Rail Guns....underperforming?

[Killer Cyborg]

My group never allowed MD Energy Weapons to fire burts. We see those rules only for SDC Machineguns. So in our Games, Railguns were very Powerful indeed. MD Pulse Laser Rifles are even rare in our games.
In our games a Weapon's discription must state its MD Burt/Pulse damage or it cannot Burst/Pulse fire...
This alone keeps our game more in theme to what we read about in the game... (RMB)

You guys have a house rule that works for you, and that's good.
As long as you recognize that it IS a house rule.

If you doubt it, read pages 7-11 of the original CB1.

[Killer Cyborg]

No shoulder fired weapon that produces recoil is going to be capable of knocking down the target without knocking down the shooter. The physics just don't make sense.

Unless the shoulder in question belongs to a bot or suit of power armor, and the target in question is a normal human.

[Prince Artemis]

I tend to favor letting people use different types of rounds as well. One is already listed as cannon in the Galaxy guide which are explosive rounds, but honestly, I'm sure that it would be possible to make acid core rails, mercury core rails, ect. Even some poision rounds provided they can handle the high temperatures that rail metal would get too at that high velocity. Actually, one idea i seen someone use was make their rails out of magnetic metal, that would actually melt completely by the time it reached the target. He had them for a deadman rail gun. They weren't for inflicting damage, but hot melted lead would be nigh impossible to clean off of a visor/helmet, gun, ect.

[DocS]

I'm impressed. We've actually managed to go four pages without someone trying to argue that rail guns don't create recoil

They have inertial dampeners, which, are not only useful for eliminating recoil, but you can also rout their tachyon pulses through a harmonic phase inverter in order to disrupt force fields!

The lesson to be learned here, never let someone make a Star Trek Character in Rifts.

[DocS]

I'm impressed. We've actually managed to go four pages without someone trying to argue that rail guns don't create recoil

That would be just plain silly. Of course rail guns have recoil because of their metal on metal mechanics. Gauss Guns on the other hand might not. Frankly I'm not sure either way on them. I've read about how some claim to be able to modulate the EM harmonic frequency (or some techno-babble to that effect) to negate their recoil.

But realistically, isn't recoil just a result of 'for every action there is an opposite reaction'. If you shoot a bullet with X amount of force, that means the bullet also pushes back with X amount of force... isn't this independent of whether you push the bullet with explosion, em field, or telekenesis?

Am I misunderstanding recoil?

[Blight]

But realistically, isn't recoil just a result of 'for every action there is an opposite reaction'. If you shoot a bullet with X amount of force, that means the bullet also pushes back with X amount of force... isn't this independent of whether you push the bullet with explosion, em field, or telekenesis?

Am I misunderstanding recoil?

Gun recoil is a result of momentum conservation, which is an extremely important fundamental principle.
Momentum characterizes an object's resistance to change in motion. If this is motion along a straight line, we call it linear momentum; if it is rotational motion we call it angular momentum. The basic idea is the same: moving things like to keep moving, and to change their motion we have to apply a force. If no force is present, then momentum doesn't change, ie. it is conserved.
Now, you might point out that a bullet coming out of a gun has a huge force on it from the exploding gunpowder. True enough, and that force is what propels the bullet forward. However, if you look at a bullet and gun together (say while the bullet is still in the barrel but already heading out at full speed), you can say there is no net force on the bullet-gun system. So the momentum of the bullet plus gun should be conserved.

If the bullet has mass mb and speed vb out of the gun, it has momentum pb given simply by

pb = mbvb

in the forward direction. To balance this momentum (and keep the net momentum of the bullet-gun system zero), the gun recoils with momentum in the opposite direction: pg = -pb, or
mgvg = -mbvb

Although the bullet's mass is small, its speed is quite large, so it released with large momentum. The gun has much larger mass, so the recoil speed is much smaller. This primary recoil is noticeable, but not the main recoil that one feels

Secondary Recoil
There are actually two distinct recoils from a gun: the first, primary recoil, which I've described above, conserves momentum of the gun-bullet system. However, a larger secondary recoil comes slightly later, when the bullet leaves the muzzle: then the hot expanding gas behind the bullet shoots out of the muzzle, and the muzzle recoils further like a rocket. This is, again, conservation of momentum, but in this case is is the gas momentum out of the barrel that makes the secondary recoil. Gun manufacturers make baffles that reduce the flow of gas out of the muzzle to reduce secondary recoil. Primary recoil cannot be reduced, since it is simply associated with the forward momentum of the bullet. This more powerful Secondary Recoil is not a factor in a rail or coil gun system. This is where the no recoil argument get started.

[Shadyslug]

No shoulder fired weapon that produces recoil is going to be capable of knocking down the target without knocking down the shooter. The physics just don't make sense.

You're not taking into consideration the physics of the shooter being braced for the recoil.

Not to mention the fact that many firearms have recoil counter measures to diminish the recoil felt by the shooter...

[Shadyslug]

Also...keep in mind the kind of ammunition being used...

You're going to get a different transfer of energy with an armor piercing round vs. a hollow point...

Next, what part of the body is the round hitting?

If you're shooting a soft target, like a body...then most of that energy is given to penetration.

If you're shooting a hard target...then most of that energy is going to go to knock down...

[Jefffar]

No shoulder fired weapon that produces recoil is going to be capable of knocking down the target without knocking down the shooter. The physics just don't make sense.

You're not taking into consideration the physics of the shooter being braced for the recoil.

Not to mention the fact that many firearms have recoil counter measures to diminish the recoil felt by the shooter...

It doesn't matter if they are braced, unless we are talking a tripod or bipod or similar static mount, or a target already off balance, the recoil felt by the shooter and the impact felt by the target will be comperable (though the target will have all that fun penetration stuff to deal with).

Recoil counter measures help - but they are not recoil eliminators. Many of them work on diverting expanding gas - which is notably absent in railguns - then again the added recoil of the gas itslf is also absent. It is niegh imposisble to fire a Barret Rifle (which has some of the best recoil dampening systems ever) from a standing position due to the recoil - yet as demonstrated by the Mythbusters, the impact of the round is probably not going to knock someone over (though they will probably be dead anyway at that point).

[Shadyslug]

It's all relative...and based upon a bunch of factors.

Caliber, muzzle velocity, bullet type...these are the main factors.

But you can't base knock down power on recoil...there's is a correlation, but it is not static...

[Zer0 Kay]

No shoulder fired weapon that produces recoil is going to be capable of knocking down the target without knocking down the shooter. The physics just don't make sense.

You're not taking into consideration the physics of the shooter being braced for the recoil.

Not to mention the fact that many firearms have recoil counter measures to diminish the recoil felt by the shooter...

It doesn't matter if they are braced, unless we are talking a tripod or bipod or similar static mount, or a target already off balance, the recoil felt by the shooter and the impact felt by the target will be comperable (though the target will have all that fun penetration stuff to deal with).

Recoil counter measures help - but they are not recoil eliminators. Many of them work on diverting expanding gas - which is notably absent in railguns - then again the added recoil of the gas itslf is also absent. It is niegh imposisble to fire a Barret Rifle (which has some of the best recoil dampening systems ever) from a standing position due to the recoil - yet as demonstrated by the Mythbusters, the impact of the round is probably not going to knock someone over (though they will probably be dead anyway at that point).

So... against a tree or wall doesn't count as braced?

[Zer0 Kay]

It's all relative...and based upon a bunch of factors.

Caliber, muzzle velocity, bullet type...these are the main factors.

But you can't base knock down power on recoil...there's is a correlation, but it is not static...

You mean like how an AP round the same calibur as a hollow point will penitrate more and deliver far less of the ke, right?

Or in tank round a MESH will likely move the tank more when it hits than a KEP will?

[Rallan]

No shoulder fired weapon that produces recoil is going to be capable of knocking down the target without knocking down the shooter. The physics just don't make sense.

You're not taking into consideration the physics of the shooter being braced for the recoil.

Not to mention the fact that many firearms have recoil counter measures to diminish the recoil felt by the shooter...

You're not taking into account the physics of how much momentum bullets actually have. Even the bigguns don't weigh much, and even at the high velocities they travel at they're not gonna knock over a target with a person's mass unless its already almost off balance. People who get shot go down because they're in pain and/or very surprised, not because they were pushed with sufficient force to tip 'em over.

I mean come on people, we've all seen Mythbusters. We saw just how unimpressive bullets of all calibres were at making Buster wiggle.

[Crazy Lou]

I had a few things to say here, but I've elected to leave those thoughts unsaid as I feel I have an insufficient background in physics and rail gun technology to present those thoughts intelligently.

The only thing I will say is that from what has been said thus far, it appears to be that the underlying problem is that in game physics, while they are intended to be accurately parallel to real world physics, never will be due to the fact that the authors are first and foremost creative writers, and not physics experst who check the math on all statistics published. As a result, discrepancies will result, which can then be explained away by the argument that there are futurisitc technologies which are currently inexplicable at this time. I don't say this to suggest that this discussion is without merit, as I have thoroughly enjoyed it and have learned quite a bit here and think that this analysis is helpful to the understanding of the game and its mechanics, only that no matter how many factors we take into account here, and how exact our calculations are, that the math will in all likelihood not add up.

In short, please continue on, but keep in mind that, like many questions, there very likely won't be an answer to be found here, or anywhere.

[Jefffar]

Damn. I had something funny to post here, but it might have been offensive, so i took it down. BTW, a .50 cal anti-material rifle is meant to shoot down helicopters, small jeeps and non-armored transport. Using it on a human being is just barbaric, as its less a weapon of precision and more a means of brutal suppression and fear. A rifle that can sever a mans arm from its socket or rip his leg in half is probably used to punish civilians and instill terror in a populace, not perform surgical strikes or sensitive political assassinations. In other words, a PSG-1 is probably a superior weapon, even though it has a lower caliber.

An a Canadian team equipped with such a weapon took out a Taliban heavy weapons team at a range of over 2000 meters when a PSG-1 would probably have not been able to land a round with enough force to puncture the target's web-belt.

[Vrykolas2k]

No shoulder fired weapon that produces recoil is going to be capable of knocking down the target without knocking down the shooter. The physics just don't make sense.

Of course if the target is already off balance, the impact of a high velocity round (or even a low velocity round) might be enough to finish the job.

Anyway, in my games I've upped the railgun per round damage to the 2D6 to 4D6 range and use the existing full auto rules (which means that the right railgun can do 4D6x10 with a burst). I also like the tripple damage on the natural 20 rule and use that too.

Rail guns now petrify the players.

If you lived closer, I'd invite you to a shooting range or on a hunt to show you that the "physics" don't always work in real life as they do on paper. On the other hand, I might be hesitant to fire a weapon in a place of no gravity, unless I was braced against something...

[Rallan]

Using it on a human being is just barbaric, as its less a weapon of precision and more a means of brutal suppression and fear.

And shooting someone full of holes with an assault rifle, blowing them apart with a hand grenade, or blowing up the tank they're in with a rocket, isn't barbaric? Once you're in the business of using weapons to maim and kill other human beings it's a bit too late to be squeamish.

[Shadyslug]

You're not taking into account the physics of how much momentum bullets actually have. Even the bigguns don't weigh much, and even at the high velocities they travel at they're not gonna knock over a target with a person's mass unless its already almost off balance. People who get shot go down because they're in pain and/or very surprised, not because they were pushed with sufficient force to tip 'em over.

I mean come on people, we've all seen Mythbusters. We saw just how unimpressive bullets of all calibres were at making Buster wiggle.

First of all...Buster is a dummy...

Secondly, it seems that you don't understand that it's not necessarily high velocities that knock you down...In fact...a slow heavy bullet has a better chance of knocking you down than a light fast bullet.

There's this thing called momentum...and it's one of those laws of physics that you don't seem to want to address...

So...what did we learn today? High velocity doesn't equate to knock down...and that Rallan is a dummy...err...I mean Buster...

[Crazy Lou]

The thing is that knockdown that's so easy achieve (guns are really tough to dodge...) is that you have to be careful that it doesn't become an unfair advantage of its own which overcompensates for the slightly lower damage rail-guns deal.

[Rallan]

You're not taking into account the physics of how much momentum bullets actually have. Even the bigguns don't weigh much, and even at the high velocities they travel at they're not gonna knock over a target with a person's mass unless its already almost off balance. People who get shot go down because they're in pain and/or very surprised, not because they were pushed with sufficient force to tip 'em over.

I mean come on people, we've all seen Mythbusters. We saw just how unimpressive bullets of all calibres were at making Buster wiggle.

First of all...Buster is a dummy...

Secondly, it seems that you don't understand that it's not necessarily high velocities that knock you down...In fact...a slow heavy bullet has a better chance of knocking you down than a light fast bullet.

There's this thing called momentum...and it's one of those laws of physics that you don't seem to want to address...

So...what did we learn today? High velocity doesn't equate to knock down...and that Rallan is a dummy...err...I mean Buster...

I'm familiar with momentum. It's that thing which isn't badass enough to knock down the guy with the gun, even though conservation of momentum tells us that it's gonna be pushing back against the firer with as much momentum as it imparted on the bullet.

And while Buster may be a dummy, he's a dummy of average human mass. He's also a little bit closer to being bulletproof than the average human being, which means the momentum of the bullet will be transferred to him faster than it would in a person, on account of the bullet slows down faster while travelling through him than it would through someone made of meat. If bullets can barely make him jiggle while he's swinging free in a harness, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that they're not going to impart much of a push on the people they hit.

[Talavar]

A pseudo-squishy ley line walker with 200 P.P.E. and no armor would normally be sufficient to take on 4-6 coalition soldiers simply because of the easily repeatable Armor of Ithan Spell. But add a penetration or knockdown effect to rail guns and suddenly even one-on-one might become undesireable.

You even apply penetration rules & knockdown to magic force fields? Those things just don't seem to mix to me.

[Zer0 Kay]

unless you are piloting a robot or piece of power armor, the answer to why rail guns do less damage is simple: ammunition.

The average rail gun holds anywhere from 30-100 rounds in a standard clip and most have drums or canisters that can be attached that go from 200-2000 rounds. The average energy weapon gets 10-15 shots from an e-clip and 20-30 from a long e-clip, and e-clips usually cost more to recharge than a handful of metal slugs.

When one is in a prolonged battle, reloading takes time, especially if
you're using an energy weapon that connects to a canister that takes
several melee attacks or even rounds to reload. I'd rather have a weapon
that I can just keep firing until the battle is over than a weapon that I have to reload so frequently that I'm totally ineffective for half of combat.

True

Rail gun barrels will almost never overheat. This is for two reasons. 1) modern weaponry uses a CONTAINED EXPLOSION to propel a
round, this generates an extremely high level of heat... Rail guns do not use this method of propulsion. 2) Most (even modern) rail guns literally suspend the projectile in the barrel so that there is no contact with the sides. If there was contact, it would degrade the rails and eventually make the rail gun simply wear out. Google "Metal Storm" for the most recent development in real-life MLA (magnetic linear acceleration) technology. This computerized artillery piece is unbelieveable and incredibly destructive.

Not true. First railguns use uh... Rails an armiture and the round. The rails are in solid contact with the armiture and the round sits in front of the armiture. The e-m forces cause the armiture to accelerate forward pushing the round. The round is fired followed by what is left of the armiture, which is a hot plasma muzzle flash. The other method and what the Rifts Railguns actually are is gauss field acceleration. This method uses pulsed magnetic coils and a round. A coilgun is also refered to as a gauss rifle/pistol etc. as it actually uses gaussian forces to accelerate the round while the railgun uses Lorentz forces to move the armiture. Both are MAWs as they use E-M forces but in different methods. Metal Storm is the name of the company not the
weapon but the weapon that people usually refer to when they say that is
the large system the company has demonstrated. The Metal Storm weapon is NOT a MAW it is a larger version of the O'Dwyer electric gun wich is just an innovation for conventional rounds. It fires the round using
electric current rather than a mechanical means like a hammer. The weapons are faster because all the rounds are pre loaded in a barrel/magazine and fired in sequence. They state the concept is ancient essentially derived from roman candles.

So in my game the common railgun is a coilgun as it does less damage than the Boomgun and fires a lot of round which is something a railgun can't do because of it's unique design. The Boomgun is the only railgun
in Rifts it is slow firing but is able to transfer a lot of energy to the round.

Also, regarding the recoil vs. knockdown arguement. Remeber: this is the future, rail guns are definitely going to have built-in recoil
suppression. This issue is specifically addressed in the description of the glitter boy armor in the original Rifts core game book. Also, even modern weapons have many methods of recoil suppression, such as bull-pup designs, gas recoil-driven reloading mechanisms, and look at the design of the .50 cal Barret, see the gas ejection ports on the front that look like wings? Those are recoil suppression. So yes, as far a physics go; for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, but everyone who argues against the knockdown effect of rail guns is outright ignoring not only modern recoil supression techniques, but ones that may be developed by a time of a technology level like in Rifts: Earth. So my house rule is YES, RAIL GUNS DO KNOCK TARGETS DOWN. Although I do agree that they should do more damage. I usually add an extra die or two to the damage or have masive penetration/knockdown/SDC damage to targets inside armor additives when players use rail guns."

How do you reduce the recoil? It can't be solved with buffers like modern weapons use The entire barrel assembly, including the rails or coils, would
have to be able to move in the weapon. None of the railguns depicted are large enough to allow that. Then there is all your gas comments...
Only one problem and you stated it earlier, there is no gas in a MAW. What does the bull-pup configuration have to do with recoil dampening???
The bull-pup configuration just allows a weapon to have a shorter length to barrel ratio in comparison to a standard configured weapon.

A round that will pierce the target is more likely to leave the target standing as the KE is not transferred to them. Shotguns and other weapons that are usually said to knock people back don't use rounds that
are ment to penitrate like an 9mm or an AP round. MAW is far more likely to rip through a soft target and leave them standing. On a hard target like PA it would likely knock them back as MDC isn't penitrated.

[anarchclown]

Simple two cents. I have practiced martial arts for quite some time and i can say this. Bracing, even if it just means leaning forward, does help. A lot. Most people charging you with a kick can land you flat on your ass. If you are ready for it and have some sort of protection to keep your ribs from cracking you can brace against it and not fall over.

I have also fired 7.62mm Automatic Rifles several times and i have no doubt that if i had not been ready at the moment i would have been in a world of pain from the recoil. I have no trouble imagining something with a bigger caliber or higher velocity knocking people that aren't ready for it over if they don't know what they are doing.

When you are hit by the bullet from a high impact weapon chances are you wouldn't have been trained to brace (Especially not since that seems counterproductive) against the impact. This means there is probably a chance you would fall over. Just as the guy firing the weapon would fall over if he wasn't standing slightly leaned forward with the weapon tucked against his shoulder.

Actually i can recommend not firing your weapon while standing up if you can avoid it at all. Laying down both decreases the chance of being hit and increases your chance of hitting stuff. But thats a completely different question.

So in closing. Being knocked over by a gun or a rail gun as was the question here is possible. Especially if the gun is made for one ton borgs and hits 200 lbs (about 100 kg) humans. Also this is a world with supernatural elements. A dragon juicer is in theory stronger than a borg and can thus handle bigger guns than a borg can. Yet the dragon juicer weighs less. Should he go flying every time he fires a gun that makes the borg take a step back when it fires.

Obviously not. So who knows how physics in RIFTS works anyway? I doubt even KS himself can fully answer that.

[Jefffar]

The metal storm guns fire conventional gas expansion cartridges that they trigger electrically. No magnetic action there.

[glitterboy2098]

So in my game the common railgun is a coilgun as it does less damage than the Boomgun and fires a lot of round which is something a railgun can't do because of it's unique design. The Boomgun is the only railgun

actually, the boomgun is the only confirmed coilgun in rifts. its description from day one included the use of magnets to propel the round, and the use of ferrous projectiles wrapped in a plastic sabot.

which would only apply ot coilguns. a railgun uses lorentz force to propell the slug. this requires a metal projectile to bridge the gap between two charged rails. (thus railgun) wrapping the metal in a plastic sabot would render it useless, as plastic is an insulator and would not create a complete electrical circit between the rails.

a coilgun uses electromagnetic coils in sequence to move the projectile. wrapping the projectile in a sabot would have no effect, as plastic does not block magnetism. so the coils are able to 'grab' the projectile and move it despite the sabot.


the general assumption is that most 'railguns' in rifts are also coilguns, because the write up include material that indicates such, but does not confirm it. such as requiring ferrous slugs. a railgun merely needs a conductor. the ideal projectile the navy is working on actually is a nonconductive projectile coated with a thin layer of copper, aluminum, or gold, all of which are non-ferrous but very good conductors. an iron or steel slug is actually one of the worst choices for a true railgun, due to its lower conductive properties.

[Rallan]

Also, the metal storm guns still use an intense magnetic field driven by electric pulses to fire. It's not a rail or gauss gun, but it is still an MLA weapon.

No, no it doesn't. Metal Storm hurls bullets by making chemicals go bang like any other modern firearm. The big difference is that instead of starting that explosion by having a mechanical hammer slam into the chemical propellant at the ass end of the bullet, it starts that explosion by sending an electric current through the chemical propellant at the ass end of the bullet.

[Shadyslug]

I'm familiar with momentum. It's that thing which isn't badass enough to knock down the guy with the gun, even though conservation of momentum tells us that it's gonna be pushing back against the firer with as much momentum as it imparted on the bullet.

And while Buster may be a dummy, he's a dummy of average human mass. He's also a little bit closer to being bulletproof than the average human being, which means the momentum of the bullet will be transferred to him faster than it would in a person, on account of the bullet slows down faster while travelling through him than it would through someone made of meat. If bullets can barely make him jiggle while he's swinging free in a harness, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that they're not going to impart much of a push on the people they hit.

Dude...unless you're using a bolt action rifle with absolutely no shock reduction then you, the shooter, will not feel the full recoil...

I've fired plenty of firearms and would've knocked me down had I not been braced for the recoil.

This isn't to say that someone getting shot is going to fly ten feet through the air...but if I shoot you with a .45 hardball it's going to make you take at least a step back if not fall down...

If I shoot you with a high power rifle...you're probably not going to get knocked down because it will penetrate and most likely exit your body...

Now...let's review...slow heavy bullets have greater knock down than fast light bullets. Heavy fast bullets will create bigger holes...but may not impart enough energy to knock you down.

[Nekira Sudacne]

I'm familiar with momentum. It's that thing which isn't badass enough to knock down the guy with the gun, even though conservation of momentum tells us that it's gonna be pushing back against the firer with as much momentum as it imparted on the bullet.

And while Buster may be a dummy, he's a dummy of average human mass. He's also a little bit closer to being bulletproof than the average human being, which means the momentum of the bullet will be transferred to him faster than it would in a person, on account of the bullet slows down faster while travelling through him than it would through someone made of meat. If bullets can barely make him jiggle while he's swinging free in a harness, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that they're not going to impart much of a push on the people they hit.

Dude...unless you're using a bolt action rifle with absolutely no shock reduction then you, the shooter, will not feel the full recoil...

I've fired plenty of firearms and would've knocked me down had I not been braced for the recoil.

This isn't to say that someone getting shot is going to fly ten feet through the air...but if I shoot you with a .45 hardball it's going to make you take at least a step back if not fall down...

If I shoot you with a high power rifle...you're probably not going to get knocked down because it will penetrate and most likely exit your body...

Now...let's review...slow heavy bullets have greater knock down than fast light bullets. Heavy fast bullets will create bigger holes...but may not impart enough energy to knock you down.

Rail Guns are extremely large and fast rounds...so no kockdown.

[glitterboy2098]

sure, on a soft target like an unarmored human. (ignoring the fact said human will burst like a ballon due to hydrostatic shockwaves from the railgun rounds passing through at hypersonic velocity.)

on an armored target able to stop the rounds from penetrating (like RIFTS rigid body armor), all the kinetic energy is going to be transferred to the target over a very short timeframe. the rounds stop at the armor, but their inertia just transfers to the target. this is going to cause balance issues at the very least. if the rounds are moving fast enough (say, doing 200 some megajoules using an ounce of steel as a KE penetrator...) your going to see light weight targets (~under 1 ton) have some signifigant movement from impact energy alone.

[Jefffar]

Slow and heavy knocking down a person without knocking over the shooter - So what results did the Mythbusters get from a shotgun?

[Killer Cyborg]

I'll once again point out that the average railgun weighs about 200 lbs, which means that there's at least about 200 lbs more mass to absorb the recoil on the shooter's end.
And if the shooter isn't firing prone or using a tripod to hold the railgun steady, then guess what?
One of three things is happening:
1. He's a robot, or he's piloting one, or he's on a robot vehicle. In which case he's going to have a even more mass. And if it's a built-in weapon, then it's going to be built with the recoil in mind.
2. He's in power armor or is a Borg.
Which again means a LOT more mass than a typical human target is likely to have.
3. He's got Supernatural Strength.
In which case he breaks the laws of physics a dozen times before breakfast every day, so what's one more?

[Jefffar]

Hey, if you can get the circumstances to line up, you can knock over someone with a .22.

But to get a reliable knockdown from a shoulder or hip fired weapon that relys on it's impact to knock down the target and doens't have a good chance of knocking the shooter down as well, not going to happen.


Now as KC points out, when you start getting into a weapon that weighs 200 lbs and a human can't fire from the shoulder, then some knockdown possibility is defintiely there.

I think too many people here are focsing on the power that the railgun brings without looking at what it takes to give that power.

[Rallan]

Slow and heavy knocking down a person without knocking over the shooter - So what results did the Mythbusters get from a shotgun?

Not particularly impressive. It moved Buster more than most other stuff they shot him with, but that's not saying much.

Let's face it, people generally fall over when they get shot because it really really hurts a hell of a lot, not because it's enough to push a standing guy off balance.

[Phadeout]

I think the biggest argument here is this:

We are talking MDC futuristic weapons. These weapons WILL have some sort of recoil suppression for the user. These are not Shotguns or .45 rounds. A shotgun does 5d6SDC, 6d6SDC for slug I think?

We are talking about 1d4x10MD or 1d6x10MD from a Kinetic Blast.

Lets just say that the weapon will NOT knock it's user down, as long as the user can handle the weapon (PA, Borg, Juicer etc).

Now, doing 1d6x1000SDC WILL have some chance of knocking down a normal person. IF that person is not wearing MD body armor, guess what? They aren't going to be knocked down cause they are going to fly apart in pieces. IF that person IS wearing armor, they will have a damn good chance of falling flat on their back due to their armor taking that much kinetic force.

I think the knockdown tables in the Conversion Book 1 are about bang on as to what the chances are of being knocked down, while still keeping things nicely balanced. This gives railguns some equalizing factor in the game, making them just as useful as any other weapon.

Also, Range will mean a lot on an open battle field. At lot of Railguns have a range of 4000ft, some (Triax WB5) have a range of 6000ft. Plus you don't have to reload that often. On an open battle field, if you can't engage me till 2000ft, but I can engage you at 6000ft, then you have 4000ft of ground to cover before you can even start to fire at me. That's a pretty big advantage in the railgun's favor.

[Crazy Lou]

People also seem to be forgetting that in the uncommon case where an ordinary "unaugmented" grunt soldier w/ extraordinary PS (ie 26+ for the AT-600 I think) is stated to be allowed to fire a rail gun w/o additional support (no drum feeds obviously), he has no issue w/ knockdown. Keep in mind that except in very rare circumstances, you aren't going to be sleeping w/ your AT-600 railgun next to your sleeping bag, it's probably a lighter, more manueverable, and defensive weapon. Thus a large majority of the time a person will be seen using a rail gun while inside or body armor (and if you have a personal rail gun for a main combat weapon, you almost for sure have EBA), which has a really good chance of having some degree of exoskeletal support. Otherwise, thick, wired, hightech armor like that, even w/ revolutionary materials, would restrict mobility a bit more than usually indicated by encumberance penalties. These wouldn't be stated in standard EBA descriptions because they wouldn't be of a level sufficient to provide any sort of substantial bonus to the wearer, just allow him to handle the higher tech stuff in war which might otherwise be rather unwieldly. Even now, DARPA is working on some exoskeletal stuff for infantry. If I knew how to post links, I'd give one, but whatever. In another 91 years, that'd be standard issue for sure since currently it's slated to first begin being integration by sometime in the first half of the 2010s. Lastly, that armor would add still more to the mass of the shooter. While the person shot would have such armor too, as far as knockdown goes the fact that the bullet won't penetrate is actually something of a negative (though getting knocked down is better than being turned into a bloody mist...).

Just something else to consider.

[Jefffar]

The legality of the use of .50s and similarly powered weapons of war against personnel has been debated in the past - to the point that though machineguns, the .50 is typically classed as an anti-aircraft or anti-vehicle weapon. .50 rifles are generally termed Anti-Materiel Rifles rather than sniper rifles for similar reasons.

That being said, to my knowledge, nobody has every been successfully prosecuted for a War Crime for using the .50 in an anti-personnel role, either in machinegun or rifle form.

[glitterboy2098]

the legality issue is moot anyway, since in rifts there is no such laws about what can and can't be used, while in the golden age the laws would probably look very different given the prevelance of MDC armor in militaries, and the fact even a simple laser pstol has more oomph than a tank cannon.

[Crazy Lou]

the legality issue is moot anyway, since in rifts there is no such laws about what can and can't be used, while in the golden age the laws would probably look very different given the prevelance of MDC armor in militaries, and the fact even a simple laser pstol has more oomph than a tank cannon.

True dat.

[Phadeout]

Yes well, how about those Railguns knocking people down aye?

[Mack]

This forum is for Rifts related discussions. Please confine your posts appropriately.

Thanks,
Mack

[Jefffar]

So with that in mind my question is this: Would it be reasonable for a character to take a SWAT style shield (MDC of course) and proactively (with initiative) hold it between himself and a potential shooter LIKE SO, and define it as "cover" making it so the shield takes damage on normal attacks, makes it harder to shoot the guy behind it, and still allows for mobility of the defender?

More or less the way my home rule mechanic for sheilds works

[Killer Cyborg]

So with that in mind my question is this: Would it be reasonable for a character to take a SWAT style shield (MDC of course) and proactively (with initiative) hold it between himself and a potential shooter LIKE SO, and define it as "cover" making it so the shield takes damage on normal attacks, makes it harder to shoot the guy behind it, and still allows for mobility of the defender?

Yes.

[Zer0 Kay]

So in my game the common railgun is a coilgun as it does less damage than the Boomgun and fires a lot of round which is something a railgun can't do because of it's unique design. The Boomgun is the only railgun

actually, the boomgun is the only confirmed coilgun in rifts. its description from day one included the use of magnets to propel the round, and the use of ferrous projectiles wrapped in a plastic sabot.

which would only apply ot coilguns. a railgun uses lorentz force to propell the slug. this requires a metal projectile to bridge the gap between two charged rails. (thus railgun) wrapping the metal in a plastic sabot would render it useless, as plastic is an insulator and would not create a complete electrical circit between the rails.

a coilgun uses electromagnetic coils in sequence to move the projectile. wrapping the projectile in a sabot would have no effect, as plastic does not block magnetism. so the coils are able to 'grab' the projectile and move it despite the sabot.


the general assumption is that most 'railguns' in rifts are also coilguns, because the write up include material that indicates such, but does not confirm it. such as requiring ferrous slugs. a railgun merely needs a conductor. the ideal projectile the navy is working on actually is a nonconductive projectile coated with a thin layer of copper, aluminum, or gold, all of which are non-ferrous but very good conductors. an iron or steel slug is actually one of the worst choices for a true railgun, due to its lower conductive properties.

It may be the only confirmed coil gun but it doesn't make sense. A railgun is able to transfer energy to its projectile more efficiently than a coilgun. But because a coilgun is just a pulsed coil that pulls the round through it all you have to do is change the rate of the pulse in order to alter the rate of fire. While a railgun would require a complicate system to load the round and armiture into perfect contact between the rails. That is likely why the whole casing looks like a shotgun shell. The primer part of the casing is the armiture which turns to plasma as the sabot with the 200 flechettes is fired. While it wouldn't work with a coilgun because the flechettes would be pulled in all directions as the layout of the flechettes inside the sabot aren't symetric. While the coilgun... especially one with ball rounds would just have to have a proper timing circuit and a simple feed system to place the rounds into the magnet field. If the only way through the field is the direct center (i.e. a tube) then there is no problem.

Wrapping any ferous object in anything will still reduce the amount of gaussian force getting to it. Plus if the wrapped items are uneven it will get pulled more to one side than another. As I said before only the armiture needs to be conductive and that could be as I said before.