Particle Beams and their role/usage

[Detjen (OP)]

I have never used Particle Beams much but in one alien outpost I recovered a new Particle beam that gives me reduced size and a greatly reduced power usage making me somewhat interested in it.  However I am unsure how to put the weapon to use.  it is basically a mounted weapon correct there is no turret?  This means the weapons tracking rate is the speed of the ship,  how accurate is it going to be, will it be worthless on larger slower ships, should I consider a small FAC type ship built around the particle beam itself? 

  Would this be a reason to build ships of varying speed?  people talk about making sure all of their ships travel at the same speed since in a fleet you only go as fast as the slowest ship,  but if I have particle beam ships they would want the ability to go faster to improve the odds to hit correct?

[JacenHan]

It's tracking speed will either be the speed of the ship or your empire's base tracking speed (researched in the Sensors and Fire Control section).

[Detjen (OP)]

So a fire control speed of 20k will be the number calculated over the ships speed? (assuming ship is under 20k in speed)

  Thank you I must be confusing something with how turrets work,  somewhere I assumed that a weapon mounted directly to a ship will be limited by the ships speed regardless of tracking speeds,  and that turrets allow it to match the tracking speed

[Brian Neumann]

Particle beams are meant to be a long range beam weapon.  The range is set by the range researched so the size of the weapon does not make a difference.  This can come in handy for a light combat ship as the smallest particle beam will still be able to fire at the maximum researched (or fire control range whichever is lower).  Heavier particle beams can also be useful on major combatants as the damage does not get reduced by the range.  On small ships like the FAC's the high speed can help make them a secondary point defense weapon, at least against older missiles, or when there are enough of them to saturate an incoming missile barrage.

Light particle beams can be a somewhat limited point defense weapon.  They will never be as effective as turreted weapons, or even railguns, but they are also not as short a range as the other point defense beam weapons.  If you have a lot of the smallest size particle beams firing every 5 seconds then they can do some decent damage to a ship, and that many shots will tend to take out some of the incoming missiles as well, especially if you use them in area defense mode against missiles where they will get 3+ shots over their range.

On a personal note I like them combined with light turreted meson beams as the mesons will cut anything that closes into ribbons, and the particle beams work at longer range.  No beam weapon however is anywhere as long ranged as a missile is.

Brian

[Rich.h]

Particle beams are not really long range beams, they are always outclassed in the range group by standard lasers. They are more of a mid range beam and fit between things like rail guns and lasers, they are limited in how you can mount them, and thus their tracking speed though. You essentially slap them on the ship hull (think big pew pew out the nose cone), this means they are limited by two things. First your ship speed will give you a maximum tracking speed, but that can be reduced if your fire control tracking is lower. So if I have a ship moving at 5000 km/s but I can only design a tracking system capable of of 4000 km/s then the beam will be set at a tracking speed of 4000 km/s. This also works in reverse, so which ever is the lowest speed is what will set your beam tracking speed.

Where I find them useful though is how they outclass lasers at the top range of the particle beam, so they are nice big punchy beams at that range and as you start to get closer a laser becomes a better choice (of course the laser was best to begin with as it has a further reach too). How I tend to use Particle beams is on a very fast ship that I use more as a disabling weapon rather than destroying. When faced with an enemy that has large amounts of short range beams or things like mesons and other nasty stuff, I will chase them with my fast particle ships, but ensure I set an order so that my ship always stays just inside my particle range and never gets closer (this also works when being chased by someone), then I can happily sit an take potshots at them without fear of reprisal. Of course it involves lots of shouting at your tactical officer to stop hitting the reactors and start aiming for engines and such only.

I generally find them to be more of an RP thing though as there are few times when I can truly think "a particle beam is the only weapon for this task". More often than not I can happily use other weapons to achieve the same goal, and they have the advantage of other uses too.

[Detjen (OP)]

  Ok so ship speed does play a role,  if my ships only go 3k and my fire control is 5k I will only target at 3 k because its the lower speed.   what speed do you aim for in a ship like that then, I was thinking of trying to build a fleet around 6km/s but whats the accuracy rating around that speed.  maybe ill save it for my destroyers which are my smaller combat oriented ships and aim for 8k witht hem, and use laser turrents for my larger cruisers and battleship

[Brian Neumann]

  Ok so ship speed does play a role,  if my ships only go 3k and my fire control is 5k I will only target at 3 k because its the lower speed.   what speed do you aim for in a ship like that then, I was thinking of trying to build a fleet around 6km/s but whats the accuracy rating around that speed.  maybe ill save it for my destroyers which are my smaller combat oriented ships and aim for 8k witht hem, and use laser turrents for my larger cruisers and battleship

That is not quite correct.  On any ship/base the base tracking speed you have researched is the minimum speed that the weapon will use.  If the ship is faster than this then having an improved tracking speed from your fire control will help.  For example a ship goes 1500km/s, but my base tracking speed that I researched is 3000km/s.  For a non turreted weapon the tracking speed that would be used is 3000km/s.  If the ship moved at 5000km/s and you installed a normal x1 tracking speed fire control then the tracking speed would still be at 3000km/s.  If however you had installed a x2 tracking speed fire control then the limiting speed would be the ship, or 5000km/s.  This tracking speed minimum seems to be based on when the fire control was designed and will not change as you research better fire control speeds.  You have to incorporate the research into new fire controls to see a difference.

Brian

[joeclark77]

They are a good quick-to-research energy weapon that does damage at decent range.  The primary use case, I think, is fighting an enemy that uses beam weapons exclusively.  Odds are, you can design a particle beam that has somewhat longer range than their weapons.  Let's say your particle beam has a range of 120kkm.  Give your ships an order to "follow" that enemy at a range of 115kkm, and fire away.  This is possible with a laser, but you'll probably only do one point of damage per turn with a laser.  If this enemy happens to use fast-recharging shields (cough, cough), those tiny little laser blasts may never overcome its recharge rate, but a few ships with particle beams ought to win the engagement without ever getting in range of the enemy's beams.

I expect that particle beams are therefore mainly useful in the early years, when your technology is inferior to the alien tech and you're trying to catch up in a  hurry.  20 years into the game you'll probably be ready to replace the particle beams with lasers.

[83athom]

Not necessarily, I'm about 100 years in my game and I'm still using partial beams. My research focus was elsewhere (defensive systems and kinetic weapons), but I got this to its current level quickly. it currently fires at 240k km with a strength of 9, its weight is 450tons (9HS). I have it on most warships in my empire (except missile ships and extremely close range ships).

[Paul M]

My understanding of tracking speed for weapons is as follows:

For a barbette mount the weapon tracking speed is the higher of: the fire control currently on the ship, or the speed of the ship.  If you have a tracking speed on your fire control of 3000 km/s and the ship goes 5000 km/s the weapons tracking speed is 5000 km/s.  A PDC has a fire control of 3000 km/s and a speed of 0 km/s then 3000 km/s is used.

For a turret mount the weapon tracking speed is the lower of: the turret rotation speed or the fire control currently on the ship.  The Goalkeeper III DPPD turret has a rotation speed of 12000 km/s but the Snapshot fire control is rated for 8000 km/s so 8000 km/s is used.

[Brian Neumann]

My understanding of tracking speed for weapons is as follows:

For a barbette mount the weapon tracking speed is the higher of: the fire control currently on the ship, or the speed of the ship.  If you have a tracking speed on your fire control of 3000 km/s and the ship goes 5000 km/s the weapons tracking speed is 5000 km/s.  A PDC has a fire control of 3000 km/s and a speed of 0 km/s then 3000 km/s is used.

For a turret mount the weapon tracking speed is the lower of: the turret rotation speed or the fire control currently on the ship.  The Goalkeeper III DPPD turret has a rotation speed of 12000 km/s but the Snapshot fire control is rated for 8000 km/s so 8000 km/s is used.

For a turret you are correct.  For a barbette the fire control is always a limiter.  In your example above the fire control would limit the tracking speed to 3000 km/s.  To use the ship speed of 5000 km/s you would need a larger fire control, probably a x2 in this case with a tracking speed of 6000 km/s.  The end result would be a weapon with a tracking speed of 5000 km/s as that is the lower of the two.

Brian

[Paul M]

Yes you are correct Brian, I was confusing the weapon tracking speed value and the final value for the ship.

The weapon tracking speed for a barbette mount is the higher of the base fire control value or the ship speed.  This is required to allow mounting of non-turreted beam weapons on PDCs.

The ships effective tracking speed is the lower of the weapon tracking speed or the fire control tracking speed.

Sorry for the delay I am still getting 30 second to open a page delays, making posting unfun.

[83athom]

According to this chart, the particle beam is the most effective/best energy weapon for the ranges between 125k km and 250k km.Thus it is useful on all capital ships that are approaching an enemy as the particle beam is blasting away at the enemy on approach. In my current game my cap ships travel at around 4000 km/s so they will get about 6 increments in that range (if enemy is immobile). But other weapons have their use depending on enemy tactics.
Note; I did not make this chart, it is on the wiki, and is By Yonder

[Garfunkel]

I put a single Particle Beam on my beamwarships so that they can deal at least some damage at long range and in chase situations.