Maximum Construct Weapon Range.

[Xplosiv]

I couldn't find a thread on this specifically. Ignore if already discussed. 

 

I was wondering what people think the MAX weapon range should be for constructs. I hate to always refer to space engineers, but its the closest in relation to DU that i have played. In space engineers the maximum range for any weapon is 800m. This seems to be extremely short to me, for a space game. Even in arma2(a military simulator game) you can snipe people up to 2000m(possibly more), and missiles have ranges around 4-5km. I think it should be several thousand meters for the longest range weapons. 

What does everyone else think? 

[Archonious]

Range in SE is very abusable =( Mainly "Ship" vs "Static". And once again, everything depend on weapon size =) If to take SE, there are balanced mod weapons (big sizes) with 2km+.

 

Also, is depends on size system. 1km in 2 different games could look very different. This question (IMO) need to be discussed in Alpha/Beta, we will know at least distance visualization.

 

Thanks,

Archonious

[GrimReaper]

Agreed with Achronious, in game distances are completely arbitrary. 1,000 km in one game, may not seem like 1,000 km in another.

 

What I hope for:

 

I hope that firing distance is as far as the update syncs go, if that makes sense.  So, until the construct is too far away to be updated regularly, you can shoot at it.  I'm not sure how the lock-on system is going to work, and I have no idea if it's possible to miss a ship... but perhaps the projectiles can go even further than that point, it's just far, far less accurate.  If possible of course, I'm not sure how the whole updating projectiles/constructs in relation to you work.

 

It's just too hard to tell right now.  It's a very valid question, but we need more information to go off of ^^

[mrjacobean]

Weapons range would not be "How far can you fire" but "How far can you lock on". This really depends on weapon and sensor quality, maybe throw a gunnery skill in there as well?

[Anaximander]

Range doesn't matter. IF you can see something, you got a hit chance or damage loss if its a laser, depending on how far it is.

If you can aim at a planet and launch an attack, the attack will take X amounts of seconds to be relayed to the planet itself and spawing a damage bubble in that area, in referrence to the local cluster. Remember, lateral speed is part of the hit chance mechanics. Planets are rotating, NOT moving. If you aim at them, you'll probably hit your desired location with some estimation of update times.

At least, from what the Devs said, I can see that happen. But then again, atmospheres may work as a shield for damage from attacks, so a kinetic damage attack sent from clusters off its planet's grid, may be reduced significantly, because friction and lasers can be less potency at range due to doppler effects emulated via this same atmosphere shield mechanism.

So siege fleets need to get in orbit of a planet to be effective.

As I said, damage bubbles will probably spawn in a distant cluster in relevance to the target (Core Units? Those are the things you lock-on as a referrence for damage bubbles to know where to spawn). So the real question should be :

"Weapons maximum effective range?"

Which I guess depends on the Tier of the weapon and its stats.

A Mass Driver won't be really effective at close ranges, but would be built to nullify that atmosphere shield.

The normal, ship to ship weaponry, won't be effective at huge distances, due to hit chance loss over distances.

[Ripper]

Being able to see something doesn't mean you can hit it with a laser.

 

Optical and Radar sensors would fail to provide the exact location of ships at extreme range.  This is due to the speed of light.  What you see onscreen is the location of the ship at a previous point in time.  

 

Technically, due to the vastness of space, lasers and projectile weapons would be considered "short range".

 

Missiles and torpedoes would be the only munition that could travel FTL, or be able to home in on a target that was detected by your sensors.

[Anaximander]

Being able to see something doesn't mean you can hit it with a laser.

 

Optical and Radar sensors would fail to provide the exact location of ships at extreme range.  This is due to the speed of light.  What you see onscreen is the location of the ship at a previous point in time.  

 

Technically, due to the vastness of space, lasers and projectile weapons would be considered "short range".

 

Missiles and torpedoes would be the only munition that could travel FTL, or be able to home in on a target that was detected by your sensors.

Calculating trajectories is not that hard for kinetic weaponry. We've landed probes on asteroids with our current tech like that.

 

Lasers would be ineffective, true, but that works only if the laser is a fission x-ray cannon, which is essentially a really powerful flashlight with a very small angle of focus that disperses with distance. However, a powerful lamp and focal lens would be able to hit with pinpoint accuracy depending on its size, but, the further the distance, the more contained the damage bubble is (because angles of an isosceles ttriangle).

 

Also, sensors could be the key component on accuracy inputs. Stronger sensors = better accuracy = better effective range.

 

Thing is, the game's LOD is not just there for pretty's sake. A planetary caoon powered by a power plant that eclipses ANY poer core on a ship, SHOULD have the range to hit them from afar. 

 

As I said, seeing something and being able to shoot at it, doesn't mean you'll hit it. Effective range is a thing.

 

[mrjacobean]

Calculating trajectories is not that hard for kinetic weaponry. We've landed probes on asteroids with our current tech like that.

with probes, we take a leisurely stroll to get to the asteroid, whereas a kinetic weapon requires speed to deliver enough force (you cannot correct your course when you fire a gun, but you can when you are flying a probe)

 

In addition, all the calculations need to be done in a few seconds, whereas with our space program we have months/years to calculate the correct course. You then have to factor in their velocity relative to you and their acceleration. Whilst this is fine for targets a few hundred meters away, it doesn't really work when the target is tens of KM away, or 1KM away and tiny (smaller ship equals less margin for error). When it comes to that, just "Spray and Pray"

[Anaximander]

with probes, we take a leisurely stroll to get to the asteroid, whereas a kinetic weapon requires speed to deliver enough force (you cannot correct your course when you fire a gun, but you can when you are flying a probe)

 

In addition, all the calculations need to be done in a few seconds, whereas with our space program we have months/years to calculate the correct course. You then have to factor in their velocity relative to you and their acceleration. Whilst this is fine for targets a few hundred meters away, it doesn't really work when the target is tens of KM away, or 1KM away and tiny (smaller ship equals less margin for error). When it comes to that, just "Spray and Pray"

That's why I said that the siege fleet would not be effective at distances, given an "atmoshperic shield" mechanism.

 

 

Also, in the FutureSpace of the game, they got quantum mechanical nodes that teleport you at the moment you are about to die. I bet they have quantum computers to do calculations in 0 time required. The thing is, the damage drop-off will be there. They are quantum processors, not magic, they won't boost the damage of an kinetic damage weapon, as it would burn as it enters the atmosphere. Heck, the Devs can add a virtual size of a projectile on the weapon stats, that equates to how much damage drop-off a weapon may have while striking from orbit. Rod shaped projectile on a railgun? That baby will do some serious damage on a planet, but in a rather small damage bubble. It's not an asteroid after all, but it would do the job on helping to take down those Protection Bubbles.

 

A ship works on the same principle but with delay and speed of the ship. Just because you aim somewhere you see a ship, does't mean yo uwikk be able to hit said ship as it moves and that is why space-jousting will be a thing in DUAL. The closer you are to the target, the more damage you do and evasive maneuvers will be there to ensure a ship's navigator can avoid the spawning damage bubbles.

 

If you are going in the same direction as the ship you aim for, then the ship to you is virtually stationary, thus calculations become more precise, as the ship has not so many parameters to turn that you can't keep up with, except if you are a battleship, trying to hit a battlecruiser. Good luck with keeping up with a battlecruiser

 

It's really simple really, although I would guess that sensors enable a "zoomed in" view on an object, so the gunner can see it better on their display (as you are operating the turret via a dispaly in-game, in first person).

 

So yeah, seems I'm onto something :|

 

 

[Xplosiv]

@twerk so you would like the range for weapons capable, to hit whatever can be seen? Even if its like 50km away?

[Anaximander]

@twerk so you would like the range for weapons capable, to hit whatever can be seen? Even if its like 50km away?

That's the point. Just because you can tag something, doesn't mean you can hit it. As I said, objects that move are NOT easy targets and the more the distance between you and them and their speed, the lesser the chance to hit them.

 

Being able to tag something, doesn't mean you will have a chance of hitting it.

 

In one of the Updatees on KS, they said that weapons will be short, medium and range for AvA combat, if they keep that model, the weapons on ships will be the same.

 

Long range weapons are meant to be able to have greater effective range? How much? Depends on the quality of the equipment you have on your ship. 

 

Just because you got a laser battery on the ground, doesn't mean you will be able to hit someone on theo ther side of the system, since when you aim at, people won't be there when you damage bubble spawns.

 

What part of this you can't grasp?

 

It's like saying "I got a sniper rifle, why can't I hit a car going 200 Km / h , 3 km away? Because of distance and pssed. Sure, you got a very VERY small chance of hitting them, like 0.001%, but it's not cost efficient if you are on a budget. And warships are on a budget. They got ammunition to conserve for an actual engagement. 

 

And even if your ship is parked on a station, you will see the indication of an incoming lock-on WAY before the damage bubble spawns, so you got time to move your ship, if said station SOMEHOW has no protection bubble around it.

 

[Velenka]

There's also gameplay immersion to consider. It's not very interesting getting shot at by a ship that is only as large as a pixel from your perspective. If we take a ridiculously small 1mm object at a distance of 0.5m, that would extrapolate to a 1km object at 500km. A more reasonable 40mm object at 0.5m extrapolates to a 1km object at 12.5km. Obviously there's going to be ships of greatly differing sizes, but it's possible to put some reasonable constraints on range just by considering that you don't want to get shot at by specks of dust or be forced to almost dock with an enemy ship to shoot at it.

[Limyaael]

Being able to see something doesn't mean you can hit it with a laser.

 

Optical and Radar sensors would fail to provide the exact location of ships at extreme range.  This is due to the speed of light.  What you see onscreen is the location of the ship at a previous point in time.  

 

Technically, due to the vastness of space, lasers and projectile weapons would be considered "short range".

 

Missiles and torpedoes would be the only munition that could travel FTL, or be able to home in on a target that was detected by your sensors.

 

 

Space battles won't be occurring at such large distances that the speed of light will matter (well, maybe if two planets at war are close enough planetary cannons might need to consider it). If I'm shooting at you from 100 km, a laser will hit you immediately.

 

Lasers aren't inaccurate because of the speed of light, they're inaccurate because of atmospheric scattering. If you could get a laser powerful enough that you could see it on the moon, a 2mm wide laser will be the size of a large crater from the scattering (solar winds do a little bit too). So going the other way, your shot at another spaceship might work from pretty far off, but if I'm trying to hit a specific city from space, the shot will get scattered and cause no damage (ingame, such a laser should tell you it won't work from orbit, have them fire either direction through the atmosphere just with 0% chance).

 

Missiles/physical weapons going through the atmosphere should be more devastating than usual but less accurate. If you want to hit a building, get into the atmosphere (and well within the range of planetary cannons).

 

 

with probes, we take a leisurely stroll to get to the asteroid, whereas a kinetic weapon requires speed to deliver enough force (you cannot correct your course when you fire a gun, but you can when you are flying a probe)

 

 

When it comes to physical weapons, said missiles can recorrect their course (smart missiles already exist). When it comes to lasers, even if you're fighting at moon distances it hits in a few seconds (although you should try to close that gap quickly). And the reason why it's so hard to do space stuff in real life is that everything, including your launch platform, is moving. If the Earth and Mars were just spinning or their axis, we'd have a single defined travel time without travel windows.

 

 

There's also gameplay immersion to consider. It's not very interesting getting shot at by a ship that is only as large as a pixel from your perspective.

If someone has either wasted the munitions or gotten so lucky that they'd hit me from hundreds of kilometres away, let them. It's such a difficult task that it will rarely happen, and never will if I'm in a planet's atmosphere. Snipers who can hit from ovr 2km away are highly regarded for a reason.

[Anaximander]

There's also gameplay immersion to consider. It's not very interesting getting shot at by a ship that is only as large as a pixel from your perspective. If we take a ridiculously small 1mm object at a distance of 0.5m, that would extrapolate to a 1km object at 500km. A more reasonable 40mm object at 0.5m extrapolates to a 1km object at 12.5km. Obviously there's going to be ships of greatly differing sizes, but it's possible to put some reasonable constraints on range just by considering that you don't want to get shot at by specks of dust or be forced to almost dock with an enemy ship to shoot at it.

Well, that's the point. Being able to see someone, doesn't mean you'll be able to hit them.

 

Also... how will you be able to see and identify someone if you can't lock-on them from a planet, while they are in Line of Sight on the other side of the star system?

 

Exactly.

 

You won't be shot by specs of dust, it's impossible, unless they got the same orientation as you for the duration of the time it takes to spawn a damage bubble given the distance (which is highly unlikely).

 

It's about the game providing that option, even if it's abysmally low. That's why NQ seems to go for classification of weaponry as Short, Medium. Long, with each of them having certain Maximum Effective Ranges. Their flat, maximum range, will be as much as the drawmap will be / could be and / or how far can you sensors pick up targets at, with better sensors giving you more accuracy bonuses to your ship's weaponry.

 

If I got a Mass Driver on a siege ship, I should be having a really huge sensor, so I can act as a trebuchet aand firing chunks of metal from afar.

 

Sensors, are not there for pretty's sake. 

[Ripper]

Diffusion has nothing to do with the inaccuracy of lasers at long range.

 

A light-second is roughly 186,000 miles.

 

That's not a large distance in terms of bodies within a solar system. In fact, it's 226,000 miles from the earth to the moon.

 

Then consider ACTIVE sensors. The light or radio waves have to travel FROM your ship... reflect off the target... and return to your ship. This type of sensor has less of an effective range due to the additional travel time. (Approx 93,000 miles)

 

Then consider the speed of the laser. That's ANOTHER second to the target.

 

I'm keeping the distance at a light-second to keep the math simple. Feel free to use whatever fraction of that you'd like.

 

Now consider that ship that just came out of FTL. It's currently running at .9c

 

Using optical sensors (passive but more accurate) you detect the ship and fire on that position. That's one second for the sensor and one second for the laser to return to the target.

 

You just missed the target by 335,000 miles, because the target has been moving for 2 seconds. 558,000 miles if you were using an active sensor.

 

But you say "The ship computer can compute the trajectory"

 

That's true. IF the target was a meteor. But another ship making even a MINOR random course adjustment would be impossible for the ship computer to make an accurate prediction.

 

Your shot would still be off by miles.

 

But you say "That's at 186,000 miles. We won't be engaging ships at that distance"

 

Just take the above example and change the distances by a fraction. Then recompute the time it takes to travel those distances.

 

How close do you have to be to be accurate within 100 meters? (The length of a ship)

[Anaximander]

Diffusion has nothing to do with the inaccuracy of lasers at long range.

 

A light-second is roughly 186,000 miles.

 

That's not a large distance in terms of bodies within a solar system.

 

Then consider ACTIVE sensors. The light or radio waves have to travel FROM your ship... reflect off the target... and return to your ship. This type of sensor has less of an effective range due to the additional travel time. (Approx 93,000 miles)

 

Then consider the speed of the laser. That's ANOTHER second to the target.

 

I'm keeping the distance at a light-second to keep the math simple. Feel free to use whatever fraction of that you'd like.

 

Now consider that ship that just came out of FTL. It's currently running at .9c

 

Using optical sensors (passive but more accurate) you detect the ship and fire on that position. That's one second for the sensor and one second for the laser to return to the target.

 

You just missed the target by 335,000 miles, because the target has been moving for 2 seconds. 558,000 miles if you were using an active sensor.

 

But you say "The ship computer can compute the trajectory"

 

That's true. IF the target was a meteor. But another ship making even a MINOR random course adjustment would be impossible for the ship computer to make an accurate prediction.

 

Your shot would still be off by miles.

 

But you say "That's at 186,000 miles. We won't be engaging ships at that distance"

 

Just take the above example and change the distances by a fraction. Then recompute the time it takes to travel those distances.

 

How close do you have to be to be accurate within 100 meters? (The length of a ship)

Why would a ship have to accelerate up to 0.9 c... to warp... please, do explain your reasoning.

 

 

Also, relative velocities constitute to greater chances of hitting.

 

If you move towards a target and they do the same thing, if you velocity is 0.2 c and theirs is 0.2 c, your combined relative velocity to one another is 0.4 c , thus the targeting happens for THAT velocity.

 

This kind of space battle is usually referred to as "space-jousting".

 

If you accelerate to 0.2 c and let Saint Newton do the rest and the enemy does the same, your weaponry would be compensating towards that combined velocity. 

 

If a person starts doing jukes, like going up and down with an interval of 1/2 T and spin at a 0.2 rate, they will through off your ship's aim, but you can do the same. The real question is WHEN to fire, that when being very very close.

 

Now, if a target is idle, they have no velocity you have to compensate for, expect your own.

 

If your ship and the enemy's ship move at the same angle and velocity, then the whole aiming becomes EVEN easier, as your bodies are at rest. In a simulated FPS game, you would shoot ahead of the target and compensate, but since we are in futurespace, we got supercomputers to do that for us is accuracy down to five decimal points in seconds.

 

My assessment, is that the devs will use these kind of mechanics, so when you "lock" on a ship, you actually lock on its Core Unit.

 

When you take into account directions, velocities and weapon speed, the server deduces where and WHEN the damage bubble will end up spawning and depending on weapon specs, the damage bubble has a certain radius. If you detect a ship firing at you, the pilot can do evasive maneuvers, hence avoiding WHERE the damage bubble will end up spawning.

 

Lasers would though have to be made to diffuse on a distance by spreading their damage bubble and analogically reducing their danace given the surface area they attack. It's a game balance thing. They are laser turrets firing electrons at the speed of light, not laser used in laser surgery. Even if it leaves a cannon at 1 degree, over a 10 Km distance that will spread its "spotlight" damge over 87 km circle in radius and the damage will have to be distributed equally. Good for driving people off or chipping on their shields, but not a lethal weapon really.

 

 

That's why I've spoken of Maximum Effective Range. A person may dedicate their very own time on researching better laser cannons and eventually getting a laser cannon that has like 0.0001 degree starting angle off the cannon - not gonna happen, but it's an example = that's gonna make said cannon very OP, sure, but the cons to its pros would be more materials to make and / or being very very slow on its fire rate and having medium damage.

 

It's the same principle guns follow since their inception. Precision comes at the cost of fire ratte and damage comes at the cost of accuracy. Build your ship for the job you want to do. If you build a station that is stationary, put precision weaponry on it. If it's a battleship, put medium to short range weaponry to it, it's not like they will do much to you by staying far far away, they will have to close in regardless.

 

[Ripper]

I just used 0.9c as the example. Any velocity could be used.

 

Since I believe all combat should be sub-FTL with the exception of FTL torpedoes, I used that speed. Lasers and projectiles are sub-FTL.

 

Relativistic velocities only add to the complexity of the math, and don't change the point I was trying to make.

[Anaximander]

I just used 0.9c as the example. Any velocity could be used.

 

Since I believe all combat should be sub-FTL with the exception of FTL torpedoes, I used that speed. Lasers and projectiles are sub-FTL.

To be honest, I don't think they will add 0.9 c as maximum velocity. 

 

And FTL torpedos seem too unlikely, given torpedos are meant to be slow and powerful and having them doing FTL is like saying "I'm eating a heathly cheeseburger". Is an oxymoron on its own.

 

Still, weaponry can be built with effective range in mind. But having hardcap on range altgeother makes sieging with mass drivers o stations quite impossible, as I meantioned, mass driver ships will be built with sienge in mind and they would have no real close range capabilities. Having them go near a station that could wreck them is not very healthy for tactics. And the station itself could have thrsuters to move out of the way or more accurately out of WHERE the damage bubble would spawn.

[Ripper]

Oh I agree.

 

We will need to travel +1000 the speed of light to get to another system.

 

And several orders of magnitude to get from one point in a solar system, to another in a timely manner.

[Ripper]

I'm thinking some type of FTL missile/torpedo to pull a ship out of FTL. Attaching an FTL drive to a warhead seems plausible.

[Anaximander]

I'm thinking some type of FTL missile/torpedo to pull a ship out of FTL.

In the Ask Us Anything they did say there will be interdiction fields. Essentially, you put them around an area in space, if a ship in warp goes through them they are pulled out of it.

 

So, look out for people on autopilot.

 

Just because you can warp wherever you want on a planet, it doesn't mean you should. There may be an interdiction field in your path.

 

[CaptainQuoth]

I have faith the devs will balance the game and give us interesting and diverse combat situations.

 

you need variation in weapons and not a 100% chance to hit ,also need reliable countermeasures.

[Anaximander]

I have faith the devs will balance the game and give us interesting and diverse combat situations.

 

you need variation in weapons and not a 100% chance to hit ,also need reliable countermeasures.

Well, as the Devs said, there will be character skills and PLAYER skill.

 

If a pilot is very good, they'll get a 100% hit chance on a firing pass. 

 

And so far the way they speak of it, it's looking like a nice amouth of thought has gone into it.