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Post by shurugal on Oct 30, 2016 1:14:41 GMT
So, I hate to say it, because this game really is a blast, but laser design is completely uninspiring. Being limited to CW Arclamp-Driven designs puts a serious crimp in style when trying to achieve efficient designs, both because of the difficulty of matching up emission profiles of gases with absorption profiles of lasing mediums. Added to this is the limitation of only being able to use single-ellipse lasing cavities, which must often be of titanic proportions to achieve exactly the right major/semimajor ratio. Why can't we have more complex cavity designs like helical lamps with axial lasing rods? Or, even more exotic, hollow-rod lasing mediums with the lamp on the inside?
Better still, when can we expect to see free-electron lasers? These are the only method known to modern science to be able to achieve far-UV wavelengths, which are perfect for space combat.
Edit: also, why are we limited to putting the turret on the side of the laser cavity? This seriously hurts designs centered around putting a large laser on the nose of a ship.
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Post by dragonkid11 on Oct 30, 2016 14:54:14 GMT
If you can find the calculation to find out the power of these energy babies, I'm sure the dev will figure something to put them in.
Until then, we are kinda stuck here.
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Post by goduranus on Oct 31, 2016 18:09:04 GMT
The game's combat ranges are too short for big lasers. With a big lense in game you can focus your 1GW laser(50MW output) into a 30cm circle out to 1000+km, which will do decent damage at 500MW/m^2, but the game only lets you fire at 250km, which bring you nearly into range with some projectile weapons.
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Post by argonbalt on Oct 31, 2016 20:24:15 GMT
this is a pretty noticeable issue, all lasers in game seem to output at the same radius, a spot a couple cm in diameter, this seems strange considering the variety in aperture and lens size, like wise there is the strange targeting issue of all ship mounted weapons firing at the same thing, when projectile cannons would be better off on CIWS duty and lasers should be picking off vulnerable bits.
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Post by lawson on Nov 1, 2016 4:10:52 GMT
The game's combat ranges are too short for big lasers. With a big lense in game you can focus your 1GW laser(50MW output) into a 30cm circle out to 1000+km, which will do decent damage at 500MW/m^2, but the game only lets you fire at 250km, which bring you nearly into range with some projectile weapons. Yea, I'd like the option for my fleet of DOOM laser ships to simply cook enemy ships at 5000 to 10000Km ranges. For a 100Mc a dedicated laser array can put more than 1GW of light on a target. (the unsafe generators and numbers compensate for poor laser efficiency) That's easily enough to overwhelm the cooling of most ships. It might take 5-10min for each kill, especially if propellant is vented to dissipate heat, but at mega-meter ranges 5-10min/kill is fast enough. Marty P.S. Silica aerogel is way too effective versus lasers. If you look at industrial laser systems, the materials with the lowest thermal conductivity are the easiest to cut. (assuming reflectivity is the same) Aluminum and steel are good examples. A laser that can cut 6mm of steel will only be able to cut about 2mm of aluminum at the same speed. On the far extreme is wood: poor thermal conductivity, good absorption properties, and charred wood can take several thousand degrees K before it vaporizes. Yet wood is one of the easiest materials to laser cut. |
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Post by n2maniac on Nov 1, 2016 6:15:27 GMT
The game's combat ranges are too short for big lasers. With a big lense in game you can focus your 1GW laser(50MW output) into a 30cm circle out to 1000+km, which will do decent damage at 500MW/m^2, but the game only lets you fire at 250km, which bring you nearly into range with some projectile weapons. Yea, I'd like the option for my fleet of DOOM laser ships to simply cook enemy ships at 5000 to 10000Km ranges. For a 100Mc a dedicated laser array can put more than 1GW of light on a target. (the unsafe generators and numbers compensate for poor laser efficiency) That's easily enough to overwhelm the cooling of most ships. It might take 5-10min for each kill, especially if propellant is vented to dissipate heat, but at mega-meter ranges 5-10min/kill is fast enough. Marty P.S. Silica aerogel is way too effective versus lasers. If you look at industrial laser systems, the materials with the lowest thermal conductivity are the easiest to cut. (assuming reflectivity is the same) Aluminum and steel are good examples. A laser that can cut 6mm of steel will only be able to cut about 2mm of aluminum at the same speed. On the far extreme is wood: poor thermal conductivity, good absorption properties, and charred wood can take several thousand degrees K before it vaporizes. Yet wood is one of the easiest materials to laser cut. Thought I don't disagree with the "silica aerogel OP", I will respectfully disagree with your example. Industrial laser systems blow air at the material being cut to force the melted (or charred / weakened) material away. Without that jet of air, industrial laser cutting would require a substantially different setup to achieve results. |
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Post by goduranus on Nov 1, 2016 9:19:39 GMT
this is a pretty noticeable issue, all lasers in game seem to output at the same radius, a spot a couple cm in diameter, this seems strange considering the variety in aperture and lens size, like wise there is the strange targeting issue of all ship mounted weapons firing at the same thing, when projectile cannons would be better off on CIWS duty and lasers should be picking off vulnerable bits. This is actually not true, I thought it was the case too, but then I tested it last week, apparently the hit area does get bigger if you make the lens smaller. With a 1 meter lens I was only hitting a tiny dot on a devastator missile, but with a 15cm lens I was hitting half of the missile at once. |
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Post by argonbalt on Nov 1, 2016 15:46:35 GMT
Interesting i will have to look into that, still would like weapon-module prioritisation though.
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Post by lawson on Nov 1, 2016 16:01:04 GMT
Thought I don't disagree with the "silica aerogel OP", I will respectfully disagree with your example. Industrial laser systems blow air at the material being cut to force the melted (or charred / weakened) material away. Without that jet of air, industrial laser cutting would require a substantially different setup to achieve results. The air/assist-gas in industrial laser cutting is mostly to keep the cut neat and the optics clean. The assist gas jet also adds a lot of cooling to the cutting zone. So AFIK, it doesn't effect the maximum cut rate much for most materials. Though all bets are off for corner cases like if the material was specifically designed to make a ton of sooty carbon smoke or the material burns nicely at high temperatures like steel does. (and the sooty material can be countered by moderate laser pulsing anyway) |
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Post by lawson on Nov 2, 2016 7:40:30 GMT
So I borrowed a broken rail gun from the Speed Record! thread and plunked it down between 20 1GW-pump/44.8MW-green with 16 meter apertures. The result is monstrous! (literally monstrous too, only 1.54Km long...) Attachment Deleted Engagement range varied with target cross section. Drones and missiles start at 250Km, and don't last long with 896MW of green focused on them. (even 1-2cm of silicon aerogel only buys a second or two) Capital ships start at 500-1000Km depending on size. Even at 1000Km versus Stock "Gunships" it's quickly sniping turrets at a pace of one ever 3-5 seconds. Frankly versus stock ships at these power levels, it is faster to aim for the engines only. This is because once the laser array burns through the hull, it often takes out the crew module on the way to the engines. |
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Post by bigbombr on Nov 2, 2016 8:39:54 GMT
So I borrowed a broken rail gun from the Speed Record! thread and plunked it down between 20 1GW-pump/44.8MW-green with 16 meter apertures. The result is monstrous! (literally monstrous too, only 1.54Km long...) Engagement range varied with target cross section. Drones and missiles start at 250Km, and don't last long with 896MW of green focused on them. (even 1-2cm of silicon aerogel only buys a second or two) Capital ships start at 500-1000Km depending on size. Even at 1000Km versus Stock "Gunships" it's quickly sniping turrets at a pace of one ever 3-5 seconds. Frankly versus stock ships at these power levels, it is faster to aim for the engines only. This is because once the laser array burns through the hull, it often takes out the crew module on the way to the engines. Increased max ranges for lasers would be nice. |
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Post by goduranus on Nov 3, 2016 23:01:50 GMT
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Post by jonen on Nov 3, 2016 23:13:48 GMT
Aha, I made a laser ship that doesn't suck, not very good against player ship unless paired with my aerogel ablater, but it sure does slaughter all manner of AI ships with terrible ease. Also somewhat afforable compared to the one above. Stock 100 MW lasers? That thing puts 2 GW in / 60 MW out of lasing power for the price of two to three of the 9 GW in / 400 MW out 9x1GW laser ships currently in the 100 Mc fleet challenge. |
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Post by goduranus on Nov 3, 2016 23:19:52 GMT
Not stock 100MW lasers. But ah, there were more posts in the 100mc challenge, yeah I think those ships in the challenge thread are better
Although, the ships in the challenge thread will probably even better if you add a couple of small-lens lasers for burning through aerogels.
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Post by jonen on Nov 4, 2016 0:23:03 GMT
Not stock 100MW lasers. But ah, there were more posts in the 100mc challenge, yeah I think those ships in the challenge thread are better Although, the ships in the challenge thread will probably even better if you add a couple of small-lens lasers for burning through aerogels. Probably. Would necessitate a mix of lasers, though, which means you need to switch to a broadside configuration - which actually may be tactically advantageous, particularly if you use a design capable of high thrust, as it becomes more capable of evading kinetic return fire. OTOH the design text would not be as elegant. |
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