39 replies to this topic

[Kyossed]

Okay that was kind of underwhelming. putting a LLAS and a SLAS on the same emitter does tint the beam a little towards violet, but the SLAS cuts out about 3/5ths of the way through the LLAS duration and the cooldown duration is different for each so you end up firing the small and larges at seperate times.

[Banshee Bullet]

Kyossed, on 07 October 2012 - 06:49 PM, said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't adding a red filter to your lasers just block the shot until the laser burned the filter out? The reason we can color a white visible light with different filters is that those colors are already contained in the beam, and the filter simply blocks out the colors you don't want to get through. With a blue laser, however, you're only broadcasting a specific wavelength that does not contain any red to begin with. You'd have to modulate the wavelength to get violet. Or maybe fire a small laser at the same time through the same emitter.

okay now I have to try something in the mechlab.

The color (wavelength) of a laser is dependent on the construction, mainly the types of diodes/gas tubes.
The strength comes from the size and electricity supplied. The electricity part is why we don't have laser rifles and such. They need lots of electricity and modern batteries aren't up to the task.

In reality anyway

[Damion Sparhawk]

Kyossed, on 07 October 2012 - 06:49 PM, said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't adding a red filter to your lasers just block the shot until the laser burned the filter out? The reason we can color a white visible light with different filters is that those colors are already contained in the beam, and the filter simply blocks out the colors you don't want to get through. With a blue laser, however, you're only broadcasting a specific wavelength that does not contain any red to begin with. You'd have to modulate the wavelength to get violet. Or maybe fire a small laser at the same time through the same emitter.

okay now I have to try something in the mechlab.

well that's a simple enough thing to answer for yourself, just take a red laser and fire it through a blue lens ^.^ I doubt a pocket laser is going to burn the lens at all but it'll certainly answer the question as to whether you can tint the beam, of course the lens itself -would- have to be durable enough to withstand the heat of the beam passing through it in the case of the mechwarrior laser, but it's sci-fi so we'd just assume they have the materials to do it

[Kyossed]

Banshee Bullet, on 07 October 2012 - 09:20 PM, said:

The color (wavelength) of a laser is dependent on the construction, mainly the types of diodes/gas tubes.
The strength comes from the size and electricity supplied. The electricity part is why we don't have laser rifles and such. They need lots of electricity and modern batteries aren't up to the task.

In reality anyway

This doesn't really answer my question!

Damion Sparhawk, on 07 October 2012 - 09:47 PM, said:

well that's a simple enough thing to answer for yourself, just take a red laser and fire it through a blue lens ^.^ I doubt a pocket laser is going to burn the lens at all but it'll certainly answer the question as to whether you can tint the beam, of course the lens itself -would- have to be durable enough to withstand the heat of the beam passing through it in the case of the mechwarrior laser, but it's sci-fi so we'd just assume they have the materials to do it

You say that like lasers and tinted lenses are in common supply around the home! Since you seem to be implying that it would in fact change the color of the beam, I'm curious: where does the extra light come from?

Edited by Kyossed, 07 October 2012 - 10:21 PM.

[Banshee Bullet]

There are a number of ways to change the wavelength of laser light (the color). To do it without any changes to the laser you could use a specialized lens that refracts the light, thereby changing the wavelength. Although it would probably be simpler to alter the construction of the laser itself.


Logically you would think all the lasers would be the same color. Once they have optimized the laser design they would just make bigger/smaller ones with more/less power supplied to them in order to change the strength of the laser.

*EDIT*
it's way cooler to have multiple colors though

Edited by Banshee Bullet, 08 October 2012 - 04:43 AM.

[Schrottfrosch]

I'd guess that different manufactures would have different approaches to their laser technology - so I could imagine that lasers might have slightly different colours depending on the manufacturer. Regarding compatibility of Laser guns from different manufacturers I would guess that the star leage saw to it, that large lasers regardless of what manufacturer it comes from fits to any mech design. Also manufacturers would try to reach maximum compatibility of their weapons just from market oportunity reasons - I mean in the end they want to earn money.

Another thing I want to add that changes laser colour might be the environment a laser is being fired in. Because in the end the light we see when we see a laser is not the laser itself, but light emitted from molecules that have been hit by the laser beam on its way to the target - so different atmospheres would result in different laser colours - no atmosphere would result in no colour though, too.

But its questionable if the Devs would introduce something like this - different laser colours or even overall gun effects would be cool as a shop item though - as different models for said weapons would be, but this is taking the thread somewhere else

Edited by Schrottfrosch, 08 October 2012 - 05:28 AM.

[Kyossed]

Banshee Bullet, on 08 October 2012 - 04:40 AM, said:

There are a number of ways to change the wavelength of laser light (the color). To do it without any changes to the laser you could use a specialized lens that refracts the light, thereby changing the wavelength.

I didn't realize it was possible for refraction to actually change the wavelength of light! I had assumed that refraction was only good for changing the angle at which a specific wavelength propagated, or splitting white light via dispersion. You learn something new every day!

[Damion Sparhawk]

Kyossed, on 07 October 2012 - 10:15 PM, said:

You say that like lasers and tinted lenses are in common supply around the home! Since you seem to be implying that it would in fact change the color of the beam, I'm curious: where does the extra light come from?

well, lasers are pretty easy to get ahold of these days, I can go to a pet store and buy one for my cat as for lenses, it doesn't have to be a lens, it could be a bit of colored glass or a plastic bag, just needs to be colored and not opaque, as for where the other colors come from it comes from the beam passing through a medium, you wouldn't be actually changing the color of the laser more like the laser would be punching through the medium and dragging some blue along for the ride of course I suppose it's also possible it would either block the beam complete, or have no effect except to reduce the intensity as I haven't tried it myself also of interest for those who want to know,

Spoiler

Edited by Damion Sparhawk, 08 October 2012 - 11:07 AM.

[Banshee Bullet]

great chart sparhawk

Schrottfrosch, on 08 October 2012 - 05:27 AM, said:

Another thing I want to add that changes laser colour might be the environment a laser is being fired in. Because in the end the light we see when we see a laser is not the laser itself, but light emitted from molecules that have been hit by the laser beam on its way to the target - so different atmospheres would result in different laser colours - no atmosphere would result in no colour though, too.

Good point. But with different atmospheres come other problems. Like, would firing a high intensity laser in the open air set the atmosphere on fire? Possibly.

[Damion Sparhawk]

though it isn't impossible in battletech typically the fighting occurs on inhabitable planets, only occasionally do conflicts occur over non-class M planets and I'm pretty sure people wouldn't want to live on a planet where the atmosphere was very flammable ^.^

[Banshee Bullet]

So is Class M the battletech designation for habitable planets?

[Damion Sparhawk]

nope, far as I can find battletech doesn't have a distinct classification other than 'standard' for breathable atmosphere type, real world doesn't seem to differentiate between habitable and otherwise as so far we've uncovered no other life bearing planetoids (to my knowledge, to date) class M is a star trek reference but plenty of people know it so it works just fine

[Banshee Bullet]

Oooh, ok. I knew I'd heard the class M thing somewhere before.

I do know that in modern astrophysics they're just called habitable, earth-like or sometimes 'goldilocks' planets. I gave a talk on exoplanets earlier this year

[Retu81]

Banshee Bullet, on 09 October 2012 - 04:08 AM, said:

Oooh, ok. I knew I'd heard the class M thing somewhere before.

I do know that in modern astrophysics they're just called habitable, earth-like or sometimes 'goldilocks' planets. I gave a talk on exoplanets earlier this year

I prefer the term H-congruous.

[Odanan]

Damion Sparhawk, on 06 October 2012 - 01:24 PM, said:

red light can carry more energy more efficiently but for a shorter distance, so a cutting torch will often be red, or infra red, because you're only travelling a few inches from beam to target, if that. Blue light on the other hand takes more energy to generate the same amount of heat, but will travel farther with less loss. Keep in mind however that a lot of this is still theoretical because apart from a few cutting lasers and whatnot there are few lasers actually designed to generate heat on a target to any great distance because of the amount of energy required to do so, one of the reasons why most mechs are supposed to operate on fusion reactors ^.^

One example of laser as weapon:

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Boeing_YAL-1

[BFett]

Damion Sparhawk, on 08 October 2012 - 07:35 PM, said:

nope, far as I can find battletech doesn't have a distinct classification other than 'standard' for breathable atmosphere type, real world doesn't seem to differentiate between habitable and otherwise as so far we've uncovered no other life bearing planetoids (to my knowledge, to date) class M is a star trek reference but plenty of people know it so it works just fine

Well, NASA has found at least 10 earth like planets as of last year that are within the zone for permitting life as we know it. Link for referance.

What do you guys think about plasma based weapons? Could these type of weapons be seen on the battlefield 1000 years from now? And if so what colors can we expect to see?

[Damion Sparhawk]

Odanan, on 09 October 2012 - 08:54 AM, said:

One example of laser as weapon:

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Boeing_YAL-1

I was actually looking for that but I couldn't find it lol, I remembered hearing about that and I wanted to see what frequency it operates at (apparently IR, which is what I thought) I didn't realize it had been cancelled but I'm not surprised, the effective use of the system would be fairly limited as is apparently the reasoning for it's cancellation.

BFett, on 09 October 2012 - 10:31 AM, said:

Well, NASA has found at least 10 earth like planets as of last year that are within the zone for permitting life as we know it. Link for referance.

What do you guys think about plasma based weapons? Could these type of weapons be seen on the battlefield 1000 years from now? And if so what colors can we expect to see?

ah but they aren't necessarily life bearing, the distinction being that we don't know what type of atmosphere those planetoids possess, or even whether they have oxygen at all, they only know that these planets exist within the parameters we know (through the existence of life on earth) could potentially support life similar to ours, the 'goldilocks' zone, that doesn't mean they, like venus (which also exists within the goldilocks zone) couldn't have an atmosphere composed of acid, or like Mars (again, in the goldilocks zone) doesn't support an atmosphere density capable of supporting life (as we know it anyway)

[Banshee Bullet]

you're way behind the times on earth-like exoplanets. As of this May there were over 750 confirmed exoplanets plus over 2,600 candidates from kepler alone. Most are giants because those are the easiest to find. We find more all the time though. Kepler's next release is in February, that'll be a hot topic.
This is a great place to start:http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/
And this is like the unofficial index of exoplanets http://exoplanet.eu/

It's gonna take time to figure out which ones are habitable, we can find them really fast but getting spectra takes longer, we've only got spectra for like 20 of them (as of May).

btw, earth-like is a term referring to mass 1-10x earth's mass. Over 10x is a super-earth, under 1x is a sub-earth.

Edited by Banshee Bullet, 11 October 2012 - 05:33 AM.

[Banekane]

they should change color of of pulse lasers to other colors bassed of damage i suggest

orange small pulse yellow medium pulse and purple large pulse that way it will show variation in the type of lasers as well as damage output

leave the normal lasers same rgb

maybe intensify rgb for the ER variants AKA darker in color

[Damion Sparhawk]

no reason to change the colors, the pulses are quite distinguishable in their visual and audible differences, I'd rather them save other colored lasers for things that're newer when those things come (presuming they don't simply moderate the current colors sufficiently to distinguish the new stuff) or for fluff cash mods XD