what are ions sopposed to do?

FlyingAce · Post by **FlyingAce** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 10:26 pm

exactly how are ion blasters sopposed to hurt anything? are hulls made of sodium that you can shoot chlorine at?

(those of you who don't understand chemistry: you won't understand this)

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 10:37 pm

Ion canons are as old as the sci fi, there are some in buck rogers. I think it's because of the name, it sounds better that tomato canon , or heavy potato fusion gun

Post by **dandandaman** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 2:12 am

FlyingAce wrote:exactly how are ion blasters sopposed to hurt anything? are hulls made of sodium that you can shoot chlorine at?

Well, if you shoot enough (as in an impossible amount) you may destroy their electronics quite easilly by lobbing something more neutral/opposite charge at them...

but of course, if you are shooting that many ions....you'd better shoot off some others of the opposite charge somewhere, else the same will happen to you

I think I got this right anyway

Dan.a

FlyingAce · Post by **FlyingAce** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 2:26 am

that may be good for electronics, but not for hulls unless they use an ionic compound in the hull

Post by **dandandaman** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 2:31 am

FlyingAce wrote:that may be good for electronics, but not for hulls unless they use an ionic compound in the hull

I suppose, although something molecular may suffer some problems with too much charge...might start changing into something else or something...

Metal properties also change with extreme charge too maybe (just guessing here)...but I doubt it would be catastrophic..

Dan.a

Post by **ace123** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 3:27 am

If you think about a power plant, the power plant suddenly doesn't change properties when one turns it on. Some power plants function for years, and I think the only wear that goes on is due to the process of making power (e.g. steam turning a turbine), not the electrical current itself. And it has megawatts of power flowing through it.
So that means an ion cannon would have to send <em>more</em> electrical current than a power plant can produce in order to have even an extremely slight chance of doing any harm at all. And plus, if it uses more power than a power plant can produce, you need a bigger power plant.
And then, of course, the ion cannon has to be able to sustain so much electrical current that maybe something goes wrong in the electronics of the cannon.

Okay, the point of what I was trying to say was that if a ship can't sustain all of the power, think about power sources and ion cannon itself.

Well, either way, I'm sure that at least the things that were alive around the ship would probably die.

Maybe the information I was talking about was completely inaccurate and false because I don't know about what happens when a billion ions suddenly come at you out of a cannon.

vegastrike.forum.users["ace123"]->post_count += 1;
// Thank you offtopic

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 3:54 am

the word 'ion' is there to sound cool.

that is all.

Post by **jackS** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 4:13 am

actually "ion gun/cannon/rifle/etc" makes reasonable sense

ions are just charged particles.

charged particles are (especially relative to uncharged particles [see neutron gun (how DOES that work?)] )easy to accellerate with electrical fields.

So, take some fairly heavy ions, accellerate them to significant fractions of the speed of light, and fling them in the general direction of the enemy.

The damage would be kinetic. Any damage caused by stripping some electrons off of the hull would be entirely secondary :)

Post by **hurleybird** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 4:22 am

and thats why he's the minister of information

Silverain · Post by **Silverain** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 5:22 am

Don't forget the experiments with ion engines - amazing what you pick up when reading the periodic table!

Ejection of the positive ions creates a thrust of some sort, so if it's aimed at a target??

Post by **ace123** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 5:52 am

I was curious if an iron cannon would be more effective?
If the irons got up to near light speed, they could do severe damage.

Back on topic (if that's possible in an "off topic" forum):
You were talking about shooting only a few ion, which would probably bond with <em>something</em> on the way out of the cannon. But if you fire millions of them, you would end up with a bunch of different gasses around you that could potentially endanger your life...

And also, if it was a bad day weather-wise, you could get killed by lightning because of the large electrical charge.

Oh wait... we are talking about space, are we?

Then none of this applies.

Well at least i got an extra post.

Silverain · Post by **Silverain** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 6:13 am

An ion engine 'strips' an electron from an atom, which is fired out an exhaust - creating thrust. However, a separate electron gun gives the atom back an electron so the ship doesn't become negatively charged and attract the atom back - negating whole purpose.

As JackS said, damage from an ion gun would be kinetic, just a different propulsion.

<sorry, did google search on ion engine and did some reading>

I was curious if an iron cannon would be more effective?
If the irons got up to near light speed, they could do severe damage.

Probably, but as iron is heavier than the gases, need more energy to acelerate the charged atom.

And also, if it was a bad day weather-wise, you could get killed by lightning because of the large electrical charge.

Wouldn't be lightning, it would be the charged atom coming back and hitting you (you become -ve charged, the atom +ve) unless you had the separate electron gun. It would be ironic, killed by your own gun.

If I'm wrong, please correct!

pincushionman · Post by **pincushionman** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 6:25 am

ace123 wrote:Some power plants function for years, and I think the only wear that goes on is due to the process of making power (e.g. steam turning a turbine), not the electrical current itself. And it has megawatts of power flowing through it.

Low-tech electrical devices don't generally have much of a problem with a lot of current, but electronic systems do -- that's why you buy a surge suppressor for your computer -- a power surge can physically harm your equipment. That's also the basis for EMP weaponry (which actually do exist -- and that's pretty scary) which can make a pulse strong enough to burn out even robust, low-tech circuits.

-pincushionman

Post by **dandandaman** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 7:47 am

ace123 wrote:If you think about a power plant, the power plant suddenly doesn't change properties when one turns it on.

yeah...but I was talking about multiple quadrozilliolly amounts of coulombs

.....and extremely suddenly....

this has never been really done to the extent I'm imagining it, so there is no way to tell what effects it might have on the metal lattice-work

Plus you might also get lightning (there is still gas in space) if there was enough charge...and especially if you lob something large and neutral (or oppositely charged) near/at the ship, the current flow would certainly destroy an electronics, and possibly melt some of the frame/hull of the ship == lots of damage....also, different materials will have different effects....nanotube reinforcer moleculer might get a bit weird with high charges/currents

but yeah, that's a stupid amount of charge I'm talking about

in star wars (if you remember xw/tf games) the ion cannon affected almost entirely the shields and not the hull...I don't know what VS's shields are made of, but this may or may not be the case here

Dan.a

DirtyMagic · Post by **DirtyMagic** » Thu Oct 23, 2003 7:23 pm

Can't resist getting in on this one...

Who's to say that an 'ion cannon' necessarily fires ions? Rifles don't fire ammunition called a rifle, right? They use rifling as a process to spin a bullet and make it more accurate.

While locked in a dogfight, I prefer to think that maybe my cannon is somehow binding heavy charged particles (ions) with some sort of fusion process. When these particles collide with those nasty pirates, the impact causes not only kinetic damage but also "burn damage" resulting from the re-separation of the heavy ions.

Amazing what insights your second pot of coffee will bring...

Viper168 · Post by **Viper168** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 7:40 am

Interesting topic just felt like commenting

EMP (ElectroMagnetic Pulse) is electromagnetic, it isn't like getting a surge through your outlet. I've dabbled in the fields of EM weapontry a bit. While purely EMP weapontry is still quite young, there are others (HERF) that use microwaves to fry your electronics that are already here and fairly efficient. I'm still far from an expert. I've built tesla coils, coilguns, and plan on doing a railgun once I obtain sufficient capacitors. All of these are scientifically sound inventions. if these are things that interest you go ahead an visit some of my friends sites below.

If you're interested you can read up on (a friend) slavas railgun project at http://www.voltsamps.com/pages/projects/railgun01/

This is my friend barrys page about low powered coilguns: http://www.oz.net/~coilgun/home.htm

Anyways, I hope this isn't considered spam, just thought I'd share.

Post by **hellcatv** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 8:23 am

cool

well I respect you people who can actually *put* something together and make it work...

keep collecting those capacitors...I got one of those nifty fly snapper things...I think that must have a few capacitors in it...just swing it like a tennis racket and one less bug

DirtyMagic · Post by **DirtyMagic** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 4:55 pm

Remind me to stay on Viper's GOOD side...

Have you heard of Metalstorm? They're an Australian company that's building "electronic" projectile weapons. Some of their gizmos have firing rates around a million rounds a minute... Cool stuff.

http://www.metalstorm.com/

pontiac · Post by **pontiac** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 5:58 pm

About coil guns: i found this link recently:
http://members.optushome.com.au/dbsite1 ... /index.htm

Seems to be a fully working handgun.

Pontiac

Viper168 · Post by **Viper168** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 6:12 am

Ah yeah, I've been to that guys page. I briefly talked to him, that gun isn't as powerful as a real combustion hangun would be, but it is efficient according to the standards today. The sad thing about EM weapontry (speaking of coilguns and railguns) is that they're horribly inefficient. However, the more you step up the power, the more efficiency you get. An ordinary coilgun these days only has something like a max of 2% efficiency. Until we get impressively powerful (and compact) energy sources these things probably wont take off.

Oh hellcat.... If you'd be interested in making a small weak coilgun, you can salvage 330v caps from disposable cameras (with flash). My first coilgun was made using 5 camera charging units and capacitors in parallel. Not too powerful, but similar to the power of a BB gun.

Dirtymagic, I wish they would explain what they're actually doing, all I got from it was a bunch of talking about stacking bullets, not their actual method of propelling.
You have to be careful about who you believe on the internet. With all the pseudo-science sites out there talking about aluminum powered engines and practical cold fusion.

You guys making me post so much, I'll have to register soon.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Nov 05, 2003 7:42 pm

I'm assuming that Metalstorm is legit as they trade on the NASDAQ and aren't just some guy building stuff as a hobby. They seem to be able to get their hands on 40mm grenades, too. Or at least claim to...

The jist I got was this... they use a traditional "explosion propels projectile" method. The propellant seems to be external to the projectile and they're alternated in the barrel. The propellant is ignited electrically. The first big advantage is that there's no mechanical wait time for a bullet to be moved into a chamber to be fired or for the actual firing process. The other cool thing is that they're talking about using multiple barrels with different ammunitions. Like a handgun with bullets in one chamber and gas grenades in another, or a multi-barrelled grenade launcher that could choose between firi AT grenades to disable a tank or flahbangs to scare off civilians. Their technology isn't really a big advance in how it's fired... it's still just an explosion pushing a metal slug. All they've really done is upped the fire rate by removing mecahnical action and allowed the user choose one or many barrels.

It's just interesting mostly because it seems to be the first "new" weapon technology being developed by a real company rather than enthusiasts.

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