161 replies to this topic

[DeadlyNerd]

blinkin, on 21 March 2013 - 06:27 PM, said:

should i create a new thread and just copy paste from the OP? is there any particular reason why you dislike old threads?

i see no reason to stop just because you have arbitrarily decided you hate old things.

on your other point: this has nothing to do with any balance that pulse lasers do or don't need currently. this is about making pulse lasers different from standard lasers in a meaningful way so that they are not simply an upgrade from their standard counterpart. make pulse lasers their own weapon instead of a mild variation on standard lasers.

Actually taking the time to write an updated thread, rather than reanimating an old and outdated one is better,yes.

As for uniqueness that you ask for, they don't need it as it would ruin the current balance. Having pulse lasers as projectiles is also impossible since the light cannot be molded into flying sticks.
Sure this ain't real world but we gotta draw a line somewhere.

[grayson marik]

They are fine as is.

[focuspark]

DeadlyNerd, on 25 March 2013 - 03:04 AM, said:

Actually taking the time to write an updated thread, rather than reanimating an old and outdated one is better,yes.

As for uniqueness that you ask for, they don't need it as it would ruin the current balance. Having pulse lasers as projectiles is also impossible since the light cannot be molded into flying sticks.
Sure this ain't real world but we gotta draw a line somewhere.

DeadlyNerd, I expect more from you. Posters like Grayson always just say "it's good enough" but you've actually been constructive in the past.

Anyways, nobody is suggesting that lasers actually behave like rapidly flung hot lead. What we're saying, if you have bothered to read, is that Pulse Lasers would be better (or at least more interesting) if they could fire like Machine Guns: as in be an on demand, constant stream weapon. Currently, they're just heavy standard lasers and should only be used if you honestly have an extra ton or two and nothing else to place there.

Pulse Lasers are not interesting, not special, slight modifications to standard lasers. This is an opportunity PGI has to add something cool to the game.

As for balance? LOL! This is the most unbalanced game in the history of MMO game design. Starting with BT was probably a mistake, but the market power was too enticing; now PGI is stuck trying to balance the unbalancable while keeping it fun. Lol, not gonna happen - at least now the way PGI has been going about it. Have you seen their design for ECM?

[Pando]

Neat idea, i voted for having them fire like MG's. I'm not saying I don't like how they are right now, it would be neat to see it implemented even just in a testing environment. How would this suggestion not cause deadly pulse boating?

[focuspark]

Pando, on 25 March 2013 - 07:35 AM, said:

Neat idea, i voted for having them fire like MG's. I'm not saying I don't like how they are right now, it would be neat to see it implemented even just in a testing environment. How would this suggestion not cause deadly pulse boating?

Heat and a lot of it.

[Karl Streiger]

Instead of buffing the pulse i would nerf the normal lasers.
Look each laser deal "ticks" of damage.
Lets say actual the large laser deals 0.4 dmg per 50ms.
and the large pulser deals 6 tics of 1.5 damage.

What i would chance is that the normal overall laser damage is decreased when hitting multiple sections.
So for each tick start at 0.05 damage and is increase every 50ms by factor 0.05dmg.
So a targets hit location is hit by a large laser for 0.5sec and a second too.
The large laser deals 2.75dmg per location - with a total of 5.5

Lets pretend that same laser hit one section for 0.25sec and another for 0.7sec...last tic is wander of.
Resulting in 0.75dmg into the first location, and 6dmg into the second on.

The pulse laser however deals with each single pulse exactly its 2dmg.

[focuspark]

Karl Streiger, on 25 March 2013 - 07:58 AM, said:

Instead of buffing the pulse i would nerf the normal lasers.
Look each laser deal "ticks" of damage.
Lets say actual the large laser deals 0.4 dmg per 50ms.
and the large pulser deals 6 tics of 1.5 damage.

What i would chance is that the normal overall laser damage is decreased when hitting multiple sections.
So for each tick start at 0.05 damage and is increase every 50ms by factor 0.05dmg.
So a targets hit location is hit by a large laser for 0.5sec and a second too.
The large laser deals 2.75dmg per location - with a total of 5.5

Lets pretend that same laser hit one section for 0.25sec and another for 0.7sec...last tic is wander of.
Resulting in 0.75dmg into the first location, and 6dmg into the second on.

The pulse laser however deals with each single pulse exactly its 2dmg.

But Karl, we're not suggesting the buffing or nerf'ing of anything. We (I) are suggesting just making Pulse Lasers different and more interesting.

[Karl Streiger]

not?
oh...
but allright my take will make lasers less common and will cause medium laser boating because they will turn into most efficient energy weapons.
Although I still think pulse weapons are allready interesting

[blinkin]

DeadlyNerd, on 25 March 2013 - 03:04 AM, said:

Actually taking the time to write an updated thread, rather than reanimating an old and outdated one is better,yes.

As for uniqueness that you ask for, they don't need it as it would ruin the current balance. Having pulse lasers as projectiles is also impossible since the light cannot be molded into flying sticks.
Sure this ain't real world but we gotta draw a line somewhere.

focuspark already explained your error so i will leave that alone as i don't have anything to add. as far as updates, there is nothing new that i would add. in my opinion the original idea is still very solid and i would make no changes.

this thread also has included a lot of lengthy debate as to why this would be a good or bad idea. any new thread is all but guaranteed to lose at least some of that, most likely all of it.

we would litterally gain nothing by creating a new thread and stand to lose quite a bit. also it is generally considered bad form to make a new thread when you have access to an old one that expresses the same ideas.

[DeadlyNerd]

focuspark, on 25 March 2013 - 07:32 AM, said:

DeadlyNerd, I expect more from you. Posters like Grayson always just say "it's good enough" but you've actually been constructive in the past.

Anyways, nobody is suggesting that lasers actually behave like rapidly flung hot lead. What we're saying, if you have bothered to read, is that Pulse Lasers would be better (or at least more interesting) if they could fire like Machine Guns: as in be an on demand, constant stream weapon. Currently, they're just heavy standard lasers and should only be used if you honestly have an extra ton or two and nothing else to place there.

Pulse Lasers are not interesting, not special, slight modifications to standard lasers. This is an opportunity PGI has to add something cool to the game.

As for balance? LOL! This is the most unbalanced game in the history of MMO game design. Starting with BT was probably a mistake, but the market power was too enticing; now PGI is stuck trying to balance the unbalancable while keeping it fun. Lol, not gonna happen - at least now the way PGI has been going about it. Have you seen their design for ECM?

I'm sorry but I find pulse lasers interesting, specially the notorious large pulse.

Thing is that regular lasers need to be changed into continuous beams of light that can be fired any time and are active as long as the player holds the fire button.
Pulse lasers will then adopt the mechanic of current normal lasers and become short concentrated beams that deal damage in 1sec a real laser would in say 5sec. Numbers shouldn't be taken seriously.

Only then would pulse gain a meaning.

There's nothing to be constructive about. I voiced my opinion very clearly and in a manner that is simple to understand.

[focuspark]

DeadlyNerd, on 25 March 2013 - 12:02 PM, said:

I'm sorry but I find pulse lasers interesting, specially the notorious large pulse.

Thing is that regular lasers need to be changed into continuous beams of light that can be fired any time and are active as long as the player holds the fire button.
Pulse lasers will then adopt the mechanic of current normal lasers and become short concentrated beams that deal damage in 1sec a real laser would in say 5sec. Numbers shouldn't be taken seriously.

Only then would pulse gain a meaning.

There's nothing to be constructive about. I voiced my opinion very clearly and in a manner that is simple to understand.

That's fine, you're entitled to you opinion about this topic and your opinion is welcome here. However, recommending that we (I) scrap this thread and start a new one isn't something we're considering at this point. It goes against the recommended usage of the forums and would throw away a lot of constructive feedback.

[Victor Morson]

Where is "None of the above?" Other than the Small Pulse, Pulse Lasers are really great.

Also if I was going to suggest anything it would be shaving a few more miliseconds off the discharge times.

[blinkin]

DeadlyNerd, on 25 March 2013 - 12:02 PM, said:

Thing is that regular lasers need to be changed into continuous beams of light that can be fired any time and are active as long as the player holds the fire button.
Pulse lasers will then adopt the mechanic of current normal lasers and become short concentrated beams that deal damage in 1sec a real laser would in say 5sec. Numbers shouldn't be taken seriously.

so you effectively want the same thing except with switched names. i think that it is listed this way in the thread mostly because this is closer to how they are represented in the lore, but i see no major problem with switching the names as long as there is something that distinguishes the two.

Edited by blinkin, 25 March 2013 - 01:22 PM.

[StalaggtIKE]

focuspark, on 17 December 2012 - 12:12 PM, said:

Why not make Pulse Lasers continuous fire weapons? As defined by Sarna


Given this definition Pulse Lasers should behave like Machine Guns do today. Press the fire button and they start firing and keep firing until you let up. Machine Guns are limited by available ammo, Pulse Lasers would be limited by heat build up. Like Machine Guns, Pulse Lasers should not have any kind of cool down.

Machine Guns fire 10 rounds per second, so should Pulse Lasers. If each pulse of a Large Pulse Laser did 0.25 damage and 0.2 heat it would be able to sustain its 2.5 DPS and 2.2 HPS just as it does now but would need to retain it's focus longer than a normal laser to reach this number; because the focus time length would make standard lasers still better (1 second hold for 9 damage vs 4 second old for 10 damage) Pulse Laser damage should be doubled.

Therefore a Large Pulse Laser would do 0.5 damage and 0.4 heat per pulse it would be capable of doing up to 5 DPS and 4 HPS sustained but would only inflict half the damage for a normal laser in 1 second of sustained fire, even damage in 2 seconds, 1.5 the damage in 3 seconds, and twice the damage in 4 seconds.

This would make, in my opinion, Pulse Lasers more viable and interesting than they are now.

Love this idea.

[DeadlyNerd]

blinkin, on 25 March 2013 - 01:21 PM, said:

so you effectively want the same thing except with switched names. i think that it is listed this way in the thread mostly because this is closer to how they are represented in the lore, but i see no major problem with switching the names as long as there is something that distinguishes the two.

It's not just switching the names. Pulse lasers would be a single powerful, you guessed it, pulse, while regular lasers would be a continuous beam.
In the least, regular laser mechanic would have to be changed.

Essentially BT mechanic would be preserved. The pulse laser would allow for a sequence of multiple beams while the regular laser would just shoot 1 continuous beam, not gaining the benefit of letting the vaporized armor dissipate.

[focuspark]

DeadlyNerd, on 25 March 2013 - 02:13 PM, said:

It's not just switching the names. Pulse lasers would be a single powerful, you guessed it, pulse, while regular lasers would be a continuous beam.
In the least, regular laser mechanic would have to be changed.

Essentially BT mechanic would be preserved. The pulse laser would allow for a sequence of multiple beams while the regular laser would just shoot 1 continuous beam, not gaining the benefit of letting the vaporized armor dissipate.

6 of one, half-dozen of the other. Either standard lasers build up a whollop on fire it off in 1 second, and pulse send a steady stream of pulses; or vica-versa. Either way there's some variety and things are more interesting.

[DeadlyNerd]

focuspark, on 25 March 2013 - 02:37 PM, said:

6 of one, half-dozen of the other. Either standard lasers build up a whollop on fire it off in 1 second, and pulse send a steady stream of pulses; or vica-versa. Either way there's some variety and things are more interesting.

True.

1 thing came up tho. If you're going to make pulses fire like MGs, as in continuously, wouldn't that make them a very effective way of dealing damage?
Everything is currently built around 1 shot 1 amount of damage. Turn something into a pure dps weapon and you've got a very efficient way of dealing constant damage. Now that's a problem when everything else isn't capable of doing that.

One COULD overhaul the mechanic of ACs and SRMs to fit the style of continuous fire, but would PGI even give a damn about it?

[focuspark]

DeadlyNerd, on 25 March 2013 - 02:58 PM, said:

True.

1 thing came up tho. If you're going to make pulses fire like MGs, as in continuously, wouldn't that make them a very effective way of dealing damage?
Everything is currently built around 1 shot 1 amount of damage. Turn something into a pure dps weapon and you've got a very efficient way of dealing constant damage. Now that's a problem when everything else isn't capable of doing that.

One COULD overhaul the mechanic of ACs and SRMs to fit the style of continuous fire, but would PGI even give a damn about it?

I've already made a few suggestions on how to balance this out so that Pulse Lasers are still competitive but not better than standard lasers (no I do not subscribe to the "B is a direct upgrade of A" philosophy). Not everything is one shot, one damage - missiles aren't. Flamers aren't. Machines guns aren't. Even lasers aren't. Lasers are 10 small bursts of damage each doing 10% of the max total. Pulse lasers currently do 8 bursts: 7 at 13% and one at 9%.

This thread is about overhauling Pulse Lasers to make them more interesting. Not to discuss theoretical "slippery slope" arguments regarding auto-cannons and short range missiles.

Edited by focuspark, 25 March 2013 - 03:35 PM.

[StalaggtIKE]

DeadlyNerd, on 25 March 2013 - 02:58 PM, said:

True.

1 thing came up tho. If you're going to make pulses fire like MGs, as in continuously, wouldn't that make them a very effective way of dealing damage?
Everything is currently built around 1 shot 1 amount of damage. Turn something into a pure dps weapon and you've got a very efficient way of dealing constant damage. Now that's a problem when everything else isn't capable of doing that.

Not true. Heat keeps the pulse lasers in check.

[BR0WN_H0RN3T]

The ironic thing with pulse lasers is that they r intended to allow u to focus fire on specific components but the animation makes targeting more difficult than normal lasers.