Point Defense Lasers overpowered

[bthgordon]

It feels like point defense lasers are way too powerful in comparison to any other weapon that can fit the role and sort of makes them irrelevant. Their guaranteed one hit kill (even against things that lasers would realistically have little effect on, like solid slug projectiles with zero components or internals) and rate of fire makes any other form of PD irrelevant, and a single turret feels way too powerful even against later game missiles or projectiles (two tier 1 human defense stations were able to take out 95~ percent of the incoming fire of two mk 3 light coil cannons, a salvo of Harlequin missiles, and a mk2 battery all aimed at one station).

It would be interesting if there was some balancing/mix required where you could upgrade your missiles with things like ceramic armor or aerogel to increase their survivability, or lasers were more effective against missiles but less effective against solid projectiles, while solid projectile PD is less accurate and heavier but more capable of dealing with armored projectiles on top of being usable against enemy ships in knife fighting range.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by bthgordon:

It feels like point defense lasers are way too powerful in comparison to any other weapon that can fit the role and sort of makes them irrelevant.

In small numbers, yes, but in large fleets 60cm phasers are way better at the job since they can more effectively cover each other thanks to the extra range.

Their guaranteed one hit kill (even against things that lasers would realistically have little effect on, like solid slug projectiles with zero components or internals)

1. They aren't 1-hit kill on larger kinetics. They deal an amount of damage as measured as an amount of mass, and heavier kinetic weapons will take multiple hits to destroy.
2. They'd be plenty effective against solid projectiles. They'll either ablate it, which will cause it to veer off course and miss entirely, or vaporize it, which will cause it to turn into an expanding cloud that will quickly become completely irrelevant.

[bthgordon]

I was actually thinking about ablation afterwards, which in terms of the distances involved would effectively neutralize it I realized.

[Pawleus]

This example shows you whether or not PD lasers are overpowered in comparison to missiles: https://imgur.com/a/udCaKvI - they aren't.