What is the point of plasma carronades?

[iceball3 (OP)]

I quite like the more damage/less penetration thing. As for initiative, I'm not sure it's so bad to have one weapon who is only effective in the hand of a skilled commander.

That's the thing. If you noticed the thing I linked, they actually don't do any more damage than the laser of the same size. In fact, they do even less damage than the laser, effectively, as the damage-dropoff profile isn't linear like the laser is.
So it is basically either exactly equal to a laser at the closest possible range you could fire it, or strictly worse than the worst laser of the same size at any other range.

Basically saying, a 15cm carronade has absolutely no reason to be used as opposed to a 15cm infrared laser, as the laser outperforms it in almost every possible situation and metric you could provide, and that isn't even covering the inherent flexibility of laser design.

Sure you can research bigger carronades somewhat faster than bigger lasers, but what's the point if they're just going to end up strictly worse than the "worst" (range modifier) other laser of the same size? And twice as expensive as it too.

[AL]

An idea somewhat inspired by your previous suggestion iceball, what about: if the potential damage from a carronade exceeds some percentage of the total armour width of the target ship, rolling a "miss" will cause reduced damage instead of none at all.
This would give it some utility against fighters/FAC's or even missiles and higher tech enemies without needing overengineered FC's and corresponding tracking speeds. It would also make sense too; firing a huge cone of plasma at something would give a higher chance of hitting than if a highly focused laser beam was used instead.

Another idea is to give the carronade double damage vs internal components. For example, a ship is hit by a 6 damage carronade blast. 2 damage is absorbed by armour, and 4 damage makes it through to the internals. With this change, 8 damage would be applied to the internals instead. This should hopefully promote its use in normal beam combat, and make it a good finisher when you start to penetrate the enemy's armour belt.

As they are, I agree with the current opinion that carronades are pretty useless. Even from a RP perspective, the carronade techs don't really add much; you can get more or less the same thing using laser tech and simply naming the project "Plasma Carronade" if you wanted weapon variety. Carronades really need some kind of change to give them an identity and hopefully also a real reason to use them.

[83athom]

Basically saying, a 15cm carronade has absolutely no reason to be used as opposed to a 15cm infrared laser, as the laser outperforms it in almost every possible situation and metric you could provide, and that isn't even covering the inherent flexibility of laser design.

But the thing is, a 15cm carronade is equal to a 10cm laser in tech level. They also require less crew, which is useful in larger ships using primarily plasma weapons, to save space in crew quarters to fit more weapons.

[Iranon]

True. Things is, carronades are significantly more expensive by themselves. Lower crew is mostly attractive for very cheaply built ships where crew quarters are a comparable expense to the weapons themselves. This puts us at low capacitors, which means we build for a devastating salvo rather than DPS.

If the first salvo counts, mixing in reduced-size and spinal options allows us to emulate carronade's strengths with lasers, and 1-2 range techs may still be useful. Research costs are much lower, so we can mix things up to taste.

It may be fiddlier, but for almost any projected use of carronades I can come up with a laser alternative of comparable tech expenditure that does about as well. Probably better when things don't go exactly as planned. And, of course, lasers can do many things that carronades can't emulate.

[sublight]

Plasma carronades maximize damage per HS per volley at point blank range, assuming an equal tech investment for weapon caliber. However, this metric is rarely a top consideration in warship design and disappears once all spinal mount laser techs have been discovered.

Personally I will occasionally use carronades as a my-first-beam weapon in a conventional start where the research savings can make a difference... but I can't remember ever bothering to research past 20cm plasma carronades.

[83athom]

Actually wow, late game PCs are actually somewhat viable for patrol craft. Whereas a 80cm laser has a cost of ~4000 and need 75 crew, a 80cm PC only costs ~600 and needs 50 crew. Both fire at 35 sec, reach max range, weighs 25HS, and does 168 damage. Not even to mention that you will get 80cm PCs before lasers of that tech (a lot cheaper in RP cost).

[Iranon]

That is not a good comparison.
An infrared laser of that size and recharge rate would only cost 324.
Use visible light, and you are at the same cost with better damage retention and damage profile... well worth the increased crew requirements.

[iceball3 (OP)]

That is not a good comparison.
An infrared laser of that size and recharge rate would only cost 324.
Use visible light, and you are at the same cost with better damage retention and damage profile... well worth the increased crew requirements.

Yeah, the big thing to remember that at equal size, plasma carronades have the same range as the lowest range-tech laser. But their damage dropoff is worse. I feel like I need to illustrate this.

Code: [Select]

35cm C8 Plasma Carronade

Damage Output 32     Rate of Fire: 20 seconds
Max Range 320 000 km     Carronade Size: 11 HS    Carronade HTK: 5
Power Requirement: 32    Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 8
Cost: 90    Crew: 22
Materials Required: 18x Duranium  18x Boronide  54x Corundium

Development Cost for Project: 7500RP



Code: [Select]

35cm C8 Infrared Laser

Damage Output 32     Rate of Fire: 20 seconds     Range Modifier: 1
Max Range 320 000 km     Laser Size: 11 HS    Laser HTK: 5
Power Requirement: 32    Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 8
Cost: 45    Crew: 33
Materials Required: 9x Duranium  9x Boronide  27x Corundium

Development Cost for Project: 450RP
These are designs of the same size, with lasers using the lowest available range technology. So, by cursory examination, the worst laser  is only better than the carronade by it's cost, impact damage depth, and crew, right?
Wrong, actually.

They... Wait.
35cm C8 Infrared Laser (1)    Range 320 000km     TS: 8000 km/s     Power 32-8     RM 1    ROF 20        32 16 10 8 6 5 4 4 3 3
35cm C8 Plasma Carronade (1)    Range 320 000km     TS: 8000 km/s     Power 32-8     RM 1    ROF 20        32 16 10 8 6 5 4 4 3 3

Well, what do you know. So I was mistaken. Plasma carronades are just "kinda bigger" infrared lasers, except for the fact that the Damage Per HS is identical, the carronades are much more expensive, and their damage profiles are suboptimal. Case closed anyway, I guess, considering the existence of spinal mounts.

[Iranon]

Also note the discrepancy in RP cost: 450 for the laser, 7500 for the carronade. So over a few generations of weapons we can get the cool laser options on the side without spending more RP in total.

[iceball3 (OP)]

Also note the discrepancy in RP cost: 450 for the laser, 7500 for the carronade. So over a few generations of weapons we can get the cool laser options on the side without spending more RP in total.

Yeah. That, and due to the spinal options, at higher tech levels, you can actually build larger lasers than carronades when they are otherwise equal tech.

[drejr]

It seems to me the best way to fix carronades is to reduce their size and cost, not fiddle with the damage.

[Mor]

Mainly asking Steve designwise[...]

from the tutorial:

The Plasma Carronade is a high damage, point blank range weapon. It has only two background technologies, Carronade Calibre and Capacitor Recharge Rate, and there is no way to enhance range beyond increasing the damage output. The calibers available are larger than those other beam weapons at a similar tech level so this is usually the weapon with the highest damage at close range. If you are outclassed technologically then build a ship with a few of these and wait for your opponent beyond a jump point. It cannot be turret mounted and is far from ideal as a point defence weapon.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

If it kept high short range damage at even 20,000 or 30,000 km id be a happy camper...

[Father Tim]

Plasma Carronades were balanced  (slightly better in some areas, worse in others) against the other beam weapons six or seven years ago, but the popularity of lasers and constant requests for tinkering with them and their options (such as spinal mounts) has led to them being strictly superior than PCs except in a couple of rare, edge cases.

So you could say the real drawback to Plasma Carronades is that they don't have a strong voice advocating for them on the forums, unlike lasers and missiles.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

well, look at it another way

a PC is like a free-spinal IR laser, giving it a big glob of upfront damage as long as you are firing at 10000-20000km. 

the trouble with that is that small weapons firing at ROF 5 can out-DPS a carronade  at those short ranges - even just looking at weapon to weapon, not ton for ton!  And since the carronade has cruddy penetration to begin with you lack the traditional advantage of heavy weapons.  And those same light weapons are _cheaper_ to research than carronades, since beyond TL3/4 they only need Range Mod research- they stop benefitting from capacitor recharge improvements. With those Range Mod researches they are significantly superior to carronades at most ranges.

a carronade's primary remaining advantage is absolute range, letting them exploit a firecontrol/speed advantage if they have one... to slowly peck away at the enemy with 1 damage shots every 30-40 seconds. Ugh.