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Author Topic: Strength of EvE Weaponry.  (Read 13327 times)

Vikarion

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Strength of EvE Weaponry.
« on: 06 May 2015, 15:38 »

So, recently I made an attempt to determine the power of EvE weaponry via an analysis of railgun rounds. Unfortunately, as one person noted, we don't actually know the velocity of EvE railgun rounds. So much for that, then.

Well, I figured, perhaps there is something that can be quantified. And, since I'm home from work with food poisoning today, I had time to go browse the EvE Fiction forum, where someone had posted about these two articles (in the Lapetan Titans thread, where Falcon chimed in to blab some more about just how fucking awesome the Federation attack on Caldari Prime was). Incidentally, in these articles, it is NOT a Lapetan Titan, but an Avatar. Anyway, here are the two articles:

https://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/planet-wide-explosion-strikes-reschard-v/?_ga=1.175351074.1267934737.1413253271
https://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/rescue-ships-finally-reach-disaster-planet-surface/?_ga=1.175351074.1267934737.1413253271

So, Reschard V was destroyed by the old Avatar doomsday weapon. Which is great - I mean, not great for Reschard V - but great because we can know the average damage of an Avatar's Judgment doomsday. We also have a fairly good idea of how much energy it takes to inflict that level of damage to a planet. Specifically, we can correlate it to the energy released in an asteroid strike.

Incidentally, because Titan doomsdays do the same amount of damage, we can also dispense with any worries about overestimating the potential damage of an EvE weapon. EM would do less damage to a planet than Kinetic, perhaps, but certainly not more.

Now, we know how much base damage an Avatar does with the old Judgment doomsday: 46,875. For ease of calculation, and also as a hedge against overestimation, I'll round this to 50,000. Increased skills on the part of the pilot can raise this a bit, but it's a good base number.

How much damage did Reschard V take? Well, it appears to have taken damage somewhere in the range of a large asteroid strike. Preliminary estimates in the news theorized that around 87% of all life on the surface was instantly killed. Later examination in the second article stated that the entire surface of the planet was incapable of supporting life, although a few survivors (percentage-wise) were recovered from caves and ruins. So we can conclude that the strike on Reschard V was, in terms of damage to the planet, nearly a total extinction event.

In comparison, the roughly 10 km-wide asteroid that caused the Cretaceous Extinction killed about 75% of all species on earth, according to present knowledge, and did so over a period of time, as much of the dying was caused by secondary environmental effects. Thus, we can conclude that Avatar's Judgment weapon possessed much more destructive power than the Chicxulub impactor. This is especially true when you realize that the spherical nature of the Judgment doomsday would have only partially impacted the planet, as the Avatar was in low orbit, whereas the entire power of the Chicxulub impactor was expressed. On the other hand, since the damage Judgment inflicts does not vary by size (a Dread takes the same amount as a frigate) it seems that damage done is a flat amount per entity.

I then did some digging to see what kind of impact could express the necessary energy for the destruction of Reschard V. It turns out that you would probably need an asteroid of a size of 16 km or more. Since I'm trying to be as conservative as possible, I will use the 16 km size, although I could justifiably argue for larger.

A 16 km asteroid striking a planet would possess a destructive yield of 200 million megatons, or 200,000,000,000,000 tons of TNT. That's - if I got the math right - 200 trillion tons of TNT. We can safely say that an Avatar's Judgment doomsday weapon (the old one, still) possesses at least that much power.

Now we can simply divide the power of the weapon in real terms by EvE damage units. That is to say, an Avatar's weapon does roughly 50,000 damage in game, so we divide 200 million megatons by 50,000. That comes to 4,000 - again, if I'm doing the math right. Which means that every point of EvE damage works out to at least 4,000 megatons.

Even if you think that my estimates, which are hopefully based on the reasonably well-grounded science of asteroid impact, are far too high, even if you think that my estimates should be reduced by 75% (In which case Reschard V should have merely had a bad day), that still works out to each point of Eve damage expressing 1,000 megatons of energy.

And someone had the bright idea to give capsuleers these toys.
« Last Edit: 06 May 2015, 18:54 by Vikarion »
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Integra Valentine

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Re: Strength of EvE Weaponry.
« Reply #1 on: 06 May 2015, 18:35 »

Wow.. Thank god Hitler didn't play EVE: Online.. Me thinks he would have gotten some idea's..

As for your theorycrafting, not bad, I personally would think the old Titan weapons stronger and would say that your estimates might be more at home with the Capsuleer Titans and not the Empire Titans (From lore at least they make them seem different). Because you have to remember, We have no idea what an EM weapon of that power would do to Earth, it could stop our planet rotation and stuff like that..

But the power of EVE: Online weaponry is pretty up the charts, even looking at DUST 514, the kickback and the damage on the target.

As for the railgun idea, safe to say speed of light or a half of that, times the weight of the projectile, and all those things, you could work it out, though in space, with gravity and that stuff who knows, I do know that if you fired a railgun in EVE at a target, and it didn't connect, well.. That rail round will just keep going, till it ruins some ones day at some place, at some place in space in a few hundred years, also, on a fun note, firing a railgun off the side of a supernovering planet, or a massive sun, could cause the round to do a loop and come back at you :D

Only thing I disagree with is the mega tonne yield, I'd be up.. Way up, as the speed of the damage hitting the planet would also cause more damage then just the actual impact, same math used for weapon like tungsten rods, imagine that, but in stead of just a metal rod, it's a 1km wide lighting beam made of pure hate and religious fury smashing into your planet, and who knows how long the beam would take to die out, could dig pretty deep into a planets crust, that.. And I just thought of it,but that amount of raw energy would probably super heat the air and kill most people, then the air vacuum after the strike, well.. That noise would kill a lot of people too, I wish i was good at math to work it out properly.

Something interesting though would be the Erebus Doomsday weapon, given that it uses Dark Matter energy, I don't know much about Dark Matter, but come on, it's got dark in it's name, that is never a good sign! :D

P.s. Love this post so much, made me think about it all, but now I have an image of Hitler standing on the bridge of a Titan with Swatstikars all over it.. :P
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Vikarion

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Re: Strength of EvE Weaponry.
« Reply #2 on: 06 May 2015, 18:59 »

Heh, thanks. BTW, the articles are actually about the Avatar Titan with the old doomsday, not the Lapetans. I just found them in the Lapetan thread.

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Integra Valentine

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Re: Strength of EvE Weaponry.
« Reply #3 on: 06 May 2015, 19:12 »

Oh I know :) that is what I meant, I think a old Titan would have much more destructive power, as Capsuleer Titans are just shadows of those empire Titans, actually, speaking of it, do they look the safe? Or are they different?
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Vikarion

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Re: Strength of EvE Weaponry.
« Reply #4 on: 06 May 2015, 19:20 »

Oh I know :) that is what I meant, I think a old Titan would have much more destructive power, as Capsuleer Titans are just shadows of those empire Titans, actually, speaking of it, do they look the safe? Or are they different?

No, the Lapetan Titans are much, much bigger and nastier: http://aurora-arcology.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/the-empire-titans-bigger-is-better.html

I'd love to have any of them, though. For...display purposes.

Also, if I have my Star Wars math right, this means that an EvE frigate, properly fitted, is going to output much more damage than an entire Imperial Star Destroyer. Which means that Star Wars: The Old Republic is utterly hosed if we ever get an EvE ship into it  :twisted:
« Last Edit: 06 May 2015, 19:23 by Vikarion »
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Integra Valentine

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Re: Strength of EvE Weaponry.
« Reply #5 on: 06 May 2015, 19:22 »

Display? I'd love to have one just to use as a POCO basher :D bloody Wormholes have them everywhere, and I can't see that from work, but when I get home I will look it up! Can't wait to see these bad boys!
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Katrina Oniseki

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Re: Strength of EvE Weaponry.
« Reply #6 on: 06 May 2015, 19:44 »

Now translate that to the new Doomsdays - 2,000,000 damage per hit to a single focused target.

Seems to me those would be more in line with Death Star type planet-obliterator, which explains why CONCORD locks us out from using them on anything but a "valid target".

Additionally, a single battleship doing a conservative 500DPS (two million megatons per second) could reliably glass a decently sized continent in under a couple hours.
« Last Edit: 06 May 2015, 19:52 by Katrina Oniseki »
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Vikarion

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Re: Strength of EvE Weaponry.
« Reply #7 on: 06 May 2015, 20:08 »

Now translate that to the new Doomsdays - 2,000,000 damage per hit to a single focused target.

Seems to me those would be more in line with Death Star type planet-obliterator, which explains why CONCORD locks us out from using them on anything but a "valid target".

Additionally, a single battleship doing a conservative 500DPS (two million megatons per second) could reliably glass a decently sized continent in under a couple hours.

Yup. The new superweapon comes out to around 800,000,000,000 megatons, if I got my math right, again, or roughly 3.3472e+27 joules. That's not enough to vaporize a planet like the Death Star does, which requires 2.2 x 10e+32 joules of energy...I think. It's been a while since I blew up a planet. Nonetheless, it's more than enough to make it uninhabitable, probably for several million years.
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Integra Valentine

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Re: Strength of EvE Weaponry.
« Reply #8 on: 06 May 2015, 20:19 »

Fun fact, firing a 250mm Railgun at say New York from orbit, would destroy all of New York, and firing a 1000mm Railgun would vaporize most of Australia, just realized that.. That is a scary thought when we are firing this bastards through space.. That has planets in it.. Are there any situations in the lore when Capsuleer rounds have hit planets?
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Vikarion

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Re: Strength of EvE Weaponry.
« Reply #9 on: 06 May 2015, 20:38 »

Fun fact, firing a 250mm Railgun at say New York from orbit, would destroy all of New York, and firing a 1000mm Railgun would vaporize most of Australia, just realized that.. That is a scary thought when we are firing this bastards through space.. That has planets in it.. Are there any situations in the lore when Capsuleer rounds have hit planets?

Keep in mind that atmospheric friction would destroy many artillery or railgun rounds before they hit the planet. Large rounds might easily have a self-destruct mechanism for just this reason. Atmosphere would diffuse energy beams, and blasters don't have nearly enough range.

No, what you want to worry about is someone getting a Caldari Scourge Citadel Torpedo onto a planet. Those things kill their targets by creating gravity shear - in other words, turning local space-time into ribbons. That's really bad news anywhere.
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Integra Valentine

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Re: Strength of EvE Weaponry.
« Reply #10 on: 06 May 2015, 20:45 »

But Kinetic Bombardment theory crafting would surggest that based of a 1000mm Railgun round (And off the shape of the charge) it would theoreticly make it to the planet rather easily, also, keep in mind that railguns move at such a speed in RL now that they compare it to speed of light as a reference, so EVE is a few million/hundred thousand years ahead of us, I can safely assume that they would use tech to fire at a higher velocity then Mach 10, and with gravity pulling it in as well.. Well.. That would tickle..

True.. Didn't even think of  them, they  have a gravitation generator in them don't they? And given it's size and the fact it is used for space fights we can assume thrusters are on the front and sides of it, so the atmosphere wouldn't damage it like a projectile..

I like this discussion! :D
« Last Edit: 06 May 2015, 20:48 by Integra Valentine »
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Vikarion

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Re: Strength of EvE Weaponry.
« Reply #11 on: 06 May 2015, 20:49 »

But Kinetic Bombardment theory crafting would surggest that based of a 1000mm Railgun round (And off the shape of the charge) it would theoreticly make it to the planet rather easily, also, keep in mine that railguns move at such a speed in RL now that they compare it to speed of light as a reference, so EVE is a few million/hundred thousand years ahead of us, I can safely assume that they would use tech to fire at a higher velocity then Mach 10, and with gravity pulling it in as well.. Well.. That would tickle..

Yeah, that's why the larger ones would need self-destruct mechanisms. Only the smaller ones - probably below a meter - would burn up.

Also glad you're enjoying it. The math wasn't too bad - I used calculators.  :P
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Integra Valentine

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Re: Strength of EvE Weaponry.
« Reply #12 on: 06 May 2015, 21:00 »

Calculators? As in plural? 0_0

And hmm.. True.. Didn't think about them having self destruct options, but, you'd have to be quick on that button.. Cause the ships fire volleys ever 6 seconds, they move at the speed of light, you have like 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000021 percent chance to hit the button in time.. Cause the system wouldn't be able to compute fast enough.. Unless there was like a bubble that if the rounds past it (Say the hard range of 249km) they would just splinter, that could work.. But would be.. Odd.. Capsuleer generally dont give 2 shits about humans, by generally I mean the majority
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Katrina Oniseki

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Re: Strength of EvE Weaponry.
« Reply #13 on: 06 May 2015, 21:15 »

Moar numbers pl0x. I want more wanton destruction. Put them up against other fictional weapons! Phasers and turbolasers! Photon torpedoes and proton torpedoes!

Integra Valentine

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Re: Strength of EvE Weaponry.
« Reply #14 on: 06 May 2015, 21:21 »

There is no such thing as to much pew pew, but, if you want pure destructive power, you would probably have to look at the Warhammer 40k Universe, they have a gun so powerful that just firing the thing tears open black holes and wipes out fleets of daemon vessels.. Yeah.. It kills things that dont have a physical body..
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