Weapon balance for the future

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Rustyallan -> Weapon balance for the future (5/3/2010 5:52:31 PM)
Having read through some of the other threads and seeing that it is something that is going to be addressed soon, how do you think weapon balance should be adjusted. Taltamir has posted some interesting numbers. I'll try to keep my own ideas simple and within the current game mechanics, so here are some semi-random thoughts. Torpedoes are king. As it stands, torpedoes are king. Load up enough and you can demolish an enemy easily. What are torpedoes? Per the in-game description, they are a bolt of energy that homes in on their target. I have a problem with any bolt of energy homing in on anything, but I can see some ways that might be plausible.(static discharges) I'd prefer to think of them as some sort of plasma ball that just moves in a straight line. Especially considering how slow they are. Some ways I can think of to counter is are to make them easier to evade. Smaller ships get a bonus to evasion and vector thrusters would also affect it. This obviously would not apply to stationary objects like bases and deployed resupply ships so they would need some sort of point defense. Said point defense would spit out tons of chaff which disrupts the torpedo's cohesion and destroys it before contact. Point defense could be fitted to ships as well, but should have a large static energy to encourage use only on larger vessels. Beam weapons would then recover some desirability as they are more effective against smaller vessels and point defense while torpedoes are more effective against larger vessels and stationary objects. The extra range of torpedoes would still allow long-range bombardment, but it would be more of a softening-up and distraction than complete win. Implement damage types. This gets a little more outside the current mechanics that I've seen, but it's something to consider. Make a change so that torpedoes are more effective against shields and less effective against armor so that you need to use beams to finish off the target. Ultimately, I'd prefer to see both solutions as well as a future implementation of mass drivers. Hard points and hull restrictions. I like the freedom of defining what an escort or a frigate should be for myself. On the other hand, I can see where implementing restrictions on the number of each weapon type based on the role, as is currently done for freighters in 1.0.4.4, would be a simple patch for the issue. It wouldn't fix the problem though as players would just avoid building the more restricted ships. Ship evasion based on role/size ratio. I think this may already be in place, but perhaps could be emphasized a bit more. This would allow escorts and frigates to be far more nimble and able to avoid the slower beam and torpedo weapons. Just some thoughts for now. We'll get into ship design later. It's time for my DW fix now. [:D]

Bartje -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/3/2010 6:06:28 PM)
How about different kinds of weapons Torpedoes: Anti Shield (standard DW balls of energy that deplete shields) Missiles: Anti Hull (can home on target but is generally useless against shielded targets. ) (maybe proximity explosion to damage shields?) Beams: Both (standard DW laster thingies) Projectiles / Mass-Drivers / Kinetic Cannons: Anti Hull, far longer range (the empty void.... / easily deflected by shields) This would for example incur certain trade offs based on ship armament. "Hard points and hull restrictions. I like the freedom of defining what an escort or a frigate should be for myself. On the other hand, I can see where implementing restrictions on the number of each weapon type based on the role, as is currently done for freighters in 1.0.4.4, would be a simple patch for the issue. It wouldn't fix the problem though as players would just avoid building the more restricted ships. " I don't like this idea. I like the standard system. Hardpoints feel too artificial and take away from the players possibilities. It just needs more tactics introduced & AI. Formations etc.. "Ship evasion based on role/size ratio. I think this may already be in place, but perhaps could be emphasized a bit more. This would allow escorts and frigates to be far more nimble and able to avoid the slower beam and torpedo weapons. " I like this idea. Especially with the possible introduction of Fighters or fighter like craft! Give small vessels an advantage, yes! [:)]

Fishman -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/3/2010 6:32:58 PM)
Rather than adding more weapons or humongous changes to the design system, the easy solution is just to increase the competitiveness of beams: Double the projectile speed, because honestly, they're ridiculously slow right now, double the rate of fire, and cut the energy consumption to about 75%. Voila: Now it's competitive again. The main thing is simply that the shorter ranged weapon needs to have better DPS than its counterpart, otherwise it's pointless.

Gertjan -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/3/2010 7:26:42 PM)
Please don't make the weapons system even more complicated. I already find it too much micro as it is and I'm afraid I still have to do it myself since the AI cant do it optimally.

Rustyallan -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/3/2010 7:55:16 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Bartje I don't like this idea. I like the standard system. Hardpoints feel too artificial and take away from the players possibilities. That's pretty much my opinion as well, which I probably could have been clearer on. I can see where they would work, but prefer the freedom in design allowed with the current system quote: ORIGINAL: Fishman Rather than adding more weapons or humongous changes to the design system, the easy solution is just to increase the competitiveness of beams: Double the projectile speed, because honestly, they're ridiculously slow right now, double the rate of fire, and cut the energy consumption to about 75%. Voila: Now it's competitive again. The main thing is simply that the shorter ranged weapon needs to have better DPS than its counterpart, otherwise it's pointless. I like this idea. Actually, watching a fleet attack a base I saw one standing off with torpedoes and the shields would start going down. Then another without torpedoes came up close and hit with the few beam weapons it had and the shields and hull started going fast. I've started playing with designs a bit to get more combined designs and see what happens. quote: ORIGINAL: Gertjan Please don't make the weapons system even more complicated. I already find it too much micro as it is and I'm afraid I still have to do it myself since the AI cant do it optimally. The idea is to get it so the AI can autodesign ships and bases so that we don't have to micromanage that. Just tell it to build some then go attack and watch. If I have to micromanage everything, I'll go back to playing MOO3 and just deal with the headaches that has. What's attracted me to DW is the macromanagement. I want to direct, not do.

Cindar -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/3/2010 8:37:03 PM)
If anyone here has played Space Rangers, that had a pretty good weapon system that was fairly similar to DW. The biggest difference was that missiles, though they could fire halfway across a solar system, were destructible by enemy lasers. A heavily armed battleship could easily vaporize salvos of 30 missiles. You couldn't kill a gigantic battleship with a puny fighter just because your missiles were range 800 and the battleship's weapons were range 500, but your craft could definitely hold off similarly sized attackers by playing keep away. Also, this made AoE weapons really useful since you could use it as point defense against the barrages. Considering the lackluster state of AoE weapons currently, this would make them a lot more competitive.

Bartje -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/3/2010 9:01:34 PM)
Good Idea I'm all for it Cindar [:)] Though i'm still a dreamer./

Dadekster -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/3/2010 9:19:42 PM)
I'd like more variety as well as I enjoy the tactics it brings to ship combat. As long as the autobuild can be made so that players who don't want to be forced to deal with things like this, I think there's no reason we, (that being the people having to sit hours to write code and make pretty explosions etc [;)] ) couldn't introduce more weapon varieties or more damage types. Missles and rail guns would be very nice additions.

Rebel Yell -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/3/2010 10:19:19 PM)
Damage types would open up a world of possibilities and improve the feeling of realism in combat.

Canute0 -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/3/2010 11:18:23 PM)
Torpedos: Ok lets first forget the thing about seeking Energy Balls, no plasma ball or Static charge can be controlled. And if you could controll them you better turn these controlls against the enemy then to manipulate these Energy balls. Torpedos are big missiels with home seeking abilities. They allways hit their target if it is at Range, except it get confused by ECM. Maybe if Fighters get added someday, they will add Point defence too, then Point defence could destroy torpedos too. They should be long range double to tripple the range of Laser at same Tech level. DPS should be the same like Laser at same Tech Level but double or tripple the Energy cost per second as Laser OR Half the DPS like laser with similar Energy/sec like laser. Laser: 1. All Laser should have the same speed, lightspeed is lightspeed. And since currently the laser can fly around 1 sec, the battle distance isn't 5 or 10 or 100Km its over 300.000KM, at this distance another spaceship got good chance to avoid a hit when it fly curves or zickzack. that means 2. Laser got accuracy, depend on the turrets and the Combat targeting. Maybe on the targets current speed too, faster ships are harder to hit then a sitting duck. Projectille: Since the battle distance is over 300.000 KM, standard projecttiles are too slow to be effective agains a moving target. Yes Mass Driver or Railguns theortical can be close to lightspeed, but then we can add them into the Laser class to keep the system easy.

taltamir -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/4/2010 8:42:56 AM)
quote: They should be long range double to tripple the range of Laser at same Tech level. If we are going to try to be realistic, why would missiles have longer range then laser? Missiles need to be chemically propelled, are very VERY slow, and are limited by their fuel. Lasers are limited by their cohesion, in space there is very little gas to scatter them, so its mostly base on how good your lasing array is... and it should be pretty simple to reach the other side of the solar system. Anyways, the current problem is that the lasers are irrelevant, not because of damage, but because torpedoes have longer range... longer rage = win. quote: Projectille: Since the battle distance is over 300.000 KM, standard projecttiles are too slow to be effective agains a moving target. Yes Mass Driver or Railguns theortical can be close to lightspeed, but then we can add them into the Laser class to keep the system easy. Particle beam, its a beam of small particles accelerated to near lightspeed. unlike laser which is photons, particle beams actually use some sort of substance which they accelerate. can be treated as lasers indeed.

Canute0 -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/4/2010 11:53:21 AM)
quote: If we are going to try to be realistic, why would missiles have longer range then laser? Missiles need to be chemically propelled, are very VERY slow, and are limited by their fuel. The only true statement are "Limited by their fuel", if they dont need fuel they would got unlimited range. But why the heck a missile need to be chemically propelled ? Missiles or Torpedos are mini Spacecrafts without hyperdrive,lifesupport,defence. If you want a real tech counterpart, try a Tomahawk. quote: Lasers are limited by their cohesion, in space there is very little gas to scatter them, so its mostly base on how good your lasing array is... and it should be pretty simple to reach the other side of the solar system. Cohesion isn't the big problem, ok when you want be effective at other side of the system i could be a problem :-) But the real problem is to hit a moving target. Its like a police officier want to someone with a bowling ball instead his pistole. A laser beam can't correct his flight, on long range you can hit static moving objects without problems. It the same problem current sharpshooter have, if the target is doing a step while he pull the trigger he will miss. Here comes the Torpedos at game, they are seeking weapons. Now comes the balance, at moment Torpedos are Superior at all parts, they got the range, they got the better DPS, lesser EPS (Energy per sec) while useing nearly the same space. Thats why i think the DPS from Torpedos should be reduces to 1/3 or increase EPS/volume need at the same part. So it should be still be possible to made Torpedos only ships but would have alot lesser firepower then before, you will still need them to take out Starbases with much Laser. But they will be much more vulerable against ships at their class with Laser.

Fishman -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/4/2010 11:55:33 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir If we are going to try to be realistic, why would missiles have longer range then laser? Missiles need to be chemically propelled, are very VERY slow, and are limited by their fuel. In space, missiles have infinite range. If I want, I can lob a missile towards Alpha Centauri. It may take a hundred years to get there, but it'll get there. What I wanted to kill probably won't still be there, though. While missiles have finite delta-V, presumably, like any ship, in space, there is no such thing as "maximum range" for an object, Newton's Laws of Motion assure us that anything you throw into space will fly forever until it hits something. quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir Lasers are limited by their cohesion, in space there is very little gas to scatter them, so its mostly base on how good your lasing array is... and it should be pretty simple to reach the other side of the solar system. Cohesive laser range is actually fairly short, although in theory, it could be improved a lot. However, lasers are strictly line-of-sight, and cannot be guided. A missile can do a burn, fly towards its target, and then use its remaining delta-V for terminal attack maneuvers. A laser cannot make any such corrections. Additionally, space is very huge, and targets are very small: Even the smallest aiming error is amplified many, many times over the massive distances of space. Even without issues of cohesion, the maximum effective range for a laser against a target actively desiring not to be shot is maybe 150000 km. At that range, by the time you see the target, it has not been there for a good half a second, and by the time your shot REACHES the target, it will have not been there for a good second. Imagine trying to snipe an object smaller than a pixel with 1000ms ping. Ain't easy. The same limitations apply for any other relativistic projectile: While a mass driver round won't have cohesion issues, the odds of hitting anything become exceedingly bad very fast. Unlike lasers, that mass driver round is going to eventually ruin someone's day, because while a laser will lose cohesion and become harmless, a mass driver round will fly forever through the infinite void until it hits something. If some hapless planet is your backstop, it sucks to be them. quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir Anyways, the current problem is that the lasers are irrelevant, not because of damage, but because torpedoes have longer range... longer rage = win. Actually, damage DOES matter. Right now, the problem is that lazor appears, according to your calculations, to actually exhibit inferior DPS. If there are hidden factors that make torps worse than how they appear on paper, or if lazor damage were made superior to torp damage at lazor range, this would entirely change the picture. But there's no way to get around the fact that longer range + greater speed = autowin. That's just a basic law of the universe. It worked the same way for the Mongols: Anyone who couldn't shoot back and wasn't faster than them wound up performing their best porcupine impression.

taltamir -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/4/2010 12:00:06 PM)
quote: Cohesion isn't the big problem, ok when you want be effective at other side of the system i could be a problem :-) But the real problem is to hit a moving target. Its like a police officier want to someone with a bowling ball instead his pistole. A laser beam can't correct his flight, on long range you can hit static moving objects without problems. It the same problem current sharpshooter have, if the target is doing a step while he pull the trigger he will miss. Lasers move at the speed of light and can easily be corrected for the current PATH of a moving target. (its called leading), it is only an issue if the enemy CHANGES their trajectory after you fired but before it hits, as it moves in the speed of light, it is impossible to detect before it actually hits. I actually did the math once, even a fairly small sized vehicle will need to apple acceleration of thousands of G in random directions every few seconds to avoid lasers fired from the other side of the solar system. And larger ships will have to apply millions of G of acceleration. Dodging LIGHT is pretty fing hard. Sniper bullets are a LOT slower then light, aim for a much smaller target, and rely on an inaccurate human to aim them. quote: The only true statement are "Limited by their fuel", if they dont need fuel they would got unlimited range. But why the heck a missile need to be chemically propelled ? Missiles or Torpedos are mini Spacecrafts without hyperdrive,lifesupport,defence. If you want a real tech counterpart, try a Tomahawk. Heck, in that case you might as well put a tiny warp drive on them :) quote: In space, missiles have infinite range. If I want, I can lob a missile towards Alpha Centauri. It may take a hundred years to get there, but it'll get there. What I wanted to kill probably won't still be there, though. While missiles have finite delta-V, presumably, like any ship, in space, there is no such thing as "maximum range" for an object, Newton's Laws of Motion assure us that anything you throw into space will fly forever until it hits something. You confuse missiles with bullets... missiles are, by the definition given above, bullets that use an engine to track a target. When a missile runs out of fuel in space it becomes a bullet. quote: Cohesive laser range is actually fairly short, although in theory, it could be improved a lot. However, lasers are strictly line-of-sight, and cannot be guided. A missile can do a burn, fly towards its target, and then use its remaining delta-V for terminal attack maneuvers. A laser cannot make any such corrections. Additionally, space is very huge, and targets are very small: Even the smallest aiming error is amplified many, many times over the massive distances of space. Even without issues of cohesion, the maximum effective range for a laser against a target actively desiring not to be shot is maybe 150000 km. At that range, by the time you see the target, it has not been there for a good half a second, and by the time your shot REACHES the target, it will have not been there for a good second. Imagine trying to snipe an object smaller than a pixel with 1000ms ping. Ain't easy. The same limitations apply for any other relativistic projectile: While a mass driver round won't have cohesion issues, the odds of hitting anything become exceedingly bad very fast. Unlike lasers, that mass driver round is going to eventually ruin someone's day, because while a laser will lose cohesion and become harmless, a mass driver round will fly forever through the infinite void until it hits something. If some hapless planet is your backstop, it sucks to be them. Correct about mass drives... as for line of sigh issues, this is a big deal for planetary combat, where even today battleships curve projectiles to hit target beyond line of sight (due to the curvature of the earth, LOS is blocked BY the earth itself) If you see the target you can calculate its current speed, its acceleration, and observe the activity of its engines, all of which can be used to calculate where it is GOING to be... unless the target randomly fires its engines to produce enough thrust so that your calculations will be off, to the point where, as I mentioned above, they will need to apply thousands to millions of Gs of accelerations. As for the aiming issue... then impose a penalty to aiming. a miss chance that gets bigger the further out you are. Also, at a distance of half a light second away, your torpedo will take A LOOOOOOONG long time to reach the target. I used google: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090325131129AAxvc3V Light travels at 670,616,629 miles per hour. The fastest missile ever built at 15,000 miles per hour. This makes 44707.8x faster. if it takes half a second for your laser to reach, it will take 22353.9 seconds for the missile to reach. 6.21 hours for an ICBM to reach a target that light reaches in half a second. And keep in mind that most missiles are vastly slower then those super ICBMs... the missiles an air plane shoots top out at 1/6th that. Conversely, if the target is close enough that a torpedo takes 5 minutes (300 seconds) to reach it. A laser beam will take 0.0067 seconds to reach it. Since the laws of physics make it impossible to know a laser beam is approaching until it actually hits you, you must randomly provide enough thrust to displace half your diameter (aka, your radius) in that time period. A 200 meter ship thus must displace 100 meters in a random direction in under 0.0067, at all times, randomly, and must HOPE that it displaces it in the CORRECT direction. X_f = X_i + V_it +0.5at^2 100 meters = 0 + 0 + 0.5a(0.0067s)^2 a = 4455335.3 m/s^2 = 454626 g Good luck applying 454626 g of acceleration in a random direction every 0.0067 seconds to dodge lasers. quote:* Actually, damage DOES matter. Right now, the problem is that lazor appears, according to your calculations, to actually exhibit inferior DPS. If there are hidden factors that make torps worse than how they appear on paper, or if lazor damage were made superior to torp damage at lazor range, this would entirely change the picture. But there's no way to get around the fact that longer range + greater speed = autowin. That's just a basic law of the universe. It worked the same way for the Mongols: Anyone who couldn't shoot back and wasn't faster than them wound up performing their best porcupine impression. Well, true lasers do exhibit worse DPS.. but even with better DPS torpedoes have greater range... unless lasers have MUCH MUCH better DPS it is not going to be worth it... if they do have a lot more DPS, then torpedoes are effectively "starbase destroyers" because starbases cannot close in to use their lasers (which is already the case, only more so), and ships with faster engines could keep out of laser range

Fishman -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/4/2010 12:34:49 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir I actually did the math once, even a fairly small sized vehicle will need to apple acceleration of thousands of G in random directions every few seconds to avoid lasers fired from the other side of the solar system. Are you kidding? It takes 40 minutes just for a laser fired from Earth to reach MARS, let alone the other side of the system. If a Martian sees your car on Earth, he sees it where it was 40 minutes ago. By the time he SHOOTS at it, with his shot showing up 80 minutes from then, you could be in the NEXT FREAKING STATE. Now, SPACESHIPS are capable of moving MUCH faster than cars are. A spaceship capable of, say, 10G acceleration, can have a positional variance of 50-100 meters from where you think it may be in the second of lag you have between seeing it, and shooting at it. And that assumes your ability to see it was precise to begin with. A positional variance that high can mean the difference between a hit or a miss. It gets worse if the spaceship in question is capable of INTERESTING levels of thrust, because 10G accels are pretty boring and achieveable by current technology: If a ship is capable of 100G accels, the damn thing could be a kilometer away. Clearly, lasers are not long-range weapons in space, against a target easily moving thousands of kilometers a second. quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir You confuse missiles with bullets... missiles are, by the definition given above, bullets that use an engine to track a target. When a missile runs out of fuel in space it becomes a bullet. No, I am not. You're assuming that a missile must constantly burn fuel continuously, as opposed to burning only enough fuel to reach a desired travelling speed, then conserving the rest for terminal attack maneuvering. If a missile is lobbed at its target by the launching ship, it does not need to expend any delta-V to reach its target, and will only need to use fuel to make course corrections to strike a target that evades. quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir Correct about mass drives... as for line of sigh issues, this is a big deal for planetary combat, where even today battleships curve projectiles to hit target beyond line of sight (due to the curvature of the earth, LOS is blocked BY the earth itself) Yes, and this is why laser weapons remain dubious even on Earth: Line of sight range on Earth is fairly short compared to what can be done with ballistics. quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir unless the target randomly fires its engines to produce enough thrust so that your calculations will be off, to the point where, as I mentioned above, they will need to apply thousands to millions of Gs of accelerations. Modest accelerations can already produces significant miss chances. INTERESTING accelerations produce VERY probable misses. Combat at 10G accelerations may be realistic, but not very interesting as sci-fi, given how slowly the story will drag. DW's engine powers clearly are in the realm of "interesting" rather than "realistic". quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir Also, at a distance of half a light second away, your torpedo will take A LOOOOOOONG long time to reach the target. Yes, so? Starbase ain't going anywhere. You can see how it's very unhealthy to be immobile in an environment that is even vaguely realistic. quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir Well, true lasers do exhibit worse DPS.. but even with better DPS torpedoes have greater range... unless lasers have MUCH MUCH better DPS it is not going to be worth it... Even "somewhat" better DPS is enough to warrant mounting them as secondary armament. quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir if they do have a lot more DPS, then torpedoes are effectively "starbase destroyers" because starbases cannot close in to use their lasers (which is already the case, only more so), and ships with faster engines could keep out of laser range Well, unless you, like me, sensibly realize that putting only short-range weapons on an object with 0 speed is an act of utter idiocy, and it doesn't matter if you put a million of them on the base if they can't outrange their attackers.

taltamir -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/4/2010 12:37:49 PM)
I edited in some updates to my previous post while you were typing yours, please check them out. quote: Now, SPACESHIPS are capable of moving MUCH faster than cars are. A spaceship capable of, say, 10G acceleration Humans are not capable of surviving 10g of acceleration beyond a few moments. they also have engines in a particular side of them so you know where to aim. quote: Yes, and this is why laser weapons remain dubious even on Earth: Line of sight range on Earth is fairly short compared to what can be done with ballistics. Drop the EVEN... laser weapons are dubious ON earth... bullets and missiles are dubious in space. To be fair, a mass driver is FAR more practical than a missile as it can reach much higher initial velocity. the ideal is some sort of hybrid, mass drive that propels an object with the ability to correct its path to some extent. quote: Well, unless you, like me, sensibly realize that putting only short-range weapons on an object with 0 speed is an act of utter idiocy, and it doesn't matter if you put a million of them on the base if they can't outrange their attackers. tell that to the AI

Fishman -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/4/2010 12:45:18 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir Humans are not capable of surviving 10g of acceleration beyond a few moments. That is basically why I used that figure as the upper limit, yes. Humans are a significant obstacle to getting anything done in space. We actually have all the technical requirements needed to DO useful space stuff...the problem is, humans suck. If we replaced all humans with robots, these problem would entirely evaporate. If anything, the replacement of humans by robots is inevitable and beginning even now: First, we will become cyborgs, meatbags with increasing amounts of robotronic parts. Eventually, we will have discarded the meatbags entirely. quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir Drop the EVEN... laser weapons are dubious ON earth... bullets and missiles are dubious in space. No, missiles are the only sensible things in space, really. If you want to kill something in space, right now, you need a missile. Lasers generate more damage to you than they will to the target, given that the best available have maybe 30% efficiency, tops, so for every 3 units of energy lobbed at the target, hit or miss, you cook in 7 units of waste heat, which is very hard to get rid of in space. Missiles have none of these problems! In fact, who even needs ships? Just lob a rubberbanded package of missiles in the general direction of your enemy, and have them released to go KILL once they get close enough.

taltamir -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/4/2010 12:53:57 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Fishman quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir Humans are not capable of surviving 10g of acceleration beyond a few moments. That is basically why I used that figure as the upper limit, yes. Humans are a significant obstacle to getting anything done in space. We actually have all the technical requirements needed to DO useful space stuff...the problem is, humans suck. If we replaced all humans with robots, these problem would entirely evaporate. If anything, the replacement of humans by robots is inevitable and beginning even now: First, we will become cyborgs, meatbags with increasing amounts of robotronic parts. Eventually, we will have discarded the meatbags entirely. that is an entirely different can of worms; and requires getting rid of life-support and habitation modules... also, it is still completely impossible for you to dodge lasers at a range where missiles work... Let me quote myself: quote: Light travels at 670,616,629 miles per hour. The fastest missile ever built at 15,000 miles per hour. This makes 44707.8x faster. if it takes half a second for your laser to reach, it will take 22353.9 seconds for the missile to reach. 6.21 hours for an ICBM to reach a target that light reaches in half a second. And keep in mind that most missiles are vastly slower then those super ICBMs... the missiles an air plane shoots top out at 1/6th that. Conversely, if the target is close enough that a torpedo takes 5 minutes (300 seconds) to reach it. A laser beam will take 0.0067 seconds to reach it. Since the laws of physics make it impossible to know a laser beam is approaching until it actually hits you, you must randomly provide enough thrust to displace half your diameter (aka, your radius) in that time period. A 200 meter ship thus must displace 100 meters in a random direction in under 0.0067, at all times, randomly, and must HOPE that it displaces it in the CORRECT direction. X_f = X_i + V_it +0.5at^2 100 meters = 0 + 0 + 0.5a(0.0067s)^2 a = 4455335.3 m/s^2 = 454626 g Good luck applying 454626 g of acceleration in a random direction every 0.0067 seconds to dodge lasers. quote:* No, missiles are the only sensible things in space, really. If you want to kill something in space, right now, you need a missile. Lasers generate more damage to you than they will to the target, given that the best available have maybe 30% efficiency, tops, so for every 3 units of energy lobbed at the target, hit or miss, you cook in 7 units of waste heat, which is very hard to get rid of in space. Missiles have none of these problems! In fact, who even needs ships? Just lob a rubberbanded package of missiles in the general direction of your enemy, and have them released to go KILL once they get close enough. 1. See previous quote. 2. The heat produced by lasers is handled by cooling systems built into the device. You can simply use some sort of substance to absorb the heat and then eject it from the ship altogether. use water, then spray it in a fine mist out of a protrusion from the ship and catch when its nice and cool on the other side. etc.. The heat the enemy takes is in a specific concentrated spot... this means damage, lots of it. 3. You can shoot down missiles... in fact, you can shoot them down with lasers :)

Fishman -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/4/2010 1:06:56 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir Light travels at 670,616,629 miles per hour. Ugh. Barbarian. Use metric already! quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir The fastest missile ever built at 15,000 miles per hour. That is the top speed of a missile on EARTH. In SPACE, there is no such thing as "top speed", there is only delta-V. A missile can be launched at any speed by farting it out of a launch tube or simply throwing it from a moving object. Missile will then remain at that speed until it hits something, or it fires its own engines. quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir 2. The heat produced by lasers is handled by cooling systems built into the device. You can simply use some sort of substance to absorb the heat and then eject it from the ship altogether. use water, then spray it in a fine mist out of a protrusion from the ship and catch when its nice and cool on the other side. etc.. The heat the enemy takes is in a specific concentrated spot... this means damage, lots of it. 3. You can shoot down missiles... in fact, you can shoot them down with lasers :) Read this. Lots of heavy math. Eventually you will come to see that under all but the most generous assumptions, missiles become the only sensible weapons out there. For anything OTHER than missiles to become viable weapons requires the use of magic. And yes, you can use coolant that you then jettison to reduce the heat problems involved in lazor use, but you're not going to get it back, and it won't be "nice and cool" afterwards. One of the more innovative tricks people have done is to use the fuel itself as coolant. You know, the fuel you were going to set on fire and lob burning out the back of your ship anyway. None of this changes the fact that missiles can be shot at targets you don't even know exist yet, while lasers can only be shot at targets you know will still be there. The fact of the matter is that I can lob a missile at you that will kill you a week, a month, or even a year from now. You cannot do the same with a laser that will show up in 40 minutes from now at a target you saw which was there 40 minutes ago, because that target is probably in the next state by now. Of course, none of this matters, since DW is magic. However, if you want to see scary with magic, I can stick HYPERDRIVES on missiles and LOB THEM FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GALAXY. If anything, the existence of magic just makes them MORE scary. And yes, lasers can shoot down missiles. You know what the answer to that is? MORE missiles! And you know...missiles can also shoot down other missiles.

taltamir -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/4/2010 1:53:16 PM)
what you describe is not a missile, it is a mass driver that shoots out slugs with built in trajectory corrections. (aka, missiles) Those are indeed highly practical. If you can shoot a slug at 0.3c and give it vectoring thrusters it can be very effective. Having a missile propel itself to any speed that is worthwhile in space is ridiculous. it still produces a lot of heat for that initial acceleration to take place. Ofcourse, if you really DO have battles where you shoot the missiles now and they reach the target 6 hours later that is a different thing altogether. This actually works out in terms of the DW time flow mechanism if you think about it... there is a case of "gameplay and gameplay separation" where the 2 seconds to fire is actually 2 days in game time if you look at the date at the top left. But if you are using realistic space missiles, then yes, it literally takes 2 days for the space missiles to hit / fire a volley (of freshly assembled missiles build by onboard microfabs?). quote: Of course, none of this matters, since DW is magic. However, if you want to see scary with magic, I can stick HYPERDRIVES on missiles and LOB THEM FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GALAXY. If anything, the existence of magic just makes them MORE scary. I did mention hyperdrives on missiles :) that is indeed the most practical of weapons in space (should hyperdrive exist). quote: ORIGINAL: Fishman quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir Light travels at 670,616,629 miles per hour. Ugh. Barbarian. Use metric already! Ha, agreed. I use metric but in this case I got my figures originally in mph and I didn't think to make the conversion. I am also used to whomever I am talking to to be using the "american british standard system"

Canute0 -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/4/2010 2:09:05 PM)
Ok i think i know where is the trouble. Taltamir is thinking about low tech Spaceships, they dont accerlate more then 10g, maximum speed is maybe 1% at lightspeed. But, DW are more High Tech Spaceships. When you compare the Speed from Laser and torpedos, Torpedos fly with 1/4 to 1/3 of Lightspeed, Spacecrafts arn't far slower, you can even design ships they can be faster then Torpedos (Sprint). At low tech and short range, Laser are far supperior then Missiels so long you got enough Energy to use them. If you dont got enough Energy Bombs/Warheads are better because you dont need energy to damage. Taltamir maybe think about this and rethink about all.

taltamir -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/4/2010 3:04:21 PM)
you raise some good points, warp alters things significantly. Also, we were having some disagreement on what actually constitutes a missile. The link he posted is very interesting read. Regardless of all this fascinating discussion. a game cannot simply mimic IRL and still be fun. this is more of a weapon balance issue where, under current design, torpedoes are pure sheer awesome, lasers suck, and superweapons also suck... Balancing of any sort needs to occur to make them all worthwhile (on similar tech levels). interestingly, laser point defenses that shoot down missiles would make things interesting. lasers can continue to suck compared to missiles, with the caveat that 1 laser canon nullifies one missile shooter. eh, I am going off the deep end here... the suggestions should really remain within the realm of what makes DW, well, DW.

Fishman -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/4/2010 5:10:58 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir what you describe is not a missile, it is a mass driver that shoots out slugs with built in trajectory corrections. (aka, missiles) Those are indeed highly practical. If you can shoot a slug at 0.3c and give it vectoring thrusters it can be very effective. Having a missile propel itself to any speed that is worthwhile in space is ridiculous. Not any more ridiculous than propelling your ship is. If your ship can do it, so can your missiles. I didn't say you NEEDED to give missiles a high launch velocity, but it justifies the existence of even HAVING missile launchers, as opposed to simply having a cargo bay full of them and blowing them all into space. Because strictly speaking, Space Missiles don't need launchers. You can just stuff your cargo bay full of them and unload a ridiculous number of missiles at once by blowing them into space. Freighters stuffed with missiles become the deadliest thing there is. quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir it still produces a lot of heat for that initial acceleration to take place. Not really. The reaction thrusters used by the missiles jettison their heated thrust-products into space, where nobody cares what happens to it. quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir Ofcourse, if you really DO have battles where you shoot the missiles now and they reach the target 6 hours later that is a different thing altogether. Why not? Is the target going to go somewhere in 3 hours? quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir that is indeed the most practical of weapons in space (should hyperdrive exist). It would make for an interesting game if this was made as the premise of a game, where there are no warships, and the only things in space are transports. Occasionally, the transports are full of missiles. quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir Ha, agreed. I use metric but in this case I got my figures originally in mph and I didn't think to make the conversion. I am also used to whomever I am talking to to be using the "american british standard system" The Imperial system is utterly unsuited for anything that is even remotely technical or scientific, relegated only to measurements of things involving people and their meaningless lives. To express anything in the Imperial system indicates that it should not be regarded as important.

taltamir -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/4/2010 5:46:52 PM)
quote: Not really. The reaction thrusters used by the missiles jettison their heated thrust-products into space, where nobody cares what happens to it. I specifically said it is propelled initially by the ship itself. quote: Why not? Is the target going to go somewhere in 3 hours? 6 hours away by missile time is half a second away for a laser or a particle beam. in those 6 hours a laser equipped ship will blow you up, then blow your missiles up. That very page you linked shows that an XASER (Xray laser) to be an effective deathray light minutes away. http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3x1.html#xray quote: The Imperial system is utterly unsuited for anything that is even remotely technical or scientific, relegated only to measurements of things involving people and their meaningless lives. To express anything in the Imperial system indicates that it should not be regarded as important. The imperial system is unsuited for anything... why would you use it in your daily lives? not a single measurement is base 10 so any form of conversion is a PITA. anyone smart enough to not be overly bothered by using "math" (simple algebra) is smart enough to be bothered by the idea of using it unnecessarily by using such a retarded and cumbersome system.

Fishman -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/4/2010 6:14:05 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir 6 hours away by missile time is half a second away for a laser or a particle beam. in those 6 hours a laser equipped ship will blow you up, then blow your missiles up. That brings us to laser-wielding MISSILES. A missile that functions by simply getting CLOSE to its target, whereupon it unleashes a bomb-pumped X-ray laser on it. Unlike firing a ship-based lazor, I can lob these things, often well in advance of any actual combat, and when you are sighted, they will move in and kill you. As a side benefit, having this thing deployed gives me fantastic resolution for finding you. It's like a very large array telescope. Only it's a very dangerous array.

taltamir -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/4/2010 7:13:39 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Fishman quote: ORIGINAL: taltamir 6 hours away by missile time is half a second away for a laser or a particle beam. in those 6 hours a laser equipped ship will blow you up, then blow your missiles up. That brings us to laser-wielding MISSILES. A missile that functions by simply getting CLOSE to its target, whereupon it unleashes a bomb-pumped X-ray laser on it. Unlike firing a ship-based lazor, I can lob these things, often well in advance of any actual combat, and when you are sighted, they will move in and kill you. As a side benefit, having this thing deployed gives me fantastic resolution for finding you. It's like a very large array telescope. Only it's a very dangerous array. An awesome conclusion... amusingly I thought the same while reading the site about the various techs. the problem is how to get out fast enough, hyperdrive does the trick, but why would your opponent stick around? you both drop in, shoot your payload, then hyper out. BTW, is the very dangerous array a reference to schlock mercenary?

taltamir -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/4/2010 8:16:26 PM)
I thought this might be related to what we were talking about: quote: When it comes to laser point defense vs incoming missiles, there is some controversy. This is the subject of a long-running "Purple/Green" debate on SFConSim-L (The term "Purple/Green" comes from an episode of Babylon-5 called "The Geometry of Shadows". The episode involving the ritual Drazi civil war, where the sides are chosen by randomly choosing colored sashes from a barrel. It is a science-fictional version of Miller Lite partisans shouting "Tastes Great!" and "Less Filling!". More specifcally, as Christopher Weuve explains: "It's the SFConsim-L brevity phrase meaning 'an argument in which no actual agreement can be reached, usually (but not always) because it is dependent on going-in assumptions.'"). Green Drazi leader. Note green sash. Anyway the argument is about what happens in the last hundred kilometers to the target ship. For an in-depth look go to the Rocketpunk Manifesto and read Battle of Spherical War Cows: Purple vs Green and Further Battles of Spherical War Cows. For a brief summary, see below: The laser gang asserts that they can zap a missile before it ever gets to kill range, even for a nuclear warhead. And do it every time, at least so much of the time that missiles aren't worth firing. Even if the missile fragments into 10,000 pieces of shrapnel (each with substantial killing power), tracking gear can determine the fragments that will hit, and zap them before they reach target. The laser gang's theory is that lasers never miss. If you can paint the target with photons to see it, you can hit it with a laser. In addition: missiles, by definition, need to close on the target, which means there are some trigonometry tricks that will allow you to lock them up hard with lasers - they can't laterally juke in space without missiing the target, for example. The missile gang contends that laser point defense can always be saturated. Fire a big enough missile, or a salvo of missiles, coming in fast enough, and there will just be more mosquitoes than the bug zappers can zap in the short time till impact. The missile gang's theory is that you can derive the number of missiles needed to overwhelm a given number of lasers by inputting some variables, like amount of energy per square cm needed to guarentee a kill on a missile, the wattage of output of the lasers, and the cycle/recharge time of the lasers. Lasers do require some time to recharge, and need some time to cool off. The laser gang reply that lasers have the advantage in that they are reusable, unlike missiles. If lasers are dominant, it's also an offensive weapon to zap enemy ships, not a purely defensive one. The missile gang retorts that the missile can be fired outside of laser range, and if it does penetrate point defense and smoke your ship, your laser is no longer reusable, now is it? There is the cost effectiveness argument. Can you afford to carry point-defense lasers that can stop my missiles? Can I afford to carry missiles that can penetrate your point defense? Which is cheaper? Can there be any tactics in a long-range duel between two missile armed ships? It comes down to whether you can afford to fire a missile on anything but a certain intercept, this is also ultimately a matter of cost. Can there be any tactics in a long-range duel between two laser armed ships? It can be argued that it is the equivalent of two crack marksmen at opposite ends of a football field, shooting at each other with scope-equipped, tripod-mounted sniper rifles. Given equal quality lasers, if I can zap you, you can zap me. Given laser ranges of at least a few hundred km, maybe a few thousand how can ships maneuver? If they are slow, it will take minutes to change position, meanwhile zapping away with multimegajoule lasers. If they are fast, they'll hurtle past each other in a drive-by, then take hours to swing around for another pass, unless they have science-fictional levels of acceleration. Possible solutions include long recharge and/or cooling-off times between laser volleys, and restricted firing arcs on the laser turrets. The argument rages on, which probably means you can just pick which side appeals to you and be able to justify it. By carefully selecting, say, the proper minimum laser recycle time one can decide whether missiles are a viable weapon or not. The Attack Vector: Tactical wargame adds an additional wrinkle. The laser recycle time is set such that missiles are viable. However, laser cannons have a limited number of "flash cooler" loads which can drastically cut the recycle time. But once you've used up your flash cooler loads, the laser is stuck at the standard recycle time.

Canute0 -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/5/2010 12:11:12 AM)
quote: 6 hours away by missile time is half a second away for a laser or a particle beam. in those 6 hours a laser equipped ship will blow you up, then blow your missiles up. That very page you linked shows that an XASER (Xray laser) to be an effective deathray light minutes away. 0.5 sec lightspeed, thats 150.000 km, at Distance World a Missile/Torpedo dont need 6 hours for this distance, they just need 2-3 sec.

taltamir -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/5/2010 12:15:00 AM)
your missile travels 50,000 to 75,000 km/s? that is some fast fing missile! That is between 146,933x and 220,400x the speed of sound. I was not aware we had missiles that can travel at mach 220400; or even mach 146933... last I checked mach 4 is considered an achievement... mach 15 for an ICBM, mach 7 for a railgun. mach 5 for a chemically accelerated shell. now, I know its the future... but I am having a hard time seeing missiles that travel at 1/4 to 1/6th the speed of light. faster then that actually... as they need to accelerate. taking 2 to 3 seconds to transverse half a light second means eitehr starting at 1/4 to 1/6th light speed and maintaining that speed, or is starting at speed of zero, accelerating to twice that speed (assuming constant acceleration)... so 1/2 to 1/3 the speed of light. Since V_avg = (V_initial + V_final)/2 when acceleration is constant.

taltamir -> RE: Weapon balance for the future (5/5/2010 12:17:42 AM)
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