locarno24 wrote:However, for the sake of a complete argument:This is a pure raider design. The SLN isn't going to be happy with a neobarb building such, the only ones that would dare to build something like this are those who can stand up to the SLN. Manticore & Haven. Neither has a government that I think would consider this.
Also, while the orbit of your target can be accurate enough to hit from the outer parts of the system, but that also requires you know your position with that degree of accuracy. Do ships have that kind of information???
For a large orbital installation, probably; because military or not it'll probably be on navigational data for the system.
I'd argue it's more a capital-scale 'siege' unit than a raider; but yes, it's only real value is burning huge industrial infrastructure - we get the impression most 'modern' forts are mobile so trying to shoot at them from light-hour-plus range is not workable.
We know there are limits to the precision you can 'lay' a laser with the setting's technology - "We're too far out on the wrong vector for me to hit any of the buckets in Medusa orbit with a laser, and they're blanketing everything else" (Rafe Cardones, OBS) - that's from about an hour out of orbit (the last time check before the statement is 66 minutes into the pursuit). Obviously that's hitting a laser receiver, not just the station it's attached to, but it's a similar problem and the limits of the setting's abilities are shown.
Finally, if you've got accurate enough data to fire a capital-scale supergun at an orbital target, you've probably also got enough to lob C-fractional missiles at it - but said missiles are also useful if you find yourself needing to fight defending warships instead.
You misunderstand--I'm not questioning knowing the target well enough, but knowing your own location well enough. A typical civilian has no need of sub-kilometer positioning accuracy in the outer solar system. Thus it is unlikely there are any non-interactive systems (say, something akin to GPS) that provide that kind of accuracy to unknowns. You'll have to make your own measurements and that takes a decent chunk of time while your raider hangs out there.
It's good enough to c-frac, but note that a missile can wander off course.
It occurs to me there is one power that I think would actually consider building a weapon of this sort--the MAlign. However, to date they haven't built hulls that could mount it.
There's also the problem of ensuring the stability of your weapon mount. An incredibly tiny movement of the mount could cause a miss or even an Eridani violation. I'm remembering an incident from something like 15 years ago--the objective was to paint a diagram on a table. I had a device that emulated an ordinary Hewlett Packard plotter with one pen--except the pen was a laser. So long as the image was simple enough it could project it on a surface. (If the image was too fancy it would flicker badly because it wasn't being updated fast enough.) In testing everything worked fine, in practice the image wouldn't stay put--the culprit was the sun hitting the building, causing thermal expansion. (The table was staying put, the building itself moved and the laser was attached to the ceiling.)
