How exactly is the damage dissipation of lasers and other beam weapons calculated? I had thought that the beams lost one point of damage after every "range modifier" distance, giving a linear decrease, but that doesn't seem to be right. I just hit an enemy at 300k km with a 25cm laser (16 base damage) and a range modifier of 5, but instead of doing 10 damage like I expected I did two.
I expected this damage break down:
10k km, 16 damage
20k km, 16 damage
30k km, 16 damage
40k km, 16 damage
50k km, 16 damage
60k km, 15 damage
70k km, 15 damage
80k km, 15 damage
90k km, 15 damage
100k km, 15 damage
120k km, 14 damage
140k km, 14 damage
160k km, 13 damage
180k km, 13 damage
200k km, 13 damage
210k km, 12 damage
240k km, 12 damage
270k km, 11 damage
300k km, 10 damage
350k km, 10 damage
but got this one:
10k km, 16 damage
20k km, 16 damage
30k km, 16 damage
40k km, 16 damage
50k km, 16 damage
60k km, 13 damage
70k km, 11 damage
80k km, 10 damage
90k km, 8 damage
100k km, 8 damage
120k km, 6 damage
140k km, 5 damage
160k km, 5 damage
180k km, 4 damage
200k km, 4 damage
210k km, 3 damage
240k km, 3 damage
270k km, 2 damage
300k km, 2 damage
350k km, 0 damage
which ends up being an exponential decrease.
It's also odd because while in the class summary view it states that my laser has a range of 320k km, which seems to be correct, in the "Create Research Project" Window it claims that it will be the 800k km laser I would expect. When you turn on the weapon range circle for the map it also displays an 800k km circle.