13 replies to this topic

[Gigaton]

It occured to me that now that regular lasers have longer beam duration there is an excellent opportunity to finally model the pulse lasers correctly. As most of you probably know, pulse lasers do bit more damage and are easier to aim with in TT, and they pay for that with extra weight and heat.

So specifically, why not give the pulse lasers shorter beam time than regular laser? Let's say that upon firing the weapon flashes three instant beams (each of which does 1/3 of the final damage) very rapidly and then goes off to reload. All of this would happen faster than the process of firing regular laser. This would make focused damage in specific location or hitting a fast moving target with entirety of the beam easier for the price of extra weight.

[Siilk]

As far as I know, that's how pulse lasers would work in MWO. BTW, that's how they work in MWLL.

[Garth Erlam]

I like the idea that pulse-lasers are simply 'faster' lasers (that are heavier and generate more heat.)

David has something great planned, but sadly I can't talk about it yet

[Felicitatem Parco]

Xenon strobe lasers?

[Felix Dante]

As I understand the basic concept of real technology...

A standard laser would have the equivalent of a single capacitor discharging, and a pulse laser would have multiple smaller capacitors discharging in short duration. The main advantage of pulse lasers then is that smaller capacitors recharge faster than larger capacitors, offering a faster rate of fire in exchange for weight as well as more waste heat in the end.

This basically meets the definition of what you describe and makes sense as far a fictional futuristic world makes sense.

Good luck, Developers...Mega-geeks await your work with baited breath,

[Agent CraZy DiP]

When I read the title, I thought it was going to be about the apparatus itself. I'm curious if it will be exactly the same or if there will be a slight difference in the weapon looks.

[Gigaton]

Siilk, on 29 March 2012 - 06:39 AM, said:

BTW, that's how they work in MWLL.

I haven't played LL, but looking at some youtube vids it seems it actually takes longer to discharge the pulses than it takes to discharge a regular laser beam. I was thinking it should be opposite. Eg. if regular laser beam lasts for 0.5 seconds, then the pulse laser should discharge all the pulses in the burst in, say, 0.25 secs.

But looks like the devs have a concept for the pulse lasers already.

Felix Dante, on 29 March 2012 - 08:39 AM, said:

A standard laser would have the equivalent of a single capacitor discharging, and a pulse laser would have multiple smaller capacitors discharging in short duration. The main advantage of pulse lasers then is that smaller capacitors recharge faster than larger capacitors, offering a faster rate of fire in exchange for weight as well as more waste heat in the end.

That's basically how they worked in MW:4 right? Well, other than that instead of beams they were slow moving bolts...

Anyway, I'd personally prefer a modelling of the weapon that is based on the advantage of the things in TT. Using the realistic way would result the opposite, in that normal lasers would be better for accuracy and localized damage. Short reload times also bring unneccessary burden to player's ability to manage multiple weapon systems effectively, and I think we should discourage boating by decreasing that burden.

Agent CraZy DiP, on 29 March 2012 - 09:27 AM, said:

When I read the title, I thought it was going to be about the apparatus itself. I'm curious if it will be exactly the same or if there will be a slight difference in the weapon looks.

They could have smaller lens than regular lasers. And if mounted externally (like Awesome's head laser) the apparatus should be slightly larger.

Edited by Gigaton, 29 March 2012 - 10:09 AM.

[Mindlink]

Personally, I've never liked the "burst-fire" method that MW4 used. It was easy to boat with, and didn't give you a lot of control.

Instead, what I think would make more sense would be to have pulse lasers have a very fast cycle time, and continuously fire when the trigger is held down, limited only by heat buildup. It would be very similar to the normal lasers PGI have already implemented, requiring you to hold the reticule on your target to apply damage. Pulse lasers "pulse" to interrupt the beam and clear up the cloud of vaporized armor that would normally deflect some of a normal laser's energy. That's how they do more damage, and the extra capacitors and equipment needed to make a laser "pulse" would account for their heavier modules.

tl;dr: Make pulse lasers like huge versions of this:

[Helmer]

Garth Erlam, on 29 March 2012 - 08:30 AM, said:

David has something great planned, but sadly I can't talk about it yet

You're still talking about Pulse lasers ,right?



Cheers.

[Yoji]

The only thing that I'm worried about with pulse lasers is that they broke gameplay in MW4 in my opinion. When they were released, ER Large Lasers only out distanced them by 100m and barely did more damage as opposed to the Large Pulse Laser, which would just constantly rock your mech so you didn't stand a chance unless you were jump sniping or flanking. I haven't done too much research on MWO yet since I just found out about it and the first thing I looked up is the content regarding the Pulse Lasers. This will determine whether or now I will be hopping back into my mech.

So can anyone point me in the right direction with how the Pulse Lasers will work out for MWO?

I would think that the Pulse Laser would be a smaller caliber of laser but does comparable damage to the ER Lasers due to it's faster reload cycle. Being of a smaller output, I think the amount of resistance and shaking to the mech they are hitting should be less than that of an ER Laser, which would be more of a high powered laser with a longer reload time. A larger range difference would also make sense to me. Just a couple of ideas and gripes about the Pulse Laser weapons.

[Strum Wealh]

From Dev Q&A 05:

Quote

Now, how will you depict Standard Lasers/Pulse Lasers in MWO? –GB_Krubarax

[DAVID] [color=#CCCCCC]A standard laser fires a continuous beam that applies damage over time while it remains on. A pulse laser fires a continuous beam that blinks on and off. (Not the blaster bolt style of light ‘bullets’ that fly at the target.) Damage is applied in short bursts each time the laser blinks on.[/color]

-----

Will the ranges of the BattleMechs' weapons - and the relationships between them - be more similar to those from the BattleTech tabletop game (including, perhaps, some implementation of any of the minimum, short, medium, long, and extreme range brackets), or those from the previous MechWarrior computer games? –Strum Wealh

[DAVID] [color=#CCCCCC]With minimum ranges, it depends on how justified we can be in putting them into the game without them being silly. For PPCs, there’s mentions in the lore about they don’t reach a full charge at close ranges so as not to damage the attacker’s own electronic systems. LRMs, being meant for long range, do not necessarily arm before they clear a certain distance. But it’s harder to justify why you can’t accurately fire an Autocannon/2 or Autocannon/5 up close, other than it was a balance to their long range in the tabletop game, so they won’t be affected by any sort of minimum range. The tabletop long ranges, on the other hand, we’re interpreting as the maximum effective range. Lasers, AC slugs, and whatnot will travel past this range, but will begin to do less and less damage, and the effects of gravity on any sort of physical projectile will make it harder to hit your target. Missiles reaching the limits of their range will automatically detonate.[/color]

Based on the above:

• Beam Lasers will (probably) be damage-over-time weapons.
  
• Pulse lasers will (probably) fire several beams/pulses in quick succession, with damage being applied separately for each beam/pulse.
  
• Lasers will (probably) not have a minimum range.
  
• Lasers will (probably) be able to deal damage (albeit, less than they would normally apply to a target) beyond their maximum effective range (the "long range" value from the BattleTech table-top game).
  
• The above is subject to change, as the game is still in development.

Also, why isn't Q&A 05 linked in the "new players start here" sticky thread?

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Something tells me that Pulse lasers, well you know Pulse. Read through the novels tons of them describe pulse laser shots as darts, Mechwarrior 3's inclusion of pulse lasers was more accurate, just not the graphical side MW4's graphical image for pulse lasers was closer but the dart like aspect was lost in the fact it shot several in one trigger pull that just made it look like a constant laser..

Pulse lasers can fire short or long bursts, for those that read the Blood of Kerensky Trillogy you may remember Natasha giving this explanation to Phelan, however im not sure if this is totally canon as it never really seemed to get used beyond this point.

[MechRaccoon]

Mindlink, on 29 March 2012 - 05:03 PM, said:

Personally, I've never liked the "burst-fire" method that MW4 used. It was easy to boat with, and didn't give you a lot of control. Instead, what I think would make more sense would be to have pulse lasers have a very fast cycle time, and continuously fire when the trigger is held down, limited only by heat buildup. It would be very similar to the normal lasers PGI have already implemented, requiring you to hold the reticule on your target to apply damage. Pulse lasers "pulse" to interrupt the beam and clear up the cloud of vaporized armor that would normally deflect some of a normal laser's energy. That's how they do more damage, and the extra capacitors and equipment needed to make a laser "pulse" would account for their heavier modules. tl;dr: Make pulse lasers like huge versions of this:

I agree. MW3's pulse lasers probably were the best in the series, and you just kind of described them. Also, nice explanation of pulse lasers.

[Rocket2Uranus]

Garth Erlam, on 29 March 2012 - 08:30 AM, said:

I like the idea that pulse-lasers are simply 'faster' lasers (that are heavier and generate more heat.)

David has something great planned, but sadly I can't talk about it yet

Laser days of OP'ness are uppon us!