47 Antworten in diesem Thema

[MrFob]

Should be easy to shield the weapon against too much exposure with ME fields (which the weapon has to generate anyway. Remember that the only reason why kinetic barriers only work for bullets is because they are programmed that way. It would actually be easier to make a barrier that keeps dust, etc. out. The only problem would be non-material hazards like extreme temperatures and such but as gothpunkboy89 says, given the advanced construction materials and alloys they have, I can see how that is not a problem either.

[SuperJogi]

Even the most powerful mass accelerators only reach 1.3% the speed of light, while thats pretty fast, it's still nowhere near the speed of light.

 

Slugs being accelerated without chemical propellants? Possible, but then you have an energy source to consider. Where does your power come from? While this works with large rail guns, how does it work with small arms?

 

ME guns would need extremely powerfull batteries in order to work. That adds another resource you have to worry about to keep your weapon working: thermal clips, ammo blocks and electricity. While not a problem in a well supplied army, I certainly wouldn't swich out an AK47 for one of these in a survival type situation.

[Undead Han]

Even the most powerful mass accelerators only reach 1.3% the speed of light, while thats pretty fast, it's still nowhere near the speed of light.

 

 

ME guns would need extremely powerfull batteries in order to work. That adds another resource you have to worry about to keep your weapon working: thermal clips, ammo blocks and electricity. While not a problem in a well supplied army, I certainly wouldn't swich out an AK47 for one of these in a survival type situation.

 

I think the issue with 20th Century weapons would be that they probably wouldn't be able to penetrate body armor in the Mass Effect universe. Body armor can deflect rounds travelling at near relativistic speeds, so they should have no problem dealing with old school bullets.

[SuperJogi]

I think the issue with 20th Century weapons would be that they probably wouldn't be able to penetrate body armor in the Mass Effect universe. Body armor can deflect rounds travelling at near relativistic speeds, so they should have no problem dealing with old school bullets.

 

Sure, I wasn't trying to imply that more powerfull weapons aren't needed on the furure battlefield. I meant that for a lot purposes that people use guns for today (self defence, hunting etc.) a simple, old school chemical propellant gun would be sufficient and more reliable.

 

However, that opens the question: If you have the energy necessary to power a miniature railgun that can achieve much higher kinetic energy than a chemical propellant, why would you waste all that energy to achieve ridiculous velocities?

 

There is really no big advantage for having muzzle velocities above 2000m/s. In fact, there is a big disadvantage: A light and fast projectile loses it's energy due to friction much much quicker than a slow and heavy one. This negativly affects range, accuracy and penetration. If you wanted to use the ME tech to it's full potential you would make the slug heavier, not faster.

[gothpunkboy89]

Even the most powerful mass accelerators only reach 1.3% the speed of light, while thats pretty fast, it's still nowhere near the speed of light.

 

 

ME guns would need extremely powerfull batteries in order to work. That adds another resource you have to worry about to keep your weapon working: thermal clips, ammo blocks and electricity. While not a problem in a well supplied army, I certainly wouldn't swich out an AK47 for one of these in a survival type situation.

 

I don't think they would need that powerful of batteries. They are only accelerating a tiny sliver of metal.  As well as the fact the mass effect field isn't that big.  A maybe 1 oz or so round vs a 100 Ton ship is a big difference in energy needs to reduce the weight to achieve speeds.

 

The part that would take the most power is the ammo block shaving part. But even that could be over come with mechanical action.  The ammo block in the gun shifting to drive gears that create the electrical charge needed to run the gun.  Which would explain the recoil effect.  I mean you are firing a tiny chunk of metal that has had it's mass reduced to even less then originally.  Unless Newton's Third Law no longer applies.  Or I'm misunderstanding it.

 

Throwing an object without any mass shouldn't create an opposite reaction. We only have recoil in modern fire arms because of newton's third law. The energy to push the mass of the bullet to speed has the opposite effect of pushing the gun back the same amount.

 

Unless they increase the round mass before firing it. But then once it leaves the mass effect field it would lose it's added mass.   Unless it operates like some sort of mass relay. Each time you fire it it creates a temporary corridor of no mass for the bullet to go though. The continual creating and removal of mass down the lenght of the barrel and in front of it causes the guns to kick in responds to it. Much like a boat in waves.

[gothpunkboy89]

There is really no big advantage for having muzzle velocities above 2000m/s. In fact, there is a big disadvantage: A light and fast projectile loses it's energy due to friction much much quicker than a slow and heavy one. This negativly affects range, accuracy and penetration. If you wanted to use the ME tech to it's full potential you would make the slug heavier, not faster.

 

Yet at high enough speed even light objects are able to penetrate things better.

 

Mythbusters fired a piece of straw at a palm tree at 320mph and it penetrated the tree a quarter of an inch.

 

2000m/s equals around 4473mph. So the straw fired at 7.1% of the 2000m/s muzzle velocity was able to go 1/4th of an inch into a solid wood tree.

[SuperJogi]

I don't think they would need that powerful of batteries. They are only accelerating a tiny sliver of metal.  As well as the fact the mass effect field isn't that big.  A maybe 1 oz or so round vs a 100 Ton ship is a big difference in energy needs to reduce the weight to achieve speeds.

 

Accelerating just 0.1g of mass to 1% light speed takes 450 million joules of energy, thats about 125 kilowatt-hours assuming 100% efficiency. That's a big ****** battery.

 

Throwing an object without any mass shouldn't create an opposite reaction. We only have recoil in modern fire arms because of newton's third law. The energy to push the mass of the bullet to speed has the opposite effect of pushing the gun back the same amount.

 

The object doesn't have no mass (that would be impossible), it has a very small mass, but that doesn't really matter. The only thing that matters is kinetic energy and the Mass Effect doesn't change that, otherwise it would violate conservation of energy. The mass effect reduces mass to increase velocity, this has no effect on the recoil. The only thing you can do to reduce the effect of the recoil (not the recoil itself) is by making the gun heavier.

 

Yet at high enough speed even light objects are able to penetrate things better.

 

Mythbusters fired a piece of straw at a palm tree at 320mph and it penetrated the tree a quarter of an inch.

 

2000m/s equals around 4473mph. So the straw fired at 7.1% of the 2000m/s muzzle velocity was able to go 1/4th of an inch into a solid wood tree.

 

 

 

You misunderstood what I was saying. I wasn't saying that increasing velocity does nothing, I am saying that increasing mass instead of velocity would be more efficient after about 2000m/s (maybe even earlier, but I'm no ballistics expert).

[iM3GTR]

My head hurts.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

The kick from firing a round no matter how light at 2000 m/s must be enormous as well as the noise generated. Let's not forget the noise. What kind of hearing protection would be needed? 

 

Then there is another problem of firing those things inside of the Normandy in ME2. Missing and hitting the hull. Okay there were massive hull breaches, and the Normandy was in desperate need of dry dock and extensive repairs after the Suicide Mission, another indication why Arrival being done then doesn't make any sense.

[SuperJogi]

The kick from firing a round no matter how light at 2000 m/s must be enormous as well as the noise generated. Let's not forget the noise. What kind of hearing protection would be needed?

 

2000m/s isn't really that much, for example 5.56mm NATO has a muzzle velocity of about 1000m/s. The reason I picked that number was because that's when any hit within a range of 1000m would be pretty much instantanious and there would'nt really be a reason to go faster for small arms. But I'm not sure, maybe someone with experience of firing rifles over large ranges could give some insight to what a difference muzzle velocity makes.

[gothpunkboy89]

Accelerating just 0.1g of mass to 1% light speed takes 450 million joules of energy, thats about 125 kilowatt-hours assuming 100% efficiency. That's a big ****** battery.

 

The object doesn't have no mass (that would be impossible), it has a very small mass, but that doesn't really matter. The only thing that matters is kinetic energy and the Mass Effect doesn't change that, otherwise it would violate conservation of energy. The mass effect reduces mass to increase velocity, this has no effect on the recoil. The only thing you can do to reduce the effect of the recoil (not the recoil itself) is by making the gun heavier.

 

You misunderstood what I was saying. I wasn't saying that increasing velocity does nothing, I am saying that increasing mass instead of velocity would be more efficient after about 2000m/s (maybe even earlier, but I'm no ballistics expert).

 

True objects can never have no mass. How ever the mass can be reduced to the point it is no longer a major factor if even one. Hence why Reapers despite their massive size can reduce their weight with mass effect fields to be able to land on a planet and walk across it with their legs.

 

For example how much power would be required to accelerate 0.00000000001g of mass to 1% speed of light?  They never specified a ratio of how much power gives how much mass reduction using element zero.

 

Accelerating anything and how much power it takes also depends on how much resistance it faces. Hence why you could use the same engine in a heavy family car. Put it in a lighter sports car and achieve better fuel efficiency, faster acceleration and higher top speed.  Which leads into the point of ME fields. That 450 million joules of energy. Is that in a completely friction free environment? Or should I say that the environment has been changed so any resistance it has is near infinitesimal?

[SuperJogi]

True objects can never have no mass. How ever the mass can be reduced to the point it is no longer a major factor if even one. Hence why Reapers despite their massive size can reduce their weight with mass effect fields to be able to land on a planet and walk across it with their legs.

 

For example how much power would be required to accelerate 0.00000000001g of mass to 1% speed of light?  They never specified a ratio of how much power gives how much mass reduction using element zero.

 

We are not talking about spaceships, we're talking about guns. The projectile NEEDS kinetic energy in order to do damage, reducing it's mass to near nonexistance to save energy is the opposite of what you want to do, you want to maximise kinetic energy at the point of impact.

 

Accelerating anything and how much power it takes also depends on how much resistance it faces. Hence why you could use the same engine in a heavy family car. Put it in a lighter sports car and achieve better fuel efficiency, faster acceleration and higher top speed.  Which leads into the point of ME fields. That 450 million joules of energy. Is that in a completely friction free environment? Or should I say that the environment has been changed so any resistance it has is near infinitesimal?

 

I calculated the above number simply using E=(1/2)mv². So yes it's without friction. It doesn't consider the way of acceleration at all, it was meant to show what kinds of energies we're talking about here.

 

But it's funny that you bring up friction because thats the entire reason why a very light but very fast projectile is a dumb idea. In fluid dynamics, the force that pushes againts an object traveling through a fluid (or gas), has a quadratic dependincy on the velocity of the object. That means that a linearly increasing velocity will result in an exponentially increasing drag force. And since f=ma it will be deaccelerated much more beacause of it's low mass. Since kinetic energy also has a quadratic dependincy on velocity it would lose energy VERY fast.

 

To make it more understandable: If you were to compare the performance of two projectiles A and B, with both projectiles starting out with an identical kinetic energy and in the same atmosphere.

Projectile A is slow and heavy and projectile B is fast and light. In comparison to projectile A, projectile B would:

 

1. Experience a much greater drag force because of it's higher velocity (F=(1/2)pCAv²)

2. Be deaccelerated much greater because of it's lower mass (a=F/m)

3. Lose velocity very fast (v=at)

3. Lose kinetic energy very fast (E=(1/2)mv²)

 

That's what I mean when I say that you would be wasting energy in further increasing velocity instead of mass.

[gothpunkboy89]

Reducing it's mass to accelerate it then allowing the mass to return once it leaves the gun is more or less exactly what it does.

 

There was actually a lot of this basic idea kicked around during and a little after the Cold War. Kinetic Bombardment. Course they wanted large scale damage but the basic idea of a 20 foot long, 1 foot diameter tungsten rod dropped from orbit reaching terminal velocity would hit with 11 tons of TNT from a 9 ton rod. All while simply letting gravity do it's work. Kind of a amazing isn't it.

 

If we could currently reduce the mass of a round we could in theory reduce the energy needed by the gunpowder to accelerate to muzzle velocity. AKA fire a .50 cal sniper rifle using the same amount of gun powder as 9mm hand gun round.  Because remember the object only has the reduced mass as long as it is within the ME field of effect.  Once it leaves the muzzle it regains all it's reduced mass. Which is what I'm getting at. Reducing the weight of the round to infinitesimal amount. Thus reducing the energy needed to accelerate it. Allow it to reach muzzle velocity while within the ME field then (assuming it works like a magnetic field) the round after reaching muzzle velocity is introduced back to the friction and drag of the atmosphere.  With the obvious fact any round taken from the ammo block would be created to be aerodynamic with the exception of maybe shotgun rounds.

 

The main question is how do they accelerate them? More use of ME fields to pull them towards the barrel? It would have to be if they are using tungsten or other non magnetic rounds.

[Sir Floopy]

So, uhh... Does anyone have an answer to my original question? Interesting tangent, but I was kind of hoping for a bit more input on the location of the ammo block...

[SuperJogi]

Reducing it's mass to accelerate it then allowing the mass to return once it leaves the gun is more or less exactly what it does.

 

If we could currently reduce the mass of a round we could in theory reduce the energy needed by the gunpowder to accelerate to muzzle velocity. AKA fire a .50 cal sniper rifle using the same amount of gun powder as 9mm hand gun round.  Because remember the object only has the reduced mass as long as it is within the ME field of effect.  Once it leaves the muzzle it regains all it's reduced mass. Which is what I'm getting at. Reducing the weight of the round to infinitesimal amount. Thus reducing the energy needed to accelerate it. Allow it to reach muzzle velocity while within the ME field then (assuming it works like a magnetic field) the round after reaching muzzle velocity is introduced back to the friction and drag of the atmosphere.  With the obvious fact any round taken from the ammo block would be created to be aerodynamic with the exception of maybe shotgun rounds.

 

I don't think it works like that, because that would obviously violate conservation of energy.

 

The main question is how do they accelerate them? More use of ME fields to pull them towards the barrel? It would have to be if they are using tungsten or other non magnetic rounds.

 

In the codex it says:

 

A mass accelerator propels a solid metal slug using precisely-controlled electromagnetic attraction and repulsion

 

So I assume it's some sort of railgun or coilgun. The ME field doesn't do any acceleration itself. That means the projectile is either conductive itself, or sits in some kind of sled or sabot.

 

So, uhh... Does anyone have an answer to my original question? Interesting tangent, but I was kind of hoping for a bit more input on the location of the ammo block...

 

It's been a while since I played ME1, but if I remember correctly you could actually see the PC reloading the gun after a firefight. If someone can confirm, it would answer a lot of your questions.

[gothpunkboy89]

So, uhh... Does anyone have an answer to my original question? Interesting tangent, but I was kind of hoping for a bit more input on the location of the ammo block...

 

Most likely just under the the barrel. Roughly the same area that in any current rifle we input the ammo into. After all the weapons fold up and the ammo block would have to be in an area that doesn't fold and that seems to be relegated to the same area in modern fire arms were ammo is loaded.

[gothpunkboy89]

I don't think it works like that, because that would obviously violate conservation of energy.

 

 

In the codex it says:

 

 

So I assume it's some sort of railgun or coilgun. The ME field doesn't do any acceleration itself. That means the projectile is either conductive itself, or sits in some kind of sled or sabot.

 

 

It's been a while since I played ME1, but if I remember correctly you could actually see the PC reloading the gun after a firefight. If someone can confirm, it would answer a lot of your questions.

 

But it doesn't violate the conservation of energy. Energy is not destroyed just altered. In this case the mass of the round is reduce during acceleration to muzzle velocity. Which on exist of the weapon going beyond the ME field it's reduced mass it returned.  I thought it was some kind of rail/coil gun but had been a while since I read the Codex.

 

Ever get that odd feeling like you are putting more thought into something then the developer did when creating it?

[MrFob]

I don't think it works like that, because that would obviously violate conservation of energy.
 
 
In the codex it says:
 
 
So I assume it's some sort of railgun or coilgun. The ME field doesn't do any acceleration itself. That means the projectile is either conductive itself, or sits in some kind of sled or sabot.

Oh but please don't quote partial entries. Here is the rest of it:

Accelerator design was revolutionized by element zero. A slug lightened by a mass effect field can be accelerated to greater speeds, permitting projectile velocities that were previously unattainable. If accelerated to a high enough velocity, a simple paint chip can impact with the same destructive force as a nuclear weapon

 

So it pretty much works just like gothpunkboy89 described. Of course, conservation of energy is an issue but pretty much anything eezo related has this problem anyway, so we have to assume that eezo and ME field related physics does not follow the laws of thermodynamics in exactly the same way that we understand them today. The extra energy might be provided by the electrical current that is sued to charge the eezo but the numbers would (as always) be preposterously high.

 

It's been a while since I played ME1, but if I remember correctly you could actually see the PC reloading the gun after a firefight. If someone can confirm, it would answer a lot of your questions.

I don't think that's the case (at least IIRC). I still maintain that the blocks need to be accessable because we can easily change ammo mods, which are basically different blocks (see the descriptions here).

[SuperJogi]

But it doesn't violate the conservation of energy. Energy is not destroyed just altered. In this case the mass of the round is reduce during acceleration to muzzle velocity. Which on exist of the weapon going beyond the ME field it's reduced mass it returned.  I thought it was some kind of rail/coil gun but had been a while since I read the Codex.

 

That still means that the projectile ends up with more energy than what was transferred to it while accelerating. That's a blatant violation of conservation of energy.
 

Ever get that odd feeling like you are putting more thought into something then the developer did when creating it?

 

Of course! Which is why I would probably be a terrible Sci-fi writer since I would spend most of my time picking my own ideas apart. 

 

Oh but please don't quote partial entries. Here is the rest of it:

So it pretty much works just like gothpunkboy89 described. Of course, conversation of energy is an issue but pretty much anything eezo related has this problem anyway, so we have to assume that eezo and ME field related physics does not follow the laws of thermodynamics in exactly the same way that we understand them today. The extra energy might be provided by the electrical current that is sued to charge the eezo but the numbers would (as always) be preposterously high.

 

Nowhere in that codex entry does it explicitly state that the ME field adds kinetic energy to the target. I just assume that conservation of energy is beeng upheld, but your right, it's a fictional universe and that doesn't have to be the case. However that makes you wonder why they are still bothering with reactors since they should have no problem building a perpetual motion machine.

 

Anyway, my original point still stands: It would be more sensible to sacrifice some velocity for higher mass, since that gives the projectile superior ballistic features.

[MrFob]

Nowhere in that codex entry does it explicitly state that the ME field adds kinetic energy to the target.

No but it does state that ME fields are used to increase projectile velocity. I always assumed it was by "lightening" the round in the magnetic accelerator (at least the is the only way it makes sense to me).
 

I just assume that conservation of energy is beeng upheld, but your right, it's a fictional universe and that doesn't have to be the case. However that makes you wonder why they are still bothering with reactors since they should have no problem building a perpetual motion machine.

As I wrote, maybe the extra energy is introduced into the eezo itself via the current needed to create the field itself. Of course, you'd still need super batteries (like you calculated earlier). If they have those, it might still make sense to use the energy in this way because the ME fields might just be super efficient in transferring the energy. But as we both wrote, the numbers are ridiculous. That however is the case with any ME field technology, be it biotics, guns or FTL flight.
 

Anyway, my original point still stands: It would be more sensible to sacrifice some velocity for higher mass, since that gives the projectile superior ballistic features.

Agreed. However, in fact, we don't really know the exact numbers on this. The codex has this to say:

The ammo magazine is a simple block of metal. The gun's internal computer calculates the mass needed to reach the target based on distance, gravity, and atmospheric pressure, then shears off an appropriately sized slug from the block. A single block can supply thousands of rounds, making ammo a non-issue during any engagement.

So it may be that the size of the bullet is actually not that super small, depending on what the weapon calculates. It may also be that the additional advantage of having thousands of rounds played a role in sacrificing some kinetic energy per round for having more of them without running out of ammo. This would make sense if you had copious amounts of energy anyway and bullet size becomes the constraining factor to be efficient in a prolonged firefight. Of course, the need for thermal clips in ME2/3 makes this a moot point but I like to discuss ME tech lore on the basis of ME1 anyway because IMO, underlying lore was abandoned for gameplay or plot-device reasons too often in the later games anyway.

[SuperJogi]

No but it does state that ME fields are used to increase projectile velocity. I always assumed it was by "lightening" the round in the magnetic accelerator (at least the is the only way it makes sense to me).

 

That's what I assumed aswell, but the really interesting part happens when the slug leaves the barrel. For that, there are three possibilties:

 

1. The slug regains it's original mass and reduces it's velocity so that the kinetic energy stays the same. This basicly makes the ME field pointless unless it is used to transfer additional energy alongside the railgun like you discribed.

 

2. The slug somehow stays at it's reduced mass and therefore has very high velocity. In this case the ME field is simply used to sacrifice mass for velocity, which would make sense for space battles where velocity is very important and drag is not an issue, but dumb for small arms like I pointed out.

 

3. The slug regains it's original mass AND keeps it's high velocity which gives it tons of energy out of nowhere (what gothpunkboy89 argued for). Unless of course that energy is provided by the ME field like you discribed.

 

In any case, if you want to uphold conservation of energy you would need some serious batteries. Which isn't unconcieveble 150 years in the future, I merely pointed out the fact that you would also need to recharge your gun.

 

So it may be that the size of the bullet is actually not that super small, depending on what the weapon calculates. It may also be that the additional advantage of having thousands of rounds played a role in sacrificing some kinetic energy per round for having more of them without running out of ammo. This would make sense if you had copious amounts of energy anyway and bullet size becomes the constraining factor to be efficient in a prolonged firefight.

 

Of course that's a possibility. It just seemed strange to me that the codex always seems to imply that faster = always better which simply isn't always true. #MASSMATTERS

[gothpunkboy89]

That still means that the projectile ends up with more energy than what was transferred to it while accelerating. That's a blatant violation of conservation of energy.

 

I repeat I'm not a physicists but I just can't see how. 

 

But lets go on like your other post assuming that when the mass is returned to it the round slows down. I still don't see the issue because with the ME field in the gun it would inherently reduce the weight of all components in it. Making it over all much lighter.  So even if the round dropped down to current muzzle velocity once it left the gun the fact the ME field is still reducing the over all weight of the gun. Allowing heavier and sturdier components to be used is still a blessing.

 

For example I've never used a .50 cal sniper but I don't think a human arm would be able to support it with one hand and wave it around the way Shepard does with the Widow.  Or really any of those guns. I've held AR's before and they are not something I could easily wave around like that. Then again I'm not exactly in the same physical shape Shepard would be.

 

Even if they used future metallurgy on the outside you would want the inside as durable as possible. ME field would allow super durable alloys without working about weight effecting the ability to use the gun.

[Sir Floopy]

Most likely just under the the barrel. Roughly the same area that in any current rifle we input the ammo into. After all the weapons fold up and the ammo block would have to be in an area that doesn't fold and that seems to be relegated to the same area in modern fire arms were ammo is loaded.

That was my thought as well, I was just hoping that someone might know for sure. As a side note that isn't strictly relevant to my original question: Where the actual **** is the thermal clip supposed to go in?