General Adjust Laser Falloff Damage Range to greater than 500lm.

[Dictatorhat]

Right now lasers kind of suck and there's no reason to use them ever. They have a falloff of 500m in a game where engineered ships have speeds of over 500m, you have to choose between trying to fix their range problem OR increasing damage, they have a few extremely niche uses like heat venting for beam lasers, but plasma does the phasing sequence thing better and everything else the lasers can do is overshadowed by the overcharged multicannon. Even the much-hyped thermal damage for shields can be done by putting the incendiary mod on the overcharged multicannon and just shooting people with it. Multicannons start their damage falloff at 1.8 km, and nearly anything you could do with a laser could be done with multicannons instead, because the only buff you need is slamming overcharged on it and maybe an autoloader. Yes, the multicannon requires ammunition, but you can synth that with common materials or just park a carrier near the CZ/hazres/whatever you're fighting at.to fly off and reload whenever you run out. Yes, the tutorial claims you want lasers for shields, but you can do all that with incendiary multicannons and have full damage out to 1.8km instead of .5km.

Thus my suggestion is to increase the laser falloff damage range so the weapons do full damage at, I dunno, 1.5 kilometers. If I wanted to hover really close to enemies and get more damage, I'd take frag cannons, which do a bunch more damage than lasers and can get some pretty sweet mods. Sure, the multicannons require ammo and the lasers don't, but the lasers pull more power out of the distro and it would give laser users the ability to slap on overcharged or rapid fire to get some fairly decent damage and not dully sit there pulling the trigger in a high CZ for three hours to kill a Python. It's not like these weapons have the burst potential of plasma accelerators anyway, and per skimming the wiki they do less base damage than multis, so you're not invalidating multis either. It would provide a more immersive experience by having all of the laser selling stations and laser manufacturers in the universe not be scamming people by selling inferior weapons, and it might open up some new options in a stale ship meta. Hopefully this is just a variable in the code that can be tweaked without disrupting too much else.

 

[Nepeta Uchiha]

Honestly most of the weapons need a look at balance wise but I understand why lasers have poor range. They don't use ammo and shields are extremely weak to lasers compared to multicannons which are only half as so against hull. So the trade off for balance purposes is the lasers have a sudden and quick damage drop off. Railguns to suffer all the downsides as lasers but also have ammo added to it. My only want from lasers is a slight reduction in distro draw so they aren't killing the distro in 2 seconds on an all laser build.

Like if you work around the distro issues with heatsinks use long range lasers and watch how broken OP they can get.

 

[Fake Newts]

shields are extremely weak to lasers compared to multicannons

This is irrelevant when you can mod multicannons to do thermal damage for almost no penalty. If you look at the stats for overcharged incendiary multicannons compared to, say, an efficient laser of an equivalent size the multicannon wins in all areas except ammo by a huge margin.

One thing lasers do have going for them is hitscan, which is something that needs to be handled with care as it risks feeling unfair if you get pinpoint sniped by NPCs as a beginner, or if you get held at arm's length by a player who's just playing a point and click adventure from 6km. That's not much fun. It's important that they not be too good, because while you can mitigate even fast projectile strikes to an extent by flying evasively there's not much you can do to dodge lasers from range.

I agree with the OP though, there's definitely room to increase that 500m 'knife fight' range to account for how fast ships move nowadays. The values we have were put in place when the game moved at a much more sedate pace, and when there was no way to flatten the resistances of shields. I think Frontier haven't really woken up to how engineering changed the way people fly, in their streams you often see them using the 'one-two punch' phase approach with lasers and kinetics fired separately instead of just shredding things with a boatload of MCs like normal people.

 

[here_it_comes]

Right now lasers kind of suck and there's no reason to use them ever

Thanks for saving us the time necessary to read the rest. Quite gracious!

o7

 

[Elliot Coleman]

I really like my size 4 gimballed g5 short-range beam with thermal vent that I run on my Mamba.

Tears shields apart and keeps the glass nice and frosty. So, no, lasers do not suck and I have plenty of reason to use them.

While I do somewhat agree that damage falloff for lasers could be improved (maybe to 750m), they shouldn't have the same range as projectiles.

If 500m is too close, maybe you need a faster ship.

 

[Northpin]

I prefer lasers too.
Efficient beams can be used with ok damage up to 1.3-1.5km. And they're still ok-is at 2km
Being Hitscans - they're guaranteed to hit at those distances.
A Multicannon will miss a good percentage of its projectiles at distances over 1.5km if we talk about a small profile target with some sort of agility. Which will nullify their longer falloff / range

Edit: if we talk about non-engineered stuff - then laser are even better (bursts, beams are kinda out of reach due to high pd requirements) since one cannot apply incendiary experimental to multicannons

 

[Sylow]

This is irrelevant when you can mod multicannons to do thermal damage for almost no penalty. If you look at the stats for overcharged incendiary multicannons compared to, say, an efficient laser of an equivalent size the multicannon wins in all areas except ammo by a huge margin.

If engineering is a valid answer, then my reply simply is: engineer for long range.

 

[Northpin]

If engineering is a valid answer, then my reply simply is: engineer for long range.

It's sort of debatable.
Even if you lose damage with range, you can fire them longer because much lower PD drain - so it kinda compensates.

And if we talk about gimbals - they're starting to get useless past 2km anyway due to wobble.
So long range is a valid choice only for fixed and turrets.

(I do have a Corvette sporting 2 Huge Fixed Long Range Burst Lasers, and it indeed does wonders at range, but even with burst lasers, the PD usage is really high)

 

[Ian Skippy]

Isn't that the point of the long-range mod?

 

[Fake Newts]

If engineering is a valid answer, then my reply simply is: engineer for long range.

Long range lasers have their own significant limitations, extremely low DPE, low DPS, high draw, high heat, a lack of really competitive secondary effects...

I'm not saying that they don't have a use, and LR lasers are one of the only two choices that ever work in PvP to any extent, but if we're talking about just building an efficient ship to knock out combat zones or something you're handicapping yourself by choosing lasers over multis, particularly given how much HP is now carried in hull format and how important plant kills are to overall efficiency (Inertial Impact is a terrible counterpart to incendiary).

Every now and then I fly fixed laser builds in CZs because it's fun and feels star-warsy, but the discrepancy in TTK is immediately and starkly apparent. Even supporting them with corrosive and with pinpoint accuracy you're often doubling your time per kill.

Edit: as I said in my first post, it's a very delicate balance and I don't really think LR lasers in particular should receive a buff, because being able to snipe players from 6km, or whittle down NPCs well outside their effective range is something you should accept trade-offs for, for sure. But I do believe other laser mods could do with a very small buff to narrow the gap a little.

 

[yianniv]

Isn't that the point of the long-range mod?

Please stop using logic.

 

[Fake Newts]

Isn't that the point of the long-range mod?

I think the point is with multicannons you're able to get good effective range and a significant damage boost out of one mod, without ever having distributor issues, all with the option of hijacking lasers' damage type via a secondary for essentially no (significant) penalty.

With lasers you can either fix the effective range or the damage or the draw, all of which result in a weapon that is broadly less effective for most PvE content (especially once you've grasped how to make use of inherited velocity). You also can't hijack kinetic damage in turn, because Inertial Impact is a terrible secondary.

It's a very, very delicate balance because hitscan is powerful and desirable in and of itself, but I'd agree with the OP's general point that the balance isn't quite there and synth + engineering has left lasers in a slightly awkward spot. Particularly at higher levels of PvE, combat zones etc, they really don't compare well to multis in terms of TTK unless you're doing something ambitious with TC beams.

 

[Northpin]

Multicannons have projectile speed and reload times against them.
Incendiaries also generate a lot of heat (a large incendiary mc generates more than twice the heat of an efficient large beam... both gimbaled)
They also have spool time, quite large for the large mc, not so much but still annoying for mediums

Laser being hitscans and not having any reload times kinda compensates

 

[Fake Newts]

Multicannons have projectile speed and reload times against them.
Incendiaries also generate a lot of heat (a large incendiary mc generates more than twice the heat of an efficient large beam... both gimbaled)
They also have spool time, quite large for the large mc, not so much but still annoying for mediums

Laser being hitscans and not having any reload times kinda compensates

Inherited velocity and the fact that NPCs tend to fly like stuffed hams kind of negates the projectile speed issue in PvE. Admittedly it requires flying a certain way and isn't favourable to reverse thrust. Most useful DPS measures factor in reload times + autoloader exists and you rarely need more than a couple of incendiary guns due to NPC shields being pretty weak most of the time + you can't fire lasers forever either because you'll run out of cap. I get your general point but I think what lasers offer by being ammoless is mainly QoL / frustration offset than practical threat.

The heat generated by incendiary is insignificant given that the base heat generated by multis is pretty low to begin with, and it's much much easier to keep your distributor topped off. Even if efficient lasers in some cases generate less heat on paper they will be emptying the capacitor more and generating more heat as a result of burning at a low wick.

The spool on C3 multis in particular is pretty annoying, I agree on that, but you do get used to it and can anticipate a good angle before you reach it. Again it's more a question of 'feel' rather than Kills Per Minute.

Hitscan is a big compensation, I 100% agree and this is the main concern when discussing buffs to lasers. In games in general if a weapon is hitscan you need to handle the balance with extreme care and I would much rather things stayed the same than moved towards a pure laser 'meta'. Dodging stuff is fun, but being pinpoint hammered by point'n'clickers from 6km is boring and would make the game worse.

Extending the range at which the base weapon hits diminishing returns wouldn't dramatically throw things off, while allowing for slightly more dynamic use of, say, rapid fire, without having it compete directly with frags, SRB rails and plasma in its range bracket... but yeah I do think it's delicate balance and should probably be no higher than 1000m in my opinion, with a sharper falloff outside that. It's difficult to know what would feel fair without testing it extensively first.

 

[Ian Skippy]

I think the point is with multicannons you're able to get good effective range and a significant damage boost out of one mod, without ever having distributor issues, all with the option of hijacking lasers' damage type via a secondary for essentially no (significant) penalty.

With lasers you can either fix the effective range or the damage or the draw, all of which result in a weapon that is broadly less effective for most PvE content (especially once you've grasped how to make use of inherited velocity). You also can't hijack kinetic damage in turn, because Inertial Impact is a terrible secondary.

It's a very, very delicate balance because hitscan is powerful and desirable in and of itself, but I'd agree with the OP's general point that the balance isn't quite there and synth + engineering has left lasers in a slightly awkward spot. Particularly at higher levels of PvE, combat zones etc, they really don't compare well to multis in terms of TTK unless you're doing something ambitious with TC beams.

But on the flip side you have unlimited ammo, hitscan and strip shields faster (which allows you to easily strip opponent of weapons/utilities). TTK versus one opponent is lower, but that's not all there is to combat, no?

 

[Fake Newts]

But on the flip side you have unlimited ammo, hitscan and strip shields faster (which allows you to easily strip opponent of weapons/utilities). TTK versus one opponent is lower, but that's not all there is to combat, no?

I've addressed most of the above in other replies, but the "shields faster" thing is what we were just talking about re. incendiary. Also thermal being good against shields only applies to vanilla NPC shields most of the time, which also tend to be very weak in the first place so it's less of a concern than the mountains of hull HP they've piled on since 3.0. Shoot a CZ Gunship with a full set of autoloaders and the shield will break in no time anyway, shoot said Gunship's hull with a full set of pulse and... you're gonna be there a while longer.

Longevity is a fair point for sure, but arguably this is only relevant in RES sites or somewhere you'd have infinite spawns. If you're doing combat zones it's much faster to close a zone with multis, even allowing for restocks in between victories.

If people are talking about RES hunting then for sure, there are fairly good cases for lasers that extend beyond TTK, granted.

 

[Sylow]

I think the point is with multicannons you're able to get good effective range and a significant damage boost out of one mod, without ever having distributor issues, all with the option of hijacking lasers' damage type via a secondary for essentially no (significant) penalty.

I agree on that part. Which just simply leads my back to my permanent credo: engineering needs to be nerfed. This is just one good example of many.

 

[Ian Skippy]

I've addressed most of the above in other replies, but the "shields faster" thing is what we were just talking about re. incendiary. Also thermal being good against shields only applies to vanilla NPC shields most of the time, which also tend to be very weak in the first place so it's less of a concern than the mountains of hull HP they've piled on since 3.0. Shoot a CZ Gunship with a full set of autoloaders and the shield will break in no time anyway, shoot said Gunship's hull with a full set of pulse and... you're gonna be there a while longer.

Longevity is a fair point for sure, but arguably this is only relevant in RES sites or somewhere you'd have infinite spawns. If you're doing combat zones it's much faster to close a zone with multis, even allowing for restocks in between victories.

If people are talking about RES hunting then for sure, there are fairly good cases for lasers that extend beyond TTK, granted.

Maybe with a huge ship, but you go into a CZ with a small ship and you run out of ammo fast. :/ Eagles are great fun in CZ, but with enforcers you can barely kill two hulking bulletsponges before heading back. :/

 

[Fake Newts]

I agree on that part. Which just simply leads my back to my permanent credo: engineering needs to be nerfed. This is just one good example of many.

No arguments here.

 

[Fake Newts]

Maybe with a huge ship, but you go into a CZ with a small ship and you run out of ammo fast

This is true (and sad for small ships) but in my experience and with my admittedly specific preferences I would rather go in a small ship that can do competent amounts of damage and be forced to use synth than go in a small ship that does less-good damage, takes forever to close the zones, and squeezes the cap dry all the time.

For context, as part of a BGS group I a) have interest in closing zones fast because mo' zones = mo' INF for the INF gods and b) have lots of people to wing up with if I feel like flying something 'off-meta', you can usually find a friend to bring a 'proper' ship and pick up some of the slack*. If I were doing CZs purely for the shiggles, with no ulterior motive, and had no time pressure, then yeah maybe I'd be in a pulse eagle more often? Maybe? Either that or I'd just synth enforcer ammo by the bucketload.

* Not that they don't groan loudly when I say I'm about to dress down to keelback town and drag everything out for an extra few minutes, but we have to make our own fun in this game.