Energy vs Ballistic

[Daekeyas]

I was curious why the choice was made for Ballistic to be short range and Energy weapons to have a longer range.

My gut understanding is that it would be harder to project energy further, while in space nothing wears away at a physical objects force. While you'd really have to lead a target space ships don't turn on a dime.

Thus I think there was game play considerations involved & I'd love to hear what they were. The design decisions &/or the game-play experience involved is fascinating to me.

Pls understand I'm not criticizing I'm really just curious to know more about how one gets from a to b in such design decisions.

Thanks for your time

 

[Milten]

I was curious why the choice was made for Ballistic to be short range and Energy weapons to have a longer range.

Ballistic is easier to evade from long distance. At leas as I imagine it.

 

[BogMod]

Like you said it probably has to do with the issue over leading. They don't turn on a dime but at vast ranges a small change in velocity causes a miss so the weapons become viable only at shorter ranges while the much much faster energy weapons don't have that same issue.

 

[wingren013]

I was curious why the choice was made for Ballistic to be short range and Energy weapons to have a longer range.

My gut understanding is that it would be harder to project energy further, while in space nothing wears away at a physical objects force. While you'd really have to lead a target space ships don't turn on a dime.

Thus I think there was game play considerations involved & I'd love to hear what they were. The design decisions &/or the game-play experience involved is fascinating to me.

Pls understand I'm not criticizing I'm really just curious to know more about how one gets from a to b in such design decisions.

Thanks for your time

There is no blooming in space. (well there is but its really really tiny) A laser would effectively have infinite range.

 

[Hamof]

There is no blooming in space. (well there is but its really really tiny) A laser would effectively have infinite range.

Except that it would be nearly impossible to make it so that the laser didn't spread over distance, it would probably go from a lot of energy in a few milimeters at the point it was fired to being spread over several kilometers with very little energy actually impacting the target. The issue isn't getting the laser to reach that distance, it's having it still be focused once it gets to that distance. Projectile weapons on the other hand, would have effectively limitless range assuming the target doesn't change it's speed in any way, but the instance the target changes it's course even slightly, your probably going to miss. Missile would have less possible range but with the capacity for in flight guidance would be far more likely to hit.

And I just described the mechanics of Aurora 4x.
Where lasers are for mounting on fighters or using to shoot down fighters and missiles.
Cannons are for mounting on fighters, using to shoot down missiles, or shooting at enemies that are at a moderate distance, and missiles are for shooting down fighters and missiles, or shooting at enemies that are at any range. (Missiles having the disadvantage of limited ammunition and complex design.)

 

[Kensai7]

Except that it would be nearly impossible to make it so that the laser didn't spread over distance

Lasers are not supposed to spread, by definition. They are parallel beams of photons.

 

[The_Meme_Man]

Isn't there a minute amount of friction in space anyway?

 

[milamber81]

Well, I could imagine the in-game explanation that ballistic weapons move with, let's say 2/3 of light-speed while energy weapons use light-speed. So it may be more difficult to project the beam, but your opponent will have a much harder time to evade it than the ballistic projectile. Especially regarding the fact, that, when he sees the beam, he already got hit. While he still may have some seconds to evade the projectile.
And in space it's irrelevant if the projectile misses your outer shield for some millimetres or if for some hundred meters. So those seconds could be enough. And that would make ballistic weapons more suitable for close combat.

And out-game reasons? Well, I guess twitching energy beams give a far more impressive view than almost not noticeable projectiles. Especially when the fleets are still far away from each other...
At least those are my two cents...

 

[Hamof]

Lasers are not supposed to spread, by definition. They are parallel beams of photons.

Well I remember the guys at the Aurora 4x forum talking about dispersion and stuff, an example being a laser somewhere that was fired at the moon and hit a 4 meter area rather than however wide the laser was. (This may have been a thought experiment.) And that forum is filled with people who actually do know this stuff, it takes a very intelligent person to get into Aurora.

 

[Surge72]

In this thread: Self proclaimed subject matter experts in high energy laser physics.

 

[Pshek]

Laser have speed of light, any mass driver or rocket - no. If you wand to attack enemy at space distance you prefer more "fast" type of weapons to hit enemy, before they are moved.

Well I remember the guys at the Aurora 4x forum talking about dispersion and stuff, an example being a laser somewhere that was fired at the moon and hit a 4 meter area rather than however wide the laser was. (This may have been a thought experiment.) And that forum is filled with people who actually do know this stuff, it takes a very intelligent person to get into Aurora.

Maybe they fire from Earth? Atmosphere is not vacuum. Lasers is very presise thing.

 

[Hamof]

Laser have speed of light, any mass driver or rocket - no. If you wand to attack enemy at space distance you prefer more "fast" type of weapons to hit enemy, before they are moved.


Maybe they fire from Earth? Atmosphere is not vacuum. Lasers is very presise thing.

Thing is you're going to be shooting at targets that are potentially billions of kilometers away, even at the speed of light it's going to take a while to hit a target that far away. And if they even twitch of whatever course you thought they were going to be at when you fired then you're going to miss. A missile on the other hand can adjust en-route, but it will still miss if the target is faster than they can adjust for.

 

[Hamof]

In this thread: Self proclaimed subject matter experts in high energy laser physics.

Not in the slightest, I don't know anything other than what I've read on forums.

 

[cedi]

Soo, why not launch missiles through a massdriver and activate their burn phase once they get within a certain range of a ship. That should combine the near infinite range of ballistic weapons with the accuracy of missiles.

 

[VI Imre]

Ballistic is easier to evade from long distance. At leas as I imagine it.

One thing Aurora 4x thought me is that the speed of light is very much a hard barrier. Space battles are fought several millions of kilometers in distance and constantly moving ships can avoid both projectile weapons and energy based weapons with ease. Fast calculation, one ship fires a beam at other ship 10 million km away or in other words about 1/5th of the Earth-Mars min distance, the beam will take 33 seconds cruise through this distance. Now if the other ship can accelerate with one G (10 m/s^2) freely, using random acceleration levels it has almost the same chances for the first ship to hit the second as a pulsar hitting Earth. Basically warfare using beam weapons further than 1 light second away becomes impossible exponentially. And ballistic weapons traveling at sublight speeds are hilarious.

The weapon that is only really viable for relativistic distance warfare is AI guided missile.

 

[Pshek]

Thing is you're going to be shooting at targets that are potentially billions of kilometers away, even at the speed of light it's going to take a while to hit a target that far away. And if they even twitch of whatever course you thought they were going to be at when you fired then you're going to miss. A missile on the other hand can adjust en-route, but it will still miss if the target is faster than they can adjust for.

I think nobody will fight on billions of km distances On millions km it takes seconds or less(3*10^8)

And... For the time rocket is flying this distances... Enemy can conquer your empire) Space really need energy weapons.

They could be destroyed in way of course

Soo, why not launch missiles through a massdriver and activate their burn phase once they get within a certain range of a ship. That should combine the near infinite range of ballistic weapons with the accuracy of missiles.

Space bolters confirmed

 

[Ixal]

Lasers are not supposed to spread, by definition. They are parallel beams of photons.

Thats not how it works. Every laser has to be focused as, at least with our technology and understanding, it is impossible to project completely parallel beams of light. And compared to the infinite range of ballistics, the distance in which lasers can still be focused is rather low.

 

[Daetrin]

Beam divergence is a thing intrinsic to EM going through an aperture. You literally can't make it not happen. Over millions of kilometers (Earth to Moon distances, let's say) you can go from "can punch through six meters of carbon steel at one kilometer" power to "not quite a flashlight" power.

E: Found it: theoretical divergence minimum half-angle is wavelength/(pi*beam waist)

 

[Hamof]

I think nobody will fight on billions of km distances On millions km it takes seconds or less(3*10^8)

And... For the time rocket is flying this distances... Enemy can conquer your empire) Space really need energy weapons.

They could be destroyed in way of course

Well I am basing this on a series that used "Transnewtonian" materials for a lot of things, these were missiles fully capable of accelerating to thousands of kilometers per second independently of the mothership. (Although they did have a cap on their speed, transnewtonian remember? It's not all good.) It would still take them hours to cross those billions of kilometers, but they would presumably do it much faster than the ship they were fired from would, and a laser or projectile weapon would be completely useless at that range.

 

[Cruxador]

Lasers are not supposed to spread, by definition. They are parallel beams of photons.

Yeah, but over the distances we're talking about here they'd have to be perfectly parallel. Perfection is pretty hard to achieve.

Soo, why not launch missiles through a massdriver and activate their burn phase once they get within a certain range of a ship. That should combine the near infinite range of ballistic weapons with the accuracy of missiles.

That still makes it expensive as a missile though.