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[Shooer]

Wait, is that a more recent change that I missed? Because I recall doing damage testing way back when and I remember seeing perfect single-row columns through 9+ layers of armor.

It's been like that since I started playing back in... version 5.

[Cormack]

After like 50 years in the game one 1 day turn takes about 8 minutes to resolve. How is one supposed to play this game??!

[Flying Dice]

1. How many NPRs did you spawn at start?

2. Whenever I get to that point I usually process turns in the background while I work/read/whatever.

[Cormack]

1. How many NPRs did you spawn at start?

2. Whenever I get to that point I usually process turns in the background while I work/read/whatever.

1. One

[Insanegame27]

*Insane cradles his particle beam destroyers*
Hush now its alright, lasers and railguns always get all the attention. But you know better, don't you, particle beam... oh yes you do... No damage drop at range... shhh, it's okay.

[Bremen]

*Insane cradles his particle beam destroyers*
Hush now its alright, lasers and railguns always get all the attention. But you know better, don't you, particle beam... oh yes you do... No damage drop at range... shhh, it's okay.

I actually think particle beams could be pretty awesome with the right design. You'd just need to have the speed advantage, since they're massively more powerful than anything else at longish-medium range but weaker elsewhere.

I had a game where I was going to use parasite cruisers (basically like fighters, but ~10,000 tons) and they were going to be particle beam armed to take advantage of their high speed from being carrier launched. Unfortunately I never got that far in that campaign.

[Flying Dice]

Okay, about to run some laser damage tests. 100 layers of armor on the targets, all lasers used are Far X-Ray, and firing will be conducted at point-blank range if you want to replicate.

If we're leading with the assumption that it's not pure single-column, I don't think it'll be pyramiding like missiles, despite what's been claimed--that sort of loss of internal damage doesn't match my experiences. I'm expecting to see something more along the lines of an isosceles triangle, with a single-column spearhead several layers deeper than the rest of the damage, with the column widening to three, five, &c. wide as damage increases.

Spoiler: 10cm, 3 damage (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: 12cm, 4 damage (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: 15cm, 6 damage (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: 20cm, 10 damage (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: 25cm, 16 damage (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: 30cm, 24 damage (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: 35cm, 32 damage (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: 40cm, 42 damage (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: 60cm, 94 damage (click to show/hide)

As predicted, it's not pyramiding--you're gaining, on average, ~3 layers of penetration for every two blocks of spread, assuming efficient allocation of damage (that is, hitting a damage number right before the next spread point, which only the 10cm here did). This model is markedly superior to the missile spread, you have a lot less wasted damage. Just as with missiles there are sweet-spot damage numbers, but they relate to penetration efficiency in a slightly different way.

We know that missiles are perfect step-pyramids wherever possible, you only ever get one additional layer of penetration per two additional columns of width. With how the laser damage is applied (call it the Empire State Building spread or whatever), each two columns of spread can get you anywhere from one to four additional layers of penetration. I'd also hazard a guess that at extremely high damage numbers you might see even better ratios of depth-to-width, but for the most part nothing you shoot will have enough armor for that to matter.

However, the inconsistency of laser damage (due both to the player's inability to directly manipulate it as you can with missiles and the range falloff) means that trying to optimize laser damage seems to be mostly pointless, even if there turns out to be a neat set of optimal values.

Now that I've got a test game set up again, I might run some more damage model tests to refresh my memory. If you want to see anything in particular, let me know.

[Bremen]

As predicted, it's not pyramiding--you're gaining, on average, ~3 layers of penetration for every two blocks of spread, assuming efficient allocation of damage (that is, hitting a damage number right before the next spread point, which only the 10cm here did). This model is markedly superior to the missile spread, you have a lot less wasted damage. Just as with missiles there are sweet-spot damage numbers, but they relate to penetration efficiency in a slightly different way.

It's still pyramiding, it's just a steeper pyramid than missiles. This is what everyone's been saying (several actually posted pictures that match yours). You're also correct that the damage template grows slightly steeper at very high damage levels.

It's worth pointing out that armor values in excess of 20 or 30 are quite feasible in Aurora, so it is entirely possible to block a 200 point laser shot with armor (though the shock damage would be crazy). It's still going to be far, far better at armor penetration than missiles or any other weapon except particle lances would be.

[Rolepgeek]

Also

Shields are a thing

[RAM]

If you want to see anything in particular, let me know.

It'd be nice to see some armour-stripping data. Maybe some tests on the penetrating damage from a specific weapon to an opponent whose armour has narrow-but-deep holes compared to one with wide-but-shallow holes?

[Flying Dice]

If you want to see anything in particular, let me know.

It'd be nice to see some armour-stripping data. Maybe some tests on the penetrating damage from a specific weapon to an opponent whose armour has narrow-but-deep holes compared to one with wide-but-shallow holes?

Any specific weapons? I'm actually curious about this myself, to see how damage is distributed from a big hit landing on the side of a deep gouge. I'll run a few right now to see how it shakes out.

As predicted, it's not pyramiding--you're gaining, on average, ~3 layers of penetration for every two blocks of spread, assuming efficient allocation of damage (that is, hitting a damage number right before the next spread point, which only the 10cm here did). This model is markedly superior to the missile spread, you have a lot less wasted damage. Just as with missiles there are sweet-spot damage numbers, but they relate to penetration efficiency in a slightly different way.

It's still pyramiding, it's just a steeper pyramid than missiles. This is what everyone's been saying (several actually posted pictures that match yours). You're also correct that the damage template grows slightly steeper at very high damage levels.

It's worth pointing out that armor values in excess of 20 or 30 are quite feasible in Aurora, so it is entirely possible to block a 200 point laser shot with armor (though the shock damage would be crazy). It's still going to be far, far better at armor penetration than missiles or any other weapon except particle lances would be.

Eh. When I say pyramiding, I'm talking about shapes that actually resemble pyramids--that is, something approximating an even ratio between height and 1/2 base width. It's a steep enough slope with lasers that implicitly linking it to missile damage patterns is kinda misleading.

And yeah, really thick armor is feasible, but that doesn't mean that you're going to actually run into ships like that. I think some Invaders get that thick, but apart from that the only place you'd be likely to see it would be in a PvP scenario. Can't say I've ever seen one of those reach the point of actual combat.  So honestly, being able to punch through 15 layers is probably all you'll ever need short of dealing with Invaders, and you'll be plastering them with hundreds of missiles.

[Flying Dice]

Aaand point proven, shock damage can go fuck itself. All the target ships much below 100k tons were getting one-shotted by that 60cm laser. Here's the only overlapping shot I've had so far, looks like a pretty close one too. Original hole is on the left.



Went from 11 at the base to 16, a widening of +5. This held throughout the entire damage profile up until the point where it pierced untouched layers, at which point it opened that two-high four-wide hole on top of an extension of the previous deepest tier of the gouge.

So it looks like overlapping fire from lasers is going to tend to widen more than deepen--it gained +5 tiles of width but only +3 of depth. However, it's also pretty clearly widening the deepest points by more than the single-shot damage model might suggest. That is, more of the damage is being transmitted deeper, but not as much as we might expect from firing a weapon into a hole of its own making (though some of the shallower spread could be due to where it impacted, and there's not really an effective way to identify that).

This seems to support both the up-sizing of lasers by the 5-second standard and the use of a main spinal mount alongside smaller weapons. In both cases, a deeper initial penetration means that additional overlapping hits will have greater potential internal penetration than their standalone damage profile indicates.

That said, what clearly isn't happening is simply reapplying the same damage profile, except starting from the point of impact, which I was a bit worried about, since it would trend toward either massive wasting of damage or too much penetration for the value of the shot.

[Bremen]

That said, what clearly isn't happening is simply reapplying the same damage profile, except starting from the point of impact, which I was a bit worried about, since it would trend toward either massive wasting of damage or too much penetration for the value of the shot.

It just applies the same damage to each armor column, moving downward. A single hit does 1-5-8-11-14-16-14-11-8-5-1 armor damage, and in that picture two identical hits impacted the armor 5 blocks off. So:

Code: [Select]

1 5 8 11 14 16 14 11 8  5  1
+           1  5  8  11 14 16 14 11 8 5 1
_________________________________________
1 5 8 11 14 17 19 19 19 19 17 14 11 8 5 1
So if you got super lucky and hit the bottom of the first crater dead on with a second laser blast, you'd end up penetrating 32 armor layers (or more likely, penetrating all their armor and hitting internals).

[Culise]

Eh. When I say pyramiding, I'm talking about shapes that actually resemble pyramids--that is, something approximating an even ratio between height and 1/2 base width. It's a steep enough slope with lasers that implicitly linking it to missile damage patterns is kinda misleading.

Ah.  Think geometric pyramids seen from the side (so, err, triangles), not ancient large structures called pyramids, of which a particularly famous subset happened to follow that ratio due to a convenient balance of stability and footprint.  I'm afraid I'm a bit confused on what's misleading about stating that lasers may penetrate much more than missiles, but still have splash effects to the sides. 

Though, since it is a somewhat interesting digression, you should take a look at Nubian pyramids sometime.  Egyptians weren't the be-all and end-all of pyramid construction; Nubians built much steeper ones.  They're actually kinda neat, though I'm probably a bit weird that way. 

[Flying Dice]

I meant that lasers penetrate significantly more layers of armor for each step of horizontal spread when compared to lasers. If you describe both in the same terms, it gives off the impression that they have the same or a very similar damage model, which isn't true.

We both understand what's meant, but that's because we already have an implicit understanding of how the damage is modeled. Calling them both triangular would be better, honestly, given that it's not as narrow. (As an aside, I was thinking more about Mayan pyramids, they're an even more evocative comparison given their stepped nature.)

That said, what clearly isn't happening is simply reapplying the same damage profile, except starting from the point of impact, which I was a bit worried about, since it would trend toward either massive wasting of damage or too much penetration for the value of the shot.

It just applies the same damage to each armor column, moving downward. A single hit does 1-5-8-11-14-16-14-11-8-5-1 armor damage, and in that picture two identical hits impacted the armor 5 blocks off. So:

Code: [Select]

1 5 8 11 14 16 14 11 8  5  1
+           1  5  8  11 14 16 14 11 8 5 1
_________________________________________
1 5 8 11 14 17 19 19 19 19 17 14 11 8 5 1
So if you got super lucky and hit the bottom of the first crater dead on with a second laser blast, you'd end up penetrating 32 armor layers (or more likely, penetrating all their armor and hitting internals).

Yeah, that's what I was getting at. I didn't think it would, but I was slightly curious about whether it might treat new impacts more literally (or game-y, if you like), by applying the same damage profile over the tiles where it would have hit and simply ignoring damage points in already destroyed tiles. Thankfully it doesn't.