I think the orbital strike may be closer to "rods from god" instead of orbital railguns. This is due to their texture model and overall how it'd fit in thematically.
Yeah, was about to post this, it's probably a FOBS (fractional orbital bombardment system), deorbiting is going to provide ultrasonic reentry on it's own, no need to add any energy. Makes me realize one of the most important things we don't know about C&C is how much it costs to get stuff into space, we don't know if the Philadelphia was a 300 billion dollar mistake or a 3 trillion dollar mistake.
Yep. Their not railgun accelerated, their just... droped. Plus @Suiseisexy uhm... given GDI has KODIAC's around, aka SPACESHIPS able to even travel to the moon if needed, the cost to build something like the philadelphia or even ion cannons is reduced to the materials only realy. So you cant put it into money anymore especiel given tiberium provides every raw material there is in immesurable tonage (as it reforms what it absorbs into those materials) soooo basicaly infinite materials (thats also the reason GDI had a massive armada of Kodiac's waiting in blue zone city's in CnC 4. No Scrin invasion posible anymore if ONE is already able to level a city.)
@@Punishthefalse Cult/Resistance cell structures? What about the Black Hand though? Didn't they take control of Australia? In CC2, they definitely had a government. Just a reallllly bad one.
Well in a nutshell GDI Gov’t pretty much got neutered when the Brotherhood nuked the Philadelphia Space Station since most high ranked military and civilian gov’t members except for one were there for some kind of meeting.
Then there’s the Brotherhood, it a simple enough structure to understand. Kane is the Glorious leader on top, then there is his right hand man or woman. After the second in command, is the Inner Circle members. How many members would be in this circle you asked? Well from what I could remember it either between six to possibly nine members. There is usually a good amount of infighting happening to get in Kane’s favor within the inner circle and the Brotherhood in general too. Whenever Kane disappears the Brotherhood usually does fracture’s into warring states and battling each other more than it does with GDI until Kane make a grand reappearance again and unifies the fractured Brotherhood and strike GDI with another fantastic plan to his goal.
Ghost Stalker's behavior seems to be that after planting the C4, he still has the attack order set. I *think* Tanya in the first Red Alert also did this where she fired her handguns after planting C4.
It was def a thing in RA1. I remember editing the ini file to give attack dogs a tesla coil bolt as a secondary weapon. They would end up shooting infantry at range and then teleporting to them as the standard dog bite attack happened as well. Could explain it ingame lore wise for the commando units as them taking out guards when setting the C4 though
I think its the result of the building spawning a "survivor" unit when destroyed, thus the Stalker immediatelly targets and kills it before the building actually explodes or its AI kicks in.
You know this maybe just be me but it feels like by the time of Tib Wars, GDI seemed to completely adopt Railguns while abandoning most of their energy weapons while Nod seemed to abandon their own railguns (if they even had any to begin with) in favor of going all in for energy weaponry. Personally I feel like GDI should probably expand their ion and particle technology at the same time given how their super weapon is the Ion cannon. Probably have it be a sort of duel relationship of ion weaponry and railguns.
In "reality" (in so far as it can be applied to a fictional setting with magic radioactive crystals, mutants and aliens of course) both sides would use every technology at their disposal to gain any sort of advantage. And if one technology of the other side prooved overwhelmingly superior in some situation they'd try to copy or aquire it as soon as possible. Because y'know that's how war and technoloigical advance in general work. But of course in a video game, especialy a RTS, you want each sides to be very distnctive both in mecanics and feel both for gameplay and lore reasons. So design wise it makes sense to have each faction use a couple of technology that are very discintinctive. NOD: Laser, fire and tiberium: thin red lines, large green or fire spray. Just like their vehicles and buildings are all ornatre, red and black and have smooth curves. GDI: Raillguns and Sonic waves: Big blue lines, transparent blurry waves. Jsut like their vehicles are big blocky, light blue and grey. Does it make any sense in universe, if you think about it too hard, that Nod wouldn't build their own sonic canons or raillguns (especialy after the scrins started appearing and they're very vulnerable to sonic) ? Or that all their building alway be this ornate (yes they're a cult but even they have to content with costs of building and engineering contraints, one assumes) ? No. No more than GDI never using lasers or fire. (Okay I guess them not using Tiberium, fair enough, that make sense lore wise) Does it make them look both rad as hell to see and easy to distinguish as a glance which is kind of very important in a top down perspective game ? Yes.
It would have been cool if the GDI Commando in tiberium wars had a Handheld ion Cannon.I mean we had some in Renegade which plays during the first tiberium war. instead of them having c4 and this Infantry shreding gun they would had a weapen with heavy aoe damage and long cooldown.
I love railguns/coilguns/mass acceleration canons. In my opinion railguns the perfect weapon since they can use a huge variety of ammunition and can operate both in atmosphere and in space. You can make railguns right now, at home, and they can be roughly the same size as assault rifles. I'm yet to see one that's combat effective, they generally lack oomph due to the power source or poorly designed ammunition _(though they do have ammo mags and don't have to be loaded after every shot.)_
There is an easy answer to why Ghost stalker fire his gun before blowing up buildings. Notice how most buildings contain at least 1 infantry when destroyed, and when a Ghost Stalker C4s it there are no infantry walking out. That is because he shots them before blowing up the building, thus you se him shoot before blowing it up. Notice how Tanya do the same in Red Alert series.
Something no one ever talks about with rail guns is that gun powder goes bad over time so you have a really tough time stock piling bullets for a war but since a rail gun just uses hunks of metal, no need to worry about a use by date
Broh you have no idea how obsessed I am with the railgun tech from tib war timeline, thank you for this video... Also question when are you going to tackle red alert because the soviet tesla tech is really the most interesting part of ra 1 and 2 and not to mention the awesome cryo tech from ra 3
It's probably gonna be awhile before get started on any RA related videos. Obviously some stuff from RA1 will make it into the Tiberium lore videos due to it's connection with the timeline. My current focus right now is still on Tiberium and Generals related videos. But I already have Tesla tech on my list of topics to cover whenever I do eventually get to making videos in the RA timeline.
I've honestly only ever seen the phrase "Lorentz Force" used one other place, and that was in the game Brigador. One could be compared to the Mammoth mk II's railguns in overall damage and reload speed. The other is more like the railguns used on Predator tanks, but it lacks splash damage due to it's caliber.
Great video! I just think that orbital strike power makes more sense as a "rods from god" system rather than orbital railguns. The slugs don't get accelerated from rails but just falling from space, and the observations you made about how the slugs don't explode still make sense as rods from god similar in conept to railgins, they're both kinetic weapons, but differ in how the slugs are accelerated.
@@weldonwin yeah that makes sense too, but given that GDI cuts costs in space, like with the ASAT defense command being stuck on the ground, it'd make sense for them to go without space railguns, altho I also see that there's more destructive potential with a small kick from a railgun.
@@ethanfranzcueva5127 the problem with that however is that the kick from a small railgun system like that would likely displace any firing platform in orbit due to acceration.
Ah that makes a lot of sense actually. If the slugs were accelerated with railguns then the impacts might actually be even more devastating than they are in-game.
@@Jethild I honestly doubt it would make any difference. While they would arrive slightly faster if accelerated by railgun system, they'd most likely hit the ground with comparable force, due to terminal velocity.
Orbital Strike has nothing to do with railgun tech. Those rods are launched from orbit, or to be more precise released and gravity does the rest. They are essentially metal rods made from high density metal like tungsten, allowing them to reach high speeds without melting and evaporating from atmospheric friction.
I think the Tib Sun ghost stalkers blow up the building with the C4 alone and instantly railgun kill the light infantry thats spawning from the building while the destruction animation is still playing.
Pinning this comment as it contains important corrections/changes associated with the video that people in the comments have kindly pointed out. 1) The GDI Watchtower defense turret from C&C 3 does also use railguns by default. This was something I missed in the Intelligence Database, but I also plan to do a whole video on base defenses, so I will be sure to make mention of that aspect of the watchtower in that video. 2) The Orbital Strike is most likely not a railgun derived weapon system, and instead is more like the "Rods from God" concept, which is a form of Kinetic bombardment. I agree that this does make more sense than putting railguns in orbit to bombard the planet.
Canon or not, I can still see GDI Snipers having a sort of railgun, given how you wouldn't have to worry about leading the shot, wind, drag, and so on. Just aim and shoot.
on #2: It actually makes a lot of sense to use a Railgun, or at least a gauss gun-type mass driver for orbital bombardment. One way or another, you need to de-orbit the rods. You can do that either by mounting an engine on the rod, but then the rod needs astrogation, in-space maneuvering sytems, etc, adding mass and complexity. Instead, you can just yeet it out of orbit with a magnetic launcher, that way you skip all that. And you can quite possibly do it with more force than if you mount an engine on the rods. It takes 4x as much dV to de-orbit something if you apply thrust "downwards", than retrograde, but your final velocity is significantly higher.
Ah, the Nod soldiers are talking about "coils" (coilguns are different) and the railgun has what is apparently a suppressor at the end. I think someone skipped through their research writing that piece of lore a little too fast.
Favorite real high tech weapon. I've been following the US EMRG program for over a decade. If I may add: railguns are, theoretically, safer. This is especially true for vehicles where conventional cannons have large powder charges. If the main magazine of a ship or tank is hit, it can cause all the ammunition to cook off and explode. Many ships, fortresses, and vehicles have been lost due to magazine explosions. With railguns and related coilguns you don't carry any explosives so you don't risk that. You may, however, have a capacitor to store energy and a fully charged capacity can be dangerous. That much energy is dangerous no matter how it is stored weather it is chemical or electrical. Look of videos of battery or capacitor explosions for examples. Finally, there is no reason why you couldn't have a railgun fire full auto. Currently, the biggest barrier to railgun use is that the insane heat generated by the gun tend to degrade the rails. Current railguns need rail replacement after only a few shots. This is a huge problem as this is very similar to replacing a gun barrel. Easy on small arms, but time consuming on cannons. Finally, only having a few shots before needing repairs is neither cost effective nor practical.
Another problem with railguns is that since the current is traveling in the opposite direction in the two rails. This generates a repulsive force trying to drive the rails away from each other. It also gets stronger the further down the barrel you are. Combine that with the heat and it's hell for the rails.
4:20 Mostly because the devs had no time to implement the railgun into the campaign... So instead, that secret cache in the library contained a full compliment of Laser Rifles... And a pair of security gun turrets to deter your nosy face...
I'll probably eventually get around to doing a video like that. Would be a pretty long one too if I'm going through all the major games in the timeline.
Maybe the forgotten get somehow the blueprints for the Scorpion Railgun, because the colour of ghost stalkers railgun ist also red. And the forgotten uses them before there alliance with GDI.
I also would state that Ghosttalker got the Railgun possible because Mutants had a better physic so they could wield the heavy Railgun without an exo skeleton like the Zone Troopers. Lastly there is no sense in using orbital railguns, the earth alone accelerates any object to be a deadly weapon, they are most likely tungsten rods dropped from a satellite.
8:23 Now just to be fair, Tanya and the SEALs did the same thing(fire their weapons after planting their explosives on structures and ships) in RA2, so it would definitely lean on being an in-game glitch which creeped it's way from TibSun to RA2... Dunno if it's the same case in Yuri's Revenge though, I can't remember...
Mass Effect's guns are coilguns, which are different from railguns but also relatively similar, and in the first game the guns don't require ammo but overheat if continuously fired for too long
Not just railguns, your typical machine gun can overheat. That's why you use bursts. The only time you go cyclic with a machine-gun, is when your position is overrunning, and then you might as well use all ammo and leave the machine gun useless.
" OVER EASY; SHUT THIS PARTY DOWN " zone troopers quotes simply indicate that railgun tech is surely impressive power used against almost everything on the ground.
My theory is that the rail guns use Tiberium as a power source, given not only their expense, but also the fact that the only infantry units to use them (Cyborgs, Forgotten, and Zone Troopers) were all immune to Tiberium poisoning. The rest were used in heavy vehicles that could presumably shield from their effects. This might also be why the units have to have an upgrade delivered instead of starting out with them, highly toxic and expensive substances aren't something you want to carry around by default.
Awesome videos as usual and on a side note I always thought the commando in C&C tiberium sun was shooting the infantry in the buildings which is why no one came out when the structure blew up. I remember hating that in tiberium dawn, especially on a certain GDI mission where you’re supposed to destroy a certain nod (pretty sure it’s the nod airfield) structure with only a commando and a chinook. I would always end up with red health on the commando cause the enemies would come out of the Sam sites shooting
It should be noted, as some others have said, that GDI Watchtowers are railguns as well. Additionally, in a novel, an entire specialized GDI division existed where the Juggernauts used railguns, and regular riflemen had access to GD3s GD4s, and GD5s, of which I believe the GD4s and GD5s had mini railguns on them, while the GD5 specifically could switch between a grenade launcher and a railgun. Great video as always Jethild!
Yeah I forgot about the Watchtowers but I plan on doing a whole video about base defenses so I can include that bit about them in there. The issue with the novel your referencing (which I assume is the C&C Tiberium Wars book by Keith R.A. DeCandido) is that I don't know if it's considered official canon or not. I tend to just stick with information provided from the games and the manuals themselves or what the developers have said. So I don't know what the devs stance on the novel is/was.
Another disadvantage to railguns when compared to conventional guns on tanks is that they are line of sight weapons (LOS) like lasers. Conventional tank guns are very similar to artillery guns and like artillery can be fired indirect (often with high explosive rounds). Admittedly this was fairly rare, even with tanks which had been designed with that possibility in mind, but the option was there.
You sir are a good man for pushing out CnC content well into 2021 On the topic of the Orbital strike, it's clear that they aren't launched via railgun as the emp effect implies some form of electronic/explosive component that would potentially ignite/fry from the heat and electromagnetic influence of the weapon. It is also completely unnecessary as the projectile would achieve the necessary force through the reentry process
'11:52' - _Titan Mech Mk.II_ Gotta like this video 'cause it happens to load one of two favourite mech in Tiberium Wars series... The other being _Mastodon_ in TW4...
i think the idea behind the Orbital Strike ability is same idea behind the space Platform in Call of Duty: Ghosts were they just drop the slugs from a orbital station and just let it drop down to the target with the sheer amount of Kinetic energy it would generate from falling from space, entering orbit and then finally hitting the ground
having played the remaster recently, i think they use heavy machine guns. they definetly have this german mg42 sound to them that tears infantry up something fierce.
According to the C&C manual, GDI's basic guard tower is "armed with a high velocity machine gun." So certainly not a railgun. As for the advanced guard tower, it fires "tomahawk missiles." And I do have base defenses as a topic for a future video. Edit. So having looked into this more, it turns out the Watchtower from C&C 3 does actually use railguns. So that was definitely something I missed in this video.
8:33 the reason ghost stalker shoots after placing the charge is because he is killing the 1 infantry that comes out of it. If you play Red alert 2, you will notice Tanya does this as well!
just a small observation about how you depict a railgun using just a constant flow would keep it in place you need a cycling flow of rail cells to propel the projectile forward and in the example it would only work for vehicles like japans ultrasonic magnetic train
By the way, the projectile can also be more than a piece of metal. If you try to maximize damage, then, like currently, US Navy is testing, as a projectile can be high explosive rounds, or even rockets, maximizing velocity, and as such, destructive power of 1 hit.
On GDI's orbital strike, it might be safer to assume it is a hybrid tech of railgun and project thor (real world satellite weapon dropping tungsten carbide rods).
About "Quell the Civilian (and Mutant) Riots" the mutants at that point haven't seperated themselves from GDI yet as later in the mission "Dogma Day Afternoon" they still have access to GhostStalker...
Mammoth Mk.3 is the most fearsome military hardware ever, it's only weakness is bombers, have enough AA near them, they're unstoppable, and their pilots know it, even though their range is smaller than the Reaper Tripod, on a 1x1, the Mammoth Mk.3 is still superior, I just wish their AA missiles were a little more effective.
@@Asdtable Maybe, although you'd need a very strong force, but as I said, run enough AA and your Mammoth is safe, you'd be a very poor commander to not include some pitbulls and their scanners in that squad, I usually keep 1 pitbull for each 2 slingshot, for each mammoth, if I'm against Scrin, I just add 2 zone troopers for each squad, more scanners, but hey, the perfect escort for mammoths would be the Venom, that would be overkill hahahha.
@@MihzvolWuriar Although Mammoths are more sluggish than other tanks and ground units they are tank you should take head on in fight if your nod its very foolish to do so. there anti is effective enough against weaker airs units like venom patrol craft and even scrin storm raider provided they aren't huge swarms. But yes you will need slingshots in Kanes Wrath to handle the trouble some vertigo bombs and the large scrin warships such as the devastator and assault carrier. But building a Battalion of Mammoths to support a larger force is terrifying for the enemy. Pairing them up with Pitt bulls, Guardian APC's , Predator tanks or zone troopers. But Honestly I think the most terrifying situation is seeing a GDI assault force made up of Mammoth Tanks and Juggernaut walkers as the bulk of the force. Because that is usually a sign that GDI is a real pissed off at the enemy and GDI is out for blood and they will space no mercy when it comes to nod forces at least. I also like to upgrade the Pitt Bull with the mortar attachment it comes in very handy against infantry. So if you have nod RPG teams on foot or garrisoned in buildings harassing your predator or mammoth tanks the Pitt Bulls can deal with them quickly and deliver their eviction notice quickly and with out warning if they are hiding in buildings hehe.
@@yagdtigercommander There's no way I could've phrased it better, this is exactly what I meant, not that the Mammoth really *needs* a Juggernaut support, but when they're there, oh boy, it's scary AF.
@@MihzvolWuriar Yah no they don't the Juggernauts. its just the extra insult to injury experience they give to the enemy. especially if it is Nod of course lol. Again Mammoths and Juggernauts for when GDI really needs to curb stomp the enemy and send to message to all other potentials foes that this is what happens when you fuck with GDI. Pitbulls, APCs and Predators can get the job done just fine with or without air support depending on the situation. But again Mammoths and Juggernauts just add the extra oh shit factor for the enemy and make them think twice about raiding GDIs assets lol.
I met some kids crafted a "railgun" that only as big as an old cellphone, and it's capable to punch through cola can. Such a shame I didn't ask them about the detail
The NOD tech described is a coil gun, it operates differently than a railgun. They both use electricity to accelerate rounds. (It's a pet peeve when the two terms are used interchangeably) Railguns are much simpler than coilguns if you can keep the rails from splitting the barrel.
Yeah I don't know if the devs originally intended the Scorpion to be a coil gun, but then changed it to a railgun sometime in development or vice versa. In-game it clearly says it's a railgun, so I just stuck to that for the video.
the orbital stike is most likely a "rod of god" type weapon u dont really need a rail cannon in space because the speed a "slug" would have is already tremendous due to the simple force of gravity the speed/damaged gained from having a orbital rail gun is most likely considered over kill when just having a holding claw/emplacement retract and let free a massive hunk of tungsten that will deal just as much damage
I like to imagine that the reason the Ghost Stalkers shoot the buildings they intend to plant explosives within is because they are shooting the security doors open. These doors prevent entry to most troops, like most infantry, but are otherwise capable of being opened by skilled engineers. Ghost stalkers have no technical expertise and so simply blast their way inside.
When I first played the original, I was too young to enjoy the story behind the game. Watching these a few decades later brings much joy. Keep up the amazing work ^^
Orbital strike is defenetly not a railgun weapon. Slug mean only that they are solid rounds, without explosive filler. Cose why would you need it? We talking about space weapon. You do not need explosive filler nor special method to launch a round - just drop it. No matter how much you could atrificially accelerate it, gravity would do it better. For free.
12:33 You are right to suspect, Its unlikely they need to be railguned. In fact this is likely more related a real cold war concept of a weapon called "kinetic bombardment/ kinetic orbital strike" where tungsten pikes/rods/(solid)slugs placed geosynchronzied orbit are drop to destroy ground targets, they are consider closely an equal to tactical nukes with close to no chance to intercept. That said they also have a number(at least 3) of ion cannon station up there.
3:56 I don't wanna sound like the guy who says "WELL ACKTUALLY"...but actually, it sounds more like a coilgun. Another type of electromagnetic gun. But instead of using rails, it uses coils to accelerate the slug.
If the ghost stalker is shooting the c4 to make it explode, then the devs have no idea how c4 works. C4 is pretty much completely inert until exposed to an electrical charge. You can shoot it, burn it (my grandfather's platoon actually did this is during ww2), play football with it, run it over, wear it like a hat, whatever. It's not gonna blow until it becomes electrified. Rail gun rounds are not going to induce or transfer an electrical charge to the objects they hit.
There is a secret room in the library that is activated by screwing with some torches or some type of button mechanic that was very hard to actually activate. There is a bug on pretty much all of the new Windows systems where when opening the secret room it despawns the weapon. Back in the day if you played it on I believe Windows 98 when you open the secret room the railgun would be there. Of course this was well before UA-cam and video capture being an easy thing, so I don't think there's any footage of that out there anymore.
I think the orbital strike may be closer to "rods from god" instead of orbital railguns. This is due to their texture model and overall how it'd fit in thematically.
Yeah, was about to post this, it's probably a FOBS (fractional orbital bombardment system), deorbiting is going to provide ultrasonic reentry on it's own, no need to add any energy. Makes me realize one of the most important things we don't know about C&C is how much it costs to get stuff into space, we don't know if the Philadelphia was a 300 billion dollar mistake or a 3 trillion dollar mistake.
Yep. Their not railgun accelerated, their just... droped. Plus @Suiseisexy uhm... given GDI has KODIAC's around, aka SPACESHIPS able to even travel to the moon if needed, the cost to build something like the philadelphia or even ion cannons is reduced to the materials only realy. So you cant put it into money anymore especiel given tiberium provides every raw material there is in immesurable tonage (as it reforms what it absorbs into those materials) soooo basicaly infinite materials (thats also the reason GDI had a massive armada of Kodiac's waiting in blue zone city's in CnC 4. No Scrin invasion posible anymore if ONE is already able to level a city.)
You play endwar?
I have an idea for research: make a video on GDI and NOD governmental structure and ranks at the time of Tib War 3.
Nod doesn't have a government structure. It has a cult structure instead.
@@Punishthefalse
Cult/Resistance cell structures? What about the Black Hand though? Didn't they take control of Australia?
In CC2, they definitely had a government. Just a reallllly bad one.
@@iona2225 The Black Hand is the most hardcore cult cell of the Brotherhood. Much more organised as well.
Well in a nutshell GDI Gov’t pretty much got neutered when the Brotherhood nuked the Philadelphia Space Station since most high ranked military and civilian gov’t members except for one were there for some kind of meeting.
Then there’s the Brotherhood, it a simple enough structure to understand. Kane is the Glorious leader on top, then there is his right hand man or woman. After the second in command, is the Inner Circle members. How many members would be in this circle you asked? Well from what I could remember it either between six to possibly nine members. There is usually a good amount of infighting happening to get in Kane’s favor within the inner circle and the Brotherhood in general too. Whenever Kane disappears the Brotherhood usually does fracture’s into warring states and battling each other more than it does with GDI until Kane make a grand reappearance again and unifies the fractured Brotherhood and strike GDI with another fantastic plan to his goal.
An idea is that he's shooting a hole into the building to toss the Explosive charge inside it.
Now irl reason I think it's an oversight or bug
Ghost Stalker's behavior seems to be that after planting the C4, he still has the attack order set. I *think* Tanya in the first Red Alert also did this where she fired her handguns after planting C4.
you mean second red alert, no?
@@DanyalArcadio Does she do it in RA2? I might've been confused which is surprising, considering I watch a lot of tg's testing videos.
It was def a thing in RA1. I remember editing the ini file to give attack dogs a tesla coil bolt as a secondary weapon. They would end up shooting infantry at range and then teleporting to them as the standard dog bite attack happened as well.
Could explain it ingame lore wise for the commando units as them taking out guards when setting the C4 though
I think its the result of the building spawning a "survivor" unit when destroyed, thus the Stalker immediatelly targets and kills it before the building actually explodes or its AI kicks in.
Yes it also applied in ra2:yr as well
You know this maybe just be me but it feels like by the time of Tib Wars, GDI seemed to completely adopt Railguns while abandoning most of their energy weapons while Nod seemed to abandon their own railguns (if they even had any to begin with) in favor of going all in for energy weaponry.
Personally I feel like GDI should probably expand their ion and particle technology at the same time given how their super weapon is the Ion cannon. Probably have it be a sort of duel relationship of ion weaponry and railguns.
It costs to much dude those tech are not cheap
@@astraldrifter Well at least there's alot of tiberium to go around xD
Exactly my thoughts, what if in the Future GDI would be fighting the Full Screen Armada with Railguns and Beam Weapons
In "reality" (in so far as it can be applied to a fictional setting with magic radioactive crystals, mutants and aliens of course) both sides would use every technology at their disposal to gain any sort of advantage. And if one technology of the other side prooved overwhelmingly superior in some situation they'd try to copy or aquire it as soon as possible. Because y'know that's how war and technoloigical advance in general work.
But of course in a video game, especialy a RTS, you want each sides to be very distnctive both in mecanics and feel both for gameplay and lore reasons. So design wise it makes sense to have each faction use a couple of technology that are very discintinctive.
NOD: Laser, fire and tiberium: thin red lines, large green or fire spray. Just like their vehicles and buildings are all ornatre, red and black and have smooth curves.
GDI: Raillguns and Sonic waves: Big blue lines, transparent blurry waves. Jsut like their vehicles are big blocky, light blue and grey.
Does it make any sense in universe, if you think about it too hard, that Nod wouldn't build their own sonic canons or raillguns (especialy after the scrins started appearing and they're very vulnerable to sonic) ? Or that all their building alway be this ornate (yes they're a cult but even they have to content with costs of building and engineering contraints, one assumes) ? No. No more than GDI never using lasers or fire. (Okay I guess them not using Tiberium, fair enough, that make sense lore wise)
Does it make them look both rad as hell to see and easy to distinguish as a glance which is kind of very important in a top down perspective game ? Yes.
It would have been cool if the GDI Commando in tiberium wars had a Handheld ion Cannon.I mean we had some in Renegade which plays during the first tiberium war. instead of them having c4 and this Infantry shreding gun they would had a weapen with heavy aoe damage and long cooldown.
I love railguns/coilguns/mass acceleration canons. In my opinion railguns the perfect weapon since they can use a huge variety of ammunition and can operate both in atmosphere and in space. You can make railguns right now, at home, and they can be roughly the same size as assault rifles. I'm yet to see one that's combat effective, they generally lack oomph due to the power source or poorly designed ammunition _(though they do have ammo mags and don't have to be loaded after every shot.)_
I love how you explain the science behind this!!! AMAZING.
There is an easy answer to why Ghost stalker fire his gun before blowing up buildings. Notice how most buildings contain at least 1 infantry when destroyed, and when a Ghost Stalker C4s it there are no infantry walking out. That is because he shots them before blowing up the building, thus you se him shoot before blowing it up. Notice how Tanya do the same in Red Alert series.
I love the command and conquer lore
Something no one ever talks about with rail guns is that gun powder goes bad over time
so you have a really tough time stock piling bullets for a war
but since a rail gun just uses hunks of metal, no need to worry about a use by date
The batteries do have a limited lifespan though.
@adamofblastworks1517 Typically, capacitors are used for rail guns, not batteries.
These videos you do on CnC lore are literally masterpiece works of art. Thank you so much for these videos.
I love these videos!
I love how there is a basic physics discussion about how rail gun works in a video game lore episode!
Broh you have no idea how obsessed I am with the railgun tech from tib war timeline, thank you for this video... Also question when are you going to tackle red alert because the soviet tesla tech is really the most interesting part of ra 1 and 2 and not to mention the awesome cryo tech from ra 3
It's probably gonna be awhile before get started on any RA related videos. Obviously some stuff from RA1 will make it into the Tiberium lore videos due to it's connection with the timeline. My current focus right now is still on Tiberium and Generals related videos. But I already have Tesla tech on my list of topics to cover whenever I do eventually get to making videos in the RA timeline.
Yes, Railguns are my favorite pew pew tech of all!
In the Tiberium war, what others do you have yet to cover on your list?
They're just so satisfying to use in 3, it's my favorite depiction of railgun in any sci-fi.
@@GreenBlueWalkthrough its so far fetched it might even be possible in real life, its the closest thing we have to a star wars blaster
I've honestly only ever seen the phrase "Lorentz Force" used one other place, and that was in the game Brigador. One could be compared to the Mammoth mk II's railguns in overall damage and reload speed. The other is more like the railguns used on Predator tanks, but it lacks splash damage due to it's caliber.
Take college physics or an electronics class and you will hear about it.
Great video! I just think that orbital strike power makes more sense as a "rods from god" system rather than orbital railguns. The slugs don't get accelerated from rails but just falling from space, and the observations you made about how the slugs don't explode still make sense as rods from god similar in conept to railgins, they're both kinetic weapons, but differ in how the slugs are accelerated.
They might use a small Rail Gun system to get the rods an initial kick, but then gravity does the rest
@@weldonwin yeah that makes sense too, but given that GDI cuts costs in space, like with the ASAT defense command being stuck on the ground, it'd make sense for them to go without space railguns, altho I also see that there's more destructive potential with a small kick from a railgun.
@@ethanfranzcueva5127 the problem with that however is that the kick from a small railgun system like that would likely displace any firing platform in orbit due to acceration.
Ah that makes a lot of sense actually. If the slugs were accelerated with railguns then the impacts might actually be even more devastating than they are in-game.
@@Jethild I honestly doubt it would make any difference. While they would arrive slightly faster if accelerated by railgun system, they'd most likely hit the ground with comparable force, due to terminal velocity.
YT algo feeds on time and not 5 years later lol.
I love this format
Yes! One more tiberan video! Happy to see it!
Orbital Strike has nothing to do with railgun tech. Those rods are launched from orbit, or to be more precise released and gravity does the rest. They are essentially metal rods made from high density metal like tungsten, allowing them to reach high speeds without melting and evaporating from atmospheric friction.
Never have I clicked so fast on a video. I love railguns.
👍🏻
I think the Tib Sun ghost stalkers blow up the building with the C4 alone and instantly railgun kill the light infantry thats spawning from the building while the destruction animation is still playing.
Another great video . Always calms me down after a shitty day at work. Thanx man
So relatable man
I love your content, keep up the amazing work!
Thanks, fantastic work! As usual.
Pinning this comment as it contains important corrections/changes associated with the video that people in the comments have kindly pointed out.
1) The GDI Watchtower defense turret from C&C 3 does also use railguns by default. This was something I missed in the Intelligence Database, but I also plan to do a whole video on base defenses, so I will be sure to make mention of that aspect of the watchtower in that video.
2) The Orbital Strike is most likely not a railgun derived weapon system, and instead is more like the "Rods from God" concept, which is a form of Kinetic bombardment. I agree that this does make more sense than putting railguns in orbit to bombard the planet.
Canon or not, I can still see GDI Snipers having a sort of railgun, given how you wouldn't have to worry about leading the shot, wind, drag, and so on. Just aim and shoot.
Plus, Renegade's Railgun showed that it would have been a great sniper rifle if it had a scope.
This comment isn't pinned at the moment (probably got unpinned when you edited)
@@mjc0961 Thank you for letting me know good sir.
on #2: It actually makes a lot of sense to use a Railgun, or at least a gauss gun-type mass driver for orbital bombardment. One way or another, you need to de-orbit the rods. You can do that either by mounting an engine on the rod, but then the rod needs astrogation, in-space maneuvering sytems, etc, adding mass and complexity. Instead, you can just yeet it out of orbit with a magnetic launcher, that way you skip all that. And you can quite possibly do it with more force than if you mount an engine on the rods.
It takes 4x as much dV to de-orbit something if you apply thrust "downwards", than retrograde, but your final velocity is significantly higher.
Always look forward to seeing you in my notifications
Ditto!
As someone who has been with this series of games since I was a kid, I really appreciate these well made lore videos!
Ah, the Nod soldiers are talking about "coils" (coilguns are different) and the railgun has what is apparently a suppressor at the end.
I think someone skipped through their research writing that piece of lore a little too fast.
Great video
Favorite real high tech weapon. I've been following the US EMRG program for over a decade. If I may add: railguns are, theoretically, safer. This is especially true for vehicles where conventional cannons have large powder charges. If the main magazine of a ship or tank is hit, it can cause all the ammunition to cook off and explode. Many ships, fortresses, and vehicles have been lost due to magazine explosions. With railguns and related coilguns you don't carry any explosives so you don't risk that. You may, however, have a capacitor to store energy and a fully charged capacity can be dangerous. That much energy is dangerous no matter how it is stored weather it is chemical or electrical. Look of videos of battery or capacitor explosions for examples.
Finally, there is no reason why you couldn't have a railgun fire full auto. Currently, the biggest barrier to railgun use is that the insane heat generated by the gun tend to degrade the rails. Current railguns need rail replacement after only a few shots. This is a huge problem as this is very similar to replacing a gun barrel. Easy on small arms, but time consuming on cannons. Finally, only having a few shots before needing repairs is neither cost effective nor practical.
Another problem with railguns is that since the current is traveling in the opposite direction in the two rails. This generates a repulsive force trying to drive the rails away from each other. It also gets stronger the further down the barrel you are. Combine that with the heat and it's hell for the rails.
4:20 Mostly because the devs had no time to implement the railgun into the campaign...
So instead, that secret cache in the library contained a full compliment of Laser Rifles... And a pair of security gun turrets to deter your nosy face...
Armor Superiority - Mammoth Tank.
I'm really interested on seeing a video on the different nod tanks :)
I'll probably eventually get around to doing a video like that. Would be a pretty long one too if I'm going through all the major games in the timeline.
@@Jethild take your time and don't rush it, I personally like the long videos I find them really fun to watch
i love this channel and greatly appreciate the amazing work you put into these videos
👍🏻
Maybe the forgotten get somehow the blueprints for the Scorpion Railgun, because the colour of ghost stalkers railgun ist also red. And the forgotten uses them before there alliance with GDI.
I also would state that Ghosttalker got the Railgun possible because Mutants had a better physic so they could wield the heavy Railgun without an exo skeleton like the Zone Troopers.
Lastly there is no sense in using orbital railguns, the earth alone accelerates any object to be a deadly weapon, they are most likely tungsten rods dropped from a satellite.
These are great. Hope the next video is about Nod's Cyborgs.
Love these videos💪
8:23 Now just to be fair, Tanya and the SEALs did the same thing(fire their weapons after planting their explosives on structures and ships) in RA2, so it would definitely lean on being an in-game glitch which creeped it's way from TibSun to RA2...
Dunno if it's the same case in Yuri's Revenge though, I can't remember...
I can’t believe I’m this late for a new video!
It's weird how most games dont talk about railgun overheating.
Mass Effect's guns are coilguns, which are different from railguns but also relatively similar, and in the first game the guns don't require ammo but overheat if continuously fired for too long
Not just railguns, your typical machine gun can overheat. That's why you use bursts. The only time you go cyclic with a machine-gun, is when your position is overrunning, and then you might as well use all ammo and leave the machine gun useless.
Excelent as always.
" OVER EASY; SHUT THIS PARTY DOWN " zone troopers quotes simply indicate that railgun tech is surely impressive power used against almost everything on the ground.
You don't know how long I've been waiting to see a C&C lore feature for rail guns. ZEEEWWWW!
First one here and please 🙏 make one vedio on the Venom Craft. Please
Congrats on being the 1st!
When Jethild uploads, its like a C&C Christmas!
🎅🏻
Cool!
My theory is that the rail guns use Tiberium as a power source, given not only their expense, but also the fact that the only infantry units to use them (Cyborgs, Forgotten, and Zone Troopers) were all immune to Tiberium poisoning. The rest were used in heavy vehicles that could presumably shield from their effects. This might also be why the units have to have an upgrade delivered instead of starting out with them, highly toxic and expensive substances aren't something you want to carry around by default.
Awesome videos as usual and on a side note I always thought the commando in C&C tiberium sun was shooting the infantry in the buildings which is why no one came out when the structure blew up. I remember hating that in tiberium dawn, especially on a certain GDI mission where you’re supposed to destroy a certain nod (pretty sure it’s the nod airfield) structure with only a commando and a chinook. I would always end up with red health on the commando cause the enemies would come out of the Sam sites shooting
I wish westwood would team up with someone to get us another first person shooter. Renegade was such a fresh and awesome addition to the franchise
GDI uses railguns
Nod uses lasers
GDI never uses lasers
Nod never uses railguns
It should be noted, as some others have said, that GDI Watchtowers are railguns as well.
Additionally, in a novel, an entire specialized GDI division existed where the Juggernauts used railguns, and regular riflemen had access to GD3s GD4s, and GD5s, of which I believe the GD4s and GD5s had mini railguns on them, while the GD5 specifically could switch between a grenade launcher and a railgun.
Great video as always Jethild!
Yeah I forgot about the Watchtowers but I plan on doing a whole video about base defenses so I can include that bit about them in there. The issue with the novel your referencing (which I assume is the C&C Tiberium Wars book by Keith R.A. DeCandido) is that I don't know if it's considered official canon or not. I tend to just stick with information provided from the games and the manuals themselves or what the developers have said. So I don't know what the devs stance on the novel is/was.
@@Jethild that makes sense. I have no idea whether it was canon or not.
Orbital strike is in all likelihood just god rods no need to shoot u just drop em
Possible future invasion of the scrin... Yeah, me too...
Another disadvantage to railguns when compared to conventional guns on tanks is that they are line of sight weapons (LOS) like lasers. Conventional tank guns are very similar to artillery guns and like artillery can be fired indirect (often with high explosive rounds). Admittedly this was fairly rare, even with tanks which had been designed with that possibility in mind, but the option was there.
You sir are a good man for pushing out CnC content well into 2021
On the topic of the Orbital strike, it's clear that they aren't launched via railgun as the emp effect implies some form of electronic/explosive component that would potentially ignite/fry from the heat and electromagnetic influence of the weapon. It is also completely unnecessary as the projectile would achieve the necessary force through the reentry process
Railguns were first introduced in FPS games. It was so destructive it dethroned the mighty rocket launcher and plasma rifle.
'11:52' - _Titan Mech Mk.II_
Gotta like this video 'cause it happens to load one of two favourite mech in Tiberium Wars series...
The other being _Mastodon_ in TW4...
i think the idea behind the Orbital Strike ability is same idea behind the space Platform in Call of Duty: Ghosts were they just drop the slugs from a orbital station and just let it drop down to the target with the sheer amount of Kinetic energy it would generate from falling from space, entering orbit and then finally hitting the ground
Nod, GDI, Scrin, And The Third Tiberium War
Orbital strike is likely just kinetic rods dropped from high orbit, they could have initial acceleration via electromagnetic means or rocket
How about the GDI first war's basic Guard Tower ? I thought it uses railguns.
I've read that it does.
having played the remaster recently, i think they use heavy machine guns. they definetly have this german mg42 sound to them that tears infantry up something fierce.
@@gamiezion i really hope jethild can make content for GDI's defensive weapons : GT & AGT.
According to the C&C manual, GDI's basic guard tower is "armed with a high velocity machine gun." So certainly not a railgun. As for the advanced guard tower, it fires "tomahawk missiles." And I do have base defenses as a topic for a future video.
Edit. So having looked into this more, it turns out the Watchtower from C&C 3 does actually use railguns. So that was definitely something I missed in this video.
I see Jethild, I like and comment.
great video as always :)
any idea what the next video's going to be about?
Another beautifully put-together video.
8:33 the reason ghost stalker shoots after placing the charge is because he is killing the 1 infantry that comes out of it. If you play Red alert 2, you will notice Tanya does this as well!
just a small observation about how you depict a railgun using just a constant flow would keep it in place you need a cycling flow of rail cells to propel the projectile forward and in the example it would only work for vehicles like japans ultrasonic magnetic train
An awesome Choice for 5000.
Nice keep it up
Wait mutants used railguns I had forgotten that
I see what you did there.
But like a ghost most others didn't
Pun intended?
By the way, the projectile can also be more than a piece of metal. If you try to maximize damage, then, like currently, US Navy is testing, as a projectile can be high explosive rounds, or even rockets, maximizing velocity, and as such, destructive power of 1 hit.
On GDI's orbital strike, it might be safer to assume it is a hybrid tech of railgun and project thor (real world satellite weapon dropping tungsten carbide rods).
In reality, Orbital Kinetic Weapons don't even need extra force to launch. Just drop some considerable mass would be enough. Gravity will do the rest.
About "Quell the Civilian (and Mutant) Riots" the mutants at that point haven't seperated themselves from GDI yet as later in the mission "Dogma Day Afternoon" they still have access to GhostStalker...
Mammoth Mk.3 is the most fearsome military hardware ever, it's only weakness is bombers, have enough AA near them, they're unstoppable, and their pilots know it, even though their range is smaller than the Reaper Tripod, on a 1x1, the Mammoth Mk.3 is still superior, I just wish their AA missiles were a little more effective.
Well, a stealth ambush is also highly effective
@@Asdtable Maybe, although you'd need a very strong force, but as I said, run enough AA and your Mammoth is safe, you'd be a very poor commander to not include some pitbulls and their scanners in that squad, I usually keep 1 pitbull for each 2 slingshot, for each mammoth, if I'm against Scrin, I just add 2 zone troopers for each squad, more scanners, but hey, the perfect escort for mammoths would be the Venom, that would be overkill hahahha.
@@MihzvolWuriar Although Mammoths are more sluggish than other tanks and ground units they are tank you should take head on in fight if your nod its very foolish to do so. there anti is effective enough against weaker airs units like venom patrol craft and even scrin storm raider provided they aren't huge swarms. But yes you will need slingshots in Kanes Wrath to handle the trouble some vertigo bombs and the large scrin warships such as the devastator and assault carrier. But building a Battalion of Mammoths to support a larger force is terrifying for the enemy. Pairing them up with Pitt bulls, Guardian APC's , Predator tanks or zone troopers. But Honestly I think the most terrifying situation is seeing a GDI assault force made up of Mammoth Tanks and Juggernaut walkers as the bulk of the force.
Because that is usually a sign that GDI is a real pissed off at the enemy and GDI is out for blood and they will space no mercy when it comes to nod forces at least. I also like to upgrade the Pitt Bull with the mortar attachment it comes in very handy against infantry. So if you have nod RPG teams on foot or garrisoned in buildings harassing your predator or mammoth tanks the Pitt Bulls can deal with them quickly and deliver their eviction notice quickly and with out warning if they are hiding in buildings hehe.
@@yagdtigercommander There's no way I could've phrased it better, this is exactly what I meant, not that the Mammoth really *needs* a Juggernaut support, but when they're there, oh boy, it's scary AF.
@@MihzvolWuriar Yah no they don't the Juggernauts. its just the extra insult to injury experience they give to the enemy. especially if it is Nod of course lol.
Again Mammoths and Juggernauts for when GDI really needs to curb stomp the enemy and send to message to all other potentials foes that this is what happens when you fuck with GDI.
Pitbulls, APCs and Predators can get the job done just fine with or without air support depending on the situation. But again Mammoths and Juggernauts just add the extra oh shit factor for the enemy and make them think twice about raiding GDIs assets lol.
1:52: *LORENTZ FORCE GO!!!!*
I met some kids crafted a "railgun" that only as big as an old cellphone, and it's capable to punch through cola can. Such a shame I didn't ask them about the detail
Railguns make all GDI tanks and zone troopers unstoppable.
The NOD tech described is a coil gun, it operates differently than a railgun. They both use electricity to accelerate rounds.
(It's a pet peeve when the two terms are used interchangeably)
Railguns are much simpler than coilguns if you can keep the rails from splitting the barrel.
Yeah I don't know if the devs originally intended the Scorpion to be a coil gun, but then changed it to a railgun sometime in development or vice versa. In-game it clearly says it's a railgun, so I just stuck to that for the video.
Btw the gun that the GDI Commando use is by the Fandom called as a prototype high rate of fire assault double-burst shot assault rifle...
the orbital stike is most likely a "rod of god" type weapon u dont really need a rail cannon in space because the speed a "slug" would have is already tremendous due to the simple force of gravity the speed/damaged gained from having a orbital rail gun is most likely considered over kill when just having a holding claw/emplacement retract and let free a massive hunk of tungsten that will deal just as much damage
Mammoth tank : "ONLY MY RAILGUN CAN SHOOT LETTING MY SOUL OUT!"
I like to imagine that the reason the Ghost Stalkers shoot the buildings they intend to plant explosives within is because they are shooting the security doors open. These doors prevent entry to most troops, like most infantry, but are otherwise capable of being opened by skilled engineers.
Ghost stalkers have no technical expertise and so simply blast their way inside.
And then there was the rail gun we never got. The one from the Tiberium FPS game.
Man that was a neat concept for a main weapon.
When I first played the original, I was too young to enjoy the story behind the game. Watching these a few decades later brings much joy.
Keep up the amazing work ^^
8:20 it's to make him not shoot enemies just after destroying the building :)
I have an opinion on the Ghost stalker, maybe he shoots a hole in the wall of the building he is entering before blowing it ul
Orbital strike is defenetly not a railgun weapon. Slug mean only that they are solid rounds, without explosive filler. Cose why would you need it?
We talking about space weapon. You do not need explosive filler nor special method to launch a round - just drop it. No matter how much you could atrificially accelerate it, gravity would do it better. For free.
12:33 You are right to suspect, Its unlikely they need to be railguned.
In fact this is likely more related a real cold war concept of a weapon called "kinetic bombardment/ kinetic orbital strike" where tungsten pikes/rods/(solid)slugs placed geosynchronzied orbit are drop to destroy ground targets, they are consider closely an equal to tactical nukes with close to no chance to intercept.
That said they also have a number(at least 3) of ion cannon station up there.
Ghost Stalker shots before explode because he kills infantry that appear after structer is destroyed
Nice
3:56 I don't wanna sound like the guy who says "WELL ACKTUALLY"...but actually, it sounds more like a coilgun. Another type of electromagnetic gun. But instead of using rails, it uses coils to accelerate the slug.
Railguns work on same principle as electric motors. It needs a large magnetic field passing between the two rails.
Epic
If the ghost stalker is shooting the c4 to make it explode, then the devs have no idea how c4 works.
C4 is pretty much completely inert until exposed to an electrical charge.
You can shoot it, burn it (my grandfather's platoon actually did this is during ww2), play football with it, run it over, wear it like a hat, whatever.
It's not gonna blow until it becomes electrified.
Rail gun rounds are not going to induce or transfer an electrical charge to the objects they hit.
Ghost Stalker is "clearing the building" before demo
New video!!!!! "Больше спасибо" "Thank you so much!"
Great video. Subscribing!
There is a secret room in the library that is activated by screwing with some torches or some type of button mechanic that was very hard to actually activate. There is a bug on pretty much all of the new Windows systems where when opening the secret room it despawns the weapon. Back in the day if you played it on I believe Windows 98 when you open the secret room the railgun would be there. Of course this was well before UA-cam and video capture being an easy thing, so I don't think there's any footage of that out there anymore.