freagle

I think there is benefit there but not from a time-to-kill (since the laser kills via heat accumulation which takes some measurable time) but rather that it can be more responsive to evasive maneuvers from the target

Good find!!

No no I understand that building the platform is expensive. That’s not in question. What’s in question is whether an expensive platform with very low price per shot eventually makes up for the platform cost.

Likely it is intended to be used in concert with ballistics, not instead of. Laser have a very low peak rate of fire relative to ballistics, but have a very high duration of continuous field service relative to ballistics

But the ammunition is the real cost. Not only to produce but to package, about ship, store, and carry. A boat can only store so much shotgun ammo, but a boat with a fusion reactor has infinite laser ammo