Hatchet Render

[Captain Seafort]

The backscatter of the light from the guns firing appears to be some distance away from the hull. Shields?

[Graham Kennedy]

The backscatter of the light from the guns firing appears to be some distance away from the hull. Shields?

No, it's on the hull.

[Mikey]

Well, I have to say that's a lot of fuck-you-up in one salvo. I too though am interested by the question of loss of mass in the antimatter ray due to destructive interaction with spaceborne matter. Is the ray somehow jacketed in some super-SF manner?

[Graham Kennedy]

That's a big question, actually.

The first generation of AMP cannon (which came in with this class) were simple particle beam weapons. As such they were better than the previous beam weapons (gamma ray lasers), but not not greatly so.

As time went on the beams were jacketed with midspace fields, allowing them to be fired in midspace - fire without a jacket and the beam would crash back into normal space as soon as it exited the ship's drivefield, being scattered all over the place in the process since uncontrolled ejection from midspace is a rather violent affair.

Then came the pairing of AMP cannon with rift generators, which lets ships fire from midspace into normal space or vice versa. And at more advanced tech levels, lets ships in normal space fire into midspace at one end and out at the other. That allows a ship in normal space to fire at another ship in normal space at FTL ranges. So for example a ship sitting in normal space in alpha centuri system would be able to use AMP cannon to bombard Earth.

The next step was to move to complex and carefully controlled field design which brings the M/AM particles together more efficiently, and better concentrating it on the target. And more exotic forms of matter and antimatter, giving higher efficiency matter to energy conversions and boosting yield.

Those developments are spread over about two centuries. The end result is that early AMP cannon are to modern ones are about as Napoleonic cannon are to modern artillery firing time-on-target salvos of rocket-assisted guided munitions. With nuclear warheads.

Oh, it's worth bearing in mind the scale. That ship is a little over four kilometres long...

[IanKennedy]

Um, it's down for maintanence.

The problem with doing this is that every time you think "well I'll change that slightly", it's another six or seven hours of rendering to try again. I need a supercomputer, dammit!

[Captain Seafort]

As time went on the beams were jacketed with midspace fields, allowing them to be fired in midspace - fire without a jacket and the beam would crash back into normal space as soon as it exited the ship's drivefield, being scattered all over the place in the process since uncontrolled ejection from midspace is a rather violent affair.

Hmm. Was this ever done deliberately, since it sounds like the effect would be similar to the Sankaidan rounds the IJN used?

[Graham Kennedy]

As time went on the beams were jacketed with midspace fields, allowing them to be fired in midspace - fire without a jacket and the beam would crash back into normal space as soon as it exited the ship's drivefield, being scattered all over the place in the process since uncontrolled ejection from midspace is a rather violent affair.

Hmm. Was this ever done deliberately, since it sounds like the effect would be similar to the Sankaidan rounds the IJN used?

No, it wouldn't accomplish much. Essentially your beams would emerge from midspace as two clouds of rapidly dispersing particles. You'd get some M/AM interaction and so a bit of a bang, but it would be a pretty sucky one, very low efficiency. It would be like pulling all the explosive from a shell, scattering it around, and lighting a bit off. Big flash, no real bang.

[Graham Kennedy]

Different angle to get a better look at the torps...

The source is slightly bigger, so here's a direct link : http://vid372.photobucket.com/albums/oo ... l0rrci.mp4

[Captain Seafort]

Very cool, especially the way the main battery seems to elevate specifically to let the camera pass.