Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12
- Thread starter Yaffle
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It is supposed to accelerate a non-explosive mass to speeds where it delivers through sheer kinetic energy what explosive can't do, fast enough that it has a high PK even at extreme distances, such that it outperforms slower guided missiles. This means speeds on the order of 2500–3500m/s, at distances in the 100–200km range. And that's if you want a 21th century sim, rather than anything sci-fi or space fantasy, where you'd get even higher speeds and longer distances, commonly used as a more precise, harder-hitting, longer-range alternative to lasers.
What CI¬G have create is a plasma weapon that travels a minuscule distance at a speeds lower than current air-defence missiles except without any of the benefits of those missiles.
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By accelerating the shot to high speed via EM. This does not look like high speed. This looks like conventional cannon.
That means it's pointless and useless and would long since have been scrapped for vastly more capable missile systems or just conventional multi-purpose cannons (which is pretty much where the current USN system has ended up). Again, 100% CI¬G.
It's a futuristic game with a rule of cool. You can invent reason (even legal ones) to explain a slow railgun if you want too add a cool weapon.
And this is antiquated and pathetic, as in, it doesn't even achieve what our current tech today can do, and that tech is being sidelined for not being good enough to be worth the effort. So that's just another reason why not reading up on the last idea they wanted to nick from some other source does not serve them well as their core design principle.
If they wanted something as self-contradictory and idiotic as a “slow railgun,” they could have invented a reason (even a legal one) why they still use regular cannons. Or missiles. That would even have given them the opportunity to do the only thing they are able to do at a better-than-preschooler level: add in particle effects or some other visual fluff of no consequence.
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If the time and distances are accurate in the video, that's 40s for 40km, so 1km/s. It's not sci-fi railgun territory (my big favourite is the one from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, talk about making a point!), but that's still good enough for cool orbital bombardment. Not sure how targeting or balance works after that but that's not my problem, thankfully. And considering the generally ridiculously small engagement distances in "space games", 40km is, sadly, a massive improvement over many alternatives.
To be honest I dont find a "slow railgun" to be cool in any way, but YMMV here...
(edit) distance is about 20km, so make that 500m/s which is conventional cannon shell velocity. A railgun is supposed to shoot hypersonic projectiles so at least 2km/s and more..
I only ever lurk on this thread for a laugh when there’s nothing else going on, but isn’t the whole point of a rail gun to accelerate projectiles to ludicrous speeds? Wouldn’t a ‘slow rail gun’ be like making a ‘slow turbo engine’ as in, pointless and laughable? Rail guns are a standard sci fi trope, why the need to change it nonsensically?
Re-engaging lurking now.
Re-engaging lurking now.
Yeah, but then it's not a railgun. The 'fast, dumb, projectile' is in the definition:
Railgun - Wikipedia
Fair enough to add a plasma cannon, but it does seem like they're just throwing words at the screen - and railgun sounds cooler than ballista
Because slow rail gun, unlike the proper one, was Never Been Done Before. Chris Roberts 101.
Sounds way cooler than what it is too...a ship mounted trebuchetYeah, but then it's not a railgun. The 'fast, dumb, projectile' is in the definition:
Railgun - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Fair enough to add a plasma cannon, but it does seem like they're just throwing words at the screen - and railgun sounds cooler than ballista
That's the funny thing. They could have just called it an orbital plasma cannon and be all kinds of sci-fi:ish and the like, but no. They had to CI¬G it up by just pulling something random from the bag and slapping it onto whatever while being too illiterate to read up on the word they chose to use.
As a point of comparison, the reasonably modern S-400 system has engagement ranges on the order of 200km+, reaches speeds of 2,000m/s, engages (mainly ballistic) targets moving at 4,000m/s+ at 60km altitude.
So, you know, Turkey can defeat this high-tech futuristic space weapon.
And milsims like DCS have modelled that for ages, but as far as space games go? It's still a stupid dogfight craze all around and 40km is sadly insanely big. Children of a Dead Earth is such an outlier it's not even funny.
So I finally tried mining with the Prospector and all I can said is that ain't bad,for sure is much better then dog-fighting(my opinion)I tried mining on asteroids and mining on planets and I was more successful finding&extracting ore on planet(Magda/moon).The whole process is kinda repetitive but it's not so boring bugs are everywhere and sudden drops in FPS while mining are jarring and sometimes can cost you a life but overall experience is OK tho' for sure there is a lot of space for more improvements....All in all I did a few mining-runs but I really get bored of running around in stations and going up-down in elevators I literally getting sick&tired of SC elevators and I believe that I already experience virtual elevators for my two lives even we are still in pre-alpha........
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A pea shooter.
Yeah, but a slow railgun isn't cool.
Dang, the RWR literally went off in my head just as you mentioned DCS.