Plasma Weapons
- Thread starter Dragon1
- Start date
Dragon1
Rear Admiral
The damage rating of the AMG is 300, does this mean that it brings 30 cm. of durasteel to disintegration in one second, or that it can penetrate 30 cm. of durasteel armour?
On a capital ship with 500 cm. of armour on one side, an AMG shouldn't be able to get through and cause any internal damage if 30 cm. is its maximum penetration. Unless multiple hits are sustained in the same area of plating. What does the damage rating actually mean?
On a capital ship with 500 cm. of armour on one side, an AMG shouldn't be able to get through and cause any internal damage if 30 cm. is its maximum penetration. Unless multiple hits are sustained in the same area of plating. What does the damage rating actually mean?
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Re: Charging Mass Driver. 30.0 cm is the upper limit, which requires 1.5 seconds of charging.
Re: Fission Cannon. The only information that isn't on the gun chart is that it can charge for no more than ten seconds -- meaning the maximum energy usage is 5,000 nJ. It's all academic, though, since the actual amount of damage per nJ is (according to my notes) still unknown. Perhaps one of the fan projects extracting things from Wing Commander IV has discovered something... (Also note that the maximum energy usage is theoretical -- I don't think the Lance's gun capacitor can actually provide that amount of energy in ten seconds.)
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
The AMG does 30 cm of damage. You have to keep in mind, though, that these are in-game stats. The WC2 manual (presumably intentionally) provided no stats for AMG gun damage, and the shield/armour values it lists for capital ships are 5-10x higher than in the game. For example, the Waterloo's listed armour values are (fore & aft / sides) 300/250, but the in-game stats are 30/25. Similarly, the Gilgamesh's listed stats are 250/200, but the in-game stats are 58/50. Needless to say, the AMG's damage value was designed taking the in-game stats into account - so if you wanted to assume that the manual stats are the 'real' values, you'd have to multiply the AMG damage by 10.Dragon1 said:
(I often wondered why this reduction of capship shields/armour took place, and I think an explanation just occured to me - had they kept the x10 values, the AMG values would need to be appropriately higher, in which case it would only take a single AMG bullet to kill the player regardless of his ship, and this wouldn't have been all that much fun)
Fission Cannon Research
Test-flew a Dragon to see how many Fission blasts it would take to down a Confed Transport. (ACE Mode, DVD Version WC4)
Between blast, I allowed the Transport's shields to fully recharge.
Each Fission Cannon Charge was started at a full capacitor, and held for 10 seconds. This used the entire gun pool of 680nJ.
Three blasts to the REAR quarter destroyed the transport.
400 armor
3000 core
(600x3) = 1800 shields
5200 total
Minimum damage per blast would need to be 1733.333 damage.
This would come out to 2.549 damage per nJ.
According to the little readout on the side of the screen, the first blast moved it up to about 1/4 of the bar. The second blast moved it up to 1/2. The third blast topped it out and destroyed the transport. I'm not sure if this was due to some unexplained power surge or something in the way that the damage reads out on the bar. Input appreciated =)
One thing I was unsure of is if the gun's recharge while holding the trigger goes to the fission cannon charge or if it tops out at 680. It seemed logical that it would top out at 680 given that's the capacitor size, but if anybody knows otherwise let me know.
I havn't been able to test this against anything else yet because i can't get a mission editor to work, but give me your thoughts. Especially you, LOAF =)
Test-flew a Dragon to see how many Fission blasts it would take to down a Confed Transport. (ACE Mode, DVD Version WC4)
Between blast, I allowed the Transport's shields to fully recharge.
Each Fission Cannon Charge was started at a full capacitor, and held for 10 seconds. This used the entire gun pool of 680nJ.
Three blasts to the REAR quarter destroyed the transport.
400 armor
3000 core
(600x3) = 1800 shields
5200 total
Minimum damage per blast would need to be 1733.333 damage.
This would come out to 2.549 damage per nJ.
According to the little readout on the side of the screen, the first blast moved it up to about 1/4 of the bar. The second blast moved it up to 1/2. The third blast topped it out and destroyed the transport. I'm not sure if this was due to some unexplained power surge or something in the way that the damage reads out on the bar. Input appreciated =)
One thing I was unsure of is if the gun's recharge while holding the trigger goes to the fission cannon charge or if it tops out at 680. It seemed logical that it would top out at 680 given that's the capacitor size, but if anybody knows otherwise let me know.
I havn't been able to test this against anything else yet because i can't get a mission editor to work, but give me your thoughts. Especially you, LOAF =)
It takes 1 second to drain the capacitor while charging the Fission Cannon. With a recharge of 80, the remaining 9 seconds would charge up an additional 720 energy for a total of 1400 if the charge can in fact exceed the default capacitor rating of 680. This would give the Fission cannon a damage to energy ratio of 1.238/1 with the hypothtical minimum damage of 1733.333 gleaned from the transport test.
Comments?
Comments?
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Yup. Now lets use the power of mental thinking to apply that agreement to 1994. *nnnnnnhhhhshhhh*. *oooooogh*. *diiiinoooosauuuur*. Okay, good. Did 'Victory Streak' change yet?
But seriously...
Re: Fission Cannon. I think you've covered all your bases in terms of measuring it properly... there are just some 'unknowns' that prevent us from figuring out.
For one thing, I wouldn't trust that the in-game and the manual numbers for the transports line up properly... especially in Wing Commander IV, where I'd be willing to bet there's some transport strengthening and weakening going on depending on whether you're defending or attacking them (like how Blair's fighter can take more damage than a wingman or an enemy fighter of the same class...).
The other issue is damage points versus centimeters of durasteel. The gun chart treats these numbers based on the 'in universe' explanation that 1 au = .1 cm/d... but I don't think the game does this. A transport with "300 centimeters" of armor in the manual may well have only "300 damage points" of armor in the game.
For the record, I used the stats listed under the Confederation Transport listed in the CIC Ships Database. Are these in-manual or in-game stats?
On the particular mission, the transport was friendly. Maniac and I were to guard them in that first mission after arriving on the Lexington.
The only editing I managed to do was to get our Hellcats changed to Dragons.
On the particular mission, the transport was friendly. Maniac and I were to guard them in that first mission after arriving on the Lexington.
The only editing I managed to do was to get our Hellcats changed to Dragons.