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Lasers. Names. Changes. Please read before reaching for your weapons.

First post
Author
Tyberius Franklin
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#101 - 2012-08-14 19:58:24 UTC  |  Edited by: Tyberius Franklin
Liang Nuren wrote:
CCP FoxFour wrote:
...


I understand why you're doing it, but I don't really like it. I preferred the Light/Heavy/etc nomenclature to Small/Med/...

-Liang

Agreed, I like my mega pulse lasers and mega blaster cannons.

Also wouldn't consistency demand that missiles be changed yet again as their medium sized weapons just went back to both being called heavy?

The following scheme seems for the most part consistent between weapons systems and I'm not sure what would be gained by changing it.
Small = Light (medium lasers can be an issue)
Med = Heavy (focused med here while med are a different size seems problematic)
Large = Mega

Exceptions being caliber named weapons (railguns and projectiles), some "dual" gun types and large missile types, the former of which can be easily integrated into the aforementioned system and the later probably doesn't need it.
Takeshi Yamato
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#102 - 2012-08-14 19:59:16 UTC
Aamrr wrote:
I rather like the gigawat convention, but it should probably be abbreviated. 200mm turrets, 50GW lasers


This is a good suggestion. I also like shorter module names, just didn't think of it at the time of writing the post.
Sudelle
Tir Asleen
#103 - 2012-08-14 19:59:37 UTC
Kasutra wrote:
Sudelle wrote:
I would think from a game lore standpoint that you wouldn't want all meta levels named the same for all 4 empires. no?

As far as Amarr goes, how about some sort of religious descriptor.

Anointed
Blessed
Holy
Exalted


This would be hilarious. Misses the point, but hilarious. Gives a whole new meaning to the word "holy light"...



That's kind of where I was trying to go with it. Trying to think as a religious zealot that would attempt to, quite literally, burn the sins out of any infidel that would dare oppose them. So name the weapon as the instrument of that wrath...
Eva Volkova
Perkone
Caldari State
#104 - 2012-08-14 20:01:56 UTC
Sudelle wrote:

As far as Amarr goes, how about some sort of religious descriptor.

Anointed
Blessed
Holy
Exalted



+1 Best Idea so far.



EvA
CCP FoxFour
C C P
C C P Alliance
#105 - 2012-08-14 20:16:47 UTC
Just so you guys don't think I have abandoned this thread I am still here and still reading every response.

Currently debating the meta name problem.

Once we have come to a conclusion on that I should be able to show you the complete Pulse Laser name plan, followed by the Beam Laser plan.

@CCP_FoxFour // Technical Designer // Team Tech Co

Third-party developer? Check out the official developers site for dev blogs, resources, and more.

Dorian Tormak
RBON United
#106 - 2012-08-14 20:17:26 UTC
Eva Volkova wrote:
Sudelle wrote:

As far as Amarr goes, how about some sort of religious descriptor.

Anointed
Blessed
Holy
Exalted



+1 Best Idea so far.

Wow, this game must be dying then if that is the best idea so far ffs.

Holy Satanic Christ! This is a Goddamn Signature!

Denidil
Cascades Mountain Operatives
#107 - 2012-08-14 20:20:06 UTC
Takeshi Yamato wrote:
CCP FoxFour

In real life, the strength of a laser is often expressed in watts. Watts is a measure of the amount of energy per second they can put out.

For example this article speaks about a megawatt laser: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-01/navys-free-electron-laser-weapon-takes-big-leap-forward-powerful-new-electron-injector

Hybrid and Projectile turrets already have their barrel diameter in the name (ie. 250mm Railgun) why shouldn't lasers carry their wattage in the name? It fits nicely into a science fiction universe. The gigawatt values here very roughly reflect the actual energy consumption of the lasers too (though your resident physicist could certainly do a better job than me).

So this my proposal:

Frigate lasers
Light 2 Gigawatt Pulse Laser (formerly Gatling Pulse Laser)
Light 3 Gigawatt Pulse Laser (formerly Dual Light Pulse Laser)
Light 4 Gigawatt Pulse Laser (formerly Medium Pulse Laser)

Cruiser lasers
Medium 10 Gigawatt Pulse Laser (formerly Medium Focused Pulse Laser)
... (if it existed, this laser would be 15 Gigawatt)
Medium 20 Gigawatt Pulse Laser (formerly Heavy Pulse Laser)

Battleship lasers
Large 50 Gigawatt Laser (formerly Dual Heavy Pulse Laser)
... (if it existed, this laser would be 75 Gigawatt)
Large 100 Gigawatt Laser (formerly Mega Pulse Laser)

Capital lasers
X-Large 500 Gigawatt Laser (formerly Dual Giga Pulse Laser)

After that you, can add the usual meta prefixes (upgraded, limited, experimental, prototype)

Distinctive features of each turret, such as certain laser turrets having 2 "barrels", can be acknowledged in the description of the module.


Edit 1: and before somebody says the gatling pulse only uses 1 GJ per shot, how can it put out 2 GW? Well, 1 GJ over 0.5 seconds (a brief pulse) would be exactly 2 GW.

Edit 2: for best market-search results, this naming scheme is even better: "2 Gigawatt Light Pulse Laser".

Edit 3: Aamrr suggested to abbreviate the wattage. 50 Gigawatt Pulse Laser becomes 50GW Pulse Laser. I like shorter module names.


i support this proposal with the gigawatt numbers adjusted to roughly match the damage scaling of the weapons.

Tedium and difficulty are not the same thing, if you don't realize this then STFU about game design.

Takeshi Yamato
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#108 - 2012-08-14 20:24:28 UTC  |  Edited by: Takeshi Yamato
Fleet Warpsujarento wrote:
Naming lasers after their power (Megawatt, Gigawatt, Terawatt etc) isn't a great idea give that:

A) They already have a power grid usage measured in Megawatts
B)They already have a a Cap consumption value, measured in Gigawatts
C) Their use of both cap and PG changes as skills and rigs are applied.

So you end up with a situation where a Laser's name corresponds to neither its power usage nor its energy cost (and overlaps with both), and doesn't scale with the damage it puts out.


Actually it makes sense, but to those less familiar with the definition of power and energy it might seem nonsensical.

The capacitor consumption is the amount of energy that goes into a shot. For a Heavy Pulse Laser II with max skills, this is about 5 gigajoule before any crystals.

This energy is converted into light and projected onto the target in a few short pulses. Some of the energy is lost during the conversion process. Let's assume 1/5 is lost .

I suggested the Heavy Pulse Laser to be called Medium 20GW Pulse Laser.

The 20GW number matches perfectly if we pretend that the laser expends its remaining 4 GJ in a series a series of short pulses that last 0.2 seconds in total. The pulses are effectively 20GW laser beams. After that, the laser pauses for a moment to dissipate heat (the energy that was converted into heat instead of light).

Disclaimer: I'm no physicist or engineer. They could probably explain it better.
Satea Marsh
Doomheim
#109 - 2012-08-14 20:25:58 UTC
Takeshi Yamato wrote:
gigawatts/plasma

I think you guys want this just so you can do the Terminator quote.
Denidil
Cascades Mountain Operatives
#110 - 2012-08-14 20:30:04 UTC
Fleet Warpsujarento wrote:
Naming lasers after their power (Megawatt, Gigawatt, Terawatt etc) isn't a great idea give that:

A) They already have a power grid usage measured in Megawatts
B)They already have a a Cap consumption value, measured in Gigawatts
C) Their use of both cap and PG changes as skills and rigs are applied.

So you end up with a situation where a Laser's name corresponds to neither its power usage nor its energy cost (and overlaps with both), and doesn't scale with the damage it puts out.


actually it works fine... better skills = you are able to tweak your lasers to more efficiently convert capacitor into laser output. so the only constraint is that the wattage number cannot exceed their lowest capacitor consumption numbers divided by their fastest possible cycle time.

Tedium and difficulty are not the same thing, if you don't realize this then STFU about game design.

Denidil
Cascades Mountain Operatives
#111 - 2012-08-14 20:31:39 UTC
Takeshi Yamato wrote:
Fleet Warpsujarento wrote:
Naming lasers after their power (Megawatt, Gigawatt, Terawatt etc) isn't a great idea give that:

A) They already have a power grid usage measured in Megawatts
B)They already have a a Cap consumption value, measured in Gigawatts
C) Their use of both cap and PG changes as skills and rigs are applied.

So you end up with a situation where a Laser's name corresponds to neither its power usage nor its energy cost (and overlaps with both), and doesn't scale with the damage it puts out.


Actually it makes sense, but to those less familiar with the definition of power and energy it might seem nonsensical.

The capacitor consumption is the amount of energy that goes into a shot. For a Heavy Pulse Laser II with max skills, this is about 5 gigajoule before any crystals.

This energy is converted into light and projected onto the target in a few short pulses. Some of the energy is lost during the conversion process. Let's assume 1/5 is lost .

I suggested the Heavy Pulse Laser to be called Medium 20GW Pulse Laser.

The 20GW number matches perfectly if we pretend that the laser expends its remaining 4 GJ in a series a series of short pulses that last 0.2 seconds in total. The pulses are effectively 20GW laser beams. After that, the laser pauses for a moment to dissipate heat (the energy that was converted into heat instead of light).

Disclaimer: I'm no physicist or engineer. They could probably explain it better.


that is a perfectly serviceable explanation.


Tedium and difficulty are not the same thing, if you don't realize this then STFU about game design.

Fleet Warpsujarento
Doomheim
#112 - 2012-08-14 21:32:18 UTC
Takeshi Yamato wrote:
Fleet Warpsujarento wrote:
Naming lasers after their power (Megawatt, Gigawatt, Terawatt etc) isn't a great idea give that:

A) They already have a power grid usage measured in Megawatts
B)They already have a a Cap consumption value, measured in Gigawatts
C) Their use of both cap and PG changes as skills and rigs are applied.

So you end up with a situation where a Laser's name corresponds to neither its power usage nor its energy cost (and overlaps with both), and doesn't scale with the damage it puts out.


Actually it makes sense, but to those less familiar with the definition of power and energy it might seem nonsensical.

The capacitor consumption is the amount of energy that goes into a shot. For a Heavy Pulse Laser II with max skills, this is about 5 gigajoule before any crystals.

This energy is converted into light and projected onto the target in a few short pulses. Some of the energy is lost during the conversion process. Let's assume 1/5 is lost .

I suggested the Heavy Pulse Laser to be called Medium 20GW Pulse Laser.

The 20GW number matches perfectly if we pretend that the laser expends its remaining 4 GJ in a series a series of short pulses that last 0.2 seconds in total. The pulses are effectively 20GW laser beams. After that, the laser pauses for a moment to dissipate heat (the energy that was converted into heat instead of light).

Disclaimer: I'm no physicist or engineer. They could probably explain it better.


Oh I've no doubt you could get as high a figure as you want for power. The problem is that it will vary too much between ships and fits for it to actually mean anything.

Take the base laser, no skills, fitted to a ship with no bonuses and no rigs. Give its power use a value of 1.

Take a ship optimised for cap use, and put the same laser on it. What's its value?
-Amarr ship bonus gives you 10% per level to cap use, so that's an 0.5x multiplier on cap use.
-Dual Discharge Elutriation II reduces cap use by about 40%, so that's a multiplier of 0.6x
-Controlled Bursts gives a bonus of 5% per level, so that's an 0.75x multiplier.

If you take peak laser efficiency as your means of determining the name given to the module, then your 20GW laser ends up using a base of almost 90GW, so the name won't bear any relation to the actual stats of the module. That's my real problem with it.
Takeshi Yamato
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#113 - 2012-08-14 21:43:24 UTC
This is the final wattage naming suggestion.

1) An explanation on how the numbers I proposed were obtained

I looked at the energy cost per shot of all tech 1 pulse lasers with max skills and no crystals loaded.

Gatling Pulse Laser I: 1.3 GJ
Dual Light Pulse Laser I: 2 GJ
Medium Pulse Laser I: 3.3 GJ

Focused Medium Pulse Laser I: 6 GJ
Heavy Pulse Laser I: 10 GJ

Dual Heavy Pulse Laser I: 18.75 GJ
Mega Pulse Laser I: 30 GJ

Dual Giga Pulse Laser I: 240 GJ

With this I get an idea on what kind of scale these are operating at and roughly how they differ in power. Since this is a game we have some artistic freedom and we can go with pretty numbers that follow a clear progression, as long as they are reasonable.

2) Taking into account the feedback by other players, I have modified the original proposal slightly:

Frigate lasers
Small 2GW Pulse Laser (formerly Gatling Pulse Laser)
Small 3GW Pulse Laser (formerly Dual Light Pulse Laser)
Small 4GWPulse Laser (formerly Medium Pulse Laser)

Cruiser lasers
Medium 10GW Pulse Laser (formerly Medium Focused Pulse Laser)
... (if it existed, this laser would be 15GW)
Medium 20GW Pulse Laser (formerly Heavy Pulse Laser)

Battleship lasers
Large 50GW Laser (formerly Dual Heavy Pulse Laser)
... (if it existed, this laser would be 75GW)
Large 100GW Laser (formerly Mega Pulse Laser)

Capital lasers
Capital 500GW Laser (formerly Dual Giga Pulse Laser)
Takeshi Yamato
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#114 - 2012-08-14 21:44:08 UTC
And here are beam laser names. Note that their wattage should be lower despite higher energy costs as they maintain a lower energy beam for longer compared to pulse lasers. :

Small 1GW Beam Laser (formerly Dual Light Beam Laser)
Small 2GW Beam Laser (formerly Medium Beam Laser)

Medium 3GW Beam Laser (formerly Quad Light Beam Laser. This one has actually lower cap consumption than the Medium Beam Laser, but not giving it a higher wattage seems wrong)
Medium 4GW Beam Laser (formerly Focused Medium Beam Laser)
Medium 8GW Beam Laser (formerly Heavy Beam Laser)

Large 16GW Beam Laser (formerly Dual Heavy Beam Laser)
Large 24GW Beam Laser (formerly Mega Beam Laser)
Large 36GW Beam Laser (formerly Tachyon Beam Laser)

Takeshi Yamato
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#115 - 2012-08-14 21:44:55 UTC
Fleet Warpsujarento wrote:
nitpicking


This is still a game and we don't have to concern ourselves with simulating everything accurately. If we did, we should rightfully throw the whole idea of skills reducing cap usage out.
Fleet Warpsujarento
Doomheim
#116 - 2012-08-14 21:47:15 UTC  |  Edited by: Fleet Warpsujarento
Takeshi Yamato wrote:
Fleet Warpsujarento wrote:
nitpicking


This is still a game and we don't have to concern ourselves with simulating everything accurately. If we did, we should rightfully throw the whole idea of skills reducing cap usage out.


I just don't understand why a gun that doesn't use 20GW of powergrid, and doesn't use 20GJ from the capacitor per second should be called a 20GW laser.
CorInaXeraL
The Dresdeneers
#117 - 2012-08-14 21:50:23 UTC
Takeshi Yamato wrote:
And here are beam laser names. Note that their wattage should be lower despite higher energy costs as they maintain a lower energy beam for longer compared to pulse lasers. :

Small 1GW Beam Laser (formerly Dual Light Beam Laser)
Small 2GW Beam Laser (formerly Medium Beam Laser)

Medium 3GW Beam Laser (formerly Quad Light Beam Laser. This one has actually lower cap consumption than the Medium Beam Laser, but not giving it a higher wattage seems wrong)
Medium 4GW Beam Laser (formerly Focused Medium Beam Laser)
Medium 8GW Beam Laser (formerly Heavy Beam Laser)

Large 16GW Beam Laser (formerly Dual Heavy Beam Laser)
Large 24GW Beam Laser (formerly Mega Beam Laser)
Large 36GW Beam Laser (formerly Tachyon Beam Laser)




I like these. Granted, the OCD in me wants to round to '0's and '5's, but, hell, that's nothing. It certainly would help with quantifying the lasers (like the calibers on projectile turrets). Not to mention, from there, you could also get the nice, zealous names posted earlier. Then we know exactly how much power we're melting face with when dealing with heretics.
Kethry Avenger
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#118 - 2012-08-14 22:43:28 UTC
One how is this thread not stickyed yet?

I'm kinda in favor of the Gigawatt idea, especially the shorter GW. 2 GW, 5 GW ....

Keep Gatling.

Dual is fine, think those turrets actually have 2 lasers on one turret.

Focused needs to be something that sounds more destructive, agreed. Amplified, Magnified, Augmented, Devouring, Afflicting...

I think Light, Medium, Heavy, or Light, Heavy, Mega, Capital is better and more interesting than small, medium, large.

Keep Tachyon.

I think for Meta naming conventions, I agree there should be more than one set of names so all of EVE is not upgraded, limited, experimental, prototype. I think you could consider 3 sets, one for high slots, mediums slots and low slot modules.
Highslot modules should focus on the increased damage and aggressive aspects of the modules. Midslots to the boosting or harassing nature of the modules. Lowslots on the mostly passive reinforcing nature of modules.


Also since I've been playing for a while now, I like my flavor in my names. I'm not against name changes that make EVE more usable but there should be some flavor. It could be what exists now, or adding in corporate/family names, or new racial variants. If the flavor name exists across 2 types of items it should be on the same meta level.

I agree with the poster above quoting Machiavelli, you should probably open up a bunch of threads like these, for all the modules and things you want to fix, take 3-6 months to gather input. Then take the time you need to build in the changes to release all at once. If POSes, Ship Balancing, Sov Warfare, FW and Incarna, can be slowed down and attempted to be fixed once well I don't see why you wouldn't do the same for naming. Unless you know people are quitting EVE because of naming conventions... which did you want them in the game anyway?
Tragedy
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#119 - 2012-08-14 22:56:37 UTC
I dont care as long as you dont name every module in the game limited experimental protocrap I'm happy.


edit: definetely keep tachyon.
Silas Shaw
Coffee Hub
#120 - 2012-08-14 23:22:18 UTC
First off: I want the names to stay as they are. This is not me trying to bittervet "i learned it, make everyone else learn it too" all over the situation. It helps the feel of the thing. Why does modal sometimes mean m2 and sometimes m4? Because one developer was Galente and the other Matari. So they used their words differently.

Second: If "limited" is better than "upgraded" you've done "intuitive" wrong.