What happened to mining lasers?

General discussion for players of Oolite.

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Chaffers
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What happened to mining lasers?

Post by Chaffers »

I spent years playing Elite and daydreaming about upgrading to a Fer-De-Lance. Many thanks to the game's coders for finally giving me the opportunity. I'm only poor at the moment but....

I'm a bit disappointed with the mining lasers though, I used them religiously in the original. I don't suppose anyone has coded an oxp to reset them to the original potency (1 hit kills on Vipers as I recall, not that a law abiding citizen like myself would know such things...) :).
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Re: What happened to mining lasers?

Post by Commander McLane »

Hi, Chaffers, and first of all welcome to the boards and of course to this great game! :D

Mining lasers are indeed the most powerful lasers, as far as the damage dealt per shot is concerned, however there are two drawbacks: First, its range (which is inferior to a military laser) and second, its recharge cycle. It takes too long to fire a second shot to make it an effective weapon, because your target will recover in-between.

I don't remember whether a mining laser could take out ships with a single shot in any version of Elite. In Oolite it's definitely not possible. As far as I know there is no ship with an energy of less than 50, which is the amount of damage dealt by a mining laser.
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Re: What happened to mining lasers?

Post by Smivs »

Hi Chaffers, and welcome to the 'Friendliest Board this side of Riedquat'.
Chaffers wrote:
I spent years playing Elite and daydreaming about upgrading to a Fer-De-Lance. Many thanks to the game's coders for finally giving me the opportunity. I'm only poor at the moment but....
Many dreams can now be fulfilled, but some may be a bit of a disappointment!
Chaffers wrote:
I'm a bit disappointed with the mining lasers though, I used them religiously in the original. I don't suppose anyone has coded an oxp to reset them to the original potency (1 hit kills on Vipers as I recall, not that a law abiding citizen like myself would know such things...) :).
Mining lasers are great for mining, but there are much better tools for dealing with opponents. Military lasers are the way to go if you want some serious killing power. These will out-gun any of the default ships. :D
Cheers,
Smivs.
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Chaffers
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Re: What happened to mining lasers?

Post by Chaffers »

Aye I'm using Military lasers.

I made deadly 3 or 4 times using mining lasers in the original but never Elite, the game used to crash on that mission. Never overheat and a big punch. The oolite version seems to be weaker and slower firing.

Maybe it was 3 hits... Pythons took about 5 as I recall.
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Re: What happened to mining lasers?

Post by Commander McLane »

Chaffers wrote:
I made deadly 3 or 4 times using mining lasers in the original but never Elite, the game used to crash on that mission.
There's no mission to make you ELITE. You just have to constantly increase your kill count. Whether you do that while completing the in-built missions, or (in the case of Oolite) doing some OXP-missions, or by not caring about missions at all and simply blasting everybody you meet to smithereens, is entirely up to you.
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Re: What happened to mining lasers?

Post by Chaffers »

Well we didn't have the internet back in the old days but the one chap I met who claimed to have made Elite did it by blowing up a Thargoid infested space station which gave him a rank increase (he thought it was the only way to get Elite status) and the title Archangel rather than commander.

I did test it many years later by 'poking' the programme and leapt from Dangerous to Deadly, plus Archangel, in one missile launch.

Could be wrong, as I said I never actually got there...
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Re: What happened to mining lasers?

Post by Poro »

Welcome to the board!
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Re: What happened to mining lasers?

Post by Cody »

Chaffers wrote:
one chap I met who claimed to have made Elite did it by blowing up a Thargoid infested space station which gave him a rank increase (he thought it was the only way to get Elite status) and the title Archangel rather than commander.
That was PC Elite Plus... and Archangel was only a 'title' that you recieved for blowing-up the infested station. It had no bearing on your Elite rank.
I would advise stilts for the quagmires, and camels for the snowy hills
And any survivors, their debts I will certainly pay. There's always a way!
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Re: What happened to mining lasers?

Post by Chaffers »

Thats odd, as I was playing it on a CPC 6128, which never had Elite+....

Maybe I'm senile! :)
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Re: What happened to mining lasers?

Post by Cody »

Chaffers wrote:
Maybe I'm senile!
Ha... that's usually my excuse. Oh and welcome, Chaffers.
I would advise stilts for the quagmires, and camels for the snowy hills
And any survivors, their debts I will certainly pay. There's always a way!
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Re: What happened to mining lasers?

Post by Azathoth »

.... and I remember thinking about buying a Python in my Electron game.

Years later I'm told that you can't.

What a bummer:-)
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Re: What happened to mining lasers?

Post by Cody »

Hi Azathoth... are you saying that you can't buy a Python in Oolite? You certainly should be able to.
I would advise stilts for the quagmires, and camels for the snowy hills
And any survivors, their debts I will certainly pay. There's always a way!
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Re: What happened to mining lasers?

Post by Commander McLane »

Azathoth wrote:
.... and I remember thinking about buying a Python in my Electron game.

Years later I'm told that you can't.

What a bummer:-)
Well, yes, you couldn't buy any ship in any version of Elite. That's kind of the reason why you got a pretty good ship right from the beginning.

But that's the beauty of Oolite (next to many other beauties, of course): now you can! :D
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Re: What happened to mining lasers?

Post by Azathoth »

El Viejo wrote:
Hi Azathoth... are you saying that you can't buy a Python in Oolite? You certainly should be able to.

Sorry El Viejo, my post wasn't worded very well.

As Commander MacLane guessed, I meant in the origonal game. For some reason I was sure it was possible in the Electron version.

I'm actually doing my Anaconda space trucker thing these days, or I would be if my wife hadn't run of with my laptop with Oolite installed :cry:
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Re: What happened to mining lasers?

Post by CheeseRedux »

Azathoth wrote:
... if my wife hadn't run of with my laptop with Oolite installed :cry:
That's when you take a page from Thargoid's book, and keep it on a memory stick. Plug and play.
"Actually this is a common misconception... I do *not* in fact have a lot of time on my hands at all! I just have a very very very very bad sense of priorities."
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