Rule Qs: Turrets, ENG OVR, Battlesuits

[offsides]

Originally Posted by Mack_JB

By quick seat-of-the pants math, 9.5 miles is 15 km -- so ten hexes range.

Hmm... I wonder if the solution is to change how max Laser range is determined rather than how LLOS is calculated? Lasers primary mission is to fire on Cruise Missiles, which fly over terrain (albeit fairly low), giving lasers a longer range at which they can hit them using real-world calculations. For argument's sake, let's say a CM flies 200 feet off the ground. That's ~17 miles of horizon visibility. A 70-foot Laser Tower has ~10 miles. Round up and call it 30 hexes of range against cruise missiles. Against ground units? Chop it in half and call it 15.

For Laser Turrets, they're closer to the ground and have a horizon range closer to 5 miles, so chop 5 hexes off those ranges and give them 25 to CMs and 10 to ground units. Towers can still fire over terrain to hit ground units (otherwise what's the point), but turrets are blocked by all but clear terrain or water. If you want to get a little fiddly, when firing on CMs through raised terrain, the raised hex and every hex behind it count double for range calculations for Laser Turrets only - you need a higher angle to get over the terrain, and thus can't hit CM's as far away. Laser Towers have no such restriction. Also, doubling the height of a tower adds ~5 miles to the range, but that's the practical point of diminishing returns on that.

This also makes lasers a little more strategic, as towers no longer have the luxury of being able to hit absolutely anything the moment it enters the board regardless of their location. 30 hexes will still cover almost everything on a single green map (corner-to-corner a GEV map is 33 hexes range, and if it's not in a corner it can hit everywhere), and much/most of a double map if placed centrally. And turrets have to be placed much closer to the potential targets it's guarding to avoid an end-around, but then have a much smaller "guardian" radius where they can help out other units.

There's not much that can be done about LLOS calculations in game without getting too fiddly, but maybe adjusting the ranges (even as a house rule) can make Lasers a little more realistic without being too complicated.

[lokke]

Again:

https://physicsworld.com/a/light-ben...round-corners/

The Florida team generated a specially shaped laser beam that could self-accelerate, or bend, sideways. The researchers did not bend the laser beam as a whole but rather the high-intensity regions within it. To do this they passed a centimetre-wide ordinary laser beam through a device known as a spatial light modulator that adjusted the phase of the beam at thousands of points across its width. Rather than acting like a lens and focusing all of the beam’s constituent rays to a single point, the modulator instead changed the relative phase of the rays such that their interference produced a region of maximum intensity that curved sideways in the shape of a gentle parabola across the beam as it propagated forward, along with a number of fainter regions on one side.

In addition to this self-bending, the beam’s intensity pattern also has a couple of other intriguing characteristics. One is that it is non-diffracting, which means that the width of each intensity region does not appreciably increase as the beam travels forwards. This is unlike a normal beam – even a tightly collimated laser beam – which spreads as it propagates. The other unusual property is that of self-healing. This means that if part of the beam is blocked by opaque objects, then any disruptions to the beam’s intensity pattern could gradually recover as the beam travels forward.

Presumably by the time of the Final War, this technique will have been perfected and lasers can be bent to follow the curve of the Earth, making LOS irrelevant.

It would also explain why lasers can't be placed on an Ogre. It has always been claimed that Ogres don't have enough power. Given that they have fusion power-plants, that never made sense to me.

If the light bending technique is used however, the laser has to remain stationary.

Thousands of complex calculations would be needed to let the laser fire on any given hex that isn't in direct LOS (most of them - a 10 foot bump in the ground is enough). This would need precise measurements of the target areas. These calculations would be made when the laser was being emplaced.

Range now becomes a function of the power of the laser rather than LOS. Presumably the towers have larger power sources.

[Tim Kauffman]

Originally Posted by lokke

Again:

https://physicsworld.com/a/light-ben...round-corners/

Originally Posted by lokke

Presumably by the time of the Final War, this technique will have been perfected and lasers can be bent to follow the curve of the Earth, making LOS irrelevant.

It would also explain why lasers can't be placed on an Ogre. It has always been claimed that Ogres don't have enough power. Given that they have fusion power-plants, that never made sense to me.

If the light bending technique is used however, the laser has to remain stationary.

Thousands of complex calculations would be needed to let the laser fire on any given hex that isn't in direct LOS (most of them - a 10 foot bump in the ground is enough). This would need precise measurements of the target areas. These calculations would be made when the laser was being emplaced.

Range now becomes a function of the power of the laser rather than LOS. Presumably the towers have larger power sources.

I suggested Laser bending technology in OGRE before as a way to simply not require LOS for Lasers that could make "real-world" sense. Thematically it really goes well with the OGRE general theme that weapon systems do not need LOS (unless Archaic) while eliminating all that fiddly LOS stuff for Lasers.

OGREs appeal for me at least is it always had that technological edge to it that was one plausible step ahead of "what could be". Not GEVs armed with Tac-Nuke ammo but GEVs armed with Tac-Nuke ammo with Jet Engines??? Not just monstrous tanks but monstrous tanks with AI??? The current Lasers that require LOS Imho just don't share that same edge. I understand they were intentionally made this way as to not decrease the stature of the inhuman warmachines by having other weapon systems that could rival it's perceived battlefield supremacy during The LAST WAR. However, I think having such other weapon systems actually increases the OGREs presence as the King of the battlefield if they are done correctly and have a point cost that compliments the game. In fact, I would argue having more powerful Lasers to be one of the key reasons to make OGREs (and GEVs) in the first place was to counter their long ranged threat as effectively as possible. So, restricting the game to having a much weaker unit like the official Laser actually diminishes both the Laser AND the OGRE. While having a more substantial threat in a more advanced Laser unit casts the OGRE in a much more menacing and capable light.

You could have Non-LOS Lasers be more advanced versions while keeping the official ones as is with all the fiddly rules, so no worries about retconning rules...these would be complimentary new additions.

One issue needing worked out is their range...if the beam trajectory can be bent, this would shorten it's range the more it is bent. How to take this into account?

One possibility (KISS):
Have the rule that ranges for Non-LOS Lasers are halved (round down).
Non-LOS Laser Turrets = Range 15
Non-LOS Laser Towers = range 30.

Second possibility:
Adjustable range depending on how many forbidden terrain hexes the beam crosses and then has to be bent to hit the target, but to determine that would require using LOS to determine...and someone with really good math skills to figure out as a chart.

The only serious issue (and it's a total game breaker) with this is if their is no LOS for Lasers we will have the possibility for Combine Fire attacks being made by them, which is problematic because of the attack strengths that become possible and because of being able to have those Combined Fire attack strengths at ranges of 30 and 60 hexes.
For example, x2 Non-LOS Lasers would have an attack strength of 4...the same as a OGRE Main Battery only able to attack at a range of 60 (or 30 if halved) using the suggested rule.

Most important and if figured out correctly would balance them with other units would be their Point Cost.
How much should a Non-LOS Laser and Non-LOS Laser Tower cost? I'm thinking ALOT.

The FanMade OGREs which use Lasers (LOGREs) assume:
OGREs have enough power to use them.
LOGREs must remain stationary on the turn they fire their OLASERs and thus cannot move and fire their OLASERs on the same turn.

As an aside, the Laser Tower configuration being kept and mounted on the LOGREs is deliberate and with reason. The Tower houses essential components for it to function which would otherwise not be available in the OGRE chassis space.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128248...7688053199546/

[lokke]

I wasn't proposing any new type of laser, just trying to explain how the standard lasers work.

Unless you put the tower on top of a mountain, there's only two ways it can have the range given:

1) Make the Earth flat - which is an interesting if slightly unfeasible proposition.

2) Make the lasers bend to follow the curvature of the earth.

No need for any new rules, just an intellectual exercise. Sorry for any confusion.