[Turnsky]

well, the actual concept of making a hypervelocity projectile is pretty sound, the delivery system, however is still up to conjecture...

hypervelocity works kinda like this, imagine if you will a bullet, say around .50 cal, now, accellerate that sucker up to a fair few meters a second(delivery is a moot point could be rail,gauss, or just the orbit of a planet over time) now imagine that hits something, say for the sake of a general reference... the ISS, at that speed, it would do a helluva lot of damage to the fragile surface of the station as well as everything else beneath..

i've seen a doco showing a hypervelocity projectile the size of a pinhead blasting apart a small satellite..

sf or not, the basic concept is pretty sound, now to figure out an effective delivery system..

[J.F.K.]

Originally posted by Shrike
And a railgun effect would actually be reasonably similar to that of a normal chemical gun.  All these people who keep wanting swirly trails for railguns are perpetrating a grave crime against originality.

You can blame that on Q3A.

[Hellbender]

Think I first saw the spirally effect in a Schwartzenegger film, Eraser? The explaination I think at the time was the effect of the projectile interacting with water molecules in the air to produce a similar effect to a high g contrail from an aircraft during harsh manouvers.

[diamondgeezer]

Well, I've sat politely through twenty-odd posts arguing about what a railgun would look like in real life - now I think it's time for a coder to tell me whether or not my request for the spiral effect thingy will be added to the To Do list, so that we can all let the thread die.

-------------
Diamond Geezer flat refuses to watch Farscape

[IceFire]

Originally posted by Peter


If I had the slightest idea what you meant I would but I don't, feel free to enlighten me.

And on the subject which was "really big guns" does this have to be a railgun? I spent ages a year or so ago making weapons for a campaign I never finished, Some of them might be useful

Exactly what I said...preserve the formatting from the table by putting it in a code bracket.  Very simple.  Here's an example from TBP.

Code: [Select]

;40mm pulse cannon, available for Aurora and Zephyr

$Name:                          40mm Pulse
+Title:                         XSTR("EA 40mm Pulse Cannon", -1)
+Description:
XSTR(
"Plasma Discharge Cannon
Level 2 Damage
Standard Issue", -1)
$end_multi_text
+Tech Title:                    XSTR("EA 40mm Pulse Cannon", -1)
+Tech Anim:                     Tech_Subach_HL-7
+Tech Description:
XSTR(
"Description goes here.", -1)
$end_multi_text

$Model File:                  none
@Laser Bitmap:                ea40mm
@Laser Glow:                  generic_g1
@Laser Color:                 30, 255, 255
@Laser Color2:                120, 255, 255
@Laser Length:                5.0
@Laser Head Radius:           0.75
@Laser Tail Radius:           0.80
$Mass:                        0.5
$Velocity:                    600
$Fire Wait:                   0.34
$Damage:                      56
$Armor Factor:                1.0
$Shield Factor:               1.0
$Subsystem Factor:            1.2
$Lifetime:                    2.0
$Energy Consumed:             3.1
$Cargo Size:                  0.0
$Homing:                      NO
$LaunchSnd:                   76
$ImpactSnd:                   85
+Weapon Range:                1100
$Flags:                       ( "in tech database" "player allowed" "stream" )
$Icon:                        iconSD4
$Anim:                        SD4
$Impact Explosion:              none


NONE of the formatting is lost...all of the tabs I have setup are preserved.  If you still don't get it, look up the vBulletin code's on how to do formatting.  It just makes it easier to pass the table data around and easier to look at so that the tabs and spaces are preserved when I copy it back into my tables so I can manipulate it.  It saves us all some time.

[diamondgeezer]

Where's that little head bash smiley when you need it?

---------------
Diamond Geezer grows bonsai trees

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by diamondgeezer
Well, I've sat politely through twenty-odd posts arguing about what a railgun would look like in real life - now I think it's time for a coder to tell me whether or not my request for the spiral effect thingy will be added to the To Do list, so that we can all let the thread die.

Originally posted by diamondgeezer
Where's that little head bash smiley when you need it?

Methinks it's certainly possible, but a long way due to being implemented, due to exams and code request backlog.  Ask Phreak; I think he was the one who did the corkscrew missile.  Combine Phreak's corkscrew effect with the beam stuff and a little particle noise, and you've got your effect.

[diamondgeezer]

Well this is it - we have beams, and we have spiraly things. We just need someone to combine them with a few nice and simple parameters, such as seperate lifetimes for the beam and spiral, etc. I'll go poke Phreak with a Bic biro until he does it

-------------
Diamond Geezer avoids singing in public

[TrashMan]

You know...I read a bit about high-tech weapons that the military is working on..
Some of them are VERY interesting (got pics too), but allmost all of them have MASSIVE energy requirements..