94 replies to this topic

[Razor Kotovsky]

Thomas Hogarth, on 05 November 2011 - 03:26 AM, said:

See? That's pretty sweet. Still though, why the rings? Why no muzzle flash?

Gauss is an electromagnetical cannon, not a firearm.

Blue rings are residues of magnetical charge that react with the charged particles in the air.
Much like PPC's fuzzy lightning effect.

zverofaust, on 05 November 2011 - 09:51 PM, said:

I'd like to see it have an effect similar to this:

The muzzle flash would be a puff of vaporizing air, with the projectile itself having a vapor cone.

The shell passes the sonic barrier in the barrel, much like a bullet in the rifle. You don't see the latter's one, do you?

Edited by Razor Kotovsky, 05 November 2011 - 10:00 PM.

[Brakkyn]

I dislike using a term I think is overused, but most Gauss rifle shots can simply be chalked up to artistic licence. There's how the shot would really look, then there's how the shot looks in a science-fiction setting.

Personally, I didn't favor or disapprove of any version of the Gauss shot. I liked the sound from MechWarrior 3, and MechWarrior 4 was the "most cool" looking, with MechWarrior 2 possibly being the most accurate but also the least "flashy" (lol).

[Owl Cutter]

I did not know some canon material depicts it as merely supersonic, I thought it was quite clearly hypersonic. Despite not knowing until this thread, the MW2 depiction has always been my personal favourite. Seeing a huge metal lump come flying at me at terrifying speed is a contrast from the usual beam effects, and I like the variety it adds to the game's visuals. The only thing it feels lacking for is a big yellow smiley face on the front of the slug, IMO, besides of course some more realistic hypersonic wake visuals now that we have the technology to do it. The iron slug style manages to at once feel more stealthily sniper-like and crudely, brutally effective at the same time. That's a remarkable accomplishment IMO, and worth having. If you want something more flashy and/or retro-futuro, use a PPC.

This is all vastly less important to me than having the developers bother to make sure Carl F. Gauss' name is pronounced correctly, though. Go all nuts with the Eraser-style effects and I can live with it, but don't insult such an important physicist and mathematician. That's not artistic license or rule of cool, it's just lazy and disrespectful. Gauss was freaking awesome, he deserves better.

[Bren]

Do the MechWarrior Online forums have a [CRAY] button yet? :)

[Gorthaur]

GreenHell, on 05 November 2011 - 09:45 AM, said:

I agree that the Gauss rifle should have a nice crack to it, from the sonic boom. I read somewhere that the Gauss rounds travel at mach 4 to 5. Don't quote me on it...

agreed. they do raptor flights near where i live and we have to hear sonic booms all the time. even miles and miles away its still loud as **** and shakes the whole house. the current gauss sounds haven't ever captured that feeling imho.

[Thomas Hogarth]

I find myself agreeing with most of you folks - it'd be great to see gauss implemented as a heavy muzzle flash, and a silver streak. We have the graphical capabilities to pull it off, there's no reason to go with crayola-colorful trails that make no sense.

[Razor Kotovsky]

Gorthaur, on 05 November 2011 - 11:46 PM, said:

agreed. they do raptor flights near where i live and we have to hear sonic booms all the time. even miles and miles away its still loud as **** and shakes the whole house. the current gauss sounds haven't ever captured that feeling imho.

Probably because gauss rifle doesn't fire 30 ton jet fighters?

Edited by Razor Kotovsky, 05 November 2011 - 11:54 PM.

[Alizabeth Aijou]

It fires 125kg slugs, to be precise, for the regular Gauss Rifle.
As for the vapour cone, I considered mentioning it earlier, but decided against it since the slug is too small.
Then again, how big does something have to be to create a visible vapour cone when breaking the sound barrier?
I don't think we've really gotten much at such a weight to break the sound barrier, did we?

For reference, the shell fired by a Rheinmetall 120mm (used on the M1A1 you USAsians are so fond of) weighs only ~25½kg, and that's the unfired weight (which includes propellant, casing, etc.). And since that's an Armor piercing Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot shell, I'd say that the thingy flying into the target wouldn't be more than 10kg at best.

Quote

it'd be great to see gauss implemented as a heavy muzzle flash

Except that it wouldn't have one...

Edited by Alizabeth Aijou, 06 November 2011 - 02:05 AM.

[Razor Kotovsky]

Whatever vapor effect a shell has gets lost either in the barrel or the muzzle flash (which gauss can not have).
Considering that both break the speed of sound while still in the barrel it may not be visible either way.

Only visible effects are the slug itself, electromagnetical effects akin to PPC and heat distortion it leaves behind.

Edited by Razor Kotovsky, 06 November 2011 - 02:48 AM.

[Vizth]

If i remember right a guass rifle is based off a coilgun. There is no direct contact between the magnetic elements and the projectile so there would be no visible trail. it uses magnetic coils wrapped around the barrel to pull the projectile forward.
All you see is a watermelon sized piece of metal heading towards you about a 1/10 of a second before it hits your mechs cockpit.

now a railgun on the other hand uses the magnetic force generated by putting electricity through the projectile directly from the rails. this blasts pits out of the rail from electrical arcing and generates plasma, that's why you see the fiery trail with a railgun shot. over time this erodes the rails and they will have to be replaced. also if the projectile is not moving fast enough it can essentially arc weld it's self to the rails permanently jamming the gun.

some designs use a sabot to keep the projectile from directly contacting the rails, with the space between them still small enough to allow electricity to arc from the rails to it. this solves the problem of the projectile welding it's self to the rails, but can make the pitting worse.

sorry for the long post magnetic weapons are a hobby of mine. that being said as much as i hated the games the effect from mech assault looked best in my opinion.

Edited by Vizth, 06 November 2011 - 03:24 AM.

[Vizth]

double post sry

Edited by Vizth, 06 November 2011 - 03:21 AM.

[Owl Cutter]

Would you happen to be enough of a field physics geek to tell us what is most "realistic" WRT heating up the slug? I'm pretty sure a weapon-level energy transfer will produce some significant heating of the slug, the coils, and the caps, but do not know where to start estimating how it scales with kinetic impulse. I guess if the Gauss Rifle runs really cool, the whole point is moot...

Regardless of how much heating due to firing and friction is realistic, I prefer slugs that show up as faint radar blips and have big smiley faces on the front for benefit of people who see them coming, purely on Rule of Cool basis. Nothing short of artillery says "Hello over there!" quite like a GR. Clan über-PPCs are really just Gauss Rifles with really teeny projectiles anyway. If popular demand favours a bright glowy effect, i think a meteor-style one would be pretty cool.

[Woodstock]

I always felt the blue swirly look was a bit contrived.

I like the silver meteor idea though.

[Vizth]

Owl Cutter, on 06 November 2011 - 03:24 AM, said:

Would you happen to be enough of a field physics geek to tell us what is most "realistic" WRT heating up the slug? I'm pretty sure a weapon-level energy transfer will produce some significant heating of the slug, the coils, and the caps, but do not know where to start estimating how it scales with kinetic impulse. I guess if the Gauss Rifle runs really cool, the whole point is moot...

air resistance in flight and friction against the barrel would heat things up I'd imagine. the coils themselves would start heating up quickly if it can cycle fast enough. Otherwise there isn't power going though them long enough to do much. I think the capacitor bank would be the largest source of heat on the gun it's self.

I don't know how things would scale up from my little homebrew one to a mech sized weapon.

edit.

coilgun. single coil (the black thing around the barrel)


railgun


you can make mini version of either with disposable cameras and some other cheap parts. 0.o

Edited by Vizth, 06 November 2011 - 03:39 AM.

[lyonn]

MW4 effect were vapour trails that corkscrewed as the slug spun

My vote goes for;
No muzzle flash
Muzzle Pressure rings
Silver slug with atmospheric tearing and a faint white corkscrewing vapour trail
Sabot style impact (sparks molten metal)

Edited by lyonn, 06 November 2011 - 04:25 AM.

[Alizabeth Aijou]

Quote

I guess if the Gauss Rifle runs really cool, the whole point is moot...

They produce 1 heat in CBT (slug weighs 125kg).
So they run really cool.
The other weapons that produce equal or less heat do much less damage.
The only Gauss weapons that produce any significat heat are the Hyper-Assault Gauss Rifles, but those fire a cluster of 20 to 40 slugs (of 8.33kg each).

Most other ballistic weapons produce more heat (only machine guns and low-damage autocannons don't).
The Light Rifle (Cannon), which is roughly the "equivalent" to a Rheinmetal 120mm cannon on the M1A1 produces 1 heat and does only 3 damage (against BAR8 or less, standard battlemech armour is BAR10).

[Battlefinger]

I couldn't stand the MW4 gauss, largely because of the sound. I mean the visual effects were kind of ridiculous too, but the gauss rifle sounded more like some kind of small, muffled laser or something. MW:LL did a great job on the gauss rifle sound, especially the noise for those on the recieving end My vote with visual effect goes to a vague distortion trail, no actual effect, the shell that is fired should be a silvery, blue-ish streak, and the firing particles should be a minor electrical discharge. My two cents right there.

[Everett]

Owl Cutter, on 06 November 2011 - 03:24 AM, said:

Would you happen to be enough of a field physics geek to tell us what is most "realistic" WRT heating up the slug? I'm pretty sure a weapon-level energy transfer will produce some significant heating of the slug, the coils, and the caps, but do not know where to start estimating how it scales with kinetic impulse. I guess if the Gauss Rifle runs really cool, the whole point is moot...

Regardless of how much heating due to firing and friction is realistic, I prefer slugs that show up as faint radar blips and have big smiley faces on the front for benefit of people who see them coming, purely on Rule of Cool basis. Nothing short of artillery says "Hello over there!" quite like a GR. Clan über-PPCs are really just Gauss Rifles with really teeny projectiles anyway. If popular demand favours a bright glowy effect, i think a meteor-style one would be pretty cool.

Unfortunately the most powerful coilguns are all either theoretical or secret, so we don't really have easily available video for demonstrating the visual effect of a MegaJoule accelerated projectile.

I figured that if the gun operated with the projectile punching through a plasma window from a vacuum pressure acceleration chamber, that could cause some interesting visual effects, although not quite the whole blue ring streak. Probably a violet muzzle flash with a short trail as the plasma disperses.

[Thomas Hogarth]

Really the best argument for a heavy muzzle flash is gameplay. I think one of the big reasons they implemented heavy corkscrewing rings in MW4 was so that the weapon had some sort of traceable signature. A silver oblong shape whizzing past without a heavy flash from the firer basically makes it a stealth weapon. Nobody wants stealth Devastators or Thunderhawks.

Spoiler

although I suppose the poor Hollander could use a boost of this magnitude...

As it stands, there are descriptions of projectiles in flight, but no descriptions of muzzle flash(which admittedly can be explained as the weapon not having any).

So there exists an opportunity to bring MW closer to fluff, while basically creating a description of a flash for gameplay purposes.

Thoughts?

[RaginCajun]

Vizth, on 06 November 2011 - 03:15 AM, said:

now a railgun on the other hand uses the magnetic force generated by putting electricity through the projectile directly from the rails. this blasts pits out of the rail from electrical arcing and generates plasma, that's why you see the fiery trail with a railgun shot. over time this erodes the rails and they will have to be replaced. also if the projectile is not moving fast enough it can essentially arc weld it's self to the rails permanently jamming the gun.

some designs use a sabot to keep the projectile from directly contacting the rails, with the space between them still small enough to allow electricity to arc from the rails to it. this solves the problem of the projectile welding it's self to the rails, but can make the pitting worse.

I was under the impression that larger scale (like ones the navy is testing) rail guns pass the current through a propellant which vaporizes from the electrical energy(but still remains conductive), and this cloud pushed the projectile forward. Do you know anything about that?