51 replies to this topic

[nexus1g]

How is a Laser's damage dealt? Does the entire duration of the beam add up to the total damage the laser does? How is that damage divided? What's the minimum damage a laser will ever do (within its optimum range)?

What's the difference between Pulse and standard lasers Is that one extra damage worth it for going for a LRG Pulse over a standard large?

[ManDaisy]

Does the entire duration of the beam add up to the total damage the laser does?

Answer: Yes.

How is that damage divided?

Answer: Lasers do damage on to whatever you hit, as a certain amount per time. If you can't keep your focus on one part, the damage will bleed to other parts.

What's the minimum damage a laser will ever do (within its optimum range)?

Answer: 0 damage ... (if you miss). Mostly depends on duration on target.

What's the difference between Pulse and standard lasers Is that one extra damage worth it for going for a LRG Pulse over a standard large?

Answer: Most of the time its not worth the it. However pulse lasers are used over normal lasers when someone does not want to hold on target as long as a normal laser. When dealing with fast target, generally a pulse laser may be mixed into a group of normal lasers to achieve a minimum amount of damage per damage sweep.

Edited by ManDaisy, 16 October 2013 - 04:34 PM.

[nexus1g]

ManDaisy, on 16 October 2013 - 04:33 PM, said:

Does the entire duration of the beam add up to the total damage the laser does?

Answer: Yes.

How is that damage divided?

Answer: Lasers do damage on to whatever you hit, as a certain amount per time. If you can't keep your focus on one part, the damage will bleed to other parts.

What's the minimum damage a laser will ever do (within its optimum range)?

Answer: 0 damage ... (if you miss). Mostly depends on duration on target.

What's the difference between Pulse and standard lasers Is that one extra damage worth it for going for a LRG Pulse over a standard large?

Answer: Most of the time its not worth the it. However pulse lasers are used over normal lasers when someone does not want to hold on target as long as a normal laser.

Thanks. The minimum damage you answered wasn't exactly what I was looking for. The presumption was meant to be there that I at least hit a component.

[Grrzoot]

nexus1g, on 16 October 2013 - 04:35 PM, said:

Thanks. The minimum damage you answered wasn't exactly what I was looking for. The presumption was meant to be there that I at least hit a component.

it can be less than 1. you basically take the damage of the laser weapon, divided by its duration to see how many dps per fraction of a second, then divide that by how long the laser was actually on target.

suffice it to say that a laser can deal anywhere between say .1 damage to its full damage over the duration of the beam.

[Alaskan Nobody]

I did the math on this a bit ago in another topic for the Large and Large Pulse lasers... hold on while I dig it up..

Edit

Shar Wolf, on 14 October 2013 - 01:26 PM, said:

Pulse lasers do their damage in fewer bursts, but they still split it into parts.

Your friend has a point - it is much easier to outright miss with a pulse laser, making those untrained in them unhappy with hunting lights (Large and Medium pulse do their damage over 0.6 seconds - comparable to the Large and Medium standard lasers 1.0 seconds)

You also have a point though - each pulse on the Pulse lasers is worth more, so that slight hit from a pulse laser is worth more than a similar time from a standard laser.

Large Pulse does... what? 1.7 damage a pulse, (approx?)
(10.6 damage over 0.6 seconds doing damage every 0.1 seconds?)
As opposed to the LL's 0.9?
(9.0 damage over 1.0 seconds doing damage every 0.1 seconds?)

Don't quote me on that though, as I could very easily not have a clue what I am talking about

http://mwomercs.com/...on-short-answer

For the next time you have one of those
Real easy to get people like Koniving or Redshift who REALLY know what their talking about to answer your questions there.

Edited by Shar Wolf, 16 October 2013 - 05:28 PM.

[nexus1g]

Thanks Shar.

[aniviron]

Shar Wolf, on 16 October 2013 - 05:18 PM, said:

I did the math on this a bit ago in another topic for the Large and Large Pulse lasers... hold on while I dig it up..

Edit



http://mwomercs.com/...on-short-answer

For the next time you have one of those
Real easy to get people like Koniving or Redshift who REALLY know what their talking about to answer your questions there.

That's actually not quite correct. Pulse lasers do not deal damage in pulses; that's just the animation. In reality, the damage is still done continuously over the duration of the discharge, just like a normal laser but with a shortened duration. If you want to test this yourself you can; just sweep over an empty spot of ground and count the number of pockmarks left by the laser. If it truly functioned as the animation implies, there would be just a handful of discrete dots left where each pulse hits. Instead, the damage is a continuous line composed of many dozens of tiny hits. From this you can glean that a pulse laser's beam animation is just a graphical effect, not linked to how the damage is actually applied.

There has also been a persistent rumor that pulse lasers frontload their damage, i.e. in the first 1/4 of the beam duration the laser does 3/4 of the damage, and the remaining time the damage is significantly lower. I haven't been able to ascertain the truth or falsehood of this on my own, however, and can't find any claims to verify or disprove.

[Mao of DC]

Pulse laser front loading the damage wouldn't surprise me to much. In one way it would help mitigate the heat build up you get for using them.

[Alaskan Nobody]

aniviron, on 16 October 2013 - 06:13 PM, said:

That's actually not quite correct. Pulse lasers do not deal damage in pulses; that's just the animation.

I had not meant the pulses in that manor rather in the manor referring to the individual portions of damage dealt.
That was not the best way to phrase it, but I could not think of a better way to phrase it.
If you had read the rest of the post you would have seen that I was not referring to it in that manor, but in the manor of each portion of damage dealt.

Try taking a pulse/regular laser with your mouse speed turned all the way up - in a mech that turns/swings it's arms really fast into the Testing Grounds. I used my Commando - the other mechs I had access to when I tested were to slow (Atlas, Centurion, and Cataphract)
If you can swing the laser over the target in less than .1 seconds you deal no damage - leading me to believe that the damage is dealt in approx. .1 second 'pulses' for all lasers.
Leading me to the math in my above post.

Edit: to note about my use of mechs, I had to get the doubled basics on my Commando before I could work it as well.
It could well be that I had data loss during testing - but as it was repeatedly the same result...

Edited by Shar Wolf, 16 October 2013 - 06:54 PM.

[Wintersdark]

All lasers do damage in .1 second pulses. They graphics you see sweeping a laser across the ground have no bearing on damage done.

It's possible then, sweeping lasersacross a lights legs, to do no damage at all because the pulses happen when the lasers are not on the mechs hitboxes.

Pulse lasers just do more damage over a shorter duration.

Now, large pulse lasers and large lasers are really not weapons you compare, like ac5's and ac20's, they serve different purposes.

The LPL is basically two medium lasers glued together with 5 extra tons of glue. Its best used when you want to boost your medium laser offensive output but don't have hardpoints for more mediums. The large laser works in an entirely different range band and is, generally speaking, a better weapon.

Medium pulse lasers are nearly never good weapons to use. They only do a little more damage than medium lasers, at twice the tonnage and more heat. They'd be OK if that where it, but what happens is that their very limited range means they're often firing outside of optimal range, so the pilot is throwing away the date advantage (they're doing less damage than a mlas at 270m) while still paying increased tonnage and heat.

[Koniving]

Wintersdark, on 16 October 2013 - 07:15 PM, said:

All lasers do damage in .1 second pulses. They graphics you see sweeping a laser across the ground have no bearing on damage done.

Did they change regular lasers? I know at one point in closed beta they were explained as 5 "0.2" second damage pulses (large and medium), with pulse lasers doing damage in 3 individual 0.25 second pulses. Smalls were 0.25 and small pulse were 0.25. This was largely due to latency and performance issues with closed beta at the time. The game was so processor heavy it was insane.

I'm aware smalls and small pulse were changed once they were no longer popular (as DHS was around the corner) to be 0.15 pulses for smalls, and small pulse to 0.1. M and L pulse lasers changed to 0.125 intervals (6 pulses = 0.75 beam time) and medium and large lasers were still 0.2 intervals at last I heard.

But that's the last time they got explained. PGI's been tight lipped around the time of the latest changes, as the last few things they tried to introduced got rebelled against by the player base. Cool shot, airstrike/artillery strike was the last time they openly said anything early and listened to the forums for input. (Ironically I preferred coolshot as an item that cost weight, but the fire support commands I loved as it reminded me of MechCommander.) After that they stopped listening to direct input and feedback on actual game balance and instead roll with their own ideas. We no longer hear the ideas "early" enough to have any meaningful sway or influence on them. Thus the communication from them drastically reduced too.

Of course, this means no actual explanation of changes came with the new pulse lasers as far as intervals. But it's safe to say they're at "0.1" intervals (it'd be an identical number of 6 intervals to meet 0.6 seconds of beam time). With small lasers the intervals are still 0.15 without a doubt (0.1 * 7 or * 8 does not = 0.75).

Though I'm looking at 10 intervals for M and L lasers (0.1 * 10 = 1 second beam time) for damage with a puzzled look. That's 10 requests, per laser, to check for a target. That sounds like a network communication bog if you ask me. This might not seem related at first, but the last time I asked around, PGI had no intention of doing multi-shot AC variants because the server authority couldn't handle mass requests for damage at 0.1 second intervals. Now, not sure if that's limited to just projectiles and not limiting hit-scan (energy) weapons, but that does raise a flag for me.

If they won't do something because the server can handle mass "0.1" second interval requests to check for targets and trajectory, etc., then to give regular lasers that interval strikes me as odd. But that's opinion, as nothing's been said that I know of about lasers getting the 0.1 interval. It could very well be.

(On a side note, that's actually why missiles barely function in mass groups. I'm genuinely doing more damage with mass chain fired LRMs versus mass alpha striked LRMs. And far better hit registration on limited numbers of SRMs versus mass SRM-spam.)

Edited by Koniving, 16 October 2013 - 07:41 PM.

[Wintersdark]

No, you're right Koniving; the actual timing of the pulses I was somewhat hazy on - it's been a long time since it was discussed.

But yeah, *all* lasers do damage in pulses.

[Alaskan Nobody]

Koniving, on 16 October 2013 - 07:31 PM, said:

- a lot of interesting history Shar wasn't around for -

Dang... so I'm gonna have to go field test my lasers some more aren't I?
Nice to know I was on the right track anyways.

(YAY! I did mostly-accurate-almost-real-science!)

[Aym]

aniviron, on 16 October 2013 - 06:13 PM, said:

There has also been a persistent rumor that pulse lasers frontload their damage, i.e. in the first 1/4 of the beam duration the laser does 3/4 of the damage, and the remaining time the damage is significantly lower. I haven't been able to ascertain the truth or falsehood of this on my own, however, and can't find any claims to verify or disprove.

I do not believe it is "continous" as nothing can really ever be counted in a "continuous" manner, it has to be approximated in chunks eventually, and the .1 is a very commonly thrown around number, so it may be right.
As to the rumor, I've heard the same about regular lasers, not just pulse.

[aniviron]

Aym, on 17 October 2013 - 03:40 AM, said:

I do not believe it is "continous" as nothing can really ever be counted in a "continuous" manner, it has to be approximated in chunks eventually, and the .1 is a very commonly thrown around number, so it may be right.
As to the rumor, I've heard the same about regular lasers, not just pulse.

Well, okay, I didn't mean to imply that they had managed to pull off a cosmic universal hack that would let them truly do continuous damage, bypassing the fact that there is always a smallest discrete unit like the quantum; what I was doing was trying to imply that a laser fires many many many times over a 1 second window for small amounts of damage that add up to the laser's full rated damage. We don't know exactly what the interval for that damage increment is, nor do we really know much at all about how they work beyond that.

I hope you all vote for me when I ask about this specifically in the next ATD. I'm hoping I'll get an answer, as Bryan specifically said in a recent interview that he wants the game mechanics to be transparent to the players, and he wants us to know how the game works and be able to use that to our advantage.

[42and19]

If you fire your lasers across the ground in a REALLY wide and fast arc you can actually see that the damage is not a continuous beam. The burn mark is made up of a bunch of dots. Most games do this with beam like weapons and they calculate the damage as a certain % of the stated damage per dot.

This makes lasers one of the weirdest weapons. It's forgiving but also hard to deliver the total damage with. Especially with the HSR problems.

[Sadistic Savior]

nexus1g, on 16 October 2013 - 04:27 PM, said:

How is a Laser's damage dealt?

It is technically a Damage over Time weapon...the beam fires for a certain duration, and does a set amount of damage over the time it is in effect, to whatever it is hitting at the moment. Because of this Lasers are not typically precision weapons, unless you are a really good shot and/or the target is standing perfectly still. Lasers are very good at splashing damage over an area to make sure some gets through....so they are good for hitting fast moving targets.

One big drawback is that they telegraph your position. Enemies can very easily see where you are when you fire lasers.

Quote

What's the difference between Pulse and standard lasers Is that one extra damage worth it for going for a LRG Pulse over a standard large?

Pulse lasers do slightly more damage (like an extra point or two) at the cost of generating more heat and having less range. They look and sound cooler too.

[Geek Verve]

Sadistic Savior, on 18 October 2013 - 07:29 AM, said:

Pulse lasers do slightly more damage (like an extra point or two) at the cost of generating more heat and having less range. They look and sound cooler too.

I think the most important characteristic, as others have mentioned, is that pulse lasers deliver their full damage (which, like you said, is a point or two more than their standard variant) over a shorter period of time. Therefore, you don't need to keep them on target for quite as long. Sweep that Spider's legs with a pulse laser and you'll often do more damage than with a standard laser. To me that makes them well worth the higher weight and heat output.

Edited for clarity.

Edited by Geek Verve, 18 October 2013 - 09:02 AM.

[Caviel]

42and19, on 18 October 2013 - 07:20 AM, said:

It's forgiving but also hard to deliver the total damage with.

Yes, but it isn't an all or none damage situation like ballistics and to a lesser extent missiles, either.

This is also why pilot stats are not very helpful for lasers, you can do just one "tick" of a laser's damage and it registers as a hit. Your accuracy is almost always going to be 90+% for lasers as a result.

Quote

Especially with the HSR problems.

Actually, lasers are characteristically better with HSR because there is less computation. No bullet trajectory to factor in, they are simply hit scan and are more reliable as a result. Not to say there aren't HSR issues, just that lasers should typically give you less problems than the other two weapon types.


Back to the OP's point, I'm not a fan of pulse lasers. The amount of additional damage is not worth the trade off of the additional heat and drastically reduced range. The better aim you have, the more the pulse laser value is diminished. Once Clan Pulse Lasers are available, presuming they operate like the TT variations, absolutely they are worth taking.

[Aym]

Large Pulse Lasers are the only ones that anyone bothers to make an argument for. Small pulse lasers aren't awful, it's just hard to trade 3 times the range that you could get with a Medium Laser for the same tonnage and crit slot. Medium pulse need loving badly.