Oolite Bulletins

Although I find it refreshing that at least somewhere in the game you have to make compromises as to what equipment you pack into your infinitely expandable ship, one idea about this popped into my head for a "mining mode" rather than a full-on laser switch.

Would it be viable to have an invisible object spawn in front of the ship to allow one mining pulse's worth of laser fire through? You'd still need a gentle finger on the trigger as the heat would be only on the one laser. Not too sure about the laser damage model as to whether this is viable. I know from experience that mining with a military laser is possible, you just get a lot more wastage. Also pretty sure that the sort of delicate timing control that such a thing would require is outside the scope of OXP scripting. Will be good to see the idea properly shot down so I can stop wondering about it though

I think I have an idea, somewhat similar to Makara's.
How about an external view that is linked to a mining laser that is on a subentity, to provide a "Mining Mode"?

I can't see how any of these 2 ideas could possibly work, but do try & tell us all about it...

It does make me smile when the Dev's say "no can do" and the OXPers say "well actually, if you do this..."

I notice Ahruman (usually) says something like "I'd like to see you try" - which I think he genuinely means (out of curiosity at the OXPers ingenuity and the code's ability to be "stretched")

Actually, leaving the technical issues to one side and returning to the original post...

Dragonfire wrote:

I got an idea for an OXP that allows the player to switch between a military and mining laser on their forward. I know this would be very useful for a number of commanders, especially those with only one or two weapon facings.

The main question seems to be: "Why bother?"

If you are piloting a serious combateering vessel, where having military lasers hanging off every mount is a priority, then it won't have a large cargo hold and you should be able to generate plenty of splinters with military lasers alone. If you are in a big, roomy vessel (when you really can't afford the level of asteroid wastage you'd get using military lasers) then you can fit a mining laser as you shouldn't be wading into combat anyway. Offhand I can't think of a ship that suffers from not being able to switch lasers in the way you suggest (although I discount the effect of any hypercargo system - it may be technically cute but the risk of a handwavium/antihandwavium Ooniverse annihilating explosion is too great for my taste )