EVE General Discussion

Regardless of whether or not there were name changing threads before, there is one here for this. I use lasers.

I like these changes and I believe they are clearer and easier for beginners to pick up without confusing old people. Success.

+1

I definitely like the numerical schemes that people are suggesting, and prefer watts a unit of measure. For training the newbs, the difference between the wattage of the weapon and it's PG requirements can be handwaved as the difference between the output power on firing (by drawing power from the capacitor, not the power grid) and what it takes to have the turret functional in general.

Also, I insist that one of the weapons be 1.21 gigawatts. That way when I cross-train Amarr I can shout "One point twenty-one jigawatts! Great Scott!" as a battlecry

I'd like to throw my 2ISK in. If you are going through this effort, I would like to see the entire lineup renamed around a physical property, which will make it trivial to differentiate power levels and avoid ever having to consider this issue again (since a new module of any size can be added without affecting the name progression. I propose the entire lineup refocus around the designations of MJ for pulse lasers and MW for beam lasers. All lasers could then quickly be distinguised, including beam vs pulse, by viewing the numerical term.

Pulse Laser minimum cap use

• Gatling Pulse Laser .27 GJ
• Dual Light Pulse Laser .42 GJ
• Medium Pulse Laser .70 GJ
• Focused Medium Pulse Laser 1.26 GJ
• Heavy Pulse Laser 2.11 GJ
• Dual Heavy Pulse Laser 3.9 GJ
• Mega Pulse Laser 6.3 GJ

Beam Laser minimum cap use

1. Dual Light Beam Laser .61 GJ
2. Medium Beam Laser 1.14 GJ
3. Quad Light Beam Laser .86 GJ
4. Focused Medium Beam Laser 1.84 GJ
5. Heavy Beam Laser 3.42 GJ
6. Dual Heavy Beam Laser 5.53 GJ
7. Mega Beam Laser 10.28 GJ
8. Tachyon Beam Laser 15.03 GJ

So estimating an approximate 60% efficiency and basing them all around the same laser, it could be fair to estimate 150MJ downrange power per light laser head. "Medium" lasers could be just stacked versions OR a larger number. It's the future, so being less conservative and rounding up to 175 or even 200 could be accepted. As the laser is scaled up, the inefficiencies get stronger, which is likely realistic. Now the higher damage modifiers with increased meta make sense conceptually since they deliver the same energy in a more controlled pulse, either smaller period for pulse or more focused for beam. For simplicity I used 1GJ/1s assumption, but they could easily be on their number track with a different assumed beam time. I am not sure which is least confusing, but I think using the same number reinforces that lasers work differently than projectiles and hybrids by using the same "base" to get very different effects. I would also add descriptive terms to retain the different characters. Meta levels could be homogenized without losing the distinct laser conventions.

Pulse Lasers

1. Q 200MJ Laser
2. Paired 200MJ Laser
3. 600MJ Laser
4. Boosted 600MJ Laser
5. 1200MJ Laser
6. Paired 1200MJ Laser
7. 4800MJ Laser

Beam Lasers

1. Paired 200MW Laser
2. 600MW Laser
3. Quad 200MW Laser
4. Boosted 600MW Laser
5. 1200MW Laser
6. Paired 1200MW Laser
7. 4800MW Laser
8. Tachyon 4800MW Laser

And for full effect, some lore/description tidbits:

All the base lasers are some manner of huge solid-state lasers. The Q laser is a Q-switching laser. Several laser chambers are kept below firing threshold and are mechanically rotated in line with the single focusing mirror before firing. This allows several low powered lasers to fire rapidly without multiplying the the workload on the targeting computers. Paired lasers are synchronized to focus and fire at the same target simultaneously. Pulse lasers are tightly mode-locked while the beam lasers are made to fire in the same phase pattern for optimal effect. The quad beam is a curious attempt to pair paired lasers. The massive increase in power and cpu requirements have limited this design to the smallest beam lasers; mode locking 4 lasers proved beyond current technology. Boosted lasers are smaller lasers amplified with an in-line free electron laser. When fired in phase, they experience a 50%-70% increase over the base laser. The complex nature of synchronizing two types of lasers only proved worth the effort on the 600MJ level. Tachyon lasers use a similar concept however; the base 4800MW beam is accelerated through a micro-wormhole tunnel. The conversion of photons to tachyons is extremely inefficient, but the extra destructive power on impact is impressive.

I just want to agree with any above poster that didn't like the term Gatling mixing with laser. It has bothered me since I started playing eve

Gatling is fine over in artillery/projectiles, but should be dropped from all laser names. Which reminds me, the sound effects sound too much like a machine gun and not like pew pew. Not that real lasers have sound effects, but still. pew pew, not b.r.r.r.r.r.r.r

Better to have different upgrade schemes per weapon class

I.e, pulse: pulse, dual pulse, quad pulse
beams: Maser (Microwave),Laser, Graser (gamma),

Also I don't like solid-state. Besides hyphenated words being annoying in general, it seems like a faddish attempt to sound techy and not something actually high-tech. Instead of saying solid-state, use solid
beams: liquid/solid/plasma beam


So with pulse we add extra barrels. With beams we use a higher wavelength, or we treat the charge chamber differently

Oh, and pew pew sound effects

Well I agree with your assessment. However, that roots out a bigger underlying issue that meta-levels should go the way of the tier system in general. I agree a light laser should be a range of different items, but right now we just have progressively better items in all aspects. If this was not the case I would be all for creative names which rewards diving into the lore to discover what is better for a given situation. However the weapons in EVE are homogenized in a very sterile manner; I would rather embrace this in the naming scheme as long as that holds true. Those statistics do exist in-game, whether you would prefer the room for "imagination" or not. I made some heavy assumptions in picking the numbers I presented, but if they were much lower you have to start wondering what all that cap is being used for. (Cooling, tracking is covered by PG, not cap, otherwise projectiles would require cap too). Furthermore I admitted the numbers for the beam weapons were arbitrary, and could easily be retooled for easier distinction.

The complications remain because I tried to keep the character of the original name in a condensed format. It could have easily been the following for pulses instead, but that is way more boring:

1. 200MJ Pulse
2. 400MJ Pulse
3. 600MJ Pulse
4. 1GJ Pulse
5. 2GJ Pulse
6. 3GJ Pulse
7. 6GJ Pulse

Yes it is clear where one class starts and another begins (MJs are frig, over 3GJ is large), but now there is nothing left of the distinct character that are lasers. I could have been more clear and included that the numbers were picked so 600 is just a single beam from 3 200 emitters (stacked or clustered), 1200 being twice that, and 4800 being 4 times that again. So effectively, a BS pulse laser is 24 light lasers focused using one giant crystal. I know it would be a mild pain, but perhaps duals and quads should require 2 and 4 crystals respectively. Since we seem to not be heading in the level of immersion you are looking for (where the player can fill in details and there is variety/character within a subset of items), I would rather the game world make more sense in compensation. Both would be asking for too much I fear.

I just wanna throw this out there, don't take it too seriously but... just imagine....


Tachyon Heavy Pulse Laser

It is good to have names that have a meaning. In addition to that you can have some flavor terms on special items, but I would still like to see what the item is from it's name. Terms should also be consistent.

- I don't think Gatling should be used to tell the weapon is weak, because Gatling means only that it is gatling.


Then I am not so sure does the item name have to have every detail about the item. Sure, if you have always certain categories, then you need different names, too. For example:

Small Pulse Laser (this is a basic small pulse laser)
Medium Pulse Laser (basic medium one)

Alien Small Pulse Laser (this is also a small pulse laser, but has alien tech in it)
Improved Alien Small Pulse Laser (improved alien laser... You can see terms creeping to the name)
-> Maybe use a short name and a long name where the long name is a technical name with all the categories in it. Then the short name should be something shorter, eg. Improved Alien SPL. People should be able to browse by short or long names.

Basic SPL I
Basic SPL II
Basic SBL I

Improved SBL I

Alien SBL III (<- well, that III already tells, it might contain alien tech. On the other hand just putting I II... doesn't tell much as such, maybe drop tech level from the name and use "alien" or so. Otherwise it will become SBL III which is dull, though compact)


Then if I see the word "dual" as a new player, it feels like the item should be better. I have to read spec to know that there are different kinds of weapon properties: Rate of fire, optimal distance, and so on. But dual tells me only that it is dual. Instead of "dual" you should say in the name what you really mean: Is it a sniper laser or close range or what.

Basic Assault SPL
Basic Sniper SPL
Basic Sniper SPL III

Basic SPL III (basic all purpose SPL that has alien tech)


And the Meta vs Tech level business is quite confusing for a new player: Sure tech II is better than I, and III is really shiny, but how does Meta and Tech -levels relate to each other? If "Basic SPL" is meta 1, then is "Improved SPL" meta 2 and so? Does meta counting start from 1 again in tech II?

Improved Sniper SPL II (meta 2 because improved?)
Dragon Sniper SPL II (how to add other sub levels for speciality weapons? Player sees that this isn't basic nor anything usual. The word Dragon doesn't tell much, but you have also things like "Navy-issue"... If there will be more of these special brands, how do I know which is better as a new player? I need to get experience and check specs and google and so on again?)

Numbers don't tell you outright what it can be fitted to, at least for the railguns. The projectiles have some semblance of order (proper progression and class distinction), but there are a few inconsistencies.
Now you can, hypothetically, follow similar schemes as per projectile, but being partial to the laser names, I'd like to see them preserved as intact as possible.

The progression focus is overblown, as there really are no more than 3 choices per specific class (mostly its 2 choices). If someone has trouble with this, then I have nothing to say that will be deemed polite. Anyone familiar with the Gallente hybrids will remember the differences between Electron, Ion and Neutron. It is no different with the Amarr lasers ... vis-a-vis for pulse and beams.



You don't, NOT with the current naming scheme.
It's a hint for the CCP guy reading this.

I don't get the point of the entire renaming project. It wasn't broken. Matter of fact, it added depth to the game. Depth that generic named modules cannot provide. There are real problems to fix, why waste time on this? It's just dumbing things down for everybody. Is it really necessary to insult me because you want to inspire afew WoW players to try eve? Saw an interesting quote recently and I think it applies. I don't want to see any Elves in EVE.

1. Numerical - like railguns
2. NO NO NO to Gatling! That's a projectile firing thing. Nonsense in this context. As others have done, I've mis-fitted lases so many times I've pretty much given up using the due to the utterly confusing nomenclature. Please fix - keep the flavour but make it clear.