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Better physics for the Ion Cannon?


Toby Haynes

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Having harnessed the awesome power of the Ion Cannon enough times, I think we could push for some better physics on these weapons.

I've been digging around looking for the underlying principles of laser beams and I came across this article on Wikipedia about Gaussian beams.

Now there are a lot of scary equations on there but essentially it all boils down to this:

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">power/ square metre = P0 exp (-k*r*r)</pre>

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Aaargh, he blinded me with science. Isn't blinding with ions enough for you?

;)

Although I applaud your applied math here I doubt it will make it into the game because its a 'costly' calculation. My guess is that the typical game developer sees a perfect straight line through all these points. Which translates into BeamDistLossAtmo and BeamDistLossWater tags which hold the distance a beam can travel before it looses one point of ablation

Ablation reduction = distance to target MOD BeamDistLossAtmo

There you go. Now you know why I am only an engineer and not a scientist - always the cheapest solution.

:D

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Originally posted by Imperial Grunt:

How come the ions make noise? And even if the beam does somehow make a noise as it burns through the air, how is the beam reduced to the speed of sound?

I assume you are talking about DropTeam?

High-power lasers would heat (superheat?) the air along the waist of the beam. That could make a noise like thunder.

Similarly, the laser beam would not make a noise striking the hull of the tank, but the heat build-up would be audible as the armour expands under the onslaught. And, of course, the subsequent explosion as the IC penetrates the subsystems would be ... err ... loud.

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Originally posted by Imperial Grunt:

OK, I can buy that. But wouldn't you first see the flash and then hear the noise later? Like lightening and thunder?

you would have to be away far enough to make the speed difference between light and sound noticable (a few miles)

of course since this is a gaussian ion laser you shouldn´t be able to see the beam at all unless its a foggy or dusty day.

actually this could be the solution to our "problem":

a much weaker continous ion beam, but inaudible (except a small thunderclap when you stop shooting) only visible when there is dust in the air. What would be visible would be a bright spot where the beam hits the armor.

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Only seeing the spot where the beam is hitting, getting brighter as heat builds to a final catastrophic level, would be much more interesting than the current beams. And it would fix most of the things that are currently annoying about them.

My guess is that the typical game developer sees a perfect straight line through all these points.
LOL. True, but we didn't do that with penetration falloff did we? So I think we can do it right with this, too. ;)
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  • 2 months later...
Originally posted by ClaytoniousRex:

Only seeing the spot where the beam is hitting, getting brighter as heat builds to a final catastrophic level, would be much more interesting than the current beams. And it would fix most of the things that are currently annoying about them.

Hey! Go look at the tech forum and tell me how to get my joystick working correctly...LOL! :D
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