The Physics of Starship Battles: Lasers and Kinetic Energy

lysan

lysan
And there you have it, that is why it is as it is, not fun or spectacular! or we need new weapons in ED.

[video=youtube;FcS09dBSrvc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_381705&feature=iv&src_vid=0AV5aY7HYAk&v=FcS09dBSrvc[/video]

[video=youtube;V__P3N7sPW0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V__P3N7sPW0[/video]
 
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Kastor

Kastor
My biggest grips with weapons in elite is cannons having damage fall off. Surely them having non-instant velocity should be enough to prevent sniping. And plasma accelerators having very slow velocity, plasma looses energy quickly because it radiates a lot so unlike cannons damage fall off makes sense on PAs, but it's very low mass so achieving a high velocity should be easy.

Beyond that everything is fine for the style of short range fighting it is. Contrary to popular belief lasers actually have a very short effective range due to how hard to keep it focused it is so that's fair. It's strange that missiles and torpedoes are so slow but it makes sense when you take in the wider view of physics, which is to say if they went any faster relative to your orbital speed their corrective thrusters wouldn't be able to keep up and they'd quickly be flung out of your orbit, totally missing their target. Corrective thrusters? Your orbit? There's a lot more involved in going to where you want in space than newtons basic laws, I have no intention of explaining it here.
 

Leper Messiah

Leper Messiah
Interesting, a good watch cheers! :)

even though it's unlikely with targeting computers (hereafter abbreviated to TC) and whatnot (but what if something happens to disable the TC eh?) manual aiming could still be a thing. So my theory is this regarding lasers....yeah the more damage is done with Rays we can't see, but how do we "aim" them if the TC is disabled.....just like tracer rounds for bullets we can't see, could it not be plausible that "aiming" light is also fired along with the main "damage" beam?
 

lysan

lysan
We all know that in ED we have the weapons for the effect, not because it's real. Kinetic weapons are more effective unless we talk microwave type of weapons, but those we can't see.
So, lets just sit back and enjoy the show, it really doesn't bother me at all, I can live with this one for game play reasons :)
 

PhanttoM

PhanttoM
I never realized that the Shadow vessels from Babylon 5, fired lasers that were towards the "strong end" of light spectrum, (the only thing I knew was red vs. blue), which kinda puts the races on that show, in a new perspective when it comes to tech level / weapons. :eek:

Humans = Young race with relatively primitive tech. Red lasers on their Destroyers.
Minbari = Old race. Higher tech than humans. Yellow/Greenish lasers.
Shadows = Ancient race. Very high tech. Purple beam lasers.
 
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