Weapons Tech Tree

Weapons technologies allow you to employ the most advanced weapons ever developed. Up-to-date weapons are essential for the age of space warfare.

## Technologies in the Weapons Branch

#### Coilguns

* Prerequisites: None
* Posts: 0
* Enables the construction of weaponized coilguns. Coilguns accelerate a round via electromagnetism. Coils in the barrel of the gun act as electromagnets and are charged sequentially to pull the projectile out of the barrel at high speeds. Similar to railguns, but less powerful. They are, however, cheaper and require less power.

#### Railguns

* Prerequisites: None
* Posts: 0
* Enables the construction of weaponized railguns. Railguns are weapons which work on the principle of accelerating a round to extreme speeds via magnetic rails. Similar to coilguns, but more powerful - if less reliable and more expensive.

#### Visible Light Lasers

* Prerequisites: None
* Posts: 0
* Allows the construction of weaponized Lasers. Lasers emit photons of varying frequencies to heat up and burn a target. Visible light (wavelength of 700 - 400 nanometers) lasers are not particularly powerful, but hit their target almost instantly and are capable of precision strikes to a ship's exposed areas such as the radiators. They are also capable of heating up a ship under sustained fire if it does not have adequate radiator capacity, cooking the crew alive.

#### Missiles

* Prerequisites: None
* Posts: 0
* Missiles are easily adapted for use in space combat. Able to be equipped with large, powerful warheads, missiles are useful for their high damage and ability to track a target. However, they are vulnerable to point defense; they can be shot down. As a result, missiles should be fired in groups.

#### Plasma Containment

* Prerequisites: None
* Posts: 10
* Scientists have discovered methods to contain plasma within electromagnetic fields over long distances. While the application in weaponry is currently limited, it paves the way for advanced and powerful plasma weapons.

#### Capacitor Cycling

* Prerequisites: Quick Charge Capacitors (Power technology)
* Posts: 20
* Capacitor cycling enables weapons such as railguns, coilguns, and lasers to recharge for their next shot more quickly. It does not affect plasma weapons.

#### Focusing Crystals

* Prerequisites: Visible Light Lasers
* Posts: 15
* Highly tuned focusing crystals are produced for use on laser weapons, enabling a greater degree of accuracy as the beam will not scatter as quickly.

#### Missile Thrusters

* Prerequisites: Missiles
* Posts: 15
* Adds greatly improved manuevering thrusters to missiles, allowing them to change course and track their targets better.

#### Plasma Beam

* Prerequisites: Plasma Containment
* Posts: 25
* The first functional plasma weapon comes in the form of a continuous beam. The incredible heat causes the beam to be extremely effective against armor, although against shields it is less effective than kinetic weapons or lasers. Like lasers, it is capable of heating up the ship should the radiators be damaged or destroyed, potentially boiling the occupants. As a downside, however, its range is extremely limited and the beam cannot be fired for longer than a second and half or the weapon itself will overheat. Without further advancement, the beam has a base temperature of 2000K.

#### Plasma Cannon

* Prerequisites: Plasma Containment, Plasma Beam
* Posts: 20
* An iteration of plasma weapons in which the plasma is contained in a "ball" by an electromagnetic field. Because it is not a continuous beam, it does not need to stop firing to cool down nearly as often. Plasma cannons have a shorter range than plasma beams due to the plasma cooling over time. Base temperature is 2000K.

#### Superconducting Rails

* Prerequisites: Quick Charge Capacitors (Power technology)
* Posts: 25
* An upgrade to railguns, infusing the rails with superconducting materials to increase the magnetic pull on the round being fired, resulting in higher velocities.

#### High Heat Plasma

* Prerequisites: Plasma Containment
* Posts: 30
* Increases the temperature of plasma fired out of Plasma Cannons and Plasma Beams to 3700K, allowing them to melt almost all natural, pure elements - although due to heat bleeding off into space, they will not liquify ships or anything like that.

#### Missile Evasion

* Prerequisites: Missile Thrusters
* Posts: 30
* Missiles are equipped with an improved on-board computer that lets them evade, in a limited capacity, point defense. This allows more of them to get through to their target, but it far from nullifies PD.

#### Heat Tolerant Laser Emitters

* Prerequisites: Visible Light Lasers
* Posts: 30
* Improvements in the heat tolerance of laser emitters results in lasers that can fire for much longer without overheating.

#### Ultraviolet Wavelength Lasers

* Prerequisites: Focusing Crystals, Heat Tolerant Laser Emitters
* Posts: 35
* Allows the construction of weaponized lasers in the ultraviolet portion of the EM spectrum. Considerably more powerful than visible light lasers.

#### Plasma Concentration

* Prerequisites: Plasma Containment
* Posts: 35
* More plasma is able to be vented at one time, increasing the concentration in both beams and cannons. More heat is conducted into the armor or shields of the target.

#### Sequential Coil Activation

* Prerequisites: Quick Charge Capacitors (Power technology)
* Posts: 30
* Finely tunes the sequence in which the coils in a coilgun are activated, so that only the one ahead of the projectile is activated - it will not be slowed down by a coil behind it lingering on and producing a magnetic field. Improves the velocity and thus effective range of coilguns.

#### Quick Recharging Electromagnets

* Prerequisites: Quick Charge Capacitors (Power technology), Capacitor Cycling
* Posts: 35
* Electromagnets used in coilguns and railguns are capable of charging and discharging more quickly and efficiently, increasing the fire rate of railguns and coilguns.

#### Armored Missile Shells

* Prerequisites: Missiles, High Stress Tolerance Alloys (Industry technology)
* Posts: 40
* Thin layers of armor are applied to missiles, allowing them to resist more shots from point defense before they are disabled or destroyed. This does not make them invincible, however, and point defense will still be effective.