Handheld weapons in the Elite universe

[CMDR Argent Steel]

Incorrect, given that you, your weapon and the station are in sync under the coriolis effect. This is, very roughly and somewhat disingenuously, equivalent to the motion of a car and its passengers.

In order for the coriolis effect to have an targeting impact on the weapon, the weapon would need to be outside of the coriolis effect WHEN fired into the coriolis, resulting in a change of gravitation.

I think it would have an effect on your point of aim. If you were aiming a conventional firearm inside of a Coriolis Spaceport and shooting across the wide area separating landing pads from each other, the bullet would be travelling a straight path once out of the barrel subject to the Newtonian Laws of Motion. It would cover the distance to the target very swiftly, but there would be a need to compensate for one's aim in regard to the station's rotation, because the shooter and the target are both in motion even if they do nothing but stand still. Also unlike in real gravity the bullet would not be falling, which happens on the surface of a planet. Ballistics forces a marksman to account for rise and fall of a bullet over significant ranges (starting close to 100 meters and anything further out than that) but the ballistics of a bullet fired in a spinning simulated gravity environment would be very different from those within an environment dominated by true gravity.

 

[CMDR Argent Steel]

I'm no physicist, but I would imagine that the lack of gravity wouldn't play such a huge role in the recoil, as long as the wielder was anchored (by, say, maglock boots). Conservation of momentum is the source of the recoil, and mass is independent of a gravity field.

The following snippet is from http://physics.stackexchange.com/qu...space-or-would-the-recoil-of-the-gun-be-too-s

Your firing stance and handling of the weapon would have to compensate for recoil in different ways if you were in a zero-G or microgravity environment. Where in 1G the recoil is a negligible force (most of the time) in this new setting it would become a very significant force that could have you spinning backward just like an explosive thrust. The selection you quoted makes sense by way of physics, but it's wrong when it comes to handling the firearm. While your strength keeps the gun flying back into your face, it is your weight that keeps it from pushing you around. In zero-G you have no weight, but rather mass. If you used maglock boots you would probably want to fire from a crouched position or at least with your stance spread wide along the angle of fire so your body could brace against it. In this way you maximize the importance of your body strength over your body's mass in order to compensate for the lack of weight. The real problem isn't how you'll be propelled, but what will happen to your point of aim. The first shot might just go where you aim it, but following shots would require practice to recover and bring back on target accurately. Fully automatic weapons would be a no-go all around. Keeping a full auto firearm on target in 1G is a skill that takes a lot of practice and is exceptionally difficult to do. In zero-G it would be wildly more difficult than even that.

Basically firearms in low-G or zero-G environments would be just reckless destruction left and right. You can do it, and people stand a good chance of getting hurt, but it has so many disadvantages.

 

[Deathwatch]

What I would like to see is common kinetic, mag accelerated and laz weapons.

Base kinetics like todays guns cant fire in a vacuum I believe so unless modified wouldnt work their but would have the good stopping power and a high ammunition level with good armour pen.

Mag accelerated would suffer from the need to have batteries and ammo as 2 ammo sources but would have crazy stopping power in addition to extreme armour pen and cover penetration.

Laz or energy weapons fill a multi purpose role while being quite wwak overall different charge levels could have different drains on a battery or cell which is a energy weapons power source, energy weapons while having low armour penetrations have a very high projectile speed and are primarily used against enemies you want alive.

Finally plasma these wwapons are also heavily reliant on charge cells and plasma munitions but have insane armour penetration while creating high heat they could be used to melt through bulk heads etc or through power armour.

What do you guys think of those ideas.

 

[Edith_The_Hutt]

Incorrect, given that you, your weapon and the station are in sync under the coriolis effect. This is, very roughly and somewhat disingenuously, equivalent to the motion of a car and its passengers.

In order for the coriolis effect to have an targeting impact on the weapon, the weapon would need to be outside of the coriolis effect WHEN fired into the coriolis, resulting in a change of gravitation.

Sorry but I have to disagree. Firing a kinetic weapon inside a moving car is firing inside a non-rotating frame of reference. Inside a Coriolis station objects which accelerate towards the direction of rotation will (from the point of view of a stationary observer within the rotating frame of reference) experience an acceleration away from the centre of rotation (ie: firing spinwards accelerates your bullet down); whereas accelerating perpendicular to the direction of rotation but along parallel to the direction of acceleration will cause an acceleration parallel to the direction of spin (ie: firing downwards pushes your bullet anti-spinwards).

The only time that firing a bullet in a corriolis station causes it to behave as it would in a moving car would be to fire it perpendicular to the direction of spin and the direction of acceleration (ie: along the axis of the station). Even then, as the bullet fell to the ground under centrifugal gravity it would veer spinwards.

 

[shadragon]

Your firing stance and handling of the weapon would have to compensate for recoil in different ways if you were in a zero-G or microgravity environment. Where in 1G the recoil is a negligible force (most of the time) in this new setting it would become a very significant force that could have you spinning backward just like an explosive thrust.

The force needed to send an 8 gram bullet out a barrel at speed will not have an equal effect on the human being holding it who weighs 90 kilos in zero G. There will be minor acceleration, but nothing "explosive" given the brief burst of energy.

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Even then, as the bullet fell to the ground under centrifugal gravity it would veer spinwards.

Centrifugal force and gravity are two different things.

An object held in place by centrifugal force will have no effect on a bullet fired a meter above that object. The gravity of the surrounding structure might deviate the bullets course, but not in any appreciable way.

Artificial gravity is another kettle of fish.

 

[Muetdhiver]

Mmm, what comes to kinetics... in zero-G anything with recoil is Bad Thing™.

You could always use recoiless designs, less efficient for sure, but you are not sent tumbling arround after firing XD

 

[Shockbot]

Laser swords

don't need anything else

Maybe a DL-44 Blaster

 

[Goose4291]

I have a mental picture of you locking your mag boots, taking aim with your colt 45, firing and then twatting the back of your head on the floor as you pivot backward at the knees.

Ha that would be hillarious.

But all joking aside, the principles of marksmanship would still probably play a key part so grip and posture would negate some of that, particularly when you factor in picking a suitable weapon in the first instance that doesn't have ridiculous recoil (contrary to popular gamer and movie misconceptions, going full auto with a 7.62 battle rifle from the hip, will not yield positive results for the firer)

 

[Forlorn]

... While your strength keeps the gun flying back into your face, it is your weight that keeps it from pushing you around. In zero-G you have no weight, but rather mass...

Your weight provides you traction to utilize your muscles to maintain your orientation, but it is your mass that absorbs the recoil.

This is my point - the recoil is based on mass, not weight. In an environment where the pull of gravity is reduced to nearly zero, you still have mass. The bullet does, too, but is much, much less than your mass. Hence the quoted statement I provided that the recoil would amount to ~ 1/30th walking speed.

Next time you go ice-skating, bring your firearm and test it yourself

 

[InMemoriamSirocco]

Guys... The devs will just disregard physics for the fps part of the game in the same way they disregarded actual space physics for the dogfighting part of the game.

No need to overcomplicate things. Rule of cool trumps realism big time in the gaming industry. Are laser weapons cool? Yes they are. So why care if they make sense? Conjure up some handwavium about how they work and bam, you have yourself some laser pistols.

 

[Goose4291]

I'll reiterate what I said earlier, regular kinetics, lasers and the usual melee weapons featured in the official RPG test games I took part in, and as that's canon its safe to assume handwavium does exist to make them all viable

 

[Edith_The_Hutt]

Centrifugal force and gravity are two different things.

An object held in place by centrifugal force will have no effect on a bullet fired a meter above that object. The gravity of the surrounding structure might deviate the bullets course, but not in any appreciable way.

Artificial gravity is another kettle of fish.

Sorry, that was sloppy terminology, particularly when I was discussing the difference between rotating and non-rotating reference frames. I meant the centrifugal force which is experienced by objects in the rotating frame, which is used as an artificial replacement for gravity aboard the stations.

It's not the rest of the station which has an effect on the bullet but the bullet's own momentum and lack of support which causes it to drop to the floor of the station. My point is that it won't fall straight down but will instead have a small anti-spinwards fall at the same time. This applies to all items which "fall" in this was on a Coriolis station because the floor is rotating faster than they were when they started to drop.

I've got a feeling I'm not explaining myself very well here and I'm not sure how much I'm veering off-topic. I might see if I can put together something with diagrams tonight to explain what I'm on about and maybe put some figures into my arguments; I admit that I'm guesstimating the total deflection at the moment and I'd like to be sure how significant it is.

 

[Forlorn]

Guys... The devs will just disregard physics for the fps part of the game in the same way they disregarded actual space physics for the dogfighting part of the game.

No need to overcomplicate things. Rule of cool trumps realism big time in the gaming industry. Are laser weapons cool? Yes they are. So why care if they make sense? Conjure up some handwavium about how they work and bam, you have yourself some laser pistols.

Sure, but this kind of discussion is just so much fun. When I try to discuss these kinds of topics with my wife, she gets a glassy look in her eyes, and starts to complain of headaches

As much as I like the gritty realism of Firefly, I think I'd prefer the Star Wars blasters over both physical ammunition and phasers.

 

[shadowwolf0093]

Hand held rail guns are possible and for extra power you can wear a universal power pack that can adapt to use a veriety of tool sets like repairing your ship to powering your mag boots this would have limitations as you could only operate for a limited time unless in what is now 3302 we have the ability to have back pack sized hydrogen reactors or transform space suits into high density solar panels

 

[tawittle]

My thoughts about gun recoil in zero-g:

1. You could make a recoil less rifle that shoots bullets instead of shells. That would certainly look a little strange though.

2. It wouldn't make much sense to adopt an earthly shooting stance, as you would end up spinning yourself around. Imagine "laying down" and having the gun parallel with your body. That would mean you would mainly push yourself back, which definitely makes more sense than spinning yourself in circles.

3. Our suits surely have thrusters that can help stabilize ourselves right? I'm not sure how useful mag boots would be by themselves.

4. You could design a gun to vent it's gasses in such a way that you are only pushed back by the bullet. A 4g bullet with 940 m/s pushes back a 80kg human .05 m/s. This is why I say thrusters could easily stabilize a handheld ballistic weapon. And if we can design laser pistols in the lore surely a "recoilless" gun is possible.

 

[Chrystoph]

I think it would have an effect on your point of aim. If you were aiming a conventional firearm inside of a Coriolis Spaceport and shooting across the wide area separating landing pads from each other, the bullet would be travelling a straight path once out of the barrel subject to the Newtonian Laws of Motion. It would cover the distance to the target very swiftly, but there would be a need to compensate for one's aim in regard to the station's rotation, because the shooter and the target are both in motion even if they do nothing but stand still. Also unlike in real gravity the bullet would not be falling, which happens on the surface of a planet. Ballistics forces a marksman to account for rise and fall of a bullet over significant ranges (starting close to 100 meters and anything further out than that) but the ballistics of a bullet fired in a spinning simulated gravity environment would be very different from those within an environment dominated by true gravity.

Well reasoned, except for the fact that your argument doesn't include the fact that the bullet is still under the exact same influences that affect everything else in the station. It already has velocity equal to the station's effects even when it is at rest because it is inside the station's gravity well.

 

[Loetmichel]

True, there's that. But how's the "grip" with them? To be able to actually walk they can't clamp you down very firm...

Thats easy. Just imagine a refined version of THAT:

[video=youtube;uRKHCRR9-C4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRKHCRR9-C4[/video]

Maybe with the release swiches placed under the big toe? ... Thinking about that: NOW i know why we wear tabi on our Space suits!

Edit: that guy is positively insane! Look at his other videos. seems i found the template for the engineers!

 

[Iskariot]

I hope FD will implement a rich variation of personal weapons and they should be preferably customisable in function and looks.

Laser weapons: from laser pistols to laser carbines.
Kinetic weapons: revolvers, pistols, machine guns, sub machine guns, needle guns etc.
Melee weapons: garrotes, daggers, knives, and even swords etc.
Stun weapons, tranquilizer weapons etc.

A choice of silenced weapons is also a must of course.

I also would like to see a choice of ammo.

I also love the on the go moddability of weapons that Crysis introduced.
Every FPA game should copy that modding system.


I do not care too much about realism discussions to be honest.
FD should go with that which is cool. Elite is a SciFi universe.

 

[Siobhan]

Well reasoned, except for the fact that your argument doesn't include the fact that the bullet is still under the exact same influences that affect everything else in the station. It already has velocity equal to the station's effects even when it is at rest because it is inside the station's gravity well.

But the Coriolis effect changes with distance from the centre/rim so if you're at a different "altitude" to the target, then there will be a small, but not negligible difference.

 

[Loetmichel]

Ha that would be hillarious.
(contrary to popular gamer and movie misconceptions, going full auto with a 7.62 battle rifle from the hip, will not yield positive results for the firer)

Been there, done that (German G3 aussault rifle). Very much possible even for a lightweight guy. you just have to lean into the burst or your aim will wander waaaaayyyy off
(we hat to burn thru a bit of ammo which was about to expire, so we did some "shennigans on the range