NPC's flying in to your line of fire and getting you in trouble is already a problem. I've expressed multiple times in the bugs section how big of an annoyance it is that I get in trouble for the mistakes of the civilians I'm quite obviously not actually attacking. Obviously a bullet shouldn't ACTUALLY go on forever in the game world, but the limit should be this easy to reach in a game where combat is often reaching the distance of 3 KM just as a result of proper avoidance techniques. I think the ED "feel" is generally very realistic. In fact it feels so real most of the time I go in with real life logic, which is why I'm taken back when my supposed laser gives up after 3 KM. Even after knowing for a while that this is how the game works, I still make that mistake because the game is otherwise so logical. I think more realism would only add to the ED "feel". I'm already sitting smack dab in the cockpit managing all the smallest details of my system and exploring the endless void just like I dreamed of doing ever since Star Wars Battlefront 2. As for the combat they intend: It's great, I love dogfighting, but it gets stale when it's all you do and it's relatively the same every single time. It's the law of diminishing returns. Adding more variety wouldn't take the combat away, it will still be the most basic and readily available option. But now you would have other options, new tactics to explore, unlock, and master. FD has their core dogfighting mechanic and it works, very well. And even the people who opt for different styles will likely be forced in to that basic combat at some point because someone got the drop on them or what have you. But that's no good reason to tell players that's all they're allowed to do when the possibilities could be endless. I'm not suggesting the death of the current gameplay, I like the current gameplay that's why I don't hesitate to blow my money on this game, Horizons is mine the second it launches. I'm just suggesting a sensible evolution of it.
Lets talk about the weapons in Elite Dangerous, real talk Frontier.
- Thread starter courperationX
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NPC's flying in to your line of fire and getting you in trouble is already a problem. I've expressed multiple times in the bugs section how big of an annoyance it is that I get in trouble for the mistakes of the civilians I'm quite obviously not actually attacking. Obviously a bullet shouldn't ACTUALLY go on forever in the game world, but the limit should be this easy to reach in a game where combat is often reaching the distance of 3 KM just as a result of proper avoidance techniques. I think the ED "feel" is generally very realistic. In fact it feels so real most of the time I go in with real life logic, which is why I'm taken back when my supposed laser gives up after 3 KM. Even after knowing for a while that this is how the game works, I still make that mistake because the game is otherwise so logical. I think more realism would only add to the ED "feel". I'm already sitting smack dab in the cockpit managing all the smallest details of my system and exploring the endless void just like I dreamed of doing ever since Star Wars Battlefront 2. As for the combat they intend: It's great, I love dogfighting, but it gets stale when it's all you do and it's relatively the same every single time. It's the law of diminishing returns. Adding more variety wouldn't take the combat away, it will still be the most basic and readily available option. But now you would have other options, new tactics to explore, unlock, and master. FD has their core dogfighting mechanic and it works, very well. And even the people who opt for different styles will likely be forced in to that basic combat at some point because someone got the drop on them or what have you. But that's no good reason to tell players that's all they're allowed to do when the possibilities could be endless. I'm not suggesting the death of the current gameplay, I like the current gameplay that's why I don't hesitate to blow my money on this game, Horizons is mine the second it launches. I'm just suggesting a sensible evolution of it.
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 nowWell 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.
Good to know about rail guns.
I didn't even get to 50% damage. I think I got close, once. Then it blew up.
Fair enough, that way my poor distinction there. I never claimed to have a full understanding of every weapon, just an informed enough perception to notice that there's not much else in the way of combat, more on that in a sec.
The "big guns" comment was said with a light hearted, "say hello to my little friend" nature. Probably shouldn't have mixed that with an otherwise technical post, my bad. That said... a lot of good tips here. I never thought of taking down the Anaconda's shields and targeting those lasers that are giving me trouble. As with turrents, I've always been worried about not having that firepower directly in my control to use at the right moment. Fear of the thing firing wildly using my resources I suppose. But I also never knew their cone of fire was so wide, explains the Anaconda. I may have to look in to that.
I can get caught up in the details, sorry for the rambling. Don't get me wrong, there's depth and variety in the current combat system, but only in the current core combat system, which is your run of the mill dogfight. I'm suggesting more ways to engage thanks to weapons that accommodate that.
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Amen. Four beams for the basics, one multi-cannon for variety and heat cooldown, and one top dollar missile rack for when the guy decides it's cute to chaff me.
Considering you fly an Asp I'd guess your 6 (?) gimbals strayed too much and you hit the target too generally instead of focusing on the hatch itself. It's a delicate matter, but it can work really well.
Well, don't try that just yet. Weapon modules really are incredibly hard to hit due to their comparably small size. Right now you better spend your time just taking out power plants.
You can change the turret fire modes in the system panel on the right and use fire groups to toggle them on/off (I tend to have one group without the turrets so they go off switching through that and turn them back on by firing again in another). You still have to somewhat aim with them by the way as they turn much slower than gimbals - so every rotation of your ship shifts their aim (head look and a wide canopy help a lot with keeping the turrets on target). This also makes them less affected by chaff by the way.
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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
lol Sorry for the length, a lot of details to cover. That said, you did quite the job yourself there. We (in the genera sense of "we") seem to have some differing information about missiles and lasers in space. Let's see about confirming the exact science shall we?
That said, this is all either a really good excuse for the current state of most things in the game, or a lot of great new info to take in. Likely both. I was factoring in space physics along with my real world knowledge of weapons, or at least to my understanding I was. It's not as if I forgot we were in space. I'll be hitting the rack very soon, I've pushed myself about as far as I can go. But before I do, I'll see about finding you guys a study on the subject to tear in to, see if we can't figure out the fact from the fiction. I'll be back.
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Good to note... I'll give that a shot. Thanks for the info.
I found something. It takes a minute to become relevant to our conversation, but it does get there. I'm actually kinda sad I'm too tired to take a crack at it myself atm. This is nearly as legit as it gets folks. Pull this thing apart, cross reference it's info, I can't wait to see what you guys come up with when I get back on. I want to take a gander at it myself when I'm up. This link immediately downloads a PDF of a paper written by a Major of the US Air Force, have fun: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...idiquQllDvuXgGs2uUZUZg&bvm=bv.117604692,d.eWE
Hrm.
A few brief things.
a) you might be a gun nut but you are at least a thinking man's (woman's? either or; i don't judge) gun nut so that's something
b) there are several forms of lasers, including those that use gas and plasma as the excited particle
c) there is no atmo in space
I presume the thermic weapons available are based (loosely) on gas or chemical. These are pretty common in industrial circles and are capable of considerable damage, but are designed for very short distances. They are often (but not always) visible (due to the gas or chemical creating a plasma) typically. It's highly likely that a sufficiently advanced race could make a pretty scary gun, out of a chemical or gas laser; ultimately for these, the issues are raw power requirements and keeping the beam constrained. Since we have a power supply that (loosely speaking) is a small star at it's core, power ceases to be an issue.
Range is still going to be the issue; because there's nothing to prevent particles from spreading out. Which they happily tend to do, in a vacuum. What that looks like for a gas/ chemical based laser in space I have no idea. I can't imagine the fall off is much over a few KM however; given we can bounce traditional photon emitting lasers off the moon (thanks to mirrors placed by nasa).
Plasma is pretty self explanatory; it's some kind of weapon that generates a ball of plasma and ejects it at low velocity. It's not the impact, so much as the energy transfer. But having said that, I have no idea if such a thing would even work like that it practice. A little bit of science-fiction in play, there. I do know that plasma is capable of considerable energy transfer.
As for kinetics, we have a high velocity and low velocity. High velocity is the rail type weapon; this is a fairly scary concern in space as there's very little beyond dust particles and gravity to slow them down. We already know what a micro-meteorite is capable of, so a depleted uranium slug traveling at orbital speeds (or higher) will quite happily punch nice efficient little holes. And they will continue on, only losing speed gradually, until gravity slowly tugs them to a stop (or they hit something and their kinetic energy is dissipated - like slamming into modules).
Low velocity is your MC and Canon type thing. Old fashioned kinetic, using some kind of oxidiser based chemical to propel a chunk of metal. In space this isn't going to be much different to in atmo, apart from the lethality range being considerably higher, and gravity only having minor deflecting effects. Again these are quite good at making holes, though it's arguable as to whether they should do any reasonable module damage as it's unlikely they could penetrate very far (unlike rails, which at potentially huge velocities would require a lot of ballistic material to absorb the kinetic energy transfer).
The other thing? Elite is a game. Sometimes reality has to give way. Otherwise it will become DCS in space. And whilst that would be amazing, isn't really what Elite was all about.
Hyper-realistic gas lasers and kinetics really are going to be very boring; laser energy is complex to keep in a coherent beam over any appreciable distance, and we already have methods to handle small objects travelling at orbital velocities. This is why the space station is still a thing, and not a chunk of debris. It'll not survive impact at high speed with something like hubble, but small bits of metal and what not (up to a certain mass) it's designed to withstand.
I am a layman though, so the exact specifics of differing chemical and gas lasers in a vacuum, and ballistic projectiles in a vacuum, isn't something I really hit in my day job and the full technicalites totally escape me. That sound? It's the sound of it flying over my head.
A few brief things.
a) you might be a gun nut but you are at least a thinking man's (woman's? either or; i don't judge) gun nut so that's something
b) there are several forms of lasers, including those that use gas and plasma as the excited particle
c) there is no atmo in space
I presume the thermic weapons available are based (loosely) on gas or chemical. These are pretty common in industrial circles and are capable of considerable damage, but are designed for very short distances. They are often (but not always) visible (due to the gas or chemical creating a plasma) typically. It's highly likely that a sufficiently advanced race could make a pretty scary gun, out of a chemical or gas laser; ultimately for these, the issues are raw power requirements and keeping the beam constrained. Since we have a power supply that (loosely speaking) is a small star at it's core, power ceases to be an issue.
Range is still going to be the issue; because there's nothing to prevent particles from spreading out. Which they happily tend to do, in a vacuum. What that looks like for a gas/ chemical based laser in space I have no idea. I can't imagine the fall off is much over a few KM however; given we can bounce traditional photon emitting lasers off the moon (thanks to mirrors placed by nasa).
Plasma is pretty self explanatory; it's some kind of weapon that generates a ball of plasma and ejects it at low velocity. It's not the impact, so much as the energy transfer. But having said that, I have no idea if such a thing would even work like that it practice. A little bit of science-fiction in play, there. I do know that plasma is capable of considerable energy transfer.
As for kinetics, we have a high velocity and low velocity. High velocity is the rail type weapon; this is a fairly scary concern in space as there's very little beyond dust particles and gravity to slow them down. We already know what a micro-meteorite is capable of, so a depleted uranium slug traveling at orbital speeds (or higher) will quite happily punch nice efficient little holes. And they will continue on, only losing speed gradually, until gravity slowly tugs them to a stop (or they hit something and their kinetic energy is dissipated - like slamming into modules).
Low velocity is your MC and Canon type thing. Old fashioned kinetic, using some kind of oxidiser based chemical to propel a chunk of metal. In space this isn't going to be much different to in atmo, apart from the lethality range being considerably higher, and gravity only having minor deflecting effects. Again these are quite good at making holes, though it's arguable as to whether they should do any reasonable module damage as it's unlikely they could penetrate very far (unlike rails, which at potentially huge velocities would require a lot of ballistic material to absorb the kinetic energy transfer).
The other thing? Elite is a game. Sometimes reality has to give way. Otherwise it will become DCS in space. And whilst that would be amazing, isn't really what Elite was all about.
Hyper-realistic gas lasers and kinetics really are going to be very boring; laser energy is complex to keep in a coherent beam over any appreciable distance, and we already have methods to handle small objects travelling at orbital velocities. This is why the space station is still a thing, and not a chunk of debris. It'll not survive impact at high speed with something like hubble, but small bits of metal and what not (up to a certain mass) it's designed to withstand.
I am a layman though, so the exact specifics of differing chemical and gas lasers in a vacuum, and ballistic projectiles in a vacuum, isn't something I really hit in my day job and the full technicalites totally escape me. That sound? It's the sound of it flying over my head.
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Good read courperationX - just ignore the idiots that persist on this forum. They're just wind, and pretty soon you'll have a working hot air filter like the rest of us
I think the short answer is that most weapon balancing has been a case of Braben-esque 'because I said so' rather than any actual grounding in reality or plausible sci-fi... its just fantasy. SC weaponry is in a similar state because players want to go guns-out twist and tumble dog-fight battles of attrition. The principle is the same in ED.
Lasers are workable at destructive powers at many kilometres (see present-day Airborne Laser range ~400km, in air!)
Present-day cannon munitions are capable of GPS guidance, mid-flight course correction, top-down shoot capability.
Present day missiles are also capable of far faster intercept speeds, far greater range and enormous destructive power.
ED's missiles feel like Nerf darts in comparison, the lasers are like a laser pointer. But none of the realism could make for a 'fun' dogfighting experience - modern weaponry is all about 'over too quick' or 'didn't see it coming' tactics.
PS don't ignore Ziggy Stardust - he's gold.
I think the short answer is that most weapon balancing has been a case of Braben-esque 'because I said so' rather than any actual grounding in reality or plausible sci-fi... its just fantasy. SC weaponry is in a similar state because players want to go guns-out twist and tumble dog-fight battles of attrition. The principle is the same in ED.
Lasers are workable at destructive powers at many kilometres (see present-day Airborne Laser range ~400km, in air!)
Present-day cannon munitions are capable of GPS guidance, mid-flight course correction, top-down shoot capability.
Present day missiles are also capable of far faster intercept speeds, far greater range and enormous destructive power.
ED's missiles feel like Nerf darts in comparison, the lasers are like a laser pointer. But none of the realism could make for a 'fun' dogfighting experience - modern weaponry is all about 'over too quick' or 'didn't see it coming' tactics.
PS don't ignore Ziggy Stardust - he's gold.
The light from lasers is coherent; i.e. all the light is at the same frequency and polarisation. However, it does attenuate. The light will travel forever, but will spread out. The energy delivered per m² therefore declines with distance. Yes, it shouldn't attenuate anywhere near as fast as it does, but there are valid gameplay reasons for that - it would be possible for players to snipe station entrances, for example, and cause all kinds of problems. It only makes sense from a gameplay perspective to have coherent energy weapons with massive ranges if those are the kinds of ranges one expects combat to happen at. The paradigm in E|D is dogfighting.
As for the kinetics, the reason you have to compensate by aiming ahead is not atmospheric drag; it's the low projectile speed - the specific impulse of the propellant that launches the projectile is not capable of pushing it to relativistic speeds (it's possible to outrun cannon rounds, for example.) This means that when the difference between the speeds of the ships is not large, it will take appreciable amounts of time for the projective to hit. The target is in motion. Yes, there's damage drop-off at range when there shouldn't be in vacuum, but again there are valid gameplay reasons for this - the combat model assumes that combat will take place at <3km, and there have been known issues with players sniping station entrances. There was an issue with point defense turrets, for instance, where firing a missile at a ship inside the no fire zone prompted the PDT to light up, which would cause the station to open fire on the player being trolled.
There are also networking considerations to take into account with weapons that have infinite range - instances have islands within which clients talk to each other. If the range on weapons weren't limited, the number of calculations to check for hits on both hitscan and collision-detection weapons would increase by, I think, the cube of the distance from the ship that fired. It would very quickly become an unmanageably complex calculation and increase bandwidth requirements significantly.
So yes, the weapons aren't realistic. The question becomes are they sufficiently realistic for the kinds of "interactions" players firing weapons are expected to have within the assumptions that the developers made?
I think that the reason for this is again the combat mechanic selected. Railguns and class 3 lasers can deliver significant energy. If you're dogfighting a Clipper in a RES, while his wingmate (NPC or otherwise) is sniping you from 10km away, it will change the combat experience significantly (whether this would be a positive or negative change is a matter of debate)
Missiles are being balanced in the next patch. Up to 1.2 (IIRC), they were totally OP - they were equally devastating against both shields and hulls. They were nerfed into oblivion. They are still useful provided you're not RES hunting or engaged in PvP - two class 1 missile racks on the Cobra's small hardpoints are pretty effective if you're interdicted when you're doing something else. Use beams to strip the shields and seekers (or dumbfires if you've got a target you can hit readily) and you can do significant enough damage.
I don't think you're crazy - some weapons really have no purpose in the current version of the game. I think, though, that many of the points raised are addressed by the combat model, which has always been this way since 1984. Given the issues with balance the game has had, rebalancing the weapons to change the 3km hard limit on damage to something more realistic would likely introduce a slew of new issues, and I don't see such changes happening any time soon, if at all.
Gas lasers use gas as the medium that is stimulated to release coherent photons. The radiation emitted is the same as that emitted by any other laser: coherent photons. Using lasers to ionise gas into a plasma is the core concept behind plasma accelerators; the plasma is accelerated by a magnetic field.
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