Hello, I'm a newbie to this list (just signed up yesterday). I have an issue
to raise.
The OUDF ships strongly feature large, prong-like protrusions at the
front. What are these? Are they weapons, or just sensor/communications
antennae? My take is that these are railguns. I have had some ideas
about railguns - I (like most people) figure them to be rather like
K-guns in effect, but I like to think of them as longer ranged but less
potent. This can be explained by the fact that they use electromagnetic rails
to propel their projectiles, rather than directly transferring kinetic energy
to them. This might allow greater accuracy (because you can manipulate the
magnetic fields to alter the course of the projectile(s)), but would obviously
have less power.
Here are my ideas for railguns in games... I expect some other people have
come up with better ones, if so where can I find them??
_______________________________________________________________
Railguns come in classes 1-6 like K-Guns, and obey the same rules with
regard to arcs of fire.
Roll to hit like K-Guns, but the ranges are doubled - 0-12 mu: 2+, 12-24
mu: 3+, etc.
If you hit, roll 1 die per railgun firing, and take the result as the damage,
BUT you cannot do more damage than the class of the firing railgun. For
example, if you hit with a class four railgun, you would do the damage as on
the die, but rolls of 5 or 6 would only inflict 4.
Damge is inflicted as per K-guns with regard to armour / shell. Screens
/ vapour shroud / whatever have no effect.
Hello,
I'm one of those grumpy conservatives who tend to have cynical comments on
other peoples' new tech items. Don't take it personally; I'm like
this towards everyone - up to and including Jon T. :-/
Matthew Smith wrote (welcome on board, BTW):
> Railguns come in classes 1-6 like K-Guns, and obey the same rules
OK. Let's look at the average damage inflicted by this Class 6 railgun
and a single-arc Class 4 Beam Battery (which is 8 Mass and costs
3xMass):
Range: R6: B4 (vs level-0/1/2 screens)
0-12 2.91 3.2/2.53/1.87
12-24 2.33 2.4/1.9/1.4
24-36 1.75 1.6/1.27/0.93
36-48 1.17 0.8/0.63/0.47
48-60 0.58 0/0/0
The R6 has the same Mass and cost as the Class-4 beam, but outranges it
by 20%. At range 0-24 it inflicts somewhat less damage than the B4 at
unscreened targets, but inflicts more damage if the target has at least
level-1 screens. Beyond range 24, it beats the B4 against *all*
targets, screened or not.
Looks as if the R6 is a wee bit more powerful than the B4 (and therefore
should cost more), don't you think?
> Tell me what you think.
Vastly underpriced (or vastly overpowered, whichever you prefer - but
it's easier to increase the cost than to change the mechanics to reduce
the power). Given a cost of 3xMass, all the railguns should be 50-100%
bigger (except the R1, which needs to be about the same Mass as a B3 -
3 or 4 Mass for the single-arc version, +1 per extra arc).
Regards,
> Hello,
Thanks very much for the constructive critiscism - I'm really no good at
the mathematics part of it!! I appreciate your comments and agree with your
assessment of the pricing. My costs were mostly based on the pulse torpedo,
which is 4 MASS for a one-arc launcher and costs 3 x MASS. Since the R6
is
basically just a double range P-Torp, I reckoned doubling the mass would
be OK. However, as I can now see this is a little too cheap. As I mentioned
before, these prices were totally off the top of my head, so were bound to be
a little unsuitable. In order to allow me more accuracy in creating a
replacement, do you think that you could tell me the formulae that you used to
work out the damage values above?
Thanks,
In message <200102232351.AAA14934@d1o902.telia.com>
> "Oerjan Ohlson" <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com> wrote:
> Hello,
[snip discussion on railguns]
> Regards,
In message <002201c09ddf$1c894580$b6aa893e@eve>
> "Matthew Smith" <matt@smithdom.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> Hello, I'm a newbie to this list (just signed up yesterday). I have an
Screens
> / vapour shroud / whatever have no effect.
Hmm... Well, my personal view is to treat Railguns as another PSB for
K-guns - possibly with a greater MASS and reduced COST to represent a
bulkier but less sophisticated technology (say, COST = MASS x 3 rather
than MASS x 4, MASS increased to compensate - and no, I'm not sure how
much it would need to be increased).
I have briefly considered a 'hypervelocity' K-gun variant, similar to
you suggestion (only it used 9 mu range bands rather than 12, and
otherwise used standard FB2 K-gun rules - apart from that it never went
beyond a vague concept stage).
My suggestion, if you wish to continue with these is, either use 9 mu
range bands (0-9 mu: hit on 2+, 9-18 mu: hit on 3+, etc.), and use K-gun
statistics with the MASS (and COST) doubled, or stick with your 12 mu
range bands and use K-guns with the MASS (and COST) multiplied by about
3 1/2. You could reduce the cost of a RG-1, and reduce its number of
arcs as well - say limit _all_ railguns to 1 fire arc only.
You represent the 'long range/low damage' properties by limiting
yourself to RG-1 to RG-3s.
Just an off-the-wall suggestion, anyway.
With regard to my idea for railguns....
> My suggestion, if you wish to continue with these is, either use 9 mu
I think it's a really great suggestion. I have had one mail back (you probably
got it too) telling me that my railguns were overpowered, especially the
larger classes. Your suggestion could solve that problem in one go. Thanks!!
In message <007801c0a038$0a856160$47e9893e@eve>
> "Matthew Smith" <matt@smithdom.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> With regard to my idea for railguns....
Glad you like it,
Wandering slighly off topic, when the UNSC ships came out, a lot of
people looked at them and said 'spinal mount' - however, IIRC, the
Islamic Federation Battleship looks like most of the front end of the
ship is 4 (or more) huge cannon - but AFAIK no-one has suggested that it
also mounts a spinal mount weapon - I wonder why?
> Wandering slighly off topic, when the UNSC ships came out, a lot of
Number one, that thing on the bow is in the way of the "cannon". Number two, I
have been the noisiest advocate of the Islamic Fed, and I didn't design one.
Number three, the general perception is, I believe, that the IF is lower tech
than the four Major Powers, and spinal guns ought to be better, not worse.
In message <004701c0a206$6433e540$c3fc0e3f@pavilion>
> "Laserlight" <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:
> > Wandering slighly off topic, when the UNSC ships came out, a lot of
As to point 3, the following scenario comes to mind - they by an
obsolite SDN from a major power, strip out the large (in facter larger
than modern) beam cannon - and build ships arround them.
As a general comment, IMHO, a 'spinal' mount is a weapon rigidly built into
the ships hull (possibly so far as to have the weapon comprising
some of the hulls structural integrity) - to me, this does not appear to
be 'high tech' - ok, many weapons advocated as spinal mounts _are_ high
tech - like my own Spacial Discontinuity Cannon :-)
Sorry for not replying to this before, but I've been kinda busy:
> Matthew Smith wrote:
> In order to allow me more accuracy in creating a replacement, do you
Basic combinatorics. Since I don't know how much maths you know (beyond
the "really no good" you wrote :-/ ) I'll describe it fairly
thoroughly. The damage values were:
Range: R6: B4 (vs level-0/1/2 screens)
0-12 2.91 3.2/2.53/1.87
12-24 2.33 2.4/1.9/1.4
24-36 1.75 1.6/1.27/0.93
36-48 1.17 0.8/0.63/0.47
48-60 0.58 0/0/0
The average damage of an R6 hit is the average result of 1d6, which is
(1+2+3+4+5+6)/6 = 3.5. If you multiply the average damage per hit with
the probability that the shot hits in the first place you get the
average damage at that range. Hitting on 2+ means that you hit on a 2,
3, 4, 5 or 6, ie. 5 times out of six, so the hit probability is 5/6;
similarly hitting on 3+ gives you a 4/6 hit probability, etc. This
gives you the R6 column above.
The average damage of one beam die against an unscreened target
*excluding the re-rolls* is (0+0+0+1+1+2)/6 = 2/3. The re-rolls (which
are not affected by screens) add on average
2/3*(1/6+(1/6)^2+(1/6)^3+...+(1/6)^infinity) = 2/3*1/5 = 2/15, so the
total average damage of a single beam die is 2/3+2/15 = 4/5 = 0.8.
Multiplying 0.8 by the number of beam dice the weapon fires in each range band
gives you the "0 screens" column for the B4.
Only the *initial* die is affected by screens (the re-rolls are not),
so against a level-1 screen one beam die inflicts on average
(0+0+0+0+1+2)/6+2/15 = 1/2 + 2/15 = 19/30 = 0.6333.... and against
level-2 screens it inflicts on average (0+0+0+0+1+1)/6 + 2/15 =
0.46666.... Multiplying these values with the number of dice fired in each
range bands gives you the "1" and "2" columns for the B4 above.
Regards,