EVE General Discussion

Hi everyone,

For the next iteration of the naming revamp, we're taking a look at the much-maligned laser turret scheme and aiming to make across-the-board improvements that will increase the scheme's usability and intuitiveness. This is the first proposed step in that direction. It's in an essentially prototypical stage right now, so by all means rip this to shreds if need be. Nice comments and suggestions most welcome as well, in case you're feeling cuddly. Also, please note that as the meta level 1-4 scheme is currently undergoing revision and redesign, the examples below do not take meta changes into account and therefore are not final. They are only intended to serve as examples of the changes within the laser turret scheme itself. Without further ado:

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SMALL BEAM LASERS:
Split into two subcategories:
Dual Light guns and Medium guns
Proposed Changes:
Dual Light becomes Dual Gatling
Medium becomes Light

Examples:
Dual Modulated Light Energy Beam I becomes Dual Gatling Modulated Energy Beam I
Medium Modulated Energy Beam I becomes Light Modulated Energy Beam I

Comments: One of the main goals with the new scheme is to bring every module name into line with the actual size class of the module in question. For this reason, Medium needed to get the axe here. In order for that to happen and still make sense, we needed a new name for the Dual Lights (since Dual Lights would obviously be a more powerful gun than a simple Light gun). Gatlings are known to laser users as the smallest (read: lowest damage/highest RoF) guns in a given subclass, so it made sense to rename the Dual Light to a Dual Gatling so it would sit naturally in the hierarchy. As with everything else here, if this is founded on some fallacy we're not aware of, by all means let us know. (And yes, the Dual Gatling is a more powerful gun than the regular pulse Gatling, so the two still have proper cross-category context.)

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SMALL PULSE LASERS:
Split into three subcategories:
Gatling guns, Dual guns and Medium guns
Proposed Changes:
Medium becomes Light

Example:
Medium Modal Pulse Laser I becomes Light Modal Pulse Laser I

Comments: Fairly straightforward here, as far as we can tell. We thought about changing "Dual" to "Dual Light" here in order to make the Gatling-to-Light hierarchy more defined across the Small size class, but given the responses to past iterations of this project we're more inclined to err on the side of making as few changes as possible, to minimize player confusion in adapting to the new scheme. If you have compelling reasons why changing Dual to Dual Light would give benefits that would outweigh the player confusion caused by having the name hop the category from Beam to Pulse, please do sound off.

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MEDIUM BEAM LASERS:
Split into three subcategories:
Quad Light guns, Focused Medium guns and Heavy guns
Proposed Changes:
Quad Light becomes Quad Gatling
Heavy becomes Solid-State Medium

Examples:
Quad Anode Light Particle Stream I becomes Quad Anode Gatling Particle Stream I
Heavy Modulated Energy Beam I becomes Solid-State Modulated Energy Beam

Comments: Gatling, once again, was pulled in here to serve as the lowest rung within a given size and class. Solid-State is one of the better suggestions we've been able to come up with to denote a high-damage laser while remaining lateral to the size issue, but the name is by no means final. If you have better suggestions that you wish us to consider, feel free to throw them into the thread. We can't guarantee anything, but we'll give everything its fair shake.

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MEDIUM PULSE LASERS:
Split into two subcategories:
Focused guns and Heavy guns
Proposed Changes:
Heavy becomes Medium

Example:
Heavy Afocal Pulse Maser I becomes Medium Afocal Pulse Maser I

Comments: Again, fairly straightforward here, but if you see anything we've overlooked, you know what to do.

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LARGE BEAM LASERS:
Split into three subcategories:
Dual Heavy guns, Mega guns and Tachyon guns
Proposed Changes:
Dual Heavy becomes Heavy

Example:
Dual Heavy Beam Laser II becomes Heavy Beam Laser II

Comments: Minimal, but we hope it nudges things into place while not attempting to fix anything that isn't broken.

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LARGE PULSE LASERS:
Split into two subcategories:
Dual Heavy guns and Mega guns
Proposed Changes:
Dual Heavy becomes Heavy

Example:
Dual Heavy Afocal Pulse Maser I becomes Heavy Afocal Pulse Maser I

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That's the long and the short of it for now. It's entirely possible that we've committed some conceptual errors that need ironing out. Please tell us what you think works, what you think doesn't, and what needs to be taken out back of the shed and shot in the head. This early stage is your greatest chance to affect the way this will shake out in the long run, so please be frank and unsparing with your feedback.

Thanks!

Yes, the scheme itself; specifically whether it's clear and intuitive enough to minimize confusion to laser turret users. The names themselves (modulated et al) are of secondary import here, since we want to try to change only what we need to change so that the user pain of adjusting to new stuff is as minimal as possible.

That said, all comments on the one new name addition (Solid-State) are welcome.

This is one of the more logical name changes and should have been changed over the whole shield module adjustment any day. Having small lasers named mediums has always seemed a bit squiff to me too, for once in a module name changing thread +1

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatling

"The Gatling gun's operation centered on a cyclic multi-barrel design which facilitated cooling and synchronized the firing/reloading sequence. Each barrel fired a single shot when it reached a certain point in the cycle, after which it ejected the spent cartridge, loaded a new round, and in the process, cooled down somewhat. This configuration allowed higher rates of fire to be achieved without the barrel overheating."



Yep, sounds exactly like layzors to me.

Solid-State must be a huge jump up from the rotating barrel of a gatling laser, taking things into 20th century electronics.


Some better lasery adjectives off the top of my head: Focused, precision, wide-beam, narrow-beam, low-divergence, Guassian, temporal, coherent, phased....

Rename the stuff as you like but please, scrap that Upgraded-Limited-Experimental-Prototype meta level name homogenization scheme.

Immersion/roleplay/gameworld complexity is one of the weakest points of EVE in my opinion. Don't nail last bits of it by removing original item names. For some type of players they have more importance than you seem to think.

I'm not too sold on the use of gatling for more laser types, unless you intend on changing the 3d models you will have a whole line of "gatling" lasers where only one type (the current gatling pulse laser) actually has multiple spinning barrels.

It sounds kind of silly to me in the first place. A gatling laser? Quad gatling lasers? That's just fallout silly.

The small lasers in general are kind of a mess and I echo the other suggestions in the thread for renaming them, something that makes it very clear at first glance that the dual lasers are weaker than the light lasers.

Call them "split light beam laser" instead of "dual light beam laser"? Or something to make the high-end light lasers sound more beefy?





As I understand the changes to heavy pulse lasers you've now got "Focused Medium Pulse Laser" and "Medium Pulse Laser".

A player glancing at that is going to get confused. A "focused" medium pulse laser sounds a lot cooler and harder-hitting than its plain old boring medium pulse laser cousin, but as we know the focused pulse laser is the weaker, faster gun.




These do feel like fixing what isn't broken. I would hope a player reading just the names would assume that a MEGA LASER kicks more ass than a dual heavy laser, and with this change the obviously twin-barreled lasers (take a look at the 3d models) are just described as drab "heavy lasers". If you're going to do that, why wouldn't you go back and eliminate the "dual laser" names for the light turrets as well?

Perhaps you should borrow from the naming schemes of the other turret types and change "dual heavy" to "dual medium" pulse/beam lasers.

This has simplicity written all over it...

Give lasers a megawatt, gigawatt, something-awatt power rating that increases logically.

Simple. Elegant. Effective.

/thread

This, and the Gatling comment everybody has, Quad gatling just sounds silly, megawat, gigawat, hell even ectowat sounds A+

It is still too complicated. When i try to find out what a certain name actually means I always look at the meta level and fittig prereqs.


Make simpler and less opaque.

Implement an unanimous structure for all guns!
[size]["calibre"][meta][type][category]

Proposal for lasers (you can do it with all guns):

Small light (for meta--> Basic, Limited, Standard and Improved) pulse/beam laser I
Small heavy (for meta--> Basic, Limited, Standard and Improved) pulse/beam laser I
Small mega (for meta--> Basic, Limited, Standard and Improved) pulse llaser I

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Medium light (for meta--> Basic, Limited, Standard and Improved) pulse/beam laser I
Medium Heavy (for meta--> Basic, Limited, Standard and Improved) pulse/beam laser I
Medium Mega (for meta--> Basic, Limited, Standard and Improved) beam laser I

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Large light (for meta--> Basic, Limited, Standard and Improved) pulse/beam laser I
Large heavy (for meta--> Basic, Limited, Standard and Improved) pulse/beam laser I
Larger mega (for meta--> Basic, Limited, Standard and Improved) beam laser I


This system is by far easier to understand and is transferable to other guns as well.

"Large mega limited beam laser" becomes "Large mega limited artillery gun"
And i don't have to ask myself what meta lvl scout stands for and what the name for meta 3 for other guns is.

P.S: I think it will be easy for everyone to adjust to this system, it is pretty intuitive. It is always the same structure [size]["calibre"][meta][Type][category]

as I'm now training for Amaar, the guns on their ships are confusing so I'm glad this change is coming