15 replies to this topic

[Koniving]

With so many variants of lasers, the sounds do help distinguish them. But given that a laser's inherent visible color is directly tied in real life to the amount of power it has, would it not be pertinent if the laser with the power to cohesively drill through metal at longer range would therefore have a color more attuned to this gain in power?

If red is the weakest color and is in use for the IS, should an IS ER SL not be orange?
If the Medium Laser is Green, should the ER ML not be somewhere between Green and Yellow?
If the large laser is blue, then perhaps the ER LL should be violet?

As it happens, violet lasers in real life are somewhat weaker than blue lasers, but carry their effect to considerably better ranges with less atmospheric deterioration in power. (Sort of exactly what an ER LL does, minus the weaker damage output).

Just food for thought.

I think the Snub and standard PPC's visual effects require more distinction. I get that we're not going the PPC shotgun where the ball expands and weakens (but hits a wider area) over distance, but right now side by side they are completely indistinguishable.

[Gentleman Reaper]

That's certainly an interesting thought, but including the new micro lasers, most of the small lasers should be in the orange range.

Edited by Gentleman Reaper, 30 June 2017 - 06:13 PM.

[Koniving]

Gentleman Reaper, on 30 June 2017 - 06:12 PM, said:

That's certainly an interesting thought, but including the new micro lasers, most of the small lasers should be in the orange range.

The Is doesn't have them so it wouldn't affect their colors.

The Clan ER SL uses a pink laser. As such the Micro laser could be red.

I'd love some orange lasers though.

[Pariah Devalis]

I'm always up for more colors!

[Tordin]

I dont know how closely PGI follows the wavelength of light and their color.
Well at least small lasers for IS are red, the longest waves,
the mediums are in the middle aka green
and the larges are blue.
So those makes some sense.
The inconsistency comes to clan lasers which are supposedly stronger. Their colorations are judging by the wavelength pics below, one level under the IS coloration for lasers. Clan lasers should then be upped a level above the IS
Clans have Red-purple (crimson) for small er lasers, yellow for medium er lasers and cyan (blue-green) for large er lasers.
Maybe change it to Orange for clan ER small, blue green for clan er mediums and purple for clan er large.

That OR change up the IS colors to what the clans have now and let the clans have the colors the IS have. It can get a bit confusing and at the same time make sure the major colors get used. Yellow, Orange, Red, Purple, Blue, Green.

Heres some references PGI could use to differenciate the laser colors on both tech sides more.

[Genesis23]

how about white and black? these were available in star wars: force unleashed and would look absolutely brilliant in the chaos of different colors between two frontlines.

[Y E O N N E]

Tordin, on 01 July 2017 - 07:48 AM, said:

I dont know how closely PGI follows the wavelength of light and their color.
Well at least small lasers for IS are red, the longest waves,
the mediums are in the middle aka green
and the larges are blue.
So those makes some sense.
The inconsistency comes to clan lasers which are supposedly stronger. Their colorations are judging by the wavelength pics below, one level under the IS coloration for lasers. Clan lasers should then be upped a level above the IS
Clans have Red-purple (crimson) for small er lasers, yellow for medium er lasers and cyan (blue-green) for large er lasers.
Maybe change it to Orange for clan ER small, blue green for clan er mediums and purple for clan er large.

That OR change up the IS colors to what the clans have now and let the clans have the colors the IS have. It can get a bit confusing and at the same time make sure the major colors get used. Yellow, Orange, Red, Purple, Blue, Green.

Well, think of it like this:

Longer wavelengths suffer less attenuation through atmosphere. They also deliver less energy into the target; a 100 MW infrared laser won't have the same destructive capabilities as a 100 MW violet laser assuming no attenuation.

With those two trends established, it makes more sense to use a longer wavelength for a long range gun and then jack up the power to get the damage back. So the smaller lasers should be using shorter wavelengths for high damage up close and greater efficiency while the larger ones should be using lower wavelengths for more consistent damage at-range and lesser efficiency. Basically, micro pulse should be purple and ER larges should be deep red, though BT's description of Large Lasers as "gamma ray lasers" gets in the way (and is also BS, because enough scattering and secondary radiation would occur to render a battlefield uninhabitable for awhile, which would go against the spirit of not using nukes according to the Ares Conventions).

In terms of MWO's coloration, you could also make the case that the Clans are using lower wavelengths to get more range than their IS counterparts and, since they have greater cooling capacity, they aren't afraid to jack up the power levels to get the damage back and then some. It would explain the greater heat, too.

All in a sort of quasi-sciency way, of course.

[Metus regem]

Koniving, on 30 June 2017 - 05:45 PM, said:

But given that a laser's inherent visible color is directly tied in real life to the amount of power it has,....

Oddly enough, laser power has nothing to do with visible colour. The visible colour has everything to do with the weave length and the wave length has everything to do with range.

For instance:
Red laser has a weave length around 650 nano-meters
Green is around 530
Blue around 405-475.

How it stacks up for range, is a green will go about twice as far as a red of the same power, a blue will go about twice as far as a green for the same power.

This information is all learned through equipment that my company builds, we build items that use between 5 and 20 milliwatt lasers and found that a 5 milliwatt red laser will only cover half the distance of a 5 milliwatt green laser before dropping off in power to the point that the red is barely visible.

[Koniving]

Yeonne Greene, on 06 July 2017 - 11:06 PM, said:

Well, think of it like this:

Longer wavelengths suffer less attenuation through atmosphere. They also deliver less energy into the target; a 100 MW infrared laser won't have the same destructive capabilities as a 100 MW violet laser assuming no attenuation.

With those two trends established, it makes more sense to use a longer wavelength for a long range gun and then jack up the power to get the damage back. So the smaller lasers should be using shorter wavelengths for high damage up close and greater efficiency while the larger ones should be using lower wavelengths for more consistent damage at-range and lesser efficiency. Basically, micro pulse should be purple and ER larges should be deep red, though BT's description of Large Lasers as "gamma ray lasers" gets in the way (and is also BS, because enough scattering and secondary radiation would occur to render a battlefield uninhabitable for awhile, which would go against the spirit of not using nukes according to the Ares Conventions).

In terms of MWO's coloration, you could also make the case that the Clans are using lower wavelengths to get more range than their IS counterparts and, since they have greater cooling capacity, they aren't afraid to jack up the power levels to get the damage back and then some. It would explain the greater heat, too.

All in a sort of quasi-sciency way, of course.

You are aware of two other issues here.
Longer wavelengths are SIGNIFICANTLY weaker. Which is why red lasers are virtually harmless and blue lasers not only set **** on fire but with the right intensity will dig through metal.

Yes, going by that logic red lasers might have the longest range and least affect from the atmosphere.. but are also the weakest. You'd have ER Large lasers pumping out 3 damage at long range, while small lasers would be pumping out 8-10 damage at close range. Yes the blue lasers would be significantly more affected by atmosphere, but they are strong enough to persevere. However, while it goes against the logic you've shown, I've never known red lasers to have longer distance than blue lasers.

There's also the other issue that the Ares convention was canonically thrown out as soon as Kerensky performed his first exodus, meaning the entire duration of classic Battletech, there is no Ares Convention.

The Ares Convention starts in 2412. It is thrown out in 2787, 3 years after Kerensky exited stage left as the first succession war erupts with nuclear weapons galore.

"The First Succession War lasted from 2787 to 2821, a
conflagration of unparalleled brutality. The warring Lords cast
aside the Ares Conventions, smashing cities, destroying vital
industrial facilities, and butchering hundreds of millions of
civilians. Few worlds escaped unscathed.and all were affected
by the complete disruption of trade and commerce. By 2815,
the warring States had lost most of their FTL shipbuilding
capacity."

It keeps going, but basically everything goes down the damn toilet. To the point that churches get crushed, children are murdered in schools "because it's fun", nukes fly around like LRMs in MWO...

The Third Succession War saw a drastic reduction in brutality.

"After a second brief respite, the Third Succession War
erupted in 2866. It began when advance forces of the Draconis
Combine invaded the coreward portion of the Lyran Commonwealth,
and th'en spread across the Inner Sphere. In the years
that followed, war became such a fact of everyday life that
contemporary chronicles refer to the period simply as ''the
Succession Wars". Nonetheless, later campaigns did not
match the violence of the first two wars.
At first. the decrease in destruction and bloodshed
appeared to be more a function of each army's reduced
resources than a philosophical change in tactics.
As time passed, however, and the exigencies of a scavenger economy
took hold, each of the Houses realized it could ill afford further
losses of vital resources. Gradually, an informal set of rules of
war evolved, similar to the Ares Conventions. 'Mech units and
armies still fought over possession of operational factories,
but neither side attempted to harm the facility itself. (The
losers simply told themselves they would win the planet back in
the next war.) Major 'Mech battles, especially between
mercenary units, were often fought in stages, with both sides
allowing enemy Techs to enter the battlefield during periods of
truce to attend to damaged 'Machs. Other 'Mech units, again
especially mercenaries, revived the old tradition of surrendering
to a superior force, and paying a ransom to obtain their
off-world release. Most important, everyone recognized the
sanctity of any House's JumpShips, and strictly obeyed the
prohibition placed on attacking such craft {without which the
war for supremacy could not be waged at all)."
It's a Psuedo version of the convention, with no binding contract or treaty other than "If you don't blow it up, we won't blow it up."

Source: Mechwarrior RPG, first edition.
A history of human space.
Sections: Age of War, The Succession Wars.

This doesn't stop nukes from being used many times between the third, fourth succession wars (three entire planets were wiped out during the third succession war; as in completely obliterated, flying debris of space rock, someone brought out the goddamn Death Star kind of wiped out. One planet was made completely uninhabitable during the fourth succession war), and the Clan invasion (though admittedly Smoke Jaguar resorts to this during the Clan Invasions.)

(This hasn't anything to do with you specifically, but so many people during closed beta blamed the Ares Convention for LRM minimum range.)
LRM minimum range, btw, has nothing to do with the Ares convention.
In old lore, it's simply because they are fired up and over things instead of straight.
In newer lore...they inexplicably have to be manually set to explode at less than 180 meters and it's whether your pilot set it low enough and then hit the target before they got too close. Supposedly this is so that they won't explode if shot. Which runs into other fallacies. (Or you can hotload them) This comes with the caveat, the Clans are always hotloaded and thus loaded missiles should explode on impact. (Another non-hotloaded version states that LRMs are not loaded into the chambers until after you pull the trigger; and then they are loaded in to fire. Making slightly more sense, if they're under 180 meters the missiles might not load and fire fast enough to hit your target. It also better fits the general Inner Sphere personality, as a 'safety' range doesn't really fit. They are more worried about losing their own stuff and LRM launchers are much more susceptible to damage than SRM launchers [due to size].)

Edited by Koniving, 07 July 2017 - 07:18 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

Koniving, on 07 July 2017 - 07:07 AM, said:

You are aware of two other issues here.
Longer wavelengths are SIGNIFICANTLY weaker. Which is why red lasers are virtually harmless and blue lasers not only set **** on fire but with the right intensity will dig through metal.

Yes, going by that logic red lasers might have the longest range and least affect from the atmosphere.. but are also the weakest. You'd have ER Large lasers pumping out 3 damage at long range, while small lasers would be pumping out 8-10 damage at close range. Yes the blue lasers would be significantly more affected by atmosphere, but they are strong enough to persevere. However, while it goes against the logic you've shown, I've never known red lasers to have longer distance than blue lasers.

I already mentioned that issue.

Any laser can punch holes and set alight anything given sufficient power density, though. The weapons-grade lasers being tested and deployed today are all using infrared wavelengths precisely because of the resistance to attenuation across a wide range of atmospheric conditions and not because they can't build a blue or green laser. In vacuum, absolutely go for the shortest you can go. X-ray death beams from 10,000 km away and all that jazz. In atmo, do you want to do better damage while within range of more efficient conventional weapons or do you want to be able to do good enough damage outside those capabilities? Hence, IR.

Industrial cutting and welding lasers are also typically operating in the infrared range, at least to my most recent knowledge.

Quote

There's also the other issue that the Ares convention was canonically thrown out as soon as Kerensky performed his first exodus, meaning the entire duration of classic Battletech, there is no Ares Convention.

The Ares Convention starts in 2412. It is thrown out in 2787, 3 years after Kerensky exited stage left as the first succession war erupts with nuclear weapons galore.

I know this. I checked Sarna. But three issues with your position:

1. Large Lasers were in use even before they were tossed
2. Successor States still use them as loose guidelines even after tossing them and especially after the horrors of the first two Succession Wars
3. The Clans still abide by their own versions of such, and would abhorr the use of gamma ray lasers

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 07 July 2017 - 09:53 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

Metus regem, on 07 July 2017 - 07:06 AM, said:

How it stacks up for range, is a green will go about twice as far as a red of the same power, a blue will go about twice as far as a green for the same power.

This information is all learned through equipment that my company builds, we build items that use between 5 and 20 milliwatt lasers and found that a 5 milliwatt red laser will only cover half the distance of a 5 milliwatt green laser before dropping off in power to the point that the red is barely visible.

That is true across shorter distances. Across larger distances, there ate more confounding variables at play that make the red the better choice.

As a most basic example, there is a reason the sun turns red when it sets.

[Gas Guzzler]

I like purple for the Heavies Larges, yellow-green for the heavy mediums, and orange for the HSLs.

[Nimnul]

Colors must be changed, and PPC colors too

[Macc_]

All I want for Christmas is a heavy large laser with a thick, darker indigo beam, and a loud, deep noise.

Realism and badass aesthetics aside, with so many different lasers, visual distinction would help with decision making.

Edited by Macc 1666, 08 July 2017 - 06:20 PM.

[LordNothing]

i dont care what colors are used so long as laser types and sizes are all distinct. if you can push a visual distinction between clan and is lasers, that too would be great.

[The6thMessenger]

I did a recolor proposal once.