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[Bremen]

The problem I have with carronades is they're only superior to lasers at absolutely point blank, <10,001 km range. Since movement happens before weapons fire and most ships can move more than 10,000km in a single increment, this is unlikely to happen even when defending your side of a wormhole. And if you're actually trying to approach the enemy normally, the long charge time of carronades basically means you have to hold your fire until you're at minimum range in the hopes of one massive devastating shot, which is basically suicide.

If you could reliably expect combat at less than 10,000 km, then sure, carronades might have a place as special purpose knifefighting weapons. But you really can't, so in my mind they're pretty useless. If you want a close range kill weapon, you're better off with mesons which are effective out to at least several tens of thousands of km and can fire every increment with decent capacitors.

[Flying Dice]

Yeah, spamming 10cm mesons is the go-to for dealing with hard targets, even more so back before the Invader rework.

Honestly though, lasers are generally the superior choice as an all-round non-missile weapon. They've got by far the best damage profile (unless you can't penetrate at all), they're the best (and effectively the only good choice) for area defense PD coverage once you have some tech under your belt, they can easily be used against any type of target from AMMs up to cap ships (barring spinal mounts on large ships). Though now that Invaders don't have plasma torps, their advantage in that PD niche is gone, if it actually existed.

[Alastar]

Imo, 15cm lasers and 10cm railguns stand out for being fantastic weapons that don't need much tech to shine.

30cm/C12 railguns are finally general purpose weapons competitive with 15cm lasers...
on a much higher research budget, if I don't want turrets, at a 66% cost increase for 5% more firepower. Worse overall imo.

20cm/C12 railguns are better area defence on fast ships and fantastic in a knife fight, but the lack of range means they may not replace 15cm lasers despite being a great weapon.

[iceball3]

Lasers will erode less armour and get more hits on the vitals instead... which can be repaired.
So Flying Dice is technically correct, whether that's a reason to use carronades is a different matter though...

Can't the "wider profile" effect be emulated just by using a larger series of smaller lasers in tandem as opposed to one big laser?

The problem I have with carronades is they're only superior to lasers at absolutely point blank, <10,001 km range.

Tech level notwithstanding, carronades don't even beat out lasers of equal size at point blank. For clarity:

Code: [Select]

15cm C3 Plasma Carronade
Damage Output 6     Rate of Fire: 10 seconds
Max Range 60 000 km     Carronade Size: 4 HS    Carronade HTK: 2
Power Requirement: 6    Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 3
Cost: 14    Crew: 8
Materials Required: 2.8x Duranium  2.8x Boronide  8.4x Corundium

Development Cost for Project: 500RP
and

Code: [Select]

15cm C3 Infrared Laser
Damage Output 6     Rate of Fire: 10 seconds     Range Modifier: 1
Max Range 60 000 km     Laser Size: 4 HS    Laser HTK: 2
Power Requirement: 6    Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 3
Cost: 7    Crew: 12
Materials Required: 1.4x Duranium  1.4x Boronide  4.2x Corundium

Development Cost for Project: 70RP
Are functionally the same weapon, with the only differences being that the carronades needs less crew (mostly negligible) and have a wider impact profile.
Add to that fact that lasers can be spinally mounted, can have reduced size techs, and that the max size of spinal lasers with end-game tech are larger than carronades anyway...

Carronades could've at least been given better size-per-tonnage or whatever when being designed into the game, so that it wouldn't have just been a "mostly useless placeholder".

[Bremen]

Imo, 15cm lasers and 10cm railguns stand out for being fantastic weapons that don't need much tech to shine.

30cm/C12 railguns are finally general purpose weapons competitive with 15cm lasers...
on a much higher research budget, if I don't want turrets, at a 66% cost increase for 5% more firepower. Worse overall imo.

20cm/C12 railguns are better area defence on fast ships and fantastic in a knife fight, but the lack of range means they may not replace 15cm lasers despite being a great weapon.

That's a bad example, though. A 30cm/c12 Railgun does 28 damage in 9 HS compared to a 15cm laser doing 6 damage in 4 HS. That's a lot more than 5%. Hell, it's more than 100%. You seem to be basing it on fire rate, but if so you could basically say that 25cm lasers are just 15cm lasers that only do a little more than half the damage for nearly twice the cost, so why would people use them?

If you want maximum dps, you generally want a weapon that fires every 5 seconds based on your capacitor tech. At capacitor rate 10, for example, a 20 cm laser and 15cm railgun both fire every increment, are the same size, and the railgun does 20% more damage (in return for lower range and a worse damage profile, but better PD ability).

IMHO, railguns excel at either very small (tons of 10cm railguns for PD and short range firepower, and also great fighter weapons), or very large (it's true they can't be spinal mounted currently, but they're also larger than lasers at a given tech cost). I definitely think lasers excel for the sort of midsized, largest caliber that can fire once a round role you seem to be comparing them to (the kind of weapon I usually call "secondaries" in game, that do both anti-ship and area missile defense work), since that's where their greater range at a given size really shines.

[Alastar]

@ Iceball3: Larger weapons have better damage/HS and shock damage (in case we value internal hits less than armour hits but more than nothing...). Coming up with the optimal weapon to damage armour under the assumption that you can't win outright is surprisingly complex, requires more qualifiers and is completely useless. Remember it started as a case where something "strictly worse" may not be so.

@ Bremen:
Yes, I am including fire rate in my considerations.
And generally speaking, I would prefer 15cm lasers over 25cm lasers with half the fire rate.
This is not quite as clear cut we may also care about range, armour penetration, shock damage rather than pure DPS.
15cm lasers are ina very sweet spot overall: slightly ahead of the usual damage/size curve, close to the range of 4x fire controls.

At the same wavelength tech, 15cm/C6 lasers are actually ahead of 20cm/C10 per HS at my usual battle ranges. Worse at point blank DPS, better at area defence, cheaper because they need less capacitor tech.
We could lower the wavelength tech of the 20cm ones for similar cost and weapon range... but I prefer the 15cm variant either way.

I have to disagree about the viability of large railguns.
Generally speaking, they're twice as big as lasers with the same per-shot damage and draw 3 times as much power for 4 shots.
Slightly ahead at half the RoF (but more expensive because of capacitor tech), considerably behind at a third of the RoF.
Frontloading your shots is worth something, but generally not a third of your firepower. Especially not when you consider tech requirements (45cm railguns vs. 25cm lasers).

Interestingly, I don't consider 15cm lasers secondaries. To me, they are good general purpose weapons while larger calibres find niche use at best... in fact, the main reason I use larger guns at all is flavour.

[Flying Dice]

That's sort of a flawed perspective, especially now that shock damage is in. A large, high-damage laser can absolutely ruin a ship if it penetrates (and if we're talking about something with damage numbers approaching or in three digits, it will penetrate), where an equal amount of damage output by a number of smaller weapons would do much less effective damage. Medium-caliber weapons are good for dealing with lighter ships, FACs, and fighters because they're often able to penetrate, and because smaller ships have fewer rows of armor, increasing the likelihood of two shots striking the same point, but for dealing with large well-armored targets heavy lasers are king.

Here's an example:

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Damage Output 71     Rate of Fire: 45 seconds     Range Modifier: 8
Max Range 5,680,000 km     Laser Size: 16 HS    Laser HTK: 8
Power Requirement: 71    Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 8
Cost: 539    Crew: 48
Spinal Weapon Only
Materials Required: 107.8x Duranium  107.8x Boronide  323.4x Corundium
That's a 35cm Far X-Ray laser in an Advanced Spinal mount.

Code: [Select]

Damage Output 6     Rate of Fire: 5 seconds     Range Modifier: 8
Max Range 480,000 km     Laser Size: 4 HS    Laser HTK: 2
Power Requirement: 6    Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 8
Cost: 156    Crew: 12
Materials Required: 31.2x Duranium  31.2x Boronide  93.6x Corundium
And there's a 15cm Far X-Ray laser. Now, let's be generous and assume that for whatever reason you aren't going to turret the 15cms. Four of them are the volume-equivalent of the spinal laser, but they only deal 33% of its alpha damage spread over four columns instead of focused into one. Now, granted, if the engagement lasts long enough for the 15cm battery to fire for the full duration of the spinal's recharge cycle, they'd do roughly three times as much total damage.

But that's not how it's going to function. Anything you hit with that spinal mount is going to be crippled or outright destroyed unless it's heavily shielded.

That's why I design my laser ships with a mixed arsenal, the heaviest spinal mount I can make paired with turrets carrying the largest lasers I can get a 5s cooldown on. The big laser can wipe priority targets out in the first volley (notably, I like to hold fire on it until I'm in effective range for the lighter lasers, rather than wasting a shot and having it recharging while within a better range), and the turrets can do PD work, split fire onto multiple smaller targets, or focus onto a second large target.

This works well against Swarm Queen shields as well, the laser laser blows off a big chunk of their strength while the smaller lasers keep it from recharging, maybe grinding it down a little too.

Basically, you don't always need a big honkin' gun, but when you do, you really need that high-penetration high-shock massive alpha shot. Gutting an enemy cap ship right off the bat means that all that time your smaller lasers are holing its armor is time where it's fighting with a bunch of destroyed systems instead of at full capacity.

[coleslaw35]

At what size do laser damages stop being 1 block columns and start to widen the holes they make?

[Flying Dice]

Never. That's the point. They're the most damage-efficient weapon (if you can penetrate), since they spend the least possible damage on the armor and the remainder on component damage.

Obviously that also means that lasers firing on large targets that they can't penetrate are next to worthless when compared to anything else, but that's why you pack a spinal mount.

[RAM]

Why would they be worthless if they don't penetrate? I mean, sure, there is less consistency, but you are looking for overlapping damage regardless of the weapon. A 6-damage missile is a pretty good armour-remover. Twice the effective blast radius is quite nice, four hits over a two-tile target will penetrate to a depth of 8 and additional hits over another two tiles will contribute 1 more damage each.
...
Let's say that you hit every tile once. The missile makes a hole of 1356531 while the laser makes a hole of 6. Their best armour penetration is identical even if you assume that they land a hit in every overlapping spot before getting a single consecutive strike on the same spot. If stripping away armour really is the only objective that you have, then yes, lasers are bad, but even if you just want to soften up the armour, that 6-deep hole is going to be a much more efficient way of exposing the enemy to early penetrating hits from weapons with a wide damage pattern. That one laser hit plus a missile later can be 8 or 7 penetration from the missile hitting anywhere over a 4-wide target. The crater left by the 4 missiles from a world with no identical strikes still only offers a penetration of 8 or 7 and the advantage of two more sites with 7 penetration really isn't worth the price of make 4 times as many attacks...

It seems to me that the less likely that it is that you will penetrate in a single shot, the more reliant you are upon getting lucky with multiple strikes to the same spot, and that is where lasers have the advantage...

[Bremen]

@ Bremen:
Yes, I am including fire rate in my considerations.
And generally speaking, I would prefer 15cm lasers over 25cm lasers with half the fire rate.
This is not quite as clear cut we may also care about range, armour penetration, shock damage rather than pure DPS.
15cm lasers are ina very sweet spot overall: slightly ahead of the usual damage/size curve, close to the range of 4x fire controls.

At the same wavelength tech, 15cm/C6 lasers are actually ahead of 20cm/C10 per HS at my usual battle ranges. Worse at point blank DPS, better at area defence, cheaper because they need less capacitor tech.
We could lower the wavelength tech of the 20cm ones for similar cost and weapon range... but I prefer the 15cm variant either way.

I have to disagree about the viability of large railguns.
Generally speaking, they're twice as big as lasers with the same per-shot damage and draw 3 times as much power for 4 shots.
Slightly ahead at half the RoF (but more expensive because of capacitor tech), considerably behind at a third of the RoF.
Frontloading your shots is worth something, but generally not a third of your firepower. Especially not when you consider tech requirements (45cm railguns vs. 25cm lasers).

Interestingly, I don't consider 15cm lasers secondaries. To me, they are good general purpose weapons while larger calibres find niche use at best... in fact, the main reason I use larger guns at all is flavour.

Eh, I think your methodology is still flawed. Cost is a deceptive way to measure the quality of weapons, because most of the cost of a ship isn't in the weapons. If they weapons cost twice as much for 10% more effectiveness, and weapons are 5% of the cost of the ship, then you're paying 5% more for a 10% more effective warship.

You're basically setting out a situation "the cheapest weapons that can hit just out to fire control range while dealing the most sustained damage" that ignores how combat in Aurora actually works in order to favor lasers.

A fleet using large numbers of 10cm railguns could decimate a fleet using 15cm lasers if it was able to close the range, since 15 cm lasers wont penetrate armor either and the 10cm railguns will do 33% more damage per HS, for instance. The 15cm laser fleet would also be far more vulnerable to missiles than the 10cm railgun one would. A large spinal laser would be enough to carve right through armor at that range, as well as dealing massive shock damage, providing close range protection.

Yeah, the 15cm lasers do max sustained dps at max fire control range, where a spinal laser probably wouldn't be able to cut through armor, but it's vulnerable in any other situation.

Generally I try to give my ships one big spinal laser or max size railgun depending on what tech I'm favoring, a number of secondaries, and some sort of point defense as well, usually either turreted gauss or 10cm railguns.

At what size do laser damages stop being 1 block columns and start to widen the holes they make?

3, I believe. Lasers have a narrower damage profile than most weapons, but it still does form a pyramid. Examples here (taken from the official forum).

The only weapon which is only ever a 1 block column is the as yet unreleased Particle Lance, which will probably be extremely effective against heavy armor and provide a good argument for using at least some shielding.

[Alastar]

As you stated, you don't get to magically start a fight with a full damage salvo from slow-firing weapons.
Either shoot a relatively weak first salvo at long range and can't respond while gunnery conditions improve... or hold fire and shoot second. Or some half measure.
I already acknowledged that shock damage and penetration can be relevant for achieving telling hits earlier.

However, if the faster ship maintains extreme range plinking away with single-digit hit rates, a few heavy guns are at a disadvantage.
I don't really get your example with the Swarm Queen: shields don't care about shock/penetration, only about DPS... big slow-firing lasers will be inferior here.

*

I occasionally use large calibre lasers, mostly on my lesser ships.
They retain their strengths when cutting corners: capacitor tech or size reduction (impressive opening salvo over continuous output) or wavelength tech (planning to hold fire anyway, maximum range will remain good). Finding the right balance can be a fun challenge.
Cheap and bulky with engines to match means tanking some hits isn't too expensive.

My high-performance ships tend to be designed to outrange and outrun enemy beam ships while being capable against missiles. They're too fragile and expensive to voluntarily take hits, and weapons need to be weight-efficient for all requirements combined. 15cm lasers usually get the nod over heavier ones because they're good at area defence, and over Particle Beams-2 because they're servicable in a knife fight if necessary.

*

I feel a little misrepresented.
Just because I think something stands out as a great general purpose weapon doesn't mean nothing else is useful! Completely different things do completely different things!
Close alternatives to something very good are naturally overshadowed - e.g. 12cm lasers, which are no smaller.
Imo slightly larger calibres and equivalents don't quite occupy the same sweet spot and don't usually offer enough fundamental differences... but I tried to give some fair examples (20cm with the same range as a cost-neutral way to get something similar and a little stronger at short range; comparison with 30cm railguns).

Sometimes, scaling favours arbitrary versions. Laser power roughly scales quadratically with weapon size.
For regular lasers, 15cm stands out for being compact... and 25cm for being bulky.
For 75%-sized ones, 20cm stands out positively, for 50%-sized ones it's 18cm (requires Advanced Spinal Laser).
Of course that's not all of it. But if something that's mechanically favoured also fits frequent needs well... it's worth looking at.

[Shooer]

Never. That's the point. They're the most damage-efficient weapon (if you can penetrate), since they spend the least possible damage on the armor and the remainder on component damage.

Obviously that also means that lasers firing on large targets that they can't penetrate are next to worthless when compared to anything else, but that's why you pack a spinal mount.

Not true, lasers do start to form a pyramid around 9+ damage.  Might be less.

[Culise]

Never. That's the point. They're the most damage-efficient weapon (if you can penetrate), since they spend the least possible damage on the armor and the remainder on component damage.

Obviously that also means that lasers firing on large targets that they can't penetrate are next to worthless when compared to anything else, but that's why you pack a spinal mount.

Not true, lasers do start to form a pyramid around 9+ damage.  Might be less.

Yep, Bremen already corrected it.  As he said, though, it starts to pyramid after just 3 damage.  Since he didn't go into detail into the formulas, though, the amount of armor a laser will penetrate is the square root of thrice the damage - 4 damage will pierce 3.46, which truncates to 3 layers of armor.  Start stacking on the damage, and your damage profile will start to look like the right profile here (borrowed from here), but you can find more examples in his post as well.  You probably thought of 9 because it results in a very efficient damage profile for a laser: 5 armor layers with no unnecessary effort. ^_^

[Flying Dice]

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.

@RAM: We're talking about lasers. Though they're less terrible when accounting for the above.