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Post by David367th on Dec 21, 2016 0:02:45 GMT
I'd say to use Aramid Fiber against lasers and defensive piloting or a "best defence is a good offense" mentality against capital ship kinetic weapons. Although stock lasers have similar ranges to kinetics against capital sized targets, Lasers still have enough accuracy at range to the point that destroying a weapon wasn't a happy accident. Plus any kinetic that has enough accuracy at range to effectively single out weapons probably has enough energy to slice through most armor types - I'm looking at you 15km/s 10g Rail Guns.
So really, unless you think its a great idea to have 5m of Boron strapped around a rail gun, it's probably best to just put a few healthy centimeters of Aramid on.
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Post by Drahkan on Dec 21, 2016 0:53:02 GMT
Physics gives me a headache.
So: at the 100MW mark - at least with the particular designs I was using - the near infrared laser seemed to be as good as, if not better than, the near ultraviolet laser against aramid fiber. However, when I pump them up to 200MW - and again, I'm sure I changed one or more other aspects while tweaking for what I thought was maximum performance - the near ultraviolet laser was most definitely cutting through aramid fiber turret armor faster than the near infrared laser was.
Sigh.
And as a final note on the subject for now:
Shortwave infrared? Besides roasting a chicken I have no idea what you'd want to use one for. Definitely not combat, or at least based on the testing I just did...
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Post by Drahkan on Dec 21, 2016 0:56:44 GMT
So really, unless you think its a great idea to have 5m of Boron strapped around a rail gun, it's probably best to just put a few healthy centimeters of Aramid on. Until someone with at least as much OCD as me - but hopefully a lot more time as well - tests other materials then yeah, agreed. Even then I think aramid fiber, or at least something similar, will win out, as the long-range module-sniping is going to come down to lasers no matter how you look at it; at 750km-1000km range you just need your weapons to last longer than ~1.5 minutes. After that it comes down to He Who Has The Highest-Velocity Slug-Throwers Wins (...first. Then the other guy dies shortly thereafter).
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Post by inbrainsane on Dec 28, 2016 13:02:05 GMT
Jasonvance, can you share the specs of your latest revision of the laser, please? TIA *edit* Nevermind. I figured it out by myself. LOOKIT THEM LAZOR!
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Post by caiaphas on Dec 30, 2016 4:13:50 GMT
As a sidenote, does anyone know what the maximum efficiency of the new lasers are? I'm getting around 4.32% for a Krypton/Nd:YAG laser, but I'm not sure how much higher I can push it.
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Post by jasonvance on Dec 30, 2016 4:38:49 GMT
As a sidenote, does anyone know what the maximum efficiency of the new lasers are? I'm getting around 4.32% for a Krypton/Nd:YAG laser, but I'm not sure how much higher I can push it. The efficiency stat can be a bit misleading. In a lot of cases the gains are not worth the cost. For example using silver mirrors inside the laser at the ends of the lasing rod will increase efficiency to 95.5% when compared to Aluminium 95.4% but the mass will increase ~2x and the cost will increase ~6x. Adding more Optical nodes will increase the Pumping efficiency, as will increasing the size of the cavity and increasing the radius of the arc lamp. However all these things add extreme amounts of mass and cost. Efficiency does not directly correlate to higher intensity either (that is determined mainly off the wave length which is why I so highly recommend Ti:Sapphire) for example here are two lasers with nearly identical setups ND:YAG with close to 4% efficiency and Ti:saph with just under 3% efficiency but you will notice the intensity is 25% less for the ND:YAG despite having a 33% higher efficiency. *Note I even used the more expensive silver mirror for the ND:YAG to give it even more efficiency over the Ti:saph but it still doesn't come close*
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Post by newageofpower on Dec 30, 2016 4:48:58 GMT
Imho, high intensity becomes a point of diminishing returns past a certain point; which is why I've switched away from Titanium Sapphire on giant lasers; I decrease intensity but still exceed the ablation threshold and increase the spot size.
It's still great for more reasonable weapons, of course.
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khenderson
New Member
my god, it's full of missiles
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Post by khenderson on Dec 30, 2016 6:47:07 GMT
For example using silver mirrors inside the laser at the ends of the lasing rod will increase efficiency to 95.5% when compared to Aluminium 95.4% but the mass will increase ~2x and the cost will increase ~6x. You left out the big advantage of silver, you can run your laser at 1235 degrees, instead of the 933 you're using. That reduces the necessary radiator area by a factor of 3. Personally, I'm still leaning towards molybdenum at 2313.
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Post by caiaphas on Dec 30, 2016 6:57:29 GMT
Imho, high intensity becomes a point of diminishing returns past a certain point; which is why I've switched away from Titanium Sapphire on giant lasers; I decrease intensity but still exceed the ablation threshold and increase the spot size. It's still great for more reasonable weapons, of course. Yeah, I went back and tried defocusing my 10.0GW laser to drop the intensity by an order of magnitude, and I'm scoring kills on my testbed vehicle around five times as fast now. Thanks for the tip!
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Post by jasonvance on Dec 30, 2016 7:49:34 GMT
For example using silver mirrors inside the laser at the ends of the lasing rod will increase efficiency to 95.5% when compared to Aluminium 95.4% but the mass will increase ~2x and the cost will increase ~6x. You left out the big advantage of silver, you can run your laser at 1235 degrees, instead of the 933 you're using. That reduces the necessary radiator area by a factor of 3. Personally, I'm still leaning towards molybdenum at 2313. In the cases of my lasers the combined mass and cost of the radiator to support the laser is less than the cost and mass of just the mirror if it is silver or molybdenum so higher outlet for higher radiator efficiency is for sure a loss in cost and mass effectiveness of the total radiator supported laser. Radiator + Laser:
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Post by inbrainsane on Dec 30, 2016 14:21:53 GMT
I made 3 configurations for comparison. All of them including lasers, reactor, radiator. The radiators are optimised. The reactor is from apophys. For the lasers I compare jasonvances 100MW Ti:Sapphire with a 125MW Nd:YAG. Here are the results: Laser Input Power | Laser Output Power | Laser Intensity at 1Mm | Number of Lasers (System) | Wavelength | Total Power Consumption | Total Cost | Total Mass | Laser Chem | Total Output Power | 100MW | 2.96MW | 422Mw/m2 | 10 | 198nm | 1GW | 764kc | 83.7t | Ti:Sapphire + Xenon | 29.6MW | 125MW | 5.39MW | 421MW/m2 | 8 | 266nm | 1GW | 835kc | 83.8t | Nd:YAG + Krypton with Aluminium Mirror | 43.1MW | 125MW | 5.46MW | 426MW/m2 | 8 | 266nm | 1GW | 1180kc | 77.8t | Nd:YAG + Krypton with Silver Mirror | 43.7MW |
As you can see, the systems are of comparable performance. Now lets put forward the individual strengths and weaknesses: - The first system has a lower input power for the same intensity. This allows to have 2 more individual lasers. Current damage model slightly favours a higher number of smaller lasers. However, the first system has also the lowest output power per laser. The 2 additional lasers can not compensate, it also has the lowest total output power. The lower wavelength is also advantageous against some armour materials.
- At a comparable mass, this system costs 9.3% more than the first system. But output power is 45.6% higher.
- This system is only marginally better in power and intensity, compared to the second. However, it is 6 tons lighter and at the same time 345kc more expensive. To evaluate/compare, you need to assume cost for payload mass. If this cost (more engines/more fuel) is higher than 57.5kc/t then system 3 is better than system 2.
All lasers have the same dimensions.
*Edit* Some screenshots added *Edit* *Edit 2* Also added a screenshot of a system where we use only one big laser. That allows to scale down the focusing mirror and keep the same intensity. Also that allows to use silver reflector cost efficiently. As a result we have a tremendous better total output power at a lower cost (mass and credits). And also the cross section is much smaller. If it performs better in the simulation must still be tested. Damage and targeting model are obscure.
Attachment Deleted Attachment Deleted Attachment Deleted
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khenderson
New Member
my god, it's full of missiles
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Post by khenderson on Dec 30, 2016 21:23:11 GMT
You left out the big advantage of silver, you can run your laser at 1235 degrees, instead of the 933 you're using. That reduces the necessary radiator area by a factor of 3. Personally, I'm still leaning towards molybdenum at 2313. In the cases of my lasers the combined mass and cost of the radiator to support the laser is less than the cost and mass of just the mirror if it is silver or molybdenum so higher outlet for higher radiator efficiency is for sure a loss in cost and mass effectiveness of the total radiator supported laser. Yes, it's to be expected that in a design where you minimize power, trading mass and cost for temperature isn't going to be efficient. On the other hand, at higher power levels this is not going to be the case. And the comment I was responding to was itself in response to a more general question. As an example, here are two lasers that differ only in their internal mirror and temperature. The 933 is using calcium radiators, while those of the 1235 are silicon. Edit: both sets of radiators are minimum mass, no armoring nor redundancy. Attachment DeletedAttachment DeletedAs you can see, the silver option has significantly less mass and is slightly cheaper (even before factoring in savings on the overall vehicle from the reduction in mass).
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Post by jasonvance on Dec 30, 2016 21:55:54 GMT
In the cases of my lasers the combined mass and cost of the radiator to support the laser is less than the cost and mass of just the mirror if it is silver or molybdenum so higher outlet for higher radiator efficiency is for sure a loss in cost and mass effectiveness of the total radiator supported laser. Yes, it's to be expected that in a design where you minimize power, trading mass and cost for temperature isn't going to be efficient. On the other hand, at higher power levels this is not going to be the case. And the comment I was responding to was itself in response to a more general question. As an example, here are two lasers that differ only in their internal mirror and temperature. The 933 is using calcium radiators, while those of the 1235 are silicon. Edit: both sets of radiators are minimum mass, no armoring nor redundancy. As you can see, the silver option has significantly less mass and is slightly cheaper (even before factoring in savings on the overall vehicle from the reduction in mass). The large single lasers designs don't really work for the way the game's damage function works. Do time to kill tests on 2GW/m^2 vs 100MW/m^2 and you will notice they eat through material at about the same rate. Critical intensity of aramid fiber is 2.3MW/m^2 (any higher intensity will not eat through any faster every material has these caps). I haven't tested every materials resistance but I wouldn't suggest any higher than 100MW/m^2 for time to kill maximization / power drain min-maxing. If you want to increase the speed at which you burn through material you need multiple lasers all adding their individual chip damage (this isn't super realistic but it is how the game currently works)
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Post by bigbombr on Dec 30, 2016 22:01:35 GMT
If you want to increase the speed at which you burn through material you need multiple lasers all adding their individual chip damage (this isn't super realistic but it is how the game currently works) I wonder if this will get fixed at some point, or if we're stuck with it.
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khenderson
New Member
my god, it's full of missiles
Posts: 40
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Post by khenderson on Dec 30, 2016 22:31:59 GMT
Yes, it's to be expected that in a design where you minimize power, trading mass and cost for temperature isn't going to be efficient. On the other hand, at higher power levels this is not going to be the case. And the comment I was responding to was itself in response to a more general question. As an example, here are two lasers that differ only in their internal mirror and temperature. The 933 is using calcium radiators, while those of the 1235 are silicon. Edit: both sets of radiators are minimum mass, no armoring nor redundancy. As you can see, the silver option has significantly less mass and is slightly cheaper (even before factoring in savings on the overall vehicle from the reduction in mass). The large single lasers designs don't really work for the way the game's damage function works. Do time to kill tests on 2GW/m^2 vs 100MW/m^2 and you will notice they eat through material at about the same rate. Critical intensity of aramid fiber is 2.3MW/m^2 (any higher intensity will not eat through any faster every material has these caps). I haven't tested every materials resistance but I wouldn't suggest any higher than 100MW/m^2 for time to kill maximization / power drain min-maxing. If you want to increase the speed at which you burn through material you need multiple lasers all adding their individual chip damage (this isn't super realistic but it is how the game currently works) I just grabbed one of my obsolete designs, but here's an example better fitting your criterion. Attachment DeletedA 13.6% increase in cost vs a 35.1% increase in mass. Attachment DeletedRedundant radiators change this to 5.7% increase in cost vs a 56.7% increase in mass. Edit: these radiators are still extremely vulnerable to basically everything, but changing them is only going to sway things further to the advantage of the higher temperature. Attachment Deleted
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