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Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2014 3:22 am
by Hardenberg
I'm an equal opportunity freelancer. I'll use whatever murders my enemies in the most efficient way. No biases here, no siree.

I do have a weak spot for the massive spinal mount beam cannon SFX (aka "the wave motion gun"), but you can blame Space Battleship Yamato for that. But if a pulse type cannon is more effective, hell, I'll use that instead.

And yet still...

Because you know I'm all about that beams,
'Bout that beams, no pulsers
I'm all 'bout that beams, 'bout that beams, no pulsers
I'm all 'bout that beams, 'bout that beams, no pulsers
I'm all 'bout that beams, 'bout that beams

Yeah it's pretty clear, my ship ain't no size two
But It can shoot it, shoot it like It's supposed to do
'Cause It's got that beam guns that all the boys chase
All the right junk in all the right places
I see the magazines feedin your railgun crap
We know that shit ain't real
Come on now, take 'em back
If you got megabeams just charge 'em up
'Cause every watt of them is perfect
power level's at the top
Yeah, my shipwright told me don't worry about the size
She says that beam guns are just the thing to light up the night
You know I won't be no rail-using, pulse-blaster swingin spaceship doll,
So, if that's what's you're into
Then go ahead and move along


-Hardenberg

Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2014 4:06 am
by Victor Tombs
:lol: Thanks, Hardenberg. :thumbup: You rarely fail to entertain and/or inform. :D

Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2014 7:27 am
by Cornflakes_91
Flatfingers wrote:Traveller has both.

I voted for both.

It is possible that the preceding two statements are not connected. :)
Image
Also:
rappin' MC Hardenberg :lol:

Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 3:08 pm
by Lightningy
(Ofc my first post is a necro( :ghost: ) but i don't want to start a thread so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )


Why not a rapid fire laser like in nuclear throne or From the depths, those look way more bad ass. TBH i think only rail guns and lasers should be projectiles, plasma pulsars will disintegrate so they make sense as close rang / flamethrower guns. https://youtu.be/ojWeI9jxtFI?t=3m2s

The only instances where a continuous beam makes sense is mega lasers or point defense. So the more machine gun cannon with low damage makes more sense balance wise IMHO.

Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 3:24 pm
by Cornflakes_91
Lightningy wrote:(Ofc my first post is a necro( :ghost: ) but i don't want to start a thread so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
thats encouraged in here :)

welcome to the forums!

and now prepare for some absolutely-not-nice cornflakes treatment :twisted:

:lol: (its not ment in bad spirit, though :P )

Lightningy wrote: Why not a rapid fire laser like in nuclear throne or From the depths, those look way more bad ass. TBH i think only rail guns and lasers should be projectiles, plasma pulsars will disintegrate so they make sense as close rang / flamethrower guns. https://youtu.be/ojWeI9jxtFI?t=3m2s

likely wouldnt need to be a specially included weapon type, have laser cannons have some pulse duration and a magazine size and something like that comes out from alone :ghost:

Lightningy wrote:The only instances where a continuous beam makes sense is mega lasers or point defense. So the more machine gun cannon with low damage makes more sense balance wise IMHO.
why?

why isnt there room for some medium short-duration beam laser?

why no small-ish, low ROF pulsed beam laser for longer-range fighter defense?




you also may find this old thread interesting ;)

:wave:

Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 3:57 pm
by Flatfingers
Cornflakes_diplomacy_score += 100;

;)

Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 4:05 pm
by Cornflakes_91
Flatfingers wrote:Cornflakes_diplomacy_score += 100;

;)
printf("%i", Cornflakes_diplomacy_score);

Code: Select all

101
yes! highscore!

:lol:

Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 6:01 pm
by Gazz
Beam lasers tend to end up either overpowered (always hit) or weaksauce (nerfed because they always hit).

These beams could therefore have a cooldown period.

Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 11:40 pm
by Lum
They should, since they generate a lot more heat than the pulsed or bursted ones... :ghost:

Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2015 7:24 am
by Lightningy
Thanks for the welcome good to know i haven't done something frowned upon. :D

Anyway about the continuous laser thing, c-lasers take up lots of energy (and i mean LOTS). they work by heating a piece of hull to melting point causing structural failure, on smaller ships this energy requirement is incredibly difficult to meet so they make the lasers rapidly pulse at a slightly higher frequency which reduces the power req while providing enough heat to still melt the hull.

This is slightly relevant: http://www.wired.com/2013/04/laser-warfare-system/

The way heat distribution works means that having the laser cannon continuously fire a high yield laser will produce a lot of wasted energy that will dissipate into space rather than being absorbed by the hull

And to directly reply to you're points i agree with them fully. I was talking about the very long duration beams you see in quake not the medium and short duration beams.

Also pulsing is not very noticeable in Lasers (it literally is a kinda fluctuation that is seen due to the beam pulsing incredibly quickly so it depends on what you are talking about when you say continuous(not that you can see lasers in the first place, but it is a game))


Tl;Dr- You can use precisely the right amount of energy to destroy a craft without heating the surrounding space

Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2015 7:49 am
by Cornflakes_91
Lightningy wrote: Anyway about the continuous laser thing, c-lasers take up lots of energy (and i mean LOTS). they work by heating a piece of hull to melting point causing structural failure, on smaller ships this energy requirement is incredibly difficult to meet so they make the lasers rapidly pulse at a slightly higher frequency which reduces the power req while providing enough heat to still melt the hull.
"lots" of power compared to what?

the fusion torch drives which press our spaceships with a couple of g's through the solar systems?

the gauss accelerator cannons we use concurrently to lasers?

the shield systems which are able to block said cannons and lasers on a dime?


also the pulsing is not reducing power requirements per-se but is simply avoiding pumping energy into the ablated armor plasma cloud above the point of impact.

against armor which doesnt ablate the second your laser hits it, pulsing is detrimental :P

Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2015 9:29 pm
by Idunno
I'd very much prefer both. Pulse for the rapid drops, and beams for the epic strobes. It's going to be one hell of a rave when I hop into the cockpit. :twisted: :ghost:

Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2015 11:29 pm
by Hema
I prefer beam weapons, I feel that they would do more damage, but I picked both, as I think both are interesting. :) :ghost:

Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 11:39 am
by Starfire
Sorry if I sound dry.
I voted pulse.

I was reading in some well written work a physicist wrote regarding this issue, in the Eclipse Phase community (a "pen and paper" RPG) about this exact issue as to hard science. I know the playability id paramount but this is an instance where hard scfi can be can be considered. I'll try to locate it ( may even be on my local drive) but the jist of it explored the science of future particle and laser weapons and beam vs pulse. My understanding that there can be issues with beams to do with plasma dispersing the laser ; where a pulse laser would not have this issue. Also, a discussion of the realities of space combat with energy weapons. Beam weapons would only be viable around fixed locations like planets, stations etc because of the time involved to meet with the target where a pulse beam would be the most viable option if any was actually viable at all.

Railguns and missiles actually ended up considered the most effective weapons likely to be effective in space with pulse weapons in 3rd. Any way I can't remember the details and I probably have some wrong !. I'll try locate it rather than memory.

Apart from that, I think pulse weapons will look the coolest and really get the feel of leading the target. I enjoy that style the most.
At the end of the day what works in the game has got to come first.

Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 11:51 am
by Cornflakes_91
Thing is, in the rimeframes a laser has to be pulsed to avoid plasma absorption, it doesnt matter to the visuals of the beam.
You dont see your screen flicker with its 60fps, you wont see the laser beam flicker with its 100000fps :P

You can have a visually continous laser and it can still be pulsed for the weapon effects.

Also, time to target is the same for a beam as for a pulse, distance divided by lightspeed ;)