Positron Cannon

I

Ijuin

Admiral
When I read about how capship antimatter guns are supposed to bypass shields, I got to thinking, why can't Confed produce a scaled-down version of them for fighters? That thought led to the creation of the Positron Cannon. Here are the stats:

Damage: 30cm
Refire delay: 500ms
Energy drain: 40GJ

The Positron Cannon inflicts moderate damage, comparable to the Ion Cannon, however, it completely bypasses the shields of the target, instead attacking the armor/core directly. This can be very useful because it means that every hit causes damage to the target.

Along these lines we also have a positron missile:

Max Speed: 2000kps
Acceleration: 600k/s^2
Maneuverability: 60dps
Lock Range: 10,000k
Lock Time: 4.0s
Duration: 15.0s
Spoof: 50%
Damage: 300cm

The Positron missile is capable of penetrating both normal and phase shields due to the use of antimatter instead of chemical or nuclear explosives. What happens is that, instead of the entire missile penetrating the target's shields and impacting, the missile opens up just outside the shields and releases a stream of antimatter at the target. Antimatter is not blocked by phase shields as matter is, making this the only fighter-mounted missile capable of bypassing phase shielding.
 
Originally posted by Ijuin
When I read about how capship antimatter guns are supposed to bypass shields, I got to thinking, why can't Confed produce a scaled-down version of them for fighters?

The Positron missile is capable of penetrating both normal and phase shields due to the use of antimatter instead of chemical or nuclear explosives. What happens is that, instead of the entire missile penetrating the target's shields and impacting, the missile opens up just outside the shields and releases a stream of antimatter at the target. Antimatter is not blocked by phase shields as matter is, making this the only fighter-mounted missile capable of bypassing phase shielding.
Click to expand...


Larger bombers like the Devastator already feature weapons capable of penetrating normal and phase shields in the form of the Plasma Cannon.

IIRC torpedo's can bypass phase shields by matching the frequency of the targets shields, (hence the long lock time)

The Positron Missile looks like a nice weapon, though, i like the short lock time, but what size is it? could it be mounted on a fighter? if so that would give Confed an advantage in that even the lightest fighter could damage a Cap-Ship (in my opinion anyway)
 
Be careful with how large a warhead you put in that sucker (positron missile)! If you used the same size ball of uranium, or whatever, and split it by its positrons, you could destroy an entire system (positrons are the 2nd smallest known element of an atom, and there are many more, so the potential power of such a weapon would be SO exponentially more powerful than today's nukes).
 
is that true, or just your claim?

I am not taking the P, I am genuinely interested. I was always interested in Particle Physics, (and Architecture of course :rolleyes: )
 
Originally posted by Wulf
Be careful with how large a warhead you put in that sucker (positron missile)! If you used the same size ball of uranium, or whatever, and split it by its positrons, you could destroy an entire system (positrons are the 2nd smallest known element of an atom, and there are many more, so the potential power of such a weapon would be SO exponentially more powerful than today's nukes).
Click to expand...
Well..... not really. Positrons are damn small, which means that they deliver not much energy when they react. It's all dependent on the mass of the reactant, and antimatter always delivers (at 100% efficiency) roughly 42.7 megatons per kilogram reacted. (technically it's 21 and change, but you also have to factor in the kilogram of normal matter that reacted with the AM).
 
Hmm... is there something you're going to use this for? Like an RPG or a fan mission or somesuch?
 
Well, regardless of how powerful an antimatter missile would be in real life, I gave it the four second lock time and damage of 300cm in order to preserve game balance. If I gave the positron missile a higher damage potential, then it would be hands down superior to the Javelin HS and Spiculum IR (but not necessarily the Artemis ELRIR which has damage 520cm). 300cm should be enough to down anything lighter than a Manta with one hit.

As for actually implementing this missile in gameplay, I do not know if the WCP engine allows you to create missiles that bypass shields entirely yet are targetable at fighter craft and not just capship components. Anyone know?

As for the positron cannon, this is meant to be a smaller cousin to the heavy antimatter and plasma cannons--a lighter, faster firing version meant to be mounted on fighter craft.
 
Well since Anti-matter can survive in open space, at least until it comes in contact with real matter, and it's not affected by shields; why not simply create an anti-matter gun?
Much higher damage potential, but unguided( a point to balancing the challenge).
 
Originally posted by Shaggy
Well since Anti-matter can survive in open space, at least until it comes in contact with real matter, and it's not affected by shields; why not simply create an anti-matter gun?
Much higher damage potential, but unguided( a point to balancing the challenge).
Click to expand...

As I said, the Positron Cannon is a smaller cousin of the AMG, designed to be mounted on fighter craft--capship AMGs are too power-hungry to mount on anything smaller than a Devastator. Positrons are the antimatter counterparts of Electrons, and are easier to generate than the anti-protons used by the capship AMGs, thus the Positron Cannon fires smaller bursts with a quicker refire rate.

Besides, if you want a bigger shield-penetrating cannon, there is already the Devastator's Heavy Plasma Cannon.
 
Originally posted by Shaggy
Well since Anti-matter can survive in open space, at least until it comes in contact with real matter, and it's not affected by shields; why not simply create an anti-matter gun?
Much higher damage potential, but unguided( a point to balancing the challenge).
Click to expand...

Positrons are anti-matter. A positron the anti-matter of an electron. So therefore, a positron cannon is an anti-mater cannon. In fact those big AMGs are probably positron guns. After all, they are the easiest to create and find.
 
this is an interesting idea, but only against capships.
if i could kill all enemy fighters with one cannon burst, i'd loose interest very quickly.
 
Originally posted by Happy
this is an interesting idea, but only against capships.
if i could kill all enemy fighters with one cannon burst, i'd loose interest very quickly.
Click to expand...

As was said, this cannon is smaller and faster-firing than the plasma cannon mounted on Devestators. With a damage potential of 30cm per shot, and assuming that a fighter carries a pair of them since most fighter guns are in pairs, it would take at least 4-5 hits to down even a Moray, and probably 12 hits to down a Devil Ray. The advantage of this gun is that armor hits cannot be repaired as shield hits can.
 
i remember when quake had the best graphics.
they kicked ass. they only got better with the openGL upgrade.:cool:
 
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