Weapon mixes

[Doug Olchefske (OP)]

Reading through the recent and upcoming weapon changes, I'm wondering is some of the weapon types are of suboptimal utility. It seems that missiles are the definitive long range weapons while lasers with their point defense and strike capabilities are the other main choice. The other weapons rarely show up in fiction and I rarely consider them since they are all lacking in one way or another, mostly range. Kurt did have meson guns in his last fiction, but I believe that was mainly due to a misunderstanding of how missile armor worked.

Is anyone using meson guns, rail guns, plasma carronades?


Are these weapons viable?

[James Patten]

Not having experienced combat yet, I tend to put in several kinds of beam weapons on one ship.  I do know only mesons work in atmosphere, so my PDCs have masons and missiles.

[Erik L]

Reading through the recent and upcoming weapon changes, I'm wondering is some of the weapon types are of suboptimal utility. It seems that missiles are the definitive long range weapons while lasers with their point defense and strike capabilities are the other main choice. The other weapons rarely show up in fiction and I rarely consider them since they are all lacking in one way or another, mostly range. Kurt did have meson guns in his last fiction, but I believe that was mainly due to a misunderstanding of how missile armor worked.

Is anyone using meson guns, rail guns, plasma carronades?


Are these weapons viable?

I will purposely build races that have no laser tech or no missile tech, just for the weapon variations.

If I recall, mesons are supposed to ignore armor, which makes them a good medium range weapon.

The carronades don't seem to have enough punch for the buck, though I've not used them overly much.

The railguns I have used, and they are as good as lasers, though not as long ranged. And their damage is consistent over range.

[Brian Neumann]

The railguns I have used, and they are as good as lasers, though not as long ranged. And their damage is consistent over range

This is not quite right.  Their damage drops off with range just like a laser.  If the laser and the railgun have the same damage and range modifier they will have exactly the same damage per hit.  The main difference is that with any given salvo a laser has 1 chance and a railgun gets 4 shots simultaneously.  Potentially giving the railgun x4 damage.  

Railguns actually make pretty good point defense for faster ships.  If the ships speed is faster than the base tracking rate for the fire control that has been reasearched they actually work better than a comparable laser or meson would.  They will work at least as well as more conventional lasers even on slower ships because the minimum tracking speed on a hull mounted weapon is the same as the base fire control speed.  

Example.  I have reasearched a base tracking speed of 3,200km/s.  If my ship moves slower than this then the tracking speed for the railgun is 3200 km/s.  As I get 4 shots per railgun, it works out to be about the same chance to hit as a laser or meson in a turret could get.  If however my ship moves at 4000 km/s this becomes the tracking speed of the railgun.  With 4 shots, each of which has about 1/3 the chance to hit that the laser would get I am actually more likely to shoot a missle down.  In addition the railgun will probably do more damage to a ship because of it's multiple shots.

My personal favorite point defense has actually been meson's.  This is because the shorter range is rarely a factor in the games I have been playtesting.  (Most missiles take less than 10 seconds to cross the entire engagement range of a pd laser)  As I am only going to get one shot off at each salvo, I would rather have it be a garanteed kill if I hit even against armored missiles.  In addition having a mass of meson's make people nervous about closing the range.  Even the most heavily armored ship was vulnerable and had to be carefull about what range it wanted to fight at.  I most often paired this with torpedo's because of their long range damage.  If you close to get into your optimum range then the meson's tend to rip you apart.  If you stay at longer beam weapon ranges, then the torpedo's are in their element.  I do not know how the new armor rules will change this tactic, but I have a feeling they may make a big difference.  In the past it was fairly easy to armor up enough to make light lasers have a very short range where they could actually damage the ship and not just take down shields.  (2 point armor reduces a 10cm to 1/3 range and a 12cm to 1/2 range)  At this kind of range reduction the meson's actually had a longer effective range.  The new rules change this of course.

Brian

[Steve Walmsley]

The railguns I have used, and they are as good as lasers, though not as long ranged. And their damage is consistent over range

This is not quite right.  Their damage drops off with range just like a laser.  If the laser and the railgun have the same damage and range modifier they will have exactly the same damage per hit.  The main difference is that with any given salvo a laser has 1 chance and a railgun gets 4 shots simultaneously.  Potentially giving the railgun x4 damage.  

On average railguns will generate about 30% more damage than the equivalent size/tech laser. However, that damage is spread across four hits rather than one so in v2.5 armour was a significant factor. However, with the new armour rules, all the damage will count so the difference now is the greater damage of the railgun vs the greater penetration of the laser. Railguns still have greater penetration than missiles and plasma carronades. As an example, here are the damage templates for nine point hits from a missile/plasma carronade, a laser and a railgun/torpedo.

Code: [Select]

11111   111   1111
 111    111    111
  1      1      1
         1      1
         1

My personal favorite point defense has actually been meson's.  This is because the shorter range is rarely a factor in the games I have been playtesting.  (Most missiles take less than 10 seconds to cross the entire engagement range of a pd laser)  As I am only going to get one shot off at each salvo, I would rather have it be a garanteed kill if I hit even against armored missiles.  In addition having a mass of meson's make people nervous about closing the range.  Even the most heavily armored ship was vulnerable and had to be carefull about what range it wanted to fight at.  I most often paired this with torpedo's because of their long range damage.  If you close to get into your optimum range then the meson's tend to rip you apart.  If you stay at longer beam weapon ranges, then the torpedo's are in their element.  

Torpedoes are the ideal weapon if you can control the range. They have a little less range than a equal tech laser but at their optimum range they have far greater damage than lasers, making them very useful on fast ships but much less effective against a faster opponent who can choose the engagement range.

I do not know how the new armor rules will change this tactic, but I have a feeling they may make a big difference.  In the past it was fairly easy to armor up enough to make light lasers have a very short range where they could actually damage the ship and not just take down shields.  (2 point armor reduces a 10cm to 1/3 range and a 12cm to 1/2 range)  At this kind of range reduction the meson's actually had a longer effective range.  The new rules change this of course.

Yes, lasers will be able to pick at you from a longer range now, although there is now a lot more armour to get through so torpedoes will still be the weapon of choice if you control the range.

Steve

[Brian Neumann]

I do not know how the new armor rules will change this tactic, but I have a feeling they may make a big difference. In the past it was fairly easy to armor up enough to make light lasers have a very short range where they could actually damage the ship and not just take down shields. (2 point armor reduces a 10cm to 1/3 range and a 12cm to 1/2 range) At this kind of range reduction the meson's actually had a longer effective range. The new rules change this of course.

Yes, lasers will be able to pick at you from a longer range now, although there is now a lot more armour to get through so torpedoes will still be the weapon of choice if you control the range.

What I was actually getting at was the ability for light secondary weapons to play a significant part in a major battle.  With the old rules it wasn't hard to have enough armor that point defense lasers could not damage heavier warships.  This is no longer true.  The advantage of lighter weapons was usually the faster cycle time, and how many of them you could put on a ship.  As an example I once tried out a battle at the maximum tech.  One ship was equipped with 20cm lasers for point defense which could reach the maximum beam weapon's range barely.  The other side had many more 10cm lasers for their point defense.  They both had equal heavier weapons.  The 20cm made a significant difference at longer ranges as they stripped targets of shields, and were able to start damaging medium or small targets at around the 600,000km mark.  At this point the fleet with the 20cm turned away to maintain the distance as best they could.  By the time the faster fleet had gotten into a range where the 10cm could actually fire there wasn't much left of the lighter ships and this became a major problem.  Both sides had 10 point armor on their big ships.  The 20cm laser couldn't penetrate, but it could take down shields on those big ships.  It could penetrate the lighter armor of everything else.  When the range is down to 100,000k the 20cm fleet still had about half of it's support ships.  The 10cm didn't have any support ships.  Typical exchanges would be the point defense weapons of both fleets taking down shields and then the heavy guns taking out ships.  The difference was that one side's point defense was keeping the shields off of multiple targets where the other side often had to wait an extra 10 seconds to fire, or waste some of the heavy weapons fire on partial shields.  Overall the 20cm equipped fleet had about half of the fleet left at the end.  Obviously this is not a realistic scenario as normally a faster fleet would break off before being destroyed, but it does get the idea across.  I also fought this battle using the same base design's but replacing the point defense with meson's.  The result was an exact flip.  once the massed 10cm could range they just shredded ships.  The 20cm had a longer range but only half as many.

I think the new armor rules will actually make the lighter weapons play a bigger part in a fleet action than they did before.

Brian[/quote]

[sloanjh]

Ummmm how does internal armor work now?  Same as before?  I assume it's not ablating away....

John

[Steve Walmsley]

Ummmm how does internal armor work now?  Same as before?  I assume it's not ablating away....

For the moment it works as before. I need to give some thought about how to handle internal armour in conjunction with the new rules.

Steve

[Doug Olchefske (OP)]

The railguns I have used, and they are as good as lasers, though not as long ranged. And their damage is consistent over range

This is not quite right.  Their damage drops off with range just like a laser.  If the laser and the railgun have the same damage and range modifier they will have exactly the same damage per hit.  The main difference is that with any given salvo a laser has 1 chance and a railgun gets 4 shots simultaneously.  Potentially giving the railgun x4 damage.  

On average railguns will generate about 30% more damage than the equivalent size/tech laser. However, that damage is spread across four hits rather than one so in v2.5 armour was a significant factor. However, with the new armour rules, all the damage will count so the difference now is the greater damage of the railgun vs the greater penetration of the laser. Railguns still have greater penetration than missiles and plasma carronades. As an example, here are the damage templates for nine point hits from a missile/plasma carronade, a laser and a railgun/torpedo.

Code: [Select]

11111   111   1111
 111    111    111
  1      1      1
         1      1
         1

It sounds like railguns are a more useful weapon than they used to be. How about PD ability? Are they comparable to lasers? If so I'll have to give them another look.

I most often paired this with torpedo's because of their long range damage.  If you close to get into your optimum range then the meson's tend to rip you apart.  If you stay at longer beam weapon ranges, then the torpedo's are in their element.  

Torpedoes are the ideal weapon if you can control the range. They have a little less range than a equal tech laser but at their optimum range they have far greater damage than lasers, making them very useful on fast ships but much less effective against a faster opponent who can choose the engagement range.

Yes, lasers will be able to pick at you from a longer range now, although there is now a lot more armour to get through so torpedoes will still be the weapon of choice if you control the range.

Steve

I've always found torpedoes to have too short a range to be anything other than a secondary weapon. The problem is that if you're in torpedo range you're in laser range and lasers are more likely to penetrate armor to start destroying internal components.

Plasma carronades are still of very limited utility.

[Brian Neumann]

Doug Wrote

I've always found torpedoes to have too short a range to be anything other than a secondary weapon. The problem is that if you're in torpedo range you're in laser range and lasers are more likely to penetrate armor to start destroying internal components.

It is actually fairly easy to keep the range on the torpedo's about the same as your fire control max range.  While the laser can hit at this range the torpedo has two advantages.  The first is that at long range they do more damage.  Usually this will be at least double or tripple the damage of a comparable laser at max range.  The second is that a light torpedo can have the same range as the heaviest reasearched.  This make's it possible to put a small (2 damage) torpedo with a 5 second cycle time on escort ships.  They don't do much damage but they fire fast and can help a capital ship out alot.  This was true in 2.5, it should be even more effective with the new rules as they will tend to sand off armor quite nicely.  The actual damage a torpedo does is about 1/3 that of a comparable laser.  The torpedo does constant damage while the laser drops off with range.

Brian

[Kurt]

Reading through the recent and upcoming weapon changes, I'm wondering is some of the weapon types are of suboptimal utility. It seems that missiles are the definitive long range weapons while lasers with their point defense and strike capabilities are the other main choice. The other weapons rarely show up in fiction and I rarely consider them since they are all lacking in one way or another, mostly range. Kurt did have meson guns in his last fiction, but I believe that was mainly due to a misunderstanding of how missile armor worked.

Is anyone using meson guns, rail guns, plasma carronades?


Are these weapons viable?

As noted above, I have discovered the potential of meson cannons.  While this discovery was made because of my misunderstanding of the armor rules, it does not change the fact that meson cannons can be very useful in certain situations.  In the Twin Moons campaign, PDC's equipped with meson turrets did very well against incoming missile salvoes, and PDC's have the advantage of being built by planetary construction factories, not shipyards.  I am playing around with Fast Attack Craft armed with meson cannon, which would be a real headache if used against heavily armored/shielded ships.  

I have used torpedoes in the past, with mixed success.  Had the Colonists in the Twin Moons campaign managed to survive the last war, the next phase for both sides would have involved both building offensive orbital bases armed with torpedoes, to allow them to destroy the other side's orbital defense bases when the two moons were at their closest approach.  

I have used plasma carronades as well.  They do well in certain situations, if you can guarantee a close range battle.  

I haven't used rail guns at all, although I have been meaning to.  They just didn't seem as useful as lasers, given the fact that you couldn't put them in turrets.  

Kurt

[Steve Walmsley]

As noted above, I have discovered the potential of meson cannons.  While this discovery was made because of my misunderstanding of the armor rules, it does not change the fact that meson cannons can be very useful in certain situations.  In the Twin Moons campaign, PDC's equipped with meson turrets did very well against incoming missile salvoes, and PDC's have the advantage of being built by planetary construction factories, not shipyards.  I am playing around with Fast Attack Craft armed with meson cannon, which would be a real headache if used against heavily armored/shielded ships.  

I have used torpedoes in the past, with mixed success.  Had the Colonists in the Twin Moons campaign managed to survive the last war, the next phase for both sides would have involved both building offensive orbital bases armed with torpedoes, to allow them to destroy the other side's orbital defense bases when the two moons were at their closest approach.  

I have used plasma carronades as well.  They do well in certain situations, if you can guarantee a close range battle.  

I haven't used rail guns at all, although I have been meaning to.  They just didn't seem as useful as lasers, given the fact that you couldn't put them in turrets.  

My design goal with the various weapons is to make all of them useful in certain situations but none of them useful in all situations.

Steve