Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
So, DMR and AP Rounds, and should be treated as such, rather than a general, all purpose wonder-weapon, right?
A Different Breed (Warhammer 29K)
So, DMR and AP Rounds, and should be treated as such, rather than a general, all purpose wonder-weapon, right?
- Pronouns
- Reader
Basically. Needlers do volume fire to chew an enemy apart. Spike Cannons launch deep penetrating rounds that do meaningful damage to opponents to bulky for needlers to have an appreciable effect on and may deal disabling damage to something vital in the process. There is a speed drop off, but there probably not firing much slower than most cannons or macro cannons using penetration rounds, and likely a lot more effective.
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- Reader
Yeah. May want to swap one of the Spike cannons on our cutter destroyers for plasma lance.
F0lkL0re
Officially not an Inquisitor
- Location
- Shetland
Well we probably should do that anyway just incase we run into something with high physical defenses but low energy defenses.
Mechanis
Confirmed Extremely Screwed
- Location
- Absconding with Alacrity
bingo. The joys of ballistic physics making heavier projectiles both better and worse at armor penetration (better because higher mass and momentum means more KE and less loss to friction, gravity, et cetera, worse because it's harder to get them moving to begin with- except because you are the Eldar and therefore cheating cheaters who cheat, the second part isn't a problem for you.)
But yeah, Spike weapons are primarily AP guns.
Personally, I think that the likes of Spike weapons are probably something we can replace by Sunblasters in the long run.
In the short run, given our other constraints, I think we may want to focus on building a small number of warhosts armed with exotics. They can go out and earn us reputation while our numbers are low, and they can then become a progressively smaller minority of first elite than super-elite forces that are used on special occasions, as we fill out our forces with larger numbers of troops armed with more advanced gear like Grav Weapons and Sunblasters.
Things like Needlers and Spike weapons should probably generally be reserved for our home guard militia for now. Sunblasters can be our general anti-everything weapons and grav weapons can be specialists for things like MBTs.
In the short run, given our other constraints, I think we may want to focus on building a small number of warhosts armed with exotics. They can go out and earn us reputation while our numbers are low, and they can then become a progressively smaller minority of first elite than super-elite forces that are used on special occasions, as we fill out our forces with larger numbers of troops armed with more advanced gear like Grav Weapons and Sunblasters.
Things like Needlers and Spike weapons should probably generally be reserved for our home guard militia for now. Sunblasters can be our general anti-everything weapons and grav weapons can be specialists for things like MBTs.
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Mmm. I think we should probably maintain at least one kinetic weapon in our armory, but I'd prefer an evolution rather than the basic Spike weapon - something that is to Spike Cannon what the Hellgun or Turbo-Laser is to the standard Las Cannon, or maybe some way of incorporating warheads into the spikes.
(How do Zahr-Tann's Railocks compare to Spike Cannon, anyway?)
Sooner or later we're going to run into stuff that's plasma resistant, and I'd prefer we still have a decently cheap applicable weapon rather than having to pay out the nose for grav weapons everywhere.
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Something not unlike the bolter might be hard to make use of, I suspect the ammo-spinners might have trouble supplying more complex bullets quickly enough. Maybe if we used enchantments instead, but that will probably take some time, given that runecasting is still an early prototype in Eldrad's workshop.
The thing is, it's very hard to be anti-plasma. It's not just the heat, if the Tau's plasma weapons are any guide, the plasma is also magnetically accelerated to tremendous speeds, so it has an enormous amount of kinetic energy, to the degree it can punch through targets because of that alone.
Plasma resistance is something that's very rare. Fluff wise, the only thing I can think of that may have it is the Avatar of Khaine.
And for those rare things, I'd prefer to have things like mono-filament weapons, missile launchers we can switch the ammo types for, and grav weapons.
- Location
- Seattle, Washington
I figure that once we are in a place where we can start building new ships, we can standardize on the following:
- Spike Cannons and torpedoes on frigates (spike cannons for cost reasons, torpedoes are the frigate's primary weapons)
- Light cruisers and cruisers mount plasma batteries paired with heavy graviton thruster lances
- Battleships are similar to cruisers, except also have a mega-starlance special weapon and maybe 1-2 fatetwister batteries
On the ground, we use mainly Plasma, with heavy needlers on vehicles and missiles as a back-up weapon
Regarding Plasma resistant enemies, the Orks actually have something that's should work pretty well against Plasma weapons.
Ironically this means that having a well rounded mix of kinetic and energy weapons is actually really bad if we are facing a lot of these things since the kinetic weapons that would degrade the field would actually help to prevent the field from being overloading from massed energy weapons fire and vice versa.
Given the fact that one of the Ork worlds nearby is called "Zapppagitz" and are noted to specialize in Zapppaz and we have already encountered an Ork Battlekrooza which had a Zzappaa field equipped during the 2nd Meros fleet action we are definitely going to be facing more of these defenses.
While Zzappa Fields gradually run out of juice against kinetic weapons they can absorb energy weapon attacks like Plasma bolts to make the field stronger though they can be overload after taking enough hits.Zzappaa Field said:
Ironically this means that having a well rounded mix of kinetic and energy weapons is actually really bad if we are facing a lot of these things since the kinetic weapons that would degrade the field would actually help to prevent the field from being overloading from massed energy weapons fire and vice versa.
Given the fact that one of the Ork worlds nearby is called "Zapppagitz" and are noted to specialize in Zapppaz and we have already encountered an Ork Battlekrooza which had a Zzappaa field equipped during the 2nd Meros fleet action we are definitely going to be facing more of these defenses.
I think undergunning our Frigates is a mistake.
Plasma guns aren't energy weapons in the way a lasgun or melta gun is. They're a physical object/projectile or an shockwave of an explosion that directly impacts the target and imparts energy to it by the impact of a physical particle. It's not an energy beam, it's kinetic energy and momentum transferred to the target just as much as being hit by a bullet or another kind of explosion. They're no more an energy weapon than a bolter is. They hit the target and explode.
By the description of the Zzappa field, it would have to spend energy to try to destroy the physical matter of the plasma projectile.
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- Location
- Seattle, Washington
It's not undergunning, it's accepting having less powerful guns in exchange for being able to build more of the design.
Although I would need to figure out base costs and how much Naval equipment points worth of ship can be built per turn to figure out if costing 4 less NEP would actually be a notable difference
Given our population issues, I'm not convinced that probably more cheap ships is a better strategy rather than slightly fewer more effective ones.
We didn't have Suncannons until Turn 3 while Frigate Design was Turn 2, we literally couldn't upgun them at the time we designed them.
The primary source of damage from Plasma weapons is the heat delivered by the superheated matter, not the physical impact of the matter. Both the description of our Suncannons and Lexicanum's description of Plasma Weapons points to the heat as being the main damage dealer:
Article: Plasma Weapons operate by converting normal gases or fuel materials into an energized state of matter known as plasma, the stuff of the stars themselves.
Plasma weapons utilize the same technology as found in plasma reactors and drives: hydrogen fuel is held suspended in a photonic state, typically in a sturdy flask or backpack container, before being fed into the weapon's miniature fusion core and energised into a plasma state. This plasma is then contained by powerful magnetic fields until the weapon is fired, whereupon it is ejected via a linear magnetic accelerator to form a bolt of superheated matter in appearance and temperature much like a solar flare (giving rise to the nickname "sun gun").[1][2a][3][4][5] Upon impact tremendous energy is released akin to a small sun, destroying the target through searing heat and explosive shock in an almighty explosion.[1][2a]
A Zzappa Field should absolutely gobble this stuff up.
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The description of the Zzapa field doesn't suggest that matters though.
A lot of the damage, perhaps most of a bolter round or torpedo is the detonation of the explosive, with some more from the energy of the velocity of the projectile. That doesn't mean that a Zzapa field could absorb the potential or kinetic energy of the particles in a bolter round as it passes through the field. It also shouldn't absorb the kinetic energy of the particles in the plasma round.
Most of the heat transfer of being inside an explosion, whether it's plasma or something else, isn't from radiative heat, it's from direct contact with energetic physical matter smacking into the physical matter of the target, and imparting energy into it.
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- Location
- Somewhere Beyond the Sea
Not really? You're still being hit with a giant glob of superheated plasma accelerated to the speed of like, a bullet, even without the temperature that's still a lot of kinetic energy being sent through since Plasma has mass.
The thing is, if Zzzappa fields can drain the kinetic energy out of objects, it wouldn't need to spend energy to disintegrate incoming physical projectiles, it could just slow them down to a stop. The heat of physical matter is just kinetic energy.
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- Reader
I'm pretty sure we aren't fielding spike weapons, and there will always be a place for needlers volume fire. There is the entire having a mix of munitions, energy and solid, that way defenses strong against one won't stop the other.
The question is whether there are defences that are strong against plasma weapons for entities that aren't the Avatar. Plasma weapons work by particles of matter smacking into particles of the target very fast. That's how needlers work as well. They're both weapons that do damage largelly by kinetic energy transfer (heat transfer in this situation is kinetic energy transfer). If you want to diversify, you'd want actual directed energy weapons like lasers or exotic weapons like grav weapons.
We've been told that plasma weapons are general purpose advanced weapons. Presumably that's because they work reasonably well against just about everything.
There are some targets, like non-space marine humans, against whom volume of fire is particularly valuable. Against daemons and orks, who can't be psychologically suppressed and don't go into shock or bleed out so need to suffer massive damage to kill or disable, things like plasma weapons are probably more useful.
I just don't think we'll be fighting human PDFs that much in the near term.
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If the kinetic effect of Plasma were relevant it would have been mentioned either in the Plasma weapon description either here or on Lexicanum.
Plus Plasma is supposed to be a gas and those aren't supposed to be all that dense even compared to water. Even if we took the density of the surface of the sun (~1.41 g/cm cubed or a little denser than water) that's still nowhere near as dense as say steel (7.85g/cm cubed) which is what you'd want at a bare minimum if you wanted something that can actually cause kinetic damage.
They may or may not absorb the plasma blast itself, but absorbing the guidance system could be nearly as annoying...Lexicanum said:
Tau plasma weapons have significant recoil and can punch right through multiple targets.
The surface of the sun isn't fusing, which plasma weapons apparently are, which means they're at about 160 g/cm cubed, or twenty times the density of steel, which is the density of the fusing core of the sun.
Depends on the range at which absorption happens. Interesting that this suggests that Sunblaster projectiles are guided in flight.
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- Location
- Seattle, Washington
Starcannons could be an evolved version of suncannons, since there is no mention of our suncannons having any form of guidance.