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Post by RiftandRend on Jan 14, 2017 12:40:54 GMT
In order to beat the dead horse even more, I built the strongest laser I could and tested it at the shortest ranges I could. I was able to fire it from 2.97 KM for about 3 seconds. For some reason its 2 Ew beam intensity didn't lance through the entire ship, and only destroyed the top 2 cm Diamond and 3 cm Amorphous Carbon layers. As far as I can tell, this laser outperforms fusion ignition lasers by a significant factor so it should be able to cut through a few meters of aerogels with ease.
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Post by dragonkid11 on Jan 14, 2017 12:58:38 GMT
After a certain point, anymore concentrated laser power at a point does not make it better.
This is because of vaporized material ends up refracting the laser to uselessness.
So cutting things in half like some movie laser isn't going to happen.
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Post by bigbombr on Jan 14, 2017 13:12:17 GMT
After a certain point, anymore concentrated laser power at a point does not make it better. This is because of vaporized material ends up refracting the laser to uselessness. So cutting things in half like some movie laser isn't going to happen. This doesn't seem to be the case. Just look at IRL lasercutters. I suspect this is due to the game only peeling one 'layer' away at a time, imposing a maximum ablation limit. Multiple lasers putting out 1 GW of energy are better than a single 1 GW lasers because this 'peeling' is determined for each laser separately. Increasing intensity above a critical threshold doesn't help. Some people have made 'ablation optimised lasers'. This is a bug, not a feature.
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Post by dragonkid11 on Jan 14, 2017 13:27:07 GMT
Real Life laser cutter has air blower made into it to blow away dust.
And multiple lasers could technically work better since no matter how accurate those lasers are, they are all pointing at the different points of the target and therefore have separated vapourisation and cut the target up faster.
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Post by thorneel on Jan 14, 2017 15:11:01 GMT
So the bug would be that multiple small lasers should have the same limitations than one big laser, not the opposite.
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Post by RiftandRend on Jan 14, 2017 16:00:48 GMT
After a certain point, anymore concentrated laser power at a point does not make it better. This is because of vaporized material ends up refracting the laser to uselessness. So cutting things in half like some movie laser isn't going to happen. The amount of energy being delivered would cause the targeted point to explode. 2 Ej of energy will turn any known material to plasma in nanoseconds. That incredibly high temperature plasma would then explode outward from the targeted point. Edit: My calculations were off. The beam should deliver more along the lines of 900 Pj at 3 km. Edit 2: My calculations were totally false. Ignore this post.
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Post by RiftandRend on Jan 14, 2017 16:01:47 GMT
For some reason the image isn't quite working. Right click and open it in a new tab.
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Post by dragonkid11 on Jan 14, 2017 16:10:37 GMT
After a certain point, anymore concentrated laser power at a point does not make it better. This is because of vaporized material ends up refracting the laser to uselessness. So cutting things in half like some movie laser isn't going to happen. The amount of energy being delivered would cause the targeted point to explode. 2 Ej of energy will turn any known material to plasma in nanoseconds. That incredibly high temperature plasma would then explode outward from the targeted point. Edit: My calculations were off. The beam should deliver more along the lines of 900 Pj at 3 km. ...That's not how you calculate laser power power. It's literally listed right in the stat bar on the left. 375 megajoules of energy per second. While the intensity range should how much power is focused into a square meter, not how much power you have.
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Post by svm420 on Jan 14, 2017 17:03:24 GMT
At 3Km you are hitting a 20um radius circle. The spot you are putting that much energy into is so tiny the effect is minuscule. Maximizing intensity doesn't a good laser make.
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Post by RiftandRend on Jan 14, 2017 23:45:31 GMT
At 3Km you are hitting a 20um radius circle. The spot you are putting that much energy into is so tiny the effect is minuscule. Maximizing intensity doesn't a good laser make. That 20 μm point should be filled with superheated plasma. With some simplistic calculations I predict the 2cm diamond layer to be heated to 75000k at the point of firing.
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Post by caiaphas on Jan 15, 2017 0:27:29 GMT
At 3Km you are hitting a 20um radius circle. The spot you are putting that much energy into is so tiny the effect is minuscule. Maximizing intensity doesn't a good laser make. That 20 μm point should be filled with superheated plasma. With some simplistic calculations I predict the 2cm diamond layer to be heated to 75000k at the point of firing. Look, buddy, just perform the following experiment, please. Shrink your aperture until you have an order of magnitude less intensity, and then field-test it again and tell us if there's anything different.
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Post by RiftandRend on Jan 15, 2017 0:49:06 GMT
Why? Was my previous post wrong in some way? Also, properly aiming a 28 kt fixed laser is quite difficult so clinical tests are near impossible.
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Post by newageofpower on Jan 15, 2017 6:02:03 GMT
I must agree with R&R (for once), transferring so much energy at once into such a small volume should result in explosions, not ablation.
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Post by caiaphas on Jan 15, 2017 6:53:45 GMT
I must agree with R&R (for once), transferring so much energy at once into such a small volume should result in explosions, not ablation. In the real world, yes; I'm currently figuring out the equations to verify this because I'm bored and my brain needs the exercise but my gut is telling me that this is the case. However, we're not discussing that, we're discussing why their laser with EW-level intensity failed to punch all the way through his ship in-game. And the answer to that is "dial down on the aperture and build more lasers".
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Post by RiftandRend on Jan 15, 2017 7:11:09 GMT
I was arguing that the game has an inaccurate representation of laser damage.
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