Author Topic: Re-engineered Lasers  (Read 22549 times)

CloaknDagger

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #30 on: 14 September 2013, 01:28:06 »
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice.

In practice, there is.

Okay, sure. Can we get back to how terrible RE lasers are?

Alexander Knight

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #31 on: 14 September 2013, 01:32:51 »
And you totally ignore the point.  Your theory says that the lasers are horrible.  You have no actual practice to confirm that.

CloaknDagger

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #32 on: 14 September 2013, 01:45:25 »
And you totally ignore the point.  Your theory says that the lasers are horrible.  You have no actual practice to confirm that.

You don't need to race a Ferrari against a Prius to know the Prius will lose.

Alexander Knight

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #33 on: 14 September 2013, 01:53:12 »
You don't need to race a Ferrari against a Prius to know the Prius will lose.

Okay then.  What are the odds of 2 head hits vs 3 head hits?

Because...2 reML hitting a heat armored with F-L will destroy it.  You need three standard hits.

Or..let's say you get a shot at the rear torso of a Mad Cat Mk IV.  It takes 2 standard LL hits to penetrate the CT armor, but only a single reLL hit.

Yes, against a wall of infinite armor, reLasers have efficiency problems.  However, there's no such thing as a wall of infinite armor.

CloaknDagger

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #34 on: 14 September 2013, 02:01:35 »
Because...2 reML hitting a heat armored with F-L will destroy it.  You need three standard hits.

The reMLs will destroy it with 66% of the hits, yes.

But the comparison is 2 reMLs against 5 MLs. That's 250% more shots.

The math on that is against the reML.

Or..let's say you get a shot at the rear torso of a Mad Cat Mk IV.  It takes 2 standard LL hits to penetrate the CT armor, but only a single reLL hit.

True.

But piercing the armor in that case isn't a big deal, the chance to crit is nice, but it's not huge.

Really, only the head armor piercing is significant. So the reLL doesn't really do anything significant here since the regular LLs will kill faster.

Of course, that's ignoring that regular LLs are terrible anyway.

Alexander Knight

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #35 on: 14 September 2013, 02:29:31 »
The reMLs will destroy it with 66% of the hits, yes.

But the comparison is 2 reMLs against 5 MLs. That's 250% more shots.

The math on that is against the reML.

no, it's not.  Because there is only 9 armor on the head.  Any extra damage is worthless.  That's why there's a BV bump for "headcapping" guns.  Because they do so much damage to a single location.

Quote
Really, only the head armor piercing is significant. So the reLL doesn't really do anything significant here since the regular LLs will kill faster.

Do wha?  Okay, taking the Mk IV as a specific example again.  I hit the rear torso with a reLL.  I go internal on a 'mech with an XXL engine.  And you think that's not significant?  Meanwhile you attack with your large lasers (or clan ERML, or ISERLL).  You hit the rear torso...and there's armor left over.  So you have to hit the SAME location multiple times in a single volley to do what I did with a single shot.

Let's look at hardened armor.  The Combine's Rokurokubi.  A single reML hit to the rear torso goes internal.  One of them.  It takes 3 standard ML shots to do that.  Starting to see a pattern?

Nosebiter

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #36 on: 14 September 2013, 05:03:43 »
Going by the fluff for the RE lasers i think the rules are just right. They are after all a weapon development that failed, but yielded a highly situational side effect.

Martius

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #37 on: 14 September 2013, 05:09:31 »
Going by the fluff for the RE lasers i think the rules are just right. They are after all a weapon development that failed, but yielded a highly situational side effect.

This.

They are a special tool, perfect for a special situation.

I an dare to predict that they will be used as base for perfected future waepons we might see after the time jump (that is, if it is still planned). A weapon that made BT armour as we know it obsolete forcing new armour technology to be developed.

evilauthor

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #38 on: 14 September 2013, 08:19:18 »
What do you think business is? Or science?

The difference is that in war (and sometimes business), your opponents are actively trying to deny you accurate info and you never have all the info needed to make a proper scientific calculation until well after that info would have been useful. That's why war remains an art and not a science; you can't make proper scientific calculations when half your variables (if you're lucky it's only half!) are labeled "unknown" or "tentative".

ColBosch

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #39 on: 14 September 2013, 10:08:53 »
My computer seems to work just fine, as does my other technology. I expect it to for quite a long time.

Your computer is a well-ordered system. BattleTech is not.

Going by the fluff for the RE lasers i think the rules are just right. They are after all a weapon development that failed, but yielded a highly situational side effect.

I also agree. They're a specialized tool, sure, but with skill they seem to shine.
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CloaknDagger

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #40 on: 14 September 2013, 10:38:00 »
no, it's not.  Because there is only 9 armor on the head.  Any extra damage is worthless.  That's why there's a BV bump for "headcapping" guns.  Because they do so much damage to a single location.

An.... reMLs are not headcapping guns.

Thus the additional shots of the regular MLs will destroy a head faster.

Do wha?  Okay, taking the Mk IV as a specific example again.  I hit the rear torso with a reLL.  I go internal on a 'mech with an XXL engine.  And you think that's not significant?  Meanwhile you attack with your large lasers (or clan ERML, or ISERLL).  You hit the rear torso...and there's armor left over.  So you have to hit the SAME location multiple times in a single volley to do what I did with a single shot.

Again, only destroying the armor on the head matters. Against the rear armor of a MK4, 5MLs will do more damage than 2 reMLs. And the MLs actually have a chance of completely destroying the engine of the MK4 in one volley. The best 2reMLs could do is get two criticals and destroy most of the structure.

Let's look at hardened armor.  The Combine's Rokurokubi.  A single reML hit to the rear torso goes internal.  One of them.  It takes 3 standard ML shots to do that.  Starting to see a pattern?

Hardened armor is where relasers are at their most effective. Against it, yes, they are marginally better than regular lasers.

Alexander Knight

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #41 on: 14 September 2013, 10:51:32 »
So...you can assure yourself that all your standard lasers will always hit the same location?  Sir, where I'm from that requires one of two things.  A targeting computer or cheating.

CloaknDagger

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #42 on: 14 September 2013, 11:10:05 »
So...you can assure yourself that all your standard lasers will always hit the same location?  Sir, where I'm from that requires one of two things.  A targeting computer or cheating.

Nope, but nor can you with relasers.

It only takes 3 critical hits to destroy an XXL, and there are 5 standard lasers to do the hitting.

cavingjan

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #43 on: 14 September 2013, 11:40:26 »
I suspect it is time to agree to disagree on that point.

CloaknDagger

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #44 on: 14 September 2013, 11:43:04 »
I suspect it is time to agree to disagree on that point.

No, because then they never get fixed and they stay terrible forever like IS pulse lasers and ER Pulse lasers.

Alexander Knight

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #45 on: 14 September 2013, 11:43:14 »
Nope, but nor can you with relasers.

Here's the thing.  It takes one hit from the ReLaser to penetrate the armor.  It takes multiple hits from other lasers.  Do you understand the difference now?

CloaknDagger

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #46 on: 14 September 2013, 12:02:44 »
Here's the thing.  It takes one hit from the ReLaser to penetrate the armor.  It takes multiple hits from other lasers.  Do you understand the difference now?

Is the rear armor on a MK4 that weak?

Alexander Knight

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #47 on: 14 September 2013, 12:05:45 »
Is the rear armor on a MK4 that weak?

The rear torso armor on a Mad Cat Mk IV is 7/8/7 F-L
The rear torso armor on a Roko is 4/5/4 Hardened.
The rear torso armor on a Wendigo is 5/8/5 Reflective
The rear torso armor on a Hitosume is 5/5/5 Hardened.

faraday77

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #48 on: 14 September 2013, 12:07:38 »
No, because then they never get fixed and they stay terrible forever like IS pulse lasers and ER Pulse lasers.

They will never get 'fixed' because CGL obviously think they're fine. Maybe we'll get so see some real next gen lasers in the future, but not here and now. Take it up with CGL, but please stop arguing for the sake of arguing. This thread was already done after the first half page.

Gone.

CloaknDagger

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #49 on: 14 September 2013, 12:12:02 »
The rear torso armor on a Mad Cat Mk IV is 7/8/7 F-L
The rear torso armor on a Roko is 4/5/4 Hardened.
The rear torso armor on a Wendigo is 5/8/5 Reflective
The rear torso armor on a Hitosume is 5/5/5 Hardened.

So two hits from a medium laser will strip the armor on all of them. And one hit on a reML (although 2 for the MK4 CT).

so, using the 100% accuracy we've been going with, and throwing out arm head and leg hits, then focusing on the RTs we see that the 5 MLs will strip at most 2 torsos and damage a third, where as the 2 reMLs will at most strip 2 torsos.

Alexander Knight

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #50 on: 14 September 2013, 12:13:52 »
Well, except that the 2 reMLs will each go internal on the Roko and Hitosume.

CloaknDagger

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #51 on: 14 September 2013, 12:20:47 »
Well, except that the 2 reMLs will each go internal on the Roko and Hitosume.

Oh yes. So that's two internals vs none at worst, one intermediate, 3 at best for the MLs.

Foxx Ital

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #52 on: 14 September 2013, 14:51:13 »
your all forgetting something, load up a bunch of small fast units and go head hunting (figure of speech guys ^_^ ) against some of those hyped up armor. I finally have something other than tandem charge srms to take on Restless HA version of a stone rhino (not that i haven't taken down that beastie with said tandem charges)
  I for one am stoked about this failed weapon, highly situational, highly satisfying..like a sugary donut you don't need but can still guiltily enjoy..only this time at someone Else's expense  ;D
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haesslich

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #53 on: 14 September 2013, 19:14:50 »
You don't need to race a Ferrari against a Prius to know the Prius will lose.

By that logic, a broken down Porsche with no fuel, a broken axle, and no tires automatically beats a Prius with an engine swap and full customizations when you race them. The ReLL will do 9 damage when it hits any unit, including one with Ferro Lamellor and reflective. A large laser may be lighter, but it'll still only do 4 damage to the reflective and 7 damage to the FL unit. Two of those LL's are ten tons, and each requires a to-hit roll. Fail one, and you're doing less damage than the RE laser.

The RE laser doesn't replace standard or pulse lasers, as it wasn't meant to. What it does is give units facing anyone with specialty armor a weapon that'll poke holes in it.  For an aerospace fighter, I'd expect these to be rather useful, especially given how quite a few units got reflective armor, and it keeps the ammo tonnage available for other, longer-ranged weapons.  Or room for fuel. For scouts, it's also something that could be useful, and maybe as a space-filler in an assault.
« Last Edit: 14 September 2013, 19:17:32 by haesslich »

Arkansas Warrior

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #54 on: 14 September 2013, 19:24:36 »
Do these things work on reflective armored BA?  The Prey Seeker might make a decent BA hunter against things like the Kishi and Zou.
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evilauthor

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #55 on: 14 September 2013, 19:25:24 »
For an aerospace fighter, I'd expect these to be rather useful, especially given how quite a few units got reflective armor, and it keeps the ammo tonnage available for other, longer-ranged weapons.  Or room for fuel. For scouts, it's also something that could be useful, and maybe as a space-filler in an assault.

Huh... that brings up a thought: Are there any large craft (Dropships, Jumpships, and Warships) that use any of these specialty armors and get bonuses from them?

Arkansas Warrior

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #56 on: 14 September 2013, 19:31:53 »
I don't believe they're allowed to.
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Alexander Knight

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #57 on: 14 September 2013, 19:44:50 »
Do these things work on reflective armored BA?  The Prey Seeker might make a decent BA hunter against things like the Kishi and Zou.

They work very well on reflective armored BA

SCC

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #58 on: 14 September 2013, 20:30:22 »
Huh... that brings up a thought: Are there any large craft (Dropships, Jumpships, and Warships) that use any of these specialty armors and get bonuses from them?
Large craft get their own armor sets

evilauthor

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers
« Reply #59 on: 14 September 2013, 22:43:11 »
Large craft get their own armor sets

One of which is FerroFibrous/Aluminum which is also used by mechs.

So I'm wondering if ships can be designed with Reflective, Reactive, Hardened, etc etc. I know Ferro-Lamellar was derived from Warship armor; does that mean you can now put it on Dropships and Jumpships too?

 

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