Oolite Bulletins

The question does specify “for your Mk3”.

I think this is a plebiscite for military.

Makandal wrote:

I think this is a plebiscite for military.

...and a rather clear one.

But that's really no big wonder. A pulse laser just won't get you anywhere. And the beam laser is—like El Viejo said—just a stepping stone on your way to a military laser. My personal theory is that it mainly exists to give NPCs something stronger than a pulse laser, while not giving them the full power (most ships of the original set feature beam lasers). So—if you will—it's an in-built advantage for the player.

Which leaves—like Ganelon said—only the mining laser as an alternative, which is only useful for one specific career choice. For those who make this choice it's vastly superior to any other laser. But it's not a serious alternative for anybody else.

I'm delighted by the Military Laser.

It's especially great now that I've 'got my eye in' (so to speak!!) and can aim accurately at a ship that's only a tiny dot, just within ident range.. but out of most opponents' accurate firing range.. and so can strike them down with impunity from afar.

A quick accurate burst, finger held down, dispatches many ships before they can even make an evasive move.
My only regret with a Mil Laser is that, once I see the coloured dots of a foe ship's impending fragmentation and restrain myself to single shots thereafter, nevertheless their Escape Capsule (usually) goes up in flames too moments after jettisoning.
I'd rather scoop the blighter!

Pity there's no way to intelligently swap to lower-powered laser shots (without reorienting to shoot from an actual different laser position) once a ship is critically impaired, in order to allow safe jettisoning (and profitable capture) of the Escape Capsule if fitted.
Also, that way I could feel I was being more merciful

Sometimes the escape pod just crashes into the ship it just launched from. Tough luck for the pilot, but not your fault (well, sort of, at least).

Other times the pilot didn't manage to eject in the first place. Many (most?) ships die without ever producing an escape pod. Thus, not finding a pod afterwards doesn't automatically mean that you shot it.

Commander McLane wrote:

Sometimes the escape pod just crashes into the ship it just launched from. Tough luck for the pilot, but not your fault (well, sort of, at least).

That just felt as a design failure for escape pods. As of Oolite 1.75, the eject mechanism will align anything that contains a pilot with its top away from the ship, and eject it out a little faster. Escape pods will have a slightly higher survival rate in future. At least when the pilot bails out in time of course.

That's good to know...does it also apply to Thargons not ramming the Thargoids they just launched from? (I see them blowing up regularly.)

Switeck wrote:

That's good to know...does it also apply to Thargons not ramming the Thargoids they just launched from? (I see them blowing up regularly.)

I don't know. Two weeks ago there was a change in launch position for Thargons. That had a noticeable effect and probably leads to less ramming with their mother on launch. But thargoids like Griffs already had a different launch position and for those, nothing changes.
What has also changed is that behaviour avoid collision no longer looks at scan class but at the presence of a pilot. That affects escape pods. Before they were cargo and didn't try to avoid collisions, now they do try to avoid collisions because of their pilot. Thargons on the other hand are unpiloted robot fighters that won't try to avoid collisions.

In fact, I believe this is in the strategy of Thargons to have a suicidal kamikaze behaviour...

on my supercobra i have military lasers front and aft and mining lasers left and right. the pulse and beam lasers don't have the punch (especially against tough targets like thargoids) and the mining lasers fire too slowly for combat.