[foolfromhell]

Frankly, today, we have nukes that have radii of many miles.

A Destroyer full of Helios bombs launched at high trajectory would be many times stronger than a Destroyer armed with Beams.

Against fighters, Kaysers or Maxim/Circe combos would be more effective. Before shield technology, kinetic weapons like earlier versions of the Maxim would have been much more effective. Have you tried arming a Deimos with all Maxims? It can swat any fighter or bomber out there, even if they have shields.

An Orion could hold atleast a few hundred Helios bombs and when launched at high trajectory, could take down the Sathanas.

Plus, the Maxims would be much more effective at shooting down enemy missiles.


Why Beams?? So Ineffective!!

[Akalabeth Angel]

Frankly, today, we have nukes that have radii of many miles.

A Destroyer full of Helios bombs launched at high trajectory would be many times stronger than a Destroyer armed with Beams.

Against fighters, Kaysers or Maxim/Circe combos would be more effective. Before shield technology, kinetic weapons like earlier versions of the Maxim would have been much more effective. Have you tried arming a Deimos with all Maxims? It can swat any fighter or bomber out there, even if they have shields.

An Orion could hold atleast a few hundred Helios bombs and when launched at high trajectory, could take down the Sathanas.

Plus, the Maxims would be much more effective at shooting down enemy missiles.

Why Beams?? So Ineffective!!

       Nukes depend upon an atmosphere for most of their damage, and are much reduced in space.
       As for why beams? They look cool. Freespace 2 wise, the only thing that hits instantly is a beam weapon. At normal engagment ranges, those helios bombs launched by an Orion will take a long long time to hit the target compared to beam weapons. And a great many of them will get shot down in the process.

        Imagine if the Phoenicia launched a salvo of Helios bombs at the Sathanas? It still would've died horribly. A few bombs would've gotten through, I'm sure, but friendly fighters and flak cannons would've intercepted a bunch of 'em first (not to mention that their explosions should take out nearby bombs).

         An ideal ship in FS2 would probably be big anti-ship beams with nothing but a few AAAf and a bunch of flak cannons backing it up. Flak and beams to shoot down fighters and their bombs, beams to engage other ships. A Flak gun could take down several bombs at once with its splash damage. (see BSG)


          As for Maxims, well the firepower of fighters is always disproportionate to ships to better emphasize the importance of the fighter pilot/player. Try attacking a Ma'at freighter (the yellow/gold Vasudan one), the most annoying gun on there is the Subach HL-7 not the Terran Turrets, even though the Subach as a fighter weapon should be inferior.

[Akalabeth Angel]

    Hell, a perfect capital ship would be like, develop an AAAf beam with a longer range, then throw morningstars into the other turrets. The morning stars keep fighters away, the AAAf shoot's em down. And both can take out the far-travelling, slow-moving bombs that any of the ships manage to launch.

[GTSVA]

You want to know why? I'll tell you why....

CUZ IT LOOKS GEWD!!!!!!

[foolfromhell]

Well...

If you have a capital ship, you can have a launching mechanism for the Helios.

Remove the propulsion from the Helios, make it lighter, and make it's propulsion purely ballistic.

[blowfish]

My understanding is that Helios torpedoes are expensive, mainly because of their warhead.  They're not just thrown at capships.

And to answer the question:

CUZ IT LOOKS GEWD!!!!!!

[NGTM-1R]

Beams are...

A: Reusable infinitely. A beam may be fired an effectively unlimited number of times. This has manyfold benefits, from the obvious not running out of them in the middle of a fight to being able to fit more of other things in your supply ships that you might need to less paperwork for the poor bastards assigned to keep track of expenditures.
B: Cheap. Helios for example are prohibitively expensive to produce. At, say, 100 million a pop, they start to look less attractive, huh? A beam's per-firing cost is maybe .000001 of that or less.
C: Uninterceptable. There is no defense against a beam cannon. Once it fires you'll take a hit, there's just nothing to be done. Bombs can be intercepted by defensive fire from the target and defending fightercraft wings. It would take a truly impressive Helios saturation attack to overcome the fighter defenses of a juggernaut and inflict telling damage, for example. Even a destroyer with a quarter of its wings in the air will stand a good chance of surviving 50 or so inbound bombs. (Since that would be no less than 24 fighters for an Orion. Even the AI can knock down two or three bombs per defending fighter.)



And yes, I have tried arming a Deimos with Maxims. It's very cutely ineffective because they don't fire at the same speed mounted in a turret.

[foolfromhell]

Maybe it is more expensive, but when you are staring down the quadruple beam cannons of a Sathanas, those $100million a Helios are very appetizing. Especially when a single Destroyer with them could take down a Sathanas.

[blowfish]

Assuming the destroyer was far enough away not to get instantly vaporized by the BFREDZ OF DEATH™

[Shade]

And assuming it could get within the 1950m maximum range, then survive for the 7-second lock time.

[GTSVA]

Lol...Imagine...The GTD Aquitaine slowly jumps in behind with the GVD Memphis and they 'f1r3 +h13r l@zorzzz' and the Sathanas is like "whaaaat?

[Droid803]

Kaysers and Maxims are not more effective than a AAAf, I would think. You must remember that the beam will ignore your shields (and can possibly vaporize your fighter in a single volley). Kaysers and maxims are also avoidable. It is practically impossible to dodge AAA beam fire because they hit instantly.

Helios are not more effective than a beam cannon. With Helios you will run in to several problems:
- Limited Ammo and prohibitively high cost (vs. Infinite Ammo and low cost)
- Ludicrously slow projectile speed (vs. instantaneous hit)
- Interceptable and avoidable projectiles (vs. impossible to dodge or intercept)
- Short range of 1950m (vs. long range of 4000+)

You're not going to crawl right up close, wait for seven seconds to get a lock, then proceed to throw several trillion dollars into space and hope it actually does something.
No, you press the big red button labeled "Fire Beam" and get almost guaranteed results.

Yes, launchign the bombs at "high trajectory" would probably negate the range and speed problem, but the bombs would still be interceptable, and limited by ammo and prohibitively high cost.

And beams are one of the few weapons that actually adheres to the laws of physics, for the most part.

[haloboy100]

I also think that blob turrets are underrated. I found the brawl with those 2 destroyers in FS1 (I think it was the Bastion/Galetea against some demon destroyer) somehow awesome. I guess I'm happy with watermelons filling the space between 2 destroyers XD

[blowfish]

There is something oddly cool about two destroyers slugging it out with blobs.  If only they were a little more powerful ...

[IceFire]

The problem with launching a swarm of Helios bombs from a destroyer is the distance in between.  A bomber can close the gap and deploy the warheads while a destroyer simply cannot and thus large numbers of the launched warheads will be intercepted. Even at higher speeds, which means bigger boosters and thus more "expensive", its still possible to intercept. Why not avoid that altogether and hit the enemy with a weapon that essentially arrives at target instantly.

Plus the beam weapon can be allot more discriminating about targeting...if targeted precisely you can hit the target bang on in a specific spot whereas a large warhead doesn't have the same option.

Lasers have their uses in real life too...or at least the USAF thinks so.  A laser is being developed for the F-35 to be carried on an outboard pylon.

[foolfromhell]

Kaysers and Maxims are not more effective than a AAAf, I would think. You must remember that the beam will ignore your shields (and can possibly vaporize your fighter in a single volley). Kaysers and maxims are also avoidable. It is practically impossible to dodge AAA beam fire because they hit instantly.

Helios are not more effective than a beam cannon. With Helios you will run in to several problems:
- Limited Ammo and prohibitively high cost (vs. Infinite Ammo and low cost)
- Ludicrously slow projectile speed (vs. instantaneous hit)
- Interceptable and avoidable projectiles (vs. impossible to dodge or intercept)
- Short range of 1950m (vs. long range of 4000+)

You're not going to crawl right up close, wait for seven seconds to get a lock, then proceed to throw several trillion dollars into space and hope it actually does something.
No, you press the big red button labeled "Fire Beam" and get almost guaranteed results.

Yes, launchign the bombs at "high trajectory" would probably negate the range and speed problem, but the bombs would still be interceptable, and limited by ammo and prohibitively high cost.

And beams are one of the few weapons that actually adheres to the laws of physics, for the most part.

Like I said, remove propulsion from the Helios, make it lighter, stick it in a torpedo tube, launch it ballistically. It may not work against Cruisers, but Destroyers and Juggernauts would be easily targetable. They would move atleast 10x the speed they do now, making them MUCH harder to target. Intercept problems wont exist. I doubt you could intercept something moving at the speed of a hornet.

The only problem would be cost, which would be worth it if you save 200 million people on Capella, etc.

Edit: If you launch a few hundred Helios missiles at a Sathanas, it would be destroyed. The US Minuteman ICBM Nuclear Missiles, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGM-30_Minuteman#Minuteman-III_.28LGM-30G.29, is $7 million. If the Helios is about $5 million as it only needs to traverse a few miles at most, it would be about $500,000,000 to destroy a Sathanas. In contrast, a Nimitz class Aircraft Carrier is $4.5 billion. Compared to $500 million to destroy a Sathanas. And a Sathanas must be atleast 100x harder and costlier to build than a Nimitz.

[blowfish]

Blobs have proven their ability to target anything traveling in a straight line efficiently, provided there is enough time to intercept it before it hits its target.

And you can't really consider Capella here, since you would have to build a completely new ship to carry these things

[Polpolion]

Kaysers and Maxims are not more effective than a AAAf, I would think. You must remember that the beam will ignore your shields (and can possibly vaporize your fighter in a single volley). Kaysers and maxims are also avoidable. It is practically impossible to dodge AAA beam fire because they hit instantly.

Helios are not more effective than a beam cannon. With Helios you will run in to several problems:
- Limited Ammo and prohibitively high cost (vs. Infinite Ammo and low cost)
- Ludicrously slow projectile speed (vs. instantaneous hit)
- Interceptable and avoidable projectiles (vs. impossible to dodge or intercept)
- Short range of 1950m (vs. long range of 4000+)

You're not going to crawl right up close, wait for seven seconds to get a lock, then proceed to throw several trillion dollars into space and hope it actually does something.
No, you press the big red button labeled "Fire Beam" and get almost guaranteed results.

Yes, launchign the bombs at "high trajectory" would probably negate the range and speed problem, but the bombs would still be interceptable, and limited by ammo and prohibitively high cost.

And beams are one of the few weapons that actually adheres to the laws of physics, for the most part.

Like I said, remove propulsion from the Helios, make it lighter, stick it in a torpedo tube, launch it ballistically. It may not work against Cruisers, but Destroyers and Juggernauts would be easily targetable. They would move atleast 10x the speed they do now, making them MUCH harder to target. Intercept problems wont exist. I doubt you could intercept something moving at the speed of a hornet.

The only problem would be cost, which would be worth it if you save 200 million people on Capella, etc.

Edit: If you launch a few hundred Helios missiles at a Sathanas, it would be destroyed. The US Minuteman ICBM Nuclear Missiles, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGM-30_Minuteman#Minuteman-III_.28LGM-30G.29, is $7 million. If the Helios is about $5 million as it only needs to traverse a few miles at most, it would be about $500,000,000 to destroy a Sathanas. In contrast, a Nimitz class Aircraft Carrier is $4.5 billion. Compared to $500 million to destroy a Sathanas. And a Sathanas must be atleast 100x harder and costlier to build than a Nimitz.

1) Modern CIWS can intercept missiles moving at... very fast. I'm sure they could easily intercept nuke warheads at that speed. And there's probably some unknown reason that ballistics were totally dropped from the GTA's arsnel.

2) You'd need a heck of a lot of energy to get that up to velocity. More expenses.

3) Your analogy to the Minuteman and Nimitz are fallicous. Not only is the Minuteman a 300 year old (by FS standards) ICBM, but the Nimitz is a 300 year old seaborn aircraft carrier. Does not relate quite as well as you think.

[Droid803]

A Helios being only $5 Million?
I don't think so. It uses antimatter. Currently, it costs $300 billion per milligram of antimatter. You're going to need a whole lot more to make a Helios. Even if it does get cheaper to make antimatter, its not going to be THAT much cheaper. Its going to cost a whole lot.
It also takes around 150 Helios to kill a Sathanas...

A Helios might cost more than a Fenris... The only time its actually used is when you have to disarm the first Sath.

Assuming that launching a Helios from a tube won't cause the Helios to explode and take out whatever is trying to launch it, blobs could still intercept it. Every bomb that is intercepted is wasted money.

IMHO, its still so much more efficient to just beam things to death. 

[Herra Tohtori]

Advantages of Rays of Death versus physical mediums of destruction (munitions):

-you don't run out of ammo - as long as you have a reactor producing energy and you don't overheat the cannons, you can essentially go on for far longer than physically stored missiles and projectiles could last.

-they are visually more extravagant than projectiles, which in a videogame translates to easier way to coolness

-For the same reasons, saves in storage space and weight, making your ship able to store something more useful like fighters, bombers and their munitions - bombs and missiles do have their uses, but cap ships are very well suited for carrying the big reactors that are required for beams, bombers not so much. A reactor big enough to power beams powerful enough to make a difference in a bomber would make the bomber really big and heavy and good target.

-they are cool

-They seem to have high damage/impulse ratio, meaning they pack a lot of energy while keeping the recoil to the firing ship minimum, reducing structural stress and need for suspension and course correction maneuvers that mass drivers would require for effective use. Yeah, if you fly your fighter or bomber into the beam, you're whacked around, but I suspect that's because the surface of your ship is vaporizing explosively and propelling you around...

-they are cool

-point and shoot interface reduces need for complex firing solution computers (how anyone can miss a cap ship with a BEAM CANNON in FS2 is a mystery to me); the beam seems to transfer energy so fast that on small to medium distances it doesn't need any lead, it hits the point in the crosshairs.

-did I mention they are cool?


Rather, projectile weapons and cap ship missile fights are more difficult to make cool. Don't take me wrong, projectiles are way more realistic and, if used in a capable game engine, are also really cool but practically require some kind of geomod for that to be honest. Or at least somehow better damage modeling than in FS2. Also, that way easily leads to autocannon silliness where ships expel more than their own weight of ammunition in a battle.