Maybe replace damage/shot with "tons of TNT equivalent" or "tons of Phkb equivalent"!
Having re-read this a couple of times, I finally understood what you were suggesting: not changing the number, but the label. Apologies for mis-understanding. Labels can be anything, as long as it makes sense, and is reasonably short. Happy to go with whatever we think is best.
I would guess that the reasoning is historical. Classic Elite gave no F3 information other than the equipment names - you had to look in the instruction manual for more.
Aegidian probably wrote the original short descriptions and leading BB authorities such as Commander McLane inhibited the publishing of accurate statistics such as Phkb has just done.
Classic Elite also only had 4 lasers to choose from, with an increasing value being a very simple way to tell if it was "better".
To be clear, I feel that the information I'm providing is: (a) important to know when making an informed decision about what laser to purchase. Without it, you're just guessing/hoping the laser is better than the one you already have, especially when there could be upwards of 50 different lasers to choose from; and (b) the sort of information laser weapon manufacturers would supply to prospective buyers to boost sales ("Oh, yes, this weapon has a much improved rate of fire over the standard pulse pulse, 0.25s compared to 0.5s").
A few options to replace damage per shot nomenclature:
- Penetration
- Payload
- Impact
- Yield
The best one might be "yield" as that's the real world term for the energy release value of a nuclear bomb - aka how much boom. The second best I think is "penetration" as that's the real world term for how far a projectile will go through armor.
Here is my YouTube channel, where I play poorly: Arquebus X
I actually have you to thank, as I got the idea while watching your videos, and seeing you struggling to decide which laser is the best one to buy. There's nothing like watching someone else play to help with revealing issues you didn't see before!
Energy/shot: Drain? Power draw? Energy draw?
Temp/shot: Thermic...something... there's got to be a word we can use from that root. Any ideas?
You might be able to rearrange everything to avoid even needing it in those terms.
Maybe:
"Shot Profile - Power Draw: X - Heat: Y - Yield: Z"
Heat could be represented as Calories? Not Kcal of course as that's too low for lasers, but Mcal or Gcal or something like that. Maybe BTUs for that nice British flavor. Power draw would likely be in Watts or joules. Yield would be some funky combo of Newtons and joules.
Here is my YouTube channel, where I play poorly: Arquebus X
Heat could be represented as Calories? Not Kcal of course as that's too low for lasers, but Mcal or Gcal or something like that. Maybe BTUs for that nice British flavor. Power draw would likely be in Watts or joules. Yield would be some funky combo of Newtons and joules.
I'm kind of leaning towards having no definitions after the numbers. First: it makes it take less space. Second: the numbers are the important part and what you want to see. We could add whatever descriptions we want to the wiki page.
Heat could be represented as Calories? Not Kcal of course as that's too low for lasers, but Mcal or Gcal or something like that. Maybe BTUs for that nice British flavor. Power draw would likely be in Watts or joules. Yield would be some funky combo of Newtons and joules.
I'm kind of leaning towards having no definitions after the numbers. First: it makes it take less space. Second: the numbers are the important part and what you want to see. We could add whatever descriptions we want to the wiki page.
Heat generation is an important factor. And every ship has heat sinks. Could the laser's heat generation capability be listed in a comparable format for the heat sinks? Or will all pilots have to do the maths themselves?
Especially interesting: I think I saw equipment that gets installed instead of a laser but allows to install four.
