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Post by deltav on Jan 25, 2017 2:22:57 GMT
Real point here: why didn't qswitched do this? We've created terrifying, 1TW/m 2, drone-mountable laser systems. 1 gw reactors smaller than stock. Why didn't qswitched make stock designs this good? qswitched isn't borderline insane like us? About lasers... Qswitched designed the game to be a realistic depiction of space combat. So all stock designs are limited to designs that are easier to build in real life. The alloys (in stock ships) are mostly simple and not exotic, the mirrors used in lasers are small, etc. On the other hand, all the stock designs are underpowered, not just for ingame reasons, but so they can be run on almost all computers. Also if the stock designs were optimized, well unlocking module design wouldn't be much fun at all would it? So what say you the designer (Qswitched)? On his blog <https://childrenofadeadearth.wordpress.com/2016/04/29/misconceptions-about-space-warfare/> he states... "Next misconception, wouldn’t lasers dominate the battle space? Lasers do not suffer from many of the inaccuracy problems that projectile weapons do, and move at the speed of light, so they are literally impossible to dodge. So lasers are the king of the battle space, right? Wrong. Lasers suffer from diffraction. Badly. The power of lasers in space drops painfully fast with distance, and frequency doubling only ameliorates the issue slightly. Lasers are notoriously low efficiency compared to projectile weapons. But that’s not the main issue. When comparing hypervelocity projectile impact research with laser ablation research, one discovers a stark contrast in their efficacy. Laser ablation is simply less effective at causing damage than projectile impacts." Qswitched seems to feel that Lasers are not the ultimate weapon. Why? You'd have to ask them. This is clearly reflected in the stock game designs.
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Post by deltav on Jan 25, 2017 1:58:07 GMT
If you limit cost and power as the stock weapons do, lasers aren't much a threat to ships at ranges of 50km. ...what? The extremely inefficient stock violet and near-infrared lasers can take ships to pieces at 50 km. I fought my way through Vesta Overkill with a bunch of laser gunships mounting stock lasers. Even cost- and power-limited lasers still have the greatest effective range of any weapon in our arsenal, hands down. Lasers even stock, greatest effective range period? In game the 100 MW laser vs Capital Ships only kicks in at about 35 km. Can it shoot further? Yes, if you set it at "ignore range" Who knows why it's set like that, but ingame the 100MW laser doesn't reach out to 50 km vs Capital ships. THis is why the laserless Corvette and Ranger beat the Laser Frigate.
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Post by deltav on Jan 24, 2017 19:58:38 GMT
35 km is point blank range for blue water navy? Let's think about this for a second. Yes missiles and aircraft carriers can reach out far beyond 35 km, but that's not what we are talking about. We are talking about using guns. For the old school WW2 Battleships, the longest hit ever made on another ship during combat is 26,260 yards, about 24 km. So using a gun even if it is coil powered, the target has to be tracked and targeted using sensors for exactly where the ship is, and the fact that the target may be gone by the time the round arrives. For comparison, someone who makes a sniper shot at 2500 m, the bullet takes almost 6 seconds to reach the target. If the target is moving erratically the shot will most likely miss wasting rounds. Also space is not completely empty, there is space dust and so on. So taking all this into account, 46 km vs a capital ship (the range of a 39 MW 8mm Turrented Railgun), isn't it a perfectly reasonable range? 50km effective range is a very reasonable range to design your ships around if you like roasted BBQ crew corridors from lasers... If you limit cost and power as the stock weapons do, lasers aren't much a threat to ships at ranges of 50km.
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Post by deltav on Jan 24, 2017 15:56:13 GMT
So I'm starting to get the differences between Railguns and Coilguns.
Railguns work best with the smallest possible payload due to larger payload overheating the rails and are more accurate than Coilguns overall. That makes railguns better for point defense or extreme range sniper shots than coilguns.
Coilguns work better with the largest practical payload due to magnetic oversaturation. This makes them perfect for large ship to ship barages.
Overall we really need some type of ai vs ai multiplayer forum. Then each side can set up their custom weapons and really see which is best.
Those who love lasers can set them up vs those who think let's say coilguns are the king of ship to ship weapons, and see which is really best.
All with a certain tonnage and cost restrictions of course.
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Post by deltav on Jan 23, 2017 5:56:54 GMT
deltav - Since you asked, here's a 100MW laser I've been testing with. Just add a 100MW reactor, and radiators. 110 of these got jasonvance 's target burned down in about 11 minutes. Stock ships stand no chance whatsoever. You can put it in your game to verify these statistics: 20.3 MW/m 2 intensity at 1000 km (enough to melt anything rapidly) spot size about 26 cm wide (~0.21 m 2 area) at 1000 km mass 340 kg cost 7.36 kc LaserModule 100 MW Nd:YAG speedtest laser UsesCustomName true ArcLamp GasComposition Krypton EnvelopeComposition Fused Quartz PowerSupplied_W 1e+008 Radius_m 0.01 CavityWallComposition Silver CavityCoolantComposition Hydrogen CavitySemimajorAxis_m 0.2 CavitySemiminorAxis_m 0.19 GainMedium Nd:YAG OpticalNodes 3000000 LasingRodRadius_m 0.019 Mirror Composition Silver OutputCoupler Composition Fused Quartz CoolantTurbopump Composition Boron PumpRadius_m 0.35 RotationalSpeed_RPM 200 CoolantInletTemperature_K 1100 FrequencyDoubler NonlinearOptic Composition Silver Gallium Selenide OpticLength_m 0.018 OpticRadius_m 0.008 SecondFrequencyDoubler NonlinearOptic Composition Silver Gallium Selenide OpticLength_m 0.018 OpticRadius_m 0.0085 ApertureRadius_m 2.06 FocusingMirror Composition Aluminum Turret InnerRadius_m 4.37 ArmorComposition Graphite Aerogel ArmorThickness_m 0.0001 MomentumWheels Composition Lithium RotationalSpeed_RPM 120 EngagementRange_km 1000 TargetsShips true TargetsShots true
Awesome Thanks. Just unlocked module design and this helps alot figuring out how it works.
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Post by deltav on Jan 23, 2017 5:18:16 GMT
Where can I find some help on building laser designs like this? Just use two frequency doubler and large aperture. Are the two frequency doublers identical or no? Just trying to get on the right track. How to find the sweet spots?
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Post by deltav on Jan 23, 2017 4:20:13 GMT
So the current alpha doesn't have any laser drones. So I figured I'd remedy the gap. Here is the Predator drone, and it's carrier the Tholian Web. They are absolutely devastating when paired in combat with the Lancer Drone.
Current alpha means current stock game right? Isn't beam drone a laser drone?
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Post by deltav on Jan 23, 2017 4:09:00 GMT
I see a lot of guys on this thread love lasers. Great!
If you disagree with something I've written here, post some specs of your laser designs with screenshots.
If you want to keep your designs secret for some reason, it's easy to blur out the settings in paint while keeping the very important POWER USE, COST, and DAMAGE at various distances for us to verify.
Merely stating stats without any screenshots is just a claim that no one can verify. Screenshots are it.
For some of the negative/ troll types who have posted....
This isn't a anti-laser post. The point of this is to sound off and to share.
Remember that most people on pages like are lurkers. For everyone that comments or makes a post, many many others just read without commenting.
If you disagree, sound off and leave it at that. No point in personal attacks. Stick to science and the subject which is what this page is all about. After all we don't know each other and will probably never meet. Let's stick to the subject.
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Post by deltav on Jan 23, 2017 4:04:59 GMT
My 30 MW laser has about 3 TW/m2 intensity at 1 km. It can be used to destroy enemy laser with 1 cm-thick aramid fiber armor 500 km away with ease. Even though, there are still railguns and decoys in case of missiles, something extremely troublesome for lasers to mess with. Oh, and it weights just a bit over four tons! Where can I find some help on building laser designs like this?
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Post by deltav on Jan 23, 2017 3:54:20 GMT
The thing is even with all the components of a functioning laser system, and it's huge radiators and power supply needed, it still pretty much holds three huge advantages over conventional weapons and electric ballistic systems: 1: Extreme range, unsurpassable by coil/rail/cannon designs, this makes basic physical sense, you will never be able to move a mass of any kind as far and as fast as a massless wave(or particle) of energy. With enough power x ray and gamma ray weapons would be even more long ranged, alternatively particle cannons are equally dangerous. 2: Instant impact, no time delay no wasted shots, as soon as it hits it hits. Even with armour combinations there is nothing that can indefinitely or exponentially stop enough laser energy. This combined with the aforementioned ranges mean that Lasers will always be the first thing to fire if you want a tactical advantage. 3: No ammunition stores, as long as you have power and are not over heating your lasers will out shoot any ballistic systems precisely because their power. Don't get me wrong, coil rail and gun systems still have very respectable niches, guns are great for cheap simple drones, railguns are good for anti drone and light anti missile work, and coilguns are an excellent secondary ship weapon. But when a single laser drone can melt more ships drones and missiles faster than any cannons the answer seems pretty obvious. Not to mention that if we had proper laser targeting we would be able to melt the bullets of enemy drones and ships as well. Would love some pointers on cheap and good laser designs. Don't even know where to start. Can you show me a laser design that is powerful without needing the huge radiators and reactors? Thanks for the help. PS. The fact that lasers can out surpass coilguns/ railguns for range and power is yet to be determined. That is in fact the whole point of this post. Instead of posting theory, let's see some screenshots. You can blur out the details of the weapon settings if you want to keep the details of the design secret.
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Post by deltav on Jan 22, 2017 21:57:08 GMT
Got the price down to 1.3 Mc at the cost of Turret angle and speed. At the long ranges involved shouldn't' matter much Attachments:
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Post by deltav on Jan 22, 2017 21:26:15 GMT
Here's a coilgun design I've been fooling around with. It is able to engage even drone and missile size targets at 70 km + Advantages over the stock lasers... It's about the same price as the stock 100MW laser. It uses only 60MW instead of 100. It can kill stock capital ships at 500 km something none of the stock lasers can. What about the modded designs? All things being equal, what are the best uses of each weapon type? Attachments:
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Post by deltav on Jan 22, 2017 21:16:11 GMT
Ingame we have many weapon types.
1. Lasers 2. Coilguns 3. Railguns 4. Cannons 5. Missiles 6. Drones
Of the directly ship mounted weapons, Lasers, Coilguns, Railguns and Cannons...
1. What do you think is the most versatile overall weapon? 2. What is the best use of each weapon for cost?
My initial opinions pros and cons.
Lasers Pros: 1# in Accuracy and Distance: Since Lasers move at lightspeed, accuracy is only limited by sensors and targeting systems, not the weapon itself. Infinite Ammo: As long as power is available, the weapon cannot run out of ammo. Almost infinitely Powerful: Limits on weapon power is the power supplied to it and design, nothing else. Cons: Damage is Based on Heat: Reflective or heat resistant armor can negate it more easily than kinetic force can be negated. Damage is Based on Distance: Damage drops off at range unlike kinetic weapons. Needs most power of these types: Needs the most power of any weapon system here, which means larger radiators and more nuclear power plants.
Cannons Pros: Cheapest and least power intensive weapons system: Materials are cheap and the power needs are low. Cons: Lowest speed and therefore worse accuracy and distance of any weapons here. Most vulnerable to weapons fire due to the propellent.
Any thoughts?
With mods what is the best use of each ship mounted weapon type?
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Post by deltav on Jan 20, 2017 8:28:22 GMT
Not yet. I think it might be because of the N-Body math we're dealing with here. Actually you can. Go to your steamapps\common\Children of a Dead Earth\Resources\Data directory then edit levels.txt. Search for Homecoming then search for FilteredBodies. Add Venus, Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. When you now select the mission you'll have most of the solar system. This sounds great, but when I tried it now the program won't even load. I saved a backup file so it's okay, just want to know how to get this to work. Anyone else tried this yet?
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Post by deltav on Jan 18, 2017 22:21:09 GMT
Been searching on the threads but can't find any help with this.
Is there a way to travel from planet to planet in Sandbox, let's say from Earth to Mars?
I would really like to open up things beyond being around one planet. Does COADE have that?
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