Coilguns
Coilguns — Terra Invicta technology. Magnetic mass drivers offer better performance than railguns.
About Coilguns
Coilguns is a Terra Invicta technology in MilitaryScience with a research cost of 30,000.
Magnetic mass drivers offer better performance than railguns.
A superficially similar, but nevertheless distinct, electromagnetic weapon to railguns, the coilgun (or Gauss Rifle, named for the great German mathematician), once again rewrites what was previously thought possible. Coilguns as a concept have existed for decades, but until now they have struggled to match the kinetic force of even an airgun. Thanks to further refinement of the electromagnetic technologies used in our mass drivers, this limitation has evaporated. While a railgun operates by passing current along one side of its barrel and then back down the other, our newest weapon houses an array of coils along its length, which are turned on and off in rapid and precise sequence, creating powerful electromagnetic attraction that accelerates projectiles to incredible velocities. Essentially, the coils rapidly pull projectiles through their center, whereas a railgun pushes its slugs along the rails in its barrel with great force. Railguns suffer from extreme wear and tear as a result, which imposes certain limitations on how powerful they can be without tearing themselves apart. A coilgun's coils, by contrast, do not come into physical contact with their projectiles, which in turn enables us to feed them far greater amounts of electrical power, without the same likelihood of reduced efficiency or eventual self-destruction. In short, a railgun is the brute force approach to electromagnetic warfare, while a coilgun is a costlier but far more refined solution. Used correctly, it is a truly devastating weapon.