anti projectile ion crystal

[pulsar portal]

a new focusing crystal for ions to pass through that makes damaging ships about as useful as a mining laser, but any hard projectiles besides nukes or deck cannon shells, will be destroyed by the beam. Unless more ions are added to the beam

so if you have a couple of these beams firing from the sides of your ship, you can avoid a lot of HE missiles that otherwise would have gone right up your tailpipe

for it to be effective, it would have to be placed on the edge of the ship, making it vulnerable to normal weapons.

[lucid elm]

Interesting idea, though I am slightly concerned about the potential for this to just be stupidly op. Besides energy weapons, whats the catch, the counter?

For example, if its just one ion supplying it, does it not do enough damage to say, kill a single HE rocket? Does it have severely diminished range? Or does it only work if the beam goes from crystal to crystal.

[oak seal]

right now the current prisms best defensive use is the penetration resistance against something like rails

would the beam of these prisms do damage to projectiles like pd?

considering how ions are generally a damage overtime weapon, something as fast and small as a projectile is unlikely to take much damage

unless it instant kills the projectiles

and what about mines? since those when launched don't do much moving, would these ions then make for good minesweeping sincet here's more range than pd

do these prisms aim and target like regular ions, and instead lock target to projectiles?

what about energy projectiles like those from dlb's?

would it stop those projectiles similarly to the flak?

[pulsar portal]

i think that since missiles go so fast, there would have to be at least 4 ions that combine or 2 separate ions to destroy 100% of missiles. Otherwise, only a few would get destroyed, depending on the angle they were coming at to the beam, depending on how long they are in the beam.

maybe emp missiles that are destroyed can send a surge back through the beam to the ion, stunning it for a few seconds

projectiles that are big and heavy (cannons) or extremely fast (railguns) probably won’t be affected much unless you have a lot of anti projectile ions

this could be a good anti mine weapon, maybe a bonus to mines, causing them to detonate as soon as the beam crosses them.

The ions are meant to be stationary, but in a pinch could be used to attack. They are too slow to target individual projectiles. They’re meant to be aimed to cover a certain part of your ship, or to extend a zone that will destroy missiles that try to go around your ship to target the back.

Thinking about the laser beams, lasers and ion beams would pass through cleanly.
Or an even more interesting idea is that laser beams actually gain energy from going through the beam. This could be utilized on both sides. Like if you have an ion beam in front of your dlbs, they’ll do extra damage, but take extra damage from laser beams. Like shooting arrows through lava.

If flak is attacking where an anti projectile ion is covering, i think it should be completely absorbed by the ion, as the projectiles are very small.

[jolly patrol]

I wonder if it could be interesting to have a prism that has reduced range, acts as PD, and can fire multiple smaller beams. The issue I see, though, is figuring out what PD role that would fulfil, given that the existing PD already does it's job well.

To me, it makes sense for a PD like that to be specifically targeted towards small, fast projectiles.

[oak seal]

PD is one of the best anti-rail defenses if you have enough pd, but generally we don't see much use against cannons because of the closer distance those are fired at the ship, such as directly into the ship at contact,

Considering this anti projectile ions uses prisms, would having 2 prisms facing eachother multiply that defense at a cheaper price