^^ toast him. Seriously, if you fire these at a wingmate that has no generator fitted, there should be no idiocy protection lol.
Shield Regeneration Lasers
- Thread starter MarcusKross
- Start date
^^ toast him. Seriously, if you fire these at a wingmate that has no generator fitted, there should be no idiocy protection lol.
I agree, but then it comes back to Weps' question: what happens if the wingmate does have a shield generator but it's depleted or damaged? What are the healasers interacting with that prevents them doing hull damage? I think Weps is right; these things should always do damage to hulls regardless of whether it's through unsynchronised shields or shields that just aren't there. Not only would this make the tech a little more believable within the game world, it would add a level of complexity and situational awareness to wing combat that won't be there if the modified guns are simply Apple iLasers that "just work"* regardless of whether what you point them at actually has a shield or not.
I guess you could argue that even when the shields are down the shield generator always puts out a "subspace signature" or some such guff, big enough for the healasers to detect but not sufficient to protect against incoming fire. But it all starts to get a bit sketchy. I'd keep it simple: shields up, the healaser's energy beam interacts with the shields' energy bubble and reinforces it. Shields down -- for whatever reason -- and the hull absorbs the blast.
As an aside, and for similar reasons of believability: whatever colour these modified laser beams turn out to be (green in the concept art), I hope that they stay one colour and don't automagically switch colours depending on whether they're inflicting damage or bolstering shields. Maintaining one colour would suggest a passive interaction with wingmates' shields, based entirely upon frequency matching or whatever. Instantly (or even worse, pre-emptively) changing colours depending on what's being hit would suggest some sort of realtime IFF feedback loop operating very close to, if not at, the speed of light. That would require my disbelief to be not only suspended, but actually hanged until it was dead.
[SUP]*As an occasional Apple user, I know this isn't always the case either.[/SUP]
I would prefer the Beam color being changed according to what you have targeted, as if I have selected a wingmate and shoot into the void I shoot a green laser.
But what would happen if I have targeted my wingmate and shoot at my enemy with green lasers? [???]
In that case... no colour change indeed.
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The lasers would damage the enemy, because his shields aren't synchronised / modulated / handwavified with them. Whether they damage a target or boost its shields is dependent wholly upon whether you're winged with it. They don't have a "damage mode" and a "healing mode" per se. Any colour change would be purely for the benefit of the players, so they could see what the beam was doing. But I don't see how that would fit with what FD have told us about how these things work -- passively, based on wing mechanics, with no mode selection by the player.
What if you're healing a wingmate and another ship flies between you. Would you want to see the beam flicker from green to red to green again as it briefly makes contact with the enemy ship? How would the pseudo-physics of that work?
There's a chance that is what will happen, because it provides useful feedback to the player firing the lasers and to any other players trying to understand the interactions in the battle. And at the end of the day this is a game. But it would sit very uneasily with me from a explanatory point of view.
True. So it's as though the ship's computer has said, "I know you just briefly pinged an enemy ship instead of your wingman, so I temporarily rendered the laser in red." That sort of works, but it's like a layer of slightly more believable complexity covering up a layer of slightly less believable complexity. Of course this game is absolutely full of that already, so perhaps I'm just being picky.
I would rather see a special dedicated energy transfer device if we must have a support healing option. A 'healing laser' is a BIT too silly for my tastes.
That's the thing, I don't think these were added for immersion but rather for gameplay.
So, as I said, it all comes down to how much disbelief you're willing to suspend. Personally, if Stephen Hawkings believes he can send teeny little satellites to alpha centauri by pushing them along with laser beams, then I have no major issue with magic ship based lasers that can recharge magic ship based shields, and I can see why you can't recharge your own coz it'd be like mounting a big fan on a sailing ship to blow itself along with.
For the record though I think restricting them to wings is a stupid, short sighted idea - and not FDev's first one.
I agree. Limiting the healing lasers to wings only is a weird limit. Pirate players could use it to heal NPC pirates for example and players could help local police forces and players that are requesting backup.
Yep, or local forces who come rescue a pilot being attacked could as a first move reinforce the victim's shields, or bounty hunters could back each other up... even groups going into combat zones would fight to ensure that at least one player on their side had a couple of these weapons... they'd be to ED as a cleric is to a dungeons and dragons type game, or a medic to a military group. There's SO many lost opportunities for emergent gameplay here.
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The time taken to get a FoF scan would make it even more interesting - this and dealing damage to ships with no shields at all would be a nice catch to stop it being magic and make it more than a massive boost for people working in a wing compared to solo players.
The wing thing sucked as explorers... having to wait to all catch up before scanning anything or honking so it doesn't bug out is silly. Hopefully that will be fixed
The wing thing sucked as explorers... having to wait to all catch up before scanning anything or honking so it doesn't bug out is silly. Hopefully that will be fixed
erm I'm wondering about this now, I often fly a shield free Vulture, oh how I shall laugh when my helpful team mates zap me.
Please, lets not get our panties too twisted until we get into the beta and see how they play out. The idea some folks can't except these is slightly ludicrous to me, we fly in ships with scanners that see less that 10k around us...Lasers that only reach 3k and clearly don't travel to that at anywhere near the speed of sound, let alone light. you can't see what's behind you and your ship stops dead if the power plant is down. Cannons and such don't decelerate your ship when you fire, what limits the range I can't begin to guess at. Probably, its something to do with this being a game and not a French film with subtitles.
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If we put the gamey mechanic aside, i think it is strange to limit it to a wing.
For instance, if you want to heal sorry regenerate a shield of a friend during a war, you need to unwing then wing with him/her. Time to do that, he will be dead.
Only solution is to wing more than 4. Who said Raid group ?
For instance, if you want to heal sorry regenerate a shield of a friend during a war, you need to unwing then wing with him/her. Time to do that, he will be dead.
Only solution is to wing more than 4. Who said Raid group ?
I am glad to hear you are talking about compromises and tradeoffs rather than straight buffs like synthesis do.
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Additionally:
What is the tradeoff/downside of this mod? We know it won't decrease its damage but does it have a higher heat outout or does it drain more energy than usual for a beam laser?
Also: is the effective healing done decreased by distance just as for every other thermal weapon (starting at 500m)?
As a mostly solo fighter that's not always true!
Successfully taking out a wing is a great feeling, I can see it being a run-only situation for us solo fighters in the future though which would be sad. Maybe a in-game switch so those not playing in wings don't encounter NPCs using this just for balance's sake at least?
Winging up with NPCs would be more important in my opinion. Imagine you could hire escorts at stations AND wing up with NPCs on the fly. You could send him a wing invite, chances that he accepts would be based on your reputation. This would not only fix your problem with healing lasers being restricted to wings but it would allow further emergent gameplay as well: You spot a trader getting attacked by a pirate. You offer your help and he joins your wing. After defeating the pirate you could offer him an escort to his target station and get a share of his profits as reward. This would also improve your reputation with his faction.
We also need the ability to communicate with NPCs, making it possible to declare your intentions. Offer him your support, demand X amount of cargo or tell him to surrender / launch his escape pod so you can scoop him up and bring him to the authorities.