11 replies to this topic

[Elizander]

Sometimes I wonder how things would look if we had those kinds of lasers in MWO.

[FupDup]

No.

First, they're not really lasers. It's impossible for a laser to take a shape like that. A laser is an unbroken beam of light. It can't be shaped into bullets or shells. It would have to be plasma (shaped by magnetic fields) or something to have those properties.

Second, that would create less distinction between PPCs and lasers if both were projectiles.

Edited by FupDup, 11 February 2021 - 05:03 PM.

[VonBruinwald]

FupDup, on 11 February 2021 - 05:03 PM, said:

First, they're not really lasers. It's impossible for a laser to take a shape like that. A laser is an unbroken beam of light. It can't be shaped into bullets or shells. It would have to be plasma (shaped by magnetic fields) or something to have those properties.

You could if you used two beams to create an interference pattern. Of course it's more like a strobe effect than an actual projectile. It gets fun where you set the interference beam to "suck" lasers bolts of target. Imagine how much that would confuse the enemy.



About the only "useful" implementation I could imagine would be in battletechs pulse lasers which do so to allow vaporized armor to dissipate between pulses. Whether it's more efficient to switch a laser on and off rapidly or have two interfering is a different issue.


But as Fup said: No.

Edited by VonBruinwald, 11 February 2021 - 05:46 PM.

[RickySpanish]

No, they are unbelievably dumb, which is why I liked Freeapace so much - those lasers were baller.

[PocketYoda]

I still loved that intro the best of all Mechwarrior games though tbh. Vultures are still my fav mech to this day.

[Wildstreak]

FupDup, on 11 February 2021 - 05:03 PM, said:

No.

First, they're not really lasers. It's impossible for a laser to take a shape like that. A laser is an unbroken beam of light. It can't be shaped into bullets or shells. It would have to be plasma (shaped by magnetic fields) or something to have those properties.

Second, that would create less distinction between PPCs and lasers if both were projectiles.

Incorrect.

Actually watch it, most of the lasers are clearly Pulse types as we know several pulses not 1 do the damage. Only once did I see anything looking non-pulse laser get used and it is clearly beam.

I have no idea where OP got Projectile Laser from but he seems to not understand what happened.

[VonBruinwald]

Wildstreak, on 12 February 2021 - 05:36 AM, said:

Actually watch it, most of the lasers are clearly Pulse types as we know several pulses not 1 do the damage. Only once did I see anything looking non-pulse laser get used and it is clearly beam.

What Fup is saying is that's not how real lasers work.

All lasers are, to effect, continuous beams. When people talk about "pulse" lasers the word pulse refers to the power supply being cycled on and off.

That video portraying them as projectiles falls under artistic license. There's no reason they can't do the same in MWO but as Fup also said, it would make PPC's less distinct.

[RickySpanish]

Samial, on 12 February 2021 - 05:25 AM, said:

I still loved that intro the best of all Mechwarrior games though tbh. Vultures are still my fav mech to this day.

Absolutely, the moment the lance leader realises nobody is left, not even the mech commanders, sends a chill up my spine every time. I only wish that the Black Knight expansion hadn't cast all of the main characters in Vengeance as corrupt members of a despotic regime that needed to be killed.

[PocketYoda]

RickySpanish, on 12 February 2021 - 06:44 AM, said:

Absolutely, the moment the lance leader realises nobody is left, not even the mech commanders, sends a chill up my spine every time. I only wish that the Black Knight expansion hadn't cast all of the main characters in Vengeance as corrupt members of a despotic regime that needed to be killed.

I never owned Black Knight

[Wolfos31]

I'm glad that Mechwarrior/Battletech is more on the "hard" end of the sci fi spectrum vs something like Star Wars. That said in Star Wars blasters look right (though IIRC those are "plasma bolts" in canon). In Battletech/Mechwarrior true laser beams look right. I would never want a BTech game to depict lasers as projectiles.

That said, in OP's video it's hard to say whether the lasers are projected as bolts or beams. The Mad Dog looks like it's using green medium pulse lasers. They look continuous though there is some "pulse" in the beam.

The incoming red "bolts" when the camera is focused on the Mad Dog are harder to diagnose. Are those ballistic tracers? Or did the artist take some creative license and that is their idea of laser "bolts"?

When the camera focuses on the Uziel and other weapons it LOOKS to me more like lasers are treated properly, with a beam emitting from the weapon ports.

That's my interpretation.

[FupDup]

RickySpanish, on 12 February 2021 - 06:44 AM, said:

Absolutely, the moment the lance leader realises nobody is left, not even the mech commanders, sends a chill up my spine every time. I only wish that the Black Knight expansion hadn't cast all of the main characters in Vengeance as corrupt members of a despotic regime that needed to be killed.

I hated the Black Knight campaign so much, I actually felt genuine joy when your faction gets betrayed and lots of your people get killed. Pure karma.

[Mech Walesa]

that's not how lasers work............