Beam Lasers or None-Beam Lasers

Lemm1w1nkz · Post by **Lemm1w1nkz** » 26 Dec 2006, 15:09

I like the way the non beam lasers look. But I hate the way they play. If it is 3 or 4 minutes into the game, I will have just enough time to put up lets say 4 or 5 LLTs around my basic base. Then I see little fast attack units come in and blow everything up without getting scratched. These non beam lasers render your investment useless. And besides, they are not a laser if they are not instant. They could be some exotic plasma weapon, which is far different than light. It has been discussed before in this thread. Maybe you could use that "non-beam" laser effect for a super heavy weapon like the annihilator.

1v0ry_k1ng · Post by **1v0ry_k1ng** » 26 Dec 2006, 16:56

Lemm1w1nkz wrote:I like the way the non beam lasers look. But I hate the way they play. If it is 3 or 4 minutes into the game, I will have just enough time to put up lets say 4 or 5 LLTs around my basic base. Then I see little fast attack units come in and blow everything up without getting scratched. These non beam lasers render your investment useless. And besides, they are not a laser if they are not instant. They could be some exotic plasma weapon, which is far different than light. It has been discussed before in this thread. Maybe you could use that "non-beam" laser effect for a super heavy weapon like the annihilator.

If you are building 4-5 llts in the first four minutes, thats your problem.
XTA is not forgiving to porcing. you have to use units as defence and play agressively.

AA is a little more forgiving, but still. 4-5 llts in the first four minutes? thats alot of metal that should be put into raiding and attack. if defences are infallable, whos going to bother attacking until the 30 minute mark?

@lordmatt, yeah thats XTA setup. non-beams as per OTA. its good because it means fast units can dodge and micro, and they cant target planes. but the beam lasers are like AA's trademark, it'l just be like XTA with non-beam lasers..

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 27 Dec 2006, 00:34

The damage they do is predictable, and can be modified by special armour types.

PauloMorfeo · Post by **PauloMorfeo** » 27 Dec 2006, 11:41

neddiedrow wrote:The damage they do is predictable, and can be modified by special armour types.

What do you mean? Predictable as in between 40 and 60 of damage or predictable as in it will always give 58.7 dmg?

tombom · Post by **tombom** » 27 Dec 2006, 12:33

Am I missing something? I'm pretty sure all weapon's damages are predictable because you define them all in the tdf

And for the question I voted beam lasers but it depends on the mod. If you gave LLTs non beam lasers in AA it would muck stuff up as their main advantage is their accuracy. In XTA, most stuff has non beam lasers instead of plasma as in AA, with plasma being for heavy cannons and replacing them with beam lasers would change things a bit. Beam laser accuracy is also dependent on how long it takes to aim.

1vory your XTA fanboyism is a little ridiculous. Different mods do different things, just because something is in XTA doesn't mean it's the best thing ever.

1v0ry_k1ng · Post by **1v0ry_k1ng** » 27 Dec 2006, 13:09

meh, I wasnt praising XTA in any way there... I voted beam lasers. I was just pointing out that gameplay wise they arent really suited to ground only defence as they target air and hit instantly. you can make non-beam lasers super accurate too y'know, just whack up the ACCURACY and the WEAPON VELOCITY.

tombom · Post by **tombom** » 27 Dec 2006, 13:12

1v0ry_k1ng wrote: meh, I wasnt praising XTA in any way there... I voted beam lasers. I was just pointing out that gameplay wise they arent really suited to ground only defence as they target air and hit instantly. you can make non-beam lasers super accurate too y'know, just whack up the ACCURACY and the WEAPON VELOCITY.

oh ok sorry i wasn't reading right

quantum · Post by **quantum** » 27 Dec 2006, 18:52

How about using both? Some units would use XTA-like plasma lasers (Gators?) and others, that need to hit fast objects (LLTs?), would use beam lasers. Or give Core non-beam and Arm beam, to further differentiate the factions. Before you jump on me, all this would need balancing, of course.

DemO · Post by **DemO** » 27 Dec 2006, 19:44

Interesting proposal quantum ├é┬¼_├é┬¼

PauloMorfeo · Post by **PauloMorfeo** » 28 Dec 2006, 11:53

tombom wrote:Am I missing something? I'm pretty sure all weapon's damages are predictable because you define them all in the tdf
...

haaa, if only Spring worked that well....

Deathblane · Post by **Deathblane** » 28 Dec 2006, 12:38

Maelstrom wrote:
You cant even see lasers in air, as air is transparent. You can only 'see' a laser beam if it is projected through smoke, or something else full of tiny particles.

Actually you can see a sufficiently powerful laser in air, as the air molecules get converted into a plasma and emit photons, as well as any scattering effects.

Das Bruce · Post by **Das Bruce** » 28 Dec 2006, 13:49

Deathblane wrote:
Maelstrom wrote:
You cant even see lasers in air, as air is transparent. You can only 'see' a laser beam if it is projected through smoke, or something else full of tiny particles.
Actually you can see a sufficiently powerful laser in air, as the air molecules get converted into a plasma and emit photons, as well as any scattering effects.

Also the tiny particles arn't the important bit, since air is also made of tiny particles, its their reflective/refractive properties that count.

Licho · Post by **Licho** » 29 Dec 2006, 03:13

Beam lasers all the way ftw! .. If you need projectile . .you can use plasma.. why having 1 extra redundant projectile weapon?

Besides beams make much more sense and look much better than light moving at the walking speed.

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 29 Dec 2006, 08:22

On a side note, the plasma graphic is horribly dated. I'll look into some variations...

bamb · Post by **bamb** » 29 Dec 2006, 14:43

Real life assault rifle / machine gun tracers in the dark look like spring non-beam lasers. (Pink or green they are usually, mighty cool.) The slowness of the eye stretches the point lights into streaks.
I haven't seen live strong enough lasers to scatter I think.
Shorter wavelength scatters more in air so red is ~invisible and green should show and blue a lot. A green led pointer was visible as a line in very dark. (Nice when stargazing, you can point out places in the sky to your friends.) I don't think it was a laser, I'm not sure. Reality is often much more peculiar than fake.

Licho · Post by **Licho** » 29 Dec 2006, 20:22

Well laser pointers are lasers. I have seen gas and rubydium lasers and they were visible in air.

But what's the point of red or green laser anyway? Real life combat lasers would likely be either infrared or ultraviolet or x-ray.

Pxtl · Post by **Pxtl** » 29 Dec 2006, 20:35

Heh, I was actually thinking that myself - if I was making an OTA-style mod, I'd have two fully different classes - "pulse" weapons, which are just fast, explosionless non-beam-lasers (like in EE) and "beam" weapons. "Beam" weapons would be all-purpose universal weapons that can shoot land and air targets and hit 100% of the time.... at the cost of being rather weak. Pulse weapons are just rockets without a blast radius, that look better in rapid fire mode. For hitscan-accurate ground-only weapons, use lightning.

Spring RTS Engine

Beam Lasers or None-Beam Lasers

What lasers are cooler: