Weapon balance for the future

[Canute0]

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]

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]

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.

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.

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?

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.

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]

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.

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

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]

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]

ORIGINAL: Fishman

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]

I thought this might be related to what we were talking about:

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]

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]

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]

delete

[Fishman]

ORIGINAL: taltamir

your missile travels 50,000 to 75,000 km/s?
that is some fast fing missile!

These are not unachievable speeds in SPACE, where there is no air resistance, so you will continue to speed up as long as you have thrust. Although he is probably giving an overly high estimate, and a more reasonable flight time is on the order of minutes rather than seconds.

ORIGINAL: taltamir

BTW, is the very dangerous array a reference to schlock mercenary?

Yes, although I've actually performed such a strategy years before, in the old days of text games, where I would cover the galaxy in probe drones, and then when an enemy was sighted, crash the probe drones into him. Very Dangerous Array is such a catchy name for it, though.

[Dadekster]

Dang, what happened to the laymans debate on weapon balancing? Getting a bit deep into the realm of realism over what would just be fun aren't we? [;)]

[Rustyallan]

ORIGINAL: Dadekster

Dang, what happened to the laymans debate on weapon balancing? Getting a bit deep into the realm of realism over what would just be fun aren't we? [;)]

I kinda just sat back and watched a bit to see where it went... and wait for it to settle again before commenting further. [:'(]

On the original topic with some input from the wild tangent...
And without adding anything new to the mix...

My current thoughts...

Increase the size/energy usage of torpedoes. Leave them be so that they can be used for long-range bombardment, but expect it to take longer or bring more friends.

Increase the speed/rate-of-fire for beam weapons. Can they be modified to actually shoot down torpedoes? I haven't seen that happen yet. Give equal-level beam/torp weapons parity in dps at the beam weapon's maximum range. Don't forget that both have damage loss over distance. (did taltamir's comparisons include damage loss at max rage? I'll have to go check again...)

You can sit back and bombard with torpedoes and take your time for the kill, or you can close in and tear the target apart.

Ideally, beams should have a longer effective range when the target is a stationary object, but I don't see that as a possibility without some changes to the game engine.

A higher inherent evasion for smaller/more nimble ships to make torpedoes less effective against them.

[Fishman]

ORIGINAL: Rustyallan

Increase the speed/rate-of-fire for beam weapons. Can they be modified to actually shoot down torpedoes? I haven't seen that happen yet. Give equal-level beam/torp weapons parity in dps at the beam weapon's maximum range. Don't forget that both have damage loss over distance. (did taltamir's comparisons include damage loss at max rage? I'll have to go check again...)

I checked it, but beams by the numbers lose out at any range. In order to be competitive as weapons, they need to be better at SOME range. Traditional balance is that short-range weapons always have better damage at the range they actually work at, because if they don't, they're useless. This is why no one fights with swords anymore.

[Rustyallan]

I checked it, but beams by the numbers lose out at any range. In order to be competitive as weapons, they need to be better at SOME range. Traditional balance is that short-range weapons always have better damage at the range they actually work at, because if they don't, they're useless. This is why no one fights with swords anymore.

I figured that would be the case. And I agree with you. Why use a weapon if it's not as effective as another.

One other thing I noted was how beam weapons alternate between a short/fast and long/slow weapon at each level. The Auto-design uses whatever is newer, even if the newer weapon is shorter-ranged and only does more dps at point-blank range. There really should be long/short beam weapon categories so that they can be properly mixed in the auto-design... AFTER some sort of balance is achieved.

What would be a good way of measuring effectiveness? There are a few factors to consider.
Max Damage
Max Range
Damage Loss
Cycle
Size
Energy Consumption.
(anything else?)

There's salvo damage, damage/second, damage@range, damage/size, damage/energy. DPS is the obvious choice for this, so now we have DPS/size and DPS/energy. My assumption on comparing DPS for two weapons should be done at the maximum range for the shorter-ranged of the two as well as point-blank.

[Fishman]

With weapons, there are basically only two factors in DW to consider: DPS, specifically DPS-by-size, and range. DPS-by-energy is pretty much unimportant because reactors do not really make that big of a contribution to the ship's size in any event and the differences are unlikely to be enormous. Either you're trying to fight a stand-off, or you accept closing to knife range to varying degrees.

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: Fishman

With weapons, there are basically only two factors in DW to consider: DPS, specifically DPS-by-size, and range. DPS-by-energy is pretty much unimportant because reactors do not really make that big of a contribution to the ship's size in any event and the differences are unlikely to be enormous. Either you're trying to fight a stand-off, or you accept closing to knife range to varying degrees.

I think the old adage about bringing a knife to a gunfight applies...
And I agree that the only two factors that effectively matter in DW is DSP/size and range.

leave torpedoes as better range, give lasers better DPS/size.

[Canute0]

Thats we all agree at last
We shouldn't alterate so much because the current Weapon/defence is ok beside Torpedos are to strong.

What do you think about Torpedos, since they arn't pure Energy weapons cut down the Energy use to 1/3(1/4) but increase the Volume by 4-5 times (Ammo Storage).  DPS should be lowered a bit too.
I think these 4-5 times increased volume would hit the ship design.

taltamir:
about the Speed of missiels at DW.
The fastest Laser are Maxos SL with 310, so 310 = Lightspeed
The fastest Torp. are Velocity HT with 150  = 48% Lightspeed.
With latest Tech, you can design a Ship with 200 Sprint.

[taltamir]

I don't think of any of those as being related to light speed... they are just "some numbers". Besides, its a game, hard science is irrelevant.

Game balance torpedoes currently have more DPS and more range... while torpedoes have more damage "drop off" due to range, at CLOSER range they deliver more damage, thus more DPS when its possible to shoot lasers.

the solutions can be:
1. decrease torp damage
2. increase laser damage
3. increase torp size
4. decrease laser size
5. increase torp cooldown
6. decrease laser cooldown.

And if the above are done, put more torpedoes on stationary targets like starbases.

[Bartje]

I never did quite understand why you cannot go faster than the speed of light? It has something to do with mass right???
 
Isn't light just energy traveling around? We use it to see things. Its not actually a required part of our body to keep living right? Just to see??
 
Why woudn't we be able to go faster then??? Why is it supposedly a hardline?
 

I would love DW even more with fighters & point defenses that also work versus torpedoes / missiles