[Release] Laser Cannons v1.12

[Day]

I pilot a DTT Kraken, 140t of storage.
You've given me enough to think at the end of my current trade run

Thank you

[Norby]

I pilot a DTT Kraken, 140t of storage.

Nice ship, just cannon limits are not related to the cargo space but the mass of the ship, which is computed from the volume in Oolite. The mass of any playable ship is listed in [wiki]Gallery[/wiki] interface, a Kraken is 180t.

[Day]

Thank you, I wondered where to find this info.

[Norby]

Four new cannons and some changes in v1.6:
-Plasma Vulcan, Artillery Cannons and Battle Cannon added.
-Plasma Web is cheaper, fit into a Python and more likely force to eject.
-Adjusted the heat of Plasma Ray and Twin Military Cannon.

The new cannons:

JK-V38 Plasma Vulcan

A crazy scientist once filled plasma into a Vulcan Cannon and successfully earned 5km range in this way. Cobra Mark III owners aready wanted a single barrel version of Vulcan to fit into his ships and this discovery was a good reason to release a weaker, humanitarian version of Vulcan which fire plasma shots. Need as much energy as a Vulcan and heat up as fast as a Plasma Ray but cause critical damages.

Kruger Artillery Cannon

As the name predict Kruger company aim the longest range regardless of compromises in heat, energy and cost. The winner of this competition is quad Mining Cannons with much longer barrel in alternating mode to increase fire rate to combat level. Damage is smaller due to must focus in long range. Well cooled, has 20km range and enough fearsome to the target use his Escape Pod when his energy is low.

Kruger Twin Artillery Cannon

Anaconda owners wanted to benefit from the larger capacity of his oversized ships so bought two Artillery Cannons and more heatsinks to fire at once - the Twin Artillery Cannon was born. New pilots asks why this weapon is exist at all due to similar lasers are much cheaper: the answer is only cannons are enough fearsome to pilots ejects often.

Kruger Battle Cannon

Since much larger ships are in production than Anaconda, for example [wiki]Carriers[/wiki], [wiki]Kirin[/wiki], Maelstrom or [wiki]Serpent Class Cruiser[/wiki], some guys in these was enough brave to put much more coolers around a Twin Artillery Cannon to the 8 barrels be reconfigurable to fire together. Shot down almost anything within seconds, even a Thargoid Warship need two hits only (3 seconds). Fit into ships with at least 800t mass.


See the extended comparsion table in [wiki]Laser Cannons[/wiki].

[Norby]

In [wiki]Laser Cannons[/wiki] v1.7 another 5 big cannons are added and Plasma weapons refined.

- Behemoth Cannons for ships over 8000t like [wiki]Behemoth[/wiki] or [wiki]BigShips[/wiki].
- Base Cannons for ships over 200000t like [wiki]Andromeda[/wiki] or [wiki]Liners[/wiki].
- Plasma Artillery Cannon added for ships over 800t like [wiki]Carriers[/wiki].
- Battle Artillery Cannon heat increased, cost reduced.
- Plasma weapons are improved: more damage, less energy and heat.
- Plasma Ray is renamed to Mini Plasma Cannon and fit into escort ships.
- Ranges of Plasma Cannons are improved, Plasma Web is halved.
- Dual Cannon color matched to Mini Cannon (light red).

[Redspear]

Holy mackeral! This thing is mushrooming nicely

I'll have to check this out when I'm done (if ever) testing my own stuff.

Good work Norby!

[Norby]

Thanks.

I think 18 cannons are enough for a while, at least I reached my goals:
1. dual lasers on all ships over escorts,
2. stronger lasers on the 10x - 1000x larger ships to reduce the clay pigeon shooting effect against these easy targets,
3. special weapons with critical damage ability to reduce the mortality rate via more scoopable Escape Pods.

Regardless of the loud descriptions big cannons are not as strong as imaginable in these huge ships, willfully to keep up the playability and some danger when a player use a huge ship and avoid the invincible feeling. But still break the irreality when a Sidewinder has better odds to win a head-to-head combat against a big ship due to both use the same weapon.

[UK_Eliter]

Thanks.

I think 18 cannons are enough for a while

You've really gone to town on this. Amazing. I'll try it out and see how it affects my game. Well done.

[Norby]

Polished in v1.8:
- Militay Cannons do 25% less damage and has lower techlevel.
- Mini Plasma Cannon renamed to Mini Plasma Ray.
- Mini Cannon and Mini Plasma Ray need a ship over 30t.
- NPC Mambas and Morays with Mini Cannons added, Geckos removed.

[jh145]

Looks like there's a bug on the wiki page: the Rate figure should be the reciprocal of its current value. Or, instead of calling it the Rate, call it the Period (i.e. average time between shots).

[Norby]

instead of calling it the Rate, call it the Period (i.e. average time between shots).

Numbers are shown as in equipment.plist where this field is called to recharge_rate and I named the column from there. Recharge period maybe more accurate but too long for a narrow column so now I changed to Delay, thank you for mention.

[jh145]

Thanks for making the change.

Another thing: where do the damage-before-overheat figures come from? Assuming cooldown at 6 heat units/sec and overheat at .85*256 = 217.6 heat units, I get some discrepancies with your quoted figures:

Code: Select all

      calculated_dmax quoted_dmax rel_err_percent
 [1,]        673.2000         700       3.9809863
 [2,]        932.5714         960       2.9411765
 [3,]        768.0000         780       1.5625000
 [4,]        796.0976         900      13.0514706
 [5,]        341.7801         600      75.5514706
 [6,]       1400.3613        1600      14.2562288
 [7,]       1865.1429        1860      -0.2757353
 [8,]       1243.4286        1240      -0.2757353
 [9,]       1740.8000        1760       1.1029412
[10,]       1243.4286        1240      -0.2757353
[11,]       1988.0727        1950      -1.9150571
[12,]       1400.3613        1500       7.1152145
[13,]       1400.3613        2800      99.9484004
[14,]       4352.0000        3760     -13.6029412
[15,]       3022.7478        3200       5.8639418
[16,]       2486.8571        2400      -3.4926471
[17,]       2678.1538        3200      19.4852941
[18,]       1483.6364        1500       1.1029412

[Norby]

where do the damage-before-overheat figures come from?

I used a practical approach instead of an exact math: when I can fire 7 times with a weapon dealing 100 damage at each shot then I wrote 700 and not 673.2. Moreover sometimes an extra last shot is added when needed a bit more delay only to shot once more after the first overheat.

Regardless of my verifying efforts I can make mistakes due to these numbers are changed a lot during fine tuning so please tell me if you think you found a problematic value.

[jh145]

Oops good point, one can only fire an integer number of shots ...

OK, in that case my figures are in generally good agreement with yours:

Code: Select all

      calculated_dmax quoted_dmax rel_err_percent
 [1,]             700         700         0.00000
 [2,]             960         960         0.00000
 [3,]             780         780         0.00000
 [4,]             900         900         0.00000
 [5,]             600         600         0.00000
 [6,]            1600        1600         0.00000
 [7,]            1920        1860        -3.12500
 [8,]            1280        1240        -3.12500
 [9,]            1760        1760         0.00000
[10,]            1280        1240        -3.12500
[11,]            2000        1950        -2.50000
[12,]            1500        1500         0.00000
[13,]            1600        2800        75.00000 ***
[14,]            4360        3760       -13.76147 ***
[15,]            3200        3200         0.00000
[16,]            2560        2400        -6.25000
[17,]            2880        3200        11.11111 ***
[18,]            1500        1500         0.00000

The starred ones look far enough "off" to be worth worrying about.

[Norby]

I tested the differences within the game and confirmed my data in most cases except in these:

13. Kruger Battle Artillery Cannon: corrected to 1600, was an old value, thank you!

14. JK Plasma Artillery Cannon: corrected to 4000. I measured a bit less before, now 100 shots and 50 seconds needed to overheat. This mean practically never reach the red zone during normal combat.