First Guns

[Jumpp (OP)]

So the gauss guns work great.  I'm building lots more of those.

Next up: Ship-killer guns.  Having read up a bit on the wiki, I'm torn between lasers and particle beams.  Very soon I'll have whichever drives come after ICF, and I'll have no trouble getting warships of the size that I typically build (8,000 or 16,000 tons) to do a bit more than 10,000 kps.

So I'm wondering which might be the best way to go:

Particle Beams: My warships are faster than anything any enemy is using.  I can dictate range, and expect to be able to dictate range for the forseeable future.  Given that, particle beams seem like a good idea since I'd be able to keep the engagement distance in the sweet spot where particle beams have better damage than lasers.

Lasers: On the other hand, particle beams are useless at point defense because you can't fit them to turrets.  Maybe it's a smarter investment to go with a dual-use technology like lasers?

Something else: Maybe one of the other guns would be an even better idea and I'm overlooking it?

My broad strategic situation is this: I have conquered three NPRs and have largely subdued a fourth.  There's at least one more out there somewhere.  (I use the SM "create NPR" button to ensure that there are always at least two extant NPRs.)  I haven't encountered significant precursor forces, and I've so far found no trace at all of the swarm.  I've got more shipyard capacity than I need at the moment, mostly clustered around 20,000 and 10,000 tons of capacity.

I've got tons of cash on hand and am running large surpluses.  I'm a little bit low on tritanium, but stocks of all the other minerals are plentiful.

Anyone got suggestions?

[draanyk]

At high tech levels, my experience has been that beam weapons are too large for the damage they can actually deliver at extended range. I've moved to mesons, although I haven't tried particle beams yet. Mesons are just nasty... every hit is robbing the enemy of components, and it doesn't take too many salvos to defeat a target. You can also fit more of them on your ship in the same space that you can fit a laser, and since they only do 1 damage, your only concern with regard to range is can you successfully hit. Better yet, at high tech levels, mesons are FAST. My assault mesons and my PD mesons both fire every 5 seconds, while heavy lasers were up around 30 or 35 seconds, I think. Because the PD fire control is so ridiculously expensive (4x range and 4x speed), I specialize my PD ships and my assault ships.

[Conscript Gary]

If you've already got good gauss for point defense work, particle beams are certainly solidly dedicated anti-ship.
Not to mention that if your ships will be pushing 10k km/s so will the effective tracking speed of their spinal guns

[Charlie Beeler]

At high tech levels, my experience has been that beam weapons are too large for the damage they can actually deliver at extended range. I've moved to mesons, although I haven't tried particle beams yet. Mesons are just nasty... every hit is robbing the enemy of components, and it doesn't take too many salvos to defeat a target. You can also fit more of them on your ship in the same space that you can fit a laser, and since they only do 1 damage, your only concern with regard to range is can you successfully hit. Better yet, at high tech levels, mesons are FAST. My assault mesons and my PD mesons both fire every 5 seconds, while heavy lasers were up around 30 or 35 seconds, I think. Because the PD fire control is so ridiculously expensive (4x range and 4x speed), I specialize my PD ships and my assault ships.

There are several things wrong here.  

But first I do agree that Meson cannons have a good advantage in bypassing armor and shields.  

First issue is that all beam weapons have the same hs progression with one exception, Gauss Cannons have fixed sizes.  So as long as the same focal size is selected lasers, mesons, particle beams, etc have the same size requirement.

Nor do mesons cycle faster than lasers, they have the same power requirement per focal size.  The only way to increase the ROF is to use larger capacitors and have the powerplants to feed them.  

Once your beam fire control range base tech is at least 50%/32,000km (4the level) you really don't get much advantage for the range multiplier if your only using final fire settings for PD.  At that tech there is only a 12% difference between std range and 4X range and 10k/km (84% vs 96%).  And the spread shrinks with each successive tech advance.  


Jumpp,

My advice is not to go with the particle beams.  The reason being their range does not keep up with fire control ranges at the same tech research expenditure.  

Example:

Beam Fire Control 50% Range 32,000 km  is 4th level and a total of 14k research points.
Capacitor Recharge Rate 4 is 4th level and a total of 14k research points.

4th level laser is:
-20cm Laser Focal Size total of 14k research points.  Does 10pts damage at 10k and require 10 points of power.
-Ultraviolet Laser total of 14k research points.

for a weapon with a max range of 400k/km (limited back to 256k/km by fire control) with ROF of 15 (capacitor 3, 4 does nothing to improve ROF) and does 4 points of damage at max range with a base tohit of 2% at that range.



4th level particle beam is:
-Particle Beam Strength 4 total of 12k research points. (actually 3rd level but functionally the same research expenditure).  Does 4pts damage at all ranges and require 10 points of power.
-Particle Beam Range 200k/km total of 14k research points.

for a weapon with a max range of 200k/km (less than fire control max range) with a ROF of 15 (capacitor 3, 4 does nothing to improve ROF) and does 4 points of damage at max range with a base tohit of 22% at that range.

note: the above laser does 6pts of damage at 200k/km with a base tohit of 22%.

For ship killers you're still better off with missles.

[SteelChicken]

It took me a while to figure out how the point defense mode stuff works.  I still haven't played with auto-missile firing yet.  (Is that area defense mode for AMM ships?)    I tried it a few times and it seemed very wasteful.  Is there a write up or FAQ about that?

As mentioned layered approaches work best.  Most ships get a CIWS.  My bigger carriers? 2 or more.   Missile Cruisers get them as well.  Ships with lots of beams? I generally use the space for other things.   If I have 3 or 4 gauss ships in a fleet, each ship could get an extra gauss turret that can be used on ALL incoming missiles instead of 3-4 CIWS that do nothing most rounds.

Layers:
CIWS - for most ships.
(what I call frigates) - small, nothing but gauss turrets, dedicated missile sweeper, all set to final fire
(what I call destroyers), larger, if early tech, some gauss turrets, long range laser for ship to ship and to whittle missiles down
(late tech destroyers), All laser.  Long range laser for anti ship and whittling missiles (area defense) and then a small faster RoF laser turrets set to final fire or close anti-ship work
Missile Cruisers, whittles down large salvos with AMM's.

If one or two missiles get through, it don't matter as most of ships carry a few shield generators.

I use mesons for PDC's only, as I find them too overpowered for ship to ship. 

[Jumpp (OP)]

Thanks very much for these replies.  They're exactly the sort of thing I was hoping for.

"For ship killers you're still better off with missiles."

Oh, I know it.  But keeping those beasts supplied is killing me.

[SteelChicken]

Thanks very much for these replies.  They're exactly the sort of thing I was hoping for.

"For ship killers you're still better off with missiles."

Oh, I know it.  But keeping those beasts supplied is killing me.

There are certain spoilers that like to cache supplies of missiles around small moons and such.   Steal 'em!

[Mel Vixen]

If you need a strong PD role i would go with railguns. The multiple shots (4) give them a edge in PD because the chance to hit something (per salvo) is higher. Initialy i use a Flying brick with 10 Rails for area defence and two gaus-turrets for final PD.

[Jorgen_CAB]

When it comes to which ever is best between Particle Beams and Lasers I like them booth because they both have their uses. Particle beams are quite useful because they are more flexible when designing depending on the tech levels that you have. For example, the range tech for beams does not increase the power requirement or the size of the beam, it is only the strength of the beam that influence that. On a laser the focal tech changes both range and damage.

A 20cm UV laser deals 10 damage at 40k, 4 damage at 100k, 2 damage at 200k and 1 damage at 250k and above. The Particle beam does 4 damage from 10k - 200k range

Personally I like to research both techs if I can with a preference for lasers most of the time. I put heavy lasers on slower ships and particle beams on faster ships.

The Particle beam is a very good weapon if you can keep a distance while lasers are brutal at closer ranges. I also think that Particle beams cut deeper into the armour matrix and that way also have a slight advantage over a laser beam, I'm not entirely sure exactly how the particle beam cuts through armour versus lasers. Lasers can also be problematic if you fight against a heavily shielded opponent that have lethal beam weapons at closer ranges and you need to stay at extreme range to snipe at them, shields can be very sturdy when you do low amounts of damage.

As with anything else in this game almost everything is useful to some degree. Some are overall better but not always so. Overall Lasers are better in my opinion because they can be turreted as well as used as long range area-defence and ship killers. Particle beams are more one sided.

[Conscript Gary]

Lasers have the best armor penetration I believe, particle beams are steeper than missiles but still lsoped

[draanyk]

First issue is that all beam weapons have the same hs progression with one exception, Gauss Cannons have fixed sizes.  So as long as the same focal size is selected lasers, mesons, particle beams, etc have the same size requirement.

Nor do mesons cycle faster than lasers, they have the same power requirement per focal size.  The only way to increase the ROF is to use larger capacitors and have the powerplants to feed them.  

Thanks for providing extra detail. I wasn't as clear as I could have been.

Since mesons only do one damage over their range, and that damage doesn't reduce with range, you don't need a large focal length. You can restrict the weapon range to 1.44Mkm, since that's the best our beam fire control can do. This gives you a smaller focal size, and therefore faster cycling and smaller size. With a laser, however, restricting it's range to 1.44Mkm brings it's damage down to 0 at that range. To maintain decent power at range, I use a larger focal size, giving slower cycling and larger size. My quad meson turrets are usually around 29HS with a 5 second cycle, while my quad laser turret comes in at something like 130HS with a 30 or 35 second cycle. I'm not positive on the numbers since I don't have a save with these techs available, but the relative sizes support my point.

In any given fleet, I'll have 3-5 point defense meson ships with a 1.44Mkm range set to area defence (each ship has around 15-25 PD meson cannons in various turret configurations). With the 5 second cycling, and again at high tech levels, I have yet to see anything get within ~800k of my fleets. Further experience may change this, but this mix has served me well so far.

[strych90]

I have only recently started using weapons other than CIWS and missiles, and these discussions are helping me a lot in learning more about my options, so thanks guys ^^

[Charlie Beeler]

A 20cm UV laser deals 10 damage at 40k, 4 damage at 100k, 2 damage at 200k and 1 damage at 250k and above. The Particle beam does 4 damage from 10k - 200k range

Not sure where you drew those data points from but they are mostly incorrect.

Yes the 20cm UV lasers does 10pts at 40k/km.  But the rest of the damage/range figures are: 9pts 50-80k/km, 8pts 90-120k/km, 7pts 130-160k/km, 6pts 170-200k/km, etc.  Damage doesn't drop to 1pt until 370k/km.

Thanks for providing extra detail. I wasn't as clear as I could have been.

Since mesons only do one damage over their range, and that damage doesn't reduce with range, you don't need a large focal length. You can restrict the weapon range to 1.44Mkm, since that's the best our beam fire control can do. This gives you a smaller focal size, and therefore faster cycling and smaller size. With a laser, however, restricting it's range to 1.44Mkm brings it's damage down to 0 at that range. To maintain decent power at range, I use a larger focal size, giving slower cycling and larger size. My quad meson turrets are usually around 29HS with a 5 second cycle, while my quad laser turret comes in at something like 130HS with a 30 or 35 second cycle. I'm not positive on the numbers since I don't have a save with these techs available, but the relative sizes support my point.

In any given fleet, I'll have 3-5 point defense meson ships with a 1.44Mkm range set to area defence (each ship has around 15-25 PD meson cannons in various turret configurations). With the 5 second cycling, and again at high tech levels, I have yet to see anything get within ~800k of my fleets. Further experience may change this, but this mix has served me well so far.

First a significant stipulation, the original poster appears to be inquiring about early tech beams not high tech systems.


That being said, to achieve a usable beam range of 1.4m/km you have to use a max tech BFC. 

The smallest laser with that range is a 30cm/Soft X-Ray which actually still does 1pt and is 9hs.

The smallest meson with that range is a 30cm/focusing tech 12(max tech) tech is also 9hs.

Both are the same size and have the same power requirement of 24 and need a max tech capacitor 25 to achieve a ROF of 5.

The smallest quad turret for either is 48.96hs.


Needless to say, if your playing with max tech against AI NPR's built based on a lower player tech assumption (example: start player population of 1.2 billion nets around 300k starting research points) then you should be functionally invulnerable.  But that's not really a good basis replying to Academy questions.  At the vary list stipulate that your reply is based on a max tech environment.

[draanyk]

But that's not really a good basis replying to Academy questions. At the vary list stipulate that your reply is based on a max tech environment.

I believe I did, a couple of times. Regardless, if you're going to invest in a tech line, having a view for the end result is an important consideration, and that was the basis of my response. The reason I go with a larger focal size for lasers is that doing one point of damage at long range still has to go through shields and armor, and so has little impact on internal systems. Based on your numbers, with mesons coming in at the same size and power requirements, they'll ignore shields and armor, both on ships in an assault role, and missiles in a PD role. Hitting internal systems with every hit seems like a more efficient use of combat time than punching through shields and armor.

As for responding to academy questions, is it not reasonable for me to post my experience? Or is that only if we play the game a certain way? I'd certainly not my intention to offend others with how I play this game.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Not sure where you drew those data points from but they are mostly incorrect.

Yes the 20cm UV lasers does 10pts at 40k/km.  But the rest of the damage/range figures are: 9pts 50-80k/km, 8pts 90-120k/km, 7pts 130-160k/km, 6pts 170-200k/km, etc.  Damage doesn't drop to 1pt until 370k/km.

I took my data directly from the game, might be wrong though as you say. But the game tells me what I wrote above or I'm just misstaken.

Here is a direct cut and paste from the game regarding range. Each step of strength versus range is 20000km.

Code: [Select]

20cm C4 Ultraviolet Laser (1)    Range 256,000km     TS: 5000 km/s     Power 10-4     RM 4    ROF 15        10 10 6 5 4 3 2 2 2 2
Particle Beam-4 (1)    Range 200,000km     TS: 5000 km/s     Power 10-4    ROF 15        4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
Laser Fire Control (1)    Max Range: 256,000 km   TS: 5000 km/s     92 84 77 69 61 53 45 37 30 22
**EDIT**

Actually, from looking at the in game numbers damage fall of according to the following formula...

(Max damage * Range Modifier / Range in 10k km) with rounding fractions down.

This gives a 20cm UV Laser:
(10 * 4 / 5) 8 damage at 50.000 km
(10 * 4 / 10) 4 damage at 100.000 km
(10 * 4 / 15) 2 damage at 150.000 km
(10 * 4 / 20) 2 damage at 200.000 km
(10 * 4 / 15) 1 damage at 250.000 km