PD,PDB and Atmospheres

[backstab (OP)]

Guys,

I understand that Meson weapons are the best PD Beam Weapon to use in an earth like atmosphere.  Can you use others like laser,Guass and railguns or will the atmoshere make them unusable as PD weapons ?
Just wondering before I go building several Laser armed PDB on earth .

[Kurt]

Guys,

I understand that Meson weapons are the best PD Beam Weapon to use in an earth like atmosphere.  Can you use others like laser,Guass and railguns or will the atmoshere make them unusable as PD weapons ?
Just wondering before I go building several Laser armed PDB on earth .

IIRC, non-meson beam weapons suffer degredation in atmosphere.  If the atmosphere is < 1 standard atmosphere, the beam weapon will do reduced damage in relation to the % of a standard atmosphere, if the atmosphere in question is >= 1 standard atmosphere, then the beam weapons will do no damage at all.  

I haven't tested this, but that is the way I remember it.

Kurt

[backstab (OP)]

Thanks for that .... Missiles and Meson it is then

One more question..... if I mount a PD weapon in a Def Sat, will it be able to intercept missiles lanched inside the atmosphere at your colony ?

[Steve Walmsley]

Thanks for that .... Missiles and Meson it is then

One more question..... if I mount a PD weapon in a Def Sat, will it be able to intercept missiles lanched inside the atmosphere at your colony ?

Yes. You can either target them manually or set the fire control up for point blank defence. When set for point blank defensive fire, ships will attempt to protect any nearby ships, populations, shipyards and ground forces that come under attack. In v4.1, ships of allied races set up for PBDF will also intercept hostile missiles heading for your ships, pops, etc..

Steve

[Brian Neumann]

Kurt is correct that non meson weapons are degraded in atmosphere.  If the atmosphere is 1atm or greater then they will do no damage at all.  If it is under 1atm then the damage done will be reduced by the percent of atmosphere present.  If the atmosphere is .75 atm then any weapon firing into or out of the atmosphere will have it's damage divided by 4.  If the weapon does not do 4 points of damage then it is totally absorbed by the atmosphere and has no effect.

Brian

[Thiosk]

Since Meson can penetrate atmosphere, how effective are they at attacking ground forces?  Are there any collatoral damage considerations a Meson bomber would encounter?

[Panopticon]

I tried attacking ground forces with Mesons recently, they are ineffective and do zero damage to either ground forces or facilities.

[ollobrains]

Id go with ground troop invasion and missiles for invasions

[Thiosk]

I was just wondering.  I plan on a beam-only approach for my next game (my missile armed fleet is downright oppressive now).

I suppose if I must bomb planetary installations, I believe steve set it so a missile with nothing in engine could still hit a stationary target, so a 5 second fall from orbit launch in orbit to collision.

I think such bombing would fit well in a beam only game.

[ollobrains]

Kinetic energy rod bombs from orbit yeah that fits in well with real world science to