Author Topic: Re-engineered Lasers try 2  (Read 18957 times)

AJC46

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Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« on: 07 October 2014, 17:20:08 »
Discussion on the uses and canon users of these weapon system try to keep it civil and clean please or I'll request that the mods will destroy it with their eye beams.  [copper]

please keep the griping about how they turned out to a minimum has a topic filled with nagging about them isn't were i want discussion to go and i'm pretty sure the staff wouldn't be too happy as well thank you.

solmanian

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #1 on: 07 October 2014, 17:46:46 »
They're a dark age FedSuns invention iirc, so I'm guessing FedSuns almost exclusively, and even there it's probably rare.
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Savage Coyote

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #2 on: 07 October 2014, 18:12:57 »
I have never used them.  On paper, they are "alright" IF you can guarantee you'll be facing a speciality armored unit.  If not, they are too heavy and take up too much space to be of much use.

They are a niche weapon, that much like a lot of 3145 tech, have a paper/rock/scissors effect.  The RE Lasers are just "normal" against a majority of units in the game, but when you get against the specialist armor that gives energy weapons a hard time, they shine, at least to a point.

FedSuns are probably happy to have them against all of the Reflective armor they see on the Drac boarder at least :)

Alexander Knight

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #3 on: 07 October 2014, 18:36:27 »
More importantly, they work against Hardened armor as well.

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #4 on: 07 October 2014, 18:41:51 »
More importantly, they work against Hardened armor as well.

I think thats the greater use honestly, but hardened armor is spread out all over the place (though the DCMS I guess have a few)

Scotty

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #5 on: 07 October 2014, 18:58:39 »
Re-Engineered lasers are tailor made for OmniMechs.  Any sort of specialist equipment is, really, but Re-Engineered lasers are a much easier to cart around way to deal with Reflective armor than artillery.  Swap out a Larger Laser on an Omni for a pair of RE Mediums, and though you lose range, your damage potential is tripled.
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glitterboy2098

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #6 on: 08 October 2014, 00:44:40 »
they basically negate the effects of (IIRC) Reflective, hardened, and Ferro-lamellor.
Reflective may not be super common at the moment, but certainly it has drawn a lot of attention from designers and seems to be the new big wondertech for many factions design teams. (especially in the aerospace and battlearmor fields.. where the drawbacks are less noticeable or practically non-existent)

Hardened armor, by dint of it's older period of existence, is rather more common.. and while still not yet a standard thing, when used it creates really hard to deal with damage sponges.

F-L armor is so new it is only on a few units so far.. but since said units are being sold by the SeaFox's to anyone able to afford them, and seem to be very very popular with certain factions..

« Last Edit: 08 October 2014, 00:50:42 by glitterboy2098 »

Diablo48

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #7 on: 08 October 2014, 16:44:20 »
As far as actual use goes, these are in the same boat as the Clan ER Pulse Lasers.  They look like they have a niche, but in practice they just do not work well enough to ever be a good idea.  The numbers got posted a while back, but the gist of it was that the small and medium are almost exactly even with standard 3025-era models against the Reflective and Hardened armor they are supposed to beat so there is never any reason to use them because they are so far behind against other armor types.  The Large did better with a meaningful advantage so it is an actual improvement over the standard model when shooting at units with Hardened or Reflective armor, although it is still well behind the standard when used against FL or standard plate.  There are naturally some threshold niches where one or the other has an advantage against a specific unit either due to more concentrated damage to penetrate better or more hits to crit better/waste less damage (BA and conventional infantry), but these go both ways and are very opposition-specific so they are naturally not useful in a general discussion.


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cavingjan

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #8 on: 08 October 2014, 16:46:48 »
The emperor mounts two of them mostly because it was out of crit space but had tonnage left over.

Diablo48

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #9 on: 08 October 2014, 20:53:54 »
The emperor mounts two of them mostly because it was out of crit space but had tonnage left over.

Honestly, they are really not great for that either.  The MPL is denser than any of the Re-Lasers, and missiles are another very strong option which will usually fit in that slot if you do not want to go with another energy weapon.

In the specific case of the Emperor, a Large Laser or ERLL would have filled the tonnage with two crits to spare and given you more ranged firepower (assuming you are able to handle the heat) and SRMs would have let you murder conventional forces even more efficiently with Infernos.  You could also go for a mix with something like two MLs, a MPL, and a Flamer to get more firepower against most opponents, a bit of extra accuracy (which translates to more damage), and a dedicated anti-infantry mount for the hordes of conventional infantry running around during the Dark Ages.  It does cost you a bit of raw damage against targets with Reflective or Hardened armor which you could fix by replacing the Flamer with another ML, but I feel like the utility of a Flamer is worth far more than the damage it costs you even on a slow design like the Emperor (I do like to hang Flamers on absolutely everything, so you should probably take my opinion on them with a grain of salt).


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Alexander Knight

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #10 on: 08 October 2014, 22:35:59 »
And the one thing that was ignored in those numbers that got posted before.


They were predicated on firing at infinite blocks of armor that were a single location.  This is a situation that will not occur in Battletech.  Ever.

AJC46

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #11 on: 08 October 2014, 23:19:52 »
a head hit by the large RE laser will make any mech that doesn't have a torso cockpit worry since after that any further head hits will be going Internal and most weapons will do at least the 3 needed to remove the head.
« Last Edit: 08 October 2014, 23:24:00 by AJC46 »

Diablo48

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #12 on: 09 October 2014, 16:04:57 »
a head hit by the large RE laser will make any mech that doesn't have a torso cockpit worry since after that any further head hits will be going Internal and most weapons will do at least the 3 needed to remove the head.

That's honestly nothing special.  Most heavy weapons will do this and there are plenty of headcappers running around out there as well that will cause more than worry.  It is somewhat relevant against 'Mechs with hardened or reflective armor because those can give a lot more breathing room, although even then a 15+ point hit will leave the armor worryingly thin and there are plenty of those to choose from.


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Colt Ward

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #13 on: 10 October 2014, 00:02:52 »
Um, my understanding was that FL armor was treated as standard armor by RE Lasers?  It was one reason I was looking closely at the RE LL armed Spider.
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Alexander Knight

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #14 on: 10 October 2014, 00:12:19 »
Um, my understanding was that FL armor was treated as standard armor by RE Lasers?  It was one reason I was looking closely at the RE LL armed Spider.

You are correct.  The damage-reducing property of FL armor is ignored by RE-lasers.

Diablo48

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #15 on: 10 October 2014, 15:50:09 »
Um, my understanding was that FL armor was treated as standard armor by RE Lasers?  It was one reason I was looking closely at the RE LL armed Spider.

It does, but the actual benefit is small in comparison to Reflective or Hardened armor and winds up being drastically outweighed by the inefficiencies of the RE lasers.

The best-case scenario for the RE lasers is the small because the standard small goes from 3 to 2 for a 50% reduction in incoming damage, but the small RE-laser does 4 damage for 1.5 tons and 5 heat which can be matched by two smalls which together deal the same 4 damage for 1 ton and 2 heat, although it does cost you one more crit.  That means you save 33% of the weight and 60% of the heat by switching to the standard smalls for a negligible increase in penetrating power and one saved weapon crit which will be devoured by the extra DHS you need to dissipate the extra heat generated by the RE laser, and the larger sizes are even worse.


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Alexander Knight

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #16 on: 10 October 2014, 18:59:16 »
Except it's not matched.  Or do you think they every standard PPC should be replaced by twin light PPCs?

Scotty

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #17 on: 11 October 2014, 02:29:34 »
Oh come on, not this again.  The OP is pretty clear that we're supposed to avoid that same sort of quibbling over whether one point of damage is so significant.

Re-Engineered Lasers are not efficient guns.

Re-Engineered Lasers are not useless.

Now can we please get on with the thread? ::)
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Colt Ward

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #18 on: 11 October 2014, 03:18:44 »
I think it might be best treated like Heavy Lasers- people have various opinions, its a preference thing IMO.

With the proliferation of the special armors, it would seem to be employed the same way, which is why I mentioned the Spider carrying a RE-LL should be used like a Solitaire.
Colt Ward
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Col Toda

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #19 on: 11 October 2014, 11:35:21 »
In the case of having tonnage left over and not much crit space .  Maxing out your armor ; Increasing CASE to CASE II or  extra Heat Sinks in Engine :  Engine rating permitting .  Replacing Endo- Steel IS with  Endo - Composite IS ( to get space )  .  Extra ammo or a special ammo type slot .  TAG . Look to up-gunning lasers such as do you have the tonnage to replace one or more laser with a variable pulse laser or not ? Or combining the extra heat sinks and up-gunning the lasers at the same time . It depends on how much tonnage you have and if you max out the armor for your tonnage already . Most mechs particularly the better designed ones rarely have more than 4 tons of play . All of which may be a better use of tonnage  than Re-Engineered lasers . Mixed Tech becomes advanced l in later years replacing your IS ER- Med with a Clan ER - Med  gets you better range and 7 points of damage which becomes 3.5 with the new armor type at longer range ; still a better win than Re-Engineered lasers ; oh and replacing a guardian ecm with an angel one works nice too .
« Last Edit: 11 October 2014, 11:41:14 by Col Toda »

Colt Ward

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #20 on: 11 October 2014, 15:50:36 »
Ignore
Colt Ward
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Gus

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #21 on: 12 October 2014, 03:43:24 »
I wish RE lasers were just a little bit lighter; possibly matching IS Pulse Lasers in weight. I was playing with an idea for Improved RE Lasers: Lasers that weigh the same as standard IS Pulse Lasers, and generate more heat if they hit the specialty armours that are vulnerable to RE Lasers. This way, you pay for RE Lasers' signature ability when you actually use it. Specifications something like below, albeit in rough form. They'd certainly need some playtesting to polish the stats.

Improved Large RE Laser: 7 tons, 5 crits, 9 damage, 10 heat.
Improved Medium RE Laser: 2 tons, 2 crits, 6 damage, 6 heat.
Improved Small RE Laser: 1 ton, 1 crit, 4 damage, 4 heat.

All Improved RE Lasers function as standard RE Lasers but generate 50% more heat if they hit any specialty armours that are vulnerable to standard RE Lasers.

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #22 on: 12 October 2014, 05:58:44 »
How does a laser generate more heat based upon what it hits? Does it generate extra heat if it hits internal structure on a unit using one of the armors?

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #23 on: 12 October 2014, 10:31:04 »
When this discussion comes up, I always get the feeling no one looks at the BV difference of the suggested "better" weapons. Of course they are "better" they cost about a crapload more BV. The should be "better"...

What I also don't get: So a new weapon isn't the be-all-end-all of weapon development. Why all the fuzz?
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Diablo48

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #24 on: 12 October 2014, 14:07:30 »
I think it might be best treated like Heavy Lasers- people have various opinions, its a preference thing IMO.

With the proliferation of the special armors, it would seem to be employed the same way, which is why I mentioned the Spider carrying a RE-LL should be used like a Solitaire.

Not really.  The Heavy Lasers have advantages over conventional weapons which gives them a niche they can fill due to their unusually high damage to weight ratio unlike the RE-Lasers which just flop.  The HLL is the lightest headcapper in the game, the HML can give you a devastating close range bracket for very little weight, and the HSL has the absolute highest damage per ton of any reusable weapon in the game and ties with the RL-10.

Now, I do not have the numbers up right now but I do remember that the RELL did actually have an advantage over the standard against Reflective and Hardened armor so that Spider may not be totally useless depending on the opposition, but it is not a headcapper like the Solitaire's HLL so it does not present the same kind of threat the Clan design does.

I wish RE lasers were just a little bit lighter; possibly matching IS Pulse Lasers in weight. I was playing with an idea for Improved RE Lasers: Lasers that weigh the same as standard IS Pulse Lasers, and generate more heat if they hit the specialty armours that are vulnerable to RE Lasers. This way, you pay for RE Lasers' signature ability when you actually use it. Specifications something like below, albeit in rough form. They'd certainly need some playtesting to polish the stats.

Improved Large RE Laser: 7 tons, 5 crits, 9 damage, 10 heat.
Improved Medium RE Laser: 2 tons, 2 crits, 6 damage, 6 heat.
Improved Small RE Laser: 1 ton, 1 crit, 4 damage, 4 heat.

All Improved RE Lasers function as standard RE Lasers but generate 50% more heat if they hit any specialty armours that are vulnerable to standard RE Lasers.

There are lots of easy ways to make them better and it is very obvious from looking at the numbers that they do not really work as intended which leads me to believe that there was deliberate thought given to making them inferior so the technology would be experimented with for a while before dying out.

How does a laser generate more heat based upon what it hits? Does it generate extra heat if it hits internal structure on a unit using one of the armors?

I would assume the laser has two different operating modes.  It can either work like a normal laser or a RE-Laser so it can pick the mode more appropriate to dealing with the target it is shooting at.  I would personally give the player control over which mode they are using it in because the penetration might not be worth the extra heat against some armor types like FL Armor or you might not be willing to take on quite that much heat for whatever reason.

When this discussion comes up, I always get the feeling no one looks at the BV difference of the suggested "better" weapons. Of course they are "better" they cost about a crapload more BV. The should be "better"...

Given that BV is generally a good indicator of the quality of a design, that is fairly strong evidence that the RE-Laser has issues.  Also, BV is purely an out of character mechanic so it has absolutely no bearing on in-universe design.

Quote
What I also don't get: So a new weapon isn't the be-all-end-all of weapon development. Why all the fuzz?

There is a difference between being the best at everything and being usable.  The problem with the RE-Lasers is that they look like they should be good for shooting up designs with Reflective Armor, but in practice they only break even with the standard models in what is supposed to be their niche.  This means that you would do just as well shooting at a target with Reflective Armor with a standard Medium Laser as you would with the REML, so you are always better off with the standard because it works better on other targets.  They could have easily improved the performance of the RE-Lasers a little bit (tonnage, damage, heat) to fix this problem while still leaving their performance against standard armor behind the standard models so there is an actual reason to use them, but as written they are basically useless.


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solmanian

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #25 on: 12 October 2014, 15:45:13 »
What I also don't get: So a new weapon isn't the be-all-end-all of weapon development. Why all the fuzz?
I totally agree. Trying to introduce new weapons that are simply better than their predecessors, creates a slippery slope with every new generation of weapons making the previous generation obsolete. It's much better to create weapons that are different, or at least created with intention to "fix" the short comings of previous iterations, like the MML/ATM. Of course, when a technology "matures", improved versions should show up.
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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #26 on: 13 October 2014, 10:54:18 »
I totally agree. Trying to introduce new weapons that are simply better than their predecessors, creates a slippery slope with every new generation of weapons making the previous generation obsolete. It's much better to create weapons that are different, or at least created with intention to "fix" the short comings of previous iterations, like the MML/ATM. Of course, when a technology "matures", improved versions should show up.
The problem is that for that to work you need to give the new equipment a niche where it is actually advantageous to mount it.

RELasers obviously don't (with a small caveat for the Large). There's really an unfortunate amount of those bad ideas throughout the game. :(

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #27 on: 13 October 2014, 12:48:25 »
Again.  If you feel that batteries of standard lasers are better than RE-lasers for fighting special armor, then you obviously subscribe to the theory of replacing PPCs with twin Light PPCs.

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #28 on: 13 October 2014, 15:05:40 »
I keep seeing 2 standard lasers do the job of 1 RE laser against those armors and people should use standard. But don't those 2 standard lasers have to both hit the target in the same location to do the same damage 1 RE laser does? I suppose hitting 2 different locations is good but aren't you still depending on IF? And isn't it better to get past the hard outer shell and into the sweet juicy center as quickly as possible? Don't RE Lasers do that against those armor types? Also aren't there more and more aerospace fighters that are using reflective armor?

To me, RE Lasers would seem to be a good fit on fighters since they'd nullify reflective armor. I would think they'd also be a good fit on AA and fire support units. They'd shoot down fighters faster than those with other lasers and if ground troops run into a unit with that kind of armor they just call in support and let the support unit handle them and then move in to exploit the damage they did.

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Re: Re-engineered Lasers try 2
« Reply #29 on: 13 October 2014, 16:40:41 »
I keep seeing 2 standard lasers do the job of 1 RE laser against those armors and people should use standard. But don't those 2 standard lasers have to both hit the target in the same location to do the same damage 1 RE laser does? I suppose hitting 2 different locations is good but aren't you still depending on IF? And isn't it better to get past the hard outer shell and into the sweet juicy center as quickly as possible? Don't RE Lasers do that against those armor types? Also aren't there more and more aerospace fighters that are using reflective armor?
yep. so the arguement for massed standard lasers has the same flaw as the arguement for using massed LRM5's instead of LRM10's, 15's, or 20's, or the arguement for using twin light PPC's instead of a single standard.

in terms of potential damage, the massed smaller weapons do seem to make sense. but in terms of things like average damage and damage concentration, they fail. the more times i have to roll a to hit, the greater the odds i will miss, reducing the damage. which reduces the average damage by quite a bit. plus each hit has to roll for location separately.. which means the damage is spread out more.

the bigger guns might be less efficnet mass wise, but they have better one hit punch.. while the massed smaller guns is sandblasting.
« Last Edit: 13 October 2014, 16:45:30 by glitterboy2098 »

 

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