Oolite Bulletins

No, not lasers which play music...

To quote:

Beam lasers [...] The weapon itself is made up of 150 laser tubes which are fired together.

The Military Laser, despite the marketing hype, is nothing more than a beam laser with additional laser tubes. Consequently, its wattage is much higher - and so is its propensity to overheat

Just as a suggestion, why not an option which lets you "dial down" the power of your laser such that, although it doesn't do as much damage, it takes longer to overheat?

I'm thinking this would be useful in a situation where, for instance, you've got an opponent on the ropes, but can't quite finish them off because every time you fire your laser is cutting out. You don't need to blast them with full power, so dropping the power would let you keep shooting for longer.

What do people think?

AS far as I know, the laser power is subject of a change in the next Oolite version.
https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f= ... &start=135
I'm not too happy with it. If you tune the power down, the laser won't overheat, but you won't kill with it either.

If the laser overheats after 10 shots but you neet 12 to kill, you have to wait a little.
If you tune it down, so it takes 20 shots to overheat, you will need 24 shots to kill. So you need the same pacience.
BUT: There are quite some enemies that turn away and flee before they explode. Those will be far more difficult to kill then, if the shooting takes longer.

The intent is to reduce the effect of a couple of missed shots - overheat only with no damage done. You can avoid it by firing a single test shot before pressing the trigger constantly.

As I understand it with with 1.82, a skilled OXPer should be able to do something like this. It will be possible for them to at least create other laser types. There are some discussions in the forum - follow ralph's link - and elsewhere, worth a search
My personal view is that I like to keep the game close to core as possible; including as few game changing OXPs as possible (those I have tend to make it harder). A tuneable laser could be one that I would consider adding, as it could add to the game play, as long as it was only ever a tune down. A different change could be to tune the range/power of a laser to add complexity to a fight.

ralph_hh wrote:

AS far as I know, the laser power is subject of a change in the next Oolite version.
https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f= ... &start=135
I'm not too happy with it. If you tune the power down, the laser won't overheat, but you won't kill with it either.

I've been playing in 1.81 for quite a while now, and I feel that the change in the lasers is subtle. The only change I really have felt is a slight increase in the difficulty to snipe at long range with a Mil laser. Or I've got used to them now and don't notice it

I play Ver. 1.76.1 Much less populated. Can even make a cuppa while heading to planet.
As for lasers. Don't hold the trigger. Pulse it. I find that about one a second does the job and never causes over heat.