If you mean: what prevents scaling up laser weapons? Well, nothing. You can build laser main batteries, and some lower-tech factions like humanity do. Heavy lasers are also still in use as ground-based batteries. The total limitation of the number and power of weapons mounts on your ship is going to be a combination of physical size, weight, power transmission infrastructure and cost. The logic behind having separate main batteries and point-defense weaponry is that you can usually have several point-defense mounts for the same cost and ship infrastructure as a single main battery, and when the goal is to engage a larger number of smaller targets, that's a practical benefit.Cthulhu wrote: ↑Wed Dec 15, 2021 5:24 pm1. What is the limiting factor for the Loroi (point-defense) laser cannons' damage output? Focusing, materials, power conversion, emitter strength, or just the unwillingness to invest too much effort into a largely obsolete technology? Then, why not switch to blasters?
If you mean: what prevents endlessly dialing up the power setting of point-defense lasers by pumping more power into them? A laser emitter is not an unlimited energy spigot. Any mechanism is going to going to have a maximum rated power past which components will start to fail. I'm not a mechanical engineer from 2202, so I'm wary of speculating on exactly which components will fail at what power loads, but I think it's reasonable to suppose that higher power will require a larger and more robust (and more expensive) mechanism.
The reason why lasers see limited use among the major combatants as ship-to-ship weapons is that they are relatively easy to defeat with reflective or ablative armor layers. The reasons why the Loroi still use them are mainly that a) they're a flexible utility weapon, able to strike through atmosphere or through deflector screens at unarmored vulnerable points, and b) they're a home-grown technology that the Loroi have a lot of experience with and confidence in, unlike the foreign technologies of particle blasters and plasma foci. The Loroi laser autocannons are very efficient and a bit overpowered for what they do (so that they can still penetrate small targets with anti-laser armor), which the Loroi like because it gives them extra range to be used offensively against hypothetical weak points on larger targets or against ground targets. If you could somehow double or triple laser autocannon power, that would be nice, but I doubt it would be a game-changer.
The fundamental limitation on jump accuracy is that for the TL10-11 combatants, ships are blind in hyperspace and so can't make course corrections. This means that even if the curvature of hyperspacetime was perfectly smooth, there would be a fundamental limit to effective range because everything depends on the initial conditions. There will be a limit to how accurately you can measure your ship's course and position relative to all the nearby masses, and that uncertainty will govern the probability of success. The fact that hyperspacetime is not perfectly smooth only adds to this uncertainty... like shooting a billiards ball on a fabric-surface pool table versus a hard tabletop. The maximum safe range between two points will vary depending on the number, location and size of other masses in the vicinity, so it will be different for each circumstance, and what probability of failure you consider "safe."Cthulhu wrote: ↑Wed Dec 15, 2021 5:24 pm2. A similar case, do other factors, aside from the "uncertainty of hyperspace", limit jump range ? Maybe there's an upper limit to jump field generator power intake or output as well? Or is the hyperspace itself the limiting factor? What's the longest jump that was ever attempted, by Humans or Loroi?
If you're looking for a technology to extend jump range, some kind of sensor system that can operate while in hyperspace is what's needed. That's what's meant by the "hyperspace metrics" entry in the tech level chart.
Being able to understand a foreign technology and being able to reproduce it on an industrial scale are not necessarily the same thing. As a general rule, the Umiak are a little bit ahead of the Loroi in their materials technologies, and so there are Umiak systems that the Loroi can't reproduce exactly, but also vice-versa. In this case, the Floater Drive outperforms the Plastron Drive in terms of maximum output, which is what the Loroi want, while the Plastron drive is more efficient, which is what the Umiak want. The compact, blob shapes of Umiak vessels are suited to a field that covers the whole ship, while the lanky Loroi ship designs are not. The large vanes that stick out the back of Floater Drives are (comparatively) fragile, which the Umiak don't like, especially since the Loroi have accurate screen-piercing secondary batteries.