Ship with 2 forward lasers?

[Cody]

Which is a year old today; happy birthday, Green Gecko!

Heh... I hadn't noticed that. As to your question... as far as I know... no.

[CommonSenseOTB]

It isnt so much that 2 lasers are explicitly prevented, but that the code assumes (and in some places enforces) that there are only 4 possible slots: front rear left and right.

Each mount point can only take one weapon, and the weapon must be one of the supported ones ie there is no "double laser" you could add.

Someone had a nice idea of fitting the rear laser so that it appears to be firing from the front. In principle I guess it wouldnt be too hard to have the 4 mountings more flexible in location but Im not convinced that is a good idea (and I am certainly not about to start making those types of changes).

Why, thankyou.

The current MFLPS oxp will not work in 1.77 but I have even better ideas on paper that once more oxp foundationwork has been completed will result in something very cool and realistic and balanced.

So many ideas, so little time...

[Crush]

How about an OXP which sums the firepower and energy consumption of all of the lasers mounted on the ship and delivers it all out of the front mount point?

The rationale is a lot of high quality fibre optics delivering the output of the side and back lasers to the front firing point.

The other mode of using this would be to reduce the overheat rate by balancing the load across all 4 lasers but keeping the standard power and energy consumption.

Doesn't need new visuals, just ups the joules that can be delivered to the target (preferably at point blank range!)

Thoughts?

[Thargoid]

You can't set/adjust the laser temperature by script (deliberately - no laser coolers here).

Aside from that, my beta Laser Booster OXP (for trunk 1.77) does something along the same lines - increases laser damage but draws more energy and gives a (heightened) chance of the laser breaking. It's primable equipment, but even when switched off it add a low chance of laser breakage in normal usage.

[Crush]

I'd cheerfully lose the side and rear mounts to have more killing power up front. After all if God had meant us to shoot backwards and sideways then Spitfires would have been built that way

[Cody]

Get yourself a  Railgun for extra firepower upfront!

[Crush]

Tried one of those a few months back. I was a bit disappointed with it - I was expecting something like the front end of an A10 Thunderbolt and it was a bit more like a .22 rifle.

Hmmm....maybe Pylon mounted lasers? That would give five (with the nose mount) up front. Eat hot laser von Richthofen!

[Diziet Sma]

How about an OXP which sums the firepower and energy consumption of all of the lasers mounted on the ship and delivers it all out of the front mount point?
...
Thoughts?

I'm pretty sure that would melt your laser barrel.

[Commander Wilmot]

Hmmm....maybe Pylon mounted lasers?

This could work, I think, rail gun oxp shows that you can emit projectiles as ordinary, non-missile (i.e. not proximity exploding,) rounds and do damage. Aiming would be problematic. we have the ability to make pylon items with ammo (missile racks for example,) so you could just might emit projectiles (presumably copying the laser beam model already ingame) and have each shot use up a certain amount of ammo (presumably no more than the amount that can be fired before overheat.) while you aren't the only one who has thought of an Oolite gunpod style laser oxp, the potential risk of being able to fire multiple lasers (from pylons) without overheating seems to be that the damage to game balance could be significant greater than allowing people to have multiple laser ships, as anyone's concept of multiple player lasers seems to involve trade offs such as increased heating and/or removing lasers from other facings.

[Commander McLane]

Hmmm....maybe Pylon mounted lasers?

This could work, I think, rail gun oxp shows that you can emit projectiles as ordinary, non-missile (i.e. not proximity exploding,) rounds and do damage. Aiming would be problematic. we have the ability to make pylon items with ammo (missile racks for example,) so you could just might emit projectiles (presumably copying the laser beam model already ingame) and have each shot use up a certain amount of ammo (presumably no more than the amount that can be fired before overheat.) while you aren't the only one who has thought of an Oolite gunpod style laser oxp, the potential risk of being able to fire multiple lasers (from pylons) without overheating seems to be that the damage to game balance could be significant greater than allowing people to have multiple laser ships, as anyone's concept of multiple player lasers seems to involve trade offs such as increased heating and/or removing lasers from other facings.

I don't think it would work. For starters, the railgun isn't a proper weapon, but basically a hack, which leads to severe limitations. For instance, you cannot make mission-relevant kills with it, because you wouldn't be identified as the killer.

As for using the laser entity (or a clone thereof) as a weapon (whether pylon-mounted or not): it could perhaps be made to work (the OXPers around here tend to be able to work miracles sometimes), but I'd anticipate it to be a pain in the neck.

[Smivs]

Okti once produced a primeable laser as an OXP - I don't remember if he ever officially released it. It had the same 'problem' as the railgun in that the player was not awarded the kills.
In its 'spectrum multibeam' form it was a thing of great beauty and deadliness .

[Cody]

Yes... rather fearsome, is the rainbow laser. As is Okti's Skorpion fighter... but that is NPC only, thankfully!