Energy drop of

fovrel · March 2015

Don't know if this is the correct phrase for it, I mean the effect that energy weapons do less damage the further away you are from the target. It means that somewhere energy is lost, Why and how am I wondering. I have learned at school that energy is never lost, but it is a long time ago I was in school.

Take a napoleonic gun, a six pounder, put it in space, aim it at the moon so it will just miss. Fire it. When it passes the moon the bullet should have still the same speed as it had when it left the muzzle. STO cannons won't. Not because the 10 km range limit, but, if we took it away, because of energy drop of we would have nothing left.

burstorion · March 2015

I think you are misuderstanding the idea

The dropoff in damage in an energy beam is due to dispersal - namely heat, sound (lol, in the stouniverse anyway) and light - thus energy weapons basically lose its potency the second it leaves the barrel/em apature/other - hence the falloff. Nothing is lost, merely converted to a different energy form

For gameplay purposes, it was decided 7km was this dropoff point, while cannons had 4km due to more power per bolt, but due to compression, its harder for the bolt to not disperse rapidly

When it comes to energy, it -technically- has zero mass; thus has negligible effect on a beam - a mass object however; that has its own gravity that in turn reacts with other gravity fields, bleeding the energy of the projectile - until it hits a region on zero gravity, whereupon it is momentum that will carry it on further (see for instance torpedos - if they miss, they go flying into the distance - if there was no gravity to capure it (or safety destruct device), it would travel at speed constantly, only being affected by the friction of the occasional particle, or a massive impact on an obstacle

Hope this helps

centaurianalpha · March 2015

I think you are misuderstanding the idea

Try the inverse square law (courtesy of Wikipedia):

The intensity (or illuminance or irradiance) of light or other linear waves radiating from a point source (energy per unit of area perpendicular to the source) is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source; so an object (of the same size) twice as far away, receives only one-quarter the energy (in the same time period).

More generally, the irradiance, i.e., the intensity (or power per unit area in the direction of propagation), of a spherical wavefront varies inversely with the square of the distance from the source (assuming there are no losses caused by absorption or scattering).

For non-isotropic radiators such as parabolic antennas, headlights, and lasers, the effective origin is located far behind the beam aperture. If you are close to the origin, you don't have to go far to double the radius, so the signal drops quickly. When you are far from the origin and still have a strong signal, like with a laser, you have to travel very far to double the radius and reduce the signal. This means you have a stronger signal or have antenna gain in the direction of the narrow beam relative to a wide beam in all directions of an isotropic antenna.

In any case, energy delivered to the target will always drop off quickly with distance, inherently limiting the practical range of any energy weapon.

starkaos · March 2015

centaurianalpha wrote: »

Try the inverse square law (courtesy of Wikipedia):

In any case, energy delivered to the target will always drop off quickly with distance, inherently limiting the practical range of any energy weapon.

But this quote disproves that the energy will quickly drop off with distance for beams.

"When you are far from the origin and still have a strong signal, like with a laser, you have to travel very far to double the radius and reduce the signal."

As far as the gun scenario goes, some of the energy would be lost or it will gain more energy when it passes by the Moon depending on the angle.

onerats · March 2015

The inverse square law is what the 2nd post is thinking of, or so it seems. However, this doesn't really apply to directed energy weapons. The inverse square law deals with a spherical wave front radiating from a point source, as the "sphere" gets bigger, the same amount of energy is spread over an increasingly large area. However, this doesn't occur with directed energy weapons. We're also making the assumption that these weapons ARE photon based as well, which doesn't seem to be the case for at least a few of them (antiproton, plasma).

Still, assuming that they are photon based (and thus essentially "light") the only energy loss they should experience is redshift over extreme distances and differing velocities. We shouldn't see something like that at the distances STO deals with (in combat) unless the ships are moving at ridiculous speeds.

Frankly, there's just no justification for the damage dropoff at distance. It's mainly just a hidden mechanic designed to make gameplay more "interesting".

jarvisandalfred · March 2015

burstorion wrote: »

I think you are misuderstanding the idea

The dropoff in damage in an energy beam is due to dispersal - namely heat, sound (lol, in the stouniverse anyway) and light - thus energy weapons basically lose its potency the second it leaves the barrel/em apature/other - hence the falloff. Nothing is lost, merely converted to a different energy form

For gameplay purposes, it was decided 7km was this dropoff point, while cannons had 4km due to more power per bolt, but due to compression, its harder for the bolt to not disperse rapidly

When it comes to energy, it -technically- has zero mass; thus has negligible effect on a beam - a mass object however; that has its own gravity that in turn reacts with other gravity fields, bleeding the energy of the projectile - until it hits a region on zero gravity, whereupon it is momentum that will carry it on further (see for instance torpedos - if they miss, they go flying into the distance - if there was no gravity to capure it (or safety destruct device), it would travel at speed constantly, only being affected by the friction of the occasional particle, or a massive impact on an obstacle

Hope this helps

In the current state of the game, energy fall-off starts at 2km for cannons and goes heavily past that point. For beams, it starts at about 1km, but doesn't fall as fast.

burstorion · March 2015

2km could've sworn it was 4... just means I'll get more use out of the paint scraping ability

As to falloff issue, I was going with the basic, 'energy cannot be lost or creasted, only converted to different forms' as an explanation of what is seen in sto as that potentially could have been the devs primary thought process on the idea of falloff (the further away the target, the more energy 'lost' via convesion to a percievably useless energy form, while the more 'packed' an energy bolt is, the faster it loses energy to conversion in that same distance)

Its not the most accurate explanation, but it'd do for the basic 'reason' for the gameplay mechanic

virusdancer · March 2015

I'll usually point to the links from this post for discussions and they're the links I look at for - er - looking at it, lol...

virusdancer wrote: »

Don't remember if bareel worked with maelwys on this or if he linked or what...lol, memory is not what it was.

Cannons: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Asu87Jb5VCBgdFFQLVQtdENLUVE0dlBOZnZPQ09DUHc#gid=0

Beams: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Asu87Jb5VCBgdFFQLVQtdENLUVE0dlBOZnZPQ09DUHc#gid=1

I hunted down the post where I initially saw him bring it up.

bareel wrote: »

I was hoping for some help with this and to create a consolidated location for the information for everyone. This has to deal with how your final damage dealt is calculated along with expected DPS. The information in this post is accurate as far as I know and I will edit it with any new information that anyone has and would like to add.

Base Damage: This is calculated from the base weapon and all things that directly effect it. These all stack additively. The spreadsheet by Queue38 details it all very well.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B23llRckDIOuejFiT0NYVzRLRE0/edit
- Weapon Type, Quality, and damage Mods
- Weapons Training and Energy/Projectile Weapon skills
- Tactical Consoles

Critical Multiplier: This is to find the average overall damage increase this will grant.
- Base 2.5% chance 50% severity
- Weapon Specialization Skill: 2% chance 25% severity
- Crit Weapon Mods, some weapon types
- Consoles
- Passives from Traits and/or Reputation

Damage Multiplier: These are activate abilities that increase your damage output and stack multiplicative with everything
- Attack Pattern Alpha & Omega
- Go Down Fighting
- Tactical Fleet
- Emergency Power to Weapons

Weapon Energy Multiplier: This is fairly strait forward until you get into the power drain aspect that I will not touch right now.
- 2% per point over 50

Range Multiplier: Thanks to Maelwys excellent testing we can find this here
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Asu87Jb5VCBgdFFQLVQtdENLUVE0dlBOZnZPQ09DUHc#gid=3

Resistance Multiplier: This is much more difficult to figure out before the shot, but we do know from a Cryptic quote that negative resists are identical in scaling to positive so we can atleast guesstimate a bit for PvE. The chart here is a great guide. http://www.stowiki.org/Damage_resistance

Weapon Ability Multiplier: This is from things like beam overload, scatter volley, etc. This is one place where I am a bit unsure of if it is actually a multiplier or adds somewhere else. Information located on Maelwys sheet as well.

Bringing it all Together
So the final formula from above is pretty simple get the base and multiply everything. For demonstrative purposes I will show an example of my Tac toon and a beam array.

Example: It is an Mk 12 polaron beam array with [Dmg]x2[CritH], full skills and 3 26.2 consoles. That gives me a 417.5 for the base. We will just say my critical chance is 6% and severity is 100% for a multiplier of 1+(.06 * 1.00) = 1.06 . APA, GDF, and EptW 1 are up giving me a 1.5 * 1.25 * 1.1 = 2.06 multiplier. The shot will be at full power for a 2.5 multiplier and using BO 2 for a 7.248 . For penalties we will be at 6km for a .8 multiplier and say the enemy has 50% shield resist so a .5 .

417.5 * 1.06 * 2.06 * 2.5 * 7.248 * .8 * .5 = 6,607 average hit. Note this would be much higher without range penalty and/or enemy resists. Even better if he had negative resists.

Does anyone have anything to add or spot any errors? I figure if there is something hidden out there you guys would likely know.

hyperionx09 · March 2015

I don't think the weapons are light-based like a laser; but particle-based (notably AP and Plasma), thus having mass in its stream that while effective at closer ranges, suffers from gradual dropoff at range, compared to that of a laser.

Both do damage via concentrated heat, but particle-based weapons do more damage based on the particle makeup in its shot (contained glob like a cannon shot or a beam), which may be unstable upon contact and cause further disruption to the target's defenses.

As well, particle beams readily lose density and cohesion much faster than a true laser at long ranges. Short bursts of particles (such as that from a particle cannon) will lose it even faster.

starkaos · March 2015

hyperionx09 wrote: »

I don't think the weapons are light-based like a laser; but particle-based (notably AP and Plasma), thus having mass in its stream that while effective at closer ranges, suffers from gradual dropoff at range, compared to that of a laser.

Both do damage via concentrated heat, but particle-based weapons do more damage based on the particle makeup in its shot (contained glob like a cannon shot or a beam), which may be unstable upon contact and cause further disruption to the target's defenses.

As well, particle beams readily lose density and cohesion much faster than a true laser at long ranges. Short bursts of particles (such as that from a particle cannon) will lose it even faster.

But then you are dealing with inertia. If every particle in a particle beam is fired at the same speed and the same direction, then it will continue on for almost forever unless it interacts with some force. Space still has particles moving around so the particle beam would still interact with those stray particles, but the amount of collisions from those particles is extremely low. The only way for a particle beam to lose density and cohesion is if the particles interact with each other. Either through particle collisions or electrostatic repulsion. So a proton beam would lose cohesion relatively quickly, but a neutron beam will continue on for thousands or even millions of years if particle collisions in the beam are eliminated and doesn't encounter some force.

senatorvreenak · March 2015

starkaos wrote: »

But then you are dealing with inertia. If every particle in a particle beam is fired at the same speed and the same direction, then it will continue on for almost forever unless it interacts with some force. Space still has particles moving around so the particle beam would still interact with those stray particles, but the amount of collisions from those particles is extremely low. The only way for a particle beam to lose density and cohesion is if the particles interact with each other. Either through particle collisions or electrostatic repulsion. So a proton beam would lose cohesion relatively quickly, but a neutron beam will continue on for thousands or even millions of years if particle collisions in the beam are eliminated and doesn't encounter some force.

Except Star Trek's energy weapons tend to use fictional particles, such as Nadions.

starkaos · March 2015

senatorvreenak wrote: »

Except Star Trek's energy weapons tend to use fictional particles, such as Nadions.

They still have to obey the laws of conservation of mass, energy, and charge. Also, Star Trek writers only care about what happens when the particles encounter a force rather than before.

senatorvreenak · March 2015

starkaos wrote: »

They still have to obey the laws of conservation of mass, energy, and charge. Also, Star Trek writers only care about what happens when the particles encounter a force rather than before.

Were talking about a franchise here where a device the size of a torpedo can turn a nebula into a living planet in a matter of days or possibly even hours. :P

starkaos · March 2015

senatorvreenak wrote: »

Were talking about a franchise here where a device the size of a torpedo can turn a nebula into a living planet in a matter of days or possibly even hours. :P

And how do we know that it is not possible? With nanotechnology, we could reduce the size to something we can't even see given a couple hundred years.

tigrovaya13akula · March 2015

For LASER cannon, scroll down a bit; the entire article is still an interesting read though IMHO.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunconvent.php

Also don't forget to check out the BOOM Table = Very cool stuff

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/usefultables.php#id--The_Boom_Table

onerats · March 2015

Keep in mind that if these weapons are particle based, they still should't suffer from damage dropoff (let alone at any range as low as 10km). There's nothing to slow a particle's velocity in the vacuum of space. They'll just keep going forever until they finally hit something, and shouldn't lose energy in route.

hyperionx09 · March 2015

onerats wrote: »

Keep in mind that if these weapons are particle based, they still should't suffer from damage dropoff (let alone at any range as low as 10km). There's nothing to slow a particle's velocity in the vacuum of space. They'll just keep going forever until they finally hit something, and shouldn't lose energy in route.

Particle weapons would still lose some of the damage that comes from the intense heat of the projectile as a result of the interaction between the particles within the beam (less from beams which in this series are almost always continuous, thus restoring the energy lost, vs self-contained globules from cannons), whether in the atmosphere or in space. Granted, not at the ranges set in-game.

At this point, we're just dealing with game mechanics.

Same reason why nothing in-game is to scale.

starkaos · March 2015

onerats wrote: »

Keep in mind that if these weapons are particle based, they still should't suffer from damage dropoff (let alone at any range as low as 10km). There's nothing to slow a particle's velocity in the vacuum of space. They'll just keep going forever until they finally hit something, and shouldn't lose energy in route.

That article from tigrovaya13akula says something about temperature and electrostatic repulsion causing the beam to disperse. I assume that a lot of beam dispersion is through temperature being the average velocity of particles so having all neutrons go at the same speed would reduce a ton of beam dispersion compared to a regular proton beam.

Particle beams will lose some damage due to space having a particle density of about 0.1 to 1000 atoms per cubic centimeter depending on which area of space the beam is passing through.

szerontzur · March 2015

Because arbitrary gameplay mechanics.. same reason we're restricted to a 10km engagement range(with a handful of exceptions).

starkaos · March 2015

szerontzur wrote: »

Because arbitrary gameplay mechanics.. same reason we're restricted to a 10km engagement range(with a handful of exceptions).

But we wouldn't be Star Trek fans if we didn't try to come up with some scientific explanation to explain arbitrary gamplay mechanics.

Energy drop of

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