PA Ranges

[Antony]

I am toying at dropping gravitic focussing for lasers. If I do I need something to bring PAs and possibley Meson guns down in range. The simplest would be to simply divide the range by some arbitary amount. Or alternativley is there a more "realistic" formula for calculating ranges for PAs and possibley meson guns?

[Theophilus]

Meson Range is based on the length of the "tube" so a shorter weapon has a shorter range. To get a short range of 10 hexes requires a 300 meter length weapon. At Higher TL's a shorter weapon (250 meters) has a range of 10 hexes. Simply reduce weapons length to reduce range.

PA's are more problematic, as there range is phenomenal, for there size. Still, try reducing length and bore size to get shorter ranged weapons.

And Remember, the weapons range is only as good as the fire direction used. If you use a shorter ranged beam pointer the weapons range is likewise reduced. (Of course your PA still does max damage at all ranges)

[Antony]

Actually I want a weapon range measured in no more than a couple of hundred kilometers since I don't want gravitic focussing for lasers which will reduce their ranges down to this sort of order. This would make for very small PAs if the range formula as listed are used.

[Starviking]

Originally Posted by Antony

Actually I want a weapon range measured in no more than a couple of hundred kilometers since I don't want gravitic focussing for lasers which will reduce their ranges down to this sort of order. This would make for very small PAs if the range formula as listed are used.

Surely at those kind of ranges proximity nuke missiles would be king? Then you can drop PAs and Meson Guns.

[Zparkz]

I have also toyed with the rangebands in TNE if I was to drop grav focusing. However, it will also affect how long a combat round is and what kind of ROF a laser weapon is going to have.

And as there is no medium to transfer a shock wave in space, a nuke blast will be harmless at a few kilometers range.

[Starviking]

Originally Posted by Zparkz

I have also toyed with the rangebands in TNE if I was to drop grav focusing. However, it will also affect how long a combat round is and what kind of ROF a laser weapon is going to have.

And as there is no medium to transfer a shock wave in space, a nuke blast will be harmless at a few kilometers range.

But the ranges being toyed with are on the range of a few hundred killometers. At those ranges achieving hundred-meter accuracy shouldn't be too hard. Even with near-misses there's radiation damage to be considered too.

[Antony]

Point defence will be better at these ranges given sensor and MFD ranges. Getting your proximity nuke into position is going to be difficult. Also I believe that you will want the warhead within the hundreds of meters before it detonates not kilometers. The ND missile will become the long range weapon and fast anti-misile missiles will become important.

[Starviking]

I guess we'd also have to consider closing speeds too. If it's high, and so combat is just a single-pass blast-em-up then buck-shot warheads and gauss guns would be effective.

On the subject of nukes, there are also decoys to liven things up. Also, at the ranges concerned 'white-outs' from nuke detonations would blanket the battlefield.

[TheDS]

Presuming PAWS and MGs also use gravitic focusing (unmentioned), you could try determining the range bonus confered to lasers and then divide by that factor. IIRC I tried that with disappointing results, so instead you might just limit PA tech to TL 9 and Meson to 11.