new Weapon:Rail gun, and Gravity cannon

Ok for those who dont know a rail gun is a real life gun that shoots hunks of explosive metal using magnets and its the most effective weapon in space as of modern day.
this would end up being the largest weapon we could mount to our ships and one of the most damaging to metal and rock.

being its size is 3hx9lx3w its long and and take a good chunk outta any ship.


Gravity gun:A Large cannon meant to be put at the front of the ship. 5Hx3lx5w
the gravity is a heavy power cannon that shoots a small beam. this beam does no damage but all who it hits loose power for a short time.



what yah think

 

It'd only work as an astronaut gun since gravity doesn't affect blocks atm. The only way I can see a gravity gun working is if you use the astronaut as stuffing and use small ship blocks for the bullet. When the jet pack is deactivated the astronaut will bump into the small ship bullet causing momentum. The hard part is getting the wadding lined up right with the bullet since I am guessing run room might be required.

 

Railguns do not fire "explosive metal"

Who has a railgun in space currently? Why would you WANT a big railgun on your ship?

¿A gravity cannon?

 

I like this idea, well chose i had the same kind of idea of a railgun: https://forums.keenswh.com/post/space-combatheavy-cannon-6601894

 

Who has minigun in space currently? I think railgun would fit the time frame as it already exists. Also it would work better in space because lack of air friction. And it would be even heavier weapon than missile swarms.

Gravity guns on the other hand wouldn't fit. But still some technology that would knock things away would be important defense against kamikaze-ships.

 

A rail gun is not the most effective weapon for space. It's a linear weapon in an environment where things may be going 2m/s, or 2000m/s which means, that if you do try to shoot it at someone, unless you're incredibly close, lucky, or have a computer aiming for you, then you're not going to hit squat.

guided missiles and spray'n'pray machine guns are the most effective conventional weapons for space. As for UNconventional weapons: magnets, grappling arms, and tractor tethers are great weapons that could also be used for mining.

 

Also current speed cap of small ship is little over 100 m/s versus 2400 m/s of (about 70 years old in-game) railgun on earth, with air friction. Also, if modern battle tank would receive such hit, it would most likely vaporize, explode or at least be impaled from kinetic energy of such projectile.

Where the heck did you ''learn'' about railguns?

 

so the gravity gun is going to shut down the reactors for a moment? might be implemented as a EMP bomb. would be more realistic.

 

ndeed. EMP would fit way better, as I honestly fail to see how changing gravity can cause a power shortage on a ship.. (unless your power generator suddenly gets smashed against the ceiling due to the change in gravity lol)

 

Air friction???????

Gravity, more like. The object is flying at such a velocity that it literally rips the air apart with supersonic booms. The point was, NOBODY has ANY ship weapons in spacr currently.

Railguns rely on contained magnetics, which would run the risk of ATTRACTING ASTEROIDS OR PTHER METALLIC OBJECTS when fired. Railguns are not impossible, but everyone seems to think theyre such a simple idea.

 

This. The targetting systems required to be used in space with a weapon flying at the velocity of the slug would have to be extremely advanced.

Missile systems would quite literally (realistically) be the only effective weapons system in space without a linear weapons targetting system capable of tracking metal objects hurtling through space without interference..

 

Last I checked while in space velosity couldnt be lost.
a giant slug from a rail gun would not be slow. infact a rail gun would be pretty deadly.

 

Didn't you read anything what I said? Those giant slugs are going 1000-2000 m/s depending how advanced they are. Just point and click, your opponent is impaled. (OK it's OP, but fits the time frame as 70 year old weapon in-game)

Hope you know that magnetism in that is extremely short-lived and magnetism decreases dramatically over distance. Dangerous area for small magnetic objects in game would be around 1 to 3 large blocks.

Finally, a sane person that has basic knowledge of physics in space!

 

Railguns: clear and traceable amount of energy.

Ships: they move.

Linear weapons systems: they rely on speed and accuracy.

Ships: can detect rail magnetics powering up.

Ships: they move.


Thought Id make it simple for you. If you believe that a linear weapons system would be the best available firepower, youve never used or operated a firearm. Your logic works if the ship being targeted moves in a predictably straight line, AND the rail gun is a TURRET with free movement.

I was a Green Beret for six years, trust me when I say that EWAR and torpedos are a lot scarier than railguns. First of all, railguns as we understand them today rely on mass and velocity compounding into impact force. Without decompression this would mean a hole in a ship. Not even a particularly large hole necessarily, because its moving "too fast". If you hit a core system, sure. If you dont? Its almost as bad as a miss.

 

One word: capacitors. First shoot, then power up. Also having electric charge on them does't broadcast user's location AFAIK, and magnetism on them is still instant and short-lived.

One thing I have to agree with you, is if they are manned on stationary, or on slow ship, their effectiveness is limited on stationary or on slow ships. Railgun really shines when manned on accurate, and agile ships vs. slower moving targets. No rule prohibits user to aim even when ship is trying to do evasive maneuvers, and ships that railguns are optimal against don't accelerate that quickly.

.

True too, that's why it's designed to use against heavy armor. Using them against light armor is like using tank APFSDS-T shell on tin foil.

When you say you were Green Beret I assume you have military career. Of course railguns are/were not scary, because they aren't even in military use now or six years ago.

 

@Valdemar

I respect most of your points - but in my opinion, as far as realistic space combat (ships moving faster than 100m/s, the rail-gun weapon concept would act a lot like a sniper rifle.

Effective? In it's own way, yes.

The best weapons system? Debatable at best.

The charge moving through the coils of a weaponized magnetic rail would be fast, just not instantaneous (if using a capacitor, good idea by the way). Fast enough to get lucky, slow enough to potentially miss.

It's not that I disagree with some of your points, it's just that personally I don't buy into the idea that rail-guns are some kind of all-powerful weapons platform. Think of how people used to rave about "lasers". Not necessarily that you're unrealistic, opinions differ a lot in this field of discussion.

 

@Valdemar and Faeron.

It is good to see an intelligent discussion on the effectiveness of these various space weapons.
You both raise good points about the advantages and disadvantages.

Hopefully Space Engineers will be the game that gives us the tools to put these options all to the test under some realistic physics.

If railguns are added to the game the question will be if they are designed to throw a small kg mass slug very fast, or able to throw a small ship size/mass object (as a customizable object, with a payload and maybe inflight target tracking and course adjustment if you can make it work right) at a relatively slower speed. (or we might get both capabilities).

I like the idea raised on an earlier topic/thread about magnetic accelerator coils being in blocks (maybe like the current ladder block) and increasing the rail length allows more acceleration of the slug before it leaves the ship. Users will then be able to build long spinal railguns and shorter turret mounted ones or broadside batteries.

I agree that the effectiveness of railguns will be determined by the mobility of the target (stations, asteroids, and large ships with high inertia and low acceleration will be very vulnerable, but small ships could be almost immune unless very unlucky).

Missiles/torpedos, lasers, and railguns will all be devastatingly effective in some situations and be close to useless against other targets (especially ones with enough point-defences, mirrors, or agility to counter these three weapon types, respectively).

I don't think power consumption issues will take any of these options out of the picture as the large ships currently have thousands of GW of power, which is plenty to do some serious damage even with massive inefficiencies in energy conversion.

I do worry about when all the Gatling guns start firing, having too much "lead in the air" can cause the lagging and crashing of many games (recently having that issue with TW: Rome II with armies of mainly archers, or when the using the rapid-fire ballista).

 

[FONT= &#39]I'd love to see someone try to aim a railgun at a fast-moving target. Unless it is on an automated turret with amazing tracking, or you are trying to hit a freighter, I don't really see it happening as easily as some may think. That being said, I'm always a sucker for missiles and think everything else is lame.

Edit: All that being said, I could see railguns being pretty devastating to stations. I don't really see a need to add railguns to the game, it would probably be implemented as a glorified sniper rifle. And I have no idea what the gravity gun thing was about.[/FONT]

 

well in all reality the railguns don't have to be massive weapons the ones they are currently using today (for testing) are what 10 - 15 meters long tops? that is relatively small and could be easily mounted into a turret based weapon with its own tracking system (which I assume the minigun is going to have as well)

so they could have smaller turret sized ones

a railgun because of the speed that they travel at could most defiantly rip a small fighter in 2 not only from its raw kinetic energy but if different rounds had different were introduced and if the tracking systems get any better in the next 70 years I bet they could place one of those magnetically accelerated rounds right in-between your eyes at a rather long distance

basic armor piercing rounds : made to just straight up penetrate threw a target using mass and speed

shrapnel/shredder rounds :made to explode before hitting a target to cause damage to a larger area of the exterior of the target / or made to explode after hitting the target (so the larger round pierces the armor and the chunks of shrapnel cut threw cause damage to the less armored interior) effectively gut a ship from the inside out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPuIF4QInd8

and then there's also the high explosive anti tank rounds which instead of fin stabilised could use 8 micro engines just to keep it straight and could most likely be easily converted to be used in a rail gun system
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-explosive_anti-tank_warhead

and this is why missles and torpedos could be considered useless in some cases
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2004nrHxa0
the phalanx CIWS


and then there would be the larger ship mounted one which would also have to have its own tracking system and could more then likely just steer the ship for a few seconds until the round is fired and would be great for use against larger ships or stations (which allot of players ARE making I have heard of a project that is going to be 2.5 km long so don't say there wont be big enough ships to hit) and these cannons would cause massive damage ... and also if the acceleration in space remains lower then 80 m/s (for large ships) and even if they doubled or tripled that do you think something moving at 2400 m/s (or 5600 mph)(and that's from a 10 meter long railgun) couldn't easily catch or even hit it your sadly mistaken and moving at that speed say it takes you .5 seconds to realise its coming another 1 second to react and 2 seconds (at best if you have the most agile ship you can possibly make) to get your ship out of the way you would have to be at least 8400 meters away that's 8 kilometers you cant even see ships that are 8 kilometers out in the game right now so if they got some sort of aiming system even a crude one it would be insanely devastating and capable of destroying larger ships easily and stations no problem with spotters and or laser guided assistance for targeting.

yes I do know missles have a much longer range but I will refer back to the phalanx turret and the numerous current different types of anti missile missiles and those lasers made to destroy missles to fighters (currently they are not capable of destroying anything with heavy armor though)

so railguns I believe would be extremely effective in the future


and last but not least I am quoting this from this website:

https://www.dailytech.com/Navy+Railgun+Fires+33megajoule+Shot+/article20372.htm

The Navy milestone hit last week was the world-record 33-megajoul shot from the electromagnetic Railgun aboard the Navy Surface Center Dahlgren Division. A megajoule is a measurement of energy associated with a mass traveling at a certain velocity. A one-ton vehicle moving at 100mph is a single megajoule of energy.

and that's from one of these railguns that are like 10 meters long imagine a huge ship based one fireing rounds that don't way pounds but way tonnes.

the only downside to using a railgun that I could see is power they require a capacitor like mentioned early and time to recharge.

(if I have made any mistakes please tell me and I will correct them)

 

Funny how everyone conveniently assumes all ships will be fast and agile... especially when resources kick in.

Yes to kill a fighter the rail-gun will of course be awful, but stations and large ships (capital, whatever you want to call them) are perfect targets for this.
Of course, you don't use artillery against a single soldier, you use it against groups, cover, area of effect (multiple rail guns), etc. When railguns fire airburst (although it will be called spaceburst or something) it will prevent some more opportunities against moving targets (Flak is also pretty useful, even though they fire against fast moving targets).

It all also depends on how multiplayer/survival is implemented. Whether ammo is scarce/expensive, whether stations are useful (if they aren't, nobody will built them and attacking them is not a profitable solution), etc.


Just to show that 'But ships will be fast' neglects conveniently a load of other factors which are important.
It's just like the shield discussion and people saying ramming is too effective, when they do their test at non-moving armour walls. It's nice to know how powerful something is, but most of them conveniently ignore that in multiplayer the target will be moving.

 

if a tank were hit by a rail gun projectile it wouldn't impale it. assuming the rail gun accelerated the projectile to a sufficient velocity it would simply destroy it in a manner similar to a high explosive due to the kinetic energy. and rail guns arguably don't use magnets to propel the projectile. they us two metal rails placed parallel to one another that generate an electrical field when a massive current passes through them. the rails can be any size, though shorter rails would require greater electrical current to reach the same velocity as one with longer rails and the same projectile.
The rails them selves don't need to be ferrous. a low resistance to electrical current is more desirable. the metal used in the rails must be quite stout in order to cope with the friction produced by the projectile and the magnetic repulsion field created upon firing.
rail guns typically fire a relatively small projectile relative to, more traditional, chemically propelled ballistic projectiles. they instead rely on their velocity as apposed to mass to deal damage. a smaller, lower mass projectile requires far less energy to accelerate to a high velocity than a larger, more massive, projectile would, all while producing less recoil.
rail guns rely on the magnetic property referred to as Lorentz Force to accelerate a ferrous projectile or the projectile's armature to high velocity. This happens when a large electrical current is run through the rails, producing a powerful magnetic repulsion field that pushes the projectile (or it's armature) along the path of the rails potentially reaching an awesome velocity. this repulsion field pushes equally in all directions, which attempts to force the rails apart producing. this in conjunction with the large recoil mean that the rails must be replace regularly, and that they must be placed in a very strong structure. this could be a turret or a fixed position.
if the projectile isn't ferrous then it must have an armature. armatures can be a ferrous metal or plasma. sometimes the projectiles have a tendency to weld to the rails due to the extreme current and friction. having a non ferrous projectile or putting a sleeve around the projectile helps to alleviate this some what, however the best solution is to inject the projectile into the gun while the projectile is already at velocity. this prevents it from having a chance to weld to the rails.
i realize not everyone will appreciate this but i wanted to explain some of the science behind it.
and the projectiles them selves aren't (as a general rule) explosive, the explosion on impact is simply caused but the tremendous kinetic energy transfer.
also, the magnetic field produced by the firing would be extremely short lived and short ranged so it likely wouldn't be attracting asteroids or much space debris.

 

Well the Soviets in the early 70s had a working space weapons project with an Almaz station armed with an airforce Rikhter autocanon and it worked just fine in space. It successfully engaged and destroyed a test target.

There is little reason why a current tech minigun wouldn't work in space with some modifications. Not to mention the multiple barrels would be nice for the overheating.

Anyway on topic, Kinetic Kill Weapons would be highly effective in space combat. I'm just not sure this game needs to be weapon focused. Its an engineering game with conflict on the side, not the other way around.

 

as far as gameplay impact:
rail guns would require a very large power source, but seeing as how the ships are powered by nuclear reactors this wouldn't pose much of a problem.
it would be interesting if you could build multi-block rail guns along the spine of your ship, or from the sides for broadside attacks. the longer it being the faster and more powerful the projectile would be, at a cost of increased energy drain.
i personally this it would be really cool if you could then tune them for like a weaker/slower shot for increased energy efficiency and a improved re-fire rate. and possibly have smaller, weaker, rail gun turrets (however these may prove unbalanced).
the speed of the projectile fired from a rail gun would extremely high. relative to the speed of the ships (atleast currently) and the probable ranges in which combat would take place, in a small ship dodging one of these projectiles would be like a person trying to dodge a bullet fired from a handgun. not to say that their mobility would be of no advantage, as moving would make them much harder to aim at successfully.

i suspect it would/should be, from a balance perspective, like using a sniper rifle in halo for close quarters combat. if you're good with it you would be able to use it to good effect even against targets in close proximity (the analog being small, quick and maneuverable ships that would use their agility to close range and avoid being hit) however that still wouldn't make it the best weapon for the job.
i feel that this would be relatively realistic while still maintaining gameplay balance with this weapon. i do realize this game has almost nothing in common with halo or any other fps game, however i feel that the idea is still applicable somewhat, as a unbalanced game with one supreme weapon would make not very fun to play.

as Valdemar mentioned, capacitors could be used to effect the cycle rate. in this way they could also be used to help balance the weapons.

 

i also think it would be cool if the recoil produced by firing weapons would effect the vector of your ship. like if you have your inertia dampeners off or you have a large amount of weapons firing simultaneously and don't have enough thrusters to compensate.

 

Well looks like no one can imagine real fight in space rockets and mgs..... if you realy want us realistic mode rockets and bullets will be useles. Becose you can shot on distances where rockets and bullets will travel few day and if enemy notice your rockets and bullets before they reach him then he can easy evade or shot down incoming rockets ( rockets will not speed up all the time ignite to get speed wait few days and ignite near target ) bullets from mgs will not have enought speed, kinetic energi.

Only logical weapons are rail guns, there is no limit for bullet speed only limit is construction of cannons and materials from witch cannon is created. ( curent raild guns can lose 50% of barrel weight after one shoot, then you are forced change barrel ).

Bullet without speed limit have almost infinite kinetic energi, when you creat magnetic coil/metal rails long and strong enought and give it enought energi another limit will be coil/rails capacity.

2000 m/s ? pff..... its nothink when you can shot on distances over milions of kilometers. ( why will enemy change direction without reason when he travel from point A to point B ? ) He can die and never see you.

With advanced zoom optic hunt can begin. ( i know in real PC have calculate bullet trajectory with all influences on bullet in every part of trajectory, but its over realistic for game, same with distance i mentioned for game will be max 10km enought, but rockets and normal mulets will still stay useles )

 

Yup you can't forget newton's third law.

Infact there is an entire concept of space engine that takes the idea of a railgun and turns it into thrust. Called the Mass Drive.

 

i feel that traditional ballistic weapons would still have a place in space warfare, they would just be limited in their effective range and application. a large ship with alot of large bore gatling guns could be effective for broad siding large and slower ships and space stations. large ships might then be weary of just trying to ram other ships when they may well get chewed to pieces if they aren't careful.
and filling the space around your ship with the fire from smaller gatling guns could be effective at warding away smaller ships and possibly shooting down incoming missiles.

 

Having a railgun through the spine of my ship will be awesome, just the felling of having a huge ass cannon that can pierce other ships is cool.
However, I find that realism is also important and OP weapons will destroy the game, everyone will then only choose the OP weapon and the other ones are just forgotten about.

 

Are you kidding me? Why wouldn't you want a huge a** railgun on your ship? I mean, where exactly is the downside of being able to fling a 1000+ kg projectile at potentially a couple of thousand km/s at your enemy?

 

I have been mulling over heavier weapons myself lately

Anything like this should probably have a ridiculous power requirement, not as much for scientific reasons (Though, if you have a Rail gun, you would probably need obscene mounts of electricity, but this is beside the point), but more for balance reasons.

This is less about rail guns, but more about Larger weapons that have a ton of power. A larger gun that requires a lot of energy, but can be used to nuke ships and stations because it's so powerful should probably be reserved for some kind of larger ship or for a ship that is dedicated to the use of that weapon, and that weapon alone. Think, Ion cannon frigate from the Homeworld series.

I think it would be cool to have heavier weapons like that though in the game, you could even have them be something that could be used practically... like say for example, as an asteroid cracking device. So it can be used to shatter asteroids for easier mining, but it can also be used as an offensive weapon.