Yaffle
Volunteer Moderator
I'll move this one for you
Lets talk about the weapons in Elite Dangerous, real talk Frontier.
- Thread starter courperationX
- Start date
I'll move this one for you
lol No worries man.
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Thanks!
It's a game, so real physics mechanics had to to go for the fun i guess. Take multicannons, cannons or frag cannons for example, no one would ever install such a projectile weapon on a space ship. The recoil would transfer the same impulse to the ship equal to that energy accelerating the bullet. The ship would start to spin uncontrollable after firing a weapon. But for the gameplay this weapons are really working great in the game.
I recall (from the novella in the original Elite) that missiles were designed to self destruct if the did not hit anything before funning out of fuel, as before this was designed in a missile just kept going after it had run out of fuel, and then just kept going under momentum until it did eventually hit something (I cannot recall if it was a station or a major ship).
Have read that, thought it leveled portion of a city or something - vague memory from long ago...
Ah, yes, that seems to ring a bell. I would have thought it should have burned up in atmosphere, but imagine the carnage if it had been a city on an airless world. A major explosion against the dome would have caused havoc.
They have Elite novels? Any chance you could list names of good ones for me? I wouldn't mind looking in to some audiobooks for those long courier missions.
Alright ... read the whole thing:
Sounds like railguns. Which by the way are kinetic too ... I thought you are obsessing over this stuff? They do exactly that if you can aim.
Actually, it does. Given you have the right ship and some multi cannons to rip the cargo hatch open (you really don't want to use rails piercing the target for that - they might damage vital systems - projectiles eating away at the outside of a targeted module are way better). I've done a number of these missions without hatch breakers recently, but frustratingly the dozen rescued cryo pods weren't accepted by the mission. Don't bother with that till the next (minor) update.
I've posted a suggestion for manoeuvre limpets last year that would be able to do just that (as well as escort loitering ships/wreck pieces in stations or boosting a stranded ship up to FSD speed). Not purely weapons really. More utility.
From all you've suggested it just sounds like you are terrible at using the ones already at your disposal.
Missiles aren't guns? They aren't even projectiles as they are self propelled. I'm a little confused you lumped them into one category earlier. Other than that missiles are slated to take out external/unprotected modules more easily with their area of effect on unshielded ships with the next major update (weapon and utility targeting will hopefully become a thing - that turret is giving you a hard time? prioritize taking it out with missles - you won't be able to do that with anything else mostly because these modules are incredibly small targets).
I thought this was about weapons ... really you could've condensed this text wall quite a lot and got more people to read it.
Yeah, maybe you should've slept over it and rewritten before posting ...
Thanks.
The novella in questions was a little book with a few short stories in it, and it came out with the original Elite, as part of the contents.
Here is what I think about weapon physics :
Then practicality and gameplay :
- Lasers have divergence, that is, after some distance they lose power and will become harmless. But that should be way more than 3km IMO. IRL they are invisible, as are particle beams.
- There is no drag in space for projectiles, these would go on forever. Recoil is a thing, but for a ship of 10's to 100's of tons flying at 100's of meters per seconds, it'll be peanuts.
- Missiles, since there is no drag nor gravity to work against their thrust, would accelerate quickly to very high speed. Even with no explosive warheads, they should have very high destructive potential. Think sprint missiles, reaching mach 10 in 5 seconds (100g of acceleration).
- Plasma without active containement dissipates really quickly. Meaning that PA balls, excluding magical tech, would likely be harmless.
Then practicality and gameplay :
- In elite cannon shells have a speed of like 300 m/s, which is very, very slow. Anti tank actual APDSFS amo can reach 2000 m/s, which in ship to ship combat would make a lot more sense (as in helping hit stuff at more than 300 meters). IMO cannon shell speed should be way higher.
- I really think that if the game was using the weapon range better (as in having some weapon good for long range (~5+ km), some at medium range and some for small range) would make combat and ships loadouts more interesting. (as in having a close quarter FDL with a long range support anaconda for e.g.).
- binary A beats B should be replaced by more nuanced interactions (as in chaff messes turrets, but sensor rating reduces that, small turrets rotate fast and are acurate vs small and nimble target, while large turrets are slower but accurate at long range). More nuance and more variety.
- Missiles, and especially multiple missiles should be panic inducing in medium ships, same with torps in large ships.
Many modern missiles are designed to do just that at exhaustion of propellant or loss of primary lock. (whether either or both of these are incorporated in a particular missile depends on what role that missile is intended to fulfil, of course.)
Regarding the OPs points, While I like the concept of the changes proposed, and some of the effects on gameplay would - at least in my opinion - be beneficial, there would be a lot of adverse consequences too and significant portions of the rest of the combat mechanics would also need rework, often to the detriment of the "feel" of ED combat.
I'd love to be able to snipe with a hitscan weapon over extended distances, but how would that work with the scanner mechanics? Even with upgraded sensors at max range you can often pick up a target visually before you can lock them up, and that means you will still have to get closer to resolve their legal/power status and determine if they are a legitimate target. What would happen with railguns? Currently they are hitscan because over the current effective ranges even though their projectiles are not light-speed the difference is insignificant for the purposes of calculating their travel time. If you get out to extended ranges would that then fall into the "forbidden zone" that has as its lower bound the maximum projectile speed the game could track in real time and its upper bound the lowest speed at which the difference between "actual" speed and c becomes insignificant and they can be modeled as hitscan?
With projectiles of any speed not stopping, how far out in the instance should they be modeled? If they were effectively given zero-drag infinite range could you end up with an assault bounty for a cop or clean ship flying through that stream of multicannon, cannon or plasma rounds you missed a pirate with two minutes ago? If it was realistic, you WOULD have hit them, after all...
Ultimately I can't see the OPs suggestions for what I'll characterize generically as "ED guns" as anything less than spelling the total death of the "dogfights and snap shots" feel that FD have often said they were trying to create.
That leaves missiles, torpedoes and mines. Yes they need some work. I can be fully on board with them doing minimal shield damage - if any - as now, but their effectiveness on hull armor is woefully inadequate. They are getting a buff in an upcoming update so I'm ok with waiting to see the results of that before I express an opinion in this regard.
I guess it only makes sense to tackle your responses in order. And I can't sleep it over, I have a sleep schedule to fix. It's not as if these aren't thought out I'm just making a lot of typos.
Whenever I used the railgun, it always seemed to be more effective for taking down shields. This forum post is the first time I've heard of them hitting subsystems like that.
I have tried shooting the cargo hatch, with everything I had at the time (lasers, multi-cannon, missiles). I even managed to get right up next to it a couple times and hit the hatch at point blank. I did damage to the component, but not enough to break it before the ship itself was destroyed. It was extremely inefficient.
I'm glad someone liked the thruster idea. I hope they take the suggestions at some point, a lot of potential there.
I don't see what would suggest I'm just terrible at using my weapons. If I couldn't hold my own in the slightest, I wouldn't exactly get very far in this game. In fact, I find I like combat quite a bit other than the expressed complaints. The first bit of money I ever made in the game was by taking a bounty. I've effectively taken on those waves of attackers at distress calls by myself. If this is about that Anaconda story, it's literally the only case which is why it confuses me so much. From Sidewinders to Clippers, no matter the combat rank, I can take it on just fine. The only other ship that tends to afford me quite the challenge on it's own (albeit a far more fair one, the outcome seeming more dependent on my conduct than how many bullets I can fire at it before it gets me) is the Federal Dropship. I can always expect a good fight out of one of those things. If I preform as I should I usually manage to slip out alive, if I make a dumb decision I die, quickly. I honestly kinda look forward to fighting them now. All I've done here is express displeasure with weapon inconsistency and lack of variety, I don't see how this means I'm terrible with every weapon currently in the game.
I never once said missiles were guns, I always used the broad statement "weapons" for a reason. As for why I lumped them like that: Like I said in the first place, I'm not going by the in game classification for this, just a general association. That being very physical kinetic based weapons vs more energy based weapons. That and their particular sense of style. I never once claimed this comparison was true to the game or scientific. No one's turrent is giving me a hard time, in fact it's usually mine giving them a run for their money. I think I've only encountered one or two NPC's that actually used a missile defense turrent. My complaint had absolutely nothing to do with the missiles making contact, it was the lack of effectiveness once they did.
I feel the need to actually explain my reasoning rather than just skim over why I hold my position, leaving everyone confused, and not giving any food for thought. If someone's attention span doesn't last that long, they probably won't get a lot out of the conversation anyway. After all yours did, and unlike others with a more negative response, you actually had the decency to properly respond and list your reasoning. Thank you for that, it's refreshing.
You may wanna look back just a bit at the other replies, we actually covered a couple things you mentioned. I'll respond other than that.
This probably isn't actually the case at all but I think I found a good excuse for the bullets in Elite: What if... THEY'RE TINY MISSILES? Okay dumb and disproved by your later point about the speed but I had to. You've read in to this, even more than I have. I'm actually kind of impressed, I'm not used to talking to people as nerdy as I am. It would seem that in a general sense we agree. The laser range is garbage, and a bit for variety and circumstantial conditions would do a lot of good.
First:
Second:
Okay OP, so lasers and other weapons bother you because they might feel unrealistic? Ha! I know how you feel but think again. I don't want to doubt that you may be way more experienced than me in terms of weaponary but let me convince you that the weapons are fine as they are at the moment ... atleast for what they are.
Your experience and understanding of wepaons is based on tests and design on earth, thus being in an atmosphere based environment. Elite: Dangerous, however, as you have noticed plays in the void/vacuum/space. Physics act differently.
Missiles for instance deal an incredible low damage for a reason. Apart from them being previously OP, missiles work with pressure. In space, missiles are less effective since the pressure of what exaactly just spreads out without resistence? The shock wave will just blow certain thigns away like a soft summer breeze on a warm summer evening but not as the expected 105mm artillery on mother earth blows away a tank. Missiles work with explosives and explosives work with pressure. In space is no pressure and any shock wave will not experience any resistence and therefore just spread out and lose energy, ALOT of energy -> decreased effect of missiles in general.
So missiles just don't work in space as they do in some atmosphere. Simple as that.
Lasers in Elite: Dangerous work in comparission to the missiles just as on earth. Photons represent energy in this case and a concentrated fire of light will result in alot of heat. So you have basically a sniper rifle microwave pointing at your opponent. Upon hitting a surface (in most cases shields and hulls), light will 'split up' and release thermic energy (the damage) and light again itself as a part will just be reflected and keep on travelling.
However, the reason why lasers don't have an infinite range is that the laser is not 100% accurate. You could claim that lasers in Elite are worse than today's lasers and I kind of agree becaue AFAIK thge US military is testing anti-air lasers which have a range of up to 20km or even more.
Anyways, since we can see the laser .. it means that the lasers loses energy as the light is not going straight to our target, it spreads out for whatever reason. But as we are in the year 3301, I bet we need a little more pwoer than the compareable US anti-air lasers provide today. Speaking of megajouls which is ALOT of energy, lasers tend to overload and become more and more inaccurate. The conversion of electric energy into beam energy into thermic energy is inefficient. We have two steaps of conversion, therefore losing alot of the base energy and I bet we don't even keep like 10% of the original energy.
Consider the fuel used in Elite: Danger ... hydrogen ... tonnes of it is required to just run your ship and the shield generator. Now do the math and try to calculate how much energy you need to just convert hydrogen to thermic energy at your opponent's ship. There are ALOT of steps and each one will reduce the original energy and release it somewhere you don't need it.
Long story short: The energy needed in Elite: Dangerous is massive, which is why we scoop fuel from a frickin' star. You could compare a pulse laser in Elite: Dangerous wit ha lighting strike of a thunder storm. And lightings don't really have a longer effective distance than 3-6 kilometers on average. Pretty amazing thinking of the thought that our ships can sustain lighting strikes? And in the end we are 'just' 1300 years ahead of our time and considering that electricity as we use and know it today only exists for a couple of hudnred years, creating a pulse laser aka a "lightign strike gun" is a giant step in technology. Now think about beam alsers and plasma accelerators.
Also, just look at today's lasers. They also lose pwoer at longer distances, simply because the light spreads at some point due to inaccuracy of the laser or the light hittign something. There is simply never a perfection or 100%. Even the tiniest error can lead to a failure.
Kinetics are indeed a little boring. Besides kinetics should have indeed an infinite range in space, they actually just disappear after 3 kilometers and today's artillery can shoot over several hundrets of kilometers. Same goes for missiles that can travel around the world with supersonic speed and in Eltie I feel like we have some old steam pipes with firecracker gunpoweder filled and some wooden thruster to move it ...
Their speed is alright I guess. 3000 km in less than 3 seconds equals 1000m/s or 1km/s which is pretty okay but the variants in which they are offered are pretty ... "meh".
Back the the A-10 Thudnerbolt which uses a GAU-8 board cannon which fires alot of "BRRRRRRRT" per second and comparing it to the multicannon in Elite .... I'd rather use an antique GAU-8 gun that this multicannon thing.
The rate of fire is bad, pretty bad. My softair gun could do better. I don't want to start with cannons.
There is definately some work required for kinetics but as sandy has already announced, we will get some new weapons in 2.1 "Engineers" for example C3 and C4 multicannons and some "ZAP" "BOOM" and another weapon. I am actually excited.
That all said, I hope this answers some of your questions which bother you in Elite. Apart from kinetics, weapons are working fine for me but again, I am no weapon expert or whatnot but I dare to claim that I learned a little from someone who got a diploma in physics/science.
PS: sorry for typos. Too tired
Second:
Okay OP, so lasers and other weapons bother you because they might feel unrealistic? Ha! I know how you feel but think again. I don't want to doubt that you may be way more experienced than me in terms of weaponary but let me convince you that the weapons are fine as they are at the moment ... atleast for what they are.
Your experience and understanding of wepaons is based on tests and design on earth, thus being in an atmosphere based environment. Elite: Dangerous, however, as you have noticed plays in the void/vacuum/space. Physics act differently.
Missiles for instance deal an incredible low damage for a reason. Apart from them being previously OP, missiles work with pressure. In space, missiles are less effective since the pressure of what exaactly just spreads out without resistence? The shock wave will just blow certain thigns away like a soft summer breeze on a warm summer evening but not as the expected 105mm artillery on mother earth blows away a tank. Missiles work with explosives and explosives work with pressure. In space is no pressure and any shock wave will not experience any resistence and therefore just spread out and lose energy, ALOT of energy -> decreased effect of missiles in general.
So missiles just don't work in space as they do in some atmosphere. Simple as that.
Lasers in Elite: Dangerous work in comparission to the missiles just as on earth. Photons represent energy in this case and a concentrated fire of light will result in alot of heat. So you have basically a sniper rifle microwave pointing at your opponent. Upon hitting a surface (in most cases shields and hulls), light will 'split up' and release thermic energy (the damage) and light again itself as a part will just be reflected and keep on travelling.
However, the reason why lasers don't have an infinite range is that the laser is not 100% accurate. You could claim that lasers in Elite are worse than today's lasers and I kind of agree becaue AFAIK thge US military is testing anti-air lasers which have a range of up to 20km or even more.
Anyways, since we can see the laser .. it means that the lasers loses energy as the light is not going straight to our target, it spreads out for whatever reason. But as we are in the year 3301, I bet we need a little more pwoer than the compareable US anti-air lasers provide today. Speaking of megajouls which is ALOT of energy, lasers tend to overload and become more and more inaccurate. The conversion of electric energy into beam energy into thermic energy is inefficient. We have two steaps of conversion, therefore losing alot of the base energy and I bet we don't even keep like 10% of the original energy.
Consider the fuel used in Elite: Danger ... hydrogen ... tonnes of it is required to just run your ship and the shield generator. Now do the math and try to calculate how much energy you need to just convert hydrogen to thermic energy at your opponent's ship. There are ALOT of steps and each one will reduce the original energy and release it somewhere you don't need it.
Long story short: The energy needed in Elite: Dangerous is massive, which is why we scoop fuel from a frickin' star. You could compare a pulse laser in Elite: Dangerous wit ha lighting strike of a thunder storm. And lightings don't really have a longer effective distance than 3-6 kilometers on average. Pretty amazing thinking of the thought that our ships can sustain lighting strikes? And in the end we are 'just' 1300 years ahead of our time and considering that electricity as we use and know it today only exists for a couple of hudnred years, creating a pulse laser aka a "lightign strike gun" is a giant step in technology. Now think about beam alsers and plasma accelerators.
Also, just look at today's lasers. They also lose pwoer at longer distances, simply because the light spreads at some point due to inaccuracy of the laser or the light hittign something. There is simply never a perfection or 100%. Even the tiniest error can lead to a failure.
Kinetics are indeed a little boring. Besides kinetics should have indeed an infinite range in space, they actually just disappear after 3 kilometers and today's artillery can shoot over several hundrets of kilometers. Same goes for missiles that can travel around the world with supersonic speed and in Eltie I feel like we have some old steam pipes with firecracker gunpoweder filled and some wooden thruster to move it ...
Their speed is alright I guess. 3000 km in less than 3 seconds equals 1000m/s or 1km/s which is pretty okay but the variants in which they are offered are pretty ... "meh".
Back the the A-10 Thudnerbolt which uses a GAU-8 board cannon which fires alot of "BRRRRRRRT" per second and comparing it to the multicannon in Elite .... I'd rather use an antique GAU-8 gun that this multicannon thing.
The rate of fire is bad, pretty bad. My softair gun could do better. I don't want to start with cannons.
There is definately some work required for kinetics but as sandy has already announced, we will get some new weapons in 2.1 "Engineers" for example C3 and C4 multicannons and some "ZAP" "BOOM" and another weapon. I am actually excited.
That all said, I hope this answers some of your questions which bother you in Elite. Apart from kinetics, weapons are working fine for me but again, I am no weapon expert or whatnot but I dare to claim that I learned a little from someone who got a diploma in physics/science.
PS: sorry for typos. Too tired
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YHGTBKM!
Everyone has their own choices even in PvE. Personally I've never flown a ship of ANY class that if I could make the power requirements even remotely work that I've EVER regretted putting an all-fixed-beam loadout on. IF you can call your shots you melt shields in a tenth of the time that you do with pulses and you are also throwing enough sizzle to melt the hull almost as fast as you can chew through it with multicannons. The same choice isn't so bad for occasional PvP either, at least with the way I fly. You're melting 'em down almost as fast as if you were running all rails and without the fire delay, which I'm not too good with. I'd probably pick a different build if I were a dedicated 100% PvP player but I"m not..
It's a build that takes a certain play-style and a LOT of fire discipline to use correctly, but if you can it shreds NPCs and can give even another Cmdr an unpleasant surprise or two.
There are no "rules" for loadout.
All weapons have limited hull penetration to reach the module targets inside a ship. Rails have infinite penetration. They will hit anything in their path. But yeah, they are good against shields as well, being both kinetic and thermal.
You don't need to take it down to 0%. You only want to cause a malfunction to spill some cargo, so ~50% damage is more than enough. Beyond the first spill every extra damage will spill some more if there is any left. Unfortunately right now the cargo hatches seem to completely jam at 0% and won't work/malfunction at all, thus no spill. I suspect you simply did too much damage. (just a few multi cannon bursts whenever the hatch is pointed flat towards you at somewhat close range are the best in my experience - anything at a distance or an angle will cause too much collateral damage)
Not terrible at combat - just terrible at using the current weapons to their full potential/variety. Apparently just because of not knowing about their mechanical details as seen above. I'm sure that problem is fixed now
Well that paragraph going on about missiles just had the "why have big guns" thrown in there - tad confusing. Either way, the third category next to kinetic and thermal being explosives is quite important and I really hope taking out external modules will work well once they updated that (what I forgot before: next to utilities/weapons obviously also thrusters and canopy should be more quickly taken out with a missile in the future). Taking out point defences probably wouldn't work unless you have pack hounds ("drunk" missiles, should be able to get some past a point defence) - but I was thinking about turret mounted weapons. If you can already have trouble with Anacondas constantly pointing all their might at you, imagine them only having to roll to get their full array of turrets focused on your ship. Sure NPCs are a push over right now, but have a look for Na'Qan on youtube for example. That commander is utilizing turrets very well, being able to stay in blind spots and keeping pressure on without even generally pointing towards the target. AI improvements should eventually cause a lot more trouble.
Sure. Still it was a lot of rambling and sometimes not really well connected reasoning
Either way as you can see weapons already have a set variety/depth, although in some cases it just doesn't work as intended yet (missiles for example). They are getting there.