[Bobboau]

why do people always assume that mass drivers/rail guns _have_ to shoot stuff near the speed of light? couldn't you have a magnetic mass driver, say, 10 feet long that accelerates a projectile to a mear million miles per hour, a pound of matter flying that fast is still going to cause quite a deal of damage.

[mikhael]

I'm not assuming lightspeed. I'm assuming a reasonable velocity. There's this whole "basic physics" thing that pretty much guarantees that there's a limit to how fast you can accelerate anything in a small distance.

I know, who cares about physics, right?

[Bobboau]

well given about 10 feet how fast would you be able to accelerate a 1 pound mass?
~

[mikhael]

Better go with a kilo. A pound is subjective, but a kilo is objective.

What kind of mass are we talking? A simple sphere of solid mass? what's the mass? Iron? Aluminum? Nickel?

Apparently, the Army's "Miramar Gun B" rail gun fired a one kilo projectile at 11kf/s (about 7500mph). That'd hit pretty damned hard and have one hell of a recoil (Newton lives). I can't find any info on the accellerator length, however. I figure any ship that could throw a kilo of mass at 7500mph could probably take a hit from it too. Obviously, modern battleships can trade punches for at least a little while, so I figure their future couterparts could too.

On the other hand, 7500mph is something like getting hit by a 10 ton truck moving at 80mph. That's enough to knock down an earthquake hardened highway overpass. You might be right.

I still say long arms on high tech turrets is silly.

[ChronoReverse]

If you had a long barrel _turret_then doesn't that turret suddenly become extremely vulnerable?

ESPECIALLY if it was a railgun of some sort since those things are designed to take the force of firing the shot and not much room for anything else (heck, modern railguns can't even be fired to many times without destroying themselves).

In the light of that, why would a rail gun be mounted on a turret?  It seems rather like a one-hit kill type of weapon in which case, it would be more useful to have a ship length acceleration barrel deep inside a ship to be used to blast strategic targets (i.e. large capital ships).


I dunno, it just makes more sense that way.



Now, I'm always for the look cool and look good factor and if a long-barreled turret is made so that it looks good and reasonable (in terms of functionality, that is, it would be properly reinforced) then it'd be great too.

[Bobboau]

I always wanted to make a rediculusy long turret and give it some small useless weapon that only served to get the thng to swing around and smack thingsa

[ChronoReverse]

Hmm, now that's an interesting idea.  Maybe something the size of a fenris swinging a colossus sized barrel...

[Taristin]

Originally posted by Bobboau
I always wanted to make a rediculusy long turret and give it some small useless weapon that only served to get the thng to swing around and smack thingsa

A genuine steel-beam ship, eh?

[Flaser]

You people should watch Gunbuster (another title from the creators of the "feared Evangelion"), the show made quite sensible laser turrets if you're willing to forgive the "visible laser/sound in space thing."

[Star Dragon]

I have the second and third parts of gunbuster (and they are decaying as they are original VHS copies) I never found the first part (overall it sucks that is is only like 45 mins per tape). It truly is a classic for space combat (in large numbers)

   I'm glad people spoke up. I was screaming RAILGUNS NEED BARRELS as soon as I saw that post about them being useless in space. BTW for you SHORT minded people doesn't the NEW mini-series Galactica use railguns now instead of lasers??? they are group in turrets of 4 barrels I think and look very .50 caliburish type barrels, I estimate their length to be around 10 ft...

[ChronoReverse]

But you also forget that Railguns on Turrets (tm) are easily rendered useless by a few stray shots =/

Oh well.

I still maintain that railguns would be better embedded inside a capital ship rather than sitting out in the open where any of the numerous critical acceleration units are much more vulnerable.

[mikhael]

Absolutely, Chronoreverse.

Besides, you want to get the maximum you can out of any weapon system. For the size of a turret, rail guns don't make sense. Plasma, particle or beam weapons make sense. Missile weapons make sense. Railguns just don't.

For stationary weapons systems, railguns make great sense, as do capship sized missiles (torps and the like), or broadside engagement systems.

Put weapons where they belong, not where you think they'd be "cool", I guess I'm trying to say.

[Nico]

...
You can all do whatever you want, my turrets have to look cool, any other consideration to me is jiberish, since laser/railgun/whatever turrets are scifi stuff, don't exist and nobody knows **** about it. For what I know, laser barrels may be alive a eat capship hulls every two hours
And to me, usually, big barels=looking cool. At least, they sure look cool on ships like the Arcadia.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Nico
...
You can all do whatever you want, my turrets have to look cool, any other consideration to me is jiberish, since laser/railgun/whatever turrets are scifi stuff, don't exist and nobody knows **** about it. For what I know, laser barrels may be alive a eat capship hulls every two hours
And to me, usually, big barels=looking cool. At least, they sure look cool on ships like the Arcadia.

Agree with you 100% there Nico. The main consideration I make when making a ship is what looks good. If I was modding for I-war I might care a bit more about realism but since FS2 is so obviously nonsense when it comes to reality why not just have fun with it.

[Singh]

maybe the turrets are so big cause they have to make targets? I mean, whos going to after that almost flat and innocous beam turret when you have such an big gun with ub3r barrels pointing at you and going ack-ack-ack