The Relative Merits of Railguns and Gauss Cannons

[liveware (OP)]

So...

I've been considering the trade-offs between gauss cannons and rail guns lately. I've read elsewhere on these forums that railguns make for better point defense weapons at low tech so I decided to run an experiment. I created two ships, one with lowest level railgun tech and one with lowest level gauss cannon tech and compared their numbers. I was somewhat surprised to find that the gauss ship seemed to be a dramatically better choice. I designed the gauss ship to have equivalent weapon performance to the railgun ship, at least for anti-missile purposes. I find the gauss ship superior as it has superior range, deployment time, maintenance life, and armour rating. Ship designs are below:

 

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Bunker Hill A class Point Defense Corvette (P)      3,000 tons       112 Crew       392.7 BP       TCS 60    TH 480    EM 0
8002 km/s      Armour 2-18       Shields 0-0       HTK 11      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 3
Maint Life 0.67 Years     MSP 81    AFR 72%    IFR 1.0%    1YR 121    5YR 1,816    Max Repair 240.00 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 5.7 days    Morale Check Required   

UNRC Nuclear Pulse Engine  EP480.00 (1)    Power 480.0    Fuel Use 110.23%    Signature 480.00    Explosion 15%
Fuel Capacity 11,000 Litres    Range 0.6 billion km (20 hours at full power)

UNRC 10cm Railgun V20/C3 (1x4)    Range 20,000km     TS: 8,002 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 20,000 km    ROF 5        1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
UNRC Beam Fire Control R128-TS8000 (1)     Max Range: 128,000 km   TS: 8,000 km/s     99 98 98 97 96 95 95 94 93 92
UNRC Improved Pebble Bed Reactor R3-PB20 (1)     Total Power Output 3    Exp 10%

UNRC AMM Search Sensor AS1-R1 (1)     GPS 1     Range 1.3m km    MCR 113.5k km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


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Bunker Hill B class Point Defense Corvette (P)      3,000 tons       75 Crew       239.6 BP       TCS 60    TH 80    EM 0
1333 km/s      Armour 3-18       Shields 0-0       HTK 13      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 16.32
Maint Life 1.67 Years     MSP 54    AFR 65%    IFR 0.9%    1YR 23    5YR 345    Max Repair 69.60 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months    Morale Check Required   

UNRC Commercial Nuclear Pulse Engine  EP80.0 (1)    Power 80.0    Fuel Use 5.12%    Signature 80.0    Explosion 4%
Fuel Capacity 1,000 Litres    Range 1.2 billion km (10 days at full power)

Twin UNRC Gauss Cannon R200-100 Turret (1x4)    Range 20,000km     TS: 8000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 20,000 km    ROF 5        1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
UNRC Beam Fire Control R128-TS8000 (1)     Max Range: 128,000 km   TS: 8,000 km/s     99 98 98 97 96 95 95 94 93 92

UNRC AMM Search Sensor AS1-R1 (1)     GPS 1     Range 1.3m km    MCR 113.5k km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Some notes on other relevant techs involved:
Engines - Nuclear pulse (affects railgun tracking speed)
Armor - Composite (affects railgun tracking speed)
BFC - Best range and tracking speed available (same BFC on both ships)

I must be missing something with railguns. Can anyone enlighten me regarding their supposed superiority?


*EDIT: Range bands are shown in 1k km increments against 8k km/s targets

[Garfunkel]

This is a good read on the topic and it's relatively recent:

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=11317.0

Iceranger's post sums it up pretty well:

Conventional wisdom concerning PD has been that 10cm railguns beat gauss turrets at all but the highest of tech levels.

As I have pointed out on discord, this is under the context of hull-mounted weapons. Comparing hull mounts to turrets is like... compare apples to oranges. The consensus is basically for fast ships, hull-mounted railguns are better than hull-mounted gausses for PD. Otherwise, stick with gauss turrets.

It's not GC turret against RG because those are two different things due to turrets reaching high tracking speeds easily. It's hull-mounted GC against RG.

Also, RG fires 4 times whereas GC fires once and you need to research several GC techs to get its firing speed equal to RG. Which makes it cheaper and easier to build RG-based FlaK barges in early game.

[liveware (OP)]

It's not GC turret against RG because those are two different things due to turrets reaching high tracking speeds easily. It's hull-mounted GC against RG.

Therin lies my misconception. I had assumed it was turreted GC vs RG.

Also, RG fires 4 times whereas GC fires once and you need to research several GC techs to get its firing speed equal to RG. Which makes it cheaper and easier to build RG-based FlaK barges in early game.

Yes. This is why in my test I used a twin GC turret vs a single RG (1x4 shots vs 1x4 shots).

Follow up question: I noticed during R&D efforts that my engine-less Bunker Hill A RG's had a tracking speed of 2k km/s listed. Does this imply that an engine-less RG equipped space station would still have a RG tracking speed of 2k km/s? I thought tracking speed was limited by ship speed...

[Jorgen_CAB]

To be honest I think this comparison seem a bit unfair as you compare one ship that has a speed of 8000km/s versus another that only has 1333km/s. This will give two ships that have vastly different capabilities and both tactical/strategical use.

Instead design two more or less identical ships one with a single gauss turret at max tracking with 1x4 and then one ship with four rail-guns, so 4x4 shots. They will more or less shoot down an equal number of missiles unless they are up against missiles using ECM.

About tracking speed then your racial tracking speed is always the lower end of how fast you track. So any ship with a lower speed still track at that speed. If you want to track faster than that you either need a turreted weapon or speed on the ship to match the tracking of the fire-control.

[Steve Walmsley]

Another factor is that effective gauss requires a lot more research than railguns. Also, in my current game at one point I had fast ships relative to my beam fire control tracking (6400 vs 4000), so a hull mounted railgun could track at 6400 vs a turret mounted gauss at  16000. I decided to stay with the more flexible railguns because of their better offensive capabilities.

Now I think about it, all my recent campaigns have been beam-first races. I probably should get back into missiles at some point

[Black]

Now I think about it, all my recent campaigns have been beam-first races. I probably should get back into missiles at some point

I noticed something similar in all my C# games. I build some missile designs but as the game progress I start to use beam ships almost exclusively. I encounter lot of AMM spammers and it is much easier and cheaper to use beam ships (gauss/laser) to kill them.

[SpaceMarine]

Another factor is that effective gauss requires a lot more research than railguns. Also, in my current game at one point I had fast ships relative to my beam fire control tracking (6400 vs 4000), so a hull mounted railgun could track at 6400 vs a turret mounted gauss at  16000. I decided to stay with the more flexible railguns because of their better offensive capabilities.

Now I think about it, all my recent campaigns have been beam-first races. I probably should get back into missiles at some point

Sound like a really good idea, and who knows maybe you idk go back into doing some mine plays and fix the various issues with them while your at it. hmmmm