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There are so many reasons for each, which ones do you prefer?

Beam-Startrek style?
Total votes: 11 (14%)
Pulse-Star Wars style?
Total votes: 21 (26%)
A mix of both.
Total votes: 49 (60%)
Total votes: 81
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Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

#31
Cornflakes_91 wrote: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 ;)
Don't forget that space isn't a perfect vacuum, nearer to planets and stars that time increases as there are more particles on average.
(There are also gravity wells to contest with, which alter time itself. :V)

Visually I prefer Beams.
Ideally lasers would be continuous beams, as most of their damage is in the photon hitting the hull, and converting to heat and free electrons. (Photovoltaic effect yo)

Most of the damage to a ship's hull comes from the heat, and you want to put as much in as fast as you can, so that the heat doesn't have time to be conducted away. (Melt holes in their hull! Or better yet aim for their heatsinks!)
(Actually you will likely cause the crew to die from heat-stroke before you do any real damage to the ship.

Most of the damage to the ship's equipment will come from the massive negative charge that will form. Shorting any non-isolated electronic devices.
(Which in itself is an awesome way of using lasers :V)
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Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

#33
Cornflakes_91 wrote: Also, time to target is the same for a beam as for a pulse, distance divided by lightspeed ;)
Yeah that didn't come out quite right. The thought that the time required to continuously expose the target to the beam for maximum damage over huge distances and a moving target was an issue. Not the time taken to arrive but the length of time the target would be exposed to the beam.
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Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

#34
Starfire wrote: Yeah that didn't come out quite right. The thought that the time required to continuously expose the target to the beam for maximum damage over huge distances and a moving target was an issue. Not the time taken to arrive but the length of time the target would be exposed to the beam.
yeah, that is definitely an issue.

But you could argue that its easier to hit with a continous beam as you dont have only a single discrete pscket of energy
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Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

#35
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Starfire wrote: Yeah that didn't come out quite right. The thought that the time required to continuously expose the target to the beam for maximum damage over huge distances and a moving target was an issue. Not the time taken to arrive but the length of time the target would be exposed to the beam.
yeah, that is definitely an issue.

But you could argue that its easier to hit with a continous beam as you dont have only a single discrete pscket of energy
Well I think it probably would come down to a "firing solution". Putting the playability of the game aside (you would definitely NOT want the game to be so hard core as it'll not be fun) a pulse could be compared to a torpedo over such distances. It'd be a big deal for a beam over such distance on a target you probably can't see.

as I said.. This type of approach would have no place in this type of game IMHO as it just wouldn't be fun !
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Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

#37
Starfire wrote: Well I think it probably would come down to a "firing solution". Putting the playability of the game aside (you would definitely NOT want the game to be so hard core as it'll not be fun) a pulse could be compared to a torpedo over such distances. It'd be a big deal for a beam over such distance on a target you probably can't see.

as I said.. This type of approach would have no place in this type of game IMHO as it just wouldn't be fun !
Lol, if you can hit with a pulse laser you certainly can hit with a beam laser.
Hitting with the beam would even be a bit easier as you have more room for error because the beam isnt only at pos x but in a range of x1-x2
Giving more opportunities to hit your target
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Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

#38
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Starfire wrote: Well I think it probably would come down to a "firing solution". Putting the playability of the game aside (you would definitely NOT want the game to be so hard core as it'll not be fun) a pulse could be compared to a torpedo over such distances. It'd be a big deal for a beam over such distance on a target you probably can't see.

as I said.. This type of approach would have no place in this type of game IMHO as it just wouldn't be fun !
Lol, if you can hit with a pulse laser you certainly can hit with a beam laser.
Hitting with the beam would even be a bit easier as you have more room for error because the beam isnt only at pos x but in a range of x1-x2
Giving more opportunities to hit your target
Well actually I disagree. It would be anything but easier over the distances we're discussing
I was discussing a Hard Core scfi world with no fun place in the game; many Light secs and/or mins away.
Ie. not flying overhead in orbit or a dogfight or battlewagon around a sttaion ala Bab 5.

Now I'm no scientist and I don't claim to be anything like understanding this all.
But if you were to explore it further let's try this :

Let's call a pulse a torpedo or perhaps even a dumbfire missile and let's call a beam a laser pointer pen (ok , It's a weird idea)

Let's say you want to hit a known target in a known location and orbit that never changes its trajectory or vector around the moon from Earth orbit about 1.3 secs away maybe less. , call it 1.5 secs for my brain. No problem at all, rail guns, beams etc take your pick as it's going to be well established and you have no need to see the result at all. It'll be where it is meant to be in 1.5 secs

Now let's make that target vessel a moving target with the ability to change direction / vector and in order to see it to adjust your weapon stream you will need 3 secs before you know what to adjust even assuming the target didn't alter its' vector. With a pulse/torpedo/dumbfire ALL your energy/payload is committed to arrive at certain time at a certain point in space. So with a firing solution you can predict a where a target will be at a given time even though you will never see it at the time of impact.

However, a beam weapon requires to deliver its "payload" over time. Ok this might be a 1/10th of a sec but a target at 1.3 secs out that requires a "continuous painting" in order to be effective moves a huge distance 1.3 LSecs out and remember it might alter its trajectory thus highly diminishing the time it's exposed to "the payload". And in order to keep it on track it'll take you 1.3 secs to know you hit it in the first place and need to adjust the beam if required. In addition this IS NOT taking into account that YOU are also moving.

Compared to a firing solution delivering the whole hit at a certain point it'd be hard, VERY HARD
Rail guns, pulse lasers and self guided type weapons are by far going to be the weapons of choice over such distances.
With these weapons over distance, you work out a firing solution you "torpedos looss !" and start the clock to get the result.

If you're flying around a space station ala Bab5 , absolutely, beams hell yeah no worries . Would work well but I wasn't talking about "Earthly" distances.
Over LSecs it all gets very difficult for beams, and then with even greater distances even a known position would be an issue with a continuous beam. Hit a target with a continuous beam orbiting 8 light mins away (earth's dist to sun) with you both moving around; good luck.
I'll take my 18 pulse batteries in one salvo shot at your ship at that these distance every time over trying to keep a beam on target.

Even so for around a station, heavy weapons , a "rail gun broadside" .. dumbfires . a massive pulse etc..lovely, you can deliver as much as your weapon delivers so it
would still be desirable.
In the context of non "Earthly" distance, it'd be tough using beams.

More importantly though.. Worrying about this crap in a game would not at all be fun so if beams look cool, use them.
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Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

#39
You missed my point, theres a difference between "hitting" and "damaging".
depositing any energy in your target or depositing all energy in your target.

Hitting is that your error prone firing solution intersects with the target trajectory at all.
And it intersecting is much more likely if the time your solution is valid is longer rather than shorter.

So if you can produce a hit with a pulsed weapon you certainly can produce one with a beamed weapon.
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Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

#40
My question is whether both of these have instant travel times. Star wars blaster bolts have travel time, star trek phasers are more akin to laser pointers.
If the pulse weapons have travel time:
Spoiler:      SHOW
I'm going with both. I like beams because... instant, but I recall instant-hit weapons would deal significantly less damage than projectiles per hit simply because of how much easier they are to land shots with.

Generally speaking, I choose some form of fire and forget weapon type. These tend to be either DoTs to the extreme, or some kind of instakill Deathstar blast. When neither option seems suitable, I go with high sustain and survive-ability. The way I currently see it, instant/beam weapons will likely be better for defending against smaller enemies (like fighters) than pulses. Pulse weapons will be great for dealing with stuff that can't dodge, like stations and capital ships.
If the ones you refer to are all instantaneous,
Spoiler:      SHOW
Unless I find one to be vastly superior to the other, I'll still go with both. Everything has it's own set of uses. Slow turning turrets are a nonissue if they're mounted on a ship that can turn fast enough to compensate.
Either way, my armada of doom and despair will need to be properly equipped to demolish any and all enemies it encounters, so I fully expect a healthy combination of every conceivable weapon type to be required.
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Re: Beam or Pulse weapon preference

#42
Gazz wrote: Ah, kinda like this?
Spoiler:      SHOW
Image
Practical and safe!
Hmm, probably more like this:
Spoiler:      SHOW
Image
I'll probably be like the 40k Eldar and have extremely specialized units anyway.
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