If we get multiple player lasers, I hereby officially predict another arms race for ships with multiple lasers very close (fractions of a meter) to the main laser, clusters of three, six, ten, twenty military lasers, taking out anything with one combined shot, a rapid descent into boring invincible cheat uber laser ship territory. I predict it with absolute certainty, and I'm not looking forward to it. Personally I'd prefer to not go anyway near of it, therefore to not allow multiple lasers for player ships in the first place.
Well, one way to "balance" it would be to eliminate them on NPC ships. But I don't see that happening. It also really doesn't make sense as a limitation from a player point of view. I mean, it is over a thousand years in the future, there is a large assortment of spaceships and 256X8 worlds and nobody has ever figured out how to mount more than one laser to face the same direction and work? It just doesn't seem likely.
It wouldn't be inconceivable for a really huge ship to have quite a few lasers, but logically they'd be on different mounting areas. The moral of the story there is simple. Don't attack a large battleship bristling with weapons in your little Cobra MKIII, or it's about a guaranteed suicide run. On smaller ships, cooling would be problematical (as has often been discussed) and also power requirements for more lasers could be brought in. To take a simple and arbitrary example, a Cobra MKIII has four energy banks and it also has four possible laser mountings. An obvious idea would be if weapons could be limited to the number of energy banks. On that note, I don't think it would be a terrible idea if mounting a railgun required losing one of the side lasers on a Cobra so the energy bank could be used to power the railgun. Even though the railgun is mounted facing forward, the power for it logically has to be coming from somewhere.
Add some disadvantage to multiple lasers fired together in one direction like have it cost shield recharge rate for both players and NPCs. That way it's a trade-off. That way neither can increase their capability for inflicting damage without weakening their own defences.
The capability for ridiculous boring "uber-icity" already exists. By either designing a ship or hacking one, a player can give it an outrageous speed, lots of energy banks, tons of missile slots and etc. Then hack the savegame to give themselves a huge credit balance. A few do, perhaps, but not most.
The most extreme case of uber I can think of in OXPs is your own KillIt, Commander McLane. Don't take this as a criticism against it, I feel it is an excellent statement and done with a nice bit of wit and sense of humour. But I rather doubt many players actually pack the OMGWTFBBQ aboard their ship. Maybe try it just to see it once, and then most likely they remove it again.
I tend to think that if anyone came up with a player ownable ship as small as a Krait with a cargo bay big enough to hold the inventory of several entire stations, speed of something like .999 LM and that had twenty simultaneously firing forward facing lasers that guaranteed a one shot kill on virtually any target, nobody would want it other than to maybe fly a test run with it just to see what it's like. I think all but the lasers are already possible, aren't they? As you've pointed out, it just wouldn't be actually fun for gameplay. I doubt that it would end up becoming "standard kit" for anyone that enjoys the game.
My complaint about NPCs using multiple lasers is that if it isn't actually useful, then why would they do it? Yes, yes, I am quite aware that there are no little people inside the computer actually making purchasing and outfitting decisions, but for game logic, there should be reasons why those fictional little people do what they do. If it is folly for NPCs, then the same folly should be available for the player.
Or here's an idea.. Move their mounting closer together on the NPC ships so that the triple beam off an NPC Imperial Courier (for example) actually *does* do a lot of damage fast. That way the player can learn that he/she should probably spend a hardhead missile on any IC they come up against to make it go evasive and then work hard to take it out very early in the fight if they want to survive. Then an "arms race" for the player to consider similar measures and have to weigh the advantages against the disadvantages could be reasonable.
All I'm saying is that it doesn't seem to make sense from a player point of view for a ship like the Imperial Courier to come stock to every NPC that flies one with a different weapons setup than is available to the player at any price. I feel that from at least a naive player point of view, it allows for disappointment if they actually fork over the three quarters of a million credits it takes to buy one.
We also have to remember that we're talking about "Even More Mythical STable Release After Next", Oolite 2, here. What might "break" the game balance of Oolite 1.XX could perhaps be workable in the game balance of Oolite 2.
PS added after seeing posts written while I was typing:
I absolutely agree that the run to the planet is most of where the game actually happens and shortening travel time too much doesn't make sense. If we're going that direction why not just have Star Trek style teleporters big enough to move cargo from station to station? I wouldn't want to play it.
The torus drive as it is works, and as a player, I would never have known the NPC ships didn't have the capability if i hadn't been told. It doesn't really change gameplay if we just pretend they use it too.
I've never assumed we were talking about three lasers on every facing. I always thought it would be more on the order of changing one or both of the side lasers to a forward mounting. I don't use side lasers in fights, though I do use one for mining. I feel that NPC ships *should* be able to use side and aft lasers if the player is silly enough to fly into the line of sight of them. I don't use the energy bomb. I tend to feel that quirium mines shouldn't be stock equipment, except maybe on Thargoid ships or maybe available for special missions. Nuclear warheads exist in current times, but I don't think we're allowed to have them in cars, are we?
Sleep? Who needs sleep? Got game. No need sleep.
Having said that, I don't actually expect anyone to use any of the bombs seriously as a weapon. I even doubt it for the missiles, due to their price.
