Class 4 weapons

[Snarfbuckle]

I kill condas daily with the c4, I don't understand why you are shooting at them when they are at high speed. A conda will come to a halt to turn around, get point blank and murder it at that point,

The point is not their speed, which IS slow, it's the fact that 500 meters is such a short distance so you should not HAVE to lead.

It would bee nice if there was a possibility to fight battles at around 2km and THERE I could happily live with 2-4 seconds lag but 500 meters and 2 seconds travel time for a futuristic artillery when WW2 guns were TWICE as fast IN ATMOSPHERE.

What's the use of a HUGE space if all battles are within 1 kilometer.

 

[ROSS-128]

It's still silly that our cannons inherit more velocity from our engines (at least I assume they inherit velocity, there would be problems if they don't) than they get from their propellant charge. They are apparently launched by giant rubber bands. I suppose it could be worse, we could have a guy whose job is to chuck the cannon shells out an airlock by hand. Unfortunately, it's frustratingly common for videogames to have "cannons" that have a lower shell velocity than a trebuchet.

Having cannons relegated to melee weapons also steps on the toes of fragment cannons.

 

[Kondensat]

let me summarize the thread:

"i want the cannons to be like railguns"

"but there are good reasons for game balance, not to offer such weapons. it needs practice and skill to use the existing ones.....if u are not able to use these weapons, u must practice more"

"but i REALLY want them to be railguns"

"sigh"

 

[Snarfbuckle]

Having cannons relegated to melee weapons also steps on the toes of fragment cannons.

Dont get me started on Fragment Cannons...

3 round burst clip and 30 shots total???

For some reason the equivalent class of FC hold less than 1/3 of the equivalent sized CANNON.

To put things into perspective, we have tanks today with canister rounds that works like shotguns. Why the hell are frag cannons limited to 30 rounds?

 

[Snarfbuckle]

let me summarize the thread:

"i want the cannons to be like railguns"

"but there are good reasons for game balance, not to offer such weapons. it needs practice and skill to use the existing ones.....if u are not able to use these weapons, u must practice more"

"but i REALLY want them to be railguns"

"sigh"

Nowhere has this been said.

The Cannon is the ballistic step up from multi-cannon and has TWO disadvantages.

-Slow fire rate
-Slow projectile speed

The first is ok because it's different from the multicannon but there is no reason for the projectile to be SLOWER than the multi cannon shot - we have to lead with multicannons but there is no reason for a S1 cannon OR S3 cannon to be so damn slow.

And game balance? At the moment the staple guns are mult-cannons and lasers because frankly a majority of other weapons are CRAP.

-Frag cannons have ludicrus small amount of ammunition
-Missiles are useless against shields and smaller ships get punished by having even smaller amounts of ammunition AND missiles do crap damage
-Mines are practically useless
-Cannon projectiles are incredible slow on an already slow firing weapon.

 

[Kondensat]

you compare apples with oranges.

this thread is about the class 4 weapons.

 

[AdriánGuth]

stop crying and practice

 

[Muetdhiver]

let me summarize the thread:

"i want the cannons to be like railguns"

"but there are good reasons for game balance, not to offer such weapons. it needs practice and skill to use the existing ones.....if u are not able to use these weapons, u must practice more"

"but i REALLY want them to be railguns"

"sigh"

I feel that you are being quite disingenuous here, using a strawman argument after people pointing out that :

• such slow shell speeds are ludicrous, being something akin to 17th century cannons, while anti armor projectiles today have velocities of ~1500 m/s
• there are other ways of balancing such weapons to avoid them being too good vs small targets, such as : overpenetration, slow to point to target for gimbals, dispersion values

I think that if heavy weapons were having slower traverse speed for turrets and gimbals than light ones, it could get interesting. That, and maybe extending the engagment range to 4km for some weapons
(giving an additional balancing factor to toy with for the devs)

 

[Poseidal]

you compare apples with oranges.

this thread is about the class 4 weapons.

Apples and oranges are meant to be compared.

You can't just narrow it down. It was about class 4 weapons because they are exclusively slow-firing projectile weapons. If you take of the façade, the issue is that these projectile weapons are rather limited (if fun) - see the dps of the class 4 PA against the class 3 beam laser for example.

Now, I think the reason class 4 weapons are limited to those is aesthetic (I mean more than looks) in that the feel of that size of weapons is for the slow firing 'cannon' type of weapon (including PA) that fires a big meaty projectile.

The big picture of the weapons directly correlates with the state of class 4 weapons.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

Now, I think the reason class 4 weapons are limited to those is aesthetic (I mean more than looks) in that the feel of that size of weapons is for the slow firing 'cannon' type of weapon (including PA) that fires a big meaty projectile.

Unfortunately they mix slow firing with slow travelling.

 

[NavyBee]

IIRC combat in ED was purposefully designed to resemble WWI / WWII dogfights instead of "combat computer vs. combat computer" as will more likely be space combat in the future. And at least to me, it is fun, as long as I switch off my "I would like some realism"-mode.

Class 4 weapons in ED seem to be the equivalent of high-calibre guns in historic and present (energy-limited, structurally light, atmospheric) airplanes. Thus, recoil should be an issue for the class 4 cannon, and it is reduced by a weaker charge and lower muzzle velocity. For the class 4 PA... I have no idea why plasma should move so slowly - but personally, I have no idea how a PA works.

 

[Muetdhiver]

About "structurally light airplanes", a combat anaconda will be ~1K tons, and a FDL 400 tons and are heavily armored ships.
So I don't really think that recoil should be an issue here, and the comparison should be toward tanks or naval ships.

I don't ask for realism, but keeping things into the plausible realm does help with immersion.

 

[ROSS-128]

Or at least alleviating the question of why we seem to have a naval gun that has the same effective range as a quarterback's right arm.

 

[Bacalao]

About "structurally light airplanes", a combat anaconda will be ~1K tons, and a FDL 400 tons and are heavily armored ships.
So I don't really think that recoil should be an issue here, and the comparison should be toward tanks or naval ships.

I don't ask for realism, but keeping things into the plausible realm does help with immersion.

And how big is a cannonball from a C4 cannon?

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I feel that you are being quite disingenuous here, using a strawman argument after people pointing out that :

• such slow shell speeds are ludicrous, being something akin to 17th century cannons, while anti armor projectiles today have velocities of ~1500 m/s
• there are other ways of balancing such weapons to avoid them being too good vs small targets, such as : overpenetration, slow to point to target for gimbals, dispersion values

I think that if heavy weapons were having slower traverse speed for turrets and gimbals than light ones, it could get interesting. That, and maybe extending the engagment range to 4km for some weapons
(giving an additional balancing factor to toy with for the devs)

Until you discover fixed weapons. Unless you are only going to offer gimbaled varieties you are going to run into balance issues from fixed cannons. A high velocity, long range cannonball effectively becomes a class four rail gun with more ammo, far less power consumption and no charge up time. The PA actually becomes a class 4 railgun with no precharge.

 

[Bacalao]

Or at least alleviating the question of why we seem to have a naval gun that has the same effective range as a quarterback's right arm.

I feel like the balance issue should be obvious, C4 weapons may not fit very well into the current PvP meta but there is a lot of combat that occurs outside of CMDR v CMDR, if you give me a class 4 cannon that is nearly hit scan I can increase my kill rate significantly, the C4 cannon already murders anacondas within 2km, for almost no power draw, high ammo capacity and fantastic hull and module damage, the only thing reigning it in is the need to time your shot based on your targets movement.

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

Unless you are only going to offer gimbaled varieties you are going to run into balance issues from fixed cannons. A high velocity, long range cannonball effectively becomes a class four rail gun with more ammo, far less power consumption and no charge up time. The PA actually becomes a class 4 railgun with no precharge.

not exactly.
1.4 is basically a nerf for all kinetic weapons.
powerplant is not instakill anymore, so you need a lot more ammo to destroy the hull.
puncturing is also changed, 75% of the smales axis or so, only railguns can pierce through the whole ship.

so basically after 1.4 cannons are even worse than they are now, a buff for projectile speed wouldnt hurt then

 

[Bacalao]

not exactly.
1.4 is basically a nerf for all kinetic weapons.
powerplant is not instakill anymore, so you need a lot more ammo to destroy the hull.
puncturing is also changed, 75% of the smales axis or so, only railguns can pierce through the whole ship.

so basically after 1.4 cannons are even worse than they are now, a buff for projectile speed wouldnt hurt then

It will be interesting to see how weapons rebalance themselves in the new patch and which need help, but I prefer them to let things stew so we don't end up with some really lopsided choices by making too many changes too fast. 1.4.0x patches will be interesting, assuming they have some balance changes to implement.
While power plants aren't insta-kill they are more of a delayed kill, once that goes down you're going to have a good amount of free time to pummel your opponent while he disables all of his weapons and re-enables all the stuff he put on low priority to power his SCBs (FSD for one usually), cannons will be pretty ideal for that situation, you'll have a powerless target with no shields and a gun that does high hull damage and consumes very little capacitor energy, pull energy out of systems into engines and weapons and you're free to destroy him. The big change will be to penetration I think, seeing how different projectiles actually get to the power plant, I haven't been in the beta because of the CGs, but I'll be interested to see how that affects things more than the 50% power issue.

 

[IronGremlin]

So, I think there is a fair bit of difference between a faster projectile speed or a hitscan weapon, and pretending there isn't doesn't help the discussion, it's just needlessly dismissive.

Please stop with that comparison, it's not what anyone wants or thinks.

I agree that slow projectile speed helps with the nice gut feeling of landing a big hit from a big weapon, and personally I see no issues with the current projectile speed of the PA or the Cannon - I think it suits those weapons fine, and they are far from useless in their current roles.

But that doesn't mean the design ethos of huge hardpoints has to stay on big hitters.

It is certainly just as satisfying to shoot a giant beam cannon or a massive chaingun. And I think it's plenty possible to have weapons that are balanced along those lines -

I don't think we're ever going to see gimbled weapons in a huge slot, and I hope we don't, because powerful weapons feel better when they're a bit unwieldy.

But that doesn't have to equate to only one "flavor" of unwieldy ever being equippable in a huge slot.

We could have a quad fixed multi cannon that was painfully inaccurate but smothered a conical area in bullets, or a rapid fire rocket launcher, or a point blank plasma shotgun designed as a prelude to ramming.

All kinds of cool things could go there, let's have a nice, pleasant thread where we talk about the relative merits of alternatives, not a slugfest where we deliberately ignore everyone else's points.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

And how big is a cannonball from a C4 cannon?
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A lot smaller than a WW2 shell that's for sure.

The Yamato had 460mm cannons and that ship weighted 71000 tonnes fully loaded and had NINE 460mm cannons as the main armament.

Each individual gun weighted 147 tonnes and one turret weighted 2500 tonnes.

Class 4 cannons are not that damn big but one thing is for sure, if a WW2 460mm cannon shell could have a muzzle velocity of 760m/s then a 900 year futuristic cannon could have a greater velocity than 370m/s

 

[NavyBee]

About "structurally light airplanes", a combat anaconda will be ~1K tons, and a FDL 400 tons and are heavily armored ships.
So I don't really think that recoil should be an issue here, and the comparison should be toward tanks or naval ships.

Please allow me to partly disagree. Indeed I find it hard to imagine that in 3301 any amount of recoil a cannon aboard a starship produces cannot be countered by e.g. synchronising the ship's thrusters to accelerate when the cannon is fired. However, in terms of density, ED ships are really light, rather resembling airplanes than tanks or naval vessels. Of course 1300 years of metallurgy/material sciences should have produced amazingly strong alloys and bulkhead arrangements, but still... the ships' structure could be an issue.

Class 4 cannons are not that damn big but one thing is for sure, if a WW2 460mm cannon shell could have a muzzle velocity of 760m/s then a 900 year futuristic cannon could have a greater velocity than 370m/s.

It could, and scientifically should. In the end it is about game balance, i guess. Combat in ED is -by design- Battle of Britain in space. So using WWII analogies to guess FD's design decisions could be a reasonable approach.

Just some rough wikipedia numbers for comparison:

16"/50 cal Mk7 naval gun
gun mass: ~121t
105 rounds mass (AP/HE mix): ~105t
battery: 9 (Iowa class BB)
displacement of Iowa class BB: ~52,000t
-> main battery total mass: 2034t (without casings, turret armor, bulkheads etc.) = ~4% of displacement

And from coriolis.io:
class 4 cannon
gun module mass 16t (including 105 rounds)
Fer de Lance mass: ~450t
-> main battery total mass: 16t = ~3.5% of total mass
Anaconda mass: ~1500t
-> main battery total mass: 40t (including 3 large cannons) = ~2.7% of total mass

I did not compare density yet, but I remember there is already a thread on this forum.

tl;dr: I do neither want to criticise nor defend FD's design decisions, my point is just that from the present point of view ED cannons are reasonably heavy for the spaceframes they are built in. Therefore a reduction of muzzle velocity (cp. to high-velocity naval or tank guns) in order to reduce stress on the spaceframe is just as logical as the whole combat model.