Zenicetus wrote:




But yeah... whatever the rationale, kinetics shouldn't be faster than beam weapons.

Agreed, Something I've noticed, and am mildly displeased with, But I do agree with previous statements of it working more like a phaser from Star Trek, I know some people are saying that it would cause issues with shields, but a shield projection is not a 'reactive' system, it's not like a ship "Always" has it's shields up, otherwise you'd never hear the captain in a heated moment waiting for battle yell across the bridge to bring the shields online under red alert, not to mention the fact that as soon as they are away from conflict they drop their shields, it's a continuous projection in that setting.



On another topic things such as Star Wars that use laser bolts are fired "With" a kinetic counterpart, a literal heated bolt that does the damage but is energized as well, kind of like a small torpedo of sorts, Turn around to higher grade technology in the books or even only once seen in the movies in weapons like the Death Star they have a continued beam that fires similar to a phaser. No matter how you look at it, either option could work, but I do agree more in the realism of star trek, at least on a second tier laser, because honestly we don't have weapons like that yet ourselves other then some minor cutting lasers and it's always been a continuous beam outside of science fiction. Given this game is based on science fiction however it's really depending on the person at the drawing board. I like realism or fantasy either way, both are fascinating, But on the same token this game takes place in 3000 AD...So i must say continuous laser.

ShadowWolf wrote:


It's a game and, to be quite honest, there is some charm in the lasers at their current speed. So I really don't mind the slow unrealistic (if that what one wishes to call them) beam weapons, if they were true to life, we wouldn't really see them. We'd just see a flash and then the shield up or down.

Wall-o-text boiled down to what is what. 100% reason we have starwars-type of "laser" = visuals. "Real" lasers are unfortunately unaesthetic and quite anti-climactic.

guggis31 wrote:
Wall-o-text boiled down to what is what. 100% reason we have starwars-type of "laser" = visuals. "Real" lasers are unfortunately unaesthetic and quite anti-climactic.

The usual justification for hyped visuals like this (and sounds, which you wouldn't hear in space) is that you're not looking through a window in a spaceship when you view combat. You're viewing a display inside the ship, or inside your helmet, that synthesizes the tactical information of the battle collected through an array of sensors that are far beyond your normal visual range. Some things like side-on views of beam weapons are enhanced or virtualised. The display shows you what you need to see (and hear) to maintain situational awareness. Something like that.



It's an all-inclusive hand wave, to explain why space games look and sound the way they do. I think it works. I sure wouldn't want to be near the outside of the hull, staring through a glass window at all that nastiness going on. Me, I'm cocooned deep inside the ship, surrounded by shielding and data displays, floating in a gel tank for acceleration, nervous system jacked up with drugs and nanotech. You won't catch me near a hull window.

Not all of the weapons are laser's like has previously been said. I for one am glad they said they were beam weapons rather than lasers because I hate the general use of "lasers" in space games, because half the time, they're not even close to being lasers.



Either way, I think the speed of the projectile in the actual laser beam weapons should be instantaneous, since it won't be a projectile, just a wavelength.

Out of curiosity, does the game actually mention that the energy weapons are in fact lasers?



Can't remember ever actually seeing the word laser, but rather various references to different forms of energy generation and focusing... so not really lasers anyway.

I think we definitely should have some kind of instant beam weapons. They really make the aesthetic of the big space battles to see a few of those flying around. Perhaps to balance them with the weapons that require time to reach their target, you could give them a charge-up time before firing.

Why not just call them plasma weapons instead of lasers, that way you don't have people worrying so much about realistic lasers in a sci-fi game

Tikigod wrote:
Out of curiosity, does the game actually mention that the energy weapons are in fact lasers?



Can't remember ever actually seeing the word laser, but rather various references to different forms of energy generation and focusing... so not really lasers anyway.

The first weapon in the beam weapons tree is a laser and the second is the synchrotron laser. There seems to be some confusion regarding the second one due to it's mention of particle accelerators in it's description.

The particle accelerators mentioned are used to create and pump the lasing medium of a free-electron laser.

Gargomaxthalus wrote:
Someone hasn't seen Macross, ROFL. The energy weapons really do need to be named differently. Oh and to clarify, the Macross had a pin point shield system that was operated through direct human control. They would actually only have a shield rite where they needed, one of the craziest things I've ever seen.

ah yes macross suspended reality to the extream =X



still should be amix of instant lazzors and bolts ... not to mention diffent color/animations for them too =3 i mean even instant lazors will need an animation of the beam rather than just the hit even if its not on screen long (more like just a flash colour between locations)

Sleel wrote:
297Kkm/s and change in a vacuum, or is it 293, I always forget that.

C = 299,792.458 km/s in a vacuum.

ShadowWolf wrote:
Were these purely photonic beams, then yes, -- SNIP -- quantity squared.

Just gotta say that your post was awesome.



I must admit I would rather see a flash og light from the gun-ports and flashes of light on the enemy ship's shields at the same instant, than seeing lasers moving slowly. I agree that this is a game and some artistic liberties can be made, but I think a more realistic take could be made cool enough.

Were these purely photonic beams, then yes, they should be moving at the speed of light in a vacuum which is commonly just said to be 3.00x10^8 m/s. or 2.997x10^8 m/s if you want to be a little more precise. And as said before, it is true, light moves slower through materials (because it hits atoms, excites them, and then the atom releases the photon on the other side of it and this takes time) and you can figure out the speed by dividing the speed of light in a vacuum by the index of refraction (n) of the given material, but onto the matter at hand.



Most particles that we accelerate today can reach such high speeds that they are moving at, basically, the speed of light - we've accelerated baryonic particles at .99C in test environments -, so it's not too farfetched to think that, given it's the year 3000 that they have sophisticated enough gear to hyper-accelerate a mass of particles in a sequence to create a "beam" that would act much like a laser. It's not very far out to make the claim that it should act in the same way.



Now all the plasma basted weapons, those can move at varying speeds as plasma is just, in its most basic essence, superheated material. This heated material can be jettisoned at a plethora of speeds and we cannot assume it will be near C, so it's easy to understand things like the pinch gun and phased plasma moving at slower speeds.



Dark Energy based weapons? I don't have an answer and maybe few, as of right now, will, for we don't really understand dark energy all too well. We're not really sure what it is (Which, well, we're not entirely sure what light is and what exactly gravity is either. We know how they act, but there are big holes in our understanding).



Now all non-baryonic particles can be expected to easily move at the speed of light given that they are, in their simplest examples (free electrons, neutrinos) very small mass objects (Keep in mind that a photon is alleged to be massless, which a photon is what light is really, but gravity does bend light which is quite the interesting factor to consider, because if it was truly massless then Newton's force equation for gravitation would yield 0 gravitation pull experienced by both the super massive object and light. This factor of bending can be proven by looking at the stars very close to our sun. Some of those that appear around are actually behind it). Things like gluons, as a matter of fact, are theoretically capable of moving faster than the speed of light, for they have no mass and C is the speed limit for an object with mass (and light itself).*







So that was all very long winded, yes, but the matter of the fact is that all of the beams (excluding, perhaps, the plasmas) can easily be expected to meet or accelerate very close to the speed of light and once in motion (out of the barrel and no longer being accelerated), it will hold that given velocity. Now the speed will change depending on the speed and direction of your target, the only thing that will not change is true light, that is the same speed in every frame of reference (so all the ones listed here, which are not true photonic beams wont count), but the ships are moving about the same speed and in the same direction (with very little motion in the x if we consider the x to be the distance between them that they close for battle phases), so we can expect those weapons to be flying hot and fast by our current understanding of physics, but, here's the most important factor, to me at least, it's a game.



It's a game and, to be quite honest, there is some charm in the lasers at their current speed (I get to admire the light show) and as someone pointed out before, the battle system, given their technology is a bit silly (get close and fight like, as they said, it's the "age of sails" ship combat), but that's what makes it great. So I really don't mind the slow unrealistic (if that what one wishes to call them) beam weapons, if they were true to life, we wouldn't really see them. We'd just seed a flash and then the shield up or down (given the distances aren't so great that were would be immense lag between the shots. The fighting distance looks to be well under 299,792KM (which lag the light beam by one second).









*What stops our normal mass objects from breaking the speed of light is that they becoming infinitely massive (their mass goes up) as it reaching C as shown by the boost factor equation for the mass (gamma) which is one divided by the square root of one minus the speed of the object divided by the speed of light quantity squared.

lasers are slower now for balance.



lasers are super effective at mid range but they move slower than kinetics which are effective at short range.

there are three vollys in each battle phase and kinetics hit the enemy fleet before the second volley begins



meaning that your kinetic heavy fleet has a chance to shrink the number of opponents in an laser heavy fleet before they fire a second volly. this makes kinetics a little useful in the long range phase. lasers dominate damage and accuracy in the mid game (which is where most battles end)



if lasers were faster then laser spam would have an advantage in the long range phase (destroying ships before they fire a second volly or missiles) they would dominate all combat in the midd range phase, and close range would be even more rare than it is now. makeing kinetics useless.



as the game stands kinetics a long range utility and short range domenance that makes them good for tanking ships. lasers hit hard in all phases, are fairly accurate in all phases and destroy everything at mid range (lending themselves to offensive builds). give lasers more speed and kinetics lose their one useful factor.

zdesert wrote:
lasers are slower now for balance.



if lasers were faster then laser spam would have an advantage in the long range phase (destroying ships before they fire a second volly or missiles) they would dominate all combat in the midd range phase, and close range would be even more rare than it is now. makeing kinetics useless.



as the game stands kinetics a long range utility and short range domenance that makes them good for tanking ships. lasers hit hard in all phases, are fairly accurate in all phases and destroy everything at mid range (lending themselves to offensive builds). give lasers more speed and kinetics lose their one useful factor.

Out of that much being said, a continuous laser, with a set amount of laser dps might be the fix to that issue.

ShadowWolf wrote:
Now all non-baryonic particles can be expected to easily move at the speed of light given that they are, in their simplest examples (free electrons, neutrinos) very small mass objects (Keep in mind that a photon is alleged to be massless, which a photon is what light is really, but gravity does bend light which is quite the interesting factor to consider, because if it was truly massless then Newton's force equation for gravitation would yield 0 gravitation pull experienced by both the super massive object and light. This factor of bending can be proven by looking at the stars very close to our sun. Some of those that appear around are actually behind it). Things like gluons, as a matter of fact, are theoretically capable of moving faster than the speed of light, for they have no mass and C is the speed limit for an object with mass (and light itself).

Regarding the bending of light due to gravity:

In general relativity, the gravity bends the space and the photons obey the space. So if space is bent, photons will follow the curved space.

The direct coupling of a potential graviton to a photon is zero. Only higher order quantum corrections including heavy particle loops would provide any coupling and for gravity, as weak as it is, that's as close to zero as you can imagine.



Regarding gluons and lightspeed limit:

The lightspeed limit is derived by using the maxwell equations. Special relativity was derived by using those equations and then Einstein assumed it to be a standard to be true for everything.

So far there has not been a single experiment stating otherwise, even not for nearly massless neutrinos in the Opera experiment. There's no reason to believe in superlightspeed, in my opinion, but that aside:

Gluons are massless, but they have to obey asymptotic freedom (if a gluon traverses length X, the chance of getting the gluon to split into two or three gluons or a quark-antiquark pair rises rapidly depending on the distance). Their effective interaction range is severely limited by that fact, so they cannot propagate freely through space, anyways. Makes it impossible, so far, to measure gluon speed. We cannot even see them directly, just indirectly by reconstructing jets in detectors. I'm drifting off, though...



Back to topic:

I just want to raise one very important point. If you have a photon beam or bunch (pulsed lasers fire bunches of photons, so it is not that far fetched), they are all hitting the enemy ship, if the laser is properly focused.

Now, how do you see the laserfire, then? Even in laboratory you need to use artificial fog or something matt held into the beam to be able to see the laser by its reflection.

We're talking about realism here, while even seeing the lasers is not realistic at all.

Nosferatiel wrote:
I just want to raise one very important point. If you have a photon beam or bunch (pulsed lasers fire bunches of photons, so it is not that far fetched), they are all hitting the enemy ship, if the laser is properly focused. Now, how do you see the laserfire, then? Even in laboratory you need to use artificial fog or something matt held into the beam to be able to see the laser by its reflection. We're talking about realism here, while even seeing the lasers is not realistic at all.

Well said, my friend, your facts are indisputably true from what I can see. As the last off topic note, just out of interest, they have tried a model where photons were given a "light mass" so to speak and things did get a little wacky. The bending of space and time (with their inversely proportional relation) has proven to be the best explanation thus far, as you've pointed out. But, drifting back onto the topic once more, he brings up a great point I didn't even consider, we wouldn't even "see" the lasers without a special mechanism installed into the weapon if we wanted ultra-realism. If mankind evolves in our future to use laser based weaponry then I am sure we'll have special targetting sensors and aiming devices that, if we had a sustained beam, would show it and its path on the computer.

Nosferatiel wrote:


We're talking about realism here, while even seeing the lasers is not realistic at all.

They are still pretty visible with infrared or thermal sights though. So let's put them in and imagine we are using such devices

Raptor wrote:
They are still pretty visible with infrared or thermal sights though. So let's put them in and imagine we are using such devices

No, they aren't, because there is nothing in space that would be heated by the passage of the laser, unless you're traversing a molecule cloud or other nebula.



This is not a matter of wavelength, but indeed a matter of multiple scattering. There's nothing to scatter the laser on, so it is not visible perpendicular to the lasers direction. It is only visible in the divergence cone of the laser.

And that's not a nice place to be. XD

MiburosWolf wrote:
I think it would be really cool if they were like the beam cannons from Freespace, those things were cool and sounded like you were charging up a nuclear blast. They make more sense too, from a physics standpoint.

Descent Freespace!!!! God I love that game & let me ask you something that may be of topic but do you think Endless Space looks a bit like the briefings from Descent Freespace?

Nosferatiel wrote:
No, they aren't, because there is nothing in space that would be heated by the passage of the laser, unless you're traversing a molecule cloud or other nebula.



This is not a matter of wavelength, but indeed a matter of multiple scattering. There's nothing to scatter the laser on, so it is not visible perpendicular to the lasers direction. It is only visible in the divergence cone of the laser.

And that's not a nice place to be. XD

Ahem... SPACE DUST! you see them refract and burn through SPACE DUST!



That's why you see lasers in space!

VulpesWalker wrote:
Ahem... SPACE DUST! you see them refract and burn through SPACE DUST!



That's why you see lasers in space!

Okay, then let's make up miniscule amounts of reflecting almost indestructible dust all in space because of the huge spacefights of the endless in every known system. (So we don't have to make up filling the universe).

I think that instant laser would make it harder for the shilds.

Because yet the shilds apear and block some of this "projectils" but by an beam wich travels instant

the shilds must be there and collaps at a time and in this moment the ship is helples ans destroyes.

But this would cause the beams to be useles if the shilds hold more than the 3 battle phases.

And they are instant kill if the shilds collaps.

In that kind of game I really appreciate realism so I'd say instantaneous laser ... even thought the actually slow lasers are visually awesome!

It'd be easier to make up our mind with a video using instantaneous lasers but it probably takes time to do it :/

I think it would be really cool if they were like the beam cannons from Freespace, those things were cool and sounded like you were charging up a nuclear blast. They make more sense too, from a physics standpoint.

I must admit that even if it isn't very realistic beams, i found them kinda awesome slowly moving to their target to do their very sweet damage. A bit like missiles, but more often

murph wrote:
Hi all, I recently posted a similar thread in a group (Real Scientists!) and wanted more input.



What are your thoughts on the current, slow lasers in Endless Space? Laser weapons take several seconds to reach their target. In reality, lasers move close to the speed of light (more the case in space, a vacuum = no resistance) and would traverse the distance between ships in fractions of a second. IMO it would be more realistic to have near instantaneous laser weapons, e.g. Star Trek laser/phaser weapons. Not saying Endless Space should have total realism, just thought of it while playing.



Thoughts / Opinions ?

Don't matter if in space or not. It's still light speed, just changes speed depending on the medium it travels thru. 297Kkm/s and change in a vacuum, or is it 293, I always forget that. Would still be a decent light show, tho that technically is 'unreal' since you won't see a laser unless it shooting you in the eye. It should be showing as a beam reaching out to hit, just one long beam, flash, and gone, like a pulse. Research a tech upgrade for a continuous beam for dwell time and added damage. I truly find it annoying that kinetic bullets travel FASTER then a beam of coherent light does. (Thank you Star Wars *phpbpbpt*)

I agree that it's disturbing in this and other space games to see lasers represented as anything other than near-instantaneous weapons (depending on distance, but battles in ES look fairly close-range). Not to mention the way coherent light shouldn't have much if any side-scatter so you could see it. But not every weapon in the ES energy beam tree is a laser. Only the first ones are. After Laser, we have:



* Synchrotron lasers - use "particle accelerators."



* Pinch guns - fire a plasma beam contained by an electromagnetic field.



* Phased Plasmic - shoots a "laser induced plasma channel"



* Collapsor Beam - I dunno... your guess is as good as mine...



* Dark Energy Beam -- Likewise...



* Disruptor Beam -- Back on slightly more familiar ground, we're now hitting the target with various baryonic and non-baryonic particles.



* Gluon Disrupter -- Another "action at a distance" weapon.



At least four of those weapons seem to be firing slower-moving plasma "bolts" or particle streams. The more exotic ones that cause an effect at the target's surface, might take some time to get the effect going... maybe with an initiator beam followed by a pulse of whatever finishes the effect (I'm grasping at straws here, I know).



Anyway, if the game only used increasingly powerful photonic weapons, then we'd expect them all to be near-instantaneous. But this is a real smorgasbord of different techs here. Unless the game is going to use different animations for each weapon type, then we're stuck with one animation for all beam weapons.

I say that the slow lasers should be instead plasma bullets, while fast lasers are in fact lasers. This would give each of them different properties and aesthetics, and be somewhat more realistic. I tend to think of plasma weapons as the sort of thing that you use against heavily armored opposition, but they are slower than lasers. Their counterpart lasers are fast, and are ideal for use against infantry and fighters, because you can just wave the laser around in order to slice them.

Stargem wrote:
I say that the slow lasers should be instead plasma bullets, while fast lasers are in fact lasers. This would give each of them different properties and aesthetics, and be somewhat more realistic. I tend to think of plasma weapons as the sort of thing that you use against heavily armored opposition, but they are slower than lasers. Their counterpart lasers are fast, and are ideal for use against infantry and fighters, because you can just wave the laser around in order to slice them.

They already have plasma bullets. They are on the kinetic side of the tech tree. Plasma is ionized/superheated matter. Plasma should travel slow, relatively speaking. Lasers are light. Light moves at the speed it does, given the medium passing thru, and should definitely not be traveling slower then the kinetics.

I also prefer instant beam lasers. They do not move close to the speed of light, they move at the speed of light as they are light. I already mentioned it in another thread that I really do not like the way lasers are shown in the game. Laser is a beam. Even a pulse laser is, well, a pulse of beams. I remember when a MOD for the Sword of the Stars came, changing lasers to beams I installed it and never removed it.

But if we can not have a different animation for main guns, how about adding a laser missile defense. To be honest, I really miss any kind of animation for a missile defense. This whole tech tree should be changed. Maybe to start with basic flares, then maybe some rapid firing projectile weapons and finally laser point defense.

Zenicetus wrote:
I agree that it's disturbing in this and other space games to see lasers represented as anything other than near-instantaneous weapons (depending on distance, but battles in ES look fairly close-range). Not to mention the way coherent light shouldn't have much if any side-scatter so you could see it. But not every weapon in the ES energy beam tree is a laser. Only the first ones are. After Laser, we have:



* Synchrotron lasers - use "particle accelerators."



* Pinch guns - fire a plasma beam contained by an electromagnetic field.



* Phased Plasmic - shoots a "laser induced plasma channel"



* Collapsor Beam - I dunno... your guess is as good as mine...



* Dark Energy Beam -- Likewise...



* Disruptor Beam -- Back on slightly more familiar ground, we're now hitting the target with various baryonic and non-baryonic particles.



* Gluon Disrupter -- Another "action at a distance" weapon.



At least four of those weapons seem to be firing slower-moving plasma "bolts" or particle streams. The more exotic ones that cause an effect at the target's surface, might take some time to get the effect going... maybe with an initiator beam followed by a pulse of whatever finishes the effect (I'm grasping at straws here, I know).



Anyway, if the game only used increasingly powerful photonic weapons, then we'd expect them all to be near-instantaneous. But this is a real smorgasbord of different techs here. Unless the game is going to use different animations for each weapon type, then we're stuck with one animation for all beam weapons.

Yeah. Limitation of game resources. And only the laser weapons should be light speed, being light. But particle accelerators get the particles they are moving up to a fair portion of c. So I can still see most of them moving much faster then the kinetic weapons. The plasma ones.... not so much as those are superheated mass weapons. Yes, particles are mass, (cosmic rays are particles and move at a goodly chunk of c) but they are easier to accelerate then a mass of metal superheated in a firing chamber and shot out the barrel. An accelerated particle would have less recoil then a mass slug turned to plasma and fired, so it would have to be slower, or rip the gun firing it off it's mounts.



I'm rambling and thinking out loud. Same animations I guess, just change the speed variable so it moves faster. Nuff of this. Back to conquering another galaxy.



hmmmm. rip a gun off it's mounts.... wouldn't that be an interesting thing to have happen when using the "kinetics overload" card. Catastrophic Failure. You weapon was ripped from it's mount firing itself back through you hull and crew. Pray it didn't hit you fusion power plant, or whatever the power source is for the ships. *Boom* x]

Hi all, I recently posted a similar thread in a group (Real Scientists!) and wanted more input.



What are your thoughts on the current, slow lasers in Endless Space? Laser weapons take several seconds to reach their target. In reality, lasers move close to the speed of light (more the case in space, a vacuum = no resistance) and would traverse the distance between ships in fractions of a second. IMO it would be more realistic to have near instantaneous laser weapons, e.g. Star Trek laser/phaser weapons. Not saying Endless Space should have total realism, just thought of it while playing.



Thoughts / Opinions ?

My opinion is if it says "beam" it should be a beam. And I really like lazzzors One way we could get lasers and the plasma-looking projectiles that are currently in beams is to rename the category to Energy weapons and add true beams to the existing ones = everybody's happy

If we're in "late night, thinking out loud" mode here...



Modern space opera novels often use the idea of humans or aliens as pilots with a neural connection to the ship's computer, using drugs or implants to speed up brain function and link to the ship's computer at the same rate of data processing. The general idea is that organics might have better tactical ability if they can just think as fast as the machines. Otherwise, why have organics in the loop at all? Machines are much faster and more efficient in space combat.



As a hand-waving exercise to explain the slow lasers and other beam weapons in ES, maybe we're just seeing the display that these speeded-up pilots experience in their drastically slowed frame of reference. It's like watching a video shot at an insanely high frame rate.





But yeah... whatever the rationale, kinetics shouldn't be faster than beam weapons.

Virus wrote:
I think that instant laser would make it harder for the shilds.

Because yet the shilds apear and block some of this "projectils" but by an beam wich travels instant

the shilds must be there and collaps at a time and in this moment the ship is helples ans destroyes.

But this would cause the beams to be useles if the shilds hold more than the 3 battle phases.

And they are instant kill if the shilds collaps.

Not so much appear as it shows the hit. Shields are up, not pulled into place like a knight blocking a sword. Sensors aren't going to detect an incoming, light-speed weapon, and send the info to a computer, to then send the info to a shield projector to raise a shield to block a given shot. By the time the sensor told the first computer the shot was coming, it would be there, had it's lunch, and lit a smoke.

Of course if you want lazzors, don't forget to vote in the G2G forum: /#/endless-space/forum/29-archives/thread/13664-suggestion-poll-laser-aesthetics



I'm obviously for lazzors as well, but a few energy bolts are fine as well as long as they are realistic.

K1ller wrote:
I also prefer instant beam lasers. They do not move close to the speed of light, they move at the speed of light as they are light.

True lasers are light, but don't always move at the speed of light; sort of a max speed of c / speed of light. It would be slightly slower depending on the medium (air, space) and I believe temperature (I think light might slow down at close to absolute zero). Probably negligible, but was why I said "close"

Sleel wrote:
Not so much appear as it shows the hit. Shields are up, not pulled into place like a knight blocking a sword. Sensors aren't going to detect an incoming, light-speed weapon, and send the info to a computer, to then send the info to a shield projector to raise a shield to block a given shot. By the time the sensor told the first computer the shot was coming, it would be there, had it's lunch, and lit a smoke.

Someone hasn't seen Macross, ROFL. The energy weapons really do need to be named differently. Oh and to clarify, the Macross had a pin point shield system that was operated through direct human control. They would actually only have a shield rite where they needed, one of the craziest things I've ever seen.

Rename them to Plasma Blasters instead of lazors, fixed :P

Sins of a Solar Empire uses various laser lines to show laser firings, so I could see the same transferred over. Though if we are talking about "realistic" most of these lasers would be operating in parts of the spectrum we couldn't see anyways lol. In terms of defense it makes sense that most of the lasers used are just reflected or not allowed to build in intensity. It would be nice to see a diversification in terms of upgraded weapons in general, only problem is kinetics, unless you get slapstick sized projectiles (maybe tracer color?).

I wouldn't mind seeing an animation for flares and missile interaction before seeing anything dealing with energy weapons.

I think the beams don't "need" to be instant but I think they should be faster than the kinetics