Post by thorneel on Mar 3, 2017 15:34:52 GMT
Now the 1Mm limit is even more arbitrary.
Here is the strategy I would try without it:
- Build a fleet with a few giant lasers and many smaller counter-battery lasers (each with multiple redundant turrets).
- As soon as intensity is high enough to fry enemy mirrors, which may be millions of km away, fire one of the main lasers at it. Now the enemy cannot open its own shutters without having its lasers being burned.
- At those ranges, light-speed lag is actually important. So when approaching damage range, the enemy would try and manoeuvre to shake the laser, and then fire its own lasers - to which my own fleet would have to reply in kind.
- The goal is then to have enough large lasers so their combined spots cannot be shaken off. Having multiple laser types with decreasing spot size, or an option to increase spot size on a laser may help.
- As counter-measures, the enemy can separate fleets to force me to disperse my spots. This favour multiple small ships, but multiple small ships also have smaller lasers with shorter range, making the exact best designs requiring tests.
- Another counter-measure is to have shutter drones in front of the laser fleet: the shutter(s) open(s) to let the laser go through, but due to light-speed lag, enemy laser going through it will arrive only after the laser turret (or preceding shutter) is closed. With short enough pulses, if there are pulse lasers, the shutters could be as close as a few hundred metres from the mirror.
Unfortunately, this would require arbitrary engagement range, a strategic combat layer (for continuous laser illumination) with engagement between multiple fleets and light-speed lag taken into account. This also assumes that the mean time to failure of operating lasers is large enough to be ignored.
Barring that, I am still designing my next laserstar with a large laser (and multiple turrets) given its cost for the occasion where the enemy has no or no more working laser to fry it.
Here is the strategy I would try without it:
- Build a fleet with a few giant lasers and many smaller counter-battery lasers (each with multiple redundant turrets).
- As soon as intensity is high enough to fry enemy mirrors, which may be millions of km away, fire one of the main lasers at it. Now the enemy cannot open its own shutters without having its lasers being burned.
- At those ranges, light-speed lag is actually important. So when approaching damage range, the enemy would try and manoeuvre to shake the laser, and then fire its own lasers - to which my own fleet would have to reply in kind.
- The goal is then to have enough large lasers so their combined spots cannot be shaken off. Having multiple laser types with decreasing spot size, or an option to increase spot size on a laser may help.
- As counter-measures, the enemy can separate fleets to force me to disperse my spots. This favour multiple small ships, but multiple small ships also have smaller lasers with shorter range, making the exact best designs requiring tests.
- Another counter-measure is to have shutter drones in front of the laser fleet: the shutter(s) open(s) to let the laser go through, but due to light-speed lag, enemy laser going through it will arrive only after the laser turret (or preceding shutter) is closed. With short enough pulses, if there are pulse lasers, the shutters could be as close as a few hundred metres from the mirror.
Unfortunately, this would require arbitrary engagement range, a strategic combat layer (for continuous laser illumination) with engagement between multiple fleets and light-speed lag taken into account. This also assumes that the mean time to failure of operating lasers is large enough to be ignored.
Barring that, I am still designing my next laserstar with a large laser (and multiple turrets) given its cost for the occasion where the enemy has no or no more working laser to fry it.
