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Re: idiot's summary
Posted By: Grady	Date: 1/28/05 11:32 a.m.
In Response To: Re: idiot's summary (mrbananas) : well now remember, not only would the ship get magnitized, but it would take : a very large power source to power the mac gun, plus the engines, plus : life suport, etc..., the ship's engine can only make so much power. : know if i recall. the supermac guns got their juice from their each individul : powerplant on the surface, (how the power gets from surface to gun, i : don't know) so the mac gun has access to more power. Some sort of beamed power setup, probably. The technology to transmit power pretty efficiently using microwave beams was developed all the way back in the 1970s. IIRC they got better than 80% efficiency over the link, which is pretty darned good, especially for the 1970s. On the original subject, Nylund is a good writer, but he fudges a fair amount of the science. I still cringe when the characters in Fall of Reach or First Strike talk about orbital maneuvering in the context of something fast. In real life, the maneuvers he talks about happen over hours, days, or years, and that's a feature of orbital mechanics, not the tecnology of the ships. (This is not to imply that you can't go fast in space, just that when you're going really fast, gravity assists and the like can't change your course or speed much.) I seem to recall reading about projectile velocities of about 30 km/s from the shipboard MACs, which sounds reasonable to me, and I would believe velocities several times that large (but still a tiny fraction of the speed of light) for the Super MACs. In short, Nylund seems to be saying the Super MACs shoot at 40% of the speed of light, but that number is just silly to me, and if they were real devices I wouldn't believe anything more than a few hundred kilometers per second.

Plants of the Delta Halo control room

Message Index

UNSC MAC round velocity	Vanguard21	1/27/05 11:18 p.m.
Re: UNSC MAC round velocity	Alex Cross	1/28/05 12:09 a.m.
whoa, careless error ;)	gspawn	1/28/05 12:31 a.m.
*sigh* Goddamnit	Alex Cross	1/28/05 6:14 a.m.
Re: whoa, careless error ;)	Son of Ral	1/28/05 3:51 p.m.
"Boo"	Son of Ral	1/28/05 3:47 p.m.
To sum it up, .4c :) *NM*	Alex Cross	1/28/05 12:11 a.m.
idiot's summary	gspawn	1/28/05 12:27 a.m.
Re: idiot's summary	Pvt. Jenkins	1/28/05 12:44 a.m.
Re: idiot's summary	gspawn	1/28/05 1:00 a.m.
hear hear *NM*	Corgana	1/28/05 1:02 a.m.
iMac? :) *NM*	Michael M.	1/28/05 1:06 a.m.
Re: idiot's summary	devolver	1/28/05 1:47 a.m.
Re: idiot's summary	replay	1/28/05 2:21 a.m.
Re: idiot's summary	mrbananas	1/28/05 9:38 a.m.
Re: idiot's summary	Bonekin	1/28/05 10:36 a.m.
Re: idiot's summary	mrbananas	1/28/05 11:18 a.m.
Re: idiot's summary	Grady	1/28/05 11:32 a.m.
the possible cause of confusion and doubt.	mrbananas	1/28/05 1:07 p.m.
Re: the possible cause of confusion and doubt.	Louis Wu	1/28/05 1:42 p.m.
Re: the possible cause of confusion and doubt.	Vanguard21	1/28/05 2:49 p.m.
Re: idiot's summary	Gre'Thor	1/28/05 12:10 p.m.
Re: idiot's summary	E.T. the Extremely Tired	1/28/05 12:54 p.m.
Re: idiot's summary	Eric Trautmann	1/28/05 3:23 p.m.
To put it in very simple terms...	Calvin Chaos	1/28/05 4:25 p.m.
Re: UNSC MAC round velocity	Vanguard21	1/28/05 1:11 p.m.
Re: UNSC MAC round velocity	Calvin Chaos	1/28/05 4:37 p.m.
Re: UNSC MAC round velocity	Vanguard21	1/28/05 5:12 p.m.