Hard Light Productions Forums

General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: ShadowGorrath on April 01, 2009, 08:24:42 am

Title: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: ShadowGorrath on April 01, 2009, 08:24:42 am
Ok, so I think that the reason why FS2 fleets are much larger than the FS1 ones ( at least it seems so ) is because of beam cannon tech. Think of it this way- small versions of beam cannons ( like the ones used in the Colossus cutscene by the construction machines ) could help "cut"/form the parts of the ship hull the way it'd be need.

Well, Snail seems to protest about this, dunno why, so we ( mostly me ) decided to bring this to a HLP level. Soo... any ideas?
Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: Vrets on April 01, 2009, 08:33:27 am
There's really not much to say about that. Sure, I guess?  :p

Although it really seems likely that the GTA and PVE had industrial strength cutting lasers back in the day. It takes more precise tools than massive BFGreens to build super advanced space destroyers (eheheh), so this idea sounds a little silly. However, this idea of yours explains the impotency of the SGreen, I suppose.

"Damnit, boys, we're horrifically over budget. Anyone got any ideas?"

"Sir, why don't we just cannabalize our weakest construction lasers instead of having R+D come up with a good beam cannon for the cruiser hull?"

"I don't see how anything can go wrong. Make it so."
Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: ShadowGorrath on April 01, 2009, 08:38:34 am
:welcomered:
Welcome to HLP. We're at a 1st of April celebration here, so don't get scared too much.  ;)

Well, I just wanna hear what people think of this, if it's a plausible idea. Because if it's at least mostly agreed on, then your mom can assume that with better beams come more ships.
Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: Pred the Penguin on April 01, 2009, 08:58:33 am
Maybe because of the combined industrial might of both races?
Resource rich systems discovered?

Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: Snail on April 01, 2009, 09:12:45 am
Agreed with Pred.

Srs. How does shooting things with lasers speed up construction?
Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: Pred the Penguin on April 01, 2009, 09:19:03 am
Cutting things with lasers speeds up things, but I don't think construction lasers were invented after the Shivans came....

We already have small scale lasers nowadays...
Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: ShadowGorrath on April 01, 2009, 09:20:17 am
But not powerfull enough to cut armour that can take multi-gigaton explosions.
Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: Pred the Penguin on April 01, 2009, 09:22:16 am
We've just barely started going into space. Give the human race some time...
Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: Mongoose on April 01, 2009, 11:46:28 am
"Damnit, boys, we're horrifically over budget. Anyone got any ideas?"

"Sir, why don't we just cannabalize our weakest construction lasers instead of having R+D come up with a good beam cannon for the cruiser hull?"

"I don't see how anything can go wrong. Make it so."

This...actually makes a massive amount of sense. :D
Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: Rick James on April 02, 2009, 07:52:50 pm
Ugh. The SGreen wouldn't even be so bad if it would just recharge a little faster. The LTerSlash is just a pile of ****, though. For the sake of making the Fenris not suck so much in my on-and-off-again mayhem FRED tours, I find it more realistic to replace the LTerSlash with just a regular TerSlash.
Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: Sololop on April 02, 2009, 08:57:30 pm
Isn't their a beam labeled simply "Green Beam," and if so, is it weaker than the Sgreen?
Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: FUBAR-BDHR on April 02, 2009, 09:03:43 pm
By just going with beams you are forgetting all the other tech and new uses for that tech.  I mean you have beams, shields, Vasudian tech, reverse engineered Shivan tech.  Just to say any one tech could speed up things that much I don't think would be a good statement. 
Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: Snail on April 03, 2009, 04:31:10 pm
Isn't their a beam labeled simply "Green Beam," and if so, is it weaker than the Sgreen?
The Green Beam is worse than both the LTerSlash and SGreen.
Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: Eishtmo on April 03, 2009, 05:56:04 pm
I think the reason the fleets are bigger is much simpler:  The ships weren't being built, sent straight to the front lines where they were promptly destroyed in combat.  The Terrans and Vasudans fought a war for 14 YEARS, ships were being destroyed almost constantly.  Then they get a couple decades worth of peace (after being almost completely wiped out) so they went on a building spree.  Simple as that.
Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: The E on April 03, 2009, 05:58:00 pm
I guess the surprise appearance of a certain lobster had something to do with it as well...
Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: Mongoose on April 03, 2009, 07:17:55 pm
Indeed.  A 30-year breather from sustained combat plus a civilization-destroying motivator equals big fleet expansion.
Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: S-99 on April 03, 2009, 09:40:28 pm
In the cut scene i think those were just high powered laser cutters.
Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: Snail on April 04, 2009, 06:27:51 am
Yeah, I doubt that beam cannons played a part in ship construction.

The laser cutters seen in the cutscene were probably around for decades, but they weren't very useful in combat.
Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: Enigmatic Entity on April 06, 2009, 09:26:44 am
AKA targeting laser. ;)
Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: Snail on April 06, 2009, 09:47:30 am
AKA targeting laser. ;)
Er, no, the Targeting Laser has no structural effect whatsoever.
Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: S-99 on April 06, 2009, 04:32:47 pm
The targetting laser would have been a lot of fun to play around with. Just sit by your destroyer with your primaries at targeting laser and do your best to paint a shivan while the destroyer turrets of all kinds except capsip beams go for it with great accuracy.
Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: Enigmatic Entity on April 06, 2009, 11:02:36 pm
Does it actually have any effect in-game? (Besides making a sound like an aaaf?)
Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: S-99 on April 07, 2009, 01:14:05 am
I don't think it has any function. But, if it did. It'd be great to have a targeting laser standard on all gtva fighters to be able to sit near a destroyer for cover and just paint targets for the cap ship.
Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: ssmit132 on April 07, 2009, 02:58:41 am
I believe the Targeting Laser was supposed to be used to paint targets for subspace missile strikes.
Title: Re: Would beam cannon tech ease up construction?
Post by: Snail on April 07, 2009, 02:05:00 pm
Artillery more or less.