Lets say the Turret has a 4m wide lens and wavelength of 2.23e-7 m.
Laser at 50,000km does 1 damage and a beam radius of 3.4m.
Increase emitter/lens width to 50m by making it a spinal mounted gun and not a turret weapon while its total energy output is exactly the same.
Laser now does 1 damage at 625,000KM and a beam radius of 3.4m.
That outranges everything but yes, its only 1 damage.
50m wide emitter gives it 4-7 damage at 125,000km.
Only Waveloom, Loroi Plasma Pulse Cannon, and Historian Plasma Array are hitting harder at that range.
Particle/Plasma weapons are better because they are efficient in space/energy/heat.
The Tempest has 8 pulse cannons + other armament.
Singe Spinal mounted Laser simply doesn't keep up even when its up gunned.
Tempest 8 pulse cannons total
16-160 damage at 120,000km
0-32 at 400,000km
Terran Spinal mounted Laser thats 6X more powerful then the single laser in a laser turret using a 50m wide Lens/Emitter.
6 damage at 625,000km
18-25 at 250,000km
24-42 damage at 125,000km
What a spinal mounted laser does do is outrange particle weapons and partly ignore shields.
Yes its completely possible BTW, even just making an array of 6 normal Terran heavy lasers in a spinal mount so they fire at the same time and have a beam convergence on target will vastly increase the range as long as they all emit the same wavelength.
Ithekro wrote:The Outsider's Terran's heavy lasers have a range of 50,000 km and do relatively pathetic damage much past 20,000 km. These are main battery weapons. However, aside from the armor piercing qualities, the heavy laser is still more effective than the Mjolnir Cannon starting at 30,000 km. And while the heavy mass drivers will do more damage than either beam weapon, its effective range against more advanced races is only about up to 4,000 km.
Loroi's more advanced laser autocannons can fire out to 120,000 km and still can only do pathetic anti-ship damage past 20,000 km. Theirs are designed for defensive work, have a greater rate of fire than the Terran models, and are considered old fashioned by other local powers.
Effective combat ranges for Loroi blasters seems to be 40,000-50,000 km or less, even though they have some with a range up 300,000 km. The super heavy blaster can reach out to 400,000 km, but its effective range drops off after 90,000 km.
(Umiak blasters, while mentioned, don't seem to be as common on their ships verse the plasma focus types. But their blasters have greater combat ranges than most the Loroi blaster, their regular guns drop off slightly later than Loroi weapons, but don't have the overall range advantage.
Umiak Plasma focus seems to have an effective combat range of around 60,000 km aide from their early, shorter ranged Type 4, and their newer Type 7 extending that back out to 120,000 km
Loroi pulse cannon's variable yield is problematic, but their damage output doesn't drop off until past 90,000 km. Becoming far less effective at 250,000 - 300,000 km
The Historians pulsed array is much more versatile, and given the modes can be effective out to 300,000 km. With it being downright brutal at Terran's weapon's ranges.