FF&S PA question

[whartung]

In my FF&S on page 113 detailing Particle Accelerators, it says:
"The effective range (range at which energy delivered on target is equal to discharge energy) in kilometers is equal to the effective tunnel length (in meters) x effective focal area x 1000."

This is producing some INSANE numbers for me for a large (100m) spinal accelerator. It's giving me an effective range of ~1500 HEXES (30,000km hexes).

Umm..is that right? I guess I'm just using too big of a bore.

Does anyone have a worked out Spinal PA design I can compare?

 

[Antony]

Here is an example from one of my designs. This is a TL11 spinal mount fitted to the UWC Europa.

Description: TL11 10,000Mj Spinal N-PAW
Computer Modifier: 0.4
Tunnel Length: 160 m
Cross Sectional Diameter: 6.91 m
Cross Sectional Area: 37.50127 m
Tunnel Surface Area: 75.00254 m
Discharge Energy: 10,000 Mj
Tunnel Effective Length: 32 m
Effective Focal Area: 75.00254 m
Tunnel Volume: 6,000.2032 m^3
Tunnel Mass: 4,500.1524 tons
Tunnel Price: 600,020,320 Cr

Effective Range: 2,400,081.2802 km (80.0027 hexes)
Beam Pointer Range: 300,000 km (10 hexes)
Beam Pointer Volume: 11 m^3
Beam Pointer Mass: 11 tons
Beam Pointer Price: 1,100,000 Cr

Rate of Fire: 10/30 minutes
Input Energy: 50,000 Mj
HPG Volume: 3,000 m^3
HPG Mass: 6,000 tons
HPG Price: 30,000,000 Cr
Power Input: 2,777.77778 Mw

Crew: 24
Workstations: 24
Workstation Volume: 168 m^3
Workstation Mass: 4.8 tons
Workstation Price: 36,000 Cr

Total Weapon Volume: 9,179.2032 m^3
Total Weapon Mass: 10,515.9524 tons
Total Weapon Price: 631,156,320 Cr

Performance
10:500
20:500
40:500
80:500

Incidently the 1500 hex beam range is not unusual if you have a high tech level weapon with a big bore. I would recommend not only reducing the bore size which will have all sorts of benefits, but also designing for an effective range in keeping with how that weapon would be used.

For example at TL11 in play we discovered that the range penalties basically ruled out spinal weapons firing out to there extreme range, I would now design for best effect at long range.

X-Ray lasers also generate the very long beam ranges, hitting anything at those ranges unless it is a static target.

Antony

 

[Scott Martin]

And the errata for PAWs (and Meson guns) which I ignore once again linked discharge energy to *volume* by applying a penalty to PAW's that had anything other than a 1:8 aspect ratio...

But yes, insane ranges are the norm for large high TL PAW's... a 1-hex range PAW at TL-10 is often a 30-hex range PAW at TL-15 (making it very important to correctly ID the 1,000 dT PAW bay in use on that starship...)

Scott Martin

 

[TheDS]

I had a very similar question, since I noticed the effect you've described; large PAWS have obscene ranges.

I didn't believe that a real-world PAWS would be so perfect, especially considering that the other particle weapon - lasers - act a lot like flashlights. **

I never got a good answer to that question, and then other concerns vied for my attention and I forgot all about it. But since then, I've thought of a couple possible solutions: Either use the same (or similar) formula for lasers, or otherwise through a square-root somewhere into the calculation so that a gun needs to be 4x as large to get 2x the range. (To some degree, this second idea is actually already the case, but it is apparrently not good enough.)

** side note
Subatomic particles and photons are both capable of acting like particles and like waves. Therefore, if a beam of photons cannot retain its focus for very long, then neither should particles. However, to try and directly throw PAWS into the laser formula won't work, because you've got no idea what frequency to use. Instead, you'll probably have to use mass as if it's a frequency, with higher mass being equivalent to a higher frequency.

None of this side note is likely to stand up to a physicist's scrutiny, however.