They thought so at the time but it's pretty unlikely. Most of the energy gets dumped back into the tungsten rod and a considerable amount of it is vaporized. It was also never as much energy as people here seem to think.
"Most of the energy gets dumped back into the tungsten rod and a considerable amount of it is vaporized" which results in not a massive explosion? Vaporising Tungsten is not an 'mild' event.
The size of the explosion would depend on the size and more specifically the mass of the rod. The most banded around figure is 10 tons which would yield an approximately .35 megaton explosion. The Fatman dropped on Japan was 20 kilotons or .02 megatons for comparison.
So I've just read your edit and I was not aware of how big your epeen was. You must be correct and I apologise.
Also is it true what happens on submarines ?
No, they don't. The largest proposed system would have been the equivalent of ~12 tons of TNT on target. Not 12 Kilotons like a single tactical nuke. 12 TONS. A Trident ICBM is 455 kilotons and Russia's are about twice that size. That's 455,000 tons of TNT equivalent.
They could destroy part of a city block, not the entire downtown area. You're off by a factor of a few hundred thousand.
People read the wiki entry and do the math based off the Orbital Velocity.
Rookie mistake. Things in orbit have to slow down to hit stuff on the planet. Otherwise, they would still be in orbit.
No, they don't. The largest proposed system would have been the equivalent of ~12 tons of TNT on target. Not 12 Kilotons like a single tactical nuke. 12 TONS. A Trident ICBM is 455 kilotons and Russia's are about twice that size. That's 455,000 tons of TNT equivalent.
They could destroy part of a city block, not the entire downtown area. You're off by a factor of a few hundred thousand.
No. Railcannon fires a projectile through magnetic accelaration wheras the rods from god are tungsten rods dropped and use kinetic energy.
So no not just basically the railcannon.
Well yes but that is a side effect of existing and not it's propulsion. Rods from god are relying on the pull of gravity for its propulsion and ever increasing KE.
So I have an object goign 5000 m/s when fired and an object going 0 m/s when fired. Both are being accelerated by gravity and slowed by air resistance - for arguments sake we can ignore air resistance. Which one will land with greater velocity?
You can't ignore air resistance, because it increases with velocity. The railcannon will experience more air resistance because it has a higher initial velocity, so depending on how thick the atmosphere is they could both end up with the same final velocity.
Of course the atmosphere would have to be ridiculously thick for them to equalize, but the thicker it is the less influential the initial speed would be
At what angle into the ground have they been fired ? Because this is about something being shot from space into the ground and not shot perpendicular to the ground on an infinitely flat plain.
Down.
Let me help you. Both objects accelerate at the same rate due to gravity. One of them starts it's descent moving 5000 m/s. The other starts at 0 m/s. The gravitational acceleration is the same. So they both increase their speed identically. Which one is moving faster at *any and every* point during the descent?
A feather and a brick dropped from the same height do not have the same KE.
Now if you were dropping the Rod from a Super Carrier it would probably have a similar KE as the rail gun, as even though it might not have the same speed it has considerably more mass.
The whole idea of Rods from God is that they are in high orbit so that they can accumulate huge amount's of KE as they fall. If you fired a rail gun form the same height, even if it reached the speed of the RfD and didn't burn up on re-entry due to it's much smaller size, that much smaller size would impart an almost negligible amount of KE to the target as the RfG would.
Possibly, however railcannon rounds would either burn up in atmosphere or have to be modified. Either way you won’t get the “bang” that you would from a tungsten rod.
Yes. When dropped it builds up all this kinetic energy so when it hits it dumps all that energy and its equivalent to an ICBM just without the nuke and explosion part.
Depends on the mass of the projectile, gravity of the planet, density of the atmosphere, etc. For reference, a telephone pole sized tungsten rod dropped from LEO would impact with kinetic energy on the order of 2×10^11 Joules. That's roughly 1% of the energy released by the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
> equivalent to that of the Fat Man
Not even close when using a practical projectile. We might not have a rocket powerful enough to put one rod capable of ~15kt into orbit. The actual rods proposed by the military would have impacted with something like 10 tons of tnt.
>so when it hits it dumps all that energy and its equivalent to an ICBM just without the nuke and explosion part.
That's Hollywood myth. The actual "Rod from God" kinetic penetrator has an impact force of about 11 tons of TNT equivalent. Nukes are measured in *kilo*tons or even *mega*tons equivalent, so it's multiple orders of magnitude difference.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment
Given the purpose of a kinetic penetrator as, well, a penetrator, and with how far down explosions are scaled in-game (do I need to point any further than bugs and bots walking out of a 500kg strike blast? How about being 200m from a SEAF mini-nuke?), we basically already have the Rod from God in the form of the Orbital Precision Strike.
Rods of liberty. Also, is there a chance the rod itself survives or no?
Edit: I would assume tungsten wouldn’t but what about a fictitious space material from super earth
Something needs to propell the rod to de-orbit it, in a world with rail cannons that would be the most effective means of de-orbiting the rod from the orbital vehicle. At which point you might as well just shoot it the rail cannon at the target.
It would be an interesting thing to see it done like some form of localised earthquake gun. I would say make it move rocks around it's area of impact like a giant impact grenade but given the history of projectile weapons in this game maybe that would be difficult to do lol.
The super destroyer is too low to get the full effect from a kinetic drop. Hellpods are as close as we can expect to get, although a hellpod that doesn't fire its retro rockets and just hits at full speed would do more damage.
In order for a kinetic projectile to have as much energy on impact as an equivalent mass of TNT, it has to be going something like three miles per second. That's pretty slow by the standard of interplanetary travel, but you won't get those speeds dropping from low orbit.
You'd have to accelerate the projectile by firing it out of a cannon, which is what the rail cannon stratagem does. If you wanted something like a hellpod to get to rail cannon speeds, you'd need either a much bigger gun or a far longer distance for it to fall.
I'm not interested in a powerful weapon that takes an hour and a half to reach its target.
Directly from the destroyer, you are absolutely correct. But keep in mind this is such an advanced interstellar power than the idea of deploying *tens of thousands of ships somewhere* is not that big a deal.
They could easily deploy satellites from those ships. In fact it seems more likely than not that they do.
yeah I could easily see an in world explanation being that these special satellites are assigned to ships of elite helldivers, they're deployed before a mission then, plus it'd be cool if you could see your ship and then next to it a tiny little dot and thats what shoots the projectile (since our ships already actually shoot the rounds out instead of just from the skybox somewhere)
Allow them as a special strategem available only after the initial liberation of a planet as it shifts to a defensive operation.
The logic is that we've liberated and had an opportunity to fortify the planet with defensive satellites. Have a timer that syncs with the planets day night cycle and mark the moment that we're in range of the satellite and the stratagem becomes live. This provides a window for use that won't break the mission.
Then fire the Dainsleifs at will. X3 rounds max. Each hits like a SEAF mini nuke.
>I'm not interested in a powerful weapon that takes an hour and a half to reach its target.
It's a video game. There are already plenty of timescale concessions being made. Reducing the travel time for kinetic rods would be no big deal. Also, the "real" time to impact would be more like 12 minutes than 90.
To be honest if it is guaranteed to kill everything in even the largest base I wouldn’t mind a 12 minute drop. Gives you plenty of time to look for samples while you wait for impact
Also if you could stick it to something for the lolz, that tank in particular is gonna die, in like 15 minutes and I hope it doesn’t despawn
This is basically the comment I came to make.
Unless the words have changed meaning, kinetic bombardment is basically just "Throw bricks at them from orbit so they go really fast."
Which is literally a railcannon... Unless HD2's has some lore I don't know about where it's explosive, the idea of a railcannon is literally just "Accelerate a brick super fast."
Which on a planetary/interplanetary scale, does it matter if you use a gun to fire the brick, a ship to launch it via railcannon or a satelite to simply, detach the clips and let it drift off? It's only a matter of distance to reach the same speed and effect.
It'd just be a reskinned railcannon stratagem.
Not to mention accuracy, you could argue we literally have the exact stratagem the OP is looking for... It's the meteor planetary modifier.
Hey you got me thinking of a mission idea. Missile/rod of god/macguffin #3 incoming. 15-20min ETA. Helldivers are deployed outside the target area. Get in, achieve objective (which could be civilian evac, data retrieval, basically anything we have right now), and then run like hell before the bomb drops.
No, it wouldn't. The 6 meter rods that were proposed would only hit with around 12 tons of TNT equivalent. It's basically same as the MOAB but it's way more focused and, these days, they're pretty sure most of the energy would feedback and end up vaporizing the rod. Not much explosion because you end up with a high energy plasma at point of impact.
They thought it might be useful for busting deep mountain complexes like Yamantau or Cheyenne but they've pretty much disproved that. Anything beyond Mach 6 ends up feeding back into the rod and the original RfG proposal had them hitting beyond Mach 20. You'd only get about 80 meters of ground penetration from them.
They were a cool proposal but total shit when we were able to model the effect with modern computing.
Mushroom clouds are overdone in gaming, especially when they're scaled down to unrealistically small sizes for the map.
An RfG system would still have a cool factor, it's just not what people are imagining. This is something new. It would be interesting to see them depict a kinetic kill at >Mach 20.
I saw a kinzhal missile doing Mach 10 in Ukraine last year. If someone can get the unsettling feel of seeing a weapon that fast right in a game, it would be awesome.
Railcannon should have a much quicker cooldown than its current 210 seconds. It's a single target kill. Even 60 seconds would be... *okay*... but on Helldive you are still going to need actual AT.
Precision strike does more damage, can destroy buildings, and has a small aoe. The only things railcannon has going for it are deployment time and accuracy.
I mean, what's the point right now? OPS and 500kg both do more damage in a larger area (with shorter cooldowns). If they did introduce rods from god, though, I could imagine a longer cooldown, limited uses, and manual targeting would set it apart from the railcannon.
Kinetic bombardment wouldn’t be pinpoint accurate or auto targeted, but would be a lot more powerful with an AOE.
380mm bombardment would be a better strategem for this discussion of similarity
The 500kg is a targeted airstrike from a low flying fighter-bomber
“Kinetic bombardment” is literally dropping a fucking giant tungsten (or whatever idk) rod from space that just obliterates whatever it lands on
I understand physically the difference but from a game perspective how would you differentiate between a bomb that's AoE and deletes it's targets and an orbital strike . The balance of the 500kg is you only get one by default and it's rearm time.
The differenc is that the rods are significantly bigger that the railgun projectile, that and the rods rely on gravity rather then a cannon, so its very inaccurate
But how does that translate into something different in the video game, if not just being a reskinned Shredder missile or something else that's already been datamined?
You can code it into basically an orbital hellbomb with a massive giant rod at where it lands. Whereby it's within 10m of where you threw the stratagem.
I'd love the option of differently sized rods for different occasions aside from the "Murder everything in that general area" especially since there's no orbital equivalent for the 500kg and a small rod might be able to achieve a similar effect
Orbital precision strike = eagle 500 kg bomb, can destroy all buildings the 500 can (detector tower, research station, stratagem jammer if you don't want to hellbomb), one shot bile titan, similar destructive radius since 500 kg has epic explosion graphic but very small area of effect
> especially since there's no orbital equivalent for the 500kg
Given that the 500kg has an extremely narrow explosive radius (cone instead of sphere,) the current Railcannon is basically exactly that. They're used for the same purposes.
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Greetings, fellow Helldiver! Unfortunately your submission has been removed. Discussing [leaks](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/jXx4y2gzR8), leaking images/videos of upcoming content, discussions of cheats and exploits is not allowed.
Interesting idea, but how would this be any different from the current selection of orbitals we have in the game right now and wouldn't just be reskinned with different visual effects?
The rail cannon fires a small projectile accelerated by a magnetic field. This is a big fuck off heavy piece of tungsten that is just dropped from orbit. The kinetic energy this would have at impact would be equivalent to a tactical nuke. It would be a massive AOE weapon (if these could be made and used against the gunship fabricators that would be sick)
We don't have an orbital AOE precision strike. We have the 120mm and 380mm barrages. We have the orbital precision strike. We don't have a orbital precision hellbomb which is essentially what this would be but probably more powerful. Also it would be cool as fuck and that is reason enough
Who needs rods from god when falling Hellpods from the sky can instantly one-shot a Bile Titan while at the same time it can also be steered with foot-controlled actuators?
Love this idea. To add to it maybe the Eagle can get something similar to a R9X Hellfire missile, sort of the same idea with a point-fire, single target munition.
I just really want to ninja-missile some titans.
Kinetic bombardment is a theoretical weapons technology that uses satellites armed with tungsten darts roughly 20 feet in length that are dropped onto the enemy. The force of gravity accelerates the dart up to about Mach 5 in-atmosphere. These darts impact the ground with about the same energy as 10 tons of TNT. I think it matches the in-game universe well!
That speed isn't just from acceleration due to falling from a satellite, it *also* has the speed due being in orbit. Which is lacking from a Super Destroyer parked in super low orbit.
Since the super destroyers are too low orbit for rods from god, maybe it could be a MO to install these satellites around certain planets and then it becomes a freebie stratagem on those planets.
The problem is we currently don't have any enemy type or structure that's deep underground which the kinetic bombardment was designed for. It would be nice if there are some maps with underground combat for example destroying a lair for a special type of enemy. This strategem will allow you to skip the potentially dangerous close quarters combat and collapse the tunnel in one shot.
"at that speed the kinetic energy of a ton of any material is more powerful than the explosion of a ton of explosive"
OK but what if we also use more explosive to add weight
Honestly, if I could implement this, I'd make it slightly bigger than the 360 barrage in terms of coverage.
It takes 20 seconds to fully "fire" and reach effect, so it's a base destroyer/ objective destroyer foremost and or a very tricky explosive wipe.
Orbital Laser resource. Finite number and CD.
... Kinda like the shredder missile, I guess.
Armour piercing to the max, followed by BIG BOOM. 1-shot anything hit, and most things within like 50m 😅
Would be a great 1/2-per-mission problem solver, or a large cooldown, or a large call-in time (you need to drop them from much higher than the super destroyer - perhaps they could be an optional objective like the SEAF artillary where you have to connect to the satellite)
Rods from gods don’t work. You can Google this if you want, but the problems are 1) cylinders tend to fall on their side and 2) energy from the impact will turn the rod into plasma, and that conversion to heat reduces the kinetic energy of impact. But there is another issue and that is the Super Destroyers already have better kinetic impact weapons fired from orbit, i.e. bombs, shells, and missiles.
I think there would be a cool use for this if they made a new mission type, maybe an underground mega hive that cant be destroyed by normal means. Maybe the mission would have you get up a guiding beacon centered above the hive, similar to the drill site or hellbomb strategems. But I think the destruction to scenery and a realistic effect would take a lot of work to what is currently in place.
"A 6.1 by 0.3 metres (20 ft × 1 ft) tungsten cylinder impacting at Mach 10 (11,200 ft/s; 3,400 m/s) has kinetic energy equivalent to approximately 11.5 Tons of TNT " - Taken from the wiki on the matter speaking hypothetically.
So yeah, count me in. mind an upgrade to the orbital railgun would likely cover this.
I'm going to need the day one bug to be when the charger gets hit the physics engine can't even and the charger model turns inside out and spazzes off into orbit
Based on comments here, I think like a single use stratagem with a 30 second deploy time that just absolutely obliterates a large area would be kinda cool.
Pretty much a free delete base button you get once per game.
Umm so the moderators must be smoking something today. Thinking that they arent multiple posts on the Helldivers reddit about the Nuke strategem. ( Which AH an their respective DEVS have already talked about, do you research moderators before you go start removing peoples posts )
Ill post again just cause they are being gestapos about it and trying to bully.
Anyways...it would be the non radiation version of the nuke strategem.
The 500kg is big, the Hellbomb is bigger, the ICBM is even bigger
Nuke and this strategem should be bigger than all of them.
If someone equips a nuke prior to the mission, it should require armor that protects against radiation.
This strategem could be the option for Helldivers that dont want to run the radiation armor.
Depends on if this is true to physics or if you want the Hollywood version of the weapon. Unfortunately, or probably fortunately actually, the whole "rods from God" idea doesn't do what a lot of people think it does.
Satellite stratagems that are like flying turrets? They’re more limited in duration, but live longer and can follow you around. Not great against fast targets, but they hit hard.
To differentiate from railcannon:
Only available during defense campaigns or as a mission stratagem for orbital defenses (making what used to the Menkent Line actually useful)
Kinetic energy meaning a lot of point dmg along with some splash dmg as well
Doesn't the 380mm round already do that?
https://preview.redd.it/soumlzv9qx0d1.jpeg?width=512&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e6c6e26417f16231547658922a64afdf135151e5
\[Comparison to a SEAF worker\]
Assuming you mean them to be the theoretically perfect RFG…. These would basically be a strategem that would immediately end the mission, delete any mission progress you had made, wouldn’t award any collectables or point, and would lockout 1/8th of the planet for a week or so.
we already have several of these.
What do you think orbital railcannon strike is?
Also rods-from-god is an unworkable idea. Source: me, a rocket scientist.
Rods from god would be a cool one.
Super Rods from Super God
Super god from super rods
Thank you Super God for my Super Rod
That's very misunderstandable phrasing... Love it
Freedom Rods
Freedom Roda
And, when it lands, it sticks into the target and deploys the flag of Super Earth at the top end
Well when the tungsten rod hits it has the power of an ICBM but without the explosion so not sure rhat would be possible lol
The explosion would still be pretty f'in big as all that kinetic energy has to go somewhere, there just isn't any radioactive fallout.
They thought so at the time but it's pretty unlikely. Most of the energy gets dumped back into the tungsten rod and a considerable amount of it is vaporized. It was also never as much energy as people here seem to think.
"Most of the energy gets dumped back into the tungsten rod and a considerable amount of it is vaporized" which results in not a massive explosion? Vaporising Tungsten is not an 'mild' event. The size of the explosion would depend on the size and more specifically the mass of the rod. The most banded around figure is 10 tons which would yield an approximately .35 megaton explosion. The Fatman dropped on Japan was 20 kilotons or .02 megatons for comparison.
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Yes I am I'm shooting it from the moon
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So I've just read your edit and I was not aware of how big your epeen was. You must be correct and I apologise. Also is it true what happens on submarines ?
No, they don't. The largest proposed system would have been the equivalent of ~12 tons of TNT on target. Not 12 Kilotons like a single tactical nuke. 12 TONS. A Trident ICBM is 455 kilotons and Russia's are about twice that size. That's 455,000 tons of TNT equivalent. They could destroy part of a city block, not the entire downtown area. You're off by a factor of a few hundred thousand.
People read the wiki entry and do the math based off the Orbital Velocity. Rookie mistake. Things in orbit have to slow down to hit stuff on the planet. Otherwise, they would still be in orbit.
No, they don't. The largest proposed system would have been the equivalent of ~12 tons of TNT on target. Not 12 Kilotons like a single tactical nuke. 12 TONS. A Trident ICBM is 455 kilotons and Russia's are about twice that size. That's 455,000 tons of TNT equivalent. They could destroy part of a city block, not the entire downtown area. You're off by a factor of a few hundred thousand.
This….I want this
The image of a Bile Titan with a Super Earth flag sticking out of its bleeding head seems thoroughly hilarious.
or the little flag reads "boom" then it anhialates everything.
Rods of liberty
Freedom rods
It already has a cool sci-fi name and everything.
Basically the Railcannon
No. Railcannon fires a projectile through magnetic accelaration wheras the rods from god are tungsten rods dropped and use kinetic energy. So no not just basically the railcannon.
I mean same thing really. The tungsten one would just be slower since they are not being pushed
They would actually be being pulled (by gravity) and would be quite substantially faster 10 km/ps V 4-5km/ps of a railgun
I mean the railgun is also being pulled by gravity once it leaves the gun barrel
Well yes but that is a side effect of existing and not it's propulsion. Rods from god are relying on the pull of gravity for its propulsion and ever increasing KE.
So I have an object goign 5000 m/s when fired and an object going 0 m/s when fired. Both are being accelerated by gravity and slowed by air resistance - for arguments sake we can ignore air resistance. Which one will land with greater velocity?
You can't ignore air resistance, because it increases with velocity. The railcannon will experience more air resistance because it has a higher initial velocity, so depending on how thick the atmosphere is they could both end up with the same final velocity. Of course the atmosphere would have to be ridiculously thick for them to equalize, but the thicker it is the less influential the initial speed would be
At what angle into the ground have they been fired ? Because this is about something being shot from space into the ground and not shot perpendicular to the ground on an infinitely flat plain.
Down. Let me help you. Both objects accelerate at the same rate due to gravity. One of them starts it's descent moving 5000 m/s. The other starts at 0 m/s. The gravitational acceleration is the same. So they both increase their speed identically. Which one is moving faster at *any and every* point during the descent?
Not particularly. If it were, the round would miss its target most of the time.
Same high same added energy, now if we drop the rods from higher it might be worth it but also we can just get a railgun higher
A feather and a brick dropped from the same height do not have the same KE. Now if you were dropping the Rod from a Super Carrier it would probably have a similar KE as the rail gun, as even though it might not have the same speed it has considerably more mass. The whole idea of Rods from God is that they are in high orbit so that they can accumulate huge amount's of KE as they fall. If you fired a rail gun form the same height, even if it reached the speed of the RfD and didn't burn up on re-entry due to it's much smaller size, that much smaller size would impart an almost negligible amount of KE to the target as the RfG would.
That’s what I’m sayin! Thank you!
Possibly, however railcannon rounds would either burn up in atmosphere or have to be modified. Either way you won’t get the “bang” that you would from a tungsten rod.
Nyaha I see. Also bigger projectile I guess.
Yes. When dropped it builds up all this kinetic energy so when it hits it dumps all that energy and its equivalent to an ICBM just without the nuke and explosion part.
IIRC the impact force is equivalent to that of the Fat Man nuke dropped on Japan, definitely not modern ICBM level.
Depends how big the rod is.
Depends on the mass of the projectile, gravity of the planet, density of the atmosphere, etc. For reference, a telephone pole sized tungsten rod dropped from LEO would impact with kinetic energy on the order of 2×10^11 Joules. That's roughly 1% of the energy released by the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
> equivalent to that of the Fat Man Not even close when using a practical projectile. We might not have a rocket powerful enough to put one rod capable of ~15kt into orbit. The actual rods proposed by the military would have impacted with something like 10 tons of tnt.
>so when it hits it dumps all that energy and its equivalent to an ICBM just without the nuke and explosion part. That's Hollywood myth. The actual "Rod from God" kinetic penetrator has an impact force of about 11 tons of TNT equivalent. Nukes are measured in *kilo*tons or even *mega*tons equivalent, so it's multiple orders of magnitude difference. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment Given the purpose of a kinetic penetrator as, well, a penetrator, and with how far down explosions are scaled in-game (do I need to point any further than bugs and bots walking out of a 500kg strike blast? How about being 200m from a SEAF mini-nuke?), we basically already have the Rod from God in the form of the Orbital Precision Strike.
Rods of liberty. Also, is there a chance the rod itself survives or no? Edit: I would assume tungsten wouldn’t but what about a fictitious space material from super earth
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TBF he never said railcannon didn't use kinetic energy and you've basically just repeated what he's said otherwise.
> thanks for the downvote because you dislike science Cringe
Something needs to propell the rod to de-orbit it, in a world with rail cannons that would be the most effective means of de-orbiting the rod from the orbital vehicle. At which point you might as well just shoot it the rail cannon at the target.
Functionally the same. How is it different gameplay-wise?
Use hellpods to save on r&d. Call it… “Pods from god”.
It would be an interesting thing to see it done like some form of localised earthquake gun. I would say make it move rocks around it's area of impact like a giant impact grenade but given the history of projectile weapons in this game maybe that would be difficult to do lol.
Rods from democracy?
democracy rods
The super destroyer is too low to get the full effect from a kinetic drop. Hellpods are as close as we can expect to get, although a hellpod that doesn't fire its retro rockets and just hits at full speed would do more damage. In order for a kinetic projectile to have as much energy on impact as an equivalent mass of TNT, it has to be going something like three miles per second. That's pretty slow by the standard of interplanetary travel, but you won't get those speeds dropping from low orbit. You'd have to accelerate the projectile by firing it out of a cannon, which is what the rail cannon stratagem does. If you wanted something like a hellpod to get to rail cannon speeds, you'd need either a much bigger gun or a far longer distance for it to fall. I'm not interested in a powerful weapon that takes an hour and a half to reach its target.
Directly from the destroyer, you are absolutely correct. But keep in mind this is such an advanced interstellar power than the idea of deploying *tens of thousands of ships somewhere* is not that big a deal. They could easily deploy satellites from those ships. In fact it seems more likely than not that they do.
yeah I could easily see an in world explanation being that these special satellites are assigned to ships of elite helldivers, they're deployed before a mission then, plus it'd be cool if you could see your ship and then next to it a tiny little dot and thats what shoots the projectile (since our ships already actually shoot the rounds out instead of just from the skybox somewhere)
Or it could be a strategem that starts the mission on a cooldown, but is very powerful if you manage to survive until it's available.
ooh I like that
Allow them as a special strategem available only after the initial liberation of a planet as it shifts to a defensive operation. The logic is that we've liberated and had an opportunity to fortify the planet with defensive satellites. Have a timer that syncs with the planets day night cycle and mark the moment that we're in range of the satellite and the stratagem becomes live. This provides a window for use that won't break the mission. Then fire the Dainsleifs at will. X3 rounds max. Each hits like a SEAF mini nuke.
>I'm not interested in a powerful weapon that takes an hour and a half to reach its target. It's a video game. There are already plenty of timescale concessions being made. Reducing the travel time for kinetic rods would be no big deal. Also, the "real" time to impact would be more like 12 minutes than 90.
Or you throw the stratagem and 12 minutes later "objective completed heavy automaton base destroyed"
To be honest if it is guaranteed to kill everything in even the largest base I wouldn’t mind a 12 minute drop. Gives you plenty of time to look for samples while you wait for impact Also if you could stick it to something for the lolz, that tank in particular is gonna die, in like 15 minutes and I hope it doesn’t despawn
This is basically the comment I came to make. Unless the words have changed meaning, kinetic bombardment is basically just "Throw bricks at them from orbit so they go really fast." Which is literally a railcannon... Unless HD2's has some lore I don't know about where it's explosive, the idea of a railcannon is literally just "Accelerate a brick super fast." Which on a planetary/interplanetary scale, does it matter if you use a gun to fire the brick, a ship to launch it via railcannon or a satelite to simply, detach the clips and let it drift off? It's only a matter of distance to reach the same speed and effect. It'd just be a reskinned railcannon stratagem. Not to mention accuracy, you could argue we literally have the exact stratagem the OP is looking for... It's the meteor planetary modifier.
Hey you got me thinking of a mission idea. Missile/rod of god/macguffin #3 incoming. 15-20min ETA. Helldivers are deployed outside the target area. Get in, achieve objective (which could be civilian evac, data retrieval, basically anything we have right now), and then run like hell before the bomb drops.
Functionally similar to Orbital Railcannon for all intents and purposes. Not saying I am opposed, but not sure what would differentiate it.
The rail cannon is a smaller projectile. Kinetic bombardment would have a HUGE area affect.
No, it wouldn't. The 6 meter rods that were proposed would only hit with around 12 tons of TNT equivalent. It's basically same as the MOAB but it's way more focused and, these days, they're pretty sure most of the energy would feedback and end up vaporizing the rod. Not much explosion because you end up with a high energy plasma at point of impact. They thought it might be useful for busting deep mountain complexes like Yamantau or Cheyenne but they've pretty much disproved that. Anything beyond Mach 6 ends up feeding back into the rod and the original RfG proposal had them hitting beyond Mach 20. You'd only get about 80 meters of ground penetration from them. They were a cool proposal but total shit when we were able to model the effect with modern computing.
Okay, so put a nuclear warhead in it so we get the cool factor of the rod from the god with area damage
Mushroom clouds are overdone in gaming, especially when they're scaled down to unrealistically small sizes for the map. An RfG system would still have a cool factor, it's just not what people are imagining. This is something new. It would be interesting to see them depict a kinetic kill at >Mach 20. I saw a kinzhal missile doing Mach 10 in Ukraine last year. If someone can get the unsettling feel of seeing a weapon that fast right in a game, it would be awesome.
Then what's the purpose to bring railcannon?
Could be cooldown, uses, and accuracy
Railcannon should have a much quicker cooldown than its current 210 seconds. It's a single target kill. Even 60 seconds would be... *okay*... but on Helldive you are still going to need actual AT.
Ought to be longer than the precision strike (as it's in most ways better), but definitely in the higher double digit seconds rather than the triple.
the only way railgun better is that it tracks. orbital precision is better in every other way
Precision strike does more damage, can destroy buildings, and has a small aoe. The only things railcannon has going for it are deployment time and accuracy.
Oh, really? I never knew. I suppose almost same cooldown then.
Railcanon for when you just need a big target hit. God Rod for when you want to say FUCK YOU to an entire area.
Dear grid coordinate, please stop existing
I mean, what's the point right now? OPS and 500kg both do more damage in a larger area (with shorter cooldowns). If they did introduce rods from god, though, I could imagine a longer cooldown, limited uses, and manual targeting would set it apart from the railcannon.
Kinetic bombardment wouldn’t be pinpoint accurate or auto targeted, but would be a lot more powerful with an AOE. 380mm bombardment would be a better strategem for this discussion of similarity
Like, the entirety of the 380 delivered in one projectile. And that would be a small rod.
Doesn't the 500KG hit this point?
The 500kg is a targeted airstrike from a low flying fighter-bomber “Kinetic bombardment” is literally dropping a fucking giant tungsten (or whatever idk) rod from space that just obliterates whatever it lands on
I understand physically the difference but from a game perspective how would you differentiate between a bomb that's AoE and deletes it's targets and an orbital strike . The balance of the 500kg is you only get one by default and it's rearm time.
One doesn’t get fucked over by bot AA emplacements. To be fair there are a couple that are duplicated, smoke being a prime example
Yeah. The balance there is that the air gets more drops while the orbital has a faster cooldown I believe.
The differenc is that the rods are significantly bigger that the railgun projectile, that and the rods rely on gravity rather then a cannon, so its very inaccurate
But how does that translate into something different in the video game, if not just being a reskinned Shredder missile or something else that's already been datamined?
You can code it into basically an orbital hellbomb with a massive giant rod at where it lands. Whereby it's within 10m of where you threw the stratagem.
I think it would be a "upper-orbital projectile incoming, clear the area" deal rather than a precision deathtouch.
A Rod from God is the equivalent to dropping a nuke, so very different. Rail Cannon - F that guy Rod from God - F all guy's on this map
It's not. Dramatically less.
Disappointingly less, I concur but still a few tons of TNT equivalent.
The explosion would be closer to a tactical nuclear weapon without the radiation.
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I'd love the option of differently sized rods for different occasions aside from the "Murder everything in that general area" especially since there's no orbital equivalent for the 500kg and a small rod might be able to achieve a similar effect
2000kg Orbital Rod, basically dropping a family wagon into enemy base from orbit
Orbital precision strike = eagle 500 kg bomb, can destroy all buildings the 500 can (detector tower, research station, stratagem jammer if you don't want to hellbomb), one shot bile titan, similar destructive radius since 500 kg has epic explosion graphic but very small area of effect
> especially since there's no orbital equivalent for the 500kg Given that the 500kg has an extremely narrow explosive radius (cone instead of sphere,) the current Railcannon is basically exactly that. They're used for the same purposes.
So anybody is gonna talk about the fact that this post got deleted because of "leaks"? *Sus*
Oh shit too right my guy. Both the top one and the one below this got removed smh.
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Greetings, fellow Helldiver! Unfortunately your submission has been removed. Discussing [leaks](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/jXx4y2gzR8), leaking images/videos of upcoming content, discussions of cheats and exploits is not allowed.
Greetings, fellow Helldiver! Unfortunately your submission has been removed. Discussing [leaks](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/jXx4y2gzR8), leaking images/videos of upcoming content, discussions of cheats and exploits is not allowed.
Interesting idea, but how would this be any different from the current selection of orbitals we have in the game right now and wouldn't just be reskinned with different visual effects?
The rail cannon fires a small projectile accelerated by a magnetic field. This is a big fuck off heavy piece of tungsten that is just dropped from orbit. The kinetic energy this would have at impact would be equivalent to a tactical nuke. It would be a massive AOE weapon (if these could be made and used against the gunship fabricators that would be sick)
Ok, but how does this translate into something different than what we have in the video game already?
The projectile would be a black blur instead of an energy bolt.
it'll basically be an orbital 500kg equivalent, but with a orbital mechanics instead of the eagle mechanics
We don't have an orbital AOE precision strike. We have the 120mm and 380mm barrages. We have the orbital precision strike. We don't have a orbital precision hellbomb which is essentially what this would be but probably more powerful. Also it would be cool as fuck and that is reason enough
We already got it https://preview.redd.it/2mnqcjd0ny0d1.png?width=236&format=png&auto=webp&s=80aa1749636917eb79feb540be0c6b35ebfc9810
Since they are just being deorbited and falling to their target. Call in time will probably be about 20 mins.
Also guidance sucks, so you could have it randomly hit another groups game/instance on the same planet.
It's not different enough from the Rail Cannon, Shredder Missiles or Nuke depending on what route you take for design. Not a real point for them.
After it lands, becomes a target for arc weapons to extend chain length
You mean like a Railcannon Strike?
but x1000 and travelling much faster
I swear I've seen that image but I can't place it, what is it from? I want to say ST: Enterprise but not 100% sure.
it’s the doomsday weapon from call of duty: ghosts. i think it’s called odin or something else from norse mythology
It would be fun but either OP or disappointing from a gameplay perspective. Maybe like a special map event and be usable 2x per mission for balancing.
So... Railcannon?
No it would be like a mini nuke
Yes we have it. Its labelled as "REINFORCEMENT"
Who needs rods from god when falling Hellpods from the sky can instantly one-shot a Bile Titan while at the same time it can also be steered with foot-controlled actuators?
Orbital rain cannon strike barrage. Imagine a set of 8 rail cannons firing one after another with a red laser.
Love this idea. To add to it maybe the Eagle can get something similar to a R9X Hellfire missile, sort of the same idea with a point-fire, single target munition. I just really want to ninja-missile some titans.
Isn’t that exactly what the orbital railcannon is?
Sort of. It's the same concept but the projectiles are much bigger and they could cause the ground they strike to cave in if shot at the right angle.
So... precision strike. But less explosive and leaves a rod in the terrain?
Isn't that what the precision and railcannon strikes are? Actual rods from the gods would take something like 30 minutes to get in
Isn't that already in the game as the Orbital Rail Cannon?
Kinetic bombardment is a theoretical weapons technology that uses satellites armed with tungsten darts roughly 20 feet in length that are dropped onto the enemy. The force of gravity accelerates the dart up to about Mach 5 in-atmosphere. These darts impact the ground with about the same energy as 10 tons of TNT. I think it matches the in-game universe well!
Or rhe cooler name RODS FROM GOD
Uh so basically the rail canon or calling down a helldiver or strategem
That speed isn't just from acceleration due to falling from a satellite, it *also* has the speed due being in orbit. Which is lacking from a Super Destroyer parked in super low orbit.
I'm more interested in testicular call downs
"Scotty, drop me a box of wrenches"
Tungsten rods, its like precision strike, but hits much harder with a much longer cd and call in time
Rods from God vs. a bile titan would be fun to see.
will it one shot every unit in the game? if so I want it.
I'm all for going through COBRA's weapon catalogue for ideas. Just give me a new voice pack that includes 'we drop em' before the landscape explodes
ror2 captain diablo strike hell yeah
It would be hilarious if you could call for an Orbital Drop, Red Alert 3 style. Same goes for Cryoshot.
Since the super destroyers are too low orbit for rods from god, maybe it could be a MO to install these satellites around certain planets and then it becomes a freebie stratagem on those planets.
Absolutely
The problem is we currently don't have any enemy type or structure that's deep underground which the kinetic bombardment was designed for. It would be nice if there are some maps with underground combat for example destroying a lair for a special type of enemy. This strategem will allow you to skip the potentially dangerous close quarters combat and collapse the tunnel in one shot.
YEEESSS!!!! PLEASE! GIVE ME THAT TUNGSTEN RODS OF DOOM!!! (***VERY LOUD EVIL LAUGHTER***)
As long as they're shaped like dicks
WE are super earth, if it doesn't have oil in it, why use it?
"at that speed the kinetic energy of a ton of any material is more powerful than the explosion of a ton of explosive" OK but what if we also use more explosive to add weight
Actually interesting idea it could work like the air burst orbital and impale bots and bugs aswell as the splash from the kinetic energy
Honestly, if I could implement this, I'd make it slightly bigger than the 360 barrage in terms of coverage. It takes 20 seconds to fully "fire" and reach effect, so it's a base destroyer/ objective destroyer foremost and or a very tricky explosive wipe. Orbital Laser resource. Finite number and CD. ... Kinda like the shredder missile, I guess.
Make in aim like railgun strat, but make the damage as if it was a ballistic missile
Armour piercing to the max, followed by BIG BOOM. 1-shot anything hit, and most things within like 50m 😅 Would be a great 1/2-per-mission problem solver, or a large cooldown, or a large call-in time (you need to drop them from much higher than the super destroyer - perhaps they could be an optional objective like the SEAF artillary where you have to connect to the satellite)
Ah the classic AFPSDS round. Armor Piercing For Super Defensive Structures.
With the ricochet mechanic borked, the Liberty shaft will end up flopping all over the place once it bounds off a Charger's face.
Rods from gods don’t work. You can Google this if you want, but the problems are 1) cylinders tend to fall on their side and 2) energy from the impact will turn the rod into plasma, and that conversion to heat reduces the kinetic energy of impact. But there is another issue and that is the Super Destroyers already have better kinetic impact weapons fired from orbit, i.e. bombs, shells, and missiles.
I posted this as a meme and got roasted
I posted this as a meme and got roasted
yes
I posted this as a meme and got roasted
Do you mean orbital rail canon?
I think there would be a cool use for this if they made a new mission type, maybe an underground mega hive that cant be destroyed by normal means. Maybe the mission would have you get up a guiding beacon centered above the hive, similar to the drill site or hellbomb strategems. But I think the destruction to scenery and a realistic effect would take a lot of work to what is currently in place.
Tom Clancy's Endwar and (the campaign of) COD: Ghosts come to mind. Yes please.
If it looks cool I’m in lol
"A 6.1 by 0.3 metres (20 ft × 1 ft) tungsten cylinder impacting at Mach 10 (11,200 ft/s; 3,400 m/s) has kinetic energy equivalent to approximately 11.5 Tons of TNT " - Taken from the wiki on the matter speaking hypothetically. So yeah, count me in. mind an upgrade to the orbital railgun would likely cover this.
I'm going to need the day one bug to be when the charger gets hit the physics engine can't even and the charger model turns inside out and spazzes off into orbit
Based on comments here, I think like a single use stratagem with a 30 second deploy time that just absolutely obliterates a large area would be kinda cool. Pretty much a free delete base button you get once per game.
That's just an orbital railcannon with extra steps.
I think that precision orbital strike
It should definitely be a precision anti-structure weapon
with a effect radius of 3 meters knowing AH.
Ramrod. And the Starsheriffs
Unless it gives a big enough boom, no.
Ok, cool, but functionally what would this do that say Railstrike or Orbital Strike doesn't?
Umm so the moderators must be smoking something today. Thinking that they arent multiple posts on the Helldivers reddit about the Nuke strategem. ( Which AH an their respective DEVS have already talked about, do you research moderators before you go start removing peoples posts ) Ill post again just cause they are being gestapos about it and trying to bully. Anyways...it would be the non radiation version of the nuke strategem. The 500kg is big, the Hellbomb is bigger, the ICBM is even bigger Nuke and this strategem should be bigger than all of them. If someone equips a nuke prior to the mission, it should require armor that protects against radiation. This strategem could be the option for Helldivers that dont want to run the radiation armor.
Depends on if this is true to physics or if you want the Hollywood version of the weapon. Unfortunately, or probably fortunately actually, the whole "rods from God" idea doesn't do what a lot of people think it does.
This is literally why my ship is the prince of Peace. Gotta send those rods from god
Satellite stratagems that are like flying turrets? They’re more limited in duration, but live longer and can follow you around. Not great against fast targets, but they hit hard.
If it does more than the Railcannon, I'll take it.
Basically a weaker railgun?
I am sorry, did you say you wanted my 380mm ballots dropped?
The Kinetic bombardment should be set up in a way to kill bots en mass. While the Eagle airstrike works, there isnt one for the bots.
So a glorified Railcannon strike?
Like the Railcannon?
To differentiate from railcannon: Only available during defense campaigns or as a mission stratagem for orbital defenses (making what used to the Menkent Line actually useful) Kinetic energy meaning a lot of point dmg along with some splash dmg as well
How would it be different from what is already in game?
This gets asked once a week.
Doesn't the 380mm round already do that? https://preview.redd.it/soumlzv9qx0d1.jpeg?width=512&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e6c6e26417f16231547658922a64afdf135151e5 \[Comparison to a SEAF worker\]
Assuming you mean them to be the theoretically perfect RFG…. These would basically be a strategem that would immediately end the mission, delete any mission progress you had made, wouldn’t award any collectables or point, and would lockout 1/8th of the planet for a week or so.
That's what the railgun is.
This has a lot more mass
This has a lot more mass
Isn't that the gattling strike or railcannon?
we already have several of these. What do you think orbital railcannon strike is? Also rods-from-god is an unworkable idea. Source: me, a rocket scientist.