Diablo
08/12/03 12:16 PM
66.207.113.41
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I was thinking to myself one day, "Why would it make a differeance if a laser was pulsing?" think about it. couldnt a single coherent beam being moved do the same job? someone explain the pulsing nessessity.
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tgsofgc
08/12/03 04:36 PM
67.4.198.231
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I guess it could be the intention that while a single beam does the same damage it is more energy efficient to fire many pulsed blasts, allowing you to move the laser over a larger area.
Heres another decent page on the topic by Vampire....
http://rt000pui.eresmas.net/Battletech/Halstead_Station/Technology/pulse.html
I find that 'pinpoint' accuracy during a bombing run increases proportionally with the amount of munitions used.
-Commander Nathaniel Klepper,
Avanti's Angels, 3058
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Dog
08/13/03 03:14 AM
68.8.235.217
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well what if they're actually "burst" lasers. Sort of like a T1 line with burst capabilities, its like a normal T1 line but if needed it benefits from burst's of larger bandwidth.
So think laser that pulses higher intensity bursts, as for the bonus to hit yeah thats kinda silly. Somehow it playtested well though.
Dog
Still bitter about how a rampaging race of superior warriors with superior weapons lost and became a mere border annoyance.
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Cray
08/13/03 09:35 AM
147.160.1.5
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The problem is ablation of the target material.
When a laser hits a target, it delivers energy into the material far faster than the energy can be distributed through the material by heat conduction, shock waves, etc. This means energy keeps piling up in one spot.
For continuous wave lasers (standard and ER lasers in BT terms), this means you get a ball of superheated gas over the target, i.e., plasma. Since plasma is conductive, it's opaque to light. Thus you have this big, puffy ball of gas that's soaking up all the laser energy and not letting much through to the armor underneath.
Pulse lasers pause between pulses - briefly, for no more than milliseconds - which is plenty of time for the superhot gas over the laser impact zone to disperse. The next pulse arrives and hits fresh target material.
It's entirely possible normal lasers hit BT targets more often than they do damage. They just don't always get a firm enough lock to bull their way through the first puffs of ablated armor to do any real damage. Since pulse lasers suffer less from this problem, they hit for damage more often.
I swear I saw a link that describes the plasma problem for weapon-grade lasers, but I can't find it now. I'll post it later if I find it.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Bansee
08/26/03 11:06 AM
205.188.209.75
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FA$A liked pretty flashing lights, expecialy when they were stoned and thought up WOB. In all serriousness there is a supposed reason. When the laser hits armor, it turns it into gas, the gas will diffuse the beam causing loss of dammage. So if you pulse, the time between pulses gives the gas time to disapate, and by redirecting the pulse slightly you also do not have the gass in the same spot. THat make sense, I just drank a pot of coffe and typed this in about a minute.
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