Approved Submission [Raiken] Esyga Gauss Rounds (75mm, 200mm, 300mm, 500mm)

I'm on it.

While I understand that your race does not employ anything but large metal projectiles at targets, we have a problem with how you're using the DR system. Which pains me, because I don't enjoy it — however, I'm the reviewer, so here I am.

I'll start first with the problem outside DR.

1.

Right now, we have several weapons in the setting that fire a round within a tenth of the speed of light.

One actually is a series of weapons fielded by the Gartagens. Quite frankly, I don't know how they were approved. Regardless, we can't use them as a basis to approve of what you're doing, and I don't even feel good about using them as a measuring stick.

Another is one of my design — the Chiaki destroyer's signature weapon, the Mass Driver Gun. Leigh already explained problems I had with the weapon, and I am fixing them in another tab. Its flaws are long overdue for a nerfing.

Origin has a starship weapon that fires nearly at the speed of light. That's too much, but that weapon also doesn't appear to be attached to anything other than an Abwehran/Origin product and the Atuan. Atuan somehow got that through, but I can't do much about it now.

Where am I going with this? Roughly speaking, you are talking about firing huge objects (1 ton!) through space at a speed that is absolutely mad. Nevermind I don't have a weapon against which to judge it — all I have are three rounds that go at a certain speed with defined weights.

That's not enough for me to review. I can't approve these rounds without more context.

I said three rounds because the 75 mm round confuses me. Is it used in handheld weapons as well as starship weapons? Because firing a 75 mm round at weighing 8+ pounds at 5,000 m/s generates 33,885,085 foot-pounds of energy. That is recoil energy. For comparison's sake, a round fired from a M1A1 Abrams tank generates 9,297,865 foot-pounds of energy. I'm not approving the 75 mm round out of a handheld weapon. You have your ADR4 rifle.

2.

Without (continuing to get) too technical, the amount of mass you add to each larger caliber isn't enough to justify the DR, especially when fired at the same speed.

When it comes to kinetic energy, speed > mass. You could justify the largest round being SDR5 if you significantly increased its speed instead of its mass. However, that's not going to happen, as I'm not sure 0.15 c makes sense anyway.

LATE EDIT: Also, nevermind that most gauss cannon rounds that do crazy damage are doing it through means other than kinetic force.

1. Yes, I used other weapons as a base. And yes, seeing weapons traveling at .4c, I was like, why? So, over a very long discussion with a friend over Skype (Lasted over an hour, while we worked with the round), I designated the distance from Earth to the Moon the maximum range of two ships in combat. I suggested a ten second gap from one ship to the other and the math gave us .15c. I don't mind decreasing it, but with the information above, you have HOW I made my number and why it is what it is. I try to use reasoning, even if it is bad.

I don't mind decreasing the speed, increasing the time gap between my own 'maximum effective fighting range'.

On the 75mm, I planned to use it in their point defense and their sniper rifle, indicated in OP notes. Mostly because it lets me use fewer different types. Both don't have the actual weapons yet. Yes, the sniper rifle would do ADR 5 and would probably require a special mount to use effectively. Why the round does either ADR 5 or SDR 1 is varying power supply. A small fusion core doesn't supply the same amount of power as a ship's fusion reactors. I figured SDR 1 is good enough for Point Defense, seeing how fighters aren't very tough.


2. After submitting, I figured this would probably pop up but I waited to see what you suggested. I figure I'm forced to add SOME sort of payload to rounds this large to justify damage output. Though I'm not quite sure what to add. Most of the setting uses plasma, anti-matter, or other nifty things. Could I just load the thing with explosives? Raiken don't play around with energy weapons.

1. I do appreciate the explanation. What you're running into isn't really any fault of your own. I'm trying to wrangle weaponry some on the site, and you're unfortunately the one who turns in a lot of weapons lately. Sorry.

I think you could stand to cut the speeds down significantly, as you will want to hit at closer ranges anyway in this setting. I can live with fusion power; that doesn't bother me. We just have some ridiculous speeds here (my gun formerly included) that shouldn't be.

SDR1 for point defense is rather stout. You could stick with ADR5 just fine, but it's a semantics argument at that point anyway.

The rifle ... that's just too much, man. I'm sorry. I crunched the numbers on you for that round, and it's beyond the pale. I'd factor your 50 mm round into a sniper rifle. Zip it a little faster — 6,500 m/s — and you can make it effective.

2. Explosives ... you mean like TNT-type stuff?

Let me put it this way. And I know this is going in the face of the whole DR system, but it's got my underwear in a bunch right now, so hear me out.

The Raiken don't rate against the Big Three races in terms of tech and outright killing potential. This is fact, and honestly, who cares. Raiken aren't going to fight Nepleslia tomorrow, right? That's not what you're trying to do here, so far as I can tell.

I don't see how it's possible for a slug packed with TNT to actually hurt a Big Three starship via the explosive force. The shields would shrug it off; that blast wouldn't even help you pierce the shield for the giant slug. The tech level is just too high.

So instead, why don't you just leave it at SDR5 without stuffing the slug with bombos medallions. Certainly as far as the Raiken are concerned, it's an SDR5 weapon, and they're not on the same tech level as the Big Three. Think of it as SDR5 with an asterisk.

1. Alright, if reducing speed, what's a 'fair' speed to you? It's late and I'm on my tablet so I can't really go exploring and using magical math to figure something else. 1/20 speed of light? 1/50?

I'll make a variant of the rifle to supply a sniper rifle, no problem. Less DoGA work anyhow.

2. Before I approach this section, you say it can't be SDR 5 then you say it doesn't matter. Gave that a sideways glance.

Anyhow, yes, Raiken fight Raiken and I don't give much mind to any other faction on the site in terms of military might (Because it doesn't matter right now. Nobody fights anybody anyway.) So sure, I'm down with calling it SDR 5 in the Raiken's book. They don't do high-tech shields and I'm sure the round is more than capable of piercing the armor on their ships, no matter how much they slap on em. (They love armor. Honestly, they don't pay much mind to shielding so they can slap more armor on it. Might not be effective, but it is the Raiken way of doing things.)

1. I think you could go with 0.05. That's still screaming fast, but what the hell; it's all the Raiken know. Might as well get it right. That's for your 200 mm round; I'd decrease the speed from there to be about 0.01 for your 500 mm round. It means that you'll need to be close for it, which is fitting for a huge cannon like that.

2. Sorry for the confusion there. Yes, I thought about it more between posts.

We have objective standards for what we say each DR level should "do," but we're writing entirely separate star systems that evolved in wholly unique ways compared to the Big Three. The Raiken don't have a planet-buster or a star-killer like they do; they'll never have an SDR5 weapon, but to restrict them to SDR1 all day seems wrongheaded.

So for me, this is a compromise. If there ever comes a point where the Raiken meet a Big Three starship, that dance can be worked out then. For now, this works.

1. Edited. 0.05, 0.035, 0.01c, respectively.

2. Hey, maybe one day they'll decide to actually improve their tech level, instead of existing tech! (Nope, energy weapons aren't Raiken enough.)

Anyhow, your compromise works for me.

Extra: Removed 75mm. I'll just use 50mm for the point defense, making that do ADR 5. ADR 5, SDR 1, same difference when you're shooting at a fighter.

Edits confirmed. I look forward to the weapons/emplacements. Approved.