[Spaceships] Don't die with smartbombs: using SS4 X-ray laser warheads

[Ulzgoroth]

I don't think scaling up the nuke would do the job. I'm not sure, but I suspect the beam output is limited more by the capability of the lasing tubes than the output of the bomb.

[cmdicely]

Originally Posted by Langy

If the beam damage goes up with the cube root of the energy of the attack, and a 25 megaton warhead nuke provides 10 times the energy of a 25 kiloton nuke, it follows that a 96cm x-ray laser warhead (25 megaton nuke, following the progression for normal nukes) would do ten times the damage of a 16cm x-ray laser warhead (25 kiloton nuke, following the progression for normal nukes). That is, it would do 100d(5) damage. That's ten SM steps per full 10x increase in damage.

A 25 megaton nuke is 1000 (not 10) times the energy of a 25 kiloton nuke. But yes, if a 96cm laser head warhead had 1000 times the energy of a 16cm one, and the same number of beams, it would make sense for it to have 10 times the damage of the 16cm warhead.

[Langy]

Er, yeah. That was supposed to be a 1000, not a 10.

I'm not too sure the number of beams matters too much. Lasing rods are very skinny - something like inches or millimeters wide. They don't pull in energy from outside of the area of the lasing rod. Thus, almost all of the energy of the nuke is completely lost - increasing the number of rods just increases the percentage of energy that winds up being used. I'm pretty sure it doesn't require a bigger bang in any way, shape, or form.

I have to admit, though - I know very little on how laser pumping actually works. It may be that the amount of energy you get out is constained by the lasing rod and there's no way to make a lasing rod capable of taking full advantage of a 1000x more powerful explosion than the one in Spaceships 4.

[jacobmuller]

Originally Posted by cmdicely

Here's the way I see it: Roughly, keeping 16cm warheads doing 10d(5) per beam with a range, that gives a damage of 11d(5) for 20cm, 12d(5) for 24cm, 14d(5) for 28cm, 16d(5) for 32cm, 18d(5)for 40cm, 20d(5) for 48cm, 22d(5) for 56cm, 25d(5) for 64cm, 28d(5) for 80cm, 32d(5) for 96cm, and 36d(5) for 112cm.
16cm - 56cm warheads will have a beam range of 300/1000mi
64cm and larger warheads will have a beam range of 700/2000mi

And keep the calibre/2 as the number of beams?
I like that. Keeps the damage within reason and the numbers make sense.
Still useless against capital* ships but better than "Oh, look, fireworks!"
*sorry, useless with the options I've elected to use:) Without the S4 Damage Reduction and Advanced Armours = doubled hardened, it'll at least cause damage, if the missile is from a major battery.