Sins Energy Weapon Lore

For funzies

from Sins Forums

I've been thinking about the directed energy weapons in Sins of a Solar Empire: how do they function, how do they relate to one another, and what do they signify in terms of the technological development of the three factions?

I'm aware of the pitfalls in thinking too much about this issue. Allow me to forestall a few arguments with the following disclaimer:

  1. Sins takes place in a universe in which psychic powers and deflector shields exist, faster-than-light travel is possible (throwing causality RIGHT out the window), and phase space is more than a representation of potential system states. Suspend your disbelief.
    • I'm going to assume that deflector shields evolved from the need to shield ships from space debris during relativistic flights. Remember: shield mitigation is explained in the manual as a function of the shield changing frequencies and adapting to incoming weapons fire.
  2. I'm aware that plasma is an ionized gas, and a "plasma weapon" would probably look something like a flamethrower. Consequently, I'm going to assume that plasma weapons in the Sins universe use some sort of containment field (gravitational, electromagnetic, or phase-space) to contain the ionized gas in either a projectile, beam, or wave form.
    • I will note here that both Advent beam units (Illuminators, defense platforms, bombers, and capital ships) and certain TEC units (the Kol Battleship and the Argonev starbase) appear to take advantage of the same weapon system: the weapons have a similar appearance (a thick beam of coherent light, though the Advent's are blue where the TEC's are orange) and are referred to as "Beam" type weapons in the the tooltips and research trees. I'm going to assume that Beam weapons are, in fact, plasma beams.
    • It has been brought to my attention that beam weapons may actually be particle or ion beams (a-la Homeworld). I assumed that since pulse guns are pulsed plasma guns that pulse beams would be pulsed plasma beams. That said, it is possible that the pulse gun/pulse beam research tree is connected primarily because they both focus on the application of pulse technology to weapons systems beyond lasers, namely plasma guns and beam weapons.

      Suffice to say that, regardless if beam cannons are ion beams or plasma beams, the Vasari are a step ahead of everybody in both the plasma burst gun and beam weapon departments, since they use pulsed versions of both of those.
  3. I'm going to assume that "pulse lasers" are basically rapidly modulated lasers, represented by a pew-pew projectile graphic in the game to keep things visually lively, but otherwise a straight-forward laser beam that changes frequencies and intensities algorithmically to counteract shield mitigation.
    • I imagine that shield mitigation against a conventional, non-pulsed laser weapon would approach 100%.
  4. I'm going to assume that the Vasari have reached the limits of conventional technology (unassisted by psychic abilities); I will likewise assume that both the Phase Jump Inhibitors (which the Vasari can replicate with nanotechnology but cannot understand) and whatever drove them from their home systems represent UNCONVENTIONAL technology. 
  5. If you examine the opening cinematic, you will note that whatever drove the Vasari from their home systems emerged from a Viturska Imperial Lab dedicated to "Experimental Transport" research.

Nevertheless, I'm willing to speculate.  The following constitute my analysis of the Sins of a Solar Empire energy weapon hierarchy.

In the Sins universe, the three factions appear to be roughly balanced:

  • The TEC combines armor that is extremely durable for its cost with mass production to compensate for their lack of high-tech weapons. Regardless of TEC stats in-game, on a pound-for-pound basis it's doubtful that TEC armor can match Vasari armor, which is nano-engineered, self-repairing, incredibly light (high-tier Vasari armor actually reduces ship mass) and versatile. Fortunately, the TEC don't HAVE to match Vasari armor on a pound-for-pound basis: they have the luxury of producing SLIGHTLY inferior, conventionally engineered armor, at MUCH higher rates of production. TEC armor probably represents a compromise: the best protection they can manage for a reasonable cost, cranked out in such large quantities that the TEC can field two well-protected ships for every excellently protected Vasari vessel.  Aside from autocannons, missiles, and pulse lasers, the TEC are beginning to break through into sustained beam technology, as evidenced by the beam cannons on the Argonev starbase, the Ankylon Titan, and the front of the Kol Battleship. These weapons are largely primitive compared to the Advent: the Kol Battleship's beam weapons are mounted in a spinal configuration and must be arranged in a cluster to provide adequate firepower. That said, they represent a step toward more robust technology in TEC fighting ships.
  • The Advent have used psitech to further refine laser weapons, providing the Advent with pulse lasers that are more than 60% more efficient than their TEC counterparts (established by comparing the performance of the single pulse laser on the Disciple Vessel with the pair of pulse lasers on the Cobalt Light Frigate).  The Advent have also made significant advances over the TEC in the field of sustained beam weaponry. Unlike the TEC, the Advent are not restricted to mounting beams on star bases or in spinal arrays. The Advent have miniaturized beam technology to the point that beams can be mounted in a defense platform, frigate hull, or even as a broadside weapon, as demonstrated by the Halcyon Carrier.  Further advancements yielded short-barreled plasma weapons that may be fired in bursts, widely utilized in capital ship turrets and as the primary armament of the Destra Crusader heavy cruiser. These burst-firing plasma weapons represent the pinnacle of Advent plasma weapons research.
  • The Vasari, through either trial-and-error, engineering genius, outright technological theft, or some combination of the above, have long since mastered plasma technology, to the point that plasma weapons constitute basic armament on the vast majority of Vasari ships.
    • The most common plasma weapon in the Vasari arsenal is the pulsed plasma gun, being present on no less than five out of ten of their most common frigates and cruisers. By applying the basic principles of pulsed weaponry to burst-firing plasma weapons, a single frigate-sized pulsed plasma gun can achieve nearly 63% of the destructive power of FOUR cruiser-sized burst-firing plasma weapons. The widespread usage of this weapon is limited by the fact that pulsed plasma bursts do not function well at large scales. To achieve appropriate destructive levels, pulsed plasma guns must be mounted in clusters, as demonstrated by the Rankulas battleship.
    • To compensate for the lack of scalability inherent in pulsed plasma guns, the Vasari applied the principles of pulsed weaponry to beam technology, as well, yielding pulsed beam weapons capable of delivering their destructive payload in a fraction of the time compared to sustained beam weapons. The average pulsed beam is anywhere from 12% to 100% more destructive than a comparably sized sustained beam, as demonstrated by analyses of the damage inflicted by the three flank-mounted pulsed beams on the Kortul Devastator and the four similarly sized broadside sustained beams mounted on the Halcyon Carrier.
    • For weapon emplacements that are too large for pulsed plasma guns and too small for pulsed beams, the Vasari rely on a much older weapon: the plasma wave cannon. Prior to the development of pulsed plasma technology, plasma wave cannons were the predominant directed energy weapon on all Vasari ships.  Plasma waves are modified plasma bursts engineered to distribute plasma over a much broader, thinner area, slicing through multiple decks rather than punching small holes in the target vessel. In practice, plasma wave cannons are approximately 21% more destructive than similarly sized plasma burst cannons.
    • Sustained beam cannons have been all but phased out of the Vasari navy.  The exception is orbital bombardment, wherein they channel a large-scale sustained beam towards a planet's surface. The primary advantage here is the negation of the need for ammunition and supply lines: any Vasari ship capable of orbital bombardment can do so as long as the ship is functional (as opposed to the TEC and the Advent, who use nuclear weapons and kinetic bolts for orbital bombardment, respectively).  I like to think that the Vasari are the only race in the galaxy who have managed to field a directed energy weapon capable of penetrating a planet's magnetosphere (which deflects a truckload of radiation all the time).
    • The Vasari disintegrator weapon is technically not an energy weapon at all. Rather, it is an application of the same nano-assembler used to construct their ships. The disintegrator works by spraying the target with a cloud of nanites which flay the target layer by layer, deconstructing the target at a molecular level. Though short ranged (owing to slow speed of the nanite cloud and the difficulty in maintaining cohesion), it is a devastating weapon.

Surprisingly, that only took me approximately an hour and a half to write. It was worth every minute.

TLDR:

  • TEC: [Pulse lasers] + [primitive sustained beams]
  • Advent: [Psitech-enhanced pulse lasers] + [advanced sustained beams] + [burst-firing plasma weapons]
  • Vasari: [Pulsed burst-firing plasma weapons] + [pulsed beams] + [burst-firing plasma weapons modified to fire wave-shaped plasma bursts]

Comments?

114,359 views 16 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

I love this post. 

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top


To compensate for the lack of scalability inherent in pulsed plasma guns, the Vasari applied the principles of pulsed weaponry to plasma beam technology, as well, yielding pulsed plasma beams for use on Vasari capital ships. The average pulsed plasma beam is approximately 50% more destructive than a comparably sized plasma beam, as demonstrated by analyses of the damage inflicted by the flank-mounted pulsed plasma beams on the Kortul Devastator and the similarly sized broadside plasma beams on the Halcyon Carrier.

This is actually more thought out than most that try to make more sense out of the limited game lore, but I have an issue with this. I don't think its fair to compare weapon strength either visually or with the in game DPS numbers. For balance reasons there is no way the beam weapons on a carrier could be equal to that of a battleship, and this could be explained in universe by the battleships obviously having far superior conventional power systems than other capitals. No matter how effective a particular weapon is, if you have more energy to put into firing them its going to be superior. Your other comparisons are a bit more valid because you compared TEC LF to Advent LF, but you could argue that these are dangerous numbers as well.

I might offer a different explanation for Advent beam weapons. While I agree they are probably plasma, the unusual uniformity of the beam (compared to the actual plasma weapons of the desdra or the vasari pulse weapons) seems to suggest this is supercold plasma, which could explain their lack of an ionic cloud around them (the other weapons show a little of this even though they must have a containment field, but super cold plasma would presumably be easier to contain).

And on the TEC versus Vasari armor thing, I don't think its wrong to say the TEC have better armor in absolute terms. What the Vasari do better is make better armor for the weight. After all they've been fleeing from across the galaxy for centuries, they need a more mobile force that can be constructed with nanobots, so extremely heavy armor is not an option for them. The TEC are fighting a defensive war of attrition, with many converted merchant ships with large displacements but less efficient power generation. Their Armor might be a bit inferior per unit, but all of their ships use more of it, giving them the absolute armor advantage even with taking into account that they build more of them.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting GoaFan77, reply 3
This is actually more thought out than most that try to make more sense out of the limited game lore, but I have an issue with this. I don't think its fair to compare weapon strength either visually or with the in game DPS numbers. For balance reasons there is no way the beam weapons on a carrier could be equal to that of a battleship, and this could be explained in universe by the battleships obviously having far superior conventional power systems than other capitals.

This may surprise you, but I agree... mostly. It's a game -- balance trumps realism.

That said, capital ships may differ by class, but there's no reason to assume that any given capital ship has a more powerful reactor than another's unless explicitly noted.  For example, if you compare the Skirantra Carrier and the Kortul Devastator, these are the numbers you get:

Devastator:

  • Wave DPS: 12
  • Phase Missile DPS: 6
  • Pulse beam DPS: 30

Skirantra:

  • Wave DPS: 9
  • Phase Missile DPS: 12

If you ignore the pulse beams, the Skirantra actually comes out AHEAD in terms of cumulative DPS. So here we have a carrier which does more DPS than a battleship in its forward arc.

Naturally, the devs omitted certain weapons systems on the Skirantra because it's a CARRIER -- its power is intended to be in its strike craft.

That said: all but two of the pulse beams on the Devastator are flank mounted, essentially reducing its frontal DPS from these weapons by 2/3s. So even with these weapons, the Devastator does only 7 more DPS than a Skirantra on a consistent basis. You could even argue that the Skirantra has the advantage here, because more of its DPS is concentrated in phase missiles, which can ignore shield mitigation.

I chose the Halcyon for a comparison for three reasons:

  1. It has two (four total) plasma beam weapons in a flank firing arc, in much the same way as a Devastator has two (four total) plasma beam weapons in a flank firing arc.
  2. I argue that plasma beams and pulsed plasma beams are related
  3. The weapons are roughly comparable in size and power

That said, there is an obvious error: the Halcyon's 20 beam DPS is calculated for TWO weapons -- the Kortul's 30 pulse beam DPS is calculated for THREE weapons.  Meaning that plasma beams and pulsed plasma weapons are essentially equal, the primary advantage being that pulsed beams deal their full damage instantaneously, whereas beams must concentrate on their target for a while. :P

Quoting GoaFan77, reply 3
I might offer a different explanation for Advent beam weapons. While I agree they are probably plasma, the unusual uniformity of the beam (compared to the actual plasma weapons of the desdra or the vasari pulse weapons) seems to suggest this is supercold plasma, which could explain their lack of an ionic cloud around them (the other weapons show a little of this even though they must have a containment field, but super cold plasma would presumably be easier to contain).

Rather than cold plasma, I would argue that the Advent are using psitech to augment the plasma beam's containment field. :P

Quoting GoaFan77, reply 3
And on the TEC versus Vasari armor thing, I don't think its wrong to say the TEC have better armor in absolute terms. What the Vasari do better is make better armor for the weight.

What I was trying to say is that the TEC are basically using an extremely advanced form of the materials sciences we use today to make highly resilient alloys and polymers. TEC armor is probably composed of several functional layers, including ablative layers, gas pockets to disperse shocks, meshes to absorb impacts, and crystalline structures to absorb, disperse, or reflect beam weapons. They have reached the point where their armor is about is good as it can get using the techniques they use.

By comparison, the Vasari use a completely DIFFERENT synthesis method: nano-engineering. Being able to basically create "perfect" substances on a molecular level probably results in a vastly different research and development process, since you're basically identifying the most efficient nano-scale structures you can and the growing it en masse around a skeleton.  The result is a much more homogenous armor type -- lighter, stronger, and more universally effective than TEC composites, but requiring extensive infrastructure geared towards nano-engineering.  By comparison, composite armor is a hodgepodge of different materials and manufacturing techniques, each with different strengths and weakensses. That said, there may be circumstances in which TEC armor actually EXCEEDS the performance of Vasari armor, but overall, I would assume that Vasari armor offers better protection for less weight.

To replicate this achievement, the TEC would basically have to reboot their industrial base and start down an entirely new tech path (nano-engineering), and it would almost certainly take them a while to catch up to the Vasari, who have been doing nano-engineering for a long, LONG time, and perfecting it under fire as they dealt with rebel "valued citizens." Early TEC nano-engineering efforts would probably yield spectacularly inefficient results until they arrived at optimal results.  Unfortunately, neither they nor the Vasari have that kind of time. It remains to be seen whether or not Vasari rebels will buy TEC support by selling them nanoengineering techniques to use against the Advent (not without deliberate flaws, of course -- it would never due to have these non-people cruising the stars with Vasari-equivalent hulls, particularly with their industrial base and stubborn refusal to SUBMIT).

 

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Frostflare, reply 4
That said, capital ships may differ by class, but there's no reason to assume that any given capital ship has a more powerful reactor than another's unless explicitly noted.

Well it depends a bit on how you assume the ships power system works, which we really know little about. What we do know is that each ship has at least two, one for conventional power used by shields and weapons (perhaps engines as well), and one for antimatter used to power special abilities. The support capitalships and cruisers obviously have better antimatter generators than the others but less powerful conventional generators, which is why they aren't as good in regular combat. Carriers likewise probably have smaller conventional power generators so they can fit all the strikecraft facilities in roughly the same hull size, same for the Marza and Devastator for extra bombardment weapons. That would leave battleships having better or at least bigger reactors to power shields and energy weapons from.

Quoting Frostflare, reply 4
Rather than cold plasma, I would argue that the Advent are using psitech to augment the plasma beam's containment field.

Why not both?

Quoting Frostflare, reply 4
What I was trying to say is that the TEC are basically using an extremely advanced form of the materials sciences we use today to make highly resilient alloys and polymers.

I understand this, I'm just saying I think its more accurate to say the TEC uses more armor on each ship to give them an advantage, which would justify why their ships have more armor on an individual basis and why they can improve it even further with research more than the Vasari can. Its the difference between a Kevlar vest and a full suit of iron armor, per weight the Kevlar is better, but the iron suite of armor will win in a one on one boxing fight. ;)

 

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Isn't DPS wise though the Advents Plasma weapons are stronger than the Vasari's? What we know the Advent can do is develop a contained form of Plasma which is used in most of their weapons. They can also deploy use of their Plasma weapons more rapidly than the Vasari.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Rebellion is out and you linked me to this thread so you should have known I'd necro it.

Armor Restoration clearly closes the book as far as which race has the best armor and confirms that Vasari armor had previously been such due to the fact that they've been on the run and didn't have the resources to build their ships as well as they'd have liked.

Also, explain Phase Cannons and the Kostura.  Go.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Volt_Cruelerz, reply 8
Rebellion is out and you linked me to this thread so you should have known I'd necro it.

Also, explain Phase Cannons and the Kostura.  Go.

Challenge accepted. :grin:

The Kostura Cannon is easy -- it uses a phase space field to accelerate the warhead to very near the speed of light, whereupon it is lobbed at relativistic speeds towards its target. The warhead itself is a two-stage projectile:

  1. The warhead itself, which is basically a pulsar that fries the electronic systems of unshielded targets (remember: shields were developed to protect from repetitive natural phenomena), namely structures (I know, the Advent can shield their structures with hangar defenses, but since that's a projected shield, let's assume it doesn't count for some reason -- unstable or some such.
  2. The deployable phase node, which is exactly the same technology used by the Vorastra Titan when it deploys a phase stabilizer node

That said, in order to explain the phase cannon, I need to know what it does, and for that I'll need to be able to look at the data files for either the Vorastra Titan or the phase cannon weapon system -- and I have no idea how to do that.

I assume, since it's called a phase cannon, that it has a chance (maybe even a 100% chance) of ignoring shields and directly impacting the hull. If that assumption is correct (and there are no guarantees here), then we must assume that the weapon itself uses phase space in some way to bypass shields.

From my chair, this leaves but three possibilities:

  1. The cannon fires a conventional projectile equipped with a micro-phase drive, much like a phase missile -- only the size of the projectile permits a far more accurate phase drive. This is the least Vasari-like explanation, because they seem to dislike projectiles (problematizes their supply chains)
  2. The cannon directs a phase space shockwave towards the target; the shockwave bypasses shields and directly shears the hull of the target. The problem? It's such a small shockwave that it doesn't do much damage; there are exponential limits on the size of the cannon that prevent it from achieving a large enough shockwave
  3. The cannon projects a phase space tunnel to the target, through which a projectile of some kind is fired.

I can't say any more until I have the data files. Sorry!

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

Well, even if you did have the data files they wouldn't be much help.  PC's got yanked out in 1.03 and replaced (hopefully temporarily) with PM's.  I'm hoping that in 1.04 they'll get put back in with some sort of unique mechanic (such as always damaging hull for instance).

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

Nice job btw Frosty.

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

What about Particle Beams? I figured that's what the Vasari used.

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

This is incredibly impressive. And it's nice to see something besides a troll post or a "I can't beat X, so take it out of the game please."

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

Also, you didn't touch on Disintegrators.

Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Volt_Cruelerz, reply 14
Also, you didn't touch on Disintegrators.

Actually, I did. Last night, when I was writing about the phase cannon. Look for yourself. =)

Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top

Didn't realize you updated the OP lol.

Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top

Back in the day of Traveller, we spent lots of time detailing and creating our own weapons as well as getting them from GDW's releases.

My favorite GDW weapon was the Meson Cannon.  It fired a beam of near massless particles with a half-life of seconds and when they decayed they became more solid--so essentially they passed through armor and detonated inside your ship doing awesome damage.  The trade off was slow refire and a long time to lock and charge.

Custom weapons I made were the impact fusion and impact fission guns.  The impact fission gun was a rail gun that fired radioactive isotopes that underwent micro-fission on impact with a dense object.

The impact fusion gun was a particle accelerator that fired a plasma pulse that underwent fusion on impact with the target.

A half-life accelerator field was used to exponentially accelerate the decay process to prematurely detonate or melt down incoming weapons that relied on particle decay or radioactive processes to function.  So it would render nukes less likely to work, cause meson cannon shots to bounce off, etc.

Nice explanations here...makes me darn nostalgic.