Oolite Bulletins

[Sendraks]

Ganelon - I suggested something similar to the short range laser some time ago and there were various issues implementing something like that. The main one being that it would have tbe written into the core script for the game and couldn't (easily) be done as an oxp. The concept was something akin to a pulse laser, but with a much faster cycle time and damage per hit. I think it had slightly higher damage overall than the mil laser, but was supposed to heat up faster and couldn't be used for sniping. A weapon for those who liked to dogfight, rather than snipe.

As the core script for Oolite is supposed to be faithful to the original elite, its unlikely something like this would be added to the game.

I'd have to dig my post out, but there was something in that about making plasma gun (in the script purely for the purpose of ships with turrets irrc) available to ships on their EQ lists. That is a short range weapon, but is decidedly more crappy than the pulse laser.

I think someone, a while back, posited the idea of a projectyle weapon oxp that used missiles as its ammo. Small, low damage, fast firing, short range, missiles.

[Ganelon]

If one went with a pod type weapon that fired a series of very small non-tracking missiles, it could approximate "guns". But I'm not at all sure that the engine could cope with it. At the very least, it'd be an awful lot of moving objects and I figure that would chew up the frame-rate pretty bad.

Understood on it being too far out of Elite canon, Sendraks. I think that at some point somewhere in the future Oolite will pretty much have to exceed the limits of the original Elite. (It already does in some ways, like having OXPs in the first place.) People looking for the original Elite experience are probably more likely to use an emulator and run the old versions of the original game. I have done that myself in years gone by. I doubt anything short of that would really be satisfying to some purists anyway. But the ideas of Elite are time-tested as a classic and make a good backbone. Not good generally to deviate the spine too much in developmental/growth periods.
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Wandering G2 in a somewhat scuffed Cobra MkIII. Clean Dangerous (1121)

[Cmdr James]

Core oolite without OXPs is intended to be more or less elite, and in strict mode is very close.

Adding lasers to the core is probably not viable as it would take the game further from elite than we would like. In principle OXP scriptable lasers should be OK, however oolite does not, and canot easily be made to support OXPable lasers.

Faking it with missile types or plasma is the closest that can be done right now.

[Smivs]

[Ganelon]

[Switeck]

I'd rather like a "gun pod" that takes a missile slot which has limited ammo and very limited range.
It'd actually be firing tiny non-homing missiles (the "bullets") which do low damage individually...but would have the advantage of not causing extra heat.
Shots would have to be limited in number, speeds of the bullets would have to be only about ~0.5 LM, and range would probably have to be limited to about 5-10 km -- though at 10 km if the target even wiggles before the shots get to it, you miss.

[Thargoid]

At which point the weapon would be entirely useless against anything that can move, or even drift in space...

I might have a quick play with some code on this concept, but to be any good the "bullets" would have to fly fast enough that the target is at least somewhere in the vicinity of where it was when the bullets were fired when they get there.
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My OXPs via Boxspace or from my Wiki page .

Thargoid TV

[Sendraks]

[Thargoid]

Getting lasers to fire in sequence would be an AI nightmare (if possible at all). But bullets are easy - it's the same basic concept as my probe missile (just somewhat faster and more deadly).
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My OXPs via Boxspace or from my Wiki page .

Thargoid TV

[Thargoid]

OK, I've got a semi-working entity floating around in my ooniverse.

Unfortunately it seems to currently have the side-effect of periodically ending the universe and dumping me back to the desktop. So will continue to investigate that methinks...
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My OXPs via Boxspace or from my Wiki page .

Thargoid TV

[Smivs]

[Cmdr Wyvern]

[Commander McLane]

And by the way, there is already a doomsday weapon at hand for the player (and completely in-ooniverse, not involving desktops.)
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All you ever wanted to know--and more.

[Cmdr Wyvern]

Going back to the gatling laser idea, the twin plasma cannon almost fits the bill.
It's cycle rate is good, it's range, energy demand and heatup is right for an up close and personal blaster... But it's shot power is little more than a lovetap, and that's the only thing that makes it useless. You might as well swear like a dockhand at the pirate, for all the damage the TPC can currently do.
Amp up the shot power to about the same as a mil laser, and presto, a good go at the gatling laser idea, sans the laser. Raise the price to match, of course.

IMHO, the beam laser would still be the better dogfighting weapon.
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Captain Derik Roh'i - ***ELITE*** - CO of Caduceus Omega Persistence of Memory - Where? Guess.

One Lizard's mark upon the Ooniverse

[Ganelon]