what if : nonlinear lasers and etc

[Mad Hollander]

There is some strange things with lasers in the game. Despite the fact, that the vanilla oolite is very interesting, most of people try to invent the wheel with oxp and etc

Please, share you opinion/feedback on the lines below. Here are couple of my thoughts:

mining laser - pulse, has huge cooldown and the power is almost as adder. Other words such ships should be killed with two hits. This is 'railgun' weapon, very similar to ZX elite, where sidewinder and adder were killed with two shots of mining.

military laser - nonlinear cooldown and the power about four times less than mining. range about 30km. Steep overheating curve. Long continuous shot overheat the laser very soon. Curent implementation - looks like there are no differences between long shot and several short.

beam laser the ten times less power than mining, but the range as military, has much smoother overheating curve and nonlinear cooldown.

pulse laser - about two less power than beam and short range.

Custom lasers (oxp guys will like that) - make possible to vary power. There should be the curve which allows or disallows the given configurations. I.e. there should be no military laser that has same power as mining. Or there can be pulse laser with range as military. Or half-beam laser. Such lasers can have unique names.

The Idea is the following - mining is the most powerful laser, because it should cut the asteroids into pieces.
I can't understand why asteroids exploded after being shoot from lases. pulse, beam and military should require much more shots to cut asteroid into pieces and should give very small amount of splinters. The rest of lasers are for battle, and, therefore, requires different characteristics.

Another thing - 'custom' lasers and another weapons can be bought at Rock Hermit for the huge price which may be times bigger than the prices at the system market. This will attract additional attention to the rock hermits.

[Zireael]

In Oolite, mining laser cannot be used for combat, otherwise it'd be a no-brainer (both earning money from mining and killing ships? yay go for it!)

[Mad Hollander]

Mining should be very difficult to use as weapon, ie. because of big cooldown and short range.

[spara]

In Oolite, mining laser cannot be used for combat, otherwise it'd be a no-brainer (both earning money from mining and killing ships? yay go for it!)

I would not say it cannot be used . I've succesfully driven away attackers with it.