edit: disclaimer: I've accidentially wrote apm instead of atm for the atmospheric pressure; over the whole threat. Don't let this confuse you.
Original Post:
So, I thought about attacking Planets for a while, and thought I'd come up with some suggestions.
I'm not posting them in the suggestions because I don't want to spoil me anything, I've yet to switch to 5.1. :)
To come to the point;
I've been pondering the effect of different weapon systems on a Planetary surface, effected by Atmosphere, and having side effects like radiation ([i]which I still think serves no practical purpose, but I'll ignore that for now[/i]).
My conclusion was that the limit of 1 apm was rather arbitrary, and one could raise the question why it's just "ONE", aside from the fact that our very planet happens to have that atmospheric pressure on ground level.
So my suggestion would be to change the beam weapon calculation from the [b][i]current damage*(1-apm)[/i][/b], or around that, to the following:
[b]Calculated Range: Actual range +200k*apm ; [/b]
This would be an additional range of 200k fireing through an earthlike atmosphere, excluding point defense weapons from the fight and making it harder to hit, + the damage drop off most beam weapons have. 200k is, of course, again an arbitrary number, but you have to start somewhere.
Additionally, the damage calculation would be [i]damage/((apm^1.2)*1.5).(example)[/i]
Now you could say this is needlessly complex, but it seems like a good start. Actually, it looks like smeg, but read on^^.
Now how I actually came to this wasn't the beam weapons, but the application of real life MIRVs (Multiple Impact Reentry Vehicle).
The idea behind those weapons is that the blast of an explosion diminishes rapidly, around the square root of distance, I think.
As such, to cause maximum damage, the blast is spread over multiple smaller explosions.
The idea here is to treat the planetary surface like Armor, and only the damage to the first column is actually damage to population and industry.
Example:
A Strength 16 Warhead detonates on an unnamed planet.
Damage template is:
[code]x0000000x
xx00000xx
xxx000xxx
xxxx0xxxxIn this example, only 7 damage would actually be applied to the surface, thus drastically reducing the effect of large scale warheads.
However, 5 3pt Warheads from a Mirv would deal the full 15 damage. This encourages building specific weapons for Planetary Bombardments.
As radiation isn't effected by that, I would flat out cut it in half and round it up, so a 25pts warhead would deal 9 surface damage, but deal 12 radiation, a 3 pts warhead would deal 3 surface damage and result in 2 pts of radiation.
This leaves beam weapons, as described above. If they are actually capable of attacking ground targets aswell, they of course need to result in atleast some radiation.
Of course, I personally would disagree, but I've given up on that topic.
After all, it really makes sense, if your shooting Gamma Rays at your enemy, what else is that but pure radiation? The same produced in nuclear explosions, btw.^^
This leaves one tiny problem through:
Attacking a Surface with a Laser would be sort of viable, but given their deep penetrating damage template, it wouldn't actually do much.
Suggestions or ideas on that, or atleast a discussion?
Things to still think about:
- Mines are mostly underground, that would be an application for Lasers etc.
- Is it actually bad that large Lasers would do less damage?
- Could their damage template simply be changed to Torpedo, or could all weapons have a missile damage template against Planets?
- possible exploits with this?
- Should atmosphere thickness influence the surface-damage of missiles (I think not)
To cut the thought process short once again at the end:
The general aim of this suggestion is to encourage players to actually build planetary bombardment weapons, thus increasing the fleet variety and allowing for new tactics.
It also tries to do away with the arbitrary atmospheric limit to beam weapons and instead propose a system with fluid diminishing returns depending on atmosphere thickness.[/code]
What is this Suggestion meant to Achieve:
The goal of this suggestion is to make Orbital Bombardments logistically more demanding, while at the same time more diverse.
Huge missiles would be less effective than small ones, and Beam weapons can be used through thicker atmospheres, but are overall weaker versus planets.
Summary of Proposed Changes:
1.
All Weapons deal "Surface Damage versus Planets, which is the damage they normally do versus the first layer of Armor,
+10% of their total Damage, rounded. Radiation is half the total damage for Missiles and 10% for Beams.
Missile-example:
== WH 3 ==== WH 9 ==== WH 16 ==== WH 25
xxx000xxx xx00000xx x0000000x x000000000x
xxxx0xxxx xxx000xxx xx00000xx xx0000000xx
xxxxxxxxx xxxx0xxxx xxx000xxx xxx00000xxx
3 Dmg _____6 dmg ___ 9 dmg ____ 12 dmg
2 Rad _____ 5 rad ____ 8 rad _____ 13 rad
This makes missiles with warhead strengths below 9 the most cost-efficient versus Planets.
2.
The beam weapon calculation through atmospheres is changed, modifying not only damage, but also effective range.
This allows Beam bombardments through thicker atmospheres, but at the same time reduces their efficiency.
The Range calculation for Beam Weapons would be:
Actual range + (apm/2 + (root apm)/2)*200kThis modifies Accuracy and Damage fall-off of Beam weapons. Mesons receive no penalty.
You may ask why it's so complicated. The reason is that in a linear range penalty, Particle Beams and Plasma Carronades would be unviable after a specific distance, and the limit is just what I'm trying to soften. Also, it would be absolutely marginal on thinner atmospheres, making Carronades UBER in those environments.
The damage when fireing through atmosphere would be changed to:
Damage/1+apm.
Beam-Weapon-Example:
With an atmosphere of 0.2, the range calculation would be:
Actual Range + (0.2 / 2) + (sqrt(0.2) / 2) = 0.323606798*200000km
=Point Blank: 64.721 km distance
=100k away: 164.721 km distance
The Damage Calculation would be:
X/1+0.2.
As such, the actual damage would be divided by 1.2, which is a reduction by 17%.
At various apms, the damage and range penalty would be:
1 => 50% | +200k
2 => 33% | +341k
4 => 20% | +600k
6 => 14.3%| +845k
As the damage is still "surface damage", Most beamweapons will be utterly useless above 5 apm, but if you have nothing else, it's worth a try.
Especially high caliber Lasers can still be used versus PDCs, where the deep penetration will actually hit something.
