Railgun

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[edit] Gameplay Information

Location: Tactical, Heavily, Medium, Light PD weapon slots

Factions: All

Gameplay Discussion:

Most Rail projectile is modeled as point mass and a length; all collisions are assumed to be perfectly inelastic (Ending with the shell embedded in the component it strikes). The Penetration Depth is the length of the shell times the square root of the ratio between the density of the shell and density of the armor on the target. The penetration depth is not affected by the relative muzzle velocity, but heat and momentum transfer is.

Railguns have Kinetic Penetration, meaning that it is ineffective against very heavy armors ( Because the depths of penetration is limited by density and rod length, and the dot product of this depth with the normal of the triangle it strikes has to beat the armor depth). Nor is it effective against very small target (Laser is at least twice as fast). Due to the fast rate of fire and good muzzle velocity, they are good against medium target. The exception to this are Tactical Railguns that often fire very, very big shells and are effective against heavy targets.

Heavy Railguns can be effective in destroyer or even flagship duels despite they will often fail to do any damage. They do tend to throw the target off course and disrupt its aim. The unintended side effect it can often throw off host ship off target and aim as well, thanks to the huge, constant recoil. Railgun + Missiles would probably be deadly but we won't know until the game is somewhat playable.

Although every race has access to some form of railguns, they are all slightly different from one another.

[edit] Modeling and Mathematical discussions

Railguns will probably construct with a large magnetic field applied across a pair of superconducting rails. The simplest way is probably just a huge U shaped electromagnet, with two rails just outside the densest part of the field. The current flow ACROSS the middle of the field and the induced force, the cross product, point forward or backwards, a sign error here will have more then just theoretical consequences …

Equation and Concept TBA

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenz_force

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railguns

[edit] Lore Discussion

Railguns have been some oldest and most primitive weapons in use. The simple principle, decent performance and good reliability have also made them one of the most common. Almost every race have made their own variant of the railgun and more often then not, copied off each other. The core design sports superconducting rails and U shaped magnet cooled by liquid gas, a rapid magnetically operated magazine and Depleted uranium shells.

Of all of the additional improvements, the One developed by the Coalition, out of all races, was the most practical. The UEC variant fires a sabot containing a numbers of darts that effectively acts as short range missiles giving the weapon limited tracking ability. This simple but ingenious invention have more then once made it enemy wonder how its drones, with reactive coating, was turned into scrape metal abruptly.

Railguns built by ancient civilizations, usually discontinued, often sell for a lavish sum in the interstellar market despite their obsolescence and the fact the more often then not, they don’t work.