From: merrick@rt66.com (Merrick Burkhardt) Subject: Toroidal PAW repost Date: Sun, 12 Nov 1995 21:47:45 -0700 (MST) Hi, I've been working on a way to design non-linear PAWs. The design that follows was done using some rules I made up with the input (a lot) of Derek Wildstar. Basically, toroidal PAWs run a pulse around the "racetrack" PA a few times (call each one a "lap"), then let them go off at a tangent. This takes more energy to do, and as the beam accelerates, it becomes harder to keep in the torus, so the KE imparted to the beam decreases with each lap the beam takes. As FFS also says, this won't take much damage, so I'd divide the number of hits it takes by 3 or 4 (losing one part of the accelerator will cause the beam to exit the tunnel right through the wall). It also uses more juice since each shot is made up of several added pulses. Toroidal PAWs: --------------------- 1. Select a tunnel radius, r. 2. Select a torus radius, R. 3. Calculate the path length of the torus, L: L=2*Pi*R a. Calculate the DE/lap: DE/lap=L^2 (this is just the max DE, it could be lower) 4. Calculate the tunnel volume: Vtun=2*Pi^2*R*r^2 a. double this (to cover cradle) 5. Caculate the effective range as in FFS, but use L from above. 6. Pick the ROF you want: ROF(actual)=(ROFeff)/laps per shot. 7. Calculate the effective ROF (this is just the total laps used each turn). 8. Calculate the actual DE: DE=DE/lap*sqrt(laps per shot) 9. IE=10*DE/lap (use this for HPG calculations) 10. For power, use the ROFeff, as the ROF. All the other stuff uses the regular rules. The idea here is that you take an HPG that will support a ROF=800, and use several "shots" per actual shot (since the beam doesn't leave the tunnel). The following is a sample TL15 Ring PAW. It used the above stuff, but I added a short, linear section on the end. This critter *includes* its own powerplant (there was extra room). Why extra room in a 65 ton turret instead of just making it 50 tons? Well, it had to do with the geometry of the standard 50 ton Bay provided. If we changed the shape of the bay, we could make this a 50 ton. ================================================================== TL15 Ring PAW (two tunnels---both must fire at the same target) Displacement: 65 tons (it fits in a standard 50ton bay, but has a 15ton turret above decks) Bore Diam: 2m Mass: 857.89 tonnes Price: 76.72 MCr Crew: 1 This weapon has a variable ROF, and the DE changes with the ROF. ROF DE (MJ) Power (MW) Stats (act) (per tube) (total used) (BL over BR) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10 1937.26 1435.82 10:220 20:110 40:55 80:28 P10:6-3-2-1 50 1243.24 " " 10:176 20:88 40:44 80:22 P(-1)10:5-3-2-1 100 893.46 " " 10:150 20:75 40:37 80:19 P(-2)10:4-2-1-0 200 646.12 " " 10:127 20:64 40:32 80:16 P(-3)10:4-2-1-0 The ROF of 10 is for each tunnel, so you'll get 2 shots. All the other ROFs assume 2 tubes firing, so the ROF of 50 has each tunnel firing 25 shots where each shot took 16 laps around the PA. Because they share an HPG, they'd alternate actually firing. There is enough waste space to armor the turret up to around BR AV:15 or so if you were worrying about it (still weak, but what the hell :). This bay looks like a 2 barrel large naval gun, but the barrels are much bigger in relation to their length. These would be *cool* to watch fire (assuming you could see the beam). At low ROFs they kick ass on small ships and they aren't too nasty for the intermediate size weapon that they are (and they aren't cheap). -Merrick