LIMITING HOWITZER AMMO

[MikeAngora]

Hey everyone,

I was thinking that the ammo of all Howitzers should be capped. I can imagine energy weapons (like the Tev9s, lightening turrets, lasers etc...) to be infinite since their 'ammo' is produced directly from energy by the ship's reactor. However there should be an ammo cap on the tangible projectile type weapons like the howitzers etc because realistically speaking a ship can only carry so much shells.

Cheers!

Mike

[JohnBWatson]

I think the official explanation is that ammo is accumulated from space, and processed using the ship's energy to become a projectile, which is why matter weapons have power requirements similar to those of energy weapons.

[Ultimate Chicken]

Then what are kinetic weapons?

I appreciate the realism but for some weapons I'd rather have it handwaved as "Reactor synthesizes the ammo each time its fired". :3

[TheLoneWolf]

Such a starstruck process. Dark Matter to Matter conversion? Atleast a heat cooldown is required

[DigaRW]

The only reason the matter weapon is unlimited is... Hidden ore that not listed in cargo view.
Oh yes, what about particle? They actually are not energy based, right? Particle is matter base form, and every metal or something like that is based particle.

[Xephyr]

I think the official explanation is that ammo is accumulated from space, and processed using the ship's energy to become a projectile, which is why matter weapons have power requirements similar to those of energy weapons.

That's not the official explanation.

Here's a post by George demystifying some of it.

Kinetic weapons require immense amounts of energy because you're accelerating a mass to a percentage of lightspeed (presumably magnetically).

[NMS]

Well, in the case of kinetic weapons, the answer is that the mass of the projectile is negligible. For instance, the recoilless cannon fires a projectile at 0.4 c every 16 game seconds, while using 1 MW. So the projectile must mass less than 1.13 micrograms.

But you can't think too carefully about technology in the Transcendence universe, or you'll start to wonder things like: "How can this armor absorb an arbitrary amount of kinetic energy without deforming?" and "How much energy does it take to accelerate a spacecraft massing hundreds of tons to a significant fraction of light speed while using negligible reaction mass?"

[Song]

Quite. While it'd be interesting to have an ammo-using howitzer, the main criteria is balance.

Ammo isn't the drawback it used to be, but it's still a significant downside to a weapon. Short of handwaving it, it's best to go with the "It's convenient" explanation.




(Otherwise we'd end up questioning where the heck our reaction mass comes from.)

[TheLoneWolf]

Where the heck our reactor mass comes from?

[JohnBWatson]

I think the official explanation is that ammo is accumulated from space, and processed using the ship's energy to become a projectile, which is why matter weapons have power requirements similar to those of energy weapons.

That's not the official explanation.

Here's a post by George demystifying some of it.

Kinetic weapons require immense amounts of energy because you're accelerating a mass to a percentage of lightspeed (presumably magnetically).

I recall seeing it in some very old material - it doesn't surprise me that it was retconned.

[KaoS]

I'm against artificial restrictions; ie you can only install reactor/weapon/armor of less than x amount of tons. The weight component should be enough to force balance. If you install extra heavy stuff, you pay the price in decreased maneuverability. Weight is already a factor even within the assigned boundaries. I say if a fool wants to weigh him/herself down with overly heavy armament, let them. They'll pay for it by borking their mass/thrust ratio and find themselves dead when they can't effectively run for cover because that extra heavy worldship armor doesn't protect them against the higher level damage types.

[shanejfilomena]

Actuiallym in Interior ( now called Midst of Dragons ) the Howitzers are in fact Ammo requiring weapons because I never understood why they would be ammoless when the Ranx Kiloton is not - I just always found it abit speciest that a commonwealth weapon can be one way yet a non commonwealth weapon can't be that way.

Midst of Dragons is in testing against 1.7.1a : the fragility of the modern game engine caused by ridiculously Insane Ideas of damage curves that make a Himal Refuge harder then a Charon stronghold to crack open and it's inability to Tank through anything like the older versions ...

well, it was the reason "Interior" was put aside and restarted during 1.6

However, if I can keep the game from crashing long enough to release the draft (because I demand it Leap out of it's "safe place" into certain death like Transcendence has always been expected to ) ...... Midst of Dragons will be posted for download.

------------------------------------------------------------------
* Met an Old man at a Bar in STK, he said to me
" When I was a boy, a Real Man was expected to Jump off their ships firing at the hip and never giving a thought to that thing called Death. But today...you kids, you need Safe Places and Safe words.."

I told him I am a Pilgrim on my way to Core, the last Pilot that called me "Kid" was a flying a Ventari Destroyer , he could find it's wreck at the system's rim ...

" MMhf, so maybe you got something." he says as he pays for my soda and ambles off

[JohnBWatson]

I'm against artificial restrictions; ie you can only install reactor/weapon/armor of less than x amount of tons. The weight component should be enough to force balance. If you install extra heavy stuff, you pay the price in decreased maneuverability. Weight is already a factor even within the assigned boundaries. I say if a fool wants to weigh him/herself down with overly heavy armament, let them. They'll pay for it by borking their mass/thrust ratio and find themselves dead when they can't effectively run for cover because that extra heavy worldship armor doesn't protect them against the higher level damage types.

That'd be pretty cool, to be honest. I could definitely see such a system working, where only heavier gunships and freighters could mount things like howitzers and massive turrets while maintaining decent thrust ratios and maneuverability.

[gunship256]

I'm against artificial restrictions; ie you can only install reactor/weapon/armor of less than x amount of tons. The weight component should be enough to force balance. If you install extra heavy stuff, you pay the price in decreased maneuverability. Weight is already a factor even within the assigned boundaries. I say if a fool wants to weigh him/herself down with overly heavy armament, let them. They'll pay for it by borking their mass/thrust ratio and find themselves dead when they can't effectively run for cover because that extra heavy worldship armor doesn't protect them against the higher level damage types.

That'd be pretty cool, to be honest. I could definitely see such a system working, where only heavier gunships and freighters could mount things like howitzers and massive turrets while maintaining decent thrust ratios and maneuverability.

It already sort of works that way on the Wolfen, since that ship's device slot limitations make it tough to install an engine.

I'm not sure the mass/maneuverability tradeoff works well on Sapphire and EI500, since the late-game drives provide so much thrust.

It may be that it's the installable engines that are unbalanced and not the actual mass/maneuverability mechanic.

If the advanced engines provided small speed increases, modest thrust increases, and large increases to turning speed and rotationStopAccel, that would be an effective deterrent to installing heavy weapons on a small ship.

Alternatively, engines with decent thrust could be made available in the early game, and any ultra high-thrust engines could be reserved for capital ships, with massive power requirements, item masses so large that they won't fit in a 100 ton cargo hold, and possibly more than one device slot necessary for installation.