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Post by tepidbread on Oct 29, 2018 21:10:27 GMT
I feel like we're getting off topic a bit but: I just re-ran some tests with my big lasers. My ship with three one gigawatt lasers with 3 meter apertures making 200 mw/m^2 @ 1 megameter can laser all the guns off a smaller railgun ship with worse range, but then it has no way of confirming the kill at that distance. The same ship against thirty 100 mw lasers with 50 cm apertures lost in seconds. If your's can do better then you know something I don't, which I don't doubt considering how bad my ship is.
Like anything there are trade offs. I determined the optimal number of lasers to be >10 when I tested them before I made my Laser Dreadnought. However, I believe there is such a thing as too many lasers. Same with aperture. Here is why:
1. Due to the sensor inaccuracy, increasing the intensity beyond about 100 Mw/m^2 (for the desired range) does nothing because the game models laser damage as a series of points rather than a uniform intensity over an area. Smaller intensities tend to do better against missiles and drones because the low intensity means that the beam still hits regardless of laser wobble. However too little intensity and you never hit the ship you are aiming for. (I typically try for 50Mw/m^2) (One of my 1Gw lasers has an aperture of 100cm and gets an intensity of 43ish Mw/m^2)
2. A single laser can only destroy a single small point of armor at a time regardless of intensity. So the goal is to get a sufficiently powerful laser to instantly vaporize a very small area of armor. A laser that is too weak will skip around due to beam waist and sensor inaccuracy without enough time to damage the armor. (basically only good for distracting the cat) So more lasers is not better if you are sacrificing too much wattage. (Hence 500 of my 330kw laser micro-drones do nothing)
3. More wattage is also better (up to a point) because it means that you can get the same intensity out of a much smaller aperture. More turrets can be placed, more redundancy, less weight, less fragile turrets.
Let me know if any of these assumptions are wrong. I have only had the game since August so please go easy on me. This is just what I have found due to my testing and some of the other places on the forum. I did try a bunch of 100Mw lasers at some point and found them unsatisfactory.
We are probably off topic a bit, however the original poster did want to know if he should pursue lasers. So this would be helpful.
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Post by tepidbread on Oct 29, 2018 21:27:53 GMT
In general? There are going to be tradeoffs between scaling down, cost, selectivity, re-usability and whether or not continuous guidance adds anything beyond certain point that dictate whether missiles or slugs are going to work better in given scenario. In a different thread I mentioned that lasers have endurance while missiles have burst damage potential. Cannons (and kinetic in general) are a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none compromise. I suspect conventional cannons would IRL be a non-factor. Artillery starts getting inaccurate beyond 40-50 km. At longer ranges (60+ km) unguided munitions are almost useless unless used in insane quantities (making them inefficient to the point unguided long range munitions aren't in mainstream use). So IRL, conventional cannons might be close quarter weapons, but does this justify their mass? On modern naval ships, many gun-based CIWS are being supplanted by missile-based ones. I expect the same to hold true in space.
In game? Missiles are dumb and inflexible (IMO, dodge prediction has it's derpy moments too), drop-tanks are awful performance hogs (I don't have any trouble with them, but I tend to use fewer larger drop tanks rather than many tiny ones), while adding blast launchers to a missile turns it into a drone and causes all kinds of AI antics (true), so putting blast launchers and microturrets on a warhead that has no say in where it is going can be favourable (aren't gun launched guns more of a gimmick? Unless you're referring to drones, which are better launched by blast launcher). Gun is effectively a reusable blast launcher which might be favourable if you want a large armour store, but don't want to put large, explosive targets on your hull - think torpedo tube (regular launcher can be of use in that case, but at least blast launchers are easier to hide behind armor bulges without impeding it's function). Also we have no turreted blast launchers. Which is a shame. Externally mounted blast launchers that can be dropped (like drop tanks) would also be nice, and would allow for smaller arsenal craft.I don't know why you guys are having issues with missiles. I don't use drop tanks (too easy for lasers to snipe). Perhaps that is it? My 10km/s micro missiles wreck just about anything, although they suck against flairs.
Any projectile above 1 gram is a missile, any projectile that is 1 gram is a railgun, and anything that is not a railgun or a missile is a laser in my fleets. (Then I have railgun microdrones; which are just lag machines) I like things nice and simple.
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Post by doctorsquared on Oct 30, 2018 2:16:07 GMT
I've had pretty good luck at running ~6kg micro drones with lightweight conventional guns. The general strategy is to launch 20-50 drones and have them intercept on a retrograde orbit, the acceleration assist from using this tactic makes use of the additive velocity boost that AtomHeartDragon referred to. The end result is an effective attack platform that unlike a light kinetic kill vehicle can make multiple attack runs and isn't vulnerable to flares.
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Post by AdmiralObvious on Oct 30, 2018 2:45:54 GMT
I've had pretty good luck at running ~6kg micro drones with lightweight conventional guns. The general strategy is to launch 20-50 drones and have them intercept on a retrograde orbit, the acceleration assist from using this tactic makes use of the additive velocity boost that AtomHeartDragon referred to. The end result is an effective attack platform that unlike a light kinetic kill vehicle can make multiple attack runs and isn't vulnerable to flares. This is true. The only qualm I have with your gun is that it's still only shooting 1 gram plates. When I use chemguns, I try to get to at least 50 grams, myself. More is better of course, but 50 gram shots tend to basically ignore stuffed whipples as long as they're a relatively tough material.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Oct 30, 2018 15:31:19 GMT
In general? There are going to be tradeoffs between scaling down, cost, selectivity, re-usability and whether or not continuous guidance adds anything beyond certain point that dictate whether missiles or slugs are going to work better in given scenario. In a different thread I mentioned that lasers have endurance while missiles have burst damage potential. Cannons (and kinetic in general) are a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none compromise. I suspect conventional cannons would IRL be a non-factor. Artillery starts getting inaccurate beyond 40-50 km. At longer ranges (60+ km) unguided munitions are almost useless unless used in insane quantities (making them inefficient to the point unguided long range munitions aren't in mainstream use). So IRL, conventional cannons might be close quarter weapons, but does this justify their mass? On modern naval ships, many gun-based CIWS are being supplanted by missile-based ones. I expect the same to hold true in space.
In game? Missiles are dumb and inflexible (IMO, dodge prediction has it's derpy moments too), drop-tanks are awful performance hogs (I don't have any trouble with them, but I tend to use fewer larger drop tanks rather than many tiny ones), while adding blast launchers to a missile turns it into a drone and causes all kinds of AI antics (true), so putting blast launchers and microturrets on a warhead that has no say in where it is going can be favourable (aren't gun launched guns more of a gimmick? Unless you're referring to drones, which are better launched by blast launcher). Gun is effectively a reusable blast launcher which might be favourable if you want a large armour store, but don't want to put large, explosive targets on your hull - think torpedo tube (regular launcher can be of use in that case, but at least blast launchers are easier to hide behind armor bulges without impeding it's function). Also we have no turreted blast launchers. Which is a shame. Externally mounted blast launchers that can be dropped (like drop tanks) would also be nice, and would allow for smaller arsenal craft.The mass is very important, but once you no longer have to lift every gram from from planet's surface you no longer need to minimize it as aggressively, and with the ship scales we're dealing with in CDE adding a bunch of something like stock 60mm turrets to a ship as an afterthought has virtually no impact on its performance.
Cannons are probably not going to ever be primary armaments, and truly huge ones don't seem like a viable alternative to missiles at all (as long as those missiles aren't as constrained as CDE ones), but I wouldn't neglect them. USAF has already been there, plus with well established space presence there might be enough sufficiently muddled scenarios requiring knives-in-a-phonebooth range engagements. The two additional factors could be less optimistic RL EM guns performance envelope making them unable to fully take over as general purpose k-slugthrowers and rapid fly-bys - when combatants move about as fast as their projectiles many truisms regarding outranging your enemy no longer apply.
Dodge prediction is derpy AF, but at least it rarely involves watching all your ammo sailing well past the target and it allows selectively targetting anything you want. Droptanks also tend to mess missile formations up badly, and with missile swarms even 1-2 tanks per missile multiply the already large number of entities 2-3 fold. I don't know if gun launched guns are a gimmick, especially given that they are partially a workaround for limited missile targetting options, but there are two possible niches so far: - Compact heavy k-slugs equipped with micro turrets to selectively target subsystems and counter target dodging hopefully prior to (if lucky) or instead of (if not) the main munition impact. That's small enough to be fired out of heavy RG, although realistically a heavy round with RCS for lateral adjustments would probably be a better option.
- Nuke + microturrets for counter-swarm PD. Lasers and kinetics can get saturated. Doesn't apply to nukes. Kinetics can be dodged, microturrets fire from much closer distance.
You can think of gun fired microturrets as drones without bulky propulsion bus.
Regular launchers are bad for directed fire and giving missiles initial kick, although I have tested a compound setup where regular launcher deploys containerized missiles (or drones) that are then boosted by blast launcher. Seems quite effective if you ensure correct orientation, and may be very effective when twinned with spinal guns matching effective launch velocity.
If I had access to external parallel blast launchers a lot of my ships would probably resemble a parody of an attack helicopter.
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Post by bigbombr on Oct 30, 2018 16:09:32 GMT
Dodge prediction is derpy AF, but at least it rarely involves watching all your ammo sailing well past the target and it allows selectively targetting anything you want. Droptanks also tend to mess missile formations up badly (especially if you didn't disable dodging for your missiles), and with missile swarms even 1-2 tanks per missile multiply the already large number of entities 2-3 fold. I don't know if gun launched guns are a gimmick, especially given that they are partially a workaround for limited missile targetting options, but there are two possible niches so far: - Compact heavy k-slugs equipped with micro turrets to selectively target subsystems and counter target dodging hopefully prior to (if lucky) or instead of (if not) the main munition impact. That's small enough to be fired out of heavy RG, although realistically a heavy round with RCS for lateral adjustments would probably be a better option.
At that point, why not just mount a small conventional cannon or railgun to a drone though? - Nuke + microturrets for counter-swarm PD. Lasers and kinetics can get saturated. Doesn't apply to nukes. Kinetics can be dodged (lasers can't), microturrets fire from much closer distance.
Why not just use a combination of drones and missiles though? A few nuclear missiles backed by any railgun or laser drones can deal with vast quantities of enemy munitions.
You can think of gun fired microturrets as drones without bulky propulsion bus. Instead you're using bulky cannon turrets that are more limited in how much velocity they can impart, they can't be used as standoff munitions and most of your 'projectile' doesn't strike the target.
Regular launchers are bad for directed fire and giving missiles initial kick (true, for large quantities they seem slightly lighter than blast launchers but the loss in rate of fire isn't worth it and IRL blast launchers would be the lighter choice anyways), although I have tested a compound setup where regular launcher deploys containerized missiles (or drones) that are then boosted by blast launcher. I considered that but never put it in practice, I'll have to try that out. Might work very well to launch payloads at your target from behind an armour bulge. Seems quite effective if you ensure correct orientation, and may be very effective when twinned with spinal guns matching effective launch velocity. If I had access to external parallel blast launchers a lot of my ships would probably resemble a parody of an attack helicopter. ^This, very much. External drop blast launchers is one of the things on my wish list.
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Post by Apotheon on Oct 30, 2018 17:08:25 GMT
What's a good amount of power for 2050, 2150, and 2250 scenarios? Where are we today and what are the future projections? Maybe 1 MW is a little low even in 2050?
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Post by bigbombr on Oct 30, 2018 17:27:20 GMT
What's a good amount of power for 2050, 2150, and 2250 scenarios? Where are we today and what are the future projections? Maybe 1 MW is a little low even in 2050? You could take a look at this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilopower, www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/kilopower to get an idea about what is currently possible as far as power/kg goes. As for how much juice, for that you could look at naval vessels. 1 MW seems a little too low. I expect several MW or even dozens of MW to be possible for spacecraft (though whether they'll get build is anyone's guess).
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Post by Rocket Witch on Oct 30, 2018 21:25:47 GMT
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Post by airc777 on Oct 30, 2018 21:44:35 GMT
Megawatts. These are my current least awful lasers. My reasoning for setting the engagement range so short was kinetics. The AI is likely to ignore maximum range and return fire as soon as it starts taking damage, so I prefer to use lasers at close range to lower my time to kill which greatly reduces the amount of kinetics the ai can launch before their turrets are destroyed. With bigger, longer range lasers I'd have enough time to move out of the way of the kenetics, but I prefer smaller lasers because they are faster at destroying other laser turrets then large lasers. Really it turns my laser ships in point defense focused fleet escorts, allowing me to use fewer, bigger railguns on my gunships for dedicated anti-capital use.
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Post by tepidbread on Oct 30, 2018 23:03:48 GMT
Megawatts. These are my current least awful lasers. My reasoning for setting the engagement range so short was kinetics. The AI is likely to ignore maximum range and return fire as soon as it starts taking damage, so I prefer to use lasers at close range to lower my time to kill which greatly reduces the amount of kinetics the ai can launch before their turrets are destroyed. With bigger, longer range lasers I'd have enough time to move out of the way of the kenetics, but I prefer smaller lasers because they are faster at destroying other laser turrets then large lasers. Really it turns my laser ships in point defense focused fleet escorts, allowing me to use fewer, bigger railguns on my gunships for dedicated anti-capital use.
I did some testing earlier today and determined that my time to kill at 1Mm with 120 100MW lasers (50 cm aperture, 1cm amorphous carbon, 40 extra turrets) is higher than with my 12 1GW lasers (75 cm aperture, 1cm amorphous carbon, 24 extra turrets).
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Post by doctorsquared on Oct 30, 2018 23:52:18 GMT
For comparison:
1W = ~Power of a cell phone signal.
1kW = ~Power output of an electric kettle.
1MW = Power output of a 1200HP Bugatti Veyron Super Sport.
12MW = Power output of a Los Angeles-class submarine.
1GW = Output of a typical coal-fired power plant.
18GW = Peak electricity output of the Three Gorges Dam.
Source: WolframAlpha
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Post by airc777 on Oct 31, 2018 12:06:08 GMT
Megawatts. These are my current least awful lasers. My reasoning for setting the engagement range so short was kinetics. The AI is likely to ignore maximum range and return fire as soon as it starts taking damage, so I prefer to use lasers at close range to lower my time to kill which greatly reduces the amount of kinetics the ai can launch before their turrets are destroyed. With bigger, longer range lasers I'd have enough time to move out of the way of the kenetics, but I prefer smaller lasers because they are faster at destroying other laser turrets then large lasers. Really it turns my laser ships in point defense focused fleet escorts, allowing me to use fewer, bigger railguns on my gunships for dedicated anti-capital use.
I did some testing earlier today and determined that my time to kill at 1Mm with 120 100MW lasers (50 cm aperture, 1cm amorphous carbon, 40 extra turrets) is higher than with my 12 1GW lasers (75 cm aperture, 1cm amorphous carbon, 24 extra turrets). How? Heres a screen shot of two ships, one with three 1gw lasers with 75cm apertures, the other with thirty 100mw lasers with 50cm apertures. Both sets of turrets armored with 5cm of amorphous carbon. The 100mw lasers killed twenty turrets in the time it took the 1gw lasers to kill 16.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Oct 31, 2018 16:57:58 GMT
I did some testing earlier today and determined that my time to kill at 1Mm with 120 100MW lasers (50 cm aperture, 1cm amorphous carbon, 40 extra turrets) is higher than with my 12 1GW lasers (75 cm aperture, 1cm amorphous carbon, 24 extra turrets). How? Heres a screen shot of two ships, one with three 1gw lasers with 75cm apertures, the other with thirty 100mw lasers with 50cm apertures. Both sets of turrets armored with 5cm of amorphous carbon. The 100mw lasers killed twenty turrets in the time it took the 1gw lasers to kill 16.
That's some mightily optimized 100 milliwatt lasers, I wholeheartedly approve.
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Post by tepidbread on Oct 31, 2018 17:04:45 GMT
I did some testing earlier today and determined that my time to kill at 1Mm with 120 100MW lasers (50 cm aperture, 1cm amorphous carbon, 40 extra turrets) is higher than with my 12 1GW lasers (75 cm aperture, 1cm amorphous carbon, 24 extra turrets). How? Heres a screen shot of two ships, one with three 1gw lasers with 75cm apertures, the other with thirty 100mw lasers with 50cm apertures. Both sets of turrets armored with 5cm of amorphous carbon. The 100mw lasers killed twenty turrets in the time it took the 1gw lasers to kill 16.
I don't know why your results are different than mine.
My 1 GW lasers destroyed 107 turrets in the time that the 100 MW lasers destroyed
22 turrets. After the ship with 100 MW lasers lost about 80 turrets it turned its nose away. Regardless, its the maneuver did nothing but worsen its already bad situation. So the outcome was not much different.
It is worth noting that the ship equipped with the 100 MW lasers is about 12.5% heavier, 30 meters longer, and requires double the crew. Moreover, the ship with 1 GW lasers has nearly 3 times the turrets it needs whereas the 100 MW laser ship only has 16.7% more turrets than it needs. (I could not fit any more)
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