Beam Weapon Ships...Why?

[Bandus (OP)]

So, I've been reading over a lot of proposed ship designs and the like and I'm still quite confused by designs that use lasers, railguns, and gauss cannons. Specifically, I'm unclear as to why people would use those over missiles? In the limited combat I've had in Aurora, it seems like being able to use missiles from standoff range is a much better option then try to get in close. Am I missing something? What reason is there to use weapons beyond missiles?

[Thiosk]

Well, when you run out of ammo, it helps to be able to wreck some aliens.

Also,if you are sitting on a jump gate, you can annihilate a task group before their sensor blindness wears off.

Once you have beefy engine tech and shields, beam ships really start to outcompete just for logistic reasons-  charge through a hail and shut em down!!!

[Jorgen_CAB]

Missiles do seem to be more powerful when you first approach combat. They do a fair amounts of damage and can deliver brutal attacks over hundreds of millions of kilometers if not billions when carried by a fighter craft from a large strike carrier.

Beam weapons are still very important in my view. Both for point defense and for actual combat.

Missiles are of finite supply and you will depend on your industry to produce them and resources to be wasted on munition and the logistics of moving them about. Beam ships will have infinite number of munition. If you have the option of chasing an enemy down and you have the advantage in beam weapons it is much more economically viable to do so.

It is also, in my opinion, more efficient or economically viable to use both in your strategy. The use of pure missiles can become very expensive on your resources, which in the end are limited.

You are also going to frequently meet enemies that are slower or faster than you. If they are faster you can be in serious trouble when you run out of missiles and they happen to have good missile defenses but mainly beam weapons for offense.

[Nathan_]

So, I've been reading over a lot of proposed ship designs and the like and I'm still quite confused by designs that use lasers, railguns, and gauss cannons. Specifically, I'm unclear as to why people would use those over missiles? In the limited combat I've had in Aurora, it seems like being able to use missiles from standoff range is a much better option then try to get in close. Am I missing something? What reason is there to use weapons beyond missiles?

You use non-missiles precisely because missiles are so valuable. Frittering them away does you no good.

[Stardust]

I have not yet moved beyond missiles, but am looking forward to doing so, even if for nothing more than RP purposes.

[madpraxis]

but what if you like fritters?
Me personally, always used to start in nebulas..nebuli...nebula's?
No missiles there, I <3 me railguns...even doing normal starts I keep having to fight the urge to make everything high speed railgun carriers (mainly because it's hard to do at low tech levels...hehe). But, seriously...a few thousand tons of ship with some halfway decent engines and a handful of armour plating leaves a fair bit of room for some serious pew pew'age and the speed to make use of it. Forget mesons, I never use them out of personal ideals, they just seem to...munchkin for me

[Jorgen_CAB]

I personally like to put particle beams on all my bigger ships. More on some less on others, but at least some for use in either self defense or as an offensive weapon. I also make most of my cruisers into half decent JP defenders when I really need it. So basically any combat ship of about 9000+ tons get a few beams. More of an RP thing than for real efficiency.

[vonduus]

So, I've been reading over a lot of proposed ship designs and the like and I'm still quite confused by designs that use lasers, railguns, and gauss cannons. Specifically, I'm unclear as to why people would use those over missiles? In the limited combat I've had in Aurora, it seems like being able to use missiles from standoff range is a much better option then try to get in close. Am I missing something? What reason is there to use weapons beyond missiles?

I felt just like you did, until a few days ago, when I had a battle where I spent some 150 ASMs and more than 600 AMMs (=all I got) to take only half the enemy ships out. The surviving enemies started ramming my ships before I could reload from my colliers. With some close ranged beam weapons I might have killed some more enemies, and perhaps lost a little less of my own ships.

So now all my combat ships will get at least a PD railgun in addition to their missiles. And I am contemplating a brand new design with only beam weapons. It's role will be to protect my escorts, so it will be classified as an escort-escort.

[nafaho7]

Why use beams instead of missiles?

Because deploying 20,000+ ton warships as the support elements for your fleet just feels so very good.

Speaking more practically, most of the tactical and strategic doctrine which has been formed for Aurora stems from years when there was a maximum size for warships.  Some players still haven't lost the habits involved with using only small warships.

[SteelChicken]

Nothing beats a carrier group for long-range, high firepower whupass.    Missile ships are a close second.
Beams have their place for missile defense, and jump point guarding.  Sometimes when my tech gets high enough I'll build stealthy hunter-killers with long range beam weapons to prowl around, like u-boats.  I always keep a few backup missile box launches on those designs though, just in case.

[Charlie Beeler]

Nothing beats a carrier group for long-range, high firepower whupass.    Missile ships are a close second.
Beams have their place for missile defense, and jump point guarding.  Sometimes when my tech gets high enough I'll build stealthy hunter-killers with long range beam weapons to prowl around, like u-boats.  I always keep a few backup missile box launches on those designs though, just in case.

Never make the assumption that anyone design is superior to all others.  At an equal tech level any design can have specificly designed counter. 

[SteelChicken]

Never make the assumption that anyone design is superior to all others.  At an equal tech level any design can have specificly designed counter. 

Being able to engage your enemy at extreme range is a huge advantage missiles give you.  Yes, you can design ships with absurd point defense, but even those can be overwhelmed with volume.    There's a reason blue water navies don't field battleships anymore.

[Charlie Beeler]

Being able to engage your enemy at extreme range is a huge advantage missiles give you.  Yes, you can design ships with absurd point defense, but even those can be overwhelmed with volume.    There's a reason blue water navies don't field battleships anymore.

Right up to the point that the OPFOR knows your designed engagement range and designs to use superior EW to deny you the use of an average of 20% of your deployed smallcraft missile fire controls.  No absurd PD needed with sufficient data to design against.  The Achilles Heel of smallcraft is that they average being 2 tech levels behind fullsized EW systems. 

In this case blue water naval operations do not reference well to Aurora. 

The beauty of Aurora is that there is no pat design path.  To truly find how flexible the system is, play the NPR's and not use the AI.