Improved Beam Functionality

[Morrigi (OP)]

I've noticed that in theory you could have a laser with at least a 20 million kilometer range, however fire control will only allow you to hit 1.4 million kilometers if you get lucky. I asked about this in the noob forum and was told that since the game can't tell the difference between moving and stationary objects the range was artificially reduced to 5 light seconds or less. However, if you know where the enemy is, what would realistically be stopping you from blazing away and hoping to get a lucky hit? It's been done countless times with artillery bombardments on land. I agree, a hit in the vastness of space may not be a common thing, but hey, there shouldn't be anything stopping us from trying.

[Hawkeye]

This came up a few times allready

This is, what I wrote: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1989&p=19495&hilit=Laser#p19495

And this is what Steve said: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1989&p=19495&hilit=Laser#p19511

[Charlie Beeler]

From a role playing/game theory point of view there's not really much to bar the attempt.  But from a programming point of view thier is quite a bit.  Steve has set the limit to cover both what can be supported with both reltivistic physics and game play.  To extend the functional range, against stationary or moving targets, would require a fairly segnificant level of coding changes that really will have very little useful impact on game play.

Make a detailed proposal of why you think increased beam ranges against stationary targets would be a reasonable enhancement and I'm sure that Steve will consider it.  Just making the request for increased range has been made several times and rejected.  Make a detailed search of the forums to find those other occurances and determine how to approach the concept differently that whats already been done.  You'll find that several forum members that are expert in verious fields of physics have hashed a lot of this out already.

[UnLimiTeD]

As a suggested solution:
A BFC option (tracking and range) that is 10x range, 10x size, but also reduces the tracking speed to 1/100.
That way, you can't hit anything moving in space, but gain tremandous range versus PDCs.

Highest techlevel:
range; 3.5 mkm, tracking speed at size 10: 250 km/s.

Alternatively, a special bfc that reduces accuracy not linearly, but, say, per square, so, it would have double the size, and double the normal effective range, but be way less accurate on that range, so players have a chance to shoot at that enemy, with a 0.01% hit chance^^

I guess it's honestly not really worth the effort, given bombarding planets with energy weapons is sadly rather limited.

[nichaey]

As a suggested solution:
I guess it's honestly not really worth the effort, given bombarding planets with energy weapons is sadly rather limited.

I would argue that while it would take more effort, you could destroy key defenses without damaging infrastructure or the enviroment.

I would also point out that hitting moving targets with lasers more then 5 light seconds away is not unreasonable given a few conditions

1. that target continues moving in a straight line (which the ships presumably do when they are heading max speed towards something)
2. that target cannot detect an incoming laser (which is impossible to my knowledge)

So while it would be unreasonable to implement long range lasers atm, as there is no way to take evasive action (at least not without a ton of micromanagement), it would be completely reasonable if a "evasiveness" variable was introduced. This variable would be something like  (maxspeed-current speed)^2  and would replace the ship speed in the current to hit formula. So if a ship was travelling in a straight line, it would not be too hard to hit, but if it was being evasive then it would be extremely hard to hit.

I understand that this would require a rewrite of certain code and the game would have to be rebalanced so it's unlikely that it will happen, but I just find it a little hard to swallow that super advanced missiles and lasers have a hard time hitting something with known coordinates and velocity.

[Andrew]

As a suggested solution:
I guess it's honestly not really worth the effort, given bombarding planets with energy weapons is sadly rather limited.

I understand that this would require a rewrite of certain code and the game would have to be rebalanced so it's unlikely that it will happen, but I just find it a little hard to swallow that super advanced missiles and lasers have a hard time hitting something with known coordinates and velocity.

I think the assumption that warships are not dodging is a very bad one. Once you allow for some random variation in course getting laser hits at LS+ Ranges becomes difficult .
A not particulary fast ship of mine moves at 3750kms so in one second is moves 3750000 metres , the exact size of ships is not clear but a sphere of 200m seems overly large , so the ship could vary its position by a sphere of radius 3750000m , we will assume that it in fact moves forward with 99% of its speed meaing the sphere drops to 37500m as you can see from this the large fairly slow ship fills less than 1% of the volume it could be in so the laser hit chances are actually quite good.
(I assumed instantaneous speeds for the grav sensors or you can double the distance the ship could vary its position by)
Your conditions essentially require the target to cooperate which seems unlikely.

MAybe longer range against stationary targets would be possible however such targets capable of being hit be beam weapons are very rare and this idea would make them rarer (all orbital battlestations would be given limited drive capacity) and franlhy I think it would be pointless.

I have often wished for longer range beam weapons but the justifucation for them is not there, if you beleive the range advatange of missiles makes beam weapons a poor choice (I disagree) a more practiacable solution would be to make missiles worse

[nichaey]

As a suggested solution:
I guess it's honestly not really worth the effort, given bombarding planets with energy weapons is sadly rather limited.

I understand that this would require a rewrite of certain code and the game would have to be rebalanced so it's unlikely that it will happen, but I just find it a little hard to swallow that super advanced missiles and lasers have a hard time hitting something with known coordinates and velocity.

I think the assumption that warships are not dodging is a very bad one.

Except for the fact that they move towards their target at their max speed without deviation, which is why I brought up the evasiveness idea.

[Andrew]

Except for the fact that they move towards their target at their max speed without deviation, which is why I brought up the evasiveness idea.

Its a computer game there are simplifications.
Either all ship commanders in Aurora are Braid Dead Morons with a Death Wish who only travel in straight and predictable lines or
1) within the warp bubble the ships are moving in they can shift their positions slightly
2) Ship maximum speeds include a factor for small random evasions
3)in Combat situations ships can manage a small amount of extra velocity for short periods
4) if the above are incovenient for your assumptions assume that NPR ships have an extra 1% of speed used for evasion and set your ships to 99% of max this will make no difference to anything else

CLEARY WARSHIPS CARRY OUT SOME EVASIVE ACTION or they are Brain Dead Morons so just assume that is built into the movement as is the whole targeting process

[sloanjh]

I think the assumption that warships are not dodging is a very bad one.

Except for the fact that they move towards their target at their max speed without deviation, which is why I brought up the evasiveness idea.

You're going over old ground here.  The idea of explicitly deciding how much of a ships speed will be devoted to evasion was discussed years ago (to the level of detail that the radius of a random walk grows like the square root of the time spent walking, which affects the exponent (should be linear) in your evasiveness formula) - the result of the discussion was that this is too much micro-management, and it was abstracted into the "tracking speed" mechanism.  In other words, it is assumed that ships are always evading - the small fraction of speed increase that would be available if a ship was ordered to stop evading isn't worth the effort (coding or managing) to track.  So the situation you describe never happens in the game, and the idea to "solve" it has already been incorporated into the game mechanics.

John

[Andrew]

Despite agrreing that longer beam weapon FC ranges are difficult to justify , I think there is an arguement for trying to extend them if a reason can be found and I think I have found one for Railguns. It would be possible for Railgun rounds to have some small ability to change their vector and terminal guide this coudl easily already be included in the effective ranges but alternatly could be used to justify allowing Railguns to be able to gain a longer range from a given FC or allowing larger Railgun only fire  controls to give them a longer range.
I don't think it would be particualrly unbalancing as I find Railguns less effective than lasers as they do not do the deep damaging hits , and less versatile as after the initial slow missiles they become largely ineffective vs Missiles as they cannot be turret mounted.

[nichaey]

Stop me if I'm going over old grounds again here, but I completely agree that ships can easily dodge anything given that they have infinite acceleration.
But just accepting that they have infinite acceleration without regards to their passengers wellbeing is what upsets me, even if it is Trans newtonian phlebotonum . So if you factor in even an unreasonable sustained 10g then you get a lot smaller of a radius for you to shoot at.

I don't think that lasers should have a good chance at hitting at long ranges, but I find it unreasonable that you can't at least take pot shots.

[UnLimiTeD]

The idea is that the ships "accelerate" through a warp field, which bends the space around the ship, so inside the ship itself there is no noticeable acceleration.
Even in case of conventional drives, a warp field could be used to just turn the space around the ship to trun 180° without more than 2g.

Though, I always wondered why Railguns can't be turret mounted, on particle Beams, it kinda makes sense, Plasma Carronades are rather not meant for that kind of combat anyways, but still, you should always leave the player the freedom to do things wrong.
Railgun Turrets sound like a good idea to me.

[Andrew]

Ships do not accelerate they move at a psedo velocity, there is absolutely no evidence for acceleration anywhere. You cannot have it both ways that ships always move in a straight line as the game does not show they do not and they cannot accelrate isntantly to full velocity as the games shows they do  
Trans newtonians technology ignores suchnewtonian considerations as Acceleration, Momentum, Velocity , and Vectors it also largely ignores realtivistic effects but does not overcome the limit of the speed of light , although gravitic systems such as sensors do seem to achieve an FTL effect.
Also the maths makes wven with 1 or 2 g effect hitting with a laser seriously dodgy at ranges of a Light second (TNE did all the maths for this a long time ago)
Anyway end of flogging dead Horse.

I can see a justification for the railgun/plasmagun/particle beam not being in turrets, they are weapons where the entire weapon pretty much has to be moved to change the point of aim while Lasers can use Mirrors to deflect the beam around for turret mounts. (Charged particle beams could also be deflected around as turrets but the same effect would be used to stop them hitting anything)

[nichaey]

Oh, and a good gameplay reason for being able to take long very low chance pot shots at ships is that it would makes shields a lot more useful.


Being able to get 50 laser hits against a ship over the course of ten hours would be devastating for a ship without shield, while even a minimal shield would be able to withstand that. Again, I'm not arguing for long range lasers snipers or even for moderately low accuracy, just to at least be able to point and shoot wildly.

[Charlie Beeler]

I'm not seeing the game benefit.  Much less game purpose.

At the tech levels for beams that can reach beyond current maxed fire control ranges the shield tech alone will recharge faster than the beams can cycle the hits.  The number of stationary targets that don't have shield tech available are extremely limited. (Shipyards,???) Planetary targets will usually be within an atmosphere that is dense enough to stop all but mesons anyway.  Missiles will still have superior range.

There is a hybrid weapon sytem that fills the role between current beams and missiles.  Plasma Torpedeo.  It's an Invader tech so it isn't available to the player intially.  Salvage a few Invader wrecks (assuming your the survivior and not the Invaders)  and you will have the start on the research.  They don't require magazine space for ammunition.  They appear to be self guiding and only require missile fire control for initial launch.  Like missiles thier range is measured in several million km's instead of several thousands of km's like beams (at least the one's I've faced in the hands of the Invaders)  They don't require power plants or capacitors.  They do have equivilent components intigral to the launchers that appear to act as powerplants and capacitors though that need specific research.  

Sorry, just not seeing a game benefit for extreme (+5 ls fire control) beam ranges.  The level of effort to enable is negated by simple functions that currently exist.