Brainstorming Weapons Overhaul (Full Version)

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Unforeseen -> Brainstorming Weapons Overhaul (3/17/2015 8:49:09 PM)

Thought it was time to update the OP with the current plan.

Right now I'm brainstorming some changes I'm going to make to the weapons tech tree. I'm strongly considering using Osito's Mod as a base for this.
There shouldn't be any game breaking changes, the priority for me is to have a more diverse galaxy. I don't like the idea of everyone shooting the same
weapons or having the same color of weapon even. My energy weapons don't currently have any differences other than aesthetics and name unfortunately, I'm
not sure where to go with that. But no matter what those differences might be they need to not overlap with the tactics behind my changes to Rail Guns,
Torpedoes, and Missiles.

Here's a list of what I have so far...

1. Energy Weapons will be diversified. Each type of weapon will have it's own color. Each weapon will have at least two types; Pulse and Beam.
I may be adding wave to this mix but I haven't figured out a way to incorporate that yet. Both Beam and Pulse will do the same amount of damage per 1
power as the other. Beam weapons will use more power and do more damage while pulse weapons will do less damage and use less power. This simulates how
this sort of weapon would likely act in real life. The advantage for using Beam weapons is that you do your full damage with only one shot, but if you
miss you do no damage for the power used. Pulse weapons give you a greater chance of dealing at least some of the damage for the power used even if a few
shots miss.

2. Energy Weapons will be named after the type of energy/particle being used to create the damaging effect. They can't be entirely realistic without
fewer weapons in the game than before because many of the types of energies/particles we know of would be useless in combat. Right now I have 6 decided
upon. Electron, Proton, Neutron, Photon, Laser, Plasma. Each one would have it's own color, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet.

3. Rail Guns will fire rounds with high velocity, it will deal low damage but retain it's ability to bypass shields. They will have higher range than
energy weapons making them a good weapon for those who prefer to stay at long range.

4. Missiles will be a complementary weapon to Rail Guns. They won't be acceptable as a primary weapon. They are going to do very low damage, but be able
to travel much farther than a Rail Gun shot can go. This isn't necessarily realistic but the idea I'm going with is that Rail Guns aren't going to be
as reliable as such extremely high ranges. Missiles can be guided after being launched, and are thus a better choice for long range attacks. Once the battle
closes to mid/close range and the Rail Guns open up this weapon is supposed to become fairly unimportant. It's purpose is to damage enemy ships before
the actual fighting starts. It will have a slow firing rate to simulate ammo conservation.

5. Torpedoes are going to compliment Energy weapons and will also not be acceptable as a primary weapon. They will do very high damage, but they have
very low range, nearly point blank. Ships will have to close in in order to fire them and their firing rate is going to be low like the missile for
the same reason.

6. Each Energy Weapon and the Rail Gun will be given it's own Point Defense Weapon and Bombardment weapon. Research no longer needs to be wasted on
unwanted technology in order to obtain these weapons. Their first tech will be available after researching the enhancement for the first tier weapon.

7. Planet Destroyers. This one may not be widely appreciated, but it's something I've wanted since I started playing. Energy Weapons and Rail Guns will
have their own planet destroying weapon at the end of their respective tech trees.(I hope, not sure if I can actually do this) Don't worry though, it
will be expensive and time consuming to research especially on max research cost which is what I play with.

Some things I am currently unsure what to do with:

1. I'm still not sure if I should replace gravity based Tractor beams with Magnetic. It's name only, but aesthetically important. I do not believe that it
will be possible to localize gravity in that manner. But at the same time, I'm not convinced that's important since I've decided to deviate from realism
when it comes to what kinds of energy weapons are going to be used.

2. I'm concerned that Rail Gun users will have an advantage over energy users. Even though they are doing less damage, they are still pounding the target's
armor and hull before it can even get into range to return fire if it even can.

3. On the flip side of 2, I'm also concerned that Rail Gun users won't be able to stay out of range of the more powerful energy users weapons at all and
that they will be ripped to shreds.

4. A lot of testing is involved with 2 and 3, something I find difficult to do in Distant Worlds.

5. What to do about Wave Weapons. I was originally thinking radiation, but not so sure about that concept now.

6. Partial Armor Bypass. I want to make use of it.

7. Star fighters. I want them to use the weapons their race has specialized in. It would be odd if all of their ships were shooting yellow photon weapons,
but their star fighters were still shooting red energy pulses.

8. Area weapons.

9. If I replace the Tractor Beam with a Magnetic version then the Graviton Beam has to be replaced.

Probably more to come :P



martyran -> RE: Brainstorming Weapons Overhaul (3/18/2015 3:39:06 AM)

Ok I sort of agree
the Torpedoes in the game i should me more like missiles ?

so maybe make the Torpedoes like plasma weapons short range they dissipate energy quickly over range
and maybe make the missiles longish range and smarter as they get advanced like more accurate and able to penetrate shields

Rail guns should be short range rapid fire type and have a bombardment value
I assume railgun projectile speeds would approach speed of light..maybe even break the light barrier with advanced weapons ?
Are beam weapons faster than the speed of light ?
Gravity weapons are a natural spin off from tractor beams so although I don't like them they add some diversity

I think limiting they types of weapons might just make it a number game ..reduce the shields as quickly as possible so biggest damage weapon where with the verity with Ion weapons railguns and missiles you can get some component damage early so allowing different players to develop there own tactics

Ok thats just some thought I have






Unforeseen -> RE: Brainstorming Weapons Overhaul (3/18/2015 4:11:14 AM)

I actually just rewrote the OP, thanks for your reply!

I'm not actually limiting the number of weapons in the game. Just replacing some of the less believable ones and less useful ones. I'm not really knowledgeable on the subject of velocity of directed energy. So I'm not entirely sure regarding that. If they aren't then perhaps the Rail gun would work? Actually having the Rail gun fire that quickly might crash the game though.

I did forget to mention gravity weapons in the previous post. What Martyran was referring to in his response is that I was suggesting that Gravity weapons weren't feasible. Creating artificial gravity is possible but I'm not convinced you'd be able to emit it to a particular point in space.

On the other hand, creating a gravity well is entirely feasible. But we need some sort of a tractor beam in the game. I've suggested a Magnetic version, based on an assumption that all ships are created equal in that their hulls and armor are made of metal.



Aeson -> RE: Need someone to help think (3/18/2015 5:42:52 AM)

quote:

I think it should be considerably weaker than a standard energy blaster/beam. It's limited to the yield of the warhead inside of it, and it probably wouldn't be a widely
accepted idea to carry hundreds of nuclear warheads on a ship that's heading out to fight head to head with enemy ships.
One lucky blast and BOOM.

Couple of things:
1. Nuclear warheads are rather difficult to 'accidentally' set off. You're likely in more danger from the propellant of the missiles than from the nuclear warheads. Nuclear warheads are additionally not particularly powerful weapons in space.

2. Which weapon is more powerful or more effective or more efficient is rather debatable. A laser hitting a target vessel is going to melt or vaporize parts of the target vessel, which will create a cloud of particles between the target and the laser's origin, which reduces the energy that the laser delivers to the target. Lasers also cause relatively 'clean' damage to the target; that is, a laser is reliant on the damage it causes to things in its path to cause damage to things not in its path - causing a fuel cell to explode, for instance, or a cloud of vaporized metal to kill everyone in a crewed compartment, or a bulkhead to last long enough to heat up enough to cause heat damage to things around it. A missile or torpedo that explodes within the ship's hull can damage a lot of systems which are currently still protected by the ship's hull and armor, and if the blast is contained within the hull it can deliver a significant amount of energy (if it blows out a part of the hull, then the explosion will lose some, perhaps most, of its energy to empty space, but it will still likely have caused a significant amount of internal and perhaps structural damage). A missile or torpedo detonating on the surface of the target's hull will lose an amount of power dependent on how well the explosion is shaped and how well the target's hull reflects the explosion into empty space (for an unshaped explosive, at least ~50% of the energy of the explosion will probably be wasted on empty space).

3. The bigger concern for missiles versus lasers is likely to be endurance and logistical simplicity. Lasers require power (and possibly also coolants and chemicals for the lasing medium), which can likely come from the same fuel which provides power for the other ship systems, and hopefully the coolants and lasing medium chemicals do not need to be renewed extremely often; thus, a ship which has fuel may well be able to engage in combat. Missile systems require ammunition (and possibly also coolants to prevent damage to the launch system when missiles are fired, and perhaps a propellant to give the missile a boost out of the launch tube), which adds an additional consumable constraining the endurance of the warship.

quote:

I think that science fiction has taken the wrong route with energy torpedoes. At a glance it seems like a cool idea. But in reality I think it would be horribly pointless, at least in the sense that it's displayed in Scifi shows like Star Trek.

Star Trek's torpedoes (or at least those used by the Federation) and Distant Worlds's torpedoes do not appear to be the same type of weapon. Star Trek's photon, quantum, and transphasic torpedoes are most likely weapons of a class similar to the missiles of Distant Worlds - DW missiles and the above-named ST torpedoes have yields which appear to be dominated by the warhead (that is, the kinetic energy the missile delivers to the target and the explosive energy released by the missile's propellant contribute much less to the weapon's damage than the weapon's warhead does). DW torpedoes, on the other hand, have yields which are range-dependent and decline as the range grows, indicating that the yield is largely dependent on the amount of propellant remaining in the missile at the time of contact (or possibly that the weapon's "warhead" is undergoing some kind of reaction and radiating energy into space as the weapon propagates towards the target).

DW torpedoes are also suggested to be some kind of 'plasma weapon,' probably akin to DW blasters, which exhibit similar range-dependent behavior. Hotter plasma dissipates faster but probably hurts more at close range, cooler plasma can probably be confined more easily and thus travel further but likely won't hurt as much. Torpedoes are simply larger blasters with either better confinement or more plasma per shot and some means of guiding the emission.

quote:

Then theres non-energy based projectiles. I think this entire concept in Sci-fi is completely ridiculous. I think you would only see a race using these sorts of weapons in situational cases or if they are pre-warp.

You shouldn't be so dismissive of mass drivers and standard missiles. A high-velocity projectile can carry a lot of energy, and impact forces are quite significant; a 1-kg object moving at 15c/100000 relative to its target before impact and which moves at 0 m/s relative to its target after impact delivers about as much energy to the target in the impact as a gigawatt laser does in one second of continuous firing, and depending on the duration of the impact event may do so in a far more damaging manner. Standard missiles most likely have significantly longer effective ranges than unguided weapons since, as guided weapons, they ought to be capable of correcting their aim as they approach the target (of course, they're also somewhat more vulnerable to being spoofed or intercepted), and unlike 'plasma torpedoes' can cause damage which varies little with the range covered.

Biggest issue for missiles is ammunition; it's an extra consumable restricting the vessel's effective endurance, and it's likely a relatively expensive consumable. Mass drivers have the ammunition issue that missiles have (although possibly to a lesser degree; mass driver projectiles should be cheaper than missiles, and as long as the rate of fire of the mass drivers relative to the missile launchers isn't greater than the relative storage density of the two ammunition types, mass drivers won't run through their ammunition any more rapidly), and also have a bit of a range issue; as their projectiles (probably) propagate more slowly than the emissions of a 'plasma cannon' and certainly propagate more slowly than lasers, the targeting systems need to be able to predict the location of the target further into the future for a given range. Depending on battle location, projectile size, and concern over collateral damage, missing may also be more concerning with mass drivers than with 'plasma cannons' and lasers.

Missiles and mass drivers also have the potential to be superior bombardment weapons to lasers and perhaps 'plasma cannons,' as their effectiveness is less dependent on atmospheric conditions. Cloud cover might perhaps stop me from aiming, but that rock that I dropped on the planet that hits like a several hundred megaton nuke isn't going to care that much; same goes for the 30-megaton nukes that I'm carpeting your continents with. My lasers on the other hand might be more or less completely blocked, even if they are better weapons for space battles.

I would further add that whether or not a species is warp-capable should have little to do with the kinds of weapons it uses (in fact, being warp-capable may even bring ammunition-heavy weapons back into favor because the higher speed might make it more practical to resupply deployed vessels in a timely manner). The kinds of weapons that a species should use should depends mostly on how well the various types of weapons that species can make perform. If Species A can make a mass driver that fires a 1000kg projectile at 0.9c every second but can only figure out how to make a gigawatt laser, chances are that Species A is going to stick with the mass drivers. If Species B can make a missile with a 1-kg antimatter warhead that has a maximum effective range on the order of a lighthour, and can make a 'plasma torpedo' with similar power at maximum range but only half the effective range, Species B is likely to stick with the antimatter missile for at least its longest-ranged warships.



NZFade -> RE: Brainstorming Weapons Overhaul (3/18/2015 5:57:18 AM)

I am not sure I agree with some of your thought process with regards to torpedoes, your statement "From my perspective, Torpedoes should be more like Shatter Force Lasers. Long range(due to self propulsion), Small with a low to medium yield. " has just described a missile not a torpedo in my view. Torpedoes are the slower harder hitting cousins of missiles, until you get to ballistic missile area which I think is address is the vanilla game with the massive missiles or whatever the later missiles tech is.

While I acknowledge what you say about a lucky shot creating a space dust of your own ship that is the reality of warfare now and one can only assume in the future, as a side note many warheads require specific detonation via custom fuzes which make them safer than more basic explosives (tnt vs C4). But here lies the strength of weapons such as torpedoes and missiles, you can put warheads in them that you really only want detonating next to the enemy/target. One method of torpedo damage in water, which is also valid in the space context, is that they create extreme pressure and then a vacuum which cause near by objects (subs or ships) to lose hull integrity and implode (in water)/rip apart(space).

Given this line of thought maybe review the specs of torpedoes to make their fire rate lower, you quite rightly point out that you quickly run out of space if you are firing them every few seconds, increase the damage because you are not trying to control the blast/energy just making sure there is a massive detonation, and lastly the warheads are either proximity, time or impact detonated there fore they should not be losing damage per second/distance. I am unsure if the current system could support it but you could also make them have a slight area effect given the theory of how they work. Changes like this would mean they fill a high risk high reward standoff weapon category, if they hit, mint, big holes in the fleets ships or shields, if they miss then longer reload times means the ships can close more quickly. It would make them more attractive to those with increased targeting.

I am unsure who had previously posted it but somewhere on this forum I read about someone increasing the speed and range of the projectile/rail gun stream while further decreasing the accuracy, I think this is a more accurate representation of how they would act in space.. I personally do not use rail guns so I cannot really bring game experience to their use, just an opinion based on current tech and space application. However I can see a theoretical use for them in a layered weapons approach.

Further down the weapons rabbit hole -> I think DW:U, like many if not all games, struggle to create an environment where the combined arms approach is truly rewarded like it is in reality. Most of the time you just get to the "best" weapon that is available which does brute force damage and then have lots of them.

I am really very interested in any and all efforts to balance or re-engineer the approach to weapons damage and shield/armor/component damage.




Unforeseen -> RE: Need someone to help think (3/18/2015 6:06:20 AM)

@Aeson: Your is a large post that you must have been typing for hours because it quoted the old OP xD. I'll have to consider some things then, you've made some really good points.

I'm basing my opinion about pre-warp/warp capable weapons usage on the idea of how much power it would take in order to actually go that fast. If a civilization has the ability to store and channel that kind of energy then it has the capability to power a weapon with destructive power far beyond anything a rocket exploding in a ships hull could do. Theoretically. This concept is complicated because you could argue that enough energy can only be stored for the warp drive and that equivalent power cannot be stored for use in weapon systems. On the other hand you can still put such a weapon that's capable of utilizing that energy because, from at least my understand of DW mechanics your reactor recharges the batteries using fuel. So you could fire the weapon anyways, you'd just have to recharge before going to warp.



Unforeseen -> RE: Need someone to help think (3/18/2015 6:39:20 AM)

Hmm you've all seemed to make really good points. I'm a bit OCD when it comes to efficiency. Carrying a finite amount of ammunition on a warship when you could produce your own ammunition via your power reactor seems absurd. It does appear that in ALOT of cases the destructive power of non-energy based weapons would be tremendously superior assuming that some kind of method wasn't invented that could stop a potentially very large projectile being flung at high speed.

However I've done a little bit of research and I don't believe that FTL weapons will be possible even if we are able to reach it. So for the purpose of this discussion please assume that all weapons energy or otherwise cannot fire/travel at or beyond FTL.

Another factor to be considered is how effective we consider shields to be against these non-directed energy based weapons. Would they stop them? Lower their effectiveness by slowing them down? Obviously the kind of shield we're talking about would matter. And so would the speed of the projectile when it initially reaches the shield. Although I don't think the game mechanics allow for this sort of consideration.

Side note: I'm shooting for a less OP end game approach for this. There isn't going to be that "one weapon" that outshines all the rest.

A lot of the directed energy weapons will mostly be very similar, but will have different sprites. The idea isn't really to add a bunch of new things to worry about. Just add variation. The only major differences will be in the decision to use beams or pulse weapons. Which I'm still determining those differences. Fire rate will be a big part of this.

Weapon range will probably be the biggest varying stat for these weapons.



Rosbjerg -> RE: Need someone to help think (3/18/2015 12:54:14 PM)

It should be fairly easy to extract and produce ammunition from readily available materiels in solar systems (if they have rocky bodies).

But weapons are all about hitting your opponent in a way he didn't see coming, so if he believes kinectic weaponry is outdated an idiotc (and thus unprepared for it) hitting him with an asteroid at a fraction of C should be quite effective.



mordachai -> RE: Need someone to help think (3/19/2015 4:08:52 PM)

I'm thinking of doing a tech tree / weapons mod.

My 2c:
Torpedos would be long range, and NOT diminish in power. They're self-contained, and their only advantage is range (since beam weapons p0wn everything currently).

I love your thoughts about naming things sensibly, and separating out beams and pulsed (blaster) type energy weapons.

Missiles would be even longer range than torpedoes. Or dump them. Personally, I find missiles to be quaint antique tech that doesn't really belong in a sci-fi setting at all. But maybe there could be a niche for them, to give diversity.

Phasers should be powerful beams, short ranged, and separate from other energy weapons (since the ship design files treat them separately).



Unforeseen -> RE: Need someone to help think (3/20/2015 11:17:33 AM)

Hey keep us updated on that! [sm=00000436.gif]

I've been thinking about some of the comments and about my original ideas and I've made some changes to my position.

I'm still skeptical about missiles. Assuming that the missile is intended to penetrate the hull of the target before exploding how are you supposed to develop such a weapon to accomplish this goal against heavily armored starships with energy shielding. Better would be a railgun that fires explosive rounds.

Torpedoes I've changed my mind about. I think they should be the shortest range weapon in the game, highest damage weapon in the game. But have a slow firing rate to try and simulate finite ammunition during battle and avoid it being too OP in close quarter combat.

Rail Guns are something I'm bringing back with low damage, bypass, extremely high velocity avg firing rate. Purpose: Bypasses Shields because of it's nature as a projectile weapon. However, I am simulating that metal is stronger than it is today in the interstellar age and which is why I'm going with low damage. (Also to avoid making direct fire energy weapons useless)

I've taken the following approaches with Directed Energy Weapons:

For now, I'm using realistic concepts though I may decide to use some made up things later on. So right now I have Photon, Plasma, Ion, and Particle. Each one will be split into two sub-types; Pulsed and Beam.

The pulsed version of each weapon will use less power, and do less damage than it's beam counter part. However the weapons will do the same amount of damage per 1 power used. So basically your either putting all of your damage potential per 1 power into a single shot(beam), or splitting it up into multiple shots. Using a beam weapon means your committed to doing the maximum amount of damage that your weapon is capable on a hit, at the cost of an increased potential for doing NO damage by missing the target. Thus wasting ALL of the power used to fire the weapon. Using a pulsed weapon means you can afford to miss more often. If a pulse blast is 1/5th the energy of the beam and you fire all 5 in succession and only 1 hits you've wasted only 4/5ths of the energy. Compared to a miss by a beam being 5/5ths waste.

I am indeed replacing the tractor beam with a magnetic version. This means the graviton beam has to go as well. I will have to come up with something to replace it. Hyperdenys will still be gravity based though. It's far more doable than a concentrated gravity beam/wave.

Edit: I just want to note that Ion based weapons will pretty much, or entirely be the same as they already are in the game. Photon, Plasma and Particle are the actual damage dealers.



mordachai -> RE: Need someone to help think (3/20/2015 6:28:07 PM)

I'd play a mod with those ideas encapsulated in it!

I hadn't discovered the Tech Unleashed mod until last evening - so I'm playing that a bit. Love the tech tree there (for the most part! - we always can find something to "improve") :)



Unforeseen -> RE: Need someone to help think (3/21/2015 7:55:04 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: mordachai

I'd play a mod with those ideas encapsulated in it!

I hadn't discovered the Tech Unleashed mod until last evening - so I'm playing that a bit. Love the tech tree there (for the most part! - we always can find something to "improve") :)

Thanks :), your enthusiasm for the idea is motivating!

I'll have to take a look at Unleashed, I was turned away by the thought of game breaking weapons being implemented in the late game. I like to imagine my games ending in mutual annihilation, anything that might potentially give me an unfair edge would ruin the experience for me.

I put a bit more thought into the missiles subject...

As it's been pointed out a missile does most of it damage by penetrating the hull and then exploding, dealing internal damage to the ship.

Since that is going to be very difficult against advanced metals we have to assume that such a weapon would be more likely to explode outside of the plating.

If we're operating under that assumption the missile's damage would be relatively low compared to weapons that specialize in damaging such metals.

In a non-game environment the explosion could have other effects than just causing damage in this case such as disrupting sensors and damaging external weapons systems.

The mechanics don't really allow for that kind of effect that I know of, so I've figured...they could be a complimentary weapon for Rail Guns.


Rail guns are an effective way to penetrate armor and deal damage despite shielding, but they aren't going to be reliable at extremely long ranges in space.

That's because there are many variables to be considered, variables that would cause the weapon to be inaccurate and therefore unreliable at too great a distance.

Missiles being non-energy based can also partially bypass shields, and can travel at great distances thanks to self propulsion capabilities. They would be reliable and accurate in extreme range situations thanks to guidance systems.

So I was thinking...have missiles be capable of being fired from extreme ranges with improved accuracy, very low damage with bypass and a low firing rate for ammo simulation.

The weapon would be completely useless once the target ship comes into close-medium range, but it would allow ships to start causing damage early and give rail gun users a head start.

Edit: Planet Destruction has come to mind as of late; I had originally passed the idea to previous modders but I think the idea was rejected...or they couldn't be modded into the game. I can't remember which.

I wanted to make all the weapons tree's lead to their own version of a planet killer weapon.

I can see why some people might not like that idea though because it practically guarantees that the late game will be a planet busting fest. I remember a lot of players wanting to remove the concept all together.



Unforeseen -> RE: Need someone to help think (3/21/2015 9:58:20 AM)

Another breakthrough. It's possible to "kind of" simulate radiation based weapons by having them partially bypass armor. These would be our wave weapons.



Osito -> RE: Need someone to help think (3/21/2015 1:25:16 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Unforeseen

I'll have to take a look at Unleashed, I was turned away by the thought of game breaking weapons being implemented in the late game. I like to imagine my games ending in mutual annihilation, anything that might potentially give me an unfair edge would ruin the experience for me.



The game breaking stuff is nowhere near as extreme as I'd originally envisaged (partly because it broke the game!), but the AI (including the Shakturi, to a large extent) is also capable of researching this stuff and using it against you. Also, the powerful techs are all late game and expensive: they take a long time to research, and it's quite difficult to get everything. I'm sure the AI would be better if I can implement research project orders for the mod.

In terms of weapon strength, I haven't put in anything more powerful than the existing superweapons. There have been some other powerful end game techs, particularly with reactors, hyperdrives and thrusters, armour and shields (and the Xaraktor virus from 'Ancient Galaxies'). In addition to that, I restructured a lot of the techs, to make the table easier to look at and follow. Take a look at it and let me know what you think.

So far as weapons are concerned, I did not myself make all that many changes, and the values I started with were taken from Icemania's AI improvement mod. The main points were these:
1. Beams were unchanged from Icemania's , except that I included 'tachyon beams', which have negative damage per distance, and I increased the speed of all beam weapons (indicating 'light speed' weapons)
2. Ion weapons tree restructured and includes more powerful later techs.
3. Area and gravitic wespons unchanged, but super area weapons were included, as an end game tech.
4. Torpedoes unchanged apart from three late game powerful techs, all very expensive.
5. Fighters tree redone, but not many changes to values, other than a powerful (but not game breaking) end game missile bomber.
6. Missiles mostly unchanged, but I did include a new missile type, which I called 'Nuclear missiles'. These have much higher damage and much longer recharge rates.
7. Ship boarding was combined with some techs which were previously with the troop techs (such as improving boarding attack and defense).
8. Planet bombing pushed a little bit later into the tree (planetary shields were pushed much later), and some more powerful end game planet bombs added.
9. Point defense unchanged, apart from a late game tech (partly to counter the late game missile bomber).
10. Rail guns made longer range, and faster recharge. Range is to reflect the fact that, in practice, these weapons will never stop till they hit something. Also pushed the planet bombing rail guns later into the tech tree.
11. Some end game armours included.
12. Troop tree substantially restructured to make it easier to see what all the techs do and a few late game techs included.

If you like any parts of this, feel free to use them in your mod.

Osito







Unforeseen -> RE: Need someone to help think (3/22/2015 1:47:03 AM)

Thanks, I appreciate that Osito!

I'm dreading the stats part of this project, I'm not very patient and getting everything right seems like an unsurmountable task. I do have a basic outline I think I'm going to use for directed energy weapons though.

---------------Enhancement
------------------|
---------------Point Defense
------------------|----------Pulse Specialization - Enhancement
Basic Weapon - Enhancement <
------------------|----------Beam Specialization - Enhancement
---------------Bombardment
------------------|
---------------Enhancement

The basic weapon will be pulsed. Rail Guns will have a similar tree, with it's own PD and own Bombardment as well. It just won't have specializations. Each weapon will have it's own unique color making it easy to identify the weapon as well as making combat a little more visually diverse.



Unforeseen -> RE: Need someone to help think (3/23/2015 4:58:30 AM)

I've been doing a lot of research into the energy weapon subject. It seems that the entire concept is overtly useless and most of the weapons that could be made would be easily deflected by various energy fields or metals. Other's are not applicable as sure means to do damage of any sort, where it entirely depends on the target the weapon is being fired upon. I guess I don't get to be scientifically realistic with this project. Proton and Electron Cannons anyone?



mordachai -> RE: Need someone to help think (3/23/2015 8:14:17 PM)

This is your thread, so if you don't want my blathering here, feel free to tell me to take a hike :)

That said, having played with Osito's mod a bit, I've found:
1. I like the faster moving / longer ranged rail guns to be a great change. I nerfed their range to 1K, instead of 1.5K, and I increased their velocity to 450 (they were moving too slowly to give me the sense of "bullet").
2. I mostly love Osito's organizational changes - esp. boarding pods and troop-techs.
3. Torpedos - I've been experimenting with increasing their speed (a little), and having them all consistently use the same rate-of-fire (2.9 seconds), and extending their range slightly (in some cases). I'm happy with the resulting torpedoes, as they appear to move on-screen in a way that reminds me of Star Trek's photon torps, and they indeed act like a "big gun" - large, expensive, high energy requirements, slow to recharge, etc.
4. Missiles - I'm playing with having those have 1.5K range, but otherwise basically the same. Seems to me that that is the one weapon-niche that is left after energy beams, energy torpedoes, and now railguns (and gravitic and area weapons) - a long range self-propelled weapon. I'm not a fan of missiles normally, so I haven't really experienced what they're like in DW:U yet. (Does anyone know of a race which uses them heavily?)

I'm thinking of adding a torpedo to try to emulate the "Romulan plasma torpedo" - a slow moving, slow rate of fire, torpedo that increases damage potential as it moves (much like Osito's tachyon weapons).

Sorry if this post feels out of place. I'm putting it here because you're brainstorming about weapons, and Osito's made a mod that helps (IMO) to clean up the tech tree - including weapons. :)



bobthe -> RE: Brainstorming Weapons Overhaul (3/25/2015 7:49:56 PM)

quote:



In the case of Torpedoes I feel like they are not serving the purpose that they should be serving in a setting where directed energy weapons are king.

From my perspective, Torpedoes should be more like Shatter Force Lasers. Long range(due to self propulsion), Small with a low to medium yield.


I'm a bit confused. Isn't this what Torpedoes are? Personally I find torpedoes to be more effective than lasers and phasers so I'm not really sure I'm following your complaint about them. I typically do 1:1 velocity torps and the high damage lasers (forgetting the name offhand) which means 2:1 strength in favor of torps due to the size differences. The lasers are purely for cleanup on stuff that gets too close but rarely even fire, even in massive battles. Torps just kick too much ass.



Aeson -> RE: Brainstorming Weapons Overhaul (3/25/2015 8:52:09 PM)

quote:

From my perspective, Torpedoes should be more like Shatter Force Lasers. Long range(due to self propulsion), Small with a low to medium yield.

quote:

Isn't this what Torpedoes are?

Not in the unmodded game. If you ignore superweapons, torpedoes consistently have the highest yield (per-shot damage) of any weapon at short range; they additionally have greater yield than missiles within the first half or so of the shared range band. They pay for it by being large components with relatively low rates of fire.



Unforeseen -> RE: Need someone to help think (3/26/2015 1:32:54 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: mordachai

This is your thread, so if you don't want my blathering here, feel free to tell me to take a hike :)

That said, having played with Osito's mod a bit, I've found:
1. I like the faster moving / longer ranged rail guns to be a great change. I nerfed their range to 1K, instead of 1.5K, and I increased their velocity to 450 (they were moving too slowly to give me the sense of "bullet").
2. I mostly love Osito's organizational changes - esp. boarding pods and troop-techs.
3. Torpedos - I've been experimenting with increasing their speed (a little), and having them all consistently use the same rate-of-fire (2.9 seconds), and extending their range slightly (in some cases). I'm happy with the resulting torpedoes, as they appear to move on-screen in a way that reminds me of Star Trek's photon torps, and they indeed act like a "big gun" - large, expensive, high energy requirements, slow to recharge, etc.
4. Missiles - I'm playing with having those have 1.5K range, but otherwise basically the same. Seems to me that that is the one weapon-niche that is left after energy beams, energy torpedoes, and now railguns (and gravitic and area weapons) - a long range self-propelled weapon. I'm not a fan of missiles normally, so I haven't really experienced what they're like in DW:U yet. (Does anyone know of a race which uses them heavily?)

I'm thinking of adding a torpedo to try to emulate the "Romulan plasma torpedo" - a slow moving, slow rate of fire, torpedo that increases damage potential as it moves (much like Osito's tachyon weapons).

Sorry if this post feels out of place. I'm putting it here because you're brainstorming about weapons, and Osito's made a mod that helps (IMO) to clean up the tech tree - including weapons. :)


Your absolutely in the right place. I may in fact use Osito's Mod as the base for my changes.

quote:

I'm a bit confused. Isn't this what Torpedoes are? Personally I find torpedoes to be more effective than lasers and phasers so I'm not really sure I'm following your complaint about them. I typically do 1:1 velocity torps and the high damage lasers (forgetting the name offhand) which means 2:1 strength in favor of torps due to the size differences. The lasers are purely for cleanup on stuff that gets too close but rarely even fire, even in massive battles. Torps just kick too much ass.


In the unmodded game Torpedoes are over powered. My vision of a Sci-fi space battle isn't a bunch of ships shooting energy torpedoes at each other from long range. I like the idea of getting up close and personal and duking it out with energy cannons. May not be realistic, but it's more fun and interesting this way.

Now of course, as I said I'm not envisioning torpedoes as long range weapons anymore. I should probably update the OP with my current string of ideas. But essentially I want them to be point blank weapons, that every race other than those using non-energy/particle based weaponry will have. Ships will close in to point blank in order to fire these high yield torpedoes. In the mean time they are firing with their energy weapons. Railgun/Missile users will be trying to stay at a distance to take advantage of their weaker but longer range weapons; dealing damage directly to the plating with partial shield bypass.



DancingWind -> RE: Need someone to help think (4/1/2015 2:21:38 PM)

Unforeseen you might want to take a look at <google atomic rockets Project Rho> (sorry cant post links yet). its a website for people that might want create realistic scifi novels, computer games, board-games, and explore space travel potential in general.
They do get to nitty gritty of physics and maths but also explain everything in layman terms how stuff works and what are the consequences when breaking some laws of physics.

for example - light fractional railguns ... emm ppl those things are scarry... even with few percents of c projectiles will hit you like nuclear bombs. And superluminal railguns are nonsense in so many ways.
While all those energy torpedoes are pixie dust filled bags of handwaveium - plasma does not behave like that (its basically superheated gas that expands very rapidly if not contained by .. magic?).

For bombardment ... all you need is rocks ... seriously you dont need anything else. Once you are in orbit - bye bye everyone on the surface.

I'll ad suggestions for weapons.
Particle beams - if you can fit a particle acccelerator on a ship you get a very nice beam that can slice through anything.
Neutron beams/weapons - you wanted radiation? neutrons are very fun form of radiation that does wonderful and scary things to matter.
Missiles that carry various ordinance packages. Beams, mass drives, more missiles, drones, etc.



mordachai -> RE: Need someone to help think (4/1/2015 3:03:26 PM)

Yeah, once I realized that any old garbage scow with a little time on its hands could end all life on any world by simply accelerating a space-rock to have enough momentum... all of the sci-fi models and stories and epic laser battles became laughable.

We worry about a few nut-jobs getting their hands on a nuke? lolz. A disgruntled crew and a nominal sci-fi garbage scow and Armageddon is all she wrote.



CyclopsSlayer -> RE: Need someone to help think (4/1/2015 3:40:04 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: mordachai

Yeah, once I realized that any old garbage scow with a little time on its hands could end all life on any world by simply accelerating a space-rock to have enough momentum... all of the sci-fi models and stories and epic laser battles became laughable.

We worry about a few nut-jobs getting their hands on a nuke? lolz. A disgruntled crew and a nominal sci-fi garbage scow and Armageddon is all she wrote.

Seriously!
Some many years ago I read a proposal article of a Tactical weapons system, simple beyond belief.
Place in low earth orbit a cluster of 3m long, 5cm wide, Titanium rods, with ceramic nosecone and steerable tail fins, much like the current JDAM.
Using 1980's electronics the author theorized a cluster of 100 rods could be dropped in a 10 x 10 configuration with a 10m spread. Each rod would have an impact kinetic equivalent to 300Kg of high explosive, and a depth penetration and shockwave that could collapse structures buried up to 50m,



Regularity -> RE: Need someone to help think (4/1/2015 6:21:17 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: mordachaiWe worry about a few nut-jobs getting their hands on a nuke? lolz. A disgruntled crew and a nominal sci-fi garbage scow and Armageddon is all she wrote.


Like a ballistic missile, they would be quite easy to predict the landing point of, as they follow a ballistic trajectory. Given we've been able to do this since the Cold War with both radar and thermal tracking, it's not hard to imagine even relatively lower-tech space faring races could do the same in regards to incoming space-borne objects. The only real issue is if they can project enough firepower at it to stop/deflect the object -- and if they're capable of making space ships, I would probably guess so, but that's highly subjective depending on what sort of setting we're talking about.

quote:

ORIGINAL: mordachai
4. Missiles - I'm playing with having those have 1.5K range, but otherwise basically the same. Seems to me that that is the one weapon-niche that is left after energy beams, energy torpedoes, and now railguns (and gravitic and area weapons) - a long range self-propelled weapon. I'm not a fan of missiles normally, so I haven't really experienced what they're like in DW:U yet. (Does anyone know of a race which uses them heavily?)


Even if they aren't necessarily a vital staple weapon, they do (or rather, should) fill an important niche in regards to base defence, as their long range prevents ships from simply sniping at otherwise huge and heavily-armed stations without taking any return fire. So if you're not sure what niche to put them in, maybe consider a siege or counter-siege battery weapon.



Vellarain -> RE: Need someone to help think (4/1/2015 6:34:01 PM)

I too have been looking into a weapons mod and combat rebalance!

The one thing that annoys me most in the current state of the game, is how enemy fleets can jump in point blank on your worlds. This makes almost all early combat a simple matter of who brought the most shields and guns to the party. Unless you blitz your research into hyper deny asap and go into it far enough and get the gravity well tech.

I want to change it so the moment you get your first warp tech you also unlock the gravity well. Additionally the first gravity well will have a much larger range, probably around 10000k to allow for more time and decision making. This change alone would make combat far more tactical and less about the biggest numbers win.

But the weapon changes I have in mind would be very extreme, in both range and speed. I will also be reducing the module size considerably for most weapons, excluding super weapons. This will allow players greater flexibility and allow for combined arms ships to be more viable. The amount of reactors/engines will dictate the speed of their ships, since the amount of extra reactors will have a negative impact on speed. The player will have consider that range and closing the gap will be a huge factor in how they design their fleets now.

Light based weapons: lasers and phasers, and their race specific brethren, have the highest range and almost instantly strike the target. They move at the speed of light so the weapons travel speed will be as fast as the speed of light, so 20k speed or maybe higher. Their range will also be the highest of 7500, right now the longest ranged beam weapon in DU is 560 i think. But they are the only weapon to have damage decay and with the gravity well changes. The rate of fire should come in some varieties, fast firing pulse lasers will have high rof of a laser ever 5 seconds but the damage will bleed off very fast over the slower firing weapons, which will be about 15 seconds. Light weapons will do poorly against sheilds, ignore reactive armor and deal enhanced damage against normal armor.

Rail weapons: The archaic mass drivers systems are truly the jack of all trades, slinging slugs of dense metals into space. In terms of speed and range they come second in both counts, but in space there is very little influence on the slowing of a mass round so they still travel vastly further than original DU, I am thinking 5k and at a speed of roughly 1000, so at max range the fastest round will strike at nearly the 5 second in game mark. They fire much faster than light weapons, around a shot every 2 seconds. Rail cannons can be used as a place holder for orbital bombardment, though not very effective. Mass Driven weapons make short work of shields as they attempt to divert the heavy rounds away from the ship, they ignore reactive armor and deal reduced damage to normal armor.

Plasma Weapons: The plasma cannon type of a weapon is the brawlers choice of weapon. Slow to travel and quick to bleed off its damage potential, this weapon will wreck any ship once they can get close enough. IT has the shortest of all ranges of 1500k and the projectile is sluggish at only 250 speed. But the damage this weapon can inflict is massive since it ignores all armor types and deals enhanced damage to shields. But be mindful about how many you can mount, they are very costly to maintain its 3 second rate of fire.

Torpedoes: The oldest weapon in the history of human war, but very well suited to space combat with the every growing size of potential payload and one of the best weapons for planetary bombardment. Extremely long ranged 10k but very slow to travel, roughly 500 since stealth is primarily how torpedoes approach its target. Its RoF is not measured in seconds, but minutes because the damage a single torpedo will inflict is huge. It is wise to invest in an early type of PDS to prevent your fleets from being devastated by a few torpedo ships. Planets will only be able to last a few salvos of the huge payloads torpedoes can carry before they are reduced to a barren wasteland. But do not think that as a player you can spam this type of weapon, their resource cost will be high and their size per weapon will be the largest save for the super weapons.

Point defense: No changes needed

Missiles: I REALLY dislike the concept of missiles in a space setting. They require volatile fuel to gain velocity and they they are still too slow for any ships PDS system. Their payload is abysmal when you can have any other weapon system do the same job at much lower risk to entire crew by simply housing them on the ship. A torpedoes payload will remain inert even if hit by a weapon, they are kinetically fired into space with a programmed trajectory prior to being fired and are steered by small ion thrusters towards the intended target. Missiles, not so much... Their tracking systems are electronically loud and engine heat would make them easy targets for any PDS system.

anyway, thats all I got for time at the moment, ill talk more about this later!



mordachai -> RE: Need someone to help think (4/1/2015 7:05:05 PM)

Interesting ideas. Not sure how they can all be adapted, but definitely an interesting take on the whole line-up.



Vellarain -> RE: Need someone to help think (4/1/2015 7:33:54 PM)

Adaptation for the majority part will be easy, excluding the two following.

Torpedoes will be the harder one because the race that focuses them from the start will have a huge ship to ship advantage until more composite designs take shape.

My personal biggest issue will be implementing the gravity well... I kinda want to make it so that stars will have a natural gravity well so I wont have to code the AI to have them build a Gravity well on their stations and just have hyper deny be a large station only module. But star based wells would mess with the Ai since they would be unable to instantly warp from friendly stations until they left the radius... and that would mess with... everything.



DancingWind -> RE: Need someone to help think (4/1/2015 8:02:03 PM)

Vellarain :) what is the difference between your described torpedoes and missiles?
The way I see it you are describing a flavor of a missile. All the disadvantages of missiles still applies to torpedoes.
If you can make 'huge torpedo' why not a missile?
If missiles are slow... a huge torpedo that has no acceleration to speak of is better at huge space distances? And against PDS? Also why chemicals? Wouldnt they use the same engine as a spaceships? Tomahawks for example are actually drones that are powered by jet engine, not chemical rockets.
If torpedo is stealth (emm there is no such thing as stealth in space but whatever) why not a your missile?

It seems to me you are trying to hard :) just use a magic ST topedo and dont bother explaining how it works :)
I'm fine with handwaveium, but if you are trying to do explanations, make sure they don't contradict each other.



CyclopsSlayer -> RE: Need someone to help think (4/1/2015 8:08:38 PM)

Some exotic weapons out of SF that might be fun to implement.

-Plasma Torpedo ala Star Trek "Balance of Terror" episode. A massive, fast and long ranged shot capable of planetary scale destruction.

-Tachyonic Weaponry. By old theory Tachyons are particles that have a minimum speed equal to that of light. Travelling at FTL speeds makes them a direct fire or beam weapon that wouldn't interact with normal matter. However, if timed carefully they would decay to Light speed particles inside the target ships shields and armor in a massive release of hard radiation and energy.

-Singularity/Hawking Warheads. In theory create an artificial black hole with a radius of a few meters. In theory this would 'bite' a chunk out of the target. Then reverse the effect and all the captured matter would be released as raw energy. Effectively converting the captured volume of matter as a total conversion bomb.

- Or in the single most extravagant case of over kill in fiction, the destruction of the enemy planet in the "Grey Lensman" book, Take one planet of matter, and one planet of antimatter, accelerate them to near lightspeed moving in opposite directions. Then drop them through hyperspace, popping them out with the target world between them. I am not sure there are enough zeros to calculate THAT energy release.



Aeson -> RE: Need someone to help think (4/1/2015 9:45:10 PM)

quote:

Light based weapons: lasers and phasers, and their race specific brethren, have the highest range and almost instantly strike the target. They move at the speed of light so the weapons travel speed will be as fast as the speed of light, so 20k speed or maybe higher.

If you're using the base game's numbers, then the maximum possible speed of light is roughly 2000 range units per real-world second at normal game speed (Warp Bubble Generators allow your ships to move faster than light and have a maximum speed of 2000 range units per second, so c <= 2000 r/s). Maximum theoretical speed of any of the main drive thrusters is 420 r/s (Starburner III, and not an attainable speed), so if you assume that any speed attainable by main drive thruster components is subluminal, that's a lower bound for c. Just something to consider.

quote:

Torpedoes: The oldest weapon in the history of human war

Says who? The oldest weapon in the history of human war is probably something along the lines of a club, and the oldest ranged weapon something along the lines of a thrown rock (a very basic 'mass driver'). Torpedoes, depending on the period, could be explosives which need to be attached to or run into the target and then set off (e.g. CSS Hunley's spar torpedo), a floating explosive with a contact trigger (a device which would now be referred to as a naval mine), or a self-propelled explosive device which may or may not have a tracking guidance system and which is generally detonated by a contact or proximity fuse of some form. None of these qualify as the 'oldest weapon in the history of war.' I don't believe that naval rams were ever referred to as torpedoes (at any rate, I cannot recall ever hearing them named as such), so they're probably out as an earlier form of torpedo, and they're still not the oldest naval weapon.

I'd honestly say that mass drivers have a better claim to being "the oldest weapon in the history of human war" than torpedoes do. Slings, bows, guns, your arms; all of these things are basic forms of mass driver, launching unguided or passively-guided projectiles at a target, with the damage of the projectile mostly being dependent on the projectile's mass, velocity, and form.

quote:

Missiles: I REALLY dislike the concept of missiles in a space setting. They require volatile fuel to gain velocity and they they are still too slow for any ships PDS system. Their payload is abysmal when you can have any other weapon system do the same job at much lower risk to entire crew by simply housing them on the ship. A torpedoes payload will remain inert even if hit by a weapon, they are kinetically fired into space with a programmed trajectory prior to being fired and are steered by small ion thrusters towards the intended target. Missiles, not so much... Their tracking systems are electronically loud and engine heat would make them easy targets for any PDS system.

The most commonly used definition of 'missile' with which I am familiar is that of a self-propelled projectile with an active guidance system. If the ion thrusters on your 'torpedo' can be used to drive the 'torpedo' in the forward direction, then your torpedo meets all the criteria to be called a missile by the preceding definition. In space, there's little reason why a missile would need to continually expend propellant. Thus, having the ability to fire a thruster in a direction that produces forward motion is sufficient to meet the self-propulsion requirement. This is in contrast to a missile within an atmosphere, which would need to constantly fire its main thruster in order to maintain speed due to air resistance. Now, there may be reasons why you might want a space missile to constantly expend propellant (particularly at a variable, and preferably somewhat unpredictable, rate), as if it's constantly expending propellant it should be accelerating, which should make it more difficult to hit than a constant-velocity target, but carries the downside of being more visible than a constant-velocity target (incidentally, your torpedo is not a constant velocity target unless it never makes use of its ion thrusters).

There's no reason why assisted launch could not be used for missiles, and indeed some modern military missile systems use assisted launch. Thus, that feature of your 'torpedo' is not sufficient, at least in the real world, to distinguish it from a missile.

Your torpedo also has an active guidance system, as it's capable of following a preprogrammed course and has active course correction in the form of the ion thrusters. Target tracking, while useful, is not a necessary feature of an active guidance system or of real-world missiles (e.g. V2 ballistic missiles, and I would assume also many ICBMs; the intended targets are immobile and have known locations, so there's no need for target tracking).

Finally, there's no reason why a missile's payload necessarily must be more volatile than that of your 'torpedo,' unless you're counting the propellant (but on the other hand, there's no real reason why you could not use the same propulsion system on the missile as the 'torpedo' uses). Kinetic impactors, high explosives, nuclear devices, one-shot lasers; all of these are possible payloads for space missiles and space torpedoes alike (and also space shells fired by space guns; this isn't, of course, to say that they're equally valid payloads).

I will further add that a properly designed tracking missile system should have a range advantage over a basic mass driver due to the ability to track the target. Basic mass drivers are limited in maximum effective range by your ability to predict where the target will be by the time the mass driver can reach it and by how accurately/precisely you can point the gun. Both of these limitations are relaxed to some degree by incorporating an active guidance and tracking system into the weapon. As far as the counter of "but PD" goes, a kinetic missile is approximately as immune to PD as a solid projectile from a basic mass driver, depending on relative sizes and the speed of the missile's final stage relative to that of the mass driver's projectile, and something like a bomb-pumped laser is more immune to PD than the basic mass driver's projectile. The missile, at least in theory, can be launched from beyond the effective range of the mass driver (the kinetic missile's final stage should have a similar, though possibly somewhat lower, effective range to the basic mass driver, so the overall range of the weapon should generally be greater), so the question is essentially how much are you willing to pay in ammunition capacity and ammunition cost per unit for greater range.

As far as the stealth aspect of your torpedoes goes, I'd say that that's likely a no-go. A basic mass driver is more stealthy than anything of equal size that can adjust its course by means of firing ion thrusters (at least, unless we allow for magitech), and if you can get the torpedo to a predetermined location using an active guidance system that relies only on passive sensors and a predetermined course you can probably (though not certainly) get a mass driver's projectile to the same location. If your torpedoes lack a homing device, as seems to be the case, then at best you've eliminated the range restriction based upon aiming accuracy, but your range is still limited by target position prediction and projectile speed and your projectile speed is likely slower (because the projectile is likely both larger and more fragile than a basic unguided projectile). You'll also have a higher per-unit cost for the ammunition, and likely less total ammunition capacity because the torpedoes are likely larger than the unguided projectiles you'd use with a basic mass driver, and also (if magitech is allowed) due to the addition of a stealth system.

quote:

Light based weapons: lasers and phasers, and their race specific brethren, have the highest range and almost instantly strike the target.

Effective ranges for laser-type weapons depends on:
- Beam spreading. The tighter the beam, the more effective it is at close range and the further out it can reach before the incident power per unit area becomes too low to matter.
- Your ability to predict the position of the target. If you can predict the target's position no more than 1 second into the future, the effective range of your lasers is going to be about 1 light-second unless it's limited by other constraints first.
- Your ability to point the laser in the direction you want to fire and the size of your target. Higher aiming accuracy lets you hit targets of a given size further out than lower aiming accuracy. Larger targets can be hit from further away with a given aiming accuracy than smaller targets can be, though the size differences in game may be slight enough that the resulting maximum effective ranges are effectively equal (e.g. if I can hit a size-100 unit at 10 light seconds and a size 1500 unit at 10.1 light seconds, that's only a 1% difference in effective range and so you might consider there to be no real difference in effective range).

Effective maximum range for unguided projectile weapons depends on:
- Your ability to predict the position of the target and the speed of your projectiles. If you can predict the target's position no more than 1 second into the future and your gun's projectiles move at 0.9c, the effective range of your gun is going to be about 0.9 light-second unless it's limited by other constraints first.
- Your ability to point the gun in the direction you want to fire and the size of your target. Higher aiming accuracy lets you hit targets of a given size further out than lower aiming accuracy. Larger targets can be hit from further away with a given aiming accuracy than smaller targets can be, though the size differences in game may be slight enough that the resulting maximum effective ranges are effectively equal (e.g. if I can hit a size-100 unit at 10 light seconds and a size 1500 unit at 10.1 light seconds, that's only a 1% difference in effective range and so you might consider there to be no real difference in effective range).
- How well the projectiles fired by your gun follow the path along which the gun was aimed. Basically folds into the accuracy and target size constraint above.

You cannot say with absolute certainty that lasers and laser-type weapons will have the greatest effective range of all unguided weapons. If target position prediction is the dominant constraint of both laser and unguided projectile weapons, then sure, lasers will have the greater effective range. It's conceivable for the other constraints on maximum effective range to come into play in such a way that unguided projectile weapons have a greater effective range than the lasers do, especially if your laser weapons have to be much larger than equivalent projectile weapons. That said, I would say that lasers are not particularly unlikely to have the greater effective range, especially if the circumstances of space battles are such that projectiles can be detected in time for ships to take evasive action (which imposes a more severe limitation on target prediction for projectile weapons than for laser weapons, as lasers cannot be detected before they begin hitting the target under standard physics; this however may not be in play depending on detector sensitivity and the ECM picture).



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