Projectile or Energy?

>using fire to propel rocks through tubes
>20XX
what am i a mouth breathing troglodyte?

I prefer the latter. Having spent casings flying is pretty cool.

I personally like rail guns more. Chemical propellants is just asking for problems. I can understand using chemical propellants if your setting is hard sci fi though.

So, railguns or energy weapons, then?

Depends on the scale and theme of the sci-fi.

Space combat at any appreciable distance should pretty much always be fought with directed energy weapons. Kinetic projectiles, even at their fastest, are just too slow to be practical. On the ground, when it comes to small arms, realistic physics would suggest that projectiles would be more feasible.

But if your setting is not about what we think is technologically feasible then whatever. If you're doing Death Planet X: Intrepid Adventures in Outer Space! then have all the rayguns you want.

energy weapons of any flavor
railguns are okay if you're a hipster faggot

I like energy weapons.
But I don't like you.

like i give a fuck

Generally directed energy weapons are better for space combat, but kinetic weapons could have their place. With enough projectiles you could overwhelm the defenses of a laser-equipped ship. I could easily imagine a cheap defense weapon that would be nothing more than a box with a shaped charge, some maneuvering thrusters, and a fuckton of shrapnel. Aim at enemy ship, detonate, watch ship get perforated.

This article talks a lot about hypothetical space combat: rocketpunk-manifesto.com/2009/09/battle-of-spherical-war-cows-purple-v.html

Better in which regards? Inb-game or narrative-wise?

>filename.jpg
>kek

E-guns have significant advantages assuming that the laser + cooling + energy are small enough

+less noise
+less moving parts
+no recoil
+unified ammunition (energy is redeemable in many forms)
+near-instant muzzle velocity
if you find these advantages outweigh their many disadvantages, then E-guns can be a viable supplement to bullets

>energy weapons in space
It's like you want to get cooked by your own waste heat
>energy weapons in atmosphere
Boy I sure love me some effective ranges of

Kinetic weapons for small arms and infantry, everything for ships or larger scale bombardment. Other than that, depends on level of tech (specifically stable energy generation and storage)

Check out the weapons in Hyperion cantos, they have everything from flechette shotguns to multi-band masers to kinetic waves to ultraviolet lance lasers to nukes to shitloads of missiles, to superheated plasma slugs, to conventional slugs, to a thing they don't even know how it works but essentially extinguishes all neural function in a human brain via quantum tunneling or some shit. Hell, most soldiers are well enough equiped and trained in that setting to level a small modern town singlehandedly.

>Being cooked by own heat

That is always the problem no one ever addresses. My friends and I always imagined that a dedicated space battle ship would have to be covered on heat sinks to disperse the heat of the Lazer point defense, which would be the optimal anti-missle/one man fighter/kill drone weapon.

I do like the Legend of the galactic heroes's Imperial Valkyrie fighters. The idea is to fly close to the enemy destroyers and use a plasma cutter down the hull to open it and depressurize sections of the ship

gineipaedia.com/wiki/Walküre

Missiles/drones are the best option for battle between space ships

Who the fuck calls them "E-guns"?
You colossal faggot

But railguns fire slower than light rounds

You know, this bring me to another question:
In the media, when any types of shields are depicted, they are always weak against physical, kinetic weapons, while strong against Explosive/heat/energy, and average against 'energy' 'bolts' and plasma 'balls'. why is this a thing?

I personally thought up the reason being that kinetics are solid material slamming against whatever that makes up the shields, and the physical presence of the ammunition apply force directly focused on a singular point of impact, which causes these barriers fuck up their intergrity. while Explosives have all the force spead out on the surface of the barrier, causing less damage. energy is mediocre because it hits with force but it squashes and dissipates on the surface like explosives. so a middle ground between kinetic and High-ex.

Thoughts?

I was thinking that there was some sort of physical composite armor to make up where the shields lacked in Physical Defence.

Kinetic is just a very dense energy weapon.

Narrative-wise, as well as pure "rule-of-cool".

>physics fag is obvious

>Missiles/drones
It's okay, you can just say missiles.
There's no point to making reusable munitions carriers when it takes 4x extra energy just to retrieve them from their hours-long journey to a target, and you could be using all that extra mass to carry more and larger torpedoes in the first place.

>E-guns

Energy is something that seems well and all, but pure kinetics are always going to be preferred. The only time that you shouldn't be shooting a solid bullet is if you are able to some how fire pure plasma

iGuns
E-blasters
AOL ONLINEnergy shooters
Lasguns

So many better names then E-guns

Kinetic

Gauss gun is best gun. Makes me feel like I'm pointing a science fair project at someone and shooting lightning bolts at them. And there's a certain satisfaction knowing that the target was killed by a bullet and not magic.

I also like the sound effects they usually get in vidya. Although they still don't beat over-the-top shotguns and revolvers that sound like God slamming a car door.

Concept for a combo of both. Have the gun fire a smart projectile that has a small, intense magnetic field to hold a sheath of plasma. Higher caliber rounds could hold stronger plasma payloads for potential AoE effects.

E-gun = energy gun
seems pretty self-explanatory
DEW = directed energy weapon
is that better?

Both, depending on the type of scifi setting.

Projectile for smaller weapons. Direct Energy for larger ones. Energy weapons have overheating problems in space. Keep small arms simple. Missiles are fine in either case.

Do you want spent cartridges flying around the compartment in zero-G? Hot brass floating inside the control panel shorting out critical components will ruin your day.

What about plasma?

...

Projectile weapons. Why? Because 99% of the time they're more efficient and can pack more of a punch at the same size. You'll be hard pressed to make a laser on infantry scale that's as powerful as a Browning Machinegun, and you'll be even harder pressed to make a laser as powerful as a railgun.

The only thing lasers are good for is point defense anyway. Shit for fighting vehicles or people.

Actually if you're delivering the assload of power to instantly kill somebody with a non-photonic weapon, there will be kick.

Kinetic projectile weapons for pretty much everything. I prefer traditional ballistics but I do like to see some railguns in space settings.

I don't mind energy weapons for like, point defense and satellite weaponry. The one exception is mecha settings - if you've already got giant robots, bring out the fucking particle beams and laser swords we're doing this.

How about a gun that negates the Higgs field?

Virtually all energy weapons have a consumable substance that is required to fire so ammunition is absolutely a thing.

Most lasers use a gas that is consumed during operation.

Plasma and particle weapons are projecting matter so obviously they need a supply of it.

Etc.

Of course, heat sinks suck in a vacuum. You could dump the heat into a block of something dense and then eject it but you're only doing that so many times.

Okay but if you could actually make the kraut space magic work you could just magic up a death laser.

All energy weapons except lasers fire slower than light rounds and lasers have the biggest problem with heat dissipation.

That's why you use them only during the heat of battle. Afterwards, you need to extend the radiators.

It's rule of cool, there is zero scientific basis to explain the behaviour of most sci-fi shields.

Making shields strong against energy weapons only keeps armour and projectile weapons relevant

Same as the D&D bullshit about plate being heavy and encumbering exists to keep chainmail relevant.

Obligatory

Absolutely but there is a very real risk of hitting a point where you are unable to continue firing and that is extremely not-good.

Conventional projectile weapons have a major advantage here in that a surprisingly high percentage of waste heat is trapped in the shell casing so ensuring that you're electing those into space rather than collecting them inside the hull helps significantly.

The way my shields is work is that they change the inerta of the bullet via gravity manipulation. The internal computer of the shield generator has to calculate the best course to do this but because personal shields have limited energy they have to be recharged frequently. This is why both energy (basically lasers) and physical attacks work against shields, because the force either cannot be redirected due to its source (in the case of lasers) or the strength of the blow across the shield is too great (in the case of physical attacks). However, this only applies to personal shields and is harder on larger shield generators, such as on starships or mechs.

He said "Unified", not "Unlimited". He's still wrong though, AAA batteries will not fit in a AA lasergun.

What about weapons firing exotic particles like the Tau Cannon?

>+less noise
Except for the noise of your power generation system, capacitor bank discharge, etc.
>+less moving parts
Again, forgetting your power generation system. I'm pretty sure that a gas turbine engine plus generator or a nuke plant have more parts than a firearm.
>+no recoil
For a laser, not true of other energy weapons.
>+unified ammunition (energy is redeemable in many forms)
All of the good types of laser use up their medium and need it to be replaced. Obviously not true for other types of energy weapons.
>+near-instant muzzle velocity
For lasers, not for other types.

>tfw nearly every laser weapon shoots a flaccid light-bullet instead of a continuous stream of FUCK YOU

...

youtube.com/watch?v=XhBpwJWqMgA
Why not both?

Best in show.

Railguns are the best of both worlds.

They shoot projectiles that go so fast they literally ignite the air around them.

actually makes sense, lasers would produce a flash so brief, even if they were in the visible spectrum of light you wouldn't percieve it
the cooling system might sound like a continous low hum as opposed to a sudden explosion
no moving parts is considered to be true for a fallout or warhammer style laser gun
not chargeable fuel cells?
energy is a currency redeemable in many forms
even an anti-tank laser would produce way less recoil than a comparable kinetic weapon
i remember a movie where there are 2 shields, one for physical and one for energy, and they only stop the kind they are made for
lasers are also cool

I think there's an interesting reversion if say beam or laser weapons are widespread and considered to be more efficient, but there are some ridiculously highly powered kinetic weapons that blow them the fuck out occasionally. Think like Exia in 00 Gundam.

Reliability? Strange concept.

Lasers for the elite imperial military and certain sovereign systems, gauss weapons for fledgling colonies and dirt poor space pirates.

DEW is good, especially for directed kinetic energy projectiles like bullets

>All energy weapons except lasers fire slower than light
Wrong. There's other forces that travel exactly as fast as photons that could possibly be used as a destructive weapon. And laser light doesn't even cover all photons in the first place.

>lasers have the biggest problem with heat dissipation.
Not necessarily true, this is a very arbitrary thing to say.

I think that it's precisely because energy weapons sound so unlikely if you understand the energy requirements involved, they become all the more impressive in harder science fiction types to indicate that the user/builder is a really, really, really, really advanced society. Especially when we're talking about the truly ridiculous levels, like gamma lasers that can boil oceans across the solar system or inversion beams that turn targets into antimatter from the inside out.

>level a small modern town
user, the F.O.R.C.E soldiers from the Hyperion Cantos could very likely depopulate large sections of modern day EARTH highhandedly. Some of the settings on their rifle can be used to slice chunks off the fucking moon, FROM THE SURFACE.

Energy weapons make my peepee grow big. I, however, do enjoy a good 'ol dakka machine.

Don't be so hard, it was the world's first clockwork rifle.

gamma lasers are supposedly a milestone in physics that will revolutionize the world, that you can use them to create a laser that slices, as it dices, as it cancerizies is a cool bonus

if it delivers at least one megaton of energy you could call it a MT. DEW

I prefer kinetic purely because I like my guns to go bang.

Amusingly, if you're in space, it's only kinetic weapons that will look like we imagine energy weapons to. Most beams would be invisible in a vacuum. Hypervelocity projectiles will be sheathed in plasma as they leave the barrel, giving them the appearance of Star Wars like "energy bolts".

> sheathed in plasma

Where's this coming from? Compression of air inside the barrel before firing?

The outer layer of matter forming the projectile sublimating from friction as it passes through the barrel. Admittedly, this does indicate that the firing process is not as efficient as it could be, since this cool-looking process results in the loss of quite a bit of potential energy.

Mass Effect had cannons which fired streams of molten uranium alloy at relativistic speeds. The result looks like a red laser beam.

Particle accelerators. Travelling at near-light speeds a particle beam can impact with a tremendous amount of physical force, causing a flash-heating of the target molecules causing an explosion at the point of impact. Being shot by a particle accelerator would feel like pulling the pin on a grenade and then holding it flat against your chest when it explodes.

That's something I can see happening - engineers are often amusing in naming things, consider the planned B1 variant, the B1-Regional
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_B-1_Lancer#Variants

In case you don't know, the B-1 is generally known as the Bone, making the B-1 R...

Combo. Railguns work better when you have chemical propellent to kickstart it anyway

We use metal bullets for centuries, so yes, you are.

And traditional guns work better if you add electricity to them.

Like, to the bullets? Lead isn't very conductive. Or do you mean the inner workings? Or are you making fun of me and I'm autistic

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrothermal-chemical_technology

So inner workings then. It's not like the bullets are electrically charged or anything, it just involves electricity in the propulsion.

But yeah, in my sci fi I like pretty much every gun to be some variation on this concept. No reason to have guns that aren't using these kinds of principles.

>No reason

KISS

No, the propellant isn't the inner workings of the gun, it's the gas that pushes the bullet forward.

Nah, modern guns are more complex than muskets. That's not usually true if your engineerig is good

But the electricity isn't part of the propellent, it's just used to ignite the propellent chemicals. It's part of the inner workings

No, it's used to shape the propellant as it's propelling the bullet. That's why they're pointing out that it's plasma, because plasma has an electric charge and can be manipulated that way.

Guys, guys, hear me out on this.

What if we had railguns that looked and fired like muskets? Just a big ole bulky firearm with extreme range and accuracy that requires a recharge period and has a long, hard barrel.

Unf, that's the stuff.

What about muskets that look like railguns? Double subversion!

For cyberpunk/near-future, projectiles are clearly pre-dominant in the genre. For space-faring sci-fi/space opera, lasers/pasers/etc are the leading genre trope. I mean... this is cut and dry. Reversing the roles in either can be considered subversion of part of the genre to some degree.

Yeah, I guess the propellent is electrically charged. It dissipates though, so the projectile that you're hitting people with is not. And the electricity is still part of the inner workings even if it's also present in the propellent, so that's just pedantry.