Comparison
| Name | Make | Price(kE$) | Repair Price(kE$) | Repair Time*(h) | Power(MW) | Range(m) | Output(MW) | Wavelength(nm) | Estimated Average Power(MW) | Estimated DPS (MJ/s) | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MWG Microwave Generator | Nakamura Dynamics | 70 | 1.5 | 6 | 50 | 600 | 45 | 10,000,000 | 50 | 45 | Thermal/EMP damage |
| CL-150 | Coherent Light | 150 | 2 | 16 | 150 | 8,000 | 125 | 490 | 150 | 125 | Thermal |
| Point Defense Microwave | Obonto
-Nakemura |
180 | 8 | 12 | 50 | 600 | 45 | 10,000,000 | 50 | 45 | Self targeting, Thermal/EMP |
| CL-200AP | Coherent Light | 220 | 30 | 8 | 220 | 8,000 | 200 | 650 | 154 | 80 | Gimbal(36d), 24hz (pulses per second), Thermal/Kinetic |
| SPC Gungnir | Omaewamou
-Shindeiru |
270 | N/A | N/A | 400 | 8,000 | 93.3 (based on max charge) | N/A | 400 | 373.3
(based on max charge) |
Charged shot of protons. Damage varies based upon length charged, up to 30 seconds.
Thermal/Kinetic/EMP |
| CL-600P | Coherent Light | 320 | 80 | 12 | 660 | 8,000 | 600 | 540 | 396 | 120 | 12hz (pulses per second), Thermal/Kinetic |
All energy weapons take 1 hour to replace[verify?]
*The number of mechanics you have hired affects repair time. See Category:Equipment for more details.
The microwave emitter breaks rocks at a considerably slower pace than other tools, however can be excellent for disabling other ships given proper tuning, effectively stun locking them to be either captured with a manipulator, or hitting with another tool. The point defense variant of the microwave is an automatic gimballed variant, acting from a targeting computer instead of the player's input, although the gimball is limited, and may not face the intended direction based on the position of the hardpoint.
Lasers on the contrary produce a single narrow beam, continuous or pulsed based on the model, and in the case of the CL-200 being gimballed also. They produce thermal, and in the case of pulsed lasers, kinetic damage, based upon the wattage and frequency (in case of pulsed) of the tool. Lasers are great in the sense of ringroid mining, as they're relatively fast at breaking down rocks, while providing decently little to no fling on ores due to no, or some in the case of pulsed, kinetic energy. Combat potential of lasers is questionable, as they do provide a lot of heat, but keeping a constant beam on the reactor is decently hard as ships face reactors away from you. Pulsed lasers have some potential for punching holes in the side of ships, but it's based on a higher wattage and lower frequency, the latter of which potentially lowering mining potential.
The SPC Gungnir is an extreme case, toeing the line between energy and plasma weaponry, it is a high powered synchrotron, firing a tiny shot of protons after a charge up period. Power output depends upon the length charged up, up to a cap of 30 seconds, where any further charging just keeps it at it's current power. It deals EMP, kinetic, and thermal damage, being the only tool capable of all three. It's rather ineffective as a mining tool, as it has a habit of flinging ores at dangerously high velocities, posing a threat to you too if something were to hit, but extremely effective as a combat tool or just to clear ringroids from the area.
Microwaves
- Deliver a wide beam of 1cm-wavelength (microwave) radiation.
- Deal a mix of EMP damage and thermal (that is, energy) damage.
- The "water resonance" tuning affects the damage mix - higher water resonance means more thermal and less EMP. Thermal damage is good for melting asteroids, whereas EMP damage is useless for them. EMP damage can disable enemy ships, unless they have EMP shielding.
- Tuning the power increases the beam spread. Specifically, it gets linearly wider with increasing power. As a result, the math works out in such a way that increasing power will only increase the actual DPS when the entire cone intersects with the enemy - otherwise it will decrease DPS. So for all but the shortest-distance combat engagements, uptuning microwave power is of questionable use. For asteroid mining, however, it's generally fine.
Lasers
- There are two kinds of lasers - continuous-wave and pulse. The former deal pure thermal damage, the latter deal a mix of thermal and kinetic (the latter due to ablation from high-energy pulses).
- For pulse lasers, uptuning pulse frequency makes each pulse higher-energy, and therefore produce more ablation - but that means delivering less heat. Mechanically, this changes the damage mix - higher frequency means more thermal, lower frequency means more kinetic. Both of the currently existing pulse lasers have a 50/50 kinetic/thermal mix by default, and tunable from 100/0 to 25/75.
- For mining, the time-to-asteroid-destruction doesn't depend on the damage mix. However, thermal damage is preferable because it delivers less momentum, resulting in less scattering of the chunks.
- For combat, both thermal and kinetic damage are useful in different ways.
- Uptuning power straightforwardly increases output power and hence DPS, at the cost of uptuned lasers experiencing wear during usage (since 0.615.1). For this reason, CL-600P is notable in that it's very powerful even without uptuning, and that way one doesn't need to worry about wear.
Synchotrons
- Currently only one synchotron exists in game (SPC Gungnir)
- Requires charge up of a couple of seconds before a shot can be fired.
- Power output dependent upon the length of the charge, up to 30 seconds of charge at 11.2 GJ.
- A full charge is shown visually with microwave effects on the Gungnir
- Can only be fitted to side hardpoints
- The only weapon currently in game that causes all three types of damage
- Currently has no damage model
- A positive charge will be left on any object hit by the projectile, which will arc between objects and causing EMP damage in the process.
- Arcs to ringroids cause separation after enough damage
- Arcs to ships knocks out unprotected equipment
- Unbreakable objects (ores, moonlets, etc) will keep charge until there is an object to discharge to