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AlexxKnight
Federated Suns
Colonel
Joined: 11-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 787
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 Posted: 20-Nov-2002 12:55 Post subject: Range of Lasers |
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I was thinking this morning about the Range of lasers, and the fact that lasers have different Ranges, depending on the size of the laser (Small, Medium, Large). Why is this so? Would it greatly impact the game if they all had the same range? Think about it, in any environment different size lasers should "theoretically" have an infinite range (Targeting not included, as accurate targeting limits effective range).
I propose that Lasers of the same class (ER, Regular and Pulse) should have the same range increments. That is to say Small and Medium lasers should use the smae range increments as the Large Laser of the same class. The differences in laser sizes should only be the amount of heat and damage, which in my opinion are directly related. The more damge the weapon causes the more heat it generates. But a Small laser should have the same range of a large laser.
For example I have in front of me (without digging from my tied mind or flipping through the book to find them) the ranges, heat and damage values for the ER Class of Lasers.
ER Small - Heat: 2 Damage: 3 Range: 2/4/5
ER Medium - Heat: 5 Damage: 5 Range: 4/8/12
ER Large - Heat: 12 Damage: 8 Range: 7/14/19
I propose the following adjustments:
ER Small - Heat: 2 Damage: 3 Range: 7/14/19
ER Medium - Heat: 5 Damage: 5 Range: 7/14/19
ER Large - Heat: 12 Damage: 8 Range: 7/14/19
Comments, Concerns, Thoughts? Or Am I just a Crazy?
[Comment about almost Duplicate Post in General Gaming Forum: I'm not sure what happened there, I previewed the post, and it was all good, but when I viewed it after realizing I posted it in the wrong forum, it was cut in 1/3, with most of it missing. I submitted it from the Preview screen]
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Alexx Knight, Lance Sgt.
Command Company, Crimson Janissaries
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The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. . . And you
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CO_17thRecon
Kell Hounds
Major
Joined: 10-Sep-2002 00:00
Posts: 1297
Location: United States
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| Posted: 20-Nov-2002 13:04 Post subject: RE: Range of Lasers |
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So long balance, bye bye! *kicks balance out the window* 
Just messing, but let me ask...what keeps me from mounting 10 small lasers instead of a heavy laser? (Other than critical limits, that is.) I will do much more damage with only a bit more heat.
We'd see uber designs with thousands of small pulse lasers and targetting computers. Life as we know it would end! There would be no point to having larger lasers!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! *jumps out the window*
Please respond if think my assumptions are wrong. 
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Jarylan Blackwell
"What the...?! Where did you get THAT?!"
"Creative aquisition."
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Sir Henry
Team Bansai
Senior Tech Specialist
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 4899
Location: United States
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| Posted: 20-Nov-2002 14:35 Post subject: RE: Range of Lasers |
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JOe's right. The small laser would become King of the Battlefield.
Just imagine....
100 ton Atlas with 35 small laser and heatsinks....
oh boy, what fun....
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Sir Henry
A Dragon in the disguise of a bunny, is still a Dragon.
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Jade_Dragon
8th Sword of Light
Sho-sho
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 1326
Location: United States
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| Posted: 20-Nov-2002 14:49 Post subject: RE: Range of Lasers |
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Weights would obviously have to be ajusted if real world logic is applied to lasers and their ranges.
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Nightmare
Lyran Alliance
Kommandant-General
Joined: 03-May-2002 00:00
Posts: 2214
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| Posted: 20-Nov-2002 16:20 Post subject: RE: Range of Lasers |
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Or raise the heat output of the smaller lasers, since they obviously consist of less material. The large ones can probably fire for a while before warming up to any serious temperatures. The smaller ones just dump all their waste heat straight into your mech`s heat dissipation system.
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Nightmare
Lyran Alliance
Kommandant-General
Joined: 03-May-2002 00:00
Posts: 2214
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| Posted: 20-Nov-2002 16:22 Post subject: RE: Range of Lasers |
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Like this...
ER Small- Heat: 12 Damage: 3 Range: 7/14/19
ER Medium- Heat: 5 Damage: 5 Range: 7/14/19
ER Large- Heat: 2 Damage: 8 Range: 7/14/19
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AlexxKnight
Federated Suns
Colonel
Joined: 11-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 787
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| Posted: 20-Nov-2002 16:34 Post subject: RE: Range of Lasers |
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Quote:
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On 2002-11-20 13:04, CO_17thRecon wrote:
Just messing, but let me ask...what keeps me from mounting 10 small lasers instead of a heavy laser? (Other than critical limits, that is.) I will do much more damage with only a bit more heat.
We'd see uber designs with thousands of small pulse lasers and targetting computers. Life as we know it would end! There would be no point to having larger lasers!
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Hmmm, I suppose you are right. The weight thing never really crossed my mind. I was just thinking about heat vs. damage, and the fact that for the most part, the small laser are almost hardly ever fired. For instance, In Sudden Impact, I've only fired one of my small lasers, and I've been in realtively close the whole time so far, as I'd rather have the larger damage capability of the Large laser, when attempting to inflict derious hurt on my target. I only used my small laser to balance my heat output in terms of my heat dissipation. And if you know what I am piloting, you'd understand.
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Alexx Knight, Lance Sgt.
Command Company, Crimson Janissaries
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CO_17thRecon
Kell Hounds
Major
Joined: 10-Sep-2002 00:00
Posts: 1297
Location: United States
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| Posted: 20-Nov-2002 16:49 Post subject: RE: Range of Lasers |
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Yeah, I know, but I like the "buckshot" theory. If I fire a lot of small weapons, it's more likely that more will hit. And the more that hit, the more likely I am to hit the head, or roll a two on the hit chart.
It's why I've started to like LBXs when before, I didn't see the point of so much rolling for so little damage. I though it made the game longer, but quite the contrary. Head shots come up quick, and you get good salvage.
Against BattleMechs, it's a decent strategy, but against vehicles it's like instant death.
Small weapons vs. Large Weapons goes in a different debate, but the main problem with your idea is simply the difference in bulk damage.
EDIT: Also, I tend to use old Wolf's Dragoons' Wasps, they're a good demonstation of small lasers. There is a Phantom Configuartion that makes it even more evident.
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CO 17th Recon Battalion,
Harewood's Harvesters
“An engineer can look at a pile of junk and tell you what it was, a good one can tell you what went wrong and an expert engineer can put the pile of junk back together.”
[ This Message was edited by: CO_17thRecon on 2002-11-20 16:51 ]
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Jarylan Blackwell
"What the...?! Where did you get THAT?!"
"Creative aquisition."
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Horhiro
Draconis Combine
Samurai
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 1625
Location: United States
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| Posted: 20-Nov-2002 17:22 Post subject: RE: Range of Lasers |
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The beauty of small lasers comes into play if you're using solaris 7 rules. taking into account weapon delay times for close in dueling rules the small and med lasers have a delay of 1, while large have 2 and er large have 3. Since your in so close to duel anyway, ranges have effect on the to hit number but not many weapons are actually "out of range".
The Mg is really nice as it has a delay of 0, meaning it can be fired every phase!!!
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Slythis
Federated Suns
Colonel
Joined: 09-Aug-2002 00:00
Posts: 712
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| Posted: 20-Nov-2002 19:09 Post subject: RE: Range of Lasers |
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you have to think of lasers as oversized flashlight, a hand held flash light doesn't light up stuff as far away as a large flash light would. ofcourse that assuming both flash lights have the type of bulb. Anyway a large laser would have bigger and more powerful lenses (or whatever they use to focus the light) wich would allow it greater ranges. The only reason I know this is B/C of a lab in 6th grade science.
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Shadowking
Kell Hounds
Captain
Joined: 22-May-2002 00:00
Posts: 365
Location: United States
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| Posted: 21-Nov-2002 08:54 Post subject: RE: Range of Lasers |
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| i believe that issue was somewhat address in one of the sources somewhere. It doesn't so much have to do with the laser itself, as it has to do with the equipment firing it. The bigger lasers fire farther due to better accuracy with all the extra power behind them. Thus the reasoning for the extra weapon and critical space. After so far a distance, it's simply to difficult to target with and with some equipment (this is more to do with oldtech) not being as good as it could or should be, simply causes the laser to lose intensity. Which I might add, there is a Lvl 3 rule in Maxtech that actually covers that sorta thing. Ie: lasers basicly working like heavy gauss rifles. the farther away the target, the less damage that is done to it. As well as if it's point blank, there's a little extra.
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Gangrene
Federated Suns
Leftenant General
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 939
Location: United States
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| Posted: 21-Nov-2002 12:50 Post subject: RE: Range of Lasers |
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You don't have a place for "It's okay."
I like the idea, but in Btech it would be very unbalanced. Because smaller weapons in Btech have higher damage-to-weight ratios using this rule would lead people to stock their mechs with a buttload of smaller lasers. Why have an ER large laser when you can have 8 ER smalls and an extra heatsink? You might eventually run out of crits but that won't stop people from doing it. In fact, the crits might compound the problem as bigger mechs would have to take heavier weapons in order to meet their tonnage while some 50 tonner could get away with wasting 10 tons on ER smalls.
Battletech just isn't set up to handle your idea, even if it is more logical.
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AlexxKnight
Federated Suns
Colonel
Joined: 11-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 787
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| Posted: 21-Nov-2002 17:10 Post subject: RE: Range of Lasers |
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Could the weight of lasers be adjusted?
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Alexx Knight, Lance Sgt.
Command Company, Crimson Janissaries
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The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. . . And you
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crabcakes66
Draconis Combine
Go-cho
Joined: 09-Oct-2002 00:00
Posts: 67
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| Posted: 21-Nov-2002 17:23 Post subject: RE: Range of Lasers |
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like shadowking was saying...
i think that there needs to be a damage drop at longer ranges for smaller lasers(refraction and such in the atmosphere). less power = less bang at range
something like 1/4 less at medium and mabey 1/3 or 1/2 at long. light travels in a straight line for ever if there is nothing to stop it or change its course right? but the gasses in a planets atmosphere would(there are some rules in maxtech for this sort of thing) cause some disapation of energy ect.. this would be a great way to balance having them all the same range. just have less damage the farther away for micro/small/medium lasers. while large lasers would stay the same.
but as far as more damage at pointblank range i think the max damage should stay the same.
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Gangrene
Federated Suns
Leftenant General
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 939
Location: United States
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| Posted: 21-Nov-2002 22:59 Post subject: RE: Range of Lasers |
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Quote:
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On 2002-11-21 17:10, AlexxKnight wrote:
Could the weight of lasers be adjusted?
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Maybe, but I think that's a poor way of handling it.
Unfortunately Battletech does just about all of the balancing issues for weaponry on the user side (heat, crits, etc) and not target side, which is what this problem needs IMO.
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