go back to the topic of the thread before the mods show up.

Edited by Volthorne, 14 April 2012 - 02:40 PM.

[Johannes Falkner]

Assumptions:
Barrel Length: 4m (d)
Projectile Mass: 125 kg
Final Velocity: 1000 m/s (~Mach 3) (v)

Velocity v at time t with acceleration a
v=a*t
distance d covered during acceleration a over time t
d=0.5*a*t²

Two equations with two unknowns
1000 m/s = a*t
t = 1000 m/s divided by a

d = 0.5*a (1000 m/s divided by a)²
4m = 0.5*a*1000000 m²/s² /a²
8m*a = 1000000 m²/s²
a = 125,000 m/s²

Now that means your coil gun is experiencing a recoil of
F=m*a
F= 125 kg*125,000 m/s² = 15,625,000 N (!)

This force over 1/125^th of a second is enough recoil to impart an acceleration of
15625000 N = (50,000 kg)*a
a = 312.5 m/s²
For reference gravity on Earth at sea level is 9.8 m/s² and any world where humans live should be near this in terms of gravity (Jupiter's gravity is not even near this...) So an acceleration of 312.5 m/s² would be enough to make the mech quite literally fly through the air. Coil gun, rail gun, or magic BB shooter does not matter because Newtonian Physics will pull Battletech/MechWarrior over for breaking the laws of physics. End of story.

*Edit: Superscripts do not seem to work correctly and lets get back on topic of ACs.*

*Edit 2: For comparison: The M795 shell fired by the M777 howitzer (6m barrel) weighs 46 kg and has a muzzle velocity of 827 m/s (Charge 8 super for the cannon cockers). The Rheinmetall 120 mm (120mm/L44 or 5.25 m barrel on the Abrams) fires 10 kg sabot rounds at 1500-1600 m/s.

Edit 3: The accelerations and barrel lengths involved are why recoil compensators are used to spread out the acceleration...

Edited by Johannes Falkner, 14 April 2012 - 10:51 PM.

[Corvus Antaka]

Snotling, on 10 April 2012 - 09:36 AM, said:

I really liked the way they were in MW3, short 5 shot bursts, pretty easy to center in one spot, but also could spread a little on fast targets

+1

the overheating risk etc in mech3 made them challenging and fun to use too.

Edited by Colonel Pada Vinson, 15 April 2012 - 01:19 AM.

[Volthorne]

Johannes Falkner, on 14 April 2012 - 09:33 PM, said:

d = 0.5*a (1000 m/s divided by a)²
4m = 0.5*a*1000000 m²/s² /a²
8m*a = 1000000 m²/s²
a = 125,000 m/s²

I want to know where you came up with those absurdly large numbers. Your final calculated acceleration puts the projectile at 367.35 mach/s^2 (which is, frankly, an oversight not even FASA could manage).

Edited by Volthorne, 15 April 2012 - 01:40 AM.

[LordDeathStrike]

Ivan Whackinov, on 13 April 2012 - 01:45 PM, said:

Newton would like to have a long, serious talk with you about his laws of motion. You make him cry.

exactly, guass rifles fire a 125 kg slug of solid metal at speeds in excess of 10,000 miles per hour. that gonna hurt when it slams into you.

(the rifle itself generates an einstein bossen field in the chamber, reducing the mass of the projectile during acceleration to achieve high speeds in short distance and negate recoil, the effect wears off as the round leaves the weapon, returning the slug to its full 125 kg mass isntead of the 1.25 nano grams it was during fireing)

[Ivan Whackinov]

Volthorne, on 15 April 2012 - 01:39 AM, said:

I want to know where you came up with those absurdly large numbers. Your final calculated acceleration puts the projectile at 367.35 mach/s^2 (which is, frankly, an oversight not even FASA could manage).

His numbers are correct, yours aren't. In order to accelerate an object from 0 to 1,000 m/s in a distance of 4 meters, you need an acceleration of 125,000 m/s^2 (Acceleration=Velocity^2/2*Distance), applied over a duration of 0.008 seconds (Time=Velocity/Acceleration). You calculated the speed as if the acceleration was applied for a full second, but that isn't the case. His numbers are actually fairly conservative, the fluff in many sources often cites them having muzzle velocities of two or three times as much.

If a Hollander (35 ton mech) were to fire its gauss rifle, assuming the numbers above, it would be subject to enough force to accelerate it in the opposite direction at 14.4 kph... For comparison, a 100kg man firing a 50BMG rifle, just about the biggest gun you could fire from a standing position, would be accelerated backwards at about 3 kph. That Hollander probably wouldn't quite fly backwards, but it would almost certainly fall over rather spectacularly.

LordDeathStrike, on 15 April 2012 - 02:08 AM, said:

exactly, guass rifles fire a 125 kg slug of solid metal at speeds in excess of 10,000 miles per hour. that gonna hurt when it slams into you.

(the rifle itself generates an einstein bossen field in the chamber, reducing the mass of the projectile during acceleration to achieve high speeds in short distance and negate recoil, the effect wears off as the round leaves the weapon, returning the slug to its full 125 kg mass isntead of the 1.25 nano grams it was during fireing)

What you've just written is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever read. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this forum is now dumber for having read it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

-E

Edited by Ivan Whackinov, 15 April 2012 - 06:07 AM.

[Volthorne]

Ivan Whackinov, on 15 April 2012 - 05:55 AM, said:

His numbers are correct, yours aren't. In order to accelerate an object from 0 to 1,000 m/s in a distance of 4 meters, you need an acceleration of 125,000 m/s^2 (Acceleration=Velocity^2/2*Distance), applied over a duration of 0.008 seconds (Time=Velocity/Acceleration). You calculated the speed as if the acceleration was applied for a full second, but that isn't the case. His numbers are actually fairly conservative, the fluff in many sources often cites them having muzzle velocities of two or three times as much.

If a Hollander (35 ton mech) were to fire its gauss rifle, assuming the numbers above, it would be subject to enough force to accelerate it in the opposite direction at 14.4 kph... For comparison, a 100kg man firing a 50BMG rifle, just about the biggest gun you could fire from a standing position, would be accelerated backwards at about 3 kph. That Hollander probably wouldn't quite fly backwards, but it would almost certainly fall over rather spectacularly.

Assuming that the Hollander (honestly, kind of a garbage design, why would anyone in their right mind mount almost half the rated weight of a 'mech in a single weapon, with no secondaries) is a solid piece of metal, then yes, I would have to agree that you'd be right in it falling over. It's not a solid chunk of metal, though, now is it. Myomers, actuators, and all the other delightful tech stuffed inside that small frame would help to counter the recoil (granted not fully, but some). On a larger 'mech, I can't see the same thing happening.

Edited by Volthorne, 15 April 2012 - 01:04 PM.

[Johannes Falkner]

The Gauss Rifle has to have recoil compensation just like all of our modern BFGs. The recoil compensators perform two functions. The first is to ease recoil's impact on the barrel during firing, which improves accuracy. The second is to increase the duration of the force dissipation of the recoil from the shot. Watch an Abrams, battleship or artillery piece when it fires. The barrel will move back (sometimes a long ways) during the firing and continue to move backwards after the shell has left the barrel. This causes what would be a massive force and corresponding acceleration over 1/125th of a second to be dissipated over a much more manageable 1/10 to 1/4 of a second which reduces the acceleration accordingly and allows for motive systems to overcome the acceleration.

The biggest problem a mech has is where the force is applied. If the Gauss Rifle is on it's arm there are two moments to consider. The first is spin around the waist (think torque on a wrench), The second is a tipping moment around the feet (think about a push up only vertical). A torso mounted weapon, especially a high one like a Hollander or Hunchback or Blood Asp would reduce the spinning effects, but would not reduce (and may increase) the tipping moment. There is a reason tanks are low slung and prefer to fire their weapons while in line with the tank hull. Similarly, the reason why artillery tends fire on higher arcs when firing higher charge levels (charge 8 super is a scary large amount of propellant...) is to dissipate the force directly into the ground, rather than into the tines.

[Ranger207]

Volthorne, on 14 April 2012 - 02:13 PM, said:

The projectile DOES exert an opposite force on the gun.

Exactly correct. The force of the recoil has to overcome inertia first, so after that, recoil isn't that bad.

Quote

d = 0.5*a (1000 m/s divided by a)²
4m = 0.5*a*1000000 m²/s² /a²
8m*a = 1000000 m²/s²
a = 125,000 m/s²

Where did you get those huge numbers?!?

[plodder]

WoW, you guys a serious. Now as far as the details, they get in the way of the points me thinks. A Gauss rifle will always have a recoil effect, regardless of points made. That much mass being shifted, that quickly, in that short of space (rifle barrel) will move. It will rip off a light mech if not capable to hold it. AC 20's are individual rounds spread/shred in separate time increments (unless LBX). How that time spread should be differentiated is debatable of course, but battle splash is inevitable. I do not argue because I do not know as much as you fellas do. What i have said is only an average guys opinion, in my almost humble opinion. Relax and smile..