Reload autocannons ?

[Lexe]

Is there a button to reload autocannons ?
Would be nice to be able to fire more than 3 bullets without having to wait for an auto reload..

[Laurreth]

No, you will have to empty them to trigger a reload.

[Agony_Aunt]

You mean multicannons? Nope, its a deliberate game design decision to now allow manual reloads.

If you want auto reloads, there is an engineer special effect that provides it. Although it does mean you get a smaller stock of ammo in that weapon.

[Naskoni]

That's why I love putting the auto loader experimental upgrade when engineering them. In most cases it simply eliminates the downtime due to reloading completely.

[Lexe]

So they failed to include a reload mechanic in a weapon build by all the engineers spread across the galaxy. Maybe in the future engineers have the brain capacity of a 5 year old.

[Naskoni]

Originally posted by Lexe:

So they failed to include a reload mechanic in a weapon build by all the engineers spread across the galaxy. Maybe in the future engineers have the brain capacity of a 5 year old.

Nah, they made all weapons reload automatically so that even 5-year olds can shoot them. Because even 5 year olds can press and keep pressing a single mouse button.

[Schnittertm]

Originally posted by Naskoni:

Originally posted by Lexe:

So they failed to include a reload mechanic in a weapon build by all the engineers spread across the galaxy. Maybe in the future engineers have the brain capacity of a 5 year old.

Nah, they made all weapons reload automatically so that even 5-year olds can shoot them. Because even 5 year olds can press and keep pressing a single mouse button.

The thing is, even in RL, the systems needs to be able to handle a partial reload, at least if it is based on magazines like it seems to be in ED. Surely a magazine based system is an odd choice for what amounts to a gatling auto cannon, as in RL all of them are belt fed with sometimes thousands of rounds on a belt. The only auto cannon that in RL that I can remember off the top of my head, that uses (manually loaded) magazines, would be the 30mm L21A1 RARDEN auto cannon on the British Warrior IFV, which uses 3 round clips.

However, if the auto loader system can not handle exchanging partially empty magazines, then there is your reason why you are not allowed to manually reload the multi-cannons.

[Naskoni]

Originally posted by Schnittertm:

Originally posted by Naskoni:

Nah, they made all weapons reload automatically so that even 5-year olds can shoot them. Because even 5 year olds can press and keep pressing a single mouse button.

The thing is, even in RL, the systems needs to be able to handle a partial reload, at least if it is based on magazines like it seems to be in ED. Surely a magazine based system is an odd choice for what amounts to a gatling auto cannon, as in RL all of them are belt fed with sometimes thousands of rounds on a belt. The only auto cannon that in RL that I can remember off the top of my head, that uses (manually loaded) magazines, would be the 30mm L21A1 RARDEN auto cannon on the British Warrior IFV, which uses 3 round clips.

However, if the auto loader system can not handle exchanging partially empty magazines, then there is your reason why you are not allowed to manually reload the multi-cannons.

I'm not aware of any RL weapons of that size (class 3 and 4 are basically battleship-size weapons) that can be reloaded in belt-fed fashion. Usually it takes multiple people to reload them after each single shot. In the case of battleship main artillery 20+ seconds to reload and a crew of 30+ to operate even one such gun.

[Schnittertm]

Originally posted by Naskoni:

Originally posted by Schnittertm:

The thing is, even in RL, the systems needs to be able to handle a partial reload, at least if it is based on magazines like it seems to be in ED. Surely a magazine based system is an odd choice for what amounts to a gatling auto cannon, as in RL all of them are belt fed with sometimes thousands of rounds on a belt. The only auto cannon that in RL that I can remember off the top of my head, that uses (manually loaded) magazines, would be the 30mm L21A1 RARDEN auto cannon on the British Warrior IFV, which uses 3 round clips.

However, if the auto loader system can not handle exchanging partially empty magazines, then there is your reason why you are not allowed to manually reload the multi-cannons.

I'm not aware of any RL weapons of that size (class 3 and 4 are basically battleship-size weapons) that can be reloaded in belt-fed fashion. Usually it takes multiple people to reload them after each single shot. In the case of battleship main artillery 20+ seconds to reload and a crew of 30+ to operate even one such gun.

That is only the case because there were no full autoloaders built for battleship caliber guns, that doesn't mean that one is not able to. However, I was talking about rotating barrel multi-cannons, which are usually belt fed in RL, not the normal autoloaded cannons.

Anyway, there are already autoloaders for 155mm shells (PzH 2000 (partial auto loader), proposed XM2001 Crusader howitzer or Zumwalt class guns), I'm sure that by the 34th century they have figured out ways on how to automate loading of even larger shells. I'm sure if such there would be such guns still in use today, someone would also be able to automate the loading of even the 18.1 inch shells of Yamato class battleships. No need for a lot of crew anymore if you can build machinery that automates such matters and get a quite high rate of fire.

The previous mentioned guns have a rate of fire of up to at least 10 rounds per minute.

Here is a video from 1997, while the PzH 2000 was being tested in Germany, showing the rate of fire:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc9sb71px5I

Again, by the 34th century, something similar can also be instituted for battleship caliber shells. Depeding on the firing mechanism (an ETC type firing mechanism would be possibly and likely) and how the magazine for the ammo and propellant are designed, quite high rates of fire would be possible for even such guns.

I mean, they build ships the size of RL destroyers, which travel in space, have fusion reactors to power them and apparently lightweight materials that, despite its size, make them have a mass only about 10% of what real world ocean going ships of that size have (Fed. Corvette with 900 tons hull mass, Arleigh Burke class destroyer in most modern variant with 9,800 tons). They should figure out efficient loading mechanisms for big guns. It certainly isn't an engineering feat beyond even our measly 21st century.

[Naskoni]

Originally posted by Schnittertm:

Originally posted by Naskoni:

I'm not aware of any RL weapons of that size (class 3 and 4 are basically battleship-size weapons) that can be reloaded in belt-fed fashion. Usually it takes multiple people to reload them after each single shot. In the case of battleship main artillery 20+ seconds to reload and a crew of 30+ to operate even one such gun.

That is only the case because there were no full autoloaders built for battleship caliber guns, that doesn't mean that one is not able to. However, I was talking about rotating barrel multi-cannons, which are usually belt fed in RL, not the normal autoloaded cannons.

Anyway, there are already autoloaders for 155mm shells (PzH 2000 (partial auto loader), proposed XM2001 Crusader howitzer or Zumwalt class guns), I'm sure that by the 34th century they have figured out ways on how to automate loading of even larger shells. I'm sure if such there would be such guns still in use today, someone would also be able to automate the loading of even the 18.1 inch shells of Yamato class battleships. No need for a lot of crew anymore if you can build machinery that automates such matters and get a quite high rate of fire.

The previous mentioned guns have a rate of fire of up to at least 10 rounds per minute.

Here is a video from 1997, while the PzH 2000 was being tested in Germany, showing the rate of fire:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc9sb71px5I

Again, by the 34th century, something similar can also be instituted for battleship caliber shells. Depeding on the firing mechanism (an ETC type firing mechanism would be possibly and likely) and how the magazine for the ammo and propellant are designed, quite high rates of fire would be possible for even such guns.

I mean, they build ships the size of RL destroyers, which travel in space, have fusion reactors to power them and apparently lightweight materials that, despite its size, make them have a mass only about 10% of what real world ocean going ships of that size have (Fed. Corvette with 900 tons hull mass, Arleigh Burke class destroyer in most modern variant with 9,800 tons). They should figure out efficient loading mechanisms for big guns. It certainly isn't an engineering feat beyond even our measly 21st century.

I'd say magazines of 90 battleships shells reloaded fully automatically in 4 seconds and done so for battleship-size weapons, and even for fully rotational (turreted weapons) seems more than good enough progress to me. Especially when compared to the basically class 1 sized manually operated weapons from your example.

Go look what RL battleship artillery requires and how many people were needed to reload even a single shell.

[Schnittertm]

Originally posted by Naskoni:

I'd say magazines of 90 battleships shells reloaded fully automatically in 4 seconds and done so for battleship-size weapons, and even for fully rotational (turreted weapons) seems more than good enough progress to me. Especially when compared to the basically class 1 sized manually operated weapons from your example.

Go look what RL battleship artillery requires and how many people were needed to reload even a single shell.

I'm quite aware of that, however, I don't see the caliber of even class 4 multi-cannons in this game to be of battleship size, howitzer size at maximum. The class 4 cannons on the other hand, are of battleship caliber, but they also only are loaded in 5 shell clips and not 90 shell magazines.

Also, I do know how many people were needed to load a battleship caliber gun in WW2, however, if such a gun system would be designed today (if they were still viable), they would do away with huge crews and use an auto loading system, where you only have a few controllers on the bridge controlling the whole, automated firing process, aided by the ships sensors and fire control computers. However, as they are close to realizing actual, working rail guns, I don't see a come back for chemical energy battleship caliber guns, with too limited a range, both compared to missiles, as well as multi-role fighters and current gun systems, which all outrange such guns.

[Naskoni]

Originally posted by Schnittertm:

Originally posted by Naskoni:

I'd say magazines of 90 battleships shells reloaded fully automatically in 4 seconds and done so for battleship-size weapons, and even for fully rotational (turreted weapons) seems more than good enough progress to me. Especially when compared to the basically class 1 sized manually operated weapons from your example.

Go look what RL battleship artillery requires and how many people were needed to reload even a single shell.

I'm quite aware of that, however, I don't see the caliber of even class 4 multi-cannons in this game to be of battleship size, howitzer size at maximum. The class 4 cannons on the other hand, are of battleship caliber, but they also only are loaded in 5 shell clips and not 90 shell magazines.

Also, I do know how many people were needed to load a battleship caliber gun in WW2, however, if such a gun system would be designed today (if they were still viable), they would do away with huge crews and use an auto loading system, where you only have a few controllers on the bridge controlling the whole, automated firing process, aided by the ships sensors and fire control computers. However, as they are close to realizing actual, working rail guns, I don't see a come back for chemical energy battleship caliber guns, with too limited a range, both compared to missiles, as well as multi-role fighters and current gun systems, which all outrange such guns.

Well, I'm of the opinion that even today nobody can build a fully automated loading system for battleships weapons, not to mention one that can load them at random angle, and on top of that at such a rate.

As for railguns - you'd need the Elite-era power plants on those battleships in order to power them. I'd suspect they'd be bigger and substantially more complicated (i.e expensive) than ordinary big-calliber guns. But at least you'd avoid the problem with the all that powder being carried around altogether.

[Agony_Aunt]

Originally posted by Lexe:

So they failed to include a reload mechanic in a weapon build by all the engineers spread across the galaxy. Maybe in the future engineers have the brain capacity of a 5 year old.

No. They didn't fail to include it, they chose not to allow reloading until the clip is empty, then it automatically reloads. This was done for gameplay reason, not for lore reasons.

[Von Pink]

It doesn't make sense for the multicannons to reload before going through a full box when the system is automated. What happens to all the partial belts left around if the box can be changed prior to all rounds in the box being spent? Just think about it for more than a second. Ammo for the multicannons is most likely on a belt, stored in boxes. Once the ammo is spent the empty box is replaced with a full box and the belt is fed in. If the system reloads before all the ammo in a box is spent then there would be partial belts of ammo left in a box, never being used, sitting in the collection bin where spent rounds and ammo boxes are stored in order to be recycled during resupply. It's possible they're ejected into space but collecting and recycling the shells/box/beltclips makes more sense.

[Wolf]

Originally posted by Agony_Aunt:

Originally posted by Lexe:

So they failed to include a reload mechanic in a weapon build by all the engineers spread across the galaxy. Maybe in the future engineers have the brain capacity of a 5 year old.

No. They didn't fail to include it, they chose not to allow reloading until the clip is empty, then it automatically reloads. This was done for gameplay reason, not for lore reasons.

reference missing. cant say some one did something for some reason without a citation url atleast lol

[Schnittertm]

Originally posted by Naskoni:

Well, I'm of the opinion that even today nobody can build a fully automated loading system for battleships weapons, not to mention one that can load them at random angle, and on top of that at such a rate.

As for railguns - you'd need the Elite-era power plants on those battleships in order to power them. I'd suspect they'd be bigger and substantially more complicated (i.e expensive) than ordinary big-calliber guns. But at least you'd avoid the problem with the all that powder being carried around altogether.

Battleship guns have been loaded with the assistance of machinery even back then, as the shells are just too big for a human or even several humans to lift. The only thing that would be needed is to automate a lot of the tasks that the crew had to do back then, e.g. the gun rammer operator, who basically just pushed a button to ram the shell and/or powder charges into the breech. These are tasks that can all be automated with todays technology and advances in material sciences.

Concerning railgun, no, the power plants on modern war ships of the destroyer class are enough to power them. They are rather currently still testing methods of loading them automatically and on how to reduce strain to the rail itself, as materials are still prone to wear out quickly, due to the stress of the electric current running through the rail itself. Besides, with the savings in space for the shells you might install an additional generator on a ship sporting such a gun. The Zumwalt class has already been prepared for the power draw a rail gun would have on its systems.

Similarly, there are already multiple defense companies that have shown working laser weapons for defense against missiles, drones and standard shells. One such system, the LaWS, is currently installed on the USS Ponce and is using a 100 kW laser system. Rheinmetall has demonstrated that its HEL has similar capabilities, though no sea tests have been done yet, only demonstrations of a ground based unit have been made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0DbgNju2wE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV3jfR-FUFc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2QqOvFMG_A