Any use for Partilce Beams?

[Gump (OP)]

I am sure this has been asked a thousand times but….  Particle Beams or Lasers?
Once Advanced Spinal Mounts are researched it seems particles beams can not compete, but am I missing something?

In my limited experience the main limit on anti-ship laser weapons is the range of the fire control sensor, not the range of the weapon itself.  I find that my fire controls typically out range my particle beams, but are vastly out ranged by lasers. 

This results in laser doing more damage at close ranges, particle beams doing more damage at medium ranges all the way up to their maximum range, and lasers doing damage beyond the range maximum range of particle beams.   

However, if an advanced spinal mount is used on the laser it suddenly does more damage than the particle beams except at the particle beams maximum ranges, but the laser can still damage beyond that range.

I understand you need to be able to control the range of a combat to maximise particle beams advantages.  But if I can control the range why not sit out of range of enemy particles beam range and use lasers myself?  Or close to very close range and use lasers to devastation?

[Iranon]

You nailed it.

Particle beams on small, fast craft that can control the range can have some theoretical avantages over lasers. But lasers do fine in situations where particle beams excel, are in fact more likely to be able to force one-sided fights, and are much much more flexible.

[DFDelta]

Yeah, I feel the same way.

I used to branch out into particle beams when I build beam armed warships, but ever since we got spinal mounts for lasers I feel like particles have lost its role. The advantage they have is just to low to justify the drawbacks compared to specializing in lasers.

Even did a suggestion last month to buff particles (and railguns) a little that wan't met with complete disdain, so I guess more then a few people feel that way.

[Brian Neumann]

There is one way that particles still have a significant advantage over a spinal laser.  You can only have 1 spinal laser on a ship regardless of its size.  There are no limits on the number of particle beams available. 

Also a max/tech size spinal laser takes up 38 hull spaces, has a recharge time of 80 seconds and does 35-40 points of damage at max ranges.  A maxed out particle beam is 22 hull spaces, takes 25 seconds to recharge and does 50 points of damage.  All of this assumes maxed out tech, but the basic comparison works fairly well for any equal tech area. 

Also there is only a little need to have a maxed out particle beam on a ship.  You get the range regardless of weapon size, so multiple small weapons have a much higher rate of fire and can give more damage over time than the big weapons can.  What you are losing is the potential shock damage.  A max tech particle beam -9  does 9 points of damage, uses 9 hull spaces and can fire every 5 seconds.  In the space of 1 spinal laser I can put 4 of these particle beams doing 36 points of damage every 5 seconds.  In 80 seconds that is a total of 576 points of damage.  This then is outperforming the 120cm spinal laser even at point blank range.

Another area that particle beams can be useful is giving small ships a long range beam weapon.  Any particle beam regardless of size will have the same range at a given tech.  For lasers you need a larger laser to get to the maximum beam weapons fire control range.

This does leave room for a particle beam to be useful. The technology itself is not as flexible as the laser tech is, but there are advantages to using particle beams.  It is very much up to the player as to what they want to use.

Brian

[Iranon]

Well, comparing weapons 1:1 at maximum tech level makes little sense... they need to be judged against a requirement.
Railguns do something far different from a laser of equivalent size, the reason I don't bother with big railguns is because multiple small lasers are more practical (functionally similar, less throttled by capacitor tech).

To fulfil the role of particle beams, I wouldn't just consider the biggest spinal laser I could mount... that's overkill.
I'd consider the outer range of the particle beam and optimise my laser loadout for that range. Bigger may not necessarily be better because of capacitor tech.
This won't beat the particle beams at the end of their range, but we'll have a longer maximum range and the lasers will become considerably more powerful at close range.
Neither window nor margin of superiority are impressive for particle beams, too small for such a specialised line with limited applications. Worse: if you can ensure battles are fought at the narrow range band where particle beams have a noticable theoretical advantage, chances are either weapon would allow flawless victories against most enemies.

[Nathan_]

I am sure this has been asked a thousand times but….  Particle Beams or Lasers?

the opportunity cost of researching energy weapons is too high, I think, for you to do anything but go lasers. All of the other options are simply too specialized, though base line mesons and railguns are good out of the gate at their roles.

[sublight]

Particle beams are a cheap long range weapon if you focus on the range tech side. I've had success using them in combination with short range meson/guass point defenses.

Lasers are a much better choice if you want a one-type-fits-all beam weapon or plan on close range fighting. In theory the larger lasers will have longer ranges, but in practice my lasers often seem to keep getting clipped down to particle beam ranges by my fire control range limits.

[Brian Neumann]

Snip

In theory the larger lasers will have longer ranges, but in practice my lasers often seem to keep getting clipped down to particle beam ranges by my fire control range limits.

Damage does drop off fairly quickly.  It is not linear as I just learned so even when a beam weapon like a large laser looks like it has a range much longer than the fire control range limit gives, you still are not doing all that much damage at the maximum beam weapons ranges.  I did a test with the 80cm advanced spinal laser which does 337 damage up close.  With max tech the damage it does at max range (1.4m km) is only 37.  On a linear scale the damage would have been over 300.  This is one of the reasons I said that particle beams still have a place in the beam weapons arena.  They do not have the flexibility that lasers have so they are only good in one area, which is the long range beam area.  Lasers are far more flexible with the ability to use them for point defense as well.

For reference here is the fomula that I was just given for beam weapon drop-of rates.

Code: [Select]

Effective Range (in units of 10k) = Contact Dist / Weapon Range Modifier
If Effective Range < 1 Then Effective Range = 1
Weapon Damage = Round Down (Weapon Damage Output / Effective Range)

One of the main weaknesses normally cited for particle weapons is the lack of flexibility that is present while still costing as much to research.  This is not always true as it is quite easy to stop researching the weapon size while continuing to research the range for particle beams.  This end up giving you the long range light weapons with only 1 major research path to follow.  These light weapons end up doing quite a bit of damage because they are light-weight, which results in a high rate of fire.  Lasers need both the weapon size and range modifiers to get the flexibility that people want.  Mesons are another weapon where this works out as well.  This results in only slightly more research, but gets two weapon systems that are mutually reinforcing.  As a note. most players end up having to research mesons if they want planetary beam weapons because of the effects of atmosphere.

Brian

[Narmio]

Proposed easy solution: Spinal particle beams.

Lets your particle beam tech keep up with your spinal lasers, range-wise.

[Brian Neumann]

Proposed easy solution: Spinal particle beams.

Lets your particle beam tech keep up with your spinal lasers, range-wise.

All for spinal weapons being applied to all beam weapons.  I don't think anyone would want to bother to use them for mesons or microwave beams but the others could all benefit from the technology.

In fact I would like to see something added to spinal weapons.  For a regular spinal weapon add 1 to the weapon range modifier, and for the advanced spinal's add 2 to the weapon range modifier.  This would make them more effective at range without a lot of tinkering.  For carronades it would almost double the range they can be used at.  Railguns would get a smaller improvement as would lasers.  Particle beams would not be effected as their damage is constant.  Mesons and HPM's would also get a small boost to range, but no increase in damage.

Brian

[Vandermeer]

But if you give out extra range for any reason, then either will the effect wear of with higher tech grades, or some beam weapons and the spinal mounts will eventually break light speed.
Right now everything is set up so that at maximum tech you exactly hit that barrier.

[Brian Neumann]

But if you give out extra range for any reason, then either will the effect wear of with higher tech grades, or some beam weapons and the spinal mounts will eventually break light speed.
Right now everything is set up so that at maximum tech you exactly hit that barrier.

I am not suggesting going beyond the range of the fire control, which is what limits beam weapons to light speed, just making spinal mounts more accurate at their longer ranges.  Something on the order of an extra 10% or so of accuracy.  Currently if you are firing at max range's the chance to hit is very low (down to 1%)  If the spinal weapons get a flat bonus to this then they open up some new possibilities (say 10% minimum).  This would make firing at long range more appealing to a player without making a huge difference overall.  The actual range would still be limited to your fire control, the damage would still drop off fairly quickly at range as well.  Using the max tech example above the damage difference would be 28 points currently vs. 33 points with my modification.  This is not a big difference, and there would be more of a spread at closer ranges as well.  The damage however would not go above the base damage that exists currently.  The main difference would be that at a range of 1.4m km I would think about taking my first shot as I would have a 10-12% hit chance vs. a 1-2% chance.

This is a very complicated game where the fun is having lots of different design choices.  If this is fairly easy to code then I think it would be an advantage.  If however it is hard to code in then the results are not worth the work.  Ultimately this is a choice for Steve to make.  The more we talk about an option and the better refined it gets, the more likely he is to follow up with it, if he likes it in the first place.

Brian

[Barkhorn]

Really I don't see the problem with having lasers be faster than light.  Yeah, it's unrealistic given the Theory of Relativity, but nothing else in the game follows Relativistic physics.  It's not that hard to get missiles, or even ships up to a significant fraction of c, yet my ships and missiles don't get heavier at higher speeds.  I can communicate in real time with aliens who aren't even in the same system as me.  Enemy beam weapons don't hurt more if I am moving towards them.

[Wolfius]

Really I don't see the problem with having lasers be faster than light.  Yeah, it's unrealistic given the Theory of Relativity, but nothing else in the game follows Relativistic physics.  It's not that hard to get missiles, or even ships up to a significant fraction of c, yet my ships and missiles don't get heavier at higher speeds.  I can communicate in real time with aliens who aren't even in the same system as me.  Enemy beam weapons don't hurt more if I am moving towards them.

Missiles are capped at lightspeed, too(no, the design wasn't practical. Also a few versions back). And presumably so would ships.

The rest actually makes sense for an inertialess drive(and would explain why kinetic kill missiles aren't a thing and ramming does so little damage), which Trans-Newtonian engines seem to be, in terms of function and the idea of trans-newtonian mechanics(with matching real velocities handwaved; presumably there's an inertial drive mode or something with much lower performance, or they just loiter in the gravity well or something). Well, except for FTL communications, but that's something rather different than FTL beam weapons. FTL beam weapons would probably be their own technology, possibly an exotic one you have to discover before you can research it, assuming super-long-range beam weapons were desirable from a game design perspective.

[Brian Neumann]

Currently what actually limits beam weapon range is the fire control.  There are lots of weapons that if you check the design screen have a theoretical range greater than 5 light seconds.  All of them are limited by the fire control which does not exceed the 5 light second range.

Brian