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[Flying Dice]

Changelog. SO MANY GREAT THINGS. <3

[TwilightWalker]

Spinal lasers! Now I can truely make Honorverse-style LACs! This patch looks awesome.

[dennislp3]

Ha it's like I jinxed it...in a good way

[My Name is Immaterial]

What's a spinal laser?

[Flying Dice]

What's a spinal laser?

A laser (or railgun, particle cannon, etc. later in development) that is aligned with the center-line of a ship, the ship's "spine", rather than being mounted elsewhere. Basically, it's the sort of weapon that runs through the core of a ship instead of an external or near-external mount. Typically they're larger weapons than an equivalent surface-mount, but are obviously limited to only being aimed at a single point directly ahead of the ship, instead of being turreted or having a limited angle of traverse.

[My Name is Immaterial]

What's a spinal laser?

A laser (or railgun, particle cannon, etc. later in development) that is aligned with the center-line of a ship, the ship's "spine", rather than being mounted elsewhere. Basically, it's the sort of weapon that runs through the core of a ship instead of an external or near-external mount. Typically they're larger weapons than an equivalent surface-mount, but are obviously limited to only being aimed at a single point directly ahead of the ship, instead of being turreted or having a limited angle of traverse.

I guessed as much but still,

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

HOLY SHIT, THAT'S FUCKING AWESOME!!!!!!!!

[FireCrazy]

Hey, I just found some sort of anomaly alien ruin thing in the new patch.

[Sirus]

What's a spinal laser?

A laser (or railgun, particle cannon, etc. later in development) that is aligned with the center-line of a ship, the ship's "spine", rather than being mounted elsewhere. Basically, it's the sort of weapon that runs through the core of a ship instead of an external or near-external mount. Typically they're larger weapons than an equivalent surface-mount, but are obviously limited to only being aimed at a single point directly ahead of the ship, instead of being turreted or having a limited angle of traverse.

Isn't that basically how non-turreted weapons work now, with their tracking speed being limited to move speed? I always got the impression that railguns and the like were spinal mounted.

[Ivan Issaccs]

I imagine them more as the machine guns on a spitfire, small ones mounted on wings. Then the spinal ones the example comes to mind is the dreadnaughts on Mass Effect.

[Karlito]

Isn't that basically how non-turreted weapons work now, with their tracking speed being limited to move speed? I always got the impression that railguns and the like were spinal mounted.

Their tracking speed is limited to move speed or your base turret tracking speed if that's higher, so they do have some maneuverability even if they aren't turreted.

[Flying Dice]

What's a spinal laser?

A laser (or railgun, particle cannon, etc. later in development) that is aligned with the center-line of a ship, the ship's "spine", rather than being mounted elsewhere. Basically, it's the sort of weapon that runs through the core of a ship instead of an external or near-external mount. Typically they're larger weapons than an equivalent surface-mount, but are obviously limited to only being aimed at a single point directly ahead of the ship, instead of being turreted or having a limited angle of traverse.

Isn't that basically how non-turreted weapons work now, with their tracking speed being limited to move speed? I always got the impression that railguns and the like were spinal mounted.

As Karlito said, they weren't spinal weapons, just fixed-mount, at least judging by their behavior. They more or less acted like the guns on tank destroyers: they're mounted so that they point in a certain direction, but are capable of traversing independently of the larger vehicle, at least to a limited extent.

[Metalax]

Isn't that basically how non-turreted weapons work now, with their tracking speed being limited to move speed? I always got the impression that railguns and the like were spinal mounted.

Their tracking speed is limited to move speed or your base turret tracking speed if that's higher, so they do have some maneuverability even if they aren't turreted.

Not quite, it is limited to the base fire-control speed not the base turret speed.

One thing I've found with the spinal mounts is that while they give you a single big damage weapon, you can't really take advantage of their increased range unless your fire control base range tech is 2-3 tech levels above your laser tech. Still I've been experimenting with them and come up with a couple of designs for fairly cheap "flying lasers".

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Napoleon class Corvette    5,000 tons     130 Crew     1116.8 BP      TCS 100  TH 400  EM 750
4000 km/s     Armour 5-26     Shields 25-300     Sensors 14/14/0/0     Damage Control Rating 3     PPV 29.61
Maint Life 2.78 Years     MSP 419    AFR 66%    IFR 0.9%    1YR 79    5YR 1180    Max Repair 200 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Spare Berths 1   

Military S-25 x1.00 Magneto-plasma Drive (1)    Power 400    Fuel Use 37.5%    Signature 400    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 250,000 Litres    Range 24.0 billion km   (69 days at full power)
Delta R300/300 Shields (10)   Total Fuel Cost  125 Litres per hour  (3,000 per day)

Spinal S-9 RoF-25 30cm Far Ultraviolet Laser (1)    Range 480,000km     TS: 5000 km/s     Power 24-5     RM 5    ROF 25        24 24 24 24 24 20 17 15 13 12
Quad Gauss Cannon S-4 RoF-3 Turret (1x12)    Range 30,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 3    ROF 5        1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S01.4 20.4-20000 (1)    Max Range: 40,800 km   TS: 20000 km/s     75 51 26 2 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S04 240-5000 (1)    Max Range: 480,000 km   TS: 5000 km/s     98 96 94 92 90 88 85 83 81 79
S-01 P-6 Stellarator Fusion Reactor (1)     Total Power Output 6    Armour 0    Exp 5%

ASS S-01 R-001 MR-3 (1)     GPS 28     Range 3.9m km    MCR 427k km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor S-01 TH-14 (1)     Sensitivity 14     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  14m km
EM Detection Sensor S-01 EM-14 (1)     Sensitivity 14     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  14m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Code: [Select]

Outreach class Frigate    10,000 tons     233 Crew     1982.4 BP      TCS 200  TH 1600  EM 1500
8000 km/s     Armour 5-41     Shields 50-300     Sensors 14/14/0/0     Damage Control Rating 6     PPV 29.61
Maint Life 1.85 Years     MSP 805    AFR 123%    IFR 1.7%    1YR 298    5YR 4467    Max Repair 400 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Spare Berths 0   

Military S-50 x1.00 Magneto-plasma Drive (2)    Power 800    Fuel Use 25%    Signature 800    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 275,000 Litres    Range 19.8 billion km   (28 days at full power)
Delta R300/300 Shields (20)   Total Fuel Cost  250 Litres per hour  (6,000 per day)

Spinal S-9 RoF-25 30cm Far Ultraviolet Laser (1)    Range 480,000km     TS: 8000 km/s     Power 24-5     RM 5    ROF 25        24 24 24 24 24 20 17 15 13 12
Quad Gauss Cannon S-4 RoF-3 Turret (1x12)    Range 30,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 3    ROF 5        1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S04 240-5000 (1)    Max Range: 480,000 km   TS: 5000 km/s     98 96 94 92 90 88 85 83 81 79
Fire Control S01.4 20.4-20000 (1)    Max Range: 40,800 km   TS: 20000 km/s     75 51 26 2 0 0 0 0 0 0
S-01 P-6 Stellarator Fusion Reactor (1)     Total Power Output 6    Armour 0    Exp 5%

ASS S-01 R-001 MR-3 (1)     GPS 28     Range 3.9m km    MCR 427k km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor S-01 TH-14 (1)     Sensitivity 14     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  14m km
EM Detection Sensor S-01 EM-14 (1)     Sensitivity 14     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  14m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

[TwilightWalker]

If it helps you to imagine, if your ships are even vaguely cylindrical or such, fixed weapons would be your broadside, while a spinal mount would run right from the fore of your ship down the middle. Oh so coincidentally, this also places much closer and makes it more accessible  to where reactors normally go, allowing direct taps instead of running conduit to the edge of the hull.

[Sheb]

And while not relevant to lasers, for railguns it means it can be more stoutly anchored to the ship's superstructure, letting you get away with more recoil.

[Rabid_Cog]

I've been playing a kind of story-game in Aurora for a while and posted it on the official game forum. I've gotten some pretty positive feedback from the locals, figured I'd share with Bay12 as well and post a few links since the subforum is hidden pretty deep in the fiction area. The game is basically playing a kind of galactic scourge from a primitive start.

My Subforum: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/board,176.0.html

Direct links to the actual story:
The v5.6 bit: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,4988.0.html
The v6.2 bit: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,5906.0.html

There are a few other topics in my subforum, mostly some OOC stuff such as designing the system and such. I've been updating sporadically, but there should be plenty there to keep you guys busy for a while. Feel free to drop comments in the comments thread or even here if you want.