Advanced Laser Weapons in Realistic Space Combat

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Spacedock delves into advanced laser weapons in realistic sci-fi space battles.
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[@theluftwaffle1]

Soo.. we're not going to talk about sharks with freakin laser beams on their heads?

[@yodaslovetoy]

Looks like we both had the same thought

[@evilmindedsquirrel]

Space sharks!

[@GiRR007]

Or the flying coyotes with laser beam eyes.

[@michaelmutranowski123]

I think every creature deserves a warm meal

[@icyknightmare4592]

I just had a thought: What if there were missiles shaped like sharks carrying a fusion bomb pumped x-ray laser as a payload?

[@Ty-yt3lj]

Lasers? Can’t even penetrate NAVIGATIONAL deflector shields

[@DocWolph]

If you can SEE the target you can hit it with a LASER. If light can get in to reflect off the target, you can see it, so then a LASER can hit it. That is the scary thing about LASERs. They are light and so invisible force screens can not stop them. Ironically, a cloaking device or invisibility screen does not so much stop a LASER but redirect it away or around the target. But the worst part is the higher the LASER frequency the worse things those LASERs can do to a target. A Gamma Ray LASER will insta-kill living matter and is utterly unstoppable. But unless you have "perfect mirrors", something few advanced species ever even contemplate never mind develop and use, Gamma Ray LASERS are going to be very clumsy and fragile. But are the deadliest LASERs possible.

[@Joschimoto2000]

@@DocWolph aaaaaand you totally did not get the reference from Star Trek TNG for the opening scene of this video. Here Picard notes, that lasers can not penetrate the navigation shields of the Enterprise D.

[@jtjames79]

​@@Joschimoto2000 I love how insulted Worf was. Like he was being attacked by an angry Chihuahua.

[@DocWolph]

@@Joschimoto2000 0 Yeah.... I don't care. I watched the series when it first aired, occasionally watch the reruns, and it never stopped being wrong when it was wrong. Star Trek, especially TNG and on, is so riddled with scientific inaccuracies, technical errors, plot holes, and straight up BS, it literally has more "space magic" in it that Star Wars at this point. Stop assuming someone is a [ill-informed] as you are. As in the TNG episode "Quality of Life" with the Exocomps, "[He] did not fail the test. [He] saw right through it." I am so tired of you "white knights" charging in, making assumptions based on your own limited and often faulty perspectives. Try thinking before you level your lance, Don Quixote.

[@bigdopamine9343]

@@DocWolphyou need a therapy session with Troi.

[@IAmTheAce5]

Laser-coupled particle-beams sound like the kind of weapon that _can_ be deflected by navigation-deflectors.

[@mikewaterfield3599]

Technically that is a photon maser, literally the RW item that gives us a phaser.

[@jonathansullivan6706]

​@@mikewaterfield3599I know that's one of the official explanations, but phasers are particle weapons that use nadion particles, which are completely fictional particles that disrupt the nuclear forces holding atoms together. As far as I'm aware, that does not match the description of a photon maser, regardless of what the writers wanted to call it. To be fair, I don't think the explanation of nadion particles was introduced until the TNG era.

[@mikewaterfield3599]

@@jonathansullivan6706 no, photon masers exist in the real world. Lasers are used to help accelerate the particle stream and magnetic containment is used to achieve a level of coherency in the stream. Simple reality is a class four weaponized laser is actually more effective tactically speaking. Lighter, more compact, and far less demanding in terms of power supply.

[@andrewreynolds912]

Lord it sounds like a nightmare

[@mikewaterfield3599]

@@andrewreynolds912 truth of the matter is 500kw beams are extant with foci points about 6” across. They act more like a magnifying glass in the sun than we picture a laser to function. Calibrating beams are used to adjust for atmospheric refraction. End result? The beam is focused down on target rather than just being a coherent beam. Far more efficient in terms of transferred energy.

[@Amadrath]

As an Operator at the European XFEL I have to compliment Spacedock. The functioning principle of an FEL was very well explained. To add some on top: The method to generate laser light with an FEL shown in this video is called "Self-Amplifed Spontaneous Emission" or SASE for short. Instead of relying on spontaneous emission, which generates a rather wide spectrum of laser light, the micro-bunches can also be created by an external laser. This process is called seeding. Both methods can be combined, by first generating a laser beam with SASE, sending it through a monochromator and than using it to seed other electron bunches. This process is called self-seeding.

[@JainZar1]

So basically you are creating a standing wave of photons in the FEL that "seeds" the wanted light emissions by forcing a change of the Energy state? I imagine the loss % is directly tied to the fire rate of the laser, as the pump laser has to get exponentially more powerful as your fire rate increases to get the same laser output.

[@hoojiwana]

Glad we did a good job! I admit it was broadly taken from the Wikipedia article on FELs and much puzzling over simplifying it while keeping the key parts. I'm happy to hear that it still holds up after that! - hoojiwana from Spacedock

[@Paveway-chan]

An FEL operates on the braking radiation principle, right? When you make the electrons wiggle, it is that energy that you use for the laser?

[@Amadrath]

@@Paveway-chan Yes, the principle is the same as Bremsstrahlung, as a change of the velocity causes a charged particle to emit a photon. If the change in velocity is due to the change of the direction, the emitted light is called Synchrotron Radiation. And yes, that is the energy for the laser. We actually have to gradually increase the magnet field in the undulator, to keep the emitted wavelength constant, as the electrons lose energy along the way.

[@Paveway-chan]

@@Amadrath Interesting! Does this phenomena happen to any charged particle or is it just electrons? I was given to believing that only electrons exhibit this behavior and not protons or ions

[@EksaStelmere]

Funny enough, I actually called the main laser weapons in my own work "felguns" in reference to the FEL. No one noticed. Such is life.

[@emilsingapurcan8054]

mad respect from somone who also wouldnt have gotten it otherwise lmao

[@DrBunnyMedicinal]

It's likely at least some folks noticed but didn't say anything about them, though they probably were a small minority anyway. Many of the rest probably just wrote them off as clever wordplay, which would mean you (mostly) hoisted yourself with your own petard. Still, it IS both an excellent bit of wordplay and a lovely layered reference, even if nobody commented on it, so you should take pride in it anyway. 👍

[@hellacoorinna9995]

FN FEL? 😉

[@jon1648]

I'm a retired Navy guy with a Masters degree in Applied Physics and a background in phased array radar... And this is one of the best videos on the concept I've ever seen. Great explanation!

[@hellacoorinna9995]

So Surface Radarman, or somthing along those lines?

[@robaitken4592]

While I am sad to see the number of Legend of the Galactic Heroes clips in your videos is going down, I am delighted to see someone on the staff recently watched Gundam 0083. A fine entry in the UC Timeline

[@jacobbronsky464]

MUH IDEALS

[@Robocopnik]

Though it's worth noting that Gundam features nearly NO laser weapons, it features BEAM weapons. When it DOES feature lasers, they work like lasers.

[@robaitken4592]

​@@Robocopnik sweet sweet Mega Particles!!

[@Scrogan]

Yeah but we got clips from nu-logh, with its slow beam weaponry and distinct lack of Mahler.

[@Lupus_Indomitus]

Beam weapons where what again?​@@Robocopnik

[@GoodOldGamer]

I love how incredulous Worf is, lol.

[@templarw20]

Oy... that one clip was used so much in any VS discussion back in the day (maybe still is, but I don't pay attention anymore). Like... my guys, saying that dinky ship's lasers couldn't affect the Enterprise means no lasers work on Federation ships is like saying that since a pistol round won't penetrate your tank's armor that you're safe from all chemical fired projectiles... an Iowa-class 16-inch guns would like to comment...

[@reliantncc1864]

Like a US Army tank division being attacked by tribesmen with throwing spears.

[@Candlemancer]

​@@templarw20 It's the way he specifically emphasises "lasers". It's like a modern day naval officer informing their captain that the opposing ship is loading their ballistae.

[@martylawson1638]

You're missing the strategic applications of lasers. TLDR they far better at overwhelming the cooling of enemy vessels than punching holes. Would potentially allow solar-system wide interdiction of vessels. Dodging due to light lag then becomes a cost benefit analysis of how much power you want to spend to cook an inescapable volume of space vs the range of interception.

[@Edge-wx7hv]

with a properly tuned, equipped and operated dyson swarm, your available power budget is basically 'yes'. also you're firing from off the solar corona, so you have the figurative high ground everywhere in the system.

[@trekkie1701c]

This is how I have them mostly get used in my novels. Gamma Ray lasers with shields that can't really be penetrated by said lasers, as the shields are designed to deflect near-light speed radiation. However using them against a ship generates heat. So even if you don't have the specialized torpedoes that can get through shields, you could use them to cook a hostile ship/station/etc. The energy output can also blind sensors and comms and there's just all sorts of side uses for them.

[@DrBunnyMedicinal]

The strategic level is one that very few people think well on, if at all. On the um, bright, side, if you are a planet or station that's considering the strategic deployment of lasers as deterrents/interceptors across the scale of the entire solar system, you probably have quite a lot of power and other resources to hand anyway. On the gripping hand, you'd also have to worry about ensuring you don't accidentally fry someone or something far closer than your intended target and likely leave gaps in your planned coverage.

[@miriamweller812]

While lasers are fast, the solar system is VERY big. Even firing at the very close mars, it takes 12,7 minutes(!) to reach the planet (and Mars moves around 24km - per second. And that's just the planet, the rotation would add to this on top if you want to hit something just on Mars)

[@miriamweller812]

@@trekkie1701c Magical space shields are more fantasy than sci fi, though. While you could use some thing to create a shielding effect, it wouldn't work like some magical barrier against pretty much everything - and on top of that would be a horrendous waste of energy to be halfway effective even against the few things it could work against.

[@lee.gallagher]

Not sure how effective laser weaponry would be in space but I think we’re in real time looking at an interesting time for laser weaponry as a cost-effective point defence weapons for ships and structures that need to defend against the recent proliferation of cheap, slow-moving kamikaze type drones.

[@XMysticHerox]

@@josephd.5524 They still have very limited range.

[@henrycooper3431]

They would have a better efficiency in space due to no atmosphere to spread the beam (the beam still spread btw, just less than in atmosphere)

[@dstarling61]

The UK has a laser point defense system in development. There’s been talk of field testing it in Ukraine. It’s supposed to be effective on drones.

[@LordCrate-du8zm]

@@dstarling61 Who knew Ukraine would be the first place for laser weapons to be used

[@supercoolstar2356]

Fellow Perun viewer, I assume?

[@MatterBeamTSF]

Very cool! One extra thing to mention about laser-coupled laser beams: they could 'glow' as they leak light, and at high power levels, that could turn them into the fancy sparkling energy beams we see in usual scifi!

[@hoojiwana]

Hey Matterbeam! Thanks for the amazing blog post on them in the first place, it's such a cool concept. - hoojiwana from Spacedock

[@Robocopnik]

Obligatory "the shots from Gundam aren't of lasers" post. Also, I don't think the Solar System II (the thing failing to destroy the colony in the later shot) would really count as a laser, it's basically a shitload of mirrors. Though, they DO redirect light, so maybe! Always good to see Gundam stuff featured, though.

[@DrBunnyMedicinal]

The Solar System II redirected a terrifying amount of light, true, but it wasn't coherent light at all. Somewhat effective, especially to the Zeon escorts, but ultimately not nearly enough to stop something the mass of the colony, not least because far too much of the reflected light was IR, and trying to stop a colony with mostly heat was never going to be more than a fools errand. A smarter and much more likely to succeed plan would have been to use the SSII to change the trajectory of the colony, though you'd still have to deal with the moving gigatonnes of it at some point. Alas, the Earth Federation was not well supplied with intelligence at the highest levels and to be completely fair to them, also reacting at not nearly their best due to the very recent and deeply traumatic events and ongoing consequences of Operation British.

[@HunterSteel29]

@@DrBunnyMedicinal The most effective way to stop a Colony drop is to use a Colony Laser (The GRIPS Colony Laser.)

[@DrBunnyMedicinal]

@@HunterSteel29 Hell, the original Colony Laser, Zeon's Solar Ray could have done it if it was used intelligently. (Which of course it wasn't, historically.)

[@watchm4ker]

Yeah. Most of the colony-sized beam weapons in the UC timeline are actually Archimedean Mirrors of some description. Notably, this is NOT true of the Satellite Cannon employed by the X Gundam: While the lunar station employs a solar array for its own power, it uses a microwave power beam targeted at the Mobile Suit's receiver array.

[@QuintonMurdock]

If you think about it. Laser combat is just violently blinking lights at eachother

[@TotallyDapper]

Tune the lasers to say “Up yours!” in Morse code!

[@reliantncc1864]

In much the same way as artillery is like violently playing catch, yes.

[@hellacoorinna9995]

🤔 😏 🤣

[@justinjacobs1501]

I really love Mechwarrior's laser weapons. We've got continuous beam lasers, pulse lasers, chemical versions with limited numbers of shots, and a wide array of variants on these ideas.

[@chrischaplin3126]

"This is coherent light." "Oh, so it talks."

[@3Rayfire]

"Further, it doesn't speak gibberish."

[@WUZLE]

In the old Starfire tabletop game, the advantage of lasers is they passed through energy shields. The drawback was they were shorter ranged than most other weapons but some races still used them. Eventually anti-laser armor was developed that made them less useful. They even had bomb pumped X-ray lasers, and a few races mounted these on ships with a heavily armored detonation chamber for the bomb blasts. These had a small chance of blowing up the entire ship until better chambers were developed.

[@shintaro797]

This channel has practically become a resource and worldbuilding guide along with The Sojourn. Spectacular video. And to give my own input, I feel like lasers would work as more of a defense mechanism rather than offense. While they don’t use ammo I assume they can overheat and potentially combust after multiple uses if not careful. I’d use them on my ship for short, attack bursts followed by more conventional attacks like bullets and torpedoes.

[@Silungar]

This is the scifi stuff I wanna watch, none of that "do laser weapons actually make sense" bs, just "if you want to put laser weapons into your setting anyway, here's some ideas for you to back it up with real life science"

[@jooot_6850]

I think lasers do make sense! They're being developed as point defense and drone destroying weapons. No reason why a sci-fi setting with even more powerful energy generation techniques couldn't make them work against larger targets.

[@Silungar]

@@jooot_6850 True, but I feel like most sci fi laser weapons are made the other way around: You don't look at current tools/weapons and think about how they could work in the future, but rather you want to have cool laser guns in your setting but also want to be able to back them up with real life science and technology - so the research usually comes after the concept, so to speak

[@sw-gs]

Anyone noticed that both Babylon 5 and Medina Station has built in laser to send fast messages on huge distance?

[@DominusRexDK]

these videos always gives me stuff to consider for my world building.

[@erroneousbosch]

"Intended as propulsion..." The Kzinti would like a word...

[@TinyBirdy28383]

Please do some ship breakdown videos on the new Dune ships! I'm surprised that not many sci fi channel are talking about it.

[@stevenclark2188]

I like how the FEL is basically a Yagi antenna, floating in a vacuum, that can transmit visible light.

[@royfromsmashbros4857]

May I ask you to consider Battletech for science fiction?

[@tonyorobsky]

This video makes me think that lasers will work best as defensive weapons. To be truly effective offensively, they need to be mixed up with something else (like plasma, ions and other particles).

[@hellacoorinna9995]

So CIWS?

[@spaceexpireaudio666]

The propulsion part reminded me Bellerophon from Andromeda, it used its giant engine to vaporize enemies

[@griffinschreiber6867]

Regulations call for a yellow alert. Very old regulations!

[@rider4440]

I love you showing TLW, one of my top favorite series

[@serinahighcomasi2248]

Semi-related side note; the operating principle of phased array radars and phased array lasers is basically in line with the evolution of starship phaser technology in Star Trek, from turrets to linear strips that offer instant wide coverage. Probably where they got the idea, really. It’s a marvelous thing.

[@Croz89]

It seems like there really are a lot of interesting possibilities for energy weapons in hard sci-fi, it's not just torpedoes and railguns.

[@arfbark3924]

This is the only substantive piece of information on FELs that I have seen in years.

[@Amexel]

I've been at the European XFEL facility in Hamburg, very cool and impressive engineering.

[@schadowsshade7870]

I am making a space combat with Missiles/ kinetics. My reasoning why even powerful pulsed- or bpXray-Lasers are uneffective is: Limited range due to spread and imperfect aim as well as Meta-Material Armor which can reflect everything up to X-rays but cant be used in atmosphere due to heavily exothermic oxidation

[@2Potates]

Kind of amusing that i read the sources you used just last week. Keep up the good work!

[@Lupus_Indomitus]

3:39 yeah, true. Thats actually a really good idea, something like a dreadnought or a carrier should be able to handle such a weapon. Also, i am probably gonna use smaller fel lasers in my setting. Not nessecarily less powerful, but more compact for sure. But also kinetic weapons.

[@joelmulder]

I hope you’ll make a compendium video of all sci-fi weapons some time so we can easily reference all the different types of weapons, just like Isaac Arthur’s megastructure compendium video. It would be great to have one (relatively) brief description of every weapon with links to the individual videos.

[@FrontlinePros]

I appreciate this common sense (ungreedy) approach to the future.

[@vincehomemade]

What makes your channel so very good is the research and technical accuracy in plain language👏

[@ciara8811]

I've been loving your videos on the technical side of potential sci-fi tech, I put them on whenever I'm working on my own pet projects for inspiration to things in the universe I've been working on in my spare time. its sort a slightly hard-leaning sci-fi so having something to reference when I get into the fields I'm not quite as knowledgeable in is great.

[@hoojiwana]

Glad to help! - hoojiwana from Spacedock

[@-B.H.]

That was a rather refreshing take on the subject while keeping it with in our current realm of scientific knowledge.

[@windoverwaves6781]

The Nemesis! Beautiful ship

[@highcap4952]

I like that super technical stuff!

[@blagojpejov4155]

Nice work on this video

[@evalramman7502]

Deeply educational.

[@ArnoNoxFordSteyn]

Thank you

[@TheArklyte]

The one I like the most is two stage lasers. Oh, you think you escaped because you're too far away from us to predict your maneuvers and lasers don't have guidance? Gotta ruin that worldview:D

[@philrm99]

Excellent discussion

[@silverjohn6037]

Nice to see some Moonraker footage. That was my teenage Bond film but, probably justifiably, it doesn't get a lot of respect;). Edited for grammar.

[@bigsarge2085]

⚡️ Fascinating. ⚡️

[@Alexandragon1]

Thx for the video1

[@TheJaguar147]

Very interesting video, even made me able to wrap my head around how solid state radar systems work :) Something I’ve been wondering about as I’m about to get one for my sailboat.

[@Lamprolign]

Great video!

[@frankharr9466]

That is really interesting.

[@julopabene8736]

I think that for advanced laser weapon usage, Counterbattery Fire is something that should be discussed a little, where hitting an enemy warship with a laser is already difficult, but hitting the enemy's laser emitters only marginally moreso. If you spot the direction the optics are pointing (easy to do since they will be a very bright point on the sensors of at least one person on your side), you can try to aim away from center mass to return fire into the optics and damage, if not outright destroy a bunch of the really rather fragile interiors of a laser emitter. In particular, that is why I think Array Emitters are not best suited for laser based ship-to-ship weapons, since they are static on the ship and have trouble "looking away" if the enemy fires back. In the stories I write, lasers are in turrets, constantly moving and dancing a complex routine of moving to acquire the target, lasing, then very quickly turning away from that vector to avoid any possible counterbattery fire that could do damage to the emitter. Timing your laser shots to hit at exactly the moment that the enemy emitters are looking straight at you is the biggest skill a gunner in my setting(s) needs to have and one of the reasons that humans are involved in the loop at least a little, since Human Randomness + AI Randomness will always be more random than pure AI Randomness, making the skill of the gunner in when to lase and when to do fakeouts yet again a major factor in who gets the better result out of a fair encounter.

[@jeremigaezki3618]

I would love to see a video on the topic of realistic combat ranges for space combat. Because from my point of view there are two major limiting factors. One is speed of the projectile, be it laser, kinetic, missile. You want to shoot at ranges that limits ability to dodge the blow just by moving aside. Second and in my view more important thing is how precise can you make your aim systems. Your ship/gun/turret can make only so small minute changes. Fraction of a degree at thousands of miles range can make collosal difference.

[@RS8XB]

Lasers? Lasers?? Hmm, lasers

[@JustTooDamnHonest]

"FIRE THE LASER!!!!!"-Dr. Evil

[@weldonwin]

*(Makes big Finger-Quotes)*

[@red_cosplay]

I've found out about phased-array lasers from Terra Invicta, and I think it is literally the only game to ever have mentioned them

[@mihan2d]

As I understood in Mass Effect they use massive laser emitters embedded deep within the ship with vacuum lightguides and movable mirrors to enable the same laser beam to be directed via various ports throughout the ship's hull, hence no need in laser turrets

[@doc_havoc00heavywing37]

One of the audio books ive read, they had bomb pumped xray cannons or lasers as primaries until the main faction upgraded to a double barrel spinal PPCs

[@VeganSpaceScientist]

What's a matter beam? Beam: Nothing, what's a matter with you?

[@trltrlfour8063]

nice video

[@Rastek19]

That's a lot of science and fancy words

[@feralprocessor9853]

Right off the bat, a star trek scene.

[@Penfoldblue1]

great video

[@matteste]

When it comes to laser weapons in Sci-Fi, one I feel is worth mentioning in the Laser-class BETA from the Muv-Luv franchise. Those things are basically biological laser turrets and are some of the most dreaded things on the battlefield. Once they enter the fray it is all hands on deck as you just lost your air superiority. They are some of the most oppressive anti-air around, able to shoot things down with pinpoint accuracy from miles away. And while fragile and easy to kill, the problem is getting close to them in the first place, not only cause of they themselves, but all the other BETA that will be between them and you. Basically, combat in the Muv-Luv universe is decided by how well you can take these things out. Fail that and you can count the rest of whatever operation you are undertaking as a failure.

[@admiralcasperr]

6:40 And that's what the Omega destroyer's hybrid turrets use.

[@Ishlacorrin]

Yeah, it's an X-Ray Particle Laser... so combines both to be very effective.

[@fuzzyaziraphale4228]

I remember in the Starfire space combat boardgame one weapon system they have is a spinal mount X-Ray laser which is powered by channelling nuclear explosions.

[@kenetickups6146]

Old star trek lore was that phasers were a combination laser and particle beam

[@mobbs6426]

Not a trekkie, but Wharf said that like Pickard was about to reply, "Excellent! Our sheilds could use a charge"

[@Ryan-rq6dx]

I tend to prefer scifi with missiles and rail guns, but these videos always challenge me to imagine how they could all fit in the same setting.

[@robertwestfall_M.A.R.S.O.]

@Spacedock I'd like to post a link to a document that I feel would be an interesting addition to the upcoming video of kinetic weapons, but I don't want it to be removed until you get a chance to read the article. It talks about a dreadnought killing cannon in a hyper luminary speed capable fighter craft which uses several micro hyper light drive capacitors that are charged by an electromagnetic coil nearly the length of the small craft, and actually activate a few meters out from the nose/barrel of the weapon/craft, propelling a round to FTL speeds towards a target several Astral Units away.

[@Fungoid]

Hand held phasers using phased arrays would explain why they never seem to be pointing in quite the direction the beam goes. It would also explain the name

[@Breadlootgoblin]

Honestly a phased array laser sounds like it would be better for point defense rather than being a full on anti-ship weapon

[@Paveway-chan]

The idea of fighting at a range of several lightseconds is fascinating to me, having to deal with information lag because you’re so far apart that reality itself is, in a way, needing to catch up to the action

[@Otterdisappointment]

I’ve started looking into kinds of laser weapons and how they would work mechanically. Some are more appealing than others but this is my understanding: There are basic modern electrical or chemical lasers that burn things slowly, over varying (limited) range with precision usually optical sensors and exposed circuitry, piezoelectric lasers that only need to hit a conductive material to fry electronics because it itself carries an electron charge so it’s a true EMP laser, thermonuclear lasers energized by fusion (the first example but bigger and badder from Excalibur all the way up the Death Star), resonating lasers (continuous beams) sustained through mechanical pressure (Starfield laser weapons with their pistons and turbines) and fractal lasers which are more like wide cones of directed thousand degree heat than lasers (the war beetle from Gears of War 3 with its immulsion breath which is obviously organic and chemical not nuclear or electric light energy). Afaik that last one can’t be generated through fusion and it’s ironic because that’s exactly what a thermonuclear weapon is like and vice versa super X-ray lasers are more like they’d rely on fractal patterns. The way the lasers behave even the ones that are still just lasers is otherwise related to how they’re energized. A fractal laser would involve some added intricacies in the focusing chamber, the power source and/or the lens. Some of it is semantics, DoD/DoE classified or pure sci-fi nonsense. My favorite one would be the Death Star style example but I’d go for the plasma “blaster” which is never pure plasma because they still require an electric discharge to propel that plasma.

[@piisfun]

Now to combine a ton of "Free-Electron Lasers" in a phased array, and use that to aim and focus a β-particle beam that uses the waste electrons from the FEL array... Controling the phase-alignment for lasers in the visible spectrum is most easily done using ultra-high precision mechanical actuators. Fortunately it shouldn't need to turn too fast...

[@GankbotShuk]

Your example of the laser turret on the APC and the mention of the looong path for the electrons to take I think is possibly answered in the design. In the Colonial Marines Technical Manual the laser turret's emitters are two spheres. Instead of having one long tunnel to funnel the electrons, I wonder if the sphere could imply the path being bent back on itself and then they just open a lens to let the beam escape in the direction they want.

[@henrycooper3431]

Random fact: the laser on the Nemesis in the thumbnail are fiber laser, a type of laser that use rare metal doped lens to adjust their laser

[@feralprocessor9853]

SPACE!!!

[@Fibonochos]

Coupled lazer particle weapons + predictive algorithms could make targeting data a great story meguffin.

[@greensteve9307]

*laser. (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation)

[@Chobittsu]

I'm a simple man, I see a NISO, I click the thumbs up

[@sdhubbard]

Not space combat, but the canon way the plasma weapons work in Terminator is that the laser create a conductive channel in the atmosphere through which the plasma bolts are propelled.

[@blackfire3744]

I like the laser weaponry used on the ships from the original gunbuster series. In the final battle, the weapons were powerful enough to take out a planet like jupiter just by firing near it. (done by a fleet of ships, not by just one ship).

[@andrewreynolds912]

I think it's possible to cool down plasma as well using lasers to prevent the plasma that's being held together and have much less time to make it harder to spread out and the particles that wanna push each other away of course you could use other types of cooling methodes but even they have their own complications

[@Sheilawisz]

Just like Star Trek phasers are magical particle beams, I have magical lasers. I like them because as I imagine them, nothing is seen at all until a target is hit. Also, if I remember correctly, the Borg laser beams destroyed Fed ships with a single shot, and that was the end of the Federation's disdain for laser weapons.

[@Technobabylon]

Remember when you're playing Terra Invicta - ultraviolet lasers are fun and all, but you need a green laser for orbital bombardment, otherwise you won't penetrate the atmosphere

[@Virtue2721]

Sounds like this is the beginnings of an anti-Borg weapon. Can be re-modulated to different frequencies.

[@ImperatorZor]

Remember that the Borg cut up the Enterprise with a Laser in Q Who.

[@Skirne]

After the shields were down, though.

[@kenetickups6146]

To be fair, it was probably a gamma ray laser

[@Ishlacorrin]

@@kenetickups6146 I doubt that actually, to cut a piece of the ship would require it interacting with the material and a Gamma wave length would pass right through.

[@joshuacheung6518]

Phased array would probably be great for point defense

[@nickandrusin7122]

The new thrawn books seem to have the Chiss ships using something like FELs!

[@katarjin]

Phased Array Laser Cannon in X3 Albion Prelude could be a thing some day? neat.

[@oldeskul]

A major upside for laser weapons is no recoil, so you don't have to readjust your aim after each shot.

[@SteveAkaDarktimes]

I am delighted by the wiggler.

[@MsZeeZed]

Every Sapcedock weapons video : “Primarily they need radiators ….”

[@Ishlacorrin]

HEAT is a major issue in space since vacuum is a very bad conductor of heat. In an atmosphere heat is cooled by dissipating into surrounding particles that are cooler than the heat source. In vacuum hot things stay hot because there are NO surrounding particles to transfer heat into.

[@XMysticHerox]

Lasers do not have long range in space at all. Every laser has a focal point, which is limited by the size of your lense. Unless we are talking about stupidly large weapons your lasers effective range (eg in which it can do useful damage) is going to be within a couple ten thousand km. Within or even under the range at which kinetic weapons could reliably hit a evading target. Nevermind missiles. In atmosphere they are hardly long ranged either. Even a large laser is going to be limited by the horizon which even by current day naval weapon system standards is not particularly long range.

[@elmateo77]

Even if your kinetic weapon could accelerate a projectile to 30 km/s (10x the max velocity of the best railguns currently developed) even at 10,000km you're looking at more than a 5 minute travel time, which means you won't hit anything that's making even the slightest effort to evade it. By the time technology advances enough that kinetics are practical at 10,000+ km, it's likely laser tech will have also advanced enough that much more powerful projectors with much longer focal distances will be available. Although my guess is the main offensive weapon will be some sort of nuclear pumped laser or casaba howitzer. You fire a missile at the enemy ship, and just before it gets within range of the point defense systems it detonates a nuclear warhead, using the energy to either power a laser emitter or project a jet of plasma at the target. These would likely be exponentially more powerful than any weapon that draws power directly from your ship, with the downside being that they're fairly expensive single use weapons.

[@XMysticHerox]

@@elmateo77 A couple ten thousand would still be an extremely large laser tbh I might have exaggerated a little. It'd be a upper end of what is physcially feasible. If we look at something like the current US military laser we are talking moreso about a couple km with that aperature. Another issue I did not mention is that you have to stay precisely on target to do significant damage. If your laser wobbles and it will the larger your aperature is you are not going to punch through armour. Not to mention the enemy maneuvering. As for kinetic weapons. Well one thing you ignored is that generally ships would not be at a relative standstill. A ship with railguns could deliberately set up a high speed intercept to add some velocity and basically toss the rounds. You could cut the travel time in half. And the faster you go the greater the damage too. Of course if the enemy has kinetic weapons as well they could also hit you harder so the utility is a little questionable. Still if say a craft on an interplanetary orbit set up an intercept with a craft in LEO you could easily add another 10k km/s without excessive maneuvering. You'd also fire many rounds. Perhaps even some sort of shrapnel munition. A single gun could never hit something reliably at 10k km no. Many guns firing potentially many projectiles though are another question. The larger the enemy ship the more limited it will be in maneuvering. You'd basically cover everywhere it could move and hitting it would become inevitable. Small shrapnel might not destroy it but would still do damage. Shredding radiators would be enough to disable any ship eventually. As for missiles. Well it entirely depends on how good point defense gets. Thing is the more accurate weapons become the more accurate point defense becomes while missiles have no real counter of their own. If the enemy has perfect counter missiles for instance it would be quite easy to counter even large barrages with a much cheaper missile barrage of your own. Doubly so if we are talking about an entire barrage of nuclear pumped laser missiles. Casaba howitzers or even more advanced systems with anti matter are definitely a cool advanced weapon for hard sf. But since they are so theoretical I find it hard to make statements on how effective they'd be.

[@SaberFox-xo5jf]

So the FEL as a weapon system could be a reason laser turrets have long barrels like in traditional battleships to get to those high energy lasers beams.

[@michaelmutranowski123]

Lasers!? They won't even make it through our navigational shields.

[@dstarling61]

The downside of any energy weapon is that it needs energy. The more powerful the weapon, the more energy it needs. So if you have, say, a warp core, it makes sense.

[@sephrosemary]

Omg, I litterly just did a sort of aprenticeship-tour at Desy, and then I see this, of :D