High Energy Laser Lance

The High Energy Laser Lance (HELL) is an extremely powerful laser weapon equipped to the The Power of Arskodia II and is a defining feature of the starship. The HELL is the most powerful ship mounted laser cannon, with a power of 7 megawatts it can cause devastating damage to an enemy starship.

## Drawbacks

This laser takes 30 minutes to 1 hour to charge up enough to fire the laser and while this charge is occurring, the Power of Arskodia cannot have it's Plasma Shields active due to the power requirements. Finally, once the laser has been used, it can take upwards of 2 hours to cool down before being charged again. Thankfully, during the charging process it is active and will be actively damaging the enemy ship, the point where the laser "fires" is when the laser reaches full intensity and holds it for 5 minutes. The entire process of the HELL firing can take a total of 2 hours 35 minutes at best (including cooldown). Another issue with using such a powerful laser is that its cooling system is so bulky that it cannot be aimed more than using lenses to angle the light leaving the "barrel". However, all of these drawbacks are worth it for the ability to decimate enemy ships with a laser that can still do effective damage even at a large aperture, so much so that chaff cannons can't necessarily block most of the light.

## How does it work?

The HELL works by charging a large capacitor up to full and slowly discharging it through a matrix of laser diodes "firing" an incredibly powerful beam of light. The laser weapon is made up of a few different components, the Charging unit, the cooling system, the emitter, and the focusing array (known as the barrel).

### The Charging Unit

The Charging Unit is placed right at the back of the HELL and is the system which draws power from the ship and stores it all in a huge Supercapacitor. The Charging Unit is nothing more complex than a very large circuit used to store power. Once the capacitor is charged, the electricity is slowly discharged through the emitter.

### The Emitter

The Emitter is basically just a large set of thousands of high power laser diodes put together in a honeycomb matrix. The Emitter is placed right in front of the Charging Unit and right before a large set of lenses and the aperture system. The Emitter does exactly what it sounds like, it emits light. When the Charging Unit discharges, the laser diodes get turned on and fire the laser with a power of 7 megawatts (±2 KW) and a wavelength of 423 nano meters (±2nm). This laser initially passes through lenses directly connected to the main diodes before entering the Focusing Array.

### The Focusing Array (The Barrel)

The Barrel of the HELL is the most complex part of the entire design as it must do many functions. Though the main purpose of the Barrel is focusing the laser, it is also in charge of the finer points of aiming the weapon and detecting the distance between the laser and the target so it can calculate the focal point before focusing the laser on that point. When the barrel is focusing the laser it must do it very precisely so the most powerful point (the focal point) is exactly on the target. It does this by moving the several lenses forward and backward within the tube to get the correct focus. at the front and middle of the Barrel there is a special type of aperture which is used to change the size of the emitted beam so more detailed cuts could be made or attacks on smaller craft can be done more easily. When the Focusing Array is at it's maximum aperture, the laser's focal point area is a total of ~7854m2 and can have an intensity of 891.3 W/m2, but is far more damaging if the area of the focal point is smaller as the intensity will increase.

### Cooling System

The HELL uses a special pumping system to cycle liquid neon around the entire HELL system since the weapon is so powerful, it generates kilowatts of heat which must be drawn away or else the weapon will get incredibly damaged.

## Order of Operations

The process the HELL goes through when firing is made up of many stages, some occur once before and after the laser fires and some occur many times a second while the laser is active. The entire charging, firing, and shutdown sequence takes up to 2 hours and 35 minutes. Below is a list of each operation which occurs before, during, and after the firing process:

### Before Firing

The pre-firing process is mostly based around orders given between the crew of the ship, rather than the HELL system functions. These operations happen only once in the firing process

1. The captain gives the order to charge the HELL.
2. Tactical officer begins charging HELL.
	1. Non essential systems have their power diverted to the HELL charging unit.
	2. If shields are active, they will be deactivated to conserve power.
3. Tactical officer notes the position of the target and communicates with the helmsman to aim the Power Of Arskodia towards the target.
	1. The tactical officer uses the HELL's Infrared Distance Detection System (IRDDS) to calculate the distance between the HELL and the target and sets the focal point of the HELL accordingly.
	2. The Tactical officer sets the craft as the target so the HELL automatically moves the emitter to keep firing on the target.
	3. The Helmsman rotates the entire ship to keep the HELL facing the target.
4. Captain gives the order to fire the HELL.
5. Communications officer sends warning to HELL crew.
	1. HELL crew prepare emitter for firing, turn on cooling, and get to safety.
	2. HELL crew notify bridge when ready.
6. Tactical officer and captain press separate fire buttons at the same time.

### Firing

This process happens once after the fire buttons are pressed and takes a total of 4 seconds and is all done automatically:

1. Charging Unit supercapacitor discharges through a resistor to slowly release power into Emitter.
2. Emitter begins emitting laser through barrel.
3. Cooling increases to keep system within safety parameters.

### While Active

These operations occur three times a second for as long as the HELL is active:

1. The IRDDS fires an infrared beam at the target which then bounces back and into a sensor.
	1. The IRDDS sensor calculates the time it took for the beam to reach the target to calculate the target's distance.
	2. IRDDS sends instructions to focusing array to keep focal point as defined by tactical officer in pre-firing process.
2. Focusing array moves lenses to keep focus.
3. Temperature is recorded and Engineering officer's instruments are updated.

### Shutdown sequence

If the HELL's capacitor runs out or the weapon gets too hot and coolant flow cannot be increased, the following processes occur:

1. Charging unit is disconnected from emitter.
2. Emitter uses up the last of the energy stored within itself before turning off.
3. Apertures within barrel are all shut completely.
4. Coolant flow is increased to maximum (if not already at max).
5. Power is diverted from HELL to other systems and the ship is brought back to full operation.

If it is required, the HELL will begin charging again, but this is a seldom occurrence due to the cost of charging and firing the laser.