19 replies to this topic

[Liam]

We all know the problem with LASER. It is point and shot weapon. In some way the LASER is a non skill weapon. Some people love it and some hate it. In “high rated games” against good pilots the game became really annoying, also because of lag issue.
I had an idea many years ago by playing MW4. Here we go:

The LASER would need some optical elements for focusing to be effective in wide distance range (0 – 800 m [MW4 wise]).
The focusing system would take for sure some amount of time to focus precisely, something between 0.25-0.5 seconds.
(Delay time could be also explained by preheating time of optical elements.)

In this case it will stay direct weapon (point and shoot, instant hit) but requiring some skill to aim properly by knowing (btw. feeling) the delay shift (due to focusing system).

This delay time however could be adjusted depending on how many people whine about the LASER.
The delay is internal and is not on a trigger. So that shooting in slightly defocused state is still possible by suffering some damage output (10 - 30 %).

As already presented in artillery topic, 3 additional weapon buttons (hotkeys) could be used to overcome delay time as follows:

1. LASER firing mode: Automatic (automatic prefocusing > delay) / manual (focus range will be set manually -> no delay time)
2. Focusing range decrease -
3. Focusing range increase +

This should fix LASER and make it a “skill depending weapon” .
In standard situation by pointing at enemy mech the LASER can be considered as focused (no delay).
Shooting out of focusing range will lead to lower damage.
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EDIT: Additional explanation:
if you go close to your enemy and your enemy is in your target the laser will be focused.
if you have a lock after some delay let say 0.5 s your laser will be focused
if you run blind out of cover and trying to pick a target without a lock you will need to wait for focusing delay, otherwise the damage will be decreased. However you can set the focusing range manually and shoot blind out of cover without delay.
It should be still possible to "override" by firing in non optimal focusing state.

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In case of PPC these additional weapon buttons could be used for overload of PPC with particles but allowing it to overheat and so reload time.
1. Standard firing mode on / off (allowing charge increase)
2. Charge increase (up to +10% dmg, +15% heat and + 10% reload time)
3. Charge decrease (down to -10% dmg, -15% heat and – 10 % reload time)
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Edited by Liam, 06 January 2012 - 06:17 AM.

[verybad]

Lasers are not focused, that's the whole point of a laser, otherwhise just call it a highpowered flashlight.

[Rathverge]

I dont see why this is all that necessary, they can just implement some kind of "You can get this xxxx laser until you reach level xxxx" or "You need *** points to unlock the ER version of this laser" or whatever.. Adding a delay wont really change anything. If you use a mouse (95%) of the playerbase its not hard to follow a target. As for range they keep stating its urban warfare for the most part (urban usually denotes short range).

[Liam]

verybad, on 05 January 2012 - 02:01 PM, said:

Lasers are not focused, that's the whole point of a laser, otherwhise just call it a highpowered flashlight.

It is not kind of laser pointer. You can increase your "damage" on target by increasing radiance especially by using multiple sources. And there is still natural divergence of the beam.

Quote

Adding a delay wont really change anything. If you use a mouse (95%) of the playerbase its not hard to follow a target. As for range they keep stating its urban warfare for the most part (urban usually denotes short range).

It is about who hits first ... In case of MW4 if you go out of your cover, by using PPC or Gauss you will miss the hit against skilled laserboat (because of the knock back effect). The only thing was to hope for better ping than of your enemy.

Edited by Liam, 05 January 2012 - 03:15 PM.

[PyroAcid]

deleying the time to get them will onley work for the 1st few months of the game then the mojority of the fan base will all have er-lasers
and the noobs whould be turned into cannon fodder

for lasers to be a skilled weapon. well ask you're self what are lasers in bt canon? are they what a real laser is? "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation ? were it has to worry about bloom "distence from witch the beam becomes unfocus in the atomosphere''. dust,clodes,humitity effects the bloom of a laser.even in the vaccum of space lasers change. or is it a chemical laser? same effects just less energy to power but higher toxic to even the user. are they partical beam? or a plasma based weapon much like a ballstic but with no arc.


if it is ballistic well there is your skill use mechwarrior 2 used the laser in this fasion it was pretty fun and we had had a greement to play with just energy weapons called c1 .mechassuilt use them in this fasion also but the mech whould auto lock on the mech you were fighting so it was all for l show not much thought went into mechassuilt it was just "get it out there pepole that like killing robots will buy this" i hate how they sell stuff to us like were 2

i know darkage mechwarrior added plasma weapons but all they do is spray molten metal.
but not were plasma whould be almost faster then a guass rifle or ppc but still have a bllastic feel to it. with splash damage.

also thereason why so many used lasers namely the Er-large was becouse of the fact that guass and ppc didint score hits as much as 6 er large lasers whould didint invole lag as much the transfer of infomation of computer to computer. the damage was faster for lasers then it was for ballistic like ppc and guass and pepole didint hit print screen to drop packits either. not mention 3rd person poptarting was a big reason as well.

http://en.wikipedia....Plasma_(physics) what plama is

http://www.goingfast...plasmaguns.html

http://en.wikipedia....weapon_(fiction)
great artical of telling what a plasma weapon is.

Edited by PyroAcid, 05 January 2012 - 03:29 PM.

[Liam]

Also interesting: http://www.rp-photon...beam_waist.html

Edited by Liam, 05 January 2012 - 03:41 PM.

[VYCanis]

just go the MWLL route

lasers have duration

that simple fact alone forces a skill requirement because its no longer good enough to simply click on an opponent, you have work to hold that aim on a single location if you want to actually deal your damage properly.

Different types of lasers can have their durations,strobes (in the case of pulse lasers), and recycles rates vary to whatever is best for balance.

For instance the tradeoff in er lasers to keep people from just ditching regular lasers, aside from extra heat, could be that er lasers might require a little more duration to deal their damage, making it more likely to skim across multiple locations. Conversely pulse lasers compress their damage into a few strobing blinks within a smaller duration window of time, making them better able to concentrate damage on one location (i.e. being more accurate.)

[Bernardo Sinibaldi]

I'd be happy if heat was just modelled "accurately". Sure - you can fire your 4 LL but you'll need heat sinks up the ying yang to do so effectively. Lose a heat sink or two and you're combat ineffective very quickly. I'd also expect those 4 lasers to not be pinpoint accuracy so each is likely to hit a different location. Maybe have the target reticle shrink in size, reducing the spread, the longer the pilot holds it on target but heat should be the big balancer for lasers.

[Gattling Fenn]

Pyroacid, for the love of God, please learn to spell. That made my brain hurt.

[Mchawkeye]

Gattling Fenn, on 05 January 2012 - 04:04 PM, said:

Pyroacid, for the love of God, please learn to spell. That made my brain hurt.

Agreed.
Pyro; you really need to re-read your posts and edit them as people are finding it hard to understand you. Myself included.

[CeeKay Boques]

This is 2012! You don't need learn to spell!

http://orangoo.com/spellcheck/

There ya go, throw your post in there, clean'er up, and have your words look as good as your thoughts.


Edit: The spell check didn't fix the grammar... so... might still be painful. MIght have to learn. Sorry!

Edited by Technoviking, 05 January 2012 - 04:20 PM.

[Orzorn]

VYCanis, on 05 January 2012 - 03:37 PM, said:

just go the MWLL route

lasers have duration

that simple fact alone forces a skill requirement because its no longer good enough to simply click on an opponent, you have work to hold that aim on a single location if you want to actually deal your damage properly.

Different types of lasers can have their durations,strobes (in the case of pulse lasers), and recycles rates vary to whatever is best for balance.

For instance the tradeoff in er lasers to keep people from just ditching regular lasers, aside from extra heat, could be that er lasers might require a little more duration to deal their damage, making it more likely to skim across multiple locations. Conversely pulse lasers compress their damage into a few strobing blinks within a smaller duration window of time, making them better able to concentrate damage on one location (i.e. being more accurate.)

Once again, Mr. Canis, I find myself agreeing totally with you. MWLL did it right with making lasers have a duration. Even lasers in MW3 had a sort of duration, as you could easily see them make multiple hit spots on the ground if you fired them while quickly dragging the mouse. This forced the pilot to maintain a certain level of accuracy to be able to get all the damage into a single location.

[Dlardrageth]

Yeah, I'd like the '"duration" better than the "delay" as well. For one, would make it easier to distinguish between pulse and conventional lasers, apart from them having only different beam colours. Furthermore, the delay mechanism would be way more prone to lag and connection issues. Possibly leading to the fact that lasers could become the weapon for people with really good connections only. As the others would - due to the aforementioned issues - get a ton of "lagshots" with them.

While the "delay" suggested seems very short on paper, this might already be enough time to make someone on the end of a bad connection totally miss the shot. While with the "duration" model he might not score the perfect hit he was aiming for, he at least likely hits something. I know which of those two options I'd prefer!

Also, although it is only a very minor point, according to CBT fluff the only weapon I'd envision having somewhat of a meaningful delay would probably be the PPC. Building up and focusing the particle stream might take a second or two. Especially with "only" older IS Tech. Which could also explain the short-range modifier, need for field inhibitors and yadda, yadda. Basically somewhat of an equivalent to the minimal time spent between AC shots IF one goes with the "burst fire" model instead of the (somewhat uncanonical) single-shot one. But, like stated before, very minor point here.

And as much as the exact physics are interesting to read about, the main focus of BT was and still remains to simulate / play out battlefield conditions and the actual battlefield experience from the single grunt (MechWarrior) level up to command structures and dealing with communication, recon, logistics, supply issues and everything else entailed. The BT/MW franchise hasn't been so popular and/or beloved due to the exact nature of physics employed, rather to its compelling feel of simulating the battlefield stress and decision-making processes.

Edited by Dlardrageth, 05 January 2012 - 10:40 PM.

[verybad]

I don't think a delay would be a popular mechanic. I can see duration, but that would be vulnerable to lag (and cause it) as mentioned by Dlardrageth.

I think a proper implementation of heat, as well as more filled maps will serve to balance them.

[UncleKulikov]

Duration damage will solve all these problems.

I'm also interested in the focusing time, which can be reduced by getting a better targeting computer.

[Rathverge]

Quickest way to make this skill based for you would be to play with a joystick... bye bye twitch gaming.
Regardless aiming an instant damage weapon doesnt seem like something just about every single human alive would have a hard time with... especially with a neural link.

[Liam]

My friend used high power laser with a very short pulse in labor, he said you cant just fire it. It need some warm up time etc.

By putting a duration on standard lasers (example: ER Large Laser) will make them continuous (or at least continuous like).

Quote

Pulsed Laser: uses very short powerful single pulses (MW 3 & 4: Large Laser and ER Large Laser)
Continuous Laser: works continuously (MW3: Large Pulse Laser)
You can also mix them: by using short pulses in specific period of time (MW4: Large Pulse Laser)

I think Pulse Lasers (with duration LPL) should be totally different to standard Lasers (ERLL). And duration would make them a bit similar in use.

Who played Unreal Tournament 3? or 2004? I'm not exactly sure but I think the Lightning gun had a mechanic with delay!? I think it was instant hit but difficult to use due to delay.

verybad, on 05 January 2012 - 09:17 PM, said:

I don't think a delay would be a popular mechanic. I can see duration, but that would be vulnerable to lag (and cause it) as mentioned by Dlardrageth. I think a proper implementation of heat, as well as more filled maps will serve to balance them.

I mean this what was done in MW4 Merc MP3? Something from 8/8 changed to 7.5/9 (damage/heat). It is a possible solution. However so long people can boat up to 3-4 Lasers they will be still viable and especially in high rated games, where people only care about to win. Especially compared to double gauss or double PPC. I don't think the laser can be balanced on its own. It should be balanced with PPC and Gauss. Its not acceptable for us to have one weapon underpowered and one overpowered. It is all about our game experience so that each part of equipment should have it positive and negative sides ... and large laser has to many advantages. And the biggest one the instant hit. The delay suggestion only fixes it in situations where people using cover sniping etc. Even then it could be overcome by manual use.

The heat efficiency of the Laser shouldn't be higher than one of PPC. Or it will be the same story as in MW3, MW4 Veng.

[Liam]

Dlardrageth, on 05 January 2012 - 09:01 PM, said:

...
While the "delay" suggested seems very short on paper, this might already be enough time to make someone on the end of a bad connection totally miss the shot.
...

But the same story for PPC Gauss and AC ...
However as already described, the prefocusing is only needed by aiming at new target (as in situation where you came out of your cover).
It is not on the trigger!! Its internal timer which defines how well your Laser is focused.

if you go close to your enemy and your enemy is in your target the laser will be focused.
if you have a lock after some delay let say 0.5 s your laser will be focused
if you run blind out of cover and trying to pick a target without a lock you will need to wait for focusing delay, otherwise the damage will be decreased. However you can set the focusing range manually and shoot blind out of cover without delay.
It should be still possible to "override" by firing in non optimal focusing state.

I hope it is good enough explained, cause it difficult to bring own thoughts to the paper

Edited by Liam, 06 January 2012 - 06:12 AM.

[Pht]

Liam, on 05 January 2012 - 01:25 PM, said:

We all know the problem with LASER. It is point and shot weapon. In some way the LASER is a non skill weapon. Some people love it and some hate it. In “high rated games” against good pilots the game became really annoying, also because of lag issue.

Lasers haven't really been represented very well in the previous MW games; they are not (in the lore) "sticky," they require some "on time" to do their battlefield rated damage and can slash across armor panels; they can miss at times, and yes, if they take damage to their focusing elements, they can go "off target," that the heat penalties in mw4 weren't really representative of the parent system didn't help, all topped off by not simulating how a BattleMech (the thing that's actually doing the physical aming and computer calculations!) actually handles them ... yeah, they've been annoying at times.

[Omigir]

MW3 - nuf said.