beam/pulse lasers

Karl

K
Some quick ideas:
* Beam and pulse lasers could possibly have effect reduced by range, or maybe coupled to shield disruption only.
* Projectile weapons could have longer range but harder to aim, but works equal on shield and hull. So you may get "aim assist" but no "homing".
* Plasma weapons similar to projectiles, but even slower and more devastating. Or drain energy (might be too weird)?
* Missiles, torpedoes, and mines of varying effects, yield, purposes, speeds, and tactical ability. Maybe the ability to program a missile to hit a specific part of a ship (if local damage and damage types are simulated). Like taking out rear turrets of a battlecruiser so you can get in closer for the kill. Torpedoes could have different payloads and configurable yield, to allow attacker to control how much destruction he desires to maximize salvaging.
* Use of tractor beams in the offense and defense.
* Cleverly designed geometry of ships so that they can present weak points that can be exploited.
* Bigger (both guns and ships) shouldn't always mean better.
* Countermeasures, but typically in limited carrying abilities and certainly not "one size fits all". Force the player to choose his protection - on a bad day he might get killed by a total noob in a low end ship because he didn't carry countermeasures against the weapons it can carry.

I could possibly go on forever airing such ideas. What I really don't want is limiting tactical abilities to only "jousting" or who's got the biggest gun/best aim skill. Or worst of all, play hide and seek in an "asteroid belt" (you probably wouldn't even get close to one if you just traveled blindly straight through it, due realistic spacing between bodies). If jousting is prevented (should happen without any computerized aid assisting you), I want the mechanics well explained and feel natural - unlike all other space "sims" out there.

Bottom line: Think hard about tactical opportunities; I want success of a fight to be determined not by aiming skill alone, but also some thought process leading up to that fight. Don't settle for cheap action paced shooter mechanics.
 

AtomicHorror

AtomicHorror
Dr Wookie said:
Given the vastness of space, it's actually pretty unlikely that a stray shot will hit anything of significance. For example the moon is about 0.25 square degrees, out of ~40,000 square degrees for the whole sky; so a random laser shot from the Earth has a 1 in 160,000 shot of hitting the moon. At the distances we're talking about, ships and even space stations take up much smaller regions of the sky than the moon from , so will probably never be hit by chance.
Click to expand...

Also, even a laser will diverge over long range, especially if it has been calibrated to focus at a given distance from a ship.

bassman said:
Why is that in any discussion of game weapon mechanics people never look at it from the point of view of the one being shot at which is quite an important consideration in a multiplayer game. Tell me that you are never going to be frustrated at being unable to dodge fire. As for "by the time the weapon blast gets near them they'd be gone" well thats where the skill comes in - to predict where someone is going to fly.
Click to expand...

A laser may fire instantly, but our reflexes don't. That latency will matter more and more as you close range with a target. They could also add a "warm up" time for beam lasers, a bit like the spin-up time on a rotary cannon.
 

Castaway

C
Darren Grey said:
A real laser would fire at the speed of light, being completely undodgeable, and not stopping till it hit something. For the attacker it means accidentally hitting space stations on the other side of the star system.
Click to expand...

Laser is electromagnetic radiation, whose intensity decreases according to the inverse square law. So, a laser beam of a given intensity might just warm up an area of a space station structure by a fraction of a degree if fired from a good distance away.

What comes to the topic itself, I'd like there to be both lasers and also weapons firing slower kind of projectiles. The instantaneous nature of laser weaponry should of course be compensated somehow.

Incidentally, lasers in Elite on the Amiga did not travel at the speed of light, they were more like projectiles. Even so, they always traveled straight where the targeting reticle was, even if the ship was moving.
 

MrRoboto

M
Dr Wookie said:
I can think of a way to rationalise visible lasers and pew pew :). The on-board tactical computer traces the line of ionised particals caused by the laser beam and "paints" the path on your screen; the amount of energy deposited gives the color coded laser beam. The pew pew is just an audible warning of hot laser death :)
Click to expand...

gooood point :)
 

Benny Mac

Benny Mac
I am (well, was) a physicist, and say you're right bassman. Laser intensity decreases over distance because it's not forming a perfectly parallel beam. Thus, it (slowly) spreads out over long distances, and eventually becomes weak enough to not cause any damage. The total energy is the same, but over a much larger area.

I know it's a long time ago, but weren't the original Elite lasers limited to closer-ish distances? Either they didn't hit exactly in the centre of the cross hairs, or they just didn't damage ships where they were single pixels. I forget the exact mechanism, but seem to remember something like this.
 

AtomicHorror

AtomicHorror
bassman said:
I'm not a physicist but that doesn't ring true.
Click to expand...

I don't know about the inverse square law, but a laser beam will spread and reduce in intensity over distance. It just happens over a much longer range than normal light. Given enough range, a laser spot a couple of inches across will widen to many feet- and as a result it'll be weaker. I always figured that was why the effective range for laser weapons in Frontier was 8-10 km.
 

MrRoboto

M
AtomicHorror said:
I don't know about the inverse square law, but a laser beam will spread and reduce in intensity over distance. It just happens over a much longer range than normal light. Given enough range, a laser spot a couple of inches across will widen to many feet- and as a result it'll be weaker. I always figured that was why the effective range for laser weapons in Frontier was 8-10 km.
Click to expand...

The inverse square law only applies to evenly distributed radiators, thus not to lasers. In a laserbeam all photons travel parallel in the same direction (construcion principle of lasers), so, without refraction in space there shouldnt be an intensity loss. However, also in space there is matter here and there, refracting the beam and decreasing intensity.
For me personally it doesnt matter in the game, just make it fun to play.
 

kaserei

kaserei
I like goooold, erm I mean "lazers".

Does anyone remember the beam weapons on the big ships in freespace? Now a few of those on stations would discourage starter system griefing.

Here's a video of the original intro, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZb3QTKHAAQ

Skip to about 1min 30 for the beam weapon. Doesn't look like a laser though, more a column of plasma.
 

muel2002

muel2002
As sombody said about what DB said. Elite wouldn't be Elite without Pulse and Beam lasers. If I wanted to experience real physics and reality, I'd go and do the washing up that has to be done.

Just a common sense balance between using the laws of physics from our day to day universe and what it adds to the common sense expectation of gameplay and experience please.

Elite is a different universe that's why it intrests me and I assume, other people too. Why would I want it to be made as similar to the universe I am confined to by stringently following it's laws of physics/reality. That's heading to the destination I started at and wanted to get away from. Why have the creators weigh themselves down with the laws of reality and physics of a universe that allows people like Piers Morgan to exist?
 
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bent

B
MrRoboto said:
The inverse square law only applies to evenly distributed radiators, thus not to lasers. In a laserbeam all photons travel parallel in the same direction (construcion principle of lasers), so, without refraction in space there shouldnt be an intensity loss. However, also in space there is matter here and there, refracting the beam and decreasing intensity.
For me personally it doesnt matter in the game, just make it fun to play.
Click to expand...
A laser beam will suffer from divergence even in the complete absence of particles to interact with, and so will increase in diameter over distance.

A weapons grade laser is likely to be tightly focused which will tend to result in greater divergence.

This article seems to have a firm grasp of the situation: http://www.rp-photonics.com/beam_divergence.html
 

jahvetti

J
Would the lasers be quite inefficient agains ships coated by highly reflective surface? Also I think, if the surface of the attacked ship is quite good a heat conductor, the effect of laser is diminished.

These kind of properties for the ship's surface could be costly upgrades, of course, balancing the lasers as weapons. Also, using a laser might need extra power supplies in the ship, taking space, making the ship heavier and changing its center of gravity which makes it harder to manoeuvre.

All in all, just taking the physics of lasers into account properly in the game, they do not seem as intimidating weapons anymore.
 

aXeL

A
Reflective surfaces could be a good alternative 'rather than'/'as well as' shields as a deterrent. Could then have much more powerful lasers without them automatically becoming "I win" weapons. Brings more variety to the battle experience - Good one.

Then there could be masers or other thermal inductance weapons to frag ships with high metallic content in their hulls and thus the arms race continues...
 
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