Magnetic Weapons: Difference between revisions

Coilguns on the other hand involve far less stress on their components, and therefore don't wear out near as quickly. Instead, they are limited by needing far more complex control systems to activate and deactivate the coils in time<ref>the classic demonstration is an aluminium ring jumping off a coil when it's turned on. But steady acceleration requires doing this repeatedly, as close behind the projectile as possible</ref>, and the speed at which the coils can be turned on and off is limited by the coils' inherent inductance<ref>electromagnetic "inertia" defining how fast energy can get to or from the field</ref> (with exotic proposals such as superconducting coils that are laser quenched to turn them off) and magnetic saturation point of the projectile. They are however better suited for launching more massive projectiles at low speeds. The original idea of "mass driver" was to hurl tons of ore from Moon surface for orbital or suborbital pick up.

 

 

If you were looking for the anime with the name "railgun", please see ''[[To Aru Kagaku no Railgun]]''.

 

 

* Railguns are used on ''Daedelus''-class starships and on the first Earth starship, the ''Promethius'', in''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' and ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]''. They are also mounted at ground bases to serve as anti-fighter weapons.

** For all the good they do.

* Mass drivers are classed as "Weapons of Mass Destruction" in ''[[Babylon 5]]'' and we see them used to pummel the {{spoiler|Narn homeworld}} with asteroids.

** However, keep in mind that the WMD classification isn't based on how they work, I.E. not because of functioning like the type 2 weapon above, but because the "projectiles" they fire, are asteroids/meteors, and they are used for [[Colony Drop|planetary bombardment]].

* In ''[[Firefly]]'', railguns and other futuristic weapons appear, but their use is limited compared to [[Anachronism Stew|good ol' revolvers and shotguns]]. In the episode "Ariel", [[The Big Guy|Jayne]] tries to use a stun rifle to breach a metal door, which it's not really designed to do, [[Firefly/Funny|so he simply throws it aside, muttering "]]''[[Firefly/Funny|se-niou]]'' [[Firefly/Funny|high-tech Alliance crap!"]]

 

* The Eden faction of ''Outpost 2'' has a railgun as one of its weapons

* ''MegaTraveller 2'' (based on the ''[[Traveller]]'' [[Tabletop RPG]]) had Gauss weapons.

* There's a railgun in ''[[Dark Forces Saga|Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II]]''.

* Besides missiles, the primary direct weapons of the Caldari in [[Eve Online]] are railguns.

* In ''[[Sins of a Solar Empire]]'', the TEC use twin gauss guns on their orbital defense platforms, the Kol Battleship's signature weapon is the gauss railgun, and the Novalith Cannon superweapon is a giant railgun that shoots giant nukes at planets at near light speed.

* The Farsight XR-20 from ''[[Perfect Dark]]'', which is essentially a [[One-Hit Kill]] sniper rifle.

* Mass drivers of different size are the most basic weapon in the [[Homeworld]] series, ranging from the small and weak ''pea shooter'' (weak even for a fighter-sized weapon) to the gigantic and high-powered weapons mounted on cruiser-sized ships.

* ''[[Vega Strike]]'' has these as the most efficient (damage/energy ratio) weapons -- as kinetics, they also don't weaken with range and partially bypass [[Deflector Shields]]. Micro Driver (light gun, 10,5 kg at 4 km/s), Mini Driver (medium gun, 26,8 kg at 3.5 km/s) and Grand Gauss (378 kg at 20 km/s) weapons. The first two and metal balls for them are dirt-cheap and ubiquitous in Human space (and are weapon of choice for [[Evil Luddite|Luddites]]), four of the latter are used as [[Fixed Forward-Facing Weapon|spinal mounted]] weapons on Aera battleship. There's also a lot of "warhead-assisted kinetics", i.e. cannons hurling shells enhanced with various nasty stuff, up to antimatter cells (Reaper).