LordErrorprone wrote:
Yes, i forgot about that, you are right the slug could gain enough mass from those speeds to damage a ship, though let me ask you on impact when the slug goes through extreme deceleration what happens to all that mass?

I believe that extra "mass" is "converted" into energy. (Really, calling it "mass" is just an attempt to make it more understandable to our non-relativistic minds--one might say the mass and energy were the same thing all along.)

less science talk. more in-game suggestions.

LordErrorprone wrote:
Does most objects mean the slug and the ships hull or just the ships hull?

More hull, less slug. But the slug's not going to be in one piece either.



(Fracture strength of a metal plate is lower than that of a BB).

Draco18s wrote:
I find it amusing that by your own table beams are in the middle.

Fake edit: nevermind you messed up your chart's labels (fixed it for you). In any case, beams out perform kinetics until the 5th tech level of each.



Real edit: nope, it was the table that had the backwards labeling. Label shit properly before you release it dude. Had to really tweak the sheet to get everything properly color coded. Also, are Entropy's Missile's max damage really only 620? Down from Nonbaryonic Explosive's 1000?



Post color labeling fixes, missiles are the worst, kinetics are the "best." But it doesn't take into account miss rate at various ranges.

Kinetic weapons are at the back of the chart because otherwise the data dots would hide other dots. Also, moving a chart from worksheet to chart sheet voids all forum links. Group editing cancelled.

Range is not so much the point, speed of your projectile be it mass(missiles and kinetics) or energy is far more important.

We can already make cannons that will hit just about right were you point it, in space it's more will the target be there when the round reaches that point.

As the range increases the area that the target could have moved to increases as it has more time to maneuver creating a larger cone that it could be in.

So the kinetics seem to spread out in order to cover more area hoping for at least one hit.

The same can be said for beams if you're dealing with ranges larger than a couple light seconds or minutes depending on the maximum thrust of your target.

Should be moved in the design discussion? Nevermind. Interesting. I don't have anything science-y to say but go on

someone mentioned above about a slug at .5c hitting a ship @ .6c



Look up on google about 2 cars moving at 50mph hitting head to head. its the same as a car hitting a wall at 50mph not 100 mph



There was a great post about 20kg slugs @ 1.3% of c

There is a nice kinetic energy calculator here



http://www.csgnetwork.com/kineticenergycalc.html



20KG

1.3% of c = 3,900,000 m/s



4184 joules = 1 gram of TNT



36.35 kilotons of TNT



Thats alot of energy. Thing is you need to put that energy in to the system first. So assuming 100% efficiency and no loss it would take the equiv of 36.35 kt of TNT to fire each shot.



So I would assume more reasonable speeds of mach 5-10

kirstar wrote:
Thing is you need to put that energy in to the system first. So assuming 100% efficiency and no loss it would take the equiv of 36.35 kt of TNT to fire each shot.

Frequently ignored in science fiction. If one is colonizing other planets and traveling around in "non-conventional means" (i.e. not chemical rockets) then we can assume that the race has a method of accelerating a 20 KG slug to half-light speed.



Here's a fantastic read semi-relevant to the topic.

Moved to game design proposals.

Igncom1 wrote:
Well unless your kinetics are particle excelerators, becuse then your firing kinetic weapons just under the speed of light.....incidentally causing atomic explosions...

Agreed, the Gunnery Chief from ME2 put it best:



Gunnery Chief: This, recruits, is a 20-kilo ferrous slug. Feel the weight. Every five seconds, the main gun of an Everest-class dreadnought accelerates one to 1.3 percent of light speed. It impacts with the force of a 38-kilotomb bomb. That is three times the yield of the city buster dropped on Hiroshima back on Earth.That means Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-***** in space. Now! Serviceman Burnside! What is Newton's First Law?



Recruit: Sir! A object in motion stays in motion, sir!



Gunnery Chief: No credit for partial answers, maggot!



Recruit: Sir! Unless acted on by an outside force, sir!



Gunnery Chief: Damn straight! I dare to assume you ignorant jackasses know that space is empty. Once you fire a husk of metal, it keeps going until it hits something. That can be a ship, or the planet behind that ship. It might go off into deep space and hit somebody else in ten thousand years.If you pull the trigger on this, you're ruining someone's day somewhere and sometime. That is why you check your **** targets! That is why you wait for the computer to give you a **** firing solution! That is why, Serviceman Chung, we do not "eyeball it!" This is a weapon of mass destruction. You are not a cowboy shooting from the hip.



Recruit: Sir, yes sir!

I think the point of Kinetics is its only for short range, Beams: medium and Missles for long range(or just when you really want the thing dead i find ).



So youll have a ship fitted with kinetics that specialises in close combat and another ship with missles for long range etc. (alternatively you could just balance your ships with some of each). In this way some of your ships will be better against some of thiers and visa-versa. Dividing each weapon delivery system into sections would complicate the weapon mechanics needlessly i think.



And besides the more you upgrade kinetics the more it multiplies the number of shots in each burst so some are bound to hit at range .

Kitty wrote:
I think the point of Kinetics is its only for short range, Beams: medium and Missles for long range(or just when you really want the thing dead i find ).



So youll have a ship fitted with kinetics that specialises in close combat and another ship with missles for long range etc. (alternatively you could just balance your ships with some of each). In this way some of your ships will be better against some of thiers and visa-versa. Dividing each weapon delivery system into sections would complicate the weapon mechanics needlessly i think.



And besides the more you upgrade kinetics the more it multiplies the number of shots in each burst so some are bound to hit at range .

Its often very time consuming to go for both Kinetics and beams, as they are two completely different sides of the military tech tree. You are better off specializing, unless you want to put all your research into military and have really strong ships, but really angry people, or no bigger ships to put your better weapons on.

Kitty wrote:
I think the point of Kinetics is its only for short range, Beams: medium and Missles for long range(or just when you really want the thing dead i find ).



So youll have a ship fitted with kinetics that specialises in close combat and another ship with missles for long range etc. (alternatively you could just balance your ships with some of each). In this way some of your ships will be better against some of thiers and visa-versa. Dividing each weapon delivery system into sections would complicate the weapon mechanics needlessly i think.



And besides the more you upgrade kinetics the more it multiplies the number of shots in each burst so some are bound to hit at range .

To be honiest, the wepon devides are into Long-Medium-Short range weapons....its just coincidence that one group of weapons can only fit into one, and it makes no sence that any one with sufficiant knowledge of missile, energy or mass baised weapons wouldent be able to create weapons for all three combat zones.



And futhermore that you cant make armour, shields and flak defences that only target Kinetic, energy and missile weapons!! its ludicrous i tell you!!

Ronnek wrote:
Its often very time consuming to go for both Kinetics and beams, as they are two completely different sides of the military tech tree. You are better off specializing, unless you want to put all your research into military and have really strong ships, but really angry people, or no bigger ships to put your better weapons on.

Yes thats true military research does take a while, i usually leave it till i have copious amounts of scinece so it only take 2 turns per but thats still two turns elsewhere.



And i agree with Igncom about this range issue; Im no expert but maybe some if the three combat strengths were more focused on rate of fire than ranging it would be more snesible. Like rockets slow, kinetics fast that sort of thing.

Yeah! there is no real range in space! your balistics can travel just as far as any missile!

I like the idea because it would give the weapons more diversity

Weapons have different uses that is the good part. You can either build a specilized ship or one that does a little of everything. A mix i have found works best so far. So who knows how it will be in the final version. Mass drivers are still not great at long range because of time to target, and distance. Really the best long range is beam because speed of light. So really kinetics at long range does not work great. Just like missiles at short range have issues. Really beam is a fits all use type weapon because of distance and timing issues, but they fire slower than kinetics because of charge time. So a mega laser would be cool, but we really have no way to picking when to fire. So not sure i would want one. Some fleshing out of weapons to like fighters or something might be cool though. Given the backbone of most war fleets is a carrier. So Just my ten cents there.

Igncom1 wrote:
Yeah! there is no real range in space! your balistics can travel just as far as any missile!

True: nothing in space to slow things down. Its really just rate of fire, speed of the projectile and damage of the payload which is relevant. Unless you give ships the ability to manouver it should be a gaurenteed hit every time.

hmarsh wrote:
Weapons have different uses that is the good part. You can either build a specilized ship or one that does a little of everything. A mix i have found works best so far. So who knows how it will be in the final version. Mass drivers are still not great at long range because of time to target, and distance. Really the best long range is beam because speed of light. So really kinetics at long range does not work great. Just like missiles at short range have issues. Really beam is a fits all use type weapon because of distance and timing issues, but they fire slower than kinetics because of charge time. So a mega laser would be cool, but we really have no way to picking when to fire. So not sure i would want one. Some fleshing out of weapons to like fighters or something might be cool though. Given the backbone of most war fleets is a carrier. So Just my ten cents there.

Well unless your kinetics are particle excelerators, becuse then your firing kinetic weapons just under the speed of light.....incidentally causing atomic explosions...

I find Beams to be the most effective, even at long range. Unless there are lot of enemy ships or they are really well equipped with shields, I rarely get to the second phase of the battle.



But that could aslo be because I'm currently playing as Hissho and they do have some huge bonus in damage and accuracy.