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Tuesday, November 13, 2012

I'm Not Getting a Pulse!

There was an alliance op scheduled last night. For once it was at a suitable time for me! Yay. Pew pew!

All in big shiny battleships. A few support carriers, a few 'specialist' BS. Oh yes, undocking looks very nice!
 

However, I should have know shouldn't I? It was hardly peak time. In fact it was two and a half hours before any normal roam form up we'd consider usually on a week day. Why would an op be scheduled at that hour when most of the alliance are at work or just getting home? Because, as it turned out, it was a POS bash.

I ask you, what other PvP activity is so mind-boggling boring that you start thinking about what your weapon discharge looks like?

"Hang on, that weapons called a mega pulse laser and that is NOT what I'm seeing!"
 
 
OK, if you look closely the beam does appear to pulsate a bit. But it's a beam of a laser with a Bzzzzzzzzip sound. It should be called the Mega Bzzzzzzziping Beam Laser But Isn't A Beam Laser Like The Long Range Laser.

Mmmmmmm that might not work.

"Everyone ship up to Navy 'Geddons"
"Beams?"
"No, fit MBBLBIABLLTLRL's in the highs"

Yeah that doesn't work does it. So, rather than change the name, lets have pulse lasers pulse!

In all honesty I'm just talking about the visuals. I rarely fly laser-platforms myself. Whilst I can fly every Amarr combat ship except the Revelation and the Avatar these days (I can fly an Aeon, just no point if you don't have fighter-bombers) I rarely use them. I trained the Amarr skill tree last year simply as Amarr BS are the best in the game currently for fleet fights. Decent DPS, good tank, armour based (best logistically) and are, erm, gold? Not only did I have to start from Amarr Frigate, I had to also start from Small Energy Turret. That a few months of training to fly Amarr BS properly. Half way through I was flying an Abbadon with 1400mm Howitzer Artillery II's. That was fun ;) "Well hello Mr Falcon!"...... BOOM!

Anyway, back to lasers. I think a beam laser should just as it sounds. Like a Star Trek type phaser reaching out into the vastness of space and firing a sustained hit on the target. Pulse lasers should fire a stream of shorter shots like tracer rounds from an AA gun. Lasers should be the coolest visuals in the game, because.... well they are lasers! Even Dr Evil loves "lasoooooors"! Benjamin MF Sisko knows what I'm talking about. Which of these looks cooler?
 
 
Currently the missile effects are king of weapon visuals in Eve Online. I think lasers need to up their game in that department. Individual laser 'shots' flying through space would make for some more interesting visuals than the "line from ship to target". Then again that's just my taste.
 

2 comments:

  1. I agree with you for the most part that lasers could use a facelift. I'd like to see them slide along the hull/armor of a ship and leave a glowing trail. Or if they deliver a wrecking shot you see them burn through to the other side of the ship, explosive decompression, bodies of the crew blown into space, yar!

    I gotta disagree with you about the Defiant's pulse phasers though. I don't think that sort of effect would work very well for pulses' mostly because I'm a nerd and make a technical distinction between lasers and phasers and all sorts of 'azers. To me laser = beam, pulse laser = beam that blinks on and off serveral times in short succession.

    -Baljos Arnjak

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  2. The pulse lasers actually have a beam that pulses, unlike the beam lasers that are just a beam. The only thing is that the PLs beams pulse closer to the weapon, the beams themselves are rather solid.

    I sincerely like them a lot, must be my Amarrian heritage :) They do need a sound adjust though.

    And beam lasers weapon models should NOT look like artillery cannons tbqh.

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