|
|
Post by goduranus on Nov 1, 2016 13:08:43 GMT
So, with a 10m aparture radius, the 1GW violet laser in game can land 34000 MW/m^2 at 250km, that means at 4000km, the laser can still land a fairly respectable 120MW/m^2, [34000/ ((4000/250)^2)=117] which is the equivalent of the stock green laser at max range. So I think it would be fair to fire large lasers before the enemy reach the 250km combat range, maybe have them apply damage on the strategic map?
Aiming steady at this range should be no problem, Hubble Telescope can hold itself to 0.01 arc second, that's an inaccuracy of only 20cm at 4000km, just need some smaller reaction wheels for fine tuning.
|
|
|
|
Post by bigbombr on Nov 1, 2016 13:37:13 GMT
I'd like an increase in the maximum range you can select for lasers. 250 km does indeed often feel too short. It would have an interesting effect on the meta at least, as missiles would need more delta-v, meaning they need larger fuel tanks, making them larger, heavier and more expensive. Drones would probably cease to be a threat.
|
|
|
|
Post by ross128 on Nov 1, 2016 14:46:14 GMT
I don't think you realize how mind-bogglingly big the strategic map is. To paraphrase the Hitchhiker's Guide, you may think 4,000km is a long way, but it's just peanuts compared to space. To give an idea though, that'll only get you 1/10 of the way around Earth's equator. It's also just under 2/3 of the Earth's radius, so if you're in orbit around Earth you can take a look at it and get an idea of how short your range on the strategic map would be.
A laser big enough to do noticeable damage on the strategic map would be so big and so power-hungry, it would have to be mounted on a large battle-station or an asteroid/planet.
As for longer engagement ranges, I think those might have to wait until missiles get better code for controlled-homing (which is technically supposed to be how you get through long-range engagements, but right now it doesn't work).
|
|
|
|
Post by lawson on Nov 1, 2016 16:11:09 GMT
So, with a 10m aparture radius, the 1GW violet laser in game can land 34000 MW/m^2 at 250km, that means at 4000km, the laser can still land a fairly respectable 120MW/m^2, [34000/ ((4000/250)^2)=117] which is the equivalent of the stock green laser at max range. So I think it would be fair to fire large lasers before the enemy reach the 250km combat range, maybe have them apply damage on the strategic map? Aiming steady at this range should be no problem, Hubble Telescope can hold itself to 0.01 arc second, that's an inaccuracy of only 20cm at 4000km, just need some smaller reaction wheels for fine tuning. At these ranges there's also the much more crude option of cooking ships by overwhelming cooling systems. It'd be slow and only work for ships with significantly lower power output than the laser fleet, but it'd work at silly ranges. (i.e. because a 5-10 meter diameter spot would be small enough for most ships ships) Even with high power ships, you could force them to run at reduced power and make it hard for them to spot missile and drone launches directly. |
|
|
|
Post by captinjoehenry on Nov 1, 2016 16:35:31 GMT
So, with a 10m aparture radius, the 1GW violet laser in game can land 34000 MW/m^2 at 250km, that means at 4000km, the laser can still land a fairly respectable 120MW/m^2, [34000/ ((4000/250)^2)=117] which is the equivalent of the stock green laser at max range. So I think it would be fair to fire large lasers before the enemy reach the 250km combat range, maybe have them apply damage on the strategic map? Aiming steady at this range should be no problem, Hubble Telescope can hold itself to 0.01 arc second, that's an inaccuracy of only 20cm at 4000km, just need some smaller reaction wheels for fine tuning. At these ranges there's also the much more crude option of cooking ships by overwhelming cooling systems. It'd be slow and only work for ships with significantly lower power output than the laser fleet, but it'd work at silly ranges. (i.e. because a 5-10 meter diameter spot would be small enough for most ships ships) Even with high power ships, you could force them to run at reduced power and make it hard for them to spot missile and drone launches directly. Eh I cannot imagine that you would be able to cook a ship that is intended to work in orbits around venus and out to pluto. The ships would almost definitely be able to handle that sort of heating and I am pretty confident that we are very much over estimating the narrowness of a laser at that kind of range. I don't have any hard evidence to back it up but I definitely feel we are over simplifying really long range laser engagements. |
|
|
|
Post by bigbombr on Nov 1, 2016 16:42:51 GMT
At these ranges there's also the much more crude option of cooking ships by overwhelming cooling systems. It'd be slow and only work for ships with significantly lower power output than the laser fleet, but it'd work at silly ranges. (i.e. because a 5-10 meter diameter spot would be small enough for most ships ships) Even with high power ships, you could force them to run at reduced power and make it hard for them to spot missile and drone launches directly. Eh I cannot imagine that you would be able to cook a ship that is intended to work in orbits around venus and out to pluto. The ships would almost definitely be able to handle that sort of heating and I am pretty confident that we are very much over estimating the narrowness of a laser at that kind of range. I don't have any hard evidence to back it up but I definitely feel we are over simplifying really long range laser engagements. Perhaps, but increasing the maximum range of lasers to 1000 km or more sounds reasonable. |
|
|
|
Post by captinjoehenry on Nov 1, 2016 16:45:26 GMT
Eh I cannot imagine that you would be able to cook a ship that is intended to work in orbits around venus and out to pluto. The ships would almost definitely be able to handle that sort of heating and I am pretty confident that we are very much over estimating the narrowness of a laser at that kind of range. I don't have any hard evidence to back it up but I definitely feel we are over simplifying really long range laser engagements. Perhaps, but increasing the maximum range of lasers to 1000 km or more sounds reasonable. I see nothing wrong with that I just am unsure how effective they'll be considering all of the issues with lasers at long range that QSwitched talked about related to rapid loss of power and increased radius of the laser. |
|
|
|
Post by ross128 on Nov 1, 2016 17:04:52 GMT
Yeah, it seems the main "benefit" of a 1000+m engagement range would be to defeat missiles and drones psychologically, by making the player unwilling to sit through kilometers of real-time manual coasting.  Missiles would definitely need smarter "controlled homing" code so they can automatically do a short intercept burn, and then coast into engagement range. Otherwise a max-range "targeting laser" with negligible output would be an ironclad defense against any missile that isn't manually ordered to coast. Of course, it would also result in trolling gunship builds, which now have to burn toward you from thousands of kilometers away with roughly 1/3g of acceleration just because a completely harmless laser declared its range to be that long. |
|
|
|
Post by lawson on Nov 1, 2016 19:26:40 GMT
Yeah, it seems the main "benefit" of a 1000+m engagement range would be to defeat missiles and drones psychologically, by making the player unwilling to sit through kilometers of real-time manual coasting. Missiles would definitely need smarter "controlled homing" code so they can automatically do a short intercept burn, and then coast into engagement range. Otherwise a max-range "targeting laser" with negligible output would be an ironclad defense against any missile that isn't manually ordered to coast. Of course, it would also result in trolling gunship builds, which now have to burn toward you from thousands of kilometers away with roughly 1/3g of acceleration just because a completely harmless laser declared its range to be that long. Sounds like setting the engagement range based on some power-density threshold would be a fairer solution? (it'd be like rail-guns and coil-guns then) If you want to engage at 1000Km, you have to bring a laser ship big enough to be dangerous at 1000Km. |
|
|
|
Post by argonbalt on Nov 1, 2016 21:28:55 GMT
So, with a 10m aparture radius, the 1GW violet laser in game can land 34000 MW/m^2 at 250km, that means at 4000km, the laser can still land a fairly respectable 120MW/m^2, [34000/ ((4000/250)^2)=117] which is the equivalent of the stock green laser at max range. So I think it would be fair to fire large lasers before the enemy reach the 250km combat range, maybe have them apply damage on the strategic map? Aiming steady at this range should be no problem, Hubble Telescope can hold itself to 0.01 arc second, that's an inaccuracy of only 20cm at 4000km, just need some smaller reaction wheels for fine tuning. That all sounds well and good, but let's face it. You would start a domino effect of necessary upgrades for quite a lot of stuff. For example if drones had proper battery driven systems instead of the quite hot reactors they are stuck with, and if retractable gun barrels and turrets were implemented, then this could be alright. Likewise missiles have already been mentioned. I would argue if anything before we start "tweaking" lasers to the ideal, we should instead "fix" missiles so as to have them on par. It is very simple, if we pick lasers "up" we have to bring everything else "up", but there is still much else that needs to be brought "up" just to par, things like construction and modules, turrets, drop tanks, struts and chain linked radiators, launchers etc... so as much as i want to see improvements to lasers and a whole bunch of stuff as well, there is still plenty more important stuff that needs to be adjusted just to stick with the current range and rules of engagement. |
|
|
|
Post by teeth on Nov 2, 2016 0:51:51 GMT
On the subject of strategic map weapons, I think we should be able to use missile and drone firing guns on it to give them a bit of a boost towards their target.
|
|
|
|
Post by goduranus on Nov 2, 2016 3:23:38 GMT
I don't think you realize how mind-bogglingly big the strategic map is. To paraphrase the Hitchhiker's Guide, you may think 4,000km is a long way, but it's just peanuts compared to space. To give an idea though, that'll only get you 1/10 of the way around Earth's equator. It's also just under 2/3 of the Earth's radius, so if you're in orbit around Earth you can take a look at it and get an idea of how short your range on the strategic map would be. A laser big enough to do noticeable damage on the strategic map would be so big and so power-hungry, it would have to be mounted on a large battle-station or an asteroid/planet. As for longer engagement ranges, I think those might have to wait until missiles get better code for controlled-homing (which is technically supposed to be how you get through long-range engagements, but right now it doesn't work). It wouldn't hit the whole map, just a small bubble around itself, since a strategic map attack should still account for the loss for power with distance, also the laser might have be interrupted if the attacking ship is doing a burn due to vibrations throwing off the aim at long ranges. 10m radius laser is not all that big compared to some hydrogen deuterium ships in the game, I think mine is 45m across, so the laser could easily fit on the front of it. But here's the thing, in game terms, it is really boring to sit through a 4000km real time intercept, so some way of auto-resolving long range laser damage on the strategic map could be a reasonable approach to alleviate the boredom while keeping large lasers in play, if their long range hitting power is as the game's current mechanics suggest. |
|
|
|
Post by lofwyrger on Nov 2, 2016 15:35:40 GMT
That strategic laser sounds more like the one used in Troy rising by John Ringo. There they use masses of orbital mirrors to collect sunlight and then projecting it onto the target.
|
|
|
|
Post by argonbalt on Nov 2, 2016 20:09:15 GMT
That strategic laser sounds more like the one used in Troy rising by John Ringo. There they use masses of orbital mirrors to collect sunlight and then projecting it onto the target. Sounds like the solar laser that zeon used in gundam, or even the solar system array, which is even simpler, just a giant mirror field |
|
reviire
New Member
I'm pretty great
Posts: 44 
|
Post by reviire on Nov 2, 2016 23:57:22 GMT
It could be done with intercept. "Intercept and attack with laser", and it'll simulate you attacking them with your laser before you actually contact them.
|
|
