Author Topic: Energy Weapons, PDC's and you  (Read 2597 times)

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Offline voknaar (OP)

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Energy Weapons, PDC's and you
« on: March 25, 2011, 03:37:24 PM »
So in my newest campaign (5.42) I've extended myself to having established colony's in several different systems and I'm now looking into the long term making sure there isn't going to be unrest due to poor protection in the form of PDC's. Now missile PDC's are straight forward conversions of ships as far as combat mechanics go. Except with PDC only design components. So the real question is with energy weapons. They are diminished by the presence of atmospheres - well most types of energy weapons. There's a PDC specific energy weapon Fire Control but I'm questioning its overall worth. If surface to space based energy weapons are unaffected by the atmosphere then all good. But if not then most types of energy weapons will be ineffective on PDC's intended to be left on earth-like worlds.

My PDC design is mostly a missile and counter missile base but with 2-3 intended final defence energy weapons included.
 

Offline Charlie Beeler

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Re: Energy Weapons, PDC's and you
« Reply #1 on: March 25, 2011, 03:48:46 PM »
Mesons are the only beam that is unaffected by atmosphere.
Amateurs study tactics, Professionals study logistics - paraphrase attributed to Gen Omar Bradley
 

Offline Ziusudra

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Re: Energy Weapons, PDC's and you
« Reply #2 on: March 25, 2011, 04:00:40 PM »
I think that, other than Mesons, the energy/kinetic weapons are only affected by 1 atm or higher. Though that may be old information. Edit: apparently incomplete information, see this thread

Another option is Orbital Weapon Platforms. 1km/s ships with beam weapons. Requires maintenance facilities and supplies as well as fuel if they have shields. Also requires shipyards and/or tugs.
« Last Edit: March 25, 2011, 04:05:27 PM by Ziusudra »
 

Offline sloanjh

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Re: Energy Weapons, PDC's and you
« Reply #3 on: March 26, 2011, 04:12:36 PM »
I think that, other than Mesons, the energy/kinetic weapons are only affected by 1 atm or higher. Though that may be old information. Edit: apparently incomplete information, see this thread

I don't know what the link says, but for people reading this thread, the correct statement is that they do 0 damage above 1 atm, and suffer an (1-amospheric pressure) multiplier (rounded down) for <= 1 atm.  So a 3pt hit on a world with 0.7atm total pressure would do 0 damage (3*(1-0.7) = 0.9 rounded down), while a 4pt hit would do 1 damage (1.2 rounded down).

John
« Last Edit: March 27, 2011, 06:47:56 AM by sloanjh »
 

Offline Ziusudra

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Re: Energy Weapons, PDC's and you
« Reply #4 on: March 26, 2011, 05:42:35 PM »
Read the thread.

Your explanation would mean that that 3 damage weapon would do 1 damage at 0.4atm and 2 damage at 0.7atm.

From what thread says the damage done = damage - (damage * atm). So a 3 damage weapon would do 2 at 0.3atm, 1 at 0.6atm and 0 at 0.7atm.
 

Offline voknaar (OP)

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Re: Energy Weapons, PDC's and you
« Reply #5 on: March 26, 2011, 06:31:12 PM »
Long story short If you want to build PDC energy weapons the only work around is mesons, which only do 1 dmg per hit anyway...
 

Offline sloanjh

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Re: Energy Weapons, PDC's and you
« Reply #6 on: March 27, 2011, 06:50:53 AM »
Read the thread.

Your explanation would mean that that 3 damage weapon would do 1 damage at 0.4atm and 2 damage at 0.7atm.

From what thread says the damage done = damage - (damage * atm). So a 3 damage weapon would do 2 at 0.3atm, 1 at 0.6atm and 0 at 0.7atm.

Oops - typo'd.  I meant to say (1-atm), not atm.  I've edited my original post to be correct.

John
 

Offline Sheb

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Re: Energy Weapons, PDC's and you
« Reply #7 on: March 27, 2011, 07:14:04 AM »
Meson only do one damage? Even big ones?
 

Offline Mini

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Re: Energy Weapons, PDC's and you
« Reply #8 on: March 27, 2011, 07:46:12 AM »
Yes. Increasing the calibre of the meson only increases its range and power requirement.
 

Offline Brian Neumann

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Re: Energy Weapons, PDC's and you
« Reply #9 on: March 27, 2011, 08:44:49 AM »
The main thing about mesons is that they totally ignore shields and armour.  So while they only do 1 point of damage, that point is automatically an internal.  This has some good and bad points.  Large systems are hard to destroy with only 1 point of damage.  The chance is equal to 1/HTK.  You can see how many hits to kill (htk) that a system has.  For example a 15cm laser has a htk of 2, a 25cm has a htk of 4 and a quad turret 15cm laser has a htk of 8.  This gives any single meson shot a chance of destroying the system respectivly 50%, 25%, and 12.5% each.  A really  large system like a jump drive for a large ship might have a htk of 30-50.  Obviously it will take a lot of meson hits to give a good chance to kill such a system.  This is the down side to them only doing 1 point of damage.  The up side is that with a little bit of work you can use smaller mesons to max out your fire control range, and have a good rate of fire as well.  A 30cm meson can reach as far as a ship-board fire control can fire.  A 40cm will pretty much do the same for a pdc fire control.  This means that there is less reason to reasearch the big mesons, and you can put those reasearch points into increasing the range multiplier, and the capaciter size.  The other up side is that if they hit, they are automatically doing internal damage, so at long range they will start hurting really quickly.  They do not lose damage over range as most beam weapons do.

Brian
 

Offline Catty Nebulart

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Re: Energy Weapons, PDC's and you
« Reply #10 on: March 30, 2011, 04:47:43 PM »
Since beam weapons are affected by atmosphere are CIWS also affected, or do they work normally?
 

Offline Andrew

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Re: Energy Weapons, PDC's and you
« Reply #11 on: March 30, 2011, 05:42:04 PM »
CIWS are beam weapons and should not work. There  may still be a bug which allows them to work
 

Offline Peter Rhodan

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Re: Energy Weapons, PDC's and you
« Reply #12 on: March 30, 2011, 09:25:40 PM »
had a gunfight between aliens in one of my campaigns and on side had a base with like 20 guass turrets  yuck
 

Offline Shadow

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Re: Energy Weapons, PDC's and you
« Reply #13 on: March 31, 2011, 10:22:18 AM »
CIWS are beam weapons and should not work.

For gameplay reasons, they should. Besides, shooting kinetic weapons out of an atmosphere as opposed to into one might be a different business. To be honest, all kinetic projectiles should be far less vulnerable to atmospheric conditions than immaterial beams, whether they're coming in or going out.

At any rate, CIWS engage missiles at the last possible moment, so it could be rationalized they fire on their targets to strike them as they enter the planet's atmosphere.