Oolite Bulletins

I don't realy know where to put this...but meh.

I was just wondering if there was a property which you could code in, which affects how fast a laser cools. Not how fast it heats, but how fast it cools. Anyone?

Thx in advance.

There isn't. This is a tradition that remained from the early days of Oolite. Back then, it had been decided by aegidian that making this property available to OXPs was not desired for reasons of game balance. So it was never implemented.

Having said that, I sometimes wonder what harm it could do these days, when almost everything is exposed to scripts for tweaking and monstrous ship OXPs that completely throw balance out of the window are already in circulation.

Heh.. the Frontier types always want their laser coolers..

Diziet Sma wrote:

Heh.. the Frontier types always want their laser coolers..

Ah-hem. Frontier player from way back and I'd not touch a cooling booster with a twelve parsec Kessel Run.

Five megawatt pulse laser, Diz, marksman's weapon and no cooldown issues.

My apologies for over-generalising..

However, I stand by my remark in the sense that it's always the players who miss having their Frontier laser coolers, that want to see them in Oolite.

Ha! There's oodles of things I miss about Frontier-- variable Witchspace distances based on ship's mass versus hyperdrive size, equipment sizes for balancing what you can and can't fit on a ship, the sheer /scale/ of the systems versus how small and tidy systems in Oolite are, the various career paths like military missions...

Laser cooling boosters are pretty darn low on the list.

Now if only the project for Pioneer wasn't such a beta mess. Ah, well. I still have a perfectly good copy of GLFrontier that runs pretty well in 64 bit windows, and it's not like I've got the reflexes I had twenty years ago, anyhow. I can barely keep up with combat in Oolite as it is.

Layne wrote:

equipment sizes for balancing what you can and can't fit on a ship[snip]

You can scratch that out of the list; we have the requires_cargo_space = <x> equipment property that does just that, although we are only using it for Passenger Berths in the core game. Also some of the other stuff in the list like military careers and maybe even huge systems can be made as OXPs. All we need is someone to actually dive in and do it. The reason it's not done yet probably has to do with the fact that Oolite remakes principally Elite and not FE2. The possibility is definitely there though.

Layne wrote:

Laser cooling boosters are pretty darn low on the list.

Ok.. that's twice you've shown that you're the exception that proves the rule..

Relax.. I believe you..

another_commander wrote:

...we have the requires_cargo_space = <x> equipment property that does just that, although we are only using it for Passenger Berths in the core game. Also some of the other stuff in the list like military careers and maybe even huge systems can be made as OXPs. All we need is someone to actually dive in and do it. The reason it's not done yet probably has to do with the fact that Oolite remakes principally Elite and not FE2. The possibility is definitely there though.

Oh, and I'm not lamenting that Oolite isn't Frontier; the two games have and should have a totally different feel to them. Interesting about the equipment space, I believe I was peripherally aware of that because I know there's an OXP out there that tries to make use of it. That's one of those things that would take a lot of balancing, though. Might be fun to look into sometime.

Diziet Sma wrote:

Ok.. that's twice you've shown that you're the exception that proves the rule..

That par-tic-u-lar aphorism doesn't quite mean what you may think, Diz, but we'll let it pass.

So then is there another to actually make a gatteling laser. I was thinking that I would heat up the laser and quickly cool it down and continue. Is there another to do that?

And you should know that I ain't old enough to play frontier.

Layne wrote:

Diziet Sma wrote:

Ok.. that's twice you've shown that you're the exception that proves the rule..

That par-tic-u-lar aphorism doesn't quite mean what you may think, Diz, but we'll let it pass.

I had an "exchange" on usenet with a loud-mouthed American about that saying a few years ago.

laser settings description

[wiki]LaserCannons[/wiki] and New lasers

tweak those settings to create different types of lasers.

a few hypothetical examples :

set damage to 30k , energy to 256 , shot_temperature to 218 .
Put that on a cobra3 and you get a one-shot laser that is capable of destroying a coriolis station but your cobra will have almost no energy left, and your laser will be cold a long time before you can have enough energy to fire a 2nd shot.

set damage, energy , shot_temperature and recharge_rate all to .1 .
This will result in a continously firing laser that will take very very long to destroy anything.


If you describe what kind of behaviour you expect from a gattling laser, we may be able to figure out something.

The issue with laser coolers is that they would break an important part of the game, namely the need to master various skills. Learning to meter use of the lasers is one of the many skills that keeps Oolite interesting and demanding. Indeed this is one of the things that elevates this game above other games where the ability to 'cheat' is almost built in and instant gratification is considered more important than long-term enjoyment.
Many of us old-timers have been playing this game for years, and we still continue to enjoy it because it is not easy - it is the challenge and need for putting a bit of (mental) effort in that keeps it interesting. This is why many of us resist adding anything to the game that makes it too easy.
So, laser coolers? No thanks. Doubly so as they could be seen as a half-way house to lasers that don't heat up at all. Holding down a trigger and just pouring endless death with no limits and no penalties at everything in sight is not my idea of fun at all.

Smivs wrote:

Many of us old-timers have been playing this game for years, and we still continue to enjoy it because it is not easy - it is the challenge and need for putting a bit of (mental) effort in that keeps it interesting. This is why many of us resist adding anything to the game that makes it too easy.

Some of us like it easy. Even then, laser coolers might remove fun rather than adding fun.

Well... Until somebody comes with a fun laser cooler. I just can't see the scenario where a laser cooler would add fun, and a laser differently configured would not.

Day wrote:

Well... Until somebody comes with a fun laser cooler. I just can't see the scenario where a laser cooler would add fun, and a laser differently configured would not.

Fun is, of course, just about one of the most subjective measures you can have. Not that I'm saying I very much favor laser cooling boosters, but I also don't see anything too horrible in the idea.

Of course, to be entirely fair, the bad guys would have to get them as well, and then, *pew pew pew*, there goes your paint job.

What if the cooling booster needed energy to run? You have to trade off faster cooling for an additional drain on the energy banks?