Rail Gun for Space weapon?

[Blue Ghost]

Very nice. Not to put too fine a point on it, but, the kind of gravity needed to significantly bend a beam of light is extraordinary--in the black-hole scheme of things. I'm having a hard time imagining Zhodani shock troopers with peanut sized black holes in millions of laser assault rifles just for the sake of combat.

Otherwise yeah, hand wave "it does it" RG tech, and let's have at it.

 

[pendragonman]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but, the kind of gravity needed to significantly bend a beam of light is extraordinary--in the black-hole scheme of things. I'm having a hard time imagining Zhodani shock troopers with peanut sized black holes in millions of laser assault rifles just for the sake of combat.

I'm sorry. I am missing your point here. Not sure how this relates to space combat?

 

[Blue Ghost]

In Traveller lasers use gravitic focusing. The gravitational force required to focus a laser would be enormous.

 

[pendragonman]

In Traveller lasers use gravitic focusing. The gravitational force required to focus a laser would be enormous.

Another reason to get rid of that handwavium.

 

[whartung]

The idea of the long game turns is to give the ships a chance to actually maneuver (not that it really matter, but).

At the scale of combat that the designers have chosen to represent, even at "space speeds", it just simply takes time for stuff to happen.

Otherwise, rate of fire on the guns would overwhelm the maneuver window, making space combat even worse than it is.

When you decide to shrink the scale to Wooden Ships ranges, you can reduce the time per combat round. But what you can't do is slow the ships down. Ships at speed will basically be doing ballistic flybys to get their black power weapons in range for a quick volley as the other ship is within the 5 second window before the ships rocket past each other and have to turn around.

 

[mike wightman]

Would ships or fleets even try to engage each other at such velocities?

It's much more likely that combat will occur around planets and gas giants at orbital velocities.

An open space encounter would likely be a result of two fleets choosing to slow to a safe engagement relative velocity and then fighting it out at the range where weapons still have a chance to miss. Once you get too close the weapons systems are guaranteed to hit.

High v flyby attacks are just as dangerous to the attacker as to the defender if the defender can throw stuff into your path your own v will kill you.

 

[kilemall]

Hmm I don't know about that-thinking a fighter/small craft attack might be worth it if they can deliver ship crippling blows at 5:1/10:1 costs.

 

[Blue Ghost]

The first time one of my groups did space combat the guys were surprised (and a bit angry I think) that a turn of space combat took 1000 seconds. There was something that they wanted to do character-wise ... I can't remember what it was ... but the structure of Traveller space combat didn't allow for it, or it just didn't fit in somehow.

A rail gun strikes me as coming in two flavors; a "tank gun" or "naval gun" that fires a single shot, or maybe something like an autocanon.

Either way ROF for ships outside starship combat is never addressed. It's why I brought up "Night of Conquest" a few posts back. How does ACS fire support work for characters on the ground in the midst of a fire fight?

I'll have to think about the other stuff you guys have posted.

 

[Condottiere]

Rate of fire could depend on which combat system is currently in play, without worrying about energy reserves and overheating weapon systems.

 

[pendragonman]

Would ships or fleets even try to engage each other at such velocities?

It's much more likely that combat will occur around planets and gas giants at orbital velocities.

An open space encounter would likely be a result of two fleets choosing to slow to a safe engagement relative velocity and then fighting it out at the range where weapons still have a chance to miss. Once you get too close the weapons systems are guaranteed to hit.

High v flyby attacks are just as dangerous to the attacker as to the defender if the defender can throw stuff into your path your own v will kill you.

It would make combat more closely related to some "terrain" feature like a planet, or moon, or platform at a Lagrange point, etc.

When the only true stand-off weapon is a missile, we would likely have combats like those in Honor Harrington novels---mass missile exchanges lightly seasoned with close range combats.

And yes, the close range combats would be bloody and vicious. On the other hand, these ranges do make fighters viable again. At least as an attrition weapon.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Rate of fire could depend on which combat system is currently in play, without worrying about energy reserves and overheating weapon systems.

Well, I'm one of those guys who doesn't have Striker, and unless it's in there, I've never ready anything about starship fire support.

 

[infojunky]

A rail gun strikes me as coming in two flavors; a "tank gun" or "naval gun"

Honestly; What's the difference? (hint, in terms of the weapon there isn't much, as all tack guns started as Naval Artillery)

that fires a single shot, or maybe something like an autocannon.

This is more on point, how many shots does the Autoloader for said gun got?

There is a secondary question here; How big is a ship's laser? i.e. is it equivalent of a 5 inch ship's gun, or a 75mm (3 inch) one?

Either way ROF for ships outside starship combat is never addressed. It's why I brought up "Night of Conquest" a few posts back. How does ACS fire support work for characters on the ground in the midst of a fire fight?

Had to go reread Night of Conquest, in that case even a ship armed with Sandcasters would have been a game ender for the invading force. As a airborne invulnerable (to smallarms fire) is a in valuable asset.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Possibly. But that still doesn't address how often a ship's turret fires in personal combat rounds -- if needed. I bring it up here because something like a rail gun, to me, strikes me as being a gun that could fire several times in 15 seconds.

 

[Brandon C]

A rail gun strikes me as coming in two flavors; a "tank gun" or "naval gun" that fires a single shot, or maybe something like an autocanon.

This is basically what is used in the Expanse -- relatively large bore railguns that can cripple warships and point defense cannons (PDCs) that destroy incoming torpedoes and rake over other close range targets, including ships

The M-drive in The Expanse is a sort of hyper-efficient HePlar without vectored thrust, using compressed gas to orient to a new direction, and there is no grav compensation -- a ship could accelerate at 30G until it ran out of fuel but the ire crew would be dead from acceleration stresses long before that.

 

[infojunky]

Possibly. But that still doesn't address how often a ship's turret fires in personal combat rounds -- if needed. I bring it up here because something like a rail gun, to me, strikes me as being a gun that could fire several times in 15 seconds.

That's easy, Beam laser 20 "shots" per 15 seconds, pulse laser half that. Again one of those bits buried in Striker...

 

[Blue Ghost]

Well, that's a mystery solved. I don't know why, but it seems like half the questions I have about Traveller combat are buried in Striker. Go figure.

 

[infojunky]

Well, that's a mystery solved. I don't know why, but it seems like half the questions I have about Traveller combat are buried in Striker. Go figure.

That's easy, it is the 1st source for crunchy detail.

 

[aramis]

That's easy, it is the 1st source for crunchy detail.

And the basis for MT, which was in turn the basis for FF&S...

 

[kilemall]

Well, that's a mystery solved. I don't know why, but it seems like half the questions I have about Traveller combat are buried in Striker. Go figure.

I'm a Striker fan, but tread cautiously. Like a lot of games set in the TU, Striker is designed to do a specific thing, in this case small unit army/merc action, and not other things, space combat.

Most of the integration bits you see us bandy about are for ortillery strike/ground weapon interaction with starships. It kind of breaks down if you push the system beyond it's parameters.

 

[infojunky]

I'm a Striker fan, but tread cautiously. Like a lot of games set in the TU, Striker is designed to do a specific thing, in this case small unit army/merc action, and not other things, space combat.

Most of the integration bits you see us bandy about are for ortillery strike/ground weapon interaction with starships. It kind of breaks down if you push the system beyond it's parameters.

I find there is a lot of variance in the top and bottom ends of Striker. The numbers where thrown out to support Armored combat and center there. The Traveller approximations are just that approximations. Then couple that with 1970's era tech forecasts.

Quite frankly I would reset the Ship Hull approximation to 20 Armor. and rejigger from there. I would probably also adjust the Armor thickness to penetration scale as well.

All of this comes back around to What is a Ship's laser equivalent to?, which should have been the Set point.