Tim,
Hope you don't mind the barrage of mail but I have a question that's bothered
me ever since I first picked up FT and later after picking up MT:
If we have the tech to put rail guns on aerospace and ground vehicles, why are
the Kra'vak the only ones to use them on starships. It would seem a natural
evolution as would the armoring of a ship. I've never
gotten an answer to his from Geo-hex here in the States when I asked.
Care to shed a little light on it?
Thanks,
Gil
> Tim,
I thought that railguns were slower then particle beams, soooo.. in theory the
particle beam armed ship should be able to shoot down the railgun armed ship,
plus intercept the incomming railgun rounds before the rail gun armed ship has
a good chance to retaliate. However, in FT this is no so.
Stuart Murray <smurray@aecom.yu.edu> said:
> I thought that railguns were slower then particle beams, soooo.. in
Just FYI. The Particle beam ship could shoot down the Rail gun ship, yes. It
would howevr have a reaaly bad time shooting down the Rail gun round. PB's are
not that great against inert metal, which is all a rail gun round is. Unless
they use metal banded polymers as a round, the PB's may be more effecttive
against those.
My.02 credits Randy Randy Campbell
For Something Out of This World
Check Out: http://www.millennial.org
> If we have the tech to put rail guns on aerospace and ground
Hmm, interesting one. It must be a targetting issue. As railguns are slower
than light the time to target will be much longer than for lasers. Thus they
require better targetting solutions. So maybe, the Kra'vak developed better
sensors and computers than we did. Maybe moving over to railguns would be the
next logical step for us, but we ran into the Kra'vak before that occurred.
If the Kra'vak do have better tragetting systems this could be represented in
DSII by giving superior firecons to a greater percentage of their forces.
Cheers,
In a message dated 97-09-26 14:56:25 EDT, you write:
<< Tim,
Hope you don't mind the barrage of mail but I have a question that's bothered
me ever since I first picked up FT and later after picking up MT:
If we have the tech to put rail guns on aerospace and ground vehicles, why are
the Kra'vak the only ones to use them on starships. It would seem a natural
evolution as would the armoring of a ship. I've never
gotten an answer to his from Geo-hex here in the States when I asked.
Care to shed a little light on it?
Thanks,
Gil >>
It is probably more a case of preceived practicality that would make human
forces choose particle beams over railguns. Railguns, while powerful, have a
distinct lag between firing and impact allowing the target a chance to dodge
whereas particle beams are lightspeed weapons. Railguns useful for space
combat are rather long and unable to be turret mounted (in the FT universe at
least)(or make use of multipule emitter arrays for the same weapon which is
probably one other way beam weapons get their multpule arcs) and would require
multipule weapons to cover the open arcs. Higher accuracy with ability to
cover multipule arcs with the same weapon would be high incentives to pursue
particle beam technology for space combat and leave railguns relegated to
ground combat.
The Kra' Vak may never have hit upon weapons-effective particle beam
systems. Given their high thrust, high manuverablity craft (and an apparent
love for close range combat) the railgun would have seemed to be the best
weapon system. Just two different ways of approaching the problem based on
associated technologies.
Stuart
When you consider the velocity of the railgun and the size of the round, it
would be too difficult to effectively target on it (considering a railgun
armed ship is firing a round smaller than a fighter). It seemed to me a
logical conclusion to arm a ship with railguns.
> ----------
I just read your message Randy, and I think we were both on the same
track as far as shooting down the round for the same reason - it's
inherent size. Of course, a railgun ship could be shot down. LOL
Gil
> ----------
Morgan
Interesting theory and solid, I have to admit. The issue was probably raised
awhile back and I just seemed to rehash it. Still, I think the turret problem
could be solved by using current (as far as DSII is concerned) technology.
After all, if a tank can mount a railgun in a turrent, it shouldn't be that
hard for a ship with more space. If the humans could develop the tech, I think
the Kra'vak would be in for a world of hurt and badly surprised.
> ----------
PsyWraith@aol.com said:
> It is probably more a case of preceived practicality that would make
Rail guns have to be long to accelerate the round to sufficant velocity to cut
the travel time down. There have been preposed ideas to wrap the rail gun into
a circle but this has the problem of containing the round at high velocity.
(You begin to need too much power to prevent the round from flying into the
side of the cannon)
Oneway of covering more possible locations of an enemy ship is to "raster" the
projectiles. (set up a geometric patern and sweep back and forth and up and
down to cover the space) But as mentioned you still have to have a high
velocity round to cut down on the possible area the enemy can be in. Spinal or
fixed mount rail guns fit right in with the "real" world. (As a side note. I
always thought that the ESU Battleship, and BattleDreadnought mounted wing tip
rail guns anyway. That or
Mega-AA'a. They look to be big,powerful guns mounted there anyway :)
Randy "Creative Financing is the key to any venture. Right John?" R. Hood
(Ret.)
> If we have the tech to put rail guns on aerospace and ground
Alternatively, they just havn't developed good particle beam tech, thier
sensors may therefore not be that great.
> On Fri, 26 Sep 1997, Haun, Gilles, SSG wrote:
> If we have the tech to put rail guns on aerospace and ground vehicles,
Do you want the REAL reason, or the in-game PSB explanation? We've
already seen numerous examples of the latter, so I'll shed some light on
the former:
The lovable KV's were meant to be devastating über-aliens for RPG-type
scenarios. That's why their point cost is screwed. That's why they have
weapons that ignore human defenses. That's why their defenses work against
human weapons. (And that's why you should never use them except in
pre-defined and tested scenarios.)
It doesn't matter one squiddly little bit what their weapons and defenses
are called -- they could be Xyzzy beams and Foobar shields just as well.
As a sidenote: In Silent Death, the grubs have beam weapons called
X-beams, Y-beams and Z-beams. I like it! Gives the effect of "we know
they're beams and they differ from each other, but otherwise we have no clue
how they work".
On Friday, September 26, 1997 7:58 PM, Haun, Gilles, SSG
> [SMTP:haung@Eustis-EMH10.army.mil] wrote:
There are already some good answers on this one
The rail-gun could probably accelerate a projectile to a
good fraction of c (light speed). This would be required for an effective
space weapon.
On the ground you don't need to get anywhere near it to be effective as the
visual horizon is so close.
I conject that the energy requirements for a ground based gun would be
significantly less than a space weapon as the required effective velocity is
lower
The PSB could be that humans don't have efficient enough guns for space use.
The rounds they sling out are OK for ground combat but too slow for space.
Targetting tech has also been mentioned.
With the human Kra'vak conflict its now feasible that human ships can start
mounting rail guns and armour as they analyse the captured or destoyed enemy
ships and improve their designs.
sincerely