montypython wrote:What about the inverse square law effects on energy weapons?
That's for fields of force and expanding blast radii. The components of a turbolaser bolt travel more or less parallel to the direction in which the weapon is fired, rather than outward in all directions.
If I'm wrong, someone correct me.
Here's a site on the Inverse square law relations.
I don't mean to sound like I'm going "har, I knew that!", but yeah, I pretty much knew that.
A turbolaser isn't spreading its influence equally. If the components were perfectly parallel (yes, I know "perfect" isn't possible, I'll get to that), its cross section would never increase in area, thus neither would its intensity.
Assuming it did spread, the bolt would simply spread its energy over a larger area. If it was still tight enough to fit into the target's silhouette, the target would still have to deal with it. In fact, if you were bombarding a city, salvoes of widened bolts might be a good thing.
"..history has shown the best defense against heavy cavalry are pikemen, so aircraft should mount lances on their noses and fly in tight squares to fend off bombers". - RedImperator
"ha ha, raping puppies is FUN!" - Johonebesus
"It would just be Unicron with pew pew instead of nom nom". - Vendetta, explaining his justified disinterest in the idea of the movie Allspark affecting the Death Star
