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Post by ross128 on Dec 2, 2016 14:46:05 GMT
I think the confusion was over why a 32m aperture was a good thing.
A larger aperture means a smaller beam width, because a large mirror can focus further away. Most targets are going to be a good deal beyond your mirror's focal point, so moving the focal point closer to them gives you a tighter beam and more intensity.
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Post by thorneel on Dec 2, 2016 15:56:36 GMT
You know, I would argue that the current max range for lasers isn't large enough. By increasing my aperture, I can get intensities at max range that are much greater than silica aerogel's critical ablation intensity. Said lasers are actually quite cheap - the bulk of the cost for these huge aperture turrets actually comes from the reaction wheels, which wouldn't really be a problem IRL where electric motors could be used. For testing purposes, I've created a Black Box "rangefinder" in the form of a hair-sized projectile launcher at max possible velocity. Once in combat, I simply deactivate it. Even on drones, it tends to give more than 1Mm range, and I've built a giant test station (the first instances were too big and CTD'd the game) to reach something like 14 Mm. My giant 190 GW laserstar drones are indeed effective at more than 1Mm. |
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Post by lawson on Dec 2, 2016 17:02:44 GMT
How are lasers simulating in here? Larger beam waist should decrease laser intensity, not increase it... Which it does. However, the way laser damage is calculated, once your intensity reaches the point where it does enough damage to punch a hole in something in a single 'tick', any further intensity is "waisted"  The limitation of penetrating one object per-tick per-laser isn't very realistic. An energy based approximation should be more accurate. I.e. the laser hits and area of armor and X [joules] is absorbed each 'tick', that area of the armor layer or object takes Y [joules] to destroy. if (X > Y) the layer is destroyed and (X-Y)*plume_transparency [joules] are applied to the next layer. Repeat until an armor layer survives. (ignoring heat-buildup, heat-transfer, reflectivity, etc. for now) |
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Post by amimai on Dec 2, 2016 17:48:30 GMT
How are lasers simulating in here? Larger beam waist should decrease laser intensity, not increase it... Which it does. However, the way laser damage is calculated, once your intensity reaches the point where it does enough damage to punch a hole in something in a single 'tick', any further intensity is "waisted" I still do not get how this translates to higher intensity... a 10cm beam should be 100x the intensity of a 100cm beam simply because the same energy is being put across a smaller area. and I assume the beam focal point is the target range, unless I got something wrong? If it wasn't, and focal point was before the target range we should be seeing small beams lighting up whole ships due to dispersion not small point beams |
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Post by shurugal on Dec 2, 2016 17:53:48 GMT
Which it does. However, the way laser damage is calculated, once your intensity reaches the point where it does enough damage to punch a hole in something in a single 'tick', any further intensity is "waisted" I still do not get how this translates to higher intensity... a 10cm beam should be 100x the intensity of a 100cm beam simply because the same energy is being put across a smaller area. and I assume the beam focal point is the target range, unless I got something wrong? yes, that is exactly what the game does..... |
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Post by mmmfriedrice on Dec 3, 2016 2:10:38 GMT
Basically, anything that you put a flare in will destroy itself when the flare burnt out. If you have any explosive with the flare, it will explode when it burnt out. ahh, i get what you mean now. I guess if you wanted to do what mmmfriedrice suggested, you could add a cheap single-shot ~mm/s launcher to a KKV and have it spit out the flare as it nears any missiles. A coilgun round with a flare launcher does work, but I imagine that you could stuff a flare into a coilgun round and engage only when you're within burnout time. Would drastically shorten the maximum range of engagement or heat output of the flare, but it might justified the mass you save. Magnetic sabots are expensive! I have seen your other thread, and pairing a decoy-drone ship with a coilgun/laserboat seems to work really well. I'd like to see those coilgun missiles. |
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Post by shurugal on Dec 3, 2016 5:14:36 GMT
the last half of my video shows the coilgun missiles in operation, and the last couple minutes shows the missile construction.
I did originally just use a flare as a coilgun payload, and this worked, but it pretty much has a hard limit of 100km, unless you want to turn the intensity way down or the weight way up, both of which are poor options. My decoy-drone weighs about what my original coilgun missile did, and can deploy the flare at any range, which makes it useful for stopping player-made super nukes or KKVs before they get close enough to be a threat.
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