77 replies to this topic

[Endarius]

If you were going to use a laser as a weapon in combat, would you not want some sort of visual feedback? I would imagine that by 1000 years in the future, if mankind were employing laser weapons, they would have some form of tracer beam to indicate their line of fire. Just like using tracer rounds in an anti-aircraft cannon. Use your noggin. Besides, it's a game, and I know as a gamer I certainly like visual feedback, and with three distinct laser classes, the obvious solution would be three distinct colors. This thread is kinda dumb.

[Terbius]

Tommytools, on 19 July 2012 - 09:40 AM, said:

I know this is a game and there is a large element of suspension of disbelief, but I have a real issue with the way laser colours are shown in the centurion vid. Even more so with the given explanation in the locked thread. (I would have posted this there if it hadn't been locked.)

Lasers being visible?... Ok, can live with that, battlefields tend to be very smoky/dusty environments after all.

But lasers compounding to different colours? ... Maybe its my aspergers acting up, but that REALLY rubs me the wrong way...

Lasers are coherent light, meaning it is VERY directed and focused. To compound 2 different wavelengths they HAVE to be travelling parallel in the exact same plane. To get the beams to travel in parallel and close enough to affect eachother they HAVE to share a focusing device (lens or mirror), which makes it impossible for two seperate and distinct lasers (IE not sharing a focusing device) to ever compound in the manner shown in the video.

Nevermind the fact that combining two waves CHANGES the properties of said wave (I even wrote a wave simulator program doing just that in Turbo Pascal back in high school). A combination of a small and a medium laser would (under ideal circumstances described above) create a combined laser, not two seperate "projectiles". It could also cause the resulting wave to amplify itself, then cancel itself out, then amplify itself... ((Side note: isn't that how pulse lasers work?))


Its been a while since I did any work in optics, so if I have made any blatant mistakes please feel free to bash me for them

Thoughts?

TT

Internet Robots are certainly Srs Bsns.

I often ask myself, HTF do LRM20 launchers reload themselves? So there is this missile pack mounted on my shoulder containing 20 missiles. Great. So I shot all 20 missiles in a single salvo. Awesome. So now my missile pack should require a crew of technicians to remount the missiles right? NEWP! NOT REALISTIC! *** RAGEQUIT!

[bpphantom]

Terbius, on 19 July 2012 - 11:03 AM, said:

I often ask myself, HTF do LRM20 launchers reload themselves?

Belt feed missiles.

[TheCerpent]

Brenden, on 19 July 2012 - 10:47 AM, said:

Then why can regular people in the books see them, without the use of a computer?

Several explanations:

1) artistic license - authors cannot be expected to be physicists.

2) Secondhand accounts - any non-projectile attack can be assumed to be a laser. If the attack was described to a Mechwarrior, they may mentally add the tarcom details themselves.

3] Witchcraft. All observers are pagan witches and should be burned.

[Ramius Hazen]

Gabopentin, on 19 July 2012 - 10:01 AM, said:

Something to think about. Its now 2012 this is set in 3049. Couldn't there possibly be some advancement in scientific knowledge in 1038 years? We have already had one of the foundation stones of scientific knowledge adjusted this century, Einsteins theory that no one can travel faster than light, therefore during that 1000+ years, other supposed know scientific constants could change.

Aren't you glad, when they came up with Battletech back in '84, they didn't do like a lot of movies were doing back then and set their future date out to say oh, 1999... or 2010?

Makes it easy when we can just say, "dude bro, it's 3049. Anything can happen."

[bakon]

Well it is almost 3050, and we colonized space, I'm sure we figured out purple lazerssss

[DireWolf307]

This is probably the stupidest thing I've ever seen complained about.

[Hezi Baer]

Every time you try to drag real physics (or anatomy) into a discussion about a Sci-fi game God kills a catgirl.

Smells like masses of dead catgirls.

Besides that, a Fibre laser with different Inputs but same outgoing fibre cable could give you a multicolor lightshow.

[William Petersen]

thontor, on 19 July 2012 - 11:18 AM, said:

Add to that.. as you mentioned.. the yellow comes from the 2 medium lasers, and you see the purple comes from a mech that's loadout is shown as just one large laser

Don't be so sure on that; I didn't look too carefully, but a lot of times in those videos the target they're fighting isn't actually targeted. God-knows why. ****** me off something awful.

[WardenWolf]

I just re-watched the video of the Centurion - and sure enough, the yellow is two medium lasers and the purple is a single Large Laser (might have been ER - didn't catch). That means that Bryan's reasoning on another thread (and quoted here) does not hold water.

My suspicion, then, is that the player who recorded these videos had his color calibration out of whack. Removing a lot of green or blue (if, say, his monitor was oversaturating one of those colors) would leave an in-game video that was muted in that spectrum - taking Blue toward Purple, and Green toward Yellow.

Aside from some other feature we haven't been told about, I cannot think of any other explanation.

[William Petersen]

Right you are, sir. Excellent call, I'm sorry I ever doubted you. ^_~

[Tokimonatakanimekat]

Daisu Saikoro, on 19 July 2012 - 10:12 AM, said:

Multi coloured lasers are a farce

[Radgor Ryan]

Thanks OP!

I was quite excited by the compounding colors of light, but your explanation totally makes sense and has bummed me out with its logic.

Way to go!

Lets skip any explanation in the future about how unlikely it is to be fighting on hundreds of terra-formed worlds with near close to 1G.

[Marric]

Just find your happy place and have fun. I don't care if the lasers are polka dot colored as long as I can tell when they hit.

[Stygian Steel]

Tommytools, on 19 July 2012 - 09:40 AM, said:

I know this is a game and there is a large element of suspension of disbelief, but I have a real issue with the way laser colours are shown in the centurion vid. Even more so with the given explanation in the locked thread. (I would have posted this there if it hadn't been locked.)

Lasers being visible?... Ok, can live with that, battlefields tend to be very smoky/dusty environments after all.

But lasers compounding to different colours? ... Maybe its my aspergers acting up, but that REALLY rubs me the wrong way...

Lasers are coherent light, meaning it is VERY directed and focused. To compound 2 different wavelengths they HAVE to be travelling parallel in the exact same plane. To get the beams to travel in parallel and close enough to affect eachother they HAVE to share a focusing device (lens or mirror), which makes it impossible for two seperate and distinct lasers (IE not sharing a focusing device) to ever compound in the manner shown in the video.

Nevermind the fact that combining two waves CHANGES the properties of said wave (I even wrote a wave simulator program doing just that in Turbo Pascal back in high school). A combination of a small and a medium laser would (under ideal circumstances described above) create a combined laser, not two seperate "projectiles". It could also cause the resulting wave to amplify itself, then cancel itself out, then amplify itself... ((Side note: isn't that how pulse lasers work?))


Its been a while since I did any work in optics, so if I have made any blatant mistakes please feel free to bash me for them

Thoughts?

TT

english dude....english

[DireWolf307]

DireWolf307, on 19 July 2012 - 11:20 AM, said:

This is probably the stupidest thing I've ever seen complained about.

I thought I should mention that I say this and I've been playing Star Trek Online since Beta. Talk about people taking their sci-fi way too seriously.

[Saiidin]

Veevslav, on 19 July 2012 - 10:57 AM, said:

Lasers can currently be assigned different colors.....
As to them being visible.... If we create steam the laser is easily noticeable... Now take our current lasers that are weak pathetic things and increase the power output to about 50000 times and watch as air with minimal moisture gets steamed instantly from it passing through..... There you have visible lasers of different colors based on the lasers original color........

There are videos easily found on google of handheld lasers (not even laboratory tabletop monsters!) powerful enough to be seen in broad daylight. They make great emergency signalling devices...nothing says "I'm HERE!" like a bright green bar of light shooting out of your hand.

However, combat laser weaponry would likely be in the IR range since you get superior thermal absorption on target from the red end of the spectrum for the same power output...and you'd better have one heck of a pair of laser shades or you'll go blind from specular reflections

[CheckThis]

Relax...it's just a game people. All it matters is that you have fun playing it.

Period.

[Varcor]

Just going to address the "visibility" issue of lasers. I'm sure most of us are familiar with laser pointers. The most common, red, has a beam that can be made visible if conditions are right. I.E. smoky, dusty, etc. This is for a <5mW pointer. Now take a <5mW green laser pointer. Notice a difference? Yes, in less than 5 milliwatts, the green pointer emits a VISIBLE beam at night. I use one all the time for ponting out stars, satellites, etc. to my kids because they can SEE the beam path.

Now, I'm no scientist but I play one on TV and if a 5mW beam is visible, why not a fussion reactor powered beam?

[EnigmaNL]

@OP, seriously? This is a game, get over it.

If this is how you think about things like lasers, Sci-fi is not for you.