Oolite Bulletins

Perhaps the laser cooler - rather than being an automatic thing that runs permanently - you have to activate with the press of a button, and takes lots of power from the energy banks; Kinda like the ECM now. Plus of course, make it expensive, like a military shield.

And speaking of which, how about double front laser mountings on some ships? Or can you already have that on Wolf II's? I can't afford one yet to try it.

From what Murgh has been saying, only the NPC Wolf MkII has the double laser mounting.

They are, by far, the toughest ship out there and (if you are just starting out especially) should be avoided at all costs.

I had a commander with a ship consisting of many energy banks and energy unit, but a Wolf MkII armed with military lasers cut me to shreds before I could manouevre into position and kick his arse.

It would be nice to have the same, where you could choose which laser you had on which mount (as with aft, left, right mounts), but armed with military lasers they could unbalance the game.

However I can't wait to try one of these beasts out.

yes that's right. the player's Wolf mkII is limited to single barrel shooting, but when technological progress made it possible to make the NPC Wolf's two 'fangs' lethal, I had a go. similarly, the Rattle Cutter has 4 forward lasers, though IIRC they're not of the military kind. The Weeviloid2 that showed how it was done, sports 3.

maybe at some point multiple same-direction lasers for players will make it to Aegidian's todo-list, but right now it seems pretty long, and it's probably not that simple.

I like the idea of a laser cooler you can turn on. We went through similar discussions here quite a while back because the cooling rate was rather slow - eventually the rate was doubled. I still find the rate frustratingly slow, but it is now consistent with Elite.

IMHO laser coolers should work as efficiently with a military laser as with a pulse.

I'm in two minds about how they should work. The easy way is that they should drain power like the ECM, and disable themselves when power is too low (say down to two energy banks left).

Another way though would be to deploy radiator fins from your ship. This would increase your ship size making you a bigger target. They'd probably be fragile so they could be blasted off your ship or vaporised - I'd expect that to happen a lot. Probably wouldn't be all that expensive though.

Actually they could serve a dual purpose - if you deployed them near the sun they probably wouldn't work so well and instead act as a solar sail.

Not quite sure how this would be implementable within the game engine though, and certainly ship models would have to have optional fins, or at least fin mounting points.

Having to hang around waiting for my lasers to cool down when taking out a dozen ships has always been a frustrating thing to have to do. It has always felt like wasted time when I could be moving on to the next encounter.

How about a cooling overdrive unit you could buy, that uses witchdrive fuel like the fuel injectors do? A nice finite resource that could get you out of a scrape. Wouldn't want to have injectors and cooling boost going at the same time, though, so there's a ship-management element there.

A suggestion for the laser cooling idea:
You can buy a laser cooling system which fixes to one of your lasers (expensive, tech 12 worlds or higher).
You must buy coolant to replace stuff lost. This is because the ship doesn't have the facilities to contain all the gas created when dumping coolant onto the laser barrel.
If coolant is a trade item (available on industrial worlds tech 6 or higher - 1 ton amounts), then it takes up valuable space in your cargo hold. This limits the amount of coolant that you can use. If you also give it a good price in agricultural worlds, then people would be circumspect about using it.
The main problem after figuring that bit out, would be to figure out how much cooling each laser needs & uses.
Suggestion: Coolant tanks store 1t coolant. You must fill them manually (shift-C?) from your hold. Each ton of coolant works on mil lasers for let's say, approximately 5 seconds (holds off your laser from overheating when it's full - doesn't actually cool the laser beyond that, so when the coolant runs out, your laser instantly overheats!).

I think (I can't remember) that Frontier on the Amiga used a similar system for fuel didn't it?

martinb wrote:

...when the coolant runs out, your laser instantly overheats!).

resulting in a damaged and intermittent laser of low power, perhaps?

lex_talionis wrote:

martinb wrote:

...when the coolant runs out, your laser instantly overheats!).

resulting in a damaged and intermittent laser of low power, perhaps?

Maybe. I was thinking more along the lines of back to natural cooling, i.e. wait forever for it to cool enough to use. I think having to use valuable cargo to cool the laser is enough of a trade off for owning one.

Another interesting option would be to dump the contents of the coolant tank - if you're running away and rear shields are shredded, then this would drop a laser-sapping cloud behind you - give you (possibly) a couple of secoonds reprieve.

You could also have the coolant tanks damagable - get it punctured & your ship careers randomly until the coolant is exhausted & needs repair before you can use it again

hi everyone
my first encounters on the Elite game and the fact the that coolers where available at a price or something (can,t remember).please will someone make them available to those who need or want them.my own point of view is why have a weapon that overheats so fast that its pointless having the weapon,a cooler system would help all and equal the balance in space dog fights.thanks for a brilliant game cheers

You don't need laser coolers, just good tactics. Use your military lasers to snipe away before they get too close, and don't fire wildly when your shots aren't hitting.

First thing I'll do when I see a bunch of pirates is face away and shoot with the aft lasers - as I'm moving too, they can't close in. Then, once a couple of the outriders are dead or disengaged, it's my turn to close in for the kill. It usually works....

I've always been on the side of having a laser cooler, but I have changed my mind! The cloaking device, can be obtained early on and this neutralises the enemies fighting strength.

I only recently discovered that the control for the cloaking device is the number 0 not the letter O.......Duhhhh, and this was after reaching deadly and completing Assassins [1], so without using the CD I really had to fight my way through, using all the dogfighting tactics and survival techniques in the book.

Using the cloaking device, well it's like taking candy from a baby, chance upon half a dozen kickass pirates, and they just sit up and beg to be shot at, you can even turn your back and finish them off with the rear laser if they absorb a full frontal with a military laser, because they don't run away! Not only that, as Littlebear said in another thread if you have the Extra Energy Unit and the Naval Energy Unit, the refresh rate is faster than the energy depletion effect of the Cloaking device. Often I deliberately don't use the CD or I de-activate it to make the fight more interesting.

[1] Assassins has a device that disables the CD when you get close to your intended victim, so when you get to the later missions you get to know what an Iron Ass really is!

hi
thanks for the top tips as im still getting used to oolite on my pc and any help is most welcome .i am still used to the old Elite style of fighting and still getting used to the new layout etc.just that its kinda frustrating waiting for the weapon to cool down and a bit of self discipline is needed for the firing of the weapons,new tactics been worked on...thanks again cheers

Pulse and beam lasers are much more forgiving to use than than military lasers, and if used well they can still be quite effective. Most NPC ships are armed with these weapons and yet they can represent a danger even to an experienced pilot. Military lasers are much more of a precision weapon and it does take quite a bit of practice using them in combat - as well as being an accurate shot you need to be good at carrying out evasive manoeuvres while waiting for the lasers cool down.

yeah, Military lasers are good for raw damage, but a Beam laser is the better choice for dog fighting. Use mili-lasers at range and practice your sniping, not up close and personal. If you have to use it, take short bursts and don't lean on the trigger.

Captain Hesperus
"When I said dump surplus weight, I didn't mean the damn cargo!"

It's very obvious from all the preceding, that fighting style has to be adapted to your weaponry. I use military lasers by default, and the keyboard for control.

Precision definitely is the name of the game with them, you can't go charging in gungho with your finger glued to the fire button, you have to accelerate at your target and slap him hard whenever he crosses your sights, in short bursts. Many smaller ships will be gone in seconds, the hard b***ards will require you to dog fight onto their tail, where you can paste them.

Imperial Couriers are one of the nastiest ships to fight, and if you come up against a good pilot, you will have to work very hard for your 250cr.!

It's a tremendous rush to fight and beat one, Giles did an excellent job with the game core, and Oolite at its best is hard to beat in terms of sheer enjoyment