This chart will help inform you of the ranges you need to be within to destroy the selected component mounted on the selected hull. The chart shows you the damage curves of either the spinal beam or the beam turret over their respective ranges. A curve for each possible number of Focused Particle Accelerators is shown. The grey horizontal lines are the damage thresholds of the selected components. The value on the X-axis where the grey line intersects the damage curve indicates the range you need to be within to destroy a component with that damage threshold. The default configuration shows an Active Cooled Amplifiers component mounted on a Sprinter hull. The grey line is at 10 on the Y-axis, and so the component can be destroyed at any range with any number of Focused Particle Accelerators.
Change the beam type (spinal or turret) by using the weapon builder.
Use this visualizer to explore different weapon penetration depths against various armor angles. First, use the weapon builder to select a weapon. Then, use the form below to select a hull and armor angle to visualize. The arrow symbolizes the penetration into the armor, visualized by the black bar. If the arrow is red, then the round failed to penetrate. If the arrow is blue, then the round penetrated the armor. If the arrow is yellow, then the round had just enough penetration to breach the armor but did not penetrate into the hull.
The effect of sloped armor has a maximum value of 2.5 times the armor thickness. For this tool, that is achieved by limiting the maximum slope to 66 degrees (though it's actually somewhere between 66 and 67 degrees). However, in game you will find that weapons impacting armor at greater than 66 degrees will behave as if the armor was sloped at 66 degrees.
Note: HE Impact missiles do not care about armor angling for determining penetration. It is visualized here as a curiosity and no more.