Hmmm...space-time based inertial dampening system...fun
Cost: 10,000c

actualy, the spring needs something to push on... so once again, your ship would still get the full force of the recoil.

but the force required to compress the spring is far less lan what is needed to move the ship. the spring acts as a dampener, the force would compress the spring because not nearly enough force would be generated to move the ship.
==sighs== regardless of there being a spring, the force would be about nil simply because the ship FAR outweighs the gun.
even if you assume the gun is welded to the ship you have another simple physics equation
F=M*A
ok so we apply a force to a nuke out with some acceleration (AccNuke)
so we assume a constant mass for the nuke (let's say 500kg just for laughs) so the F=500*(AccNuke)
now the force on the nuke will be equal (and opposite) the force acting on the ship. since the relative values of F are equal we get this (assuming a ship weight of ~20000kg):
20000(AccShip)=F=500(AccNuke)
to find the AccShip we get, (500(accNuke))/20000 or
AccShip=AccNuke/40

So the acceleration on the ship is 1/40 of that on the nuke
now that is assuming that the ship only weighs 40x the weight of the nuke.
while it's more like 400x the weight of the nuke, you can see how the acceleration is just about moot

(yes I'm bored at work, why do you ask?)

we're not talking about the mass of the gun.. we're talking about the Ft lbs (force the slug has when fired) produced.


a .50 cal. rifle produces over 13000 ft lbs. That is for a civilion model 50. Cal. Think about how much a nuke would be...

that is eaxctly what I was saying in the formula
Force=MassProjectile*AccProjectile
and that provide and equal and opposite force on the ship
so you devide by mass of ship and you get the acceleration on the ship.

also the relative velocity of a sniper rifle is FAR greater than that of the weapons in this game
look at the nuke, 45m/s
a sniper rifle can easily cover 300m in under a second.
also in terms of rockets, you must remember, they fly under their own propulsion. Think of a jet: it lets go of a rocket and it fires it's engine a fraction of a second later.
so if anything, with nukes it would push it out of the ship just enough so it could fire it's turbs

Urza, if a rifle put 13,000 pounds of force on you, it would yank your arm straight off. But that's pounds per foot. Assuming a .50 caliber bullet measures .25" on a side (I'm saying it's a square because I'm lazy), it puts a much more manageable force of about 22.6 pounds on your arm. That comes out to about 100 N.

pyro.. if you get hit with 1, it WILL take your arm straight off. the kick pads are huge and they use gas channelers to lower recoil as well.

the reason that a sniper round, or .50 cal, would take off your arm has a lot of other factors.
First, the acceleration when it hits you is INCREDIBLE, it goes from it's flight speed to 0 (when it hits your skin) in like 1/10000 of a second. Also the fact that a bullet has a pointed tip means that the entire force of that shot is concentrated to the area at the tip of the bullet, then your skin basically rips. And given that the human boddy it pretty soft, it doesn't even absorb any of the force, it simply gets destroyed.

you really can't relate the force equastion of firing of a shell/rocket out of a space ship to the force equation of a sniper round hitting human flesh.

now if you are talking about simply the gun butting into your arm you must again compare masses. the mass of your arm is FAR more than the mass of a bullet, so while even without the gas chamber, you get maybe 1/100 of the acceleration that the bullet gets.

You'd also have to take into account that it would be VERY difficult to put all your guns at your ship's center of mass. Otherwise you'd not only go flying backwards when you fired, you'd go soining around and probably black-out from the G forces.

Hmmm... You could explain that by saying that there are mini thrusters on the edges of the ship to compensate for that... Actually, it would be pretty cool to see the ship turn a little (and then correct fully) from firing ones on its side... It would basically work like recoil, making the pilot less accurate as he fired for longer and longer. Which would encourage firing in bursts... :D

+13 enchanted wings of stability.

I want an axe on my ship.

Energy weapons should give a very small amount of kick, so if you have 4 of them linked together and constantly fireing you will go back a lot more then if you were a centurion fireing just 1. Recoil would discourage avalon docking being that the recoil would send you out of the dock befor you could dock.
mmmm +20 enchanted pie of tastyness.

Doo dooo dooooooo

BUMP!

"Explain how ANY recoil-reduction system would work in outer space..."

Sure, I can do that, very easily in fact.

Currently our ship accelerate using an engine that runs off a self recharging battery. Turbo drains the battery, pushing us to higher speeds, which suddenly drop off when our battery runs out of extra pushing power.

What does this suggest? Since a ship with inertia would keep going at its current velocity and direction unless acted upon by an outside force, we are left with two options.
1. There is an outsite force acting at all times, only upon turbo speeds, that knows exactly what the top speed of your engine is and slows you down to that speed.. (yeah.. sure)

2. The ship somehow removes inertia from the puzzle, and therefor needs thrust at all times to maintain speed. Leaving the top engine speed at the max the engine can provide without taking extra from the battery. The ship uses its thrusters to simulate real thrust by keeping a vector going (physics mode) unless otherwise commanded to auto correct (arcade mode).

If the ship itself works on a system of no inertia, then the weapons would work on this theory as well, leaving us with weapons that can take off without a moments hesitation, turn when they want to without needing atmosphere to guide them, and have no recoil do to the lack of inertial force.

Alright, now I know what at least 1 person is gonna post... So I'll take care of it now. For whoever posts.. "but a ship without inertia would just accelerate instantly and continue racing along at ever infinite speeds..." or such other crap. No, it would not.

Why?

Simple, and basically the same reason it never happens on star trek that way either. Space, is not completely a vacuum. There are little particles, atoms, bits of dust and debri floating around that your gonna smack into. (what's the normal ratio.. like.. 7 atoms per cubic centimeter or something like that?) Since your ship has no inertia, if you hit one single, tiny, insignificant little piece of anything, it has more inertia than you and.. "BAM", your ship gets dragged right out of its acceleration until the engine shoves you along again.

Next thing someone will post.
But the engine would be big enough to overcome stuff like that...

Would it? To what purpose? If you have a ship that can be accerated to high speeds by the equivilant force that couldnt push over a fly in the real world.. why bother putting in anything bigger? Why not put in the smallest most energy efficient thing you could design because the extra thrust would just be wasted...


Anyway, that's a long and drawnout reason for weapons to not have recoil.

The weapon pushes it self away from the ship, and thus pushing the ship the opposite way of the missile/beam/cow.

And without going to much on the science:

Engine max power is 200 N
Weapon-engine max power is 10 N
So, firing a weapon just pushes the ship back as if you had the engine go at 10 N (but then in the other direction). And 4 weapons pushes you back at 40 N.

A valk would thus go back much farther/faster than a rag/prom/frigate.

Ofcourse the numbers should be multiplied by some number if you wanted to make it work in real-life.. but having your valk accelerate by some 200 N engine (that's like.. 20 KG of force) isn't all that realistic too so the numbers should fit.

Missiles would be more like the torpedoes in a submarine than the missiles in a jetfighter: the missiles fire immediatly, and do not first get out of the craft and then ignite. Maybe the devs could later on add missiles that do first get out of the craft and then ignite, but that's a whole different story..

Also: who said the itani/serco/neutrals would put anti-recoil stuff in their ships? Maybe they just don't feel like it/can't/don't want to/don't even know...

c'mon people don't you watch StarTrek. "Inertial dampeners" keep you from getting flattened against the bulkhead when going to "warp speed". They could also keep your projectile weapons from becoming reverse thrusters.

Putting asside any attempts at "realism", it would be a good way to balance some powerfull weapon if it had some sort of recoil.
As far as blasts moving your ship:

2003-06-25 17:35:43 incarnate
Explosions affecting/moving ships is something we've wanted to
add for awhile, but it's a little problematic at present.

Looks like the devs have already been thinking along these lines.
'nuff said?