Quote
Originally posted by Destroyer E:
**No, protons are more powerful. And they look cooler.
**
Edit 1:
This has been discussed at great length in the past, e.g. here. It depends on what you want to do.
Edit 2: This is an even better link. The most relevant post by is below:
Quote
Originally posted by Asmodaethur:
**some numbers, from the ev data file:
Proton deals 10 damage vs shields, 10 damage vs armor.
Laser deals 10 damage vs shields, 2 damage vs armor.
The formula for damage against shields is ( ShieldDam + ( ArmorDam / 4 ) ).
The formula for damage against armor is ( ArmorDam + ( ShieldDam / 4 ) ).
Thusly, Proton Cannons deal 12.5 damage to shields per hit, and 12.5 damage to armor per hit.
Lasers deal 10.5 damage to shields per hit, and 4.5 damage to armor per hit.
However, Lasers have a reload of 20, and Proton Cannons have a reload of 30. Thus, the Laser Cannons can fire out 50% more shots per time period than the proton cannons can.
Laser shield damage: 10.5 x 1.5 = 15.75
Laser armor damage: 4.5 x 1.5 = 6.75
Per base time unit, Proton cannons deal 12.50 damage to shields and 12.50 damage to armor.
Per base time unit, Laser cannons deal 15.75 damage to shields and 6.75 damage to armor.
so you see lasers actually do much more damage (26% more damage in fact) to shields in the same time period. more damage is not the same as less damage, i am afraid (nothing personal) hee hee!
however, they deal much less damage against armor (only 54% as much damage). this would make them vastly inferior if not for the fact that most ships in ev have way way more shields than they have armor
the laser cannon also has other advantages. both it and proton bolts last for the same time, but it has a slightly higher speed (875 vs 850 for the proton) meaning that it travels a greater total distance (although only about 3%). the laser cannon is also less inaccurate, with a mere 1 percent inaccuracy versus the proton cannons 3 percent inaccuracy, and, of course, is cheaper and takes up a bit less space...
**
(This message has been edited by IonStorm (edited 09-11-2003).)