Energy weapons and capacitors?

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

A few questions about energy weapons.

Can energy weapons use the energy generated by the engines to fire, such as don't include any reactors and simply reduce the speed of a smeg to be able to fire their weapons?

Secondly, is there any point of giving an energy weapon a higher capacity than it needs to reduce the fire rate to the next level. Such as setting a capacity level four in a 10cm laser that only require level 3 to fire once every 5 seconds?

What happens if I put a capacitor 6 on a 10cm laser, will it fire twice in 5 seconds?

[Theokrat]

A few questions about energy weapons.

Can energy weapons use the energy generated by the engines to fire, such as don't include any reactors and simply reduce the speed of a smeg to be able to fire their weapons?

No.

Secondly, is there any point of giving an energy weapon a higher capacity than it needs to reduce the fire rate to the next level. Such as setting a capacity level four in a 10cm laser that only require level 3 to fire once every 5 seconds?

What happens if I put a capacitor 6 on a 10cm laser, will it fire twice in 5 seconds?

No and No.

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

Ok, pretty much what I expected...

Thanks!

[xeryon]

Longer explanation on the first one: Engines produce thrust, not necessarily electricity aside from nominal amounts to run basic ship systems.  You need the reactor to produce the 1.21 GW required for the laser.

The second one is something I think might be a decent suggestion.  Energy weapons have long been a red-headed stepchild in weapon selections for main line warships.  Having separate, scalable capacitors that you can overbuild would be an interesting way to fire off more energy weapon shots when you need them.  A ship spends 4 years in orbit and 2 minutes in combat.  It would be nice if those four years it were charging a battery/capacitor that allowed higher rate of fire when it was finally called upon.

[Person012345]

The problem being that aurora increments are a minimum of 5 seconds. It's like saying that armies should be able to rest for "less than a turn" in civilization before attacking again.

[xeryon]

Certainly a miscommunication somewhere.  I did not mean to be understood as being able to fire more frequently than 5 second increments.  Even so, not all laser configurations fire in 5 second increments, especially in the early game.

I was insinuating something more along the lines of:
Right now you need a reactor that produces enough energy per turn to either fire, or build up enough power to fire, the laser at it's appropriate time.  If I had a much smaller reactor coupled with a much bigger capacitor while my ship is sitting in orbit for 99% of it's life it can be charging the huge capacitor.  Instead of devoting a vast part of a ship to reactors you could have a smaller area be for energy storage.  When the time comes to fight your lasers are capable of firing via the stored power.

The upside is you could field more lasers and fire more shots over a short duration of time.
The downside is that the reactor is not capable of extended action and power is quickly depleted and cannot be quickly recharged.  

Think of it as energy weapon equivalent concept to reduced size launchers/box launchers for missiles.

[Erik L]

If I recall, energy/beam weapons already have capacitors in them, hence the recharge rate.

I realize what you are asking for are external capacitors. If there were external capacitors, I'd want them limited somehow. Say 10x the C rating of your current tech. C6 tech = 60 power capacitors. There probably should also be something else in place to limit them more. Such as an explosion chance similar to engines/reactors.

[Nathan_]

Capacitors could have a random chance of wrecking the component that they should be supercharging, but even still they'd still be hugely valuable(and perhaps unbalanced) components. Thats the way it worked out in Starsiege:shields/energy capacitors with a set chance of damaging the herc rather than recharging anything, and they were still basically mandatory components.

[xeryon]

I am sure there is a giant balancing issue to address with such an idea but I like the concept.  It makes sense from a logic standpoint as well: We have capacitors and batteries now.  It only stands to reason that futuristic version of such items could be made with Newtonian minerals and would be far superior.  It would need something significant to differentiate it from missile box launchers. 

[Erik L]

I've got similar devices in Astra Imperia. HEC Rings (High-energy capacitance rings) discharge a set amount of power in one burst. Depending on the tech level of the HEC rings is how long it takes to charge up.

[Bremen]

Currently, I don't think there'd be much use for them; mostly because currently reactors are tiny. Even a warship armed with large numbers of rapid fire beam weapons is only going to need a tiny portion of its tonnage be devoted to reactors.

Now, double the size of reactors (with a corresponding reduction in the size of energy weapons), and add in capacitor banks, and I think you'd have something. In fact, IIRC Newtonian Aurora uses such a system, maybe it'll eventually get brought to standard Aurora like the engine changes were.

It would also add interesting design possibilities, like an overgunned warship that could fire it's light point defense weapons, or its heavy anti-ship weapons, but not both at the same time, mounting more of both since it saved space on reactors.

[xeryon]

Now you are thinking!  I always liked the idea of multiple systems using shared resources and requiring you to determine the best allocation for the resources you have.  Something not unlike the Star Trek of old where energy would have to be diverted from one system to another to keep the boat afloat.

[Erik L]

Was just thinking. Capacitors discharge all at once, they are not a discharge over time system. The only way I'd see a capacitor working in Aurora is if it gets discharged and immediately powers up all weapons that require power. With any excess being lost. The reactors are currently like SFB's AWR systems, and the capacitor banks would be similar to the batteries, in that they require recharging. I'd look up the system now, but it's dark and I'm too lazy to turn a light on

[Gyrfalcon]

Honestly, what I'd use capacitor banks for is to power a beam weapon on a fighter for one or two shots. Then it needs to return to the mothership where it can plug into a main reactor and recharge its capacitor banks.

[xeryon]

As Gyrfalcon stated was the original thought I had.  After hearing other peoples comments the problem with my initial thought is that using them with that doctrine is no different than using box launchers.  It's just a duplicate technology with no real benefit.

As Erik noted seems to be a physically correct interpretation of how they would function.  The problem there is that the capacitor might give you a near instant recharge on the system but to what benefit?  Many energy weapon systems can fire every 5 to 10 seconds anyway.  The concept of supercharging one round seems intriguing.  Use the capacitor to single fire for greatly increase range, damage penetration or both.  The trade off could be extremely intolerant to damage with a % chance to explode on use.

In that configuration a fighter wing with single shot supercharged lasers would be interesting.  On initial volley the 1 of the 6 fighters just explodes outright, the other 5 land single hits on a ship at extended range, say 20m k.  Enemy looks around wondering where in the hell 10 points of energy weapon damage just came from.