Topic: Nova Cannon?

[Greenstuff]

Apart from being mounted on Battleships and being horrendously powerful, does any one have any information about these things? Looks, how it works etc. Also, is it a solid shot, or laser weapon?



GS

[Stormtrooper of the Dominion]

Apart from being mounted on Battleships and being horrendously powerful, does any one have any information about these things? Looks, how it works etc. Also, is it a solid shot, or laser weapon?



GS

I believe its a single shot weapon according the BFG main rulebook.  The cannon is underslung on the prow of the ship.  Take a look at the Mars Class Cruiser in the "Ships of the Imperium" download from the specialist games website.

[Arun]

...and it's the standard weapon of Grots.

Anyway, what are you planning with it? A VDR?

[The GrimSqueaker]

The Nova Cannon is slow to reload, not single shot. The 2002 BFG Annual had a decent amount of information regarding it and alternative shell types as well I believe. Think of it as a cannon with a huge shell programmed to detonate in a certain area of space.

[[dixon]]

Note that it would be horrenously impratical to do something involving a Nova Cannon in 40k Scale.

There's only one Nova Cannon that in the entire Imperium that is used in surface warfare, and it's classified as an Ordinatus by the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Or in english, ridiculously large slaughtering device.

[Locarno]

BFG rulebook

A nova cannon is a huge weapon, normally mounted in the prow of a ship so that the recoil it generates can be compensated for by the vessel’s engines. It fires a projectile at incredible velocity, using graviometric impellers to accelerate it to close to light speed. The projectile implodes at a preset distance after firing, unleashing a force more potent than a dozen plasma bombs.

Adeptus Mechanicus Titan Legion List

Ordinatus Armageddon first shed blood during the massive Chaos invasion of the planet of the same name. The Khorne Banelords, Lords of Bat Battle and daemon engines were tle instrumental in the destruction of many cities, but a genius of the Adeptus Mechanicus, Geronimus Undersen, devised an Ordinatus as a defence against the marauding war engines. Undersen mounted a massive starship weapon onto a land and-based chassis, giving the Imperial forces an immense machine powerful enough to destroy even the largest and most powerful foes.
In the ensuing battle for Tartarus Hive, Armageddon destroyed no less than four Chaos Titans and two detachments of daemon engines. Without the heavy firepower of these machines, the Chaos assault broke upon the mile mile-high walls of Tartarus like a tide against the rocks.
The Nova Cannon is similar to the Plasma Annihilator of an Imperator Titan. However, rather than releasing a burst of raw plasma, the Nova Cannon can focus and control the potent energies to greater precision. This allows the crew to siphon small amounts of plasma into the discharge chamber, producing a rapid burst of fire. Alternatively, the crew can flood th the chamber with all the remaining plasma and send out an earth-shattering blast of energy.

Notice how, in Classic GW style, the two descriptions of the weapon's function don't match. The ordinatus weapon reads much more like the BFG description of a lance - the massive energy weapons that are the heavy ship-to-ship guns of Imperial battleships (bear in mind that the inquisition codex 'lance strike' is being fired from geostationary orbit, so a range of roughly 42245 kilometres, and it still delivers a S10 AP2 ordnance blast like a super-heavy tank's volcano cannon)

Here's some images - for size reference, that front tractor unit's tracks are the same size, more or less, as those on a chimera.
(It even looks like a capital ship lance turret, I think)
http://www.netepic.org/GALLERY/view_album.php?set_albumName=album17

[myles]

Bah. I never did like having lance strikes in 40k. A lance battery can snap a mile-long escort ship in two with one shot, I think even from geostationary orbit it would be far more powerful than a simple pie plate. Maybe if they gave the witch/daemon hunters some models they could have a real HS choice. 

[Greenstuff]

Right, scratch that idea for now then Time to find a less insane cannon!



GS

[chaos0xomega]

Yeah, A lance strike should read more like S10 AP1 Titan killer Mega Massive Blast Heavy6(to represent the fact that one massive pieplate still aint enough).

[myles]

Well, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not  but yeah, something like that.

[-The Reaper-]

I'd probably add 'melta' and 'instant death' to the lance aswell.

[thehod]

i agree with DB_Reaper

Good for you! But dont spam

[EightyEight]

Bah. I never did like having lance strikes in 40k. A lance battery can snap a mile-long escort ship in two with one shot, I think even from geostationary orbit it would be far more powerful than a simple pie plate. Maybe if they gave the witch/daemon hunters some models they could have a real HS choice. 

And if we're talking about BFG Nova Cannon... well, a template in BFG is almost the size of a planet...

[chaos0xomega]

Not really bakerman. Planets/objects are in a different scale from the ships themselves and their weapons(a planet is true scale, while the ship is the stem of the flying base), but the template is easily the size of a small moon(like phobos). Or you were being sarcastic...

[Erenthal]

Not really bakerman. Planets/objects are in a different scale from the ships themselves and their weapons(a planet is true scale, while the ship is the stem of the flying base), but the template is easily the size of a small moon(like phobos). Or you were being sarcastic...

It's a big gun, no doubt. A direct hit from space to the surface of a planet would be in the magnitude of the "Dinosaur-killing-meteor" that struck us 65 million years ago.

Well, perhaps not that powerful, but certainly enough punch to turn our largest city and surrounding suburbs into a smoky crater.

[chaos0xomega]

So basically turn New York city and everything within 300 miles of it into a huge atlantic-seawater filled ditch?

[Irandrura]

Some calculations from Spacebattles, which does this kind of thing -
1
2
3
4

8640 GT for a lower limit. Otherwise, a nova cannon round is something like 50 metres across and travels at near-lightspeed, so its kinetic impact alone is ridiculous, higher estimates in multiple petatons.

Heck, destroying NYC and everything in a 300 km radius is probably too conservative an estimate...

To compare, the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created, Tsar Bomba, had a yield of around 50 MT.

That's right, the very lowest estimate for a nova cannon's yield is 172,800 times more powerful than the most powerful nuclear bomb in existence.

Being hit by a nova cannon blast would be a bad thing.

[Deloth Vyrr]

Some calculations from Spacebattles, which does this kind of thing -
1
2
3
4

8640 GT for a lower limit. Otherwise, a nova cannon round is something like 50 metres across and travels at near-lightspeed, so its kinetic impact alone is ridiculous, higher estimates in multiple petatons.

Heck, destroying NYC and everything in a 300 km radius is probably too conservative an estimate...

To compare, the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created, Tsar Bomba, had a yield of around 50 MT.

That's right, the very lowest estimate for a nova cannon's yield is 172,800 times more powerful than the most powerful nuclear bomb in existence.

Being hit by a nova cannon blast would be a bad thing.

LMAO, that last line just cracked me up

The thing with the Nova Cannon is, as far as pure physical destruction goes, it would probably knock out a good chunk of the united states, but that would be the least of your worries...

An impact and explosion of THAT scale would cause irreparable damage to the planet. Nuclear bombs themselves cause massive ammounts of damage to the planets atmosphere themselves due to the mushroom cloud that is projected right into the atmosphere. Imagine what kinda of cloud would be created from a Nova Cannon...

[Irandrura]

Indeed. When you're hit by a nova cannon, you don't count the buildings that have been destroyed, you count the cities that have been destroyed.

The lance strike in the game I assume is a scaled down, pinpoint shot. It's not a real barrage, but a scaled down laser shot, a scalpel if you will, compared to a real lance strike.

For the record, I'm thinking Ordinatus Armageddon mounts a ship-grade lance, not a nova cannon. Just think of the recoil a real nova cannon would have...

[chaos0xomega]

Some calculations from Spacebattles, which does this kind of thing -
1
2
3
4

8640 GT for a lower limit. Otherwise, a nova cannon round is something like 50 metres across and travels at near-lightspeed, so its kinetic impact alone is ridiculous, higher estimates in multiple petatons.

Heck, destroying NYC and everything in a 300 km radius is probably too conservative an estimate...

To compare, the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created, Tsar Bomba, had a yield of around 50 MT.

That's right, the very lowest estimate for a nova cannon's yield is 172,800 times more powerful than the most powerful nuclear bomb in existence.

Being hit by a nova cannon blast would be a bad thing.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought Tsar Bomba was the largest nuke ever tested, not the largest nuke to exist(raher, existed, tehre was only one, shame that they never built the original 100 mt one...)

And NYC+300m is definitely too conservative.

An impact and explosion of THAT scale would cause irreparable damage to the planet. Nuclear bombs themselves cause massive ammounts of damage to the planets atmosphere themselves due to the mushroom cloud that is projected right into the atmosphere. Imagine what kinda of cloud would be created from a Nova Cannon...

But that's a lot harder to imagine. Gather a group of people together. First tell them that there is a bomb that could do so much damage that no organism on the planet could survive it's aftermath. They say pretty big, eh? Then tell them that the bomb would create a crater large enough to remove the entirety of the United States, a good deal of Canada, and parts of Mexico right off of the map. Then you'll get some ooohs and ahhhs and some HOLY amphetamine parrotS!!!@$!

For the record, I'm thinking Ordinatus Armageddon mounts a ship-grade lance, not a nova cannon. Just think of the recoil a real nova cannon would have...

Stop the planets rotation?