Page 1 of 3

Unguided, unpowered bombs

Posted: Wed Jul 24, 2013 5:55 pm
by ravener96
I have forgotten if this has been suggested...
Sorry if it has.

Annyway, this is the ultimate trench run weapon, possibly the only large scale anti capital weapon a fighterbomber, or bomber should have. I can see missiles and torpedoes being useful for smaller caps or corvettes, however you need more bite to take on a battlecruiser.

These shells would have to ignore drag and keep the momentum they had when they were fired, everything smaller than heavy bombers should be limited to four or six non reloading shells mounted on pylons(bombers having some sort of bombing bay would let them reload from their cargo bay, think real life bombers vs fighterbombers) with a fighter being limited to one at best and a light bomber carrying 6 or 8. I dont know how the limiting should work. There could be a hard limit or some speed penalty per bomb over the suggested amount for the ship size.

Ipad, ignore my spelling... And sorry if there is some ducking autocorrect here (i had the autocorrect do ducking for me once...).

Re: Unguided, unpowered bombs

Posted: Wed Jul 24, 2013 7:49 pm
by Katawa
I'm not sure how this is different than torpedoes.

Re: Unguided, unpowered bombs

Posted: Wed Jul 24, 2013 8:36 pm
by Slymodi
Katawa wrote:I'm not sure how this is different than torpedoes.
torpedoes are guided to some extent, I believe he is saying a bomb that travels in the dropped direction only

~Sly

Re: Unguided, unpowered bombs

Posted: Wed Jul 24, 2013 9:53 pm
by Katawa
Torpedoes aren't required to be guided.

Re: Unguided, unpowered bombs

Posted: Wed Jul 24, 2013 11:45 pm
by TanC
Yea, I was going to say...sounds like torpedoes. :P

Not sure about guidance on torpedoes though. Since it is meant for slow-moving ships, guidance is pretty much not required...unless we're going down to the level of needing to target the bridge or engine room for a torpedo to be effective.

Re: Unguided, unpowered bombs

Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2013 12:31 am
by Just_Ice_au
I think the keyword here to differentiate from Torpedoes was "unpowered".

However, because most "unpowered" bombs IRL actually use gravity to get them where they need to go, I'm not sure how practical the design would be in space.

Man the Torpedoes!

Re: Unguided, unpowered bombs

Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2013 1:20 pm
by gunnyfreak
i would think it is more viable if nothing else

you can just go in your target's general direction, let the bomb go, and leave. Without friction or gravity it'll go in a straight line to the target

I like it, maybe it would have a bigger load for the same size (since no engine) and be less traceable since it's not powered at all

Re: Unguided, unpowered bombs

Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2013 2:25 pm
by Grumblesaur
You just point the ship where you want the bomb to go, release it, then decelerate to let it escape your ship.
Unless your ship has a springloaded launcher of sorts to push the bomb out of your ship. Then you peel off from the bomb trajectory and get set up for another run.

Re: Unguided, unpowered bombs

Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2013 2:41 pm
by Katorone
Grumblesaur wrote:You just point the ship where you want the bomb to go, release it, then decelerate to let it escape your ship.
Unless your ship has a springloaded launcher of sorts to push the bomb out of your ship. Then you peel off from the bomb trajectory and get set up for another run.
As long as any bombs/rockets/torpedo's/anythingthatgoesboom only gets armed when there's some distance from the ship that fired them, I'm all good with it. :D

Re: Unguided, unpowered bombs

Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2013 4:29 pm
by Grumblesaur
On the off chance your bomb gets shot by something, it ought to explode.

Re: Unguided, unpowered bombs

Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2013 10:25 pm
by JoshParnell
Makes sense to have bombs to me. Just unpowered explosives, as Just_Ice said.

I imagine them as being on the extreme of "bang for your buck," literally. Cheap for the explosives that you're getting, but no help when it comes to hitting the target - not even any forward acceleration. You're on your own.

Wouldn't call it a top-priority weapon, but sounds like a reasonable addition? :monkey:

Re: Unguided, unpowered bombs

Posted: Fri Jul 26, 2013 1:16 am
by Katorone
Grumblesaur wrote:On the off chance your bomb gets shot by something, it ought to explode.
Depends if that 'chance' is the same as in X3. ;-)

Re: Unguided, unpowered bombs

Posted: Fri Jul 26, 2013 11:38 am
by Grumblesaur
Katorone wrote:
Grumblesaur wrote:On the off chance your bomb gets shot by something, it ought to explode.
Depends if that 'chance' is the same as in X3. ;-)
I mean if your bomb's projectile physically gets hit by a laser, railgun projectile, missile, other bomb, torpedo, ship debris, or a ship you weren't aiming for.

Re: Unguided, unpowered bombs

Posted: Fri Jul 26, 2013 1:02 pm
by Commander McLane
What's the difference between this unpowered bomb and a railgun projectile anyway? That's also unpowered and unguided, and only flies straight forward.

Re: Unguided, unpowered bombs

Posted: Fri Jul 26, 2013 2:08 pm
by Katorone
Grumblesaur wrote:
Katorone wrote:
Grumblesaur wrote:On the off chance your bomb gets shot by something, it ought to explode.
Depends if that 'chance' is the same as in X3. ;-)
I mean if your bomb's projectile physically gets hit by a laser, railgun projectile, missile, other bomb, torpedo, ship debris, or a ship you weren't aiming for.
I'd be fine with the projectile arming itself 5 seconds (or so) after launch. If it gets hit by something before that, it would go boom with the full yield.
This would probably also increase the survivability of AI bombers. :D