Approved Tech Bulkhunter heavy ion cannon

[Jessica Med-Beq]

The Bulkhunter in its twin variant

Image Source: http://warshipgunner...lery_(Main_Gun)
Intent: To provide a capital ship-sized heavy ion cannon
Development Thread: If necessary
Manufacturer: Ringovinda Systems
Model: Bulkhunter heavy ion cannon
Affiliation: Open market
Modularity: Can choose whether to have one, two or three tubes in one hardpoint, each tube counting as 12 standard turbolasers
Production: Mass-Produced.
Material: Alusteel turret, turbolaser components, focusing coils, ion accu-accelerator
Classification: Heavy ion cannon
Size: Ship-Mounted
Length: 15 meters
Weight: 35 tons (single-tube turret; add 15 tons per tube in a turret)
Ammunition Type: Power reactor, gas canister
Ammunition Capacity: Heavy turbolaser standard
Effective Range: Heavy turbolaser standard
Rate of Fire: Half heavy turbolaser standard (maximum safe rate of fire with one tube, 8x turbolaser standard firepower on shields)
Special Features: Can actually damage hulls, albeit with about 10-20% the efficiency of equivalent turbolasers depending on materials

Strengths:

- More compact than standard heavy turbolasers

Weaknesses:

- Prone to overheating if used too often in a short period of time
- Slow rate of fire
- Less damage to hulls compared to the standard heavy turbolasers

Description: The Bulkhunter ion cannon fires beams of accelerated, excited ions traveling at nearly the speed of light, which are drawn from a gas canister. However, using a single Bulkhunter drains as much power as 12 standard turbolaser tubes. It was also prone to overheating if fired too often in a limited period of time. It has a low efficiency vs. hulls compared to heavy turbolasers, even if, unlike conventional ion cannons, it can actually damage hulls. Nevertheless they are recommended to be used to disable, rather than to outright destroy, enemy ships. Due to Bulkhunters draining such an high amount of power, it is recommended not to fit more than one tube for every 100 meters length.

Rumored future applications primarily comprise heavy bulk freighters for which it will be the sole weapons mounted onboard: mounting less hardpoints and/or less tubes reduce the needs and costs of maintenance compared to the equivalent firepower across standard turbolasers; plus bulk freighter operators would prefer to disable enemy ships rather than to destroy them outright.

Source link: V-200 ion cannon (a canonical ion cannon that can actually damage hulls)

 

[Gir Quee]

RESEARCH REVIEW
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Star Wars Canon:
Pending initial review
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Starwars Chaos:
Pending initial review
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WITHOUT DEV THREADS
Pending initial review
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WITH DEV THREADS
Pending Initial review
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SUGGESTIONS
Pending Inital review

 

[Gir Quee]

Shield penetration is one of those areas that could potentially get abused pretty quickly. I'm glad and commend the fact you have made this only partially capable of penetrating shields.

Special Features: It can partially penetrate shields and may cause even alusteel armor to melt where the fusion beam impacts

How much (roughly) are we talking about when you say "partially penetrate"? Does just a sliver of energy pierce through the shields to strike the hull? Does 90% go straight to the hull? etc.

The Fusion Beam-class solar ionization cannon fires beams of accelerated, excited ions traveling at nearly the speed of light, which are drawn from a gas canister. However, using a single Fusion Beam drains as much power as 12 standard turbolaser tubes.

Is this a fusion beam weapon, a ion cannon, or a solar ionization weapon? All these weapons typically work on different principles, and I'm not quite understanding how they all interact.

It can also penetrate shields and deal structural damage to durasteel and alusteel hulls.

I'd recommend just saying "hull" here, given that there are a myriad of materials that a ship could be made from.

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

Canon is mostly quiet about how solar ionization cannons work; I also changed the model name since fusion beams are, in canon, largely used for civilian purposes.

As for how much of the yield penetrates shields, 30% against targets with redundant shields, 50% against lightly-shielded targets, and everything in-between for more heavily shielded targets. Oh, of course, I included information to this end in my edits to the posts.

[member="Gir Quee"]

 

[Gir Quee]

Canon is mostly quiet about how solar ionization cannons work; I also changed the model name since fusion beams are, in canon, largely used for civilian purposes.

This is true, but there's enough there for me to question if this is working on the same mechanics. That and by itself doesn't make this submission wrong, but I want to understand how it roughly works if it deviates from what we have. It's perfectly fine to simply use what Wookieepedia states to describe how it works.

How do the ions and fusion as concepts interact together?

As a sidenote, the wookieepedia article states that the canon solar ionization cannon uses light that is then ionized, rather than sending ions to light speed.

As for how much of the yield penetrates shields, 30% against targets with redundant shields, 50% against lightly-shielded targets, and everything in-between for more heavily shielded targets. Oh, of course, I included information to this end in my edits to the posts.

So in essence, we're talking about a weapon that allows ~5 turbolasers worth of power to instantly go through a standard capital ship's shielding. I think this is probably too game-changing/game-breaking to go through without some additional balancing. The possible effects of this (such as vaporizing a starship bridge in the first round) isn't something that I can think can be offset in terms of gameplay by reducing rate of fire and consolidating guns because we don't really focus on figuring out exact damage-per-second statistics in engagements.

In addition, I would like this to have an equal trade off effect for this advantage. For example, perhaps this only has half the range of a normal turbolaser. Perhaps that while it can partially penetrate through shields, it's actually not as damaging to the hull as a normal turbolaser would be. I'm open to other ideas that you may have on this, but I ask that you think about how one would go writing it.

Development Thread: If necessary Production: Mass-Produced.

On further reflection, given the original solar ionization cannons are only found on a starfighter-scale for this, and given the implications of this technology, I'd like to see a 10 to 20 post development thread for this technology.

Production: Mass-Produced.

Depending on what drawback you choose, this may be moved to a more rare production level.

Given the original solar ionization cannons are only found on a starfighter-scale for this, and given the implications of this technology, I'd like to see a 10 to 20 post development thread for this technology.

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

Now it is just an ion cannon, albeit with the ability to do limited damage to hulls (with horrible efficiency though, much like the V-200 ion cannon in canon)...

[member="Gir Quee"]

 

[Gir Quee]

Awesome. Pending Admin Approval. Thanks! [member="Spencer Varanin"]

 

[Ellie Mors]

Approved.