Plasma carronade vs infrared laser: a short test

[MarcAFK (OP)]

Branching this off from Plasma carronades - who uses them? as the post was becoming more of a tactical discussion.

2 opposing fleets have been setup in alpha centauri, each one has a single Cornwallis class ship, one carronade variant, one 10cm infra red laser variant, also in each fleet is an observer to allow firing after damage to active sensors in the test vessels, the observer is as follows:

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Observer class Fast Scout    2,900 tons     78 Crew     546 BP      TCS 58  TH 306  EM 0
5275 km/s     Armour 2-18     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/36/0/0     Damage Control Rating 2     PPV 0
Maint Life 3.72 Years     MSP 235    AFR 33%    IFR 0.5%    1YR 27    5YR 398    Max Repair 153 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 1   

306 EP Ion Drive x1.5 (1)    Power 306    Fuel Use 182.98%    Signature 306    Exp 15%
Fuel Capacity 500,000 Litres    Range 17.0 billion km   (37 days at full power)

Active Search Sensor MR5-R1 (1)     GPS 96     Range 5.8m km    MCR 627k km    Resolution 1
Active Search Sensor MR62-R86 (1)     GPS 9632     Range 62.3m km    Resolution 86
EM Detection Sensor EM6-36 (1)     Sensitivity 36     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  36m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes[/spoiler]
The design is barely useful for scouting, but has been given the best available sensors already in service with my fleet.

After setting up a new empire named "test drone" in alpha centauri III and giving it the laser fleet, the carronade fleet is put into alpha centauri IV 600 million km away, and been given the order to advance to Alpha centauri III, contact is made 340.6 million km away as the strength 36 EM sensor of the observer picks up the resolution 86 active of the opposing observer ship.
Expected behaviour of the enemy is to advance toward our incoming fleet at full speed, after the test drone is observed to do this the fleet is sent to rendezvous with it rather than Alpha centauri III.
Active sensor contact is finally made with the enemy fleet 185 million kilometers out from Alpha centauri III.
As each fleet advances toward each other, thermal contact is finally made at -40 million kilometers.
At -25 million kilometers each cruiser switches it's own active sensors on, as they are now within the range of their own resolution 20 sensors, fleets are now 1 hour away from contact. At their combined speed they will close 30,000 kilometers per 5 second tick. This should have a large bearing on what will finally happen when they reach energy range.
At -5.8 million kilometers to contact fleets are now 14 minutes apart.
At 492,000 kilometers fleets are now 1 minute from contact, at this point i make a backup so I can rerun the scenario as needed.
At -70k kilometers a critical decision must be made, either fire next increment at 35k range, each carronade doing 2 damage at 79% hit chance, then wait a gruelling 25 seconds for recharge, at which point the enemy will reach optimal range for lasers and literally shred the ship to pieces, or wait untill the next increment and suffer one salvo from enemy lasers but produce, full damage, this latter option is decided to be worth the risk.
After movement each ship fires, I'm not particularly sure which ship fired first, it looks like it was the laser variant.
Damage to carronade ship is as follows:
15 armour out of 59
2 Plasma Carronade
1 Active sensor MR25-R20
1 Ion drive
Speed slowed to 2645
Laser Ship:
23 armour of 59
6 reactor
15 laser
7 crew quarters
5 fuel storage
1 thermal sensor
1 fire control S04 24-12000
2 ion drive
1 crew quarters small
1 fire control S04 96-3000
1 Active sensor MR5-R1
Speed slowed to 1763
The remaining firecontrol only has 79% hit chance at 10,000km, and only 58% at 20,000 km, this may be critical.
Sadly initial salvo wasn't enough to completely cripple the laser ship, but the speed difference would allow the carronade ship to stay out of range of the laser one, IF it can survive long enough.
The carronade fleet is ordered back to Alpha Centauri in an attempt to increase range between enemy fleet and itself.
Next increment:
A mistake is made in fire control assignment, and most lasers fail to fire as they wait for reactor power to recharge a few lasers.
Increment 3:
Laser drone still fails to fire:
Increment 4: Still fails to fire: I'm not sure why, all lasers are recharged, assigned to correct fire control, fire control is assigned to the right ship, and the open fire button has been selected.
Increment 5: Carronade ship cleanly finishes off laser ship, laser ship fails to return fire.

Well that was a failure, I'll need to rerun this test when i work out what went wrong.

[MarcAFK (OP)]

I've found a small mistake in the test ships, as recharge 3 was being used for the lasers but not the carronade. Here are the revised ships:

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Carronade Test Drone class Strike Cruiser    17,000 tons     509 Crew     2198.8 BP      TCS 340  TH 1224  EM 0
3600 km/s     Armour 4-58     Shields 0-0     Sensors 36/6/0/0     Damage Control Rating 6     PPV 144
Maint Life 1.71 Years     MSP 485    AFR 385%    IFR 5.4%    1YR 201    5YR 3013    Max Repair 153 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months    Spare Berths 0    

306 EP Ion Drive x1.5 (4)    Power 306    Fuel Use 182.98%    Signature 306    Exp 15%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres    Range 5.8 billion km   (18 days at full power)

20cm C3 Plasma Carronade (24)    Range 100,000km     TS: 3600 km/s     Power 10-3     RM 1    ROF 20        10 5 3 2 2 1 1 1 1 1
Fire Control S04 96-3000 (2)    Max Range: 192,000 km   TS: 3000 km/s     95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor Technology PB-1 (16)     Total Power Output 72    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor MR5-R1 (1)     GPS 96     Range 5.8m km    MCR 627k km    Resolution 1
Active Search Sensor MR25-R20 (1)     GPS 1920     Range 25.8m km    Resolution 20
Thermal Sensor TH6-36 (1)     Sensitivity 36     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  36m km
EM Detection Sensor EM1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

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Laser Test Drone class Cruiser    17,000 tons     636 Crew     2218.8 BP      TCS 340  TH 1224  EM 0
3600 km/s     Armour 4-58     Shields 0-0     Sensors 36/6/0/0     Damage Control Rating 5     PPV 129
Maint Life 1.71 Years     MSP 449    AFR 420%    IFR 5.8%    1YR 186    5YR 2794    Max Repair 153 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months    Spare Berths 2    

306 EP Ion Drive (4)    Power 306    Fuel Use 182.98%    Signature 306    Exp 15%
Fuel Capacity 920,000 Litres    Range 5.3 billion km   (17 days at full power)

10cm C3 Infrared Laser (43)    Range 30,000km     TS: 3600 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 1    ROF 5        3 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S04 96-3000 (2)    Max Range: 192,000 km   TS: 3000 km/s     95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor Technology PB-1 (28)     Total Power Output 126    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor Technology PB-1 (6)     Total Power Output 2.7    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor MR5-R1 (1)     GPS 96     Range 5.8m km    MCR 627k km    Resolution 1
Active Search Sensor MR25-R20 (1)     GPS 1920     Range 25.8m km    Resolution 20
Thermal Sensor TH6-36 (1)     Sensitivity 36     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  36m km
EM Detection Sensor EM1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
One note about the design, the lasers have lower maintenance requirements, so one engineering spaces was swapped for a small one, and also 80,000 litres of fuel needed to be sacrificed in order to make room for more powerplants, this was considered to be an acceptable sacrifice in order to maximise performance within the 17kton hull space limit.
Apart from that, both ships are exactly the same, except for weapons and number of powerplants.

Edit: Both fleets near each other, distance is now 107k, each 5 second increment reduces range by 36k.

TEST 1.
Decision is made to hold fire untill point blank range, just like previous test.
Fire controls are set up, all crew wait tensely for the moment of action.
Contact! Both fleets open fire simultaneously at 0k distance, a fairly significant anomaly caused by the 5 second increments it would be expected for the laser ships to fire immediately at 30k, while the carronades would wait until 10k distance.
43 Lasers fire at 83% : 37 laser hits , 6 misses. 37x3 = 111 damage lands on target. Damage of 3 mostly fails to penetrate armour level of 4.
24 carronades fire @ 83% : 20 hits, 4 misses. 10x20 = 200 damage lands on target.  Damage of 10 causes significant damage to primary armour layer and barely penetrates down 2 more layers, but each consequent hit has increasingly higher chance of landing on already compromised armour, there is very high chance internal damage.

Damage results: Analysing the combat logs seems to show the laser ship firing first, causing minor damage to systems before the carronade ship can retaliate.
Carronade ship:
16 armour damaged out of 58
3 plasma carronades destroyed.
1 engine recieved damage lower than it's HTK, causing it to be spared.
Laser ship:
27 Armour out of 58
3 Ion drives
2 reactors (out of 28)
1 engineering spaces
1 fire control
1 small reactor
3 crew quarters
1 fuel storage large
12 lasers
1 fuel storage small
1 thermal sensor
Bridge

1 shock damage was recieved causing the first internal hit which knocked out the first engine.
Speed slowed to 900km/s
Carronade ship decides to retreat at max speed to take advantage of range difference, 2 time increments should be enough to get out of laser ships range, 4 would be required to recharge carronade.
(AT this point i make a backup in case i screw this test up like that last one)
Edit: Well the carronade fleet is awaiting acknowledgement so i think order delay was what screwed up the last test)
Predictably the laser ship waited around 20 seconds and got finished off cleanly.  2 Additional shock damage was delivered during the coup de grace .
I'm just going to rollback and see if I can fix the order delay.
Edit: Switched off inexperienced fleet penalties before giving the orders, everything is good now.
Increment 2:
18 k now seperates 2 fleets.
Laser ship fires it's remaining 31 lasers.28 hit, 3 miss. At this range there is only 1 damage per laser.
4 additional armour damaged.
1 carronade damaged.
Increment3: Range increased to 31k, out of the lasers range. 2 more ticks untill carronades are recharged.
Increment5: Distance ramains at 31k
Carronades fire.
All 20 remaining carronades hit. 3 damage each at this range.
Additional Damage:
4 Armour
7 reactors
1 engineering spaces
1 fire control
1 crew quarters
2 fuel storage
19 lasers (12 left)
5 fuel storage small
1 active sensor MR25-R20
1 active sensor MR5-R1

No fire control, so completely crippled.
But the other fleet doesn't know that and might keep the range open. Order is made to keep range open at 45k.
20 seconds later and it's all over.

[MarcAFK (OP)]

Test 2:
Instructed carronade ship to keep range open at 45K.
Range closes to 71k. 14 damage to armour.
Range closes to 35K. 15 seconds to recharge.
Range closes to 27K. lasers fire causing minor damage to armour. 10 seconds to carronade recharge.
Range remains at 27K. More minor armour damage to carronade ship. 5 seconds to carronade fire.
Range remains at 27k. Minor armour damage to carronade ship, also one engineering spaces damaged.
  Carronades fire causing 1/4 of all armour to be destroyed on target.
Range still 27k. More armour damage.
Range still 27k. only 1/3 of armour remains, 1 carronade destroyed.
Range still 27k. 1/4 armour left, another carronade gone, 1 fire control gone.
Decision made to close range for a coup de grace.
Both ships destroy each other.

[Xelanthol]

Some damn good science!

[MarcAFK (OP)]

Well I have learned 3 things.
1) I need to present my data a little more concisely.
2) Ships fire simultaneously, then damage is applied. Which I love as it makes devastating broadsides capable of obliterating both combatants.
3) Due to the complexities of the movement phase, one needs to be very careful when attempting to hold open a set range against another fleet.
4) Setting a ship to follow at 60K resulted in a range of 41k between ships, altering the order to follow at 50k lowered the range to 31K. I can definately work with this.

Also some minor things I have been reminded.
- Fleet training is seriously important with beam combatants or when wanting to hold open a set range. Less so for high recharge weapons as the low training penalty seems to be 30 seconds for beam weapon firing.
- Crew training rating increases sharply on a ship with large number of weapons. Making smaller caliber low to-hit weapons worth training against drones or something, for RP reasons one might want to limit crew training achieved by this to a low number, perhaps 10-25%

Also on another test with shields it seemed that infrared lasers were penetrating straight through my shields, either this is a bug or I screwed something up somewhere.
Each ship has 60 points of recharge 300 shields, shields are on and recharged (maximum shields 60, current shields 60). Events log shows shields recharging properly. However when firing only armour and systems are damaged. Tested with all types of weapons except microwave and mesons.

[alex_brunius]

4) Setting a ship to follow at 60K resulted in a range of 41k between ships, altering the order to follow at 50k lowered the range to 31K. I can definately work with this.

This is because of task force initiative. As you can see the difference in your cases is always 19K km / 5 sec = 3'800 km/s. Recognize this number from anywhere?

If the task force trying to flee has the higher initiative they will move last and thus keep the correct range.


I actually really dislike this effect, especially lategame. It mean that fighters with a speed of 60000 km/s with Gauss weaponry (limited to 10k range) in some cases can never catch a lategame freighter moving at 5000 km/s if the freighters captain has a higher initiative... very silly!

[chrislocke2000]

is the laser tech you are using the same level as that of the cannon? I would have thought the lasers should have significantly better range v a comparative tech plasma?

[MarcAFK (OP)]

Research costs are as follows.
10 cm laser- 1000 points
Infrared laser 500 points
15 cm carronade - 1000 points
20cm carronade - 2000 points
For both:
Capacitor recharge 1 - 1000 points
Capacitor recharge 2 - 2000 points
Capacitor recharge 3 - 4000 points

Also the drives and power plants were ion tech which is a significant investment.
I suppose I should have either used 15 cm carronades with their 30k range advantage, or upped the lasers to UV which would leave the carronade with 40k range advantage, this would have required more work to remain at range, as at that range each weapon would only produce 1 point each.
Perhaps I should have mentioned that these ships were using basically the tech that my game first rolled with, except for capacitor recharge 3 which i researched myself.

[Narmio]

It's tough to compare lasers vs carronades on RP spent, because the carronade deliberately has one less tech line to research -- range.  Each "tech level" of laser has a size, range and recharge component, while each "tech level" of carronade has just size and recharge.  Comparing the best possible anti-ship lasers and carronades at TL2 would have involved 12cm Visible Light lasers (max 80kkm) versus 20cm carronades (max 100kkm). 

It's not until TL3 (15cm near-UV lasers (180kkm) vs 25cm carronades (160kkm)) that lasers, with their range tech tree but smaller starting size, begin to outrange carronades at all.

Comparing RP spent would, of course, produce a different analysis completely. And once you've done that, you need to account for the fact that your lasers can double as beam PD, while carronades would require investment in a different technology, probably gauss cannons.  It is, of course, complicated.

[Iranon]

Unless I'm missing something, the carronade line looks terrible to invest heavily in.  It seems close enough to a laser without half the research options and a worse damage type.  To add insult to injury, research project and manufacturing costs are higher compared to infrared lasers of the same size. . .  initial RP saved from starting with a higher focal size may not last if we want to keep up to date.

On fast ships, entry-level railguns and entry-level carronades may work for a low investment - efficient point defense, an adequate damage dealer out of the box.  With research mostly put into capacitors, we won't have wasted much even if the guns are a dead end.

[MarcAFK (OP)]

I've come to realise that with carronades you might as well forget that they have range at all, pretty much like gauss cannons.
They're basically just for getting really close to something and punching right through whatever shield and armour layers it has in one pop. Which is awesome by the way, but only if you can get there, an equal sized ship with high damage lasers that's used equal research points is going to do terrible damage to it before it even gets into range, but if it can hold together long enough for that, look out. But I should probably return to this and do some tests at different tech levels. At least it seems to me that they're pretty evenly matched.

[Zincat]

I've come to realise that with carronades you might as well forget that they have range at all, pretty much like gauss cannons.
They're basically just for getting really close to something and punching right through whatever shield and armour layers it has in one pop. Which is awesome by the way, but only if you can get there.

I use carronades for my wormhole guards, because of that. When there is a wormhole I really want to guard, I build slow ships, with long maintenance life and as many carronades as I can cram in them. They TF train to 100% and go guard that wormhole. That working under the assumption that , because I'm doing conventional start, the enemies have better ships anyway. Might as well try to alpha strike them while they're sensor deaf.

Never been in a real big fight yet, but whatever comes through 120 x 25 cm carronades should do some real damage even if they only shoot once.

Never tested in battle mind you, cause I am a noob and nobody actually ever came through that wormhole ....

[Sematary]

I use carronades for my wormhole guards, because of that. When there is a wormhole I really want to guard, I build slow ships, with long maintenance life and as many carronades as I can cram in them. They TF train to 100% and go guard that wormhole. That working under the assumption that , because I'm doing conventional start, the enemies have better ships anyway. Might as well try to alpha strike them while they're sensor deaf.

Never been in a real big fight yet, but whatever comes through 120 x 25 cm carronades should do some real damage even if they only shoot once.

Never tested in battle mind you, cause I am a noob and nobody actually ever came through that wormhole ....

I assume by wormhole you mean jump point? Wormholes and jump points are two different things. Either way that sounds like a really effective plan, especially if you can find an asteroid (assuming orbits for those are off) near by that you build an orbital habitat with maintenance facilities and recreational habitats.

[Zincat]

Yeah sorry, jump points. Been playing a game that calls jump points wormholes, so... Got confused.

Nice idea about the asteroid, though in the system in question I have a major planets which is rather close to the jump point so I set my maintenance facilities there.

Still, really effective, we will see Assuming I continue this game, the slowdowns has reached almost intolerable levels, even for me. 2 minutes for a 1 day advancement is a bit.. much. I need a better pc XD

P.S. With a close enough maintenance station/planet, or a permanent defense point, you could even use a starbase. Make a ship with no engine or fuel (except perhaps for shields?) and tug it there. Maximum space for weapons. when needed for maintenance, tug it back. Build 4 or so, and always keep one in maintenance and 3 at the jump point.

[MarcAFK (OP)]

I might design an 8,000 ton carronade defence monitor to accompany my 500 ton 10cm laser or single launcher 32 magazine AMM sats, then station them at the single jump point Earth has. But then again I wanted to make things harder and fortify the next system down which is only 2 jumps away from both NPRs. Actually, I don't have any FACs yet, I think I'll make equal numbers of laser and carronade corvettes or frigates and see how they perform in a few years when I make contact.