[WAD] Laser COIL Shot #1203

[kritter]

Has anyone else noticed that the Laser Coil Shot has become completely ineffective after this update?

[Dimitris]

https://forums.matrixgames.com/viewtopic.php?t=416771

ADDED: Significant improvements to modeling of high-energy lasers:
- Major improvements in modeling of power-at-impact and absorption at different layers of the atmosphere (this is very important when the shooter and target are at significantly different altitudes, incl. space)
- Far more realistic modeling of laser kill probability against different weapon-type targets.
Weapons are now graded for durability/fragility levels. Examples:
* Small/Medium OWA-UAV => very fragile
* Glide bomb (JSOW etc.) => fragile
* Non-glide bomb (GBU, JDAM) => medium
* Iron bomb, rocket (guided and unguided) => tough
* Subsonic cruise missile => fragile
* Supersonic missile => tough
* Mach-3 and above weapon => medium
This grading is combined with the calculated power-at-impact to evaluate if a kill is made or the target is hit but survives.

As always, if a specific case seems problematic/unrealistic, post a save for investigation.

[kritter]

I would say they are way too ineffective.

[thewood1]

Based on what reference?

[Knightpawn]

Based on what reference?

Based on their advertised effectiveness (in clear weather conditions) by Israel (Iron Beam), Russia (LaserBuzz) and USA (LOCUST), any reference should support why they should nevertheless be modeled as less effective.

[thewood1]

So maybe bring the reference to the discussion then?

[kritter]

If you look at the test and how many shots it takes to shoot down a target. With the weapons ROF, this weapon now couldn't shoot down anything before it hit it's target. That's what makes it ineffective.

[thewood1]

I'm just looking for some real world reference for expectations.

[BDukes]

Has anyone else noticed that the Laser Coil Shot has become completely ineffective after this update?

Yes but you can see what is going on. If you look at the DB entries you'll notice your shot is 2.4DP with a low rate of fire. If you look at the myriad of others they've got different and higher DP and ROF. If those don't work then I'd add a request for it at the db request site to adjust the original coil. Go direct man.

https://github.com/PygmalionOfCyprus/cmo-db-requests

Mike

[thewood1]

And don't sleep on ROF. Its easy to just look at damage. ROF is the real killer.

[Dimitris]

Finally had a chance to look at this now.

You have a 10KW laser hitting a medium-durability target at 26-200nm+ (and delivering effectively 0 KW of energy, as noted in the logs). You're not even scratching the paint at these distance and effective power levels.

This is why militaries are now pushing for multi-hundreds of KWs or even megawatts, and realistically restrict their engagement ranges to "a few nm" (at least within the atmosphere...).

You are witnessing why the AL-1 got cancelled, essentially. Effective delivered power drops so sharply with distance that the plane literally needed to orbit within the BM-slinger nation's airspace in order to have the slightest chance of bagging the missiles on their boost/ascent phase.

WAD.