EVE General Discussion

Summary
We can use in-game numbers to show that Lead projectiles for 425mm Railguns have, as an upper bounds, less mass than methane gas (aka a fart.) (For the metric impaired, 425mm == 16.7 inches.)

The Numbers
a) The ship's capacitor is measured in GJ or giga-joules.

b) Railguns use cap to fire. This gives us an upper bound on the amount of energy that can be imparted upon the projectile. (If you use 10 GJ to fire a lead round, the lead round's projectile will have up to 10 GJ of energy with which to propel it.)

Please note that the term "round" refers to ammo as it is in your cargo hold. The "projectile" denotes the bullet (or mass) that actually leaves the muzzle of the Railgun.

c) 250km is the upper range of large railguns. Since guns hit "instantly" we will use a value of 0.1 seconds for the projectile's travel time. This means that the lead projectile is traveling at 2,500,000 m/s (2.5 million meters per second.)

d) A Rokh with three gun-cap reducing rigs (specifically Large Hybrid Discharge Elutriation rigs, 2xTII, 1xT1) firing a lead round (-50% reduction to gun cap) from Kaikka's Modified 425mm Railgun uses 3.807GJ of cap to fire.

e) Using the formula for kinetic energy we can compute the upper bounds of the mass of the projectile like so:

Kinetic Energy (in joules) = (1/2) * mass * velocity^2

3,807,000,000 J = 0.5 * x * (2,500,000 m/s)^2

x = 3,807,000,000 J / (0.5 * (6,250,000,000,000 m^2/s^2))

Since 1 J = (kg * m^2 / s^2) that reduces to:

x = 3,807,000,000 kg / 3,125,000,000,000

x = .00121 kg (or 0.0027 lbs or 0.04 ounces)

f) Thus using 3.807 giga-joules of energy to launch a railgun projectile 250km in 0.1 seconds means that the railgun projectile's mass can be no greater than 0.00121 kg (or 0.04 ounces.)


The Numbers for Methane
By comparison, an equialent volume of methane gas (aka a fart) weighs more:

a) A Large Hybrid round has a volume of 0.05 m^3. Methane at 0 degrees C has a volume of 0.717 kg/m^3

b) The same volume of methane gas at 0 degrees Celsius has a mass of
0.05m^3 * 0.717 kg/m^3 =
0.0359 kg (or 0.079 lbs or 1.26 ounces.)


Conclusion
Thus a 425mm Lead Railgun round can weigh at most 0.00121 kg ( or 0.04 ounces) whereas an equivalent sized "fart" (aka methane gas) weighs 0.0359kg (or 1.26 ounces.) The "fart" has 29.7 times greater mass.


Proposal
Can we buff railguns to fire fart gas? Use the in-game Cattle (or other livestock) to use in PI to create Methane gas Railgun projectiles.


edit:
Additional Fun Numbers:
* 3.807 GJ is the equivalent of 0.91 tons of TNT.
* A Reaper (free newbie ship) traveling at 3,225m/s that crashes into a bigger ship generates energy equivalent to 2,876 tons of TNT.
* A Stabber going ~7km generates energy equivalent to ~135,000 tons of TNT in a collision.

Plasma has very little mass.

Can't tell if serious?

Aww, did your boyfriend criticize you?

Also, notice that you're the one attacking and scrutinizing the game mechanics, whereas my last line was "take it and don't as questions." You do see how your response is laughably ironic?



Maybe you should read your own links? Neither titanium nor lead are terribly conductive, so neither could effectively be used as a railgun projectile in the first place.

This is like trying to analyze Alice in Wonderland for inaccuracies. Its just not supposed to make sense in a logical way more than a level or two deep.

You fit hybrid charges in the railguns. You lose cap, you do damage. Done.

Where can I buy a fart to improve my Rokh's DPS?

c) 250km is the upper range of large railguns. Since guns hit "instantly" we will use a value of 0.1 seconds for the projectile's travel time. This means that the lead projectile is traveling at 2,500,000 m/s (2.5 million meters per second.)

Should be
Lim T->0

That's as far as I got before deciding your maths is flawed.

Gee gratz dewd on your mastery of Ke=1/2MV^2

Yeah, yeah. At 2.5 million m/s, you're at 83% of the speed of light.edit: Bad speed of light math. Time to hit the sack. Plus, the faster the projectile travels, the less mass it will have. I guess could have just plugged in 0.0008 seconds of flight time as the upper boundary, but it gets really silly.

If you assume 99% of c for the projectile, you're looking at a mass of 8.6437277081851349276334261731994e-8 kg (or 0.000000086 kg (or 0.000003 ounces.))

I'm not sure why you would need a 425mm (aka 16.7 inch) gun to fire something with less mass than a mouse fart. (Which also implies that 425mm doesn't represent an Eve railgun's bore size.) It would also mean that you should be able to carry a nearly lifetime supply of railgun ammo in your pocket.




Hey, I wasn't the one who created the numbers. Blame someone at CCP for not doing some basic number crunching.

Pro tip: rail guns use a 'shoe' to fit over the sabot to accellerate it. the 'shoe' then falls away from the sabot after firing. The 'shoe' is a great conductor of electricity, allowing the railgun to work.

Pro tip: (someone has to say it) I FART in your general direction!!

Pro tip: For more details, ask "I'm Farting" in game.

It's the other way around : the more the projectile approaches the speed of light, the bigger its mass.

lol

This man speaks the truth. That's why you can never break the speed of light using conventional thrust - your mass approaches infinity, thus the force required to accelerate any faster also approaches infinity (time dilation plays a role there too)

That being said, a fart traveling at 82% the speed of light still won't do much damage - high-energy particles travelling near that speed smash into the earth every second in far greater quantities. And I'm pretty sure even armour-tanked ships in Eve have shields that can withstand that.

Also, it may already have been said, but railguns don't just use capacitor juice to launch...they're constantly drawing a significant amount of power (over 2 gigawatts is nothing to sniff at; that's the output of some nuclear power plants). I highly doubt that much energy is being used to make the thing turn and track. In zero gee, in a vacuum. Yah.