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[BattleRaptor]

discord
Oh but it is.

However feel free point out where a major loss of electrons happen between leaving the Electron Emitter and hitting the screen.

[fredgiblet]

Lets take the assumption that they cant make faster railguns.

Can't make faster railguns that are comparable in price:performance ratio != can't make faster railguns.

Why use them at all.

Why not just missiles.. and DO think very hard before you answer that.

Cheap ammo, good enough for the enemies they actually face.

[Rosen_Ritter_1]

Lets take the assumption that they cant make faster railguns.

Why use them at all.

Why not just missiles.. and DO think very hard before you answer that.

I'd probably assume on account that humanity has zero practical experiance in space combat. So it's understandable why some of their weapon choices might not be optimal.

Also, railguns could also be rather effective for the small scale police actions the Terran fleet was designed to engage in. A railgun round is pretty destructive, but I don't think it's quite nuclear level destructive, and the ammo for it is cheap. So the Terran fleet figured it'd be a cheap way to destroy a static pirate base (or even all the military bases on a planet potentially) without having to worry to much about collateral damage.

So it's not like a railgun is entirely useless in this setting. It just has minimal utility in a star ship battle, baring freak close range encounters like in the prologue.

[dfacto]

The problem with torpedoes is that human drive tech sucks and acceleration is only 12 g. This means that closing torpedoes will be slow enough to shoot down with ease, and railguns and lasers are ideal for this sort of job. Next-gen CIWS systems will use lasers, and those of the far future will probably use them as well, especially in space.

So you pay lots of money for a torpedo, fire it, and watch it get intercepted far from the target. Money, and resources wasted for nothing.

Torpedoes in Outsider are only worthwhile when you can make a lot of them, like the Umiak, and use them to overwhelm defenses and provide time to close on target.

[BattleRaptor]

The size of missiles to the Railgun projectile for the same energy isnt very much larger.
With electric cells of sufficent density(we dont have) or a Nuclear heated exhaust(We can make) can be LESS then 200kg and be faster and have higher impact energy.

Using 1960s Hydrogen/Oxygen engine at 50%-60% nozzle efficiency only needs to be ~800kg total 700kg fuel.
Each missile would cost more then a slug, but whats the cost of the railgun?

Battleship guns not counting turrets mountings or breech could weigh over 100000kg
Then the ship itself which needs more structual strength to survive the gun mounts and force when fired.



Cheap slugs is all the Outsider railguns have going for them.