Railgun FX???

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Railgun FX??? - 7/19/2014 11:35:31 AM

Unforeseen

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So I decided to do some research on actual railguns while i was bored and i quickly realized that the DW portrayal of a railgun is completely wrong. They should be MORE effective against armor, not less. But that aside I'm curious if anyone has any more realistic Rail Gun FX sitting around collecting dust. The current vanilla option for it simply isn't a rail gun projectile..

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RE: Railgun FX??? - 7/19/2014 12:05:36 PM

ParagonExile

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Wouldn't a real railgun capable of being used in space travel like, at relativistic velocities and have hundreds of thousands of Kilometres of range on moving targets? And millions or billions on "static" targets"?

Nope, we get slow projectiles with no range and no hope.

But OT; a railgun wouldn't look like anything, it would be too small to see and move far too fast. They would leave a beastly shockwave in an atmosphere, but in space, naw. Every depiction of them in fiction with visuals is artistic license.

My suggestion we be to use a 2-D version of Mass Effect's magnetic accelerator cannons; link. Basically a long, blue "energy" torpedo thing with a long wispy tail.

< Message edited by ParagonExile -- 7/19/2014 1:18:13 PM >

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RE: Railgun FX??? - 7/19/2014 12:32:00 PM

Solarius Scorch

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Umm, I'm all for experiments, but show me one game with realistic weapons. :) In reality, the best weapons in space, at least by damage, is a piece of rock travelling at relativistic speeds. An armchair colliding with a spaceship at, say, 0.2 C (light speed) releases so much energy that fitting it with a nuclear bomb would be inconsequential.

Still, perhaps will lead to a better weapon profiling, since what we have now is completely counter-intuitive.

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RE: Railgun FX??? - 7/19/2014 1:08:26 PM

Unforeseen

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quote:

ORIGINAL: ParagonExile
Nope, we get slow projectiles with no range and no hope.

But OT; a railgun wouldn't look like anything, it would be too small to see and move far too fast. They would leave a beastly shockwave in an atmosphere, but in space, naw. Every depiction of them in fiction with visuals is artistic license.

My suggestion we be to use a 2-D version of Mass Effect's magnetic accelerator cannons; link. Basically a long, blue "energy" torpedo thing with a long wispy tail.

Railguns are not fiction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBnoM3TwD0U While true you wouldn't be able to see it with the naked eye it wouldn't look much like what it does in DW. Will take a look at the mass effect weapon you mentioned!

@Solarius: Let's say we are firing a reasonably sized shell(reasonable as in they are small enough to carry enough of them to be useful in multiple combats)at a large heavily armored spacecraft. The shell itself penetrates the armor and the hull and blows right through the ship. The immediate effect would be damage in that area of the ship. However if we fire the same shell with a nuclear warhead that detonates midway through the ship or even on the hull you create a much larger effect that could destroy the entire craft hypothetically.

I personally believe that projectile weapons WOULD be far superior than energy weapons in a scifi is real type of settings. They just would not be as efficient as the ammo would be finite as opposed to energy weapons which can be fired infinitely as long as their is still a source.

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RE: Railgun FX??? - 7/19/2014 1:46:59 PM

ParagonExile

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Unforeseen
Railguns are not fiction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBnoM3TwD0U While true you wouldn't be able to see it with the naked eye it wouldn't look much like what it does in DW. Will take a look at the mass effect weapon you mentioned!

I know they're not fiction, I've actually seen one (incomplete mind you, and a non-functional prototype lol).

The Mass Effect/Halo route of "Very fast glowing bullet" is probably your best bet, looks cool too.

quote:

@Solarius: Let's say we are firing a reasonably sized shell(reasonable as in they are small enough to carry enough of them to be useful in multiple combats)at a large heavily armored spacecraft. The shell itself penetrates the armor and the hull and blows right through the ship. The immediate effect would be damage in that area of the ship. However if we fire the same shell with a nuclear warhead that detonates midway through the ship or even on the hull you create a much larger effect that could destroy the entire craft hypothetically.

I personally believe that projectile weapons WOULD be far superior than energy weapons in a scifi is real type of settings. They just would not be as efficient as the ammo would be finite as opposed to energy weapons which can be fired infinitely as long as their is still a source.

A much better way of doing things would be to encapsulate a lead projectile in a casing designed to flatten on impact rather than just shatter. Instead of punching right through the enemy ship and exerting minimal force on it, a flattening projectile would exert the full force of the impact where it landed, and it would explode like a megaton-level nuclear weapon without the expensive internal bomb.

Then there's also the issue of missed shots, which will keep flying until they hit something, whereas a laser would decohere into benign radiation after a few hundred trillion kilometres at most.

You know what's really impractical though? Fighting in space. Damn it would suck.

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RE: Railgun FX??? - 7/19/2014 2:42:42 PM

Solarius Scorch

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Unforeseen
@Solarius: Let's say we are firing a reasonably sized shell(reasonable as in they are small enough to carry enough of them to be useful in multiple combats)at a large heavily armored spacecraft. The shell itself penetrates the armor and the hull and blows right through the ship. The immediate effect would be damage in that area of the ship. However if we fire the same shell with a nuclear warhead that detonates midway through the ship or even on the hull you create a much larger effect that could destroy the entire craft hypothetically.

No, they'd annihilate with the ship immediately, releasing a f**kton of raw energy. :P Unless we're talking slow missiles, but in space it would be easy to make really fast missiles. (Speed as relative to the target of course.)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Unforeseen
I personally believe that projectile weapons WOULD be far superior than energy weapons in a scifi is real type of settings. They just would not be as efficient as the ammo would be finite as opposed to energy weapons which can be fired infinitely as long as their is still a source.

Yes, exactly. It was nicely done in the Stardrive game, where kinetic weapons were much stronger than energy beams, but the logistics were problematic, while for beams you just needed a working ship reactor.

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RE: Railgun FX??? - 8/16/2014 7:59:36 AM

Tanaka

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From: USA
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Unforeseen

So I decided to do some research on actual railguns while i was bored and i quickly realized that the DW portrayal of a railgun is completely wrong. They should be MORE effective against armor, not less. But that aside I'm curious if anyone has any more realistic Rail Gun FX sitting around collecting dust. The current vanilla option for it simply isn't a rail gun projectile..

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3210900

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RE: Railgun FX??? - 8/17/2014 10:06:15 PM

lurchi

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From: LV-223
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Unforeseen

However if we fire the same shell with a nuclear warhead that detonates midway through the ship or even on the hull you create a much larger effect that could destroy the entire craft hypothetically.

That sounds very much like a transform cannon from Perry Rhodan.

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RE: Railgun FX??? - 8/18/2014 12:12:57 AM

unidterror

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i have some railgun graphics, I made awhile back. There is engine thruster, and wave weapons, and torpedos, enhanced beams, they still compatible with any version.

Attachment (1)

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RE: Railgun FX??? - 8/18/2014 7:51:17 AM

Tanaka

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quote:

ORIGINAL: unidterror

i have some railgun graphics, I made awhile back. There is engine thruster, and wave weapons, and torpedos, enhanced beams, they still compatible with any version.

Yep yours is the link I posted up above.