[HakTaisanip]

Right. Perfect for short range emergency. Also, there's less debris using laser against missle, as opposed to 2 missles.

[DoctorWeryDolt]

Lasers attenuate.

[tevyrefficy]

Starlight isn't laser light.

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[RerRibreLok]

Star light and laser light are different only in that laser light is more focused and only in one wavelength. Lasers still get wider over distance, just start from a rather more narrow width

[UvjqTVVC]

In long ranged space combat, a laser could miss, because it would be aiming at where the target was guessed to be. A sufficiently maneuverable target would have a good chance of avoiding it. Whereas a missile could correct itself as it approached.

If you had enough lasers, you could try and trap the target in a 'net' of lasers, by aiming at everywhere that it could possibly be. You'd need to be quite close, and also need to know the exact specifications of the enemy craft.

[Meenepek]

Don't forget photon torpedoes.

[FBtquXT8]

Originally posted by Seeker
I was just thinking how odd it is that in most Sci Fi space combat, lasers are the short-range weapon and missiles are the long range weapon.

How the heck did that start? You'd think that the laser, which move at the speed of light and have no fuel limitation, would be the long range weapon of choice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law

[ssyyyrruho]

Originally posted by Sandman
In long ranged space combat, a laser could miss, because it would be aiming at where the target was guessed to be. A sufficiently maneuverable target would have a good chance of avoiding it. Whereas a missile could correct itself as it approached.



Consider the range you'd need for a laser to possibly miss. Missiles would probably take hours to reach the target at that range.

If you had enough lasers, you could try and trap the target in a 'net' of lasers, by aiming at everywhere that it could possibly be. You'd need to be quite close, and also need to know the exact specifications of the enemy craft.

Dude, unless you're more than several light-seconds away, they can't dodge the laser.

(They can't deliberately dodge the laser anyway - it hits as soon as they see it. They can only constantly juke around to try and foil your aim.

[pavilionnotebook]

And thats what they call "Evasive Manuvers"

Whenever they say "evasive maneuvers" have you ever seen them juke around in random directions at ridiculous accelerations?

[raspirator]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
Lasers PEW PEW PEW! Missles FWOOSH! I think this is a good bit of the point: Lasers aren't ever going to be that powerful, and it should be reasonably simple to shield against them. Missiles pack a lot more punch Any laser that is powerful enough to do real damage (or punch through reasonable shielding) will take a lot of time to charge up, and will take a large ship to support its power supply. After all, there's a reason we don't use lasers in combat now...

Kuci, while you're right that lasers will hit instantly, the targetting is not instant - you need to:
a) Determine the location of the target
b) Calculate the position when you are able to fire
c) Move the laser into position to fire
d) Decide to fire

None of those things happen at lightspeed, particularly the C) option.

[vipdumpp]

Kuci, while you're right that lasers will hit instantly, the targetting is not instant - you need to:
a) Determine the location of the target
b) Calculate the position when you are able to fire
c) Move the laser into position to fire
d) Decide to fire

None of those things happen at lightspeed, particularly the C) option.

If you have a working weaponized laser, you aren't going to have any trouble with those steps either. And the computer can easily lead the steps so that it only has to make a very quick, minor correct at the end to be pointing at the ship (or where it's going to be) when the laser fires.

[Buyemae]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Because we haven't developed batteries with sufficient power density This, imho, is the the most important thing that science can deliver in the next 100 years.

[galaktiusman]

quote:
Missiles pack a lot more punch

Why? Nuclear warhead. Also the fact that the damage will be spread around the ship, rather then just punching a nice neat hole through it.

But missiles can be shot down and lasers can't.

[cypedembeda]

Originally posted by Whoha

Nuclear warhead. Also the fact that the damage will be spread around the ship, rather then just punching a nice neat hole through it.

But missiles can be shot down and lasers can't. Certainly true, which is why the best weapon is the A-wing concussion missiles fired from directly behind the enemy fighter No chance to be shot down.

Laser screens can block a missile, but you don't necessarily need a direct impact to have an effect - large explosions have shock waves that can be very effective as well (and EMP effects, which mean more shielding is necessary, and if you break through some of that shielding...)

[Unlinozistimi]

The cohesion of laser light is not perfect. In the 1970s there was an experiment conducted by one of the Apollo Moon missions. A laser beam was sent from Earth to the moon and the width of the beam was measured. The beam had spread out considerably, I've forgotten by how much. If the beam spreads out the energy of the beam will also be spread out and its ability to melt through the hull of the enemy craft will be reduced.

IIRC in the Star Trek universe both phasers and photon torpedos travel faster than light. Phaser beams allegedly phase in and out of subspace. Photon torpedos travel at warp speeds.

[monologue]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
The cohesion of laser light is not perfect. In the 1970s there was an experiment conducted by one of the Apollo Moon missions. A laser beam was sent from Earth to the moon and the width of the beam was measured. The beam had spread out considerably, I've forgotten by how much. If the beam spreads out the energy of the beam will also be spread out and its ability to melt through the hull of the enemy craft will be reduced. too bad they didn't do it from orbit to the moon.

[pouslytut]

Nuclear warhead.

I anticipated that. It doesn't really matter - currently our power systems favor missiles, obviously, but the context is sci-fi. There's no inherent reason you couldn't power a laser from some future quick-discharge battery (e.g. a capacitor) to give it as much energy as a nuke.

Also the fact that the damage will be spread around the ship, rather then just punching a nice neat hole through it.

That brings up the inverse square law in a bad way - you don't want that feature of missiles. And lasers wouldn't punch through a ship, they'd cause an explosion on the surface (the expanding vaporized surface material absorbs a lot of the laser light, fueling the explosion).

Make a real objection above instead of just "why"ing like a three year old and I'll discuss it.



Nothing you said is necessarily true. If you don't have an argument for it, I'm not going to bother with your posts either.

You're assuming defensive technology does not keep up with offensive technology.

Nothing of the sort.

a) Determining the location of the target: can be made very difficult by stealth technology (or advances beyond that). A laser can't adjust midroute so if you find out you were wrong you have to re-fire.

I'm having trouble imagining a system where a targetting system on a ship would consistently be off by just enough that the missile would be able (with its obviously superior sensors and computational power) to make a correction and end up hitting the target.

b) This can take a lot of processor power, and if we're talking high speed ships with high acceleration why should this be simple?

And clearly more processing power will be available on the missile that's trying to adjust course in real-time to track this target, rather than on the ship that merely has to drive a servo to point a laser?

Also, defensive screens make this more difficult, particularly if they can fluctuate at near-lightspeed also.

WTF is a defensive screen?

c) The hardest/slowest - a laser must be moved, physically, into position. Unless we make a laser that does not require any moving parts, this will always take time. When you're moving at extremely high speeds, this will always be a slowing element.

A missile has to be moved into position too, and the process is far more complex. It's not that hard to predict how long it will take a laser to move into some position, and therefore where we should move it to so it's pointing at the enemy when it's done.

A missile that can adjust mid-flight is faster in all of these categories, assuming it has good maneuvering engines.

The technology that would allow a missile to track at those speeds would allow a laser to do so at least as well.

[Vezazvqw]

Originally posted by Straybow
Originally posted by snoopy369
Laser screens can block a missile, but you don't necessarily need a direct impact to have an effect - large explosions have shock waves that can be very effective as well (and EMP effects, which mean more shielding is necessary, and if you break through some of that shielding...)
Ummmm, no shock wave in space, dude! Well, there is if you pack it full of shrapnel

[ftpsoft]

If you can't imagine defensive technology that would be useful against a laser, Kuci, then you should perhaps consider that your imagination is the issue...

A defensive screen could be any particle or wave that interferes with the function of a laser, applied externally to a ship or other object or location that needs to be defended. You could imagine small metallic dust particles held in place magnetically, that would aid in the dispersion of the laser; hypothesize an interference wave similar to a sound wave (as sound waves can interfere with each other either constructively or destructively) but with light; or even some sort of plating or armor that disperses, reflects, or absorbs the laser in a non-destructive way.

Part of my point is that even if you can't think of it, I would assume some advancement will occur (though perhaps a bit after lasers are powerful, as is normal with defensive technology lagging a bit behind). Who could have imagined self-guided missiles, 150 years ago? Given that real space combat is (unfortunately) probably at least that far off - and technology moving a LOT faster now - I certainly have no belief that I have any idea of the advancements that will occur in the meanwhile

[Acalsenunse]

You could also imagine shields made of black holes, that just bend the lasers around to a different location. Those shield could be controlled by a crew of defensive specialists manipulating trackballs, and they'd help fight the good fight alongside pilots flying veritech fighters.