Electromagnetic rail-gun obliterates targets 100 miles away

[Article]The gun that can destroy an enemy 100 miles away and fire bullets at eight times the speed of sound

"People see these things in the video games, but this is real,’ said programme manager Roger Ellis. ‘This is what is very historical."

Woah, nice slowmo camera with the first shot :o

That looks quite neat, perhaps the concept could be scaled down and used in place of the camping rifle? Really all it would need is a new model/textures and a plasma trail because the current CR sounds a bit like a muffled capacitor discharging anyway

That looks like it'd be good for causing some serious property damage or cooler, sending random crap up into space.

Let's miniaturize it and make a real xonrifle.

That looks quite neat, perhaps the concept could be scaled down and used in place of the camping rifle? Really all it would need is a new model/textures and a plasma trail because the current CR sounds a bit like a muffled capacitor discharging anyway

What do you think the two prongs on the Nex are for? The reason I'm so happy with the balance is because of the difference between the Nex and Rifle--mainly that while the old Nexuiz Nex was a blend of a sniper rifle and a railgun (yes they're different). Now we have the Rifle--which specializes in sniping, and the Nex--rebalanced so that it is exclusively a railgun.

If you want to know the difference between a railgun and a sniper rifle, think of it like this: a railgun is powerful and has the ability to vaporize players--a sniper rifle is designed to hit players from far ranges. It just so happens that our planet's gravity has made it necessary to make sniper's bullets bigger to travel that far, and thus from their size they also do a lot of damage. We don't have any hand-held railguns yet, so we can only go off what big versions we have and what we can imagine.

Yes I know, Monad's Law is coming true.

Railgun Run with that cute little baby and you'll win. With the map.

What do you think the two prongs on the Nex are for? The reason I'm so happy with the balance is because of the difference between the Nex and Rifle--mainly that while the old Nexuiz Nex was a blend of a sniper rifle and a railgun (yes they're different). Now we have the Rifle--which specializes in sniping, and the Nex--rebalanced so that it is exclusively a railgun.

The Nex is a powerful sniper weapon. Its primary fire mode fires a hitscan antimatter lance for significant damage, but requires a very precise aim, and has a relatively long reload time.

I suppose I should clarify what I mean. AFAIK there are no handheld railguns currently in existence (at least none with more force than an airsoft rifle), but there are "Coil guns" (or "Gauss Rifles") which pack quite a punch and have similar characteristics to the Camping Rifle (bar the multi-fire mode, but that could be achieved with stacked projectiles). Really what I'm getting at is more lore-and-appearance than functionality related. Treating the camping rifle as a rail gun would give flexibility in terms of ammo type and bring it closer in capability to the nex (so that mappers or admins can replace the nex with it if they so choose).

The nex is *not* a rail gun as it does not shoot a projectile or use electromagnetic acceleration afaict. A sniper rifle is merely a generic term for a long range rifle, there are no constraints on the type of projectile it fires or the way in which it propels the projectile. If anything the Nex is more of a sniper rifle because it has (by default) greater range and power.

If only we invested a fraction of our "defense" budget on technology designed to improve life on this planet, rather than destroy it... ---> free energy for all? ----> an end to war?

I agree though, that it would be cool if this railgun thing could launch equipment into space.