The problem is that the weapon temperature can increase above 85% under normal operation because the check is for current temperature, not expected temperature after this shot. So if it was capped for display at 0.85, what would happen is that you would fire, the temperature would go red-full, and then it would stay there for a little while before starting to decrease again.
Whereas now, you can see the temperature decreasing back from (say) 92% towards 85%, and have a better idea of when your next shot will be available. That, I think, is better.
Hmm, well considering the laser is not a lot of use until it falls below 50% again, I'm not sure the slight delay in decrease would make much difference overall, but that's just me . . . but I've learned a little so I could just settle for that
I see no easy way to fix this without the risk of occasionally completely melting a laser. I assume this 15% safety margin was experimentally defined by aegidian and should not be tampered with.
Having worked with lasers in the past I understand perfectly, I just think appealing to physics in Oolite is a bit like Godwin's law . . .
But I'll bite, I still think this is a display issue, the HUD could just display the 85% as 100%, ie. display_temp = weapon_temp / 0.85, no?
So for a cosmetic issue some of you want to risk breaking the game? Why don't you simply take your own personal HUD and make the laser temp guage longer and moved over slightly so it fully fills a surround for laser temp when it is maxed out? Slight adjustment, easy to do, problem solved, your welcome.
Take an idea from one person and twist or modify it in a different way as a return suggestion so another person can see a part of it that can apply to the oxp they are working on.
So for a cosmetic issue some of you want to risk breaking the game? Why don't you simply take your own personal HUD and make the laser temp guage longer and moved over slightly so it fully fills a surround for laser temp when it is maxed out? Slight adjustment, easy to do, problem solved, your welcome.
cim wrote:
So if it was capped for display at 0.85, what would happen is that you would fire, the temperature would go red-full, and then it would stay there for a little while before starting to decrease again.
Hmm, hardly game-breaking, try taking a deep breath And I do have my own HUD, thanks for asking, i'll look into it . . . .
Of course changing the value from 0.85 to 0.9 makes all lasers, especially ones that heat up quick (i.e. military) 5% better. This could be significant for some things where the amount of killing a ship takes has been carefully worked out to require all four lasers to be maxed out.
That only seems 5% better on first sight. But in reality you can fire about 1 seconds longer till overheating. After that it no longer matters. Cool down time it unchanged so the number of shots till it overheat again stays now the same. That means for a prolonged fight were the laser never gets the chance to cool down completely there will be hardly a change.
