When are reduced-size lasers worthwhile?

[Ulzgoroth (OP)]

They're an interesting design option, but I'm finding it difficult to come up with a tactical niche where they make sense. Non-miniaturized weapons put out damage at a much higher rate - by the time they've fired twice they've caught up to the more compact models on ton-for-ton and they've got plenty of time left to run ahead before the slow guns are ready for another round.

Unlike missile combat, there's no obvious advantage to concentrating your fire into fewer but denser 'broadside' volleys. And while beam combat is fast, it's not so fast that you can expect to start and end the engagement with a single alpha strike.

The only two possible uses I'm seeing are:
-Cramming a single 'large' weapon onto a ship that needs to fit into very tight tonnage constraints, presumably a 500 ton fighter or 1000 ton FAC, for a smashingly powerful sniper punch against large targets followed by pulling back to recharge if you've survived.

-A jump point battler, operating where jump shock increases the significance of alpha-strikes...maybe.

Also the special case where you've got such high capacitor recharge tech that you can build a miniaturized 12cm laser that fires every 5 seconds, so why not? Other than the eye-melting expense that is.

Or maybe if you're RP constraining yourself to only use conventional powerplants, so powering quick-charging weapons is actually a major problem?

[Droll]

Having smaller weapons that fire slower does not necessarily yield more firepower, that is correct. However consider the combat circumstances that beam ships find themselves in - they have to close the range, which means that you will get attacked by missiles and even other beam ships. You can expect a beam ship to come under fire at some point in its combat lifetime.

So what happens if you have a few large rapid firing weapons and one gets knocked out? You lose out on a significant amount of firepower. Having more smaller weapons allows your ship to afford to lose some without losing a relatively huge chunk of its firepower. That's the best reason I can think of.

[Ulzgoroth (OP)]

I tend to assume that if non-trivial internal damage is happening my ship is fairly likely to become combat ineffective right away.

As best I can tell the lasers get HTK based on their tonnage, so in general you get the same total HTK of lasers either way. Spreading that out in smaller packets does probably increase the chances of graceful degradation though.

Also, it's not a matter of 'does not necessarily yield more firepower'. It necessarily yields much less firepower. 75% size lasers put out 1/3 as much damage per tick per ton, and 50% size lasers 1/10 as much. They get to front-load a big damage spike, but other than that their efficiency is horrendous.

[Barkhorn]

A big up front damage spike is important.  Who cares if your enemy can put out more damage over the course of two minutes if you can kill them in the first 10 seconds?

It's like the difference between an Olympic sprinter and an Olympic marathon runner.  The Olympic sprinter will win the 100m dash but will lose a marathon.  Except in this case, if the sprinter wins his dash, the marathon runner doesn't get to finish his race.

[Ulzgoroth (OP)]

A big up front damage spike is important.  Who cares if your enemy can put out more damage over the course of two minutes if you can kill them in the first 10 seconds?

It's like the difference between an Olympic sprinter and an Olympic marathon runner.  The Olympic sprinter will win the 100m dash but will lose a marathon.  Except in this case, if the sprinter wins his dash, the marathon runner doesn't get to finish his race.

Can you really expect to wipe out (or sufficiently cripple) an enemy fleet in a single round of firing, though? That seems unlikely to me but my field experience is limited.

[Barkhorn]

Maybe?  But remember you don't need to completely kill them, you just need to reduce their DPS below yours.

[Droll]

Maybe?  But remember you don't need to completely kill them, you just need to reduce their DPS below yours.

This is a good point - especially with miniaturized heavy caliber weapons, you might not destroy the ships outright, but having more good armor penetrations in your initial salvo might be the difference between the enemy having their weapons / fire controls knocked out and them having the ability to respond with their full arsenal.

Good to note that the alpha strike relies heavily on initiative since you want to be the first to shoot in that 5 second increment - officers with high reaction are going to do you good here.

[Ulzgoroth (OP)]

Maybe?  But remember you don't need to completely kill them, you just need to reduce their DPS below yours.

Yeah, which per the numbers I noted means you need to be outgunning them by 3:1 or 10:1. So if you started on even footing you need to punch out two thirds of their force in one 4/3s-strength volley or 90% of their force in one double-strength volley...

Roughly speaking, either way works out if you would disable half their fleet in an alpha strike without the compression.

[Barkhorn]

Big alpha strikes also help against boarding attempts; you don't have long to fire at them anyways.

[serger]

I think it was designed for kiting, essentially in times when there was no maint.failures in the moment of shot.
Ships with one compactified long-range alpha-strike gun and forced engines - they was able to kite enemies with the same tech level nigh indefinitely. If you have no shields - you are dead securely in this case.

[Jorgen_CAB]

There are a few thing you can immagine with miniatured weapons...

First of all if you design a really powerful and fast ship you can dash in and deliver allot of damage and then dash out and recharge the weapons out of range or from a range where the enemy do minimal damage to you. When your weapons are almost charged up again your dash into closer range again and deliver a hard blow again.

If en enemy uses all or most of their DPS at longer ranges they will not actually do that much damage, you on the other hand deliver all your damage at closer range and will cut much deeper into their armour.

The benefit of this tactic should not really be underestimated as the difference can be very high.

Another use for miniaturised lasers is on a bombardment ship as you will pay less MSP per shot, the time it take will not really matter during bombardment after you destroyed the STO on the planets.

[xenoscepter]

They are useful for a few things:

 - Fighters / FACs, good for Anti-Fighter / Anti-FACs since they'll be fast enough to interdict bombers and long-ranged enough to demolish enemy Beam Fighters / FACs. Works best at higher Capacitor techs.

 - "Opening Salvo", You can get 15cm and 20cm Lasers down to the size of 10cm Lasers, allowing you one big punch to start. This gives you a head in the DPS race to come.
*The enemy will catch up to your damage output, the point is that they have already taken more damage. So all things equal, your DPS might be 20-30 lower, but your Alpha means you might have 30-40 more Amror/Shields to start with. It's a balancing act to be sure.

 - Alpha-Vette Soup, Small Corevettes with lots of Capacitor 1 0.5x Reduced-Size Lasers. Swoop in, fire everything, run away... repeat. Works poorly against very shield centric enemies, but it's more economical as you save a lot in weapon and reactor costs per Damage. Railgun Barges work on a similar idea, albeit lots of 10cm Capacitor 3 Railguns, not Capacitor 1s.

 - Spinals, They make all three of the above even better. I get Spinal Mounts pretty early on, and usually will Advanced Spinal Mount cooking on the backburner with an EW Guy and 1 Lab. Really let's you get the most out of your laser tech.

[Ulzgoroth (OP)]

- Spinals, They make all three of the above even better. I get Spinal Mounts pretty early on, and usually will Advanced Spinal Mount cooking on the backburner with an EW Guy and 1 Lab. Really let's you get the most out of your laser tech.

I wouldn't want to miniaturize my spinals. If I've got one giant gun per ship I'd rather make the most of that gun rather than make it a one-shot wonder.

[Jorgen_CAB]

- Spinals, They make all three of the above even better. I get Spinal Mounts pretty early on, and usually will Advanced Spinal Mount cooking on the backburner with an EW Guy and 1 Lab. Really let's you get the most out of your laser tech.

I wouldn't want to miniaturize my spinals. If I've got one giant gun per ship I'd rather make the most of that gun rather than make it a one-shot wonder.

If it is the ONLY weapons that fit it can make quite an impression though... fitted to a small corvette with really fast engines with good shields and armour to withstand the dash in and out of range in between shots.

This can be the only way a group of small ships can beat a few big really strong ships.

[liveware]

Reduced size lasers excel for alpha strike purposes by my understanding (though I have never implemented such a strategy). Combined with spinal mounts I would think a swarm of beam craft could punch through the armor of a single large ship or station quite effectively. I have been considering replacing my existing low alpha strike, high DPS laser fighters with high alpha strike, low DPS variants once my laser tech improves somewhat.