Laser weapon problems. Why the recoil.

[xenic]

 

The video in a nutshell. 

 

Laser weapons have no moving parts so why the recoil?

They have should build up heat and become less accurate but don't.

 

I figure someone will mod that but now that it's been pointed out....it's gonna bug me.

[AsariX]

I think they had trouble thinking up a way to balance them in a way that kept them viable as weapons, and worked in the engine.

Heat buildup sounds awesome, but:

1) I don't think weapons keep their "state" when unequiped. Whenever you unequip a weapon, and then re-equip it, the weapon is resupplied with as much ammo as it can take, depending on clip size and the ammunition you have available. Notable difference are the laser muskets, which need "cranks" to load up, and which are always reset to 0 after re-equiping. So, players would just circumvent the heat-up problem by switching their weapons back and forth. In fact, some players already do that to circumvent long reload times until they either invest a point into the reload-perk, or install quick-load magazines.. Bethesda could have made weapons equip with 0 ammo, but in that case, loaded weapons would've been the first mod to come online.

2) Balancing energy weapons by reducing their damage won't work, players simply wouldn't use them anymore.

3) Balancing energy weapons by reducing their rate of fire would mean players would only use them for sniping.

 

I could see some merrit to making energy weapons constantly generate a minor amount of damage to the player on every shot, I'd even suggest 10% energy damage for fusion cells, and some other percentage of radiation damage for fusion cores, but for whatever reason, they didn't want to do something like that either.

 

But the recoil is very stupid, I agree with that. It actually bugged me from the moment I got the two-crank musket, even if that's effectively a single-shooter and lack of recoil wouldn't help lining up a second shot anyway.

[spoonsinger]

Shirely it depends on the point of heat build up in a confined chamber? With a fixed point mount you probably wouldn't notice because the design would take into consideration the recoil or the recoil wouldn't actually effect the mount, however a handheld device producing enough energy to actually hurt someone would probably have a recoil because of the floppy flesh mounting. (Just a supposition, and really don't care about getting into a flame war about it)

[gt5000]

now im curious as to where the recoil setting is listed under in FO4Edit

[Riffy]

Look to rifts for the simple answer in the section describing laser pistols and rifles, it mentions that a true laser pistol has no sound or recoil, but due to years of popular culture showing them emit sound and force, manufacturers eventually made the guns have noises and sometimes a fake recoil because the people buying them wanted those features. However if the fo4 laser rifle is based on the baster idea then it would have recoil from the compressed gasses. But in short this guy is a bit of a spaz in the video or doesn't know much science fiction. But since the laser weapons seem to fire a bolt and not a beam I would say it's using the blaster concept which is an extremely high-energy gas compressed into a beam of intense energy particles that are propelled by or fused with a beam of light. So recoil, not a lot but it's there.

 

Honestly the truth is beth is lazy as shit and didn't want to make new animations for firing one type of gun.

[spoonsinger]

Re :- "They have should build up heat and become less accurate but don't."

 

Thunked about this. Adjustable reflective surfaces, (i.e mirrors) in the barrel with a gyroscope and a bit of electronics. That would take into account the recoil, as such, and give the accuracy of where the player was aiming.

[gt5000]

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/9417/?

found this on nexus today

[panthercom]

 Consider the possibility of recoil being artificially added by design, for either safety or ergonomic

reasons. Basically, recoil provides positive feedback to the wielder about rate of fire etc. By this

way of thinking you could then 'disable' that mechanism without having to rewrite the laws of

physics.

 

 There you go, I've made the lore fit the need for you

[xenic]

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/9417/?

found this on nexus today

Thanks =)  This is what I needed

[PsychoMachina]

Laser weapons should have cool-down periods.  Each round generates heat so you need to fire in singles or bursts.  If firing in continuous bursts, the heat builds up to the point that the weapon locks up and you have to wait for it to cool down enough to unlock.

 

[Leito86]

The game has hit points.

[guk]

It's a fair question, and something that any intelligent and educated person should ask if this was some kind of reality simulator.

 

However with Fallout being a dedicated Fantasy setting, if you go down that route you should also question all the clashes with basic physics, biology, chemistry and natural sciences in general.

You know like - why do irradiated people turn into immortal "Ghouls" instead of just losing their teeth and hair, before either bleeding to death or dying from cancer.

Why do gunshot wounds in the head heal just by eating chewing gum and drinking water.

How does a "Mini-Nuke" work when there is obviously not enough fissionable material in that tiny warhead to reach the critical mass. Not to mention the effect which seems more like a small artillery shell.

 

And don't forget the crazy plot holes where lots of things don't make any sense to begin with ;-)

Like why are there fusion reactors in all pre-war car wrecks and power armors, when in FO4 the fusion technology only exists as a prototype that you activate in the main story.

Or why do you find post-war items like pipe guns and jet in locations that were obviously untouched since the war.

 

 

In my opinion these fantasy games are more about allowing to immerse yourself into an environment that only converges with reality on the surface.

The Fallout setting in particular is all about the shrill caricature of reality. Perhaps lots of players actually take the game serious and don't notice how they (the game devs) massively criticize many things that are wrong in our world since the 20th century. Militarism, exploitation of the environment in favor of mindless consumption, turbo-capitalism and so on.

[Tj412]

I think they had trouble thinking up a way to balance them in a way that kept them viable as weapons, and worked in the engine.

Heat buildup sounds awesome, but:

1) I don't think weapons keep their "state" when unequiped. Whenever you unequip a weapon, and then re-equip it, the weapon is resupplied with as much ammo as it can take, depending on clip size and the ammunition you have available. Notable difference are the laser muskets, which need "cranks" to load up, and which are always reset to 0 after re-equiping. So, players would just circumvent the heat-up problem by switching their weapons back and forth. In fact, some players already do that to circumvent long reload times until they either invest a point into the reload-perk, or install quick-load magazines.. Bethesda could have made weapons equip with 0 ammo, but in that case, loaded weapons would've been the first mod to come online.

 

This shit pisses me off. I can't remember if it was the same in 3 or NV but if I put a gun away with a half-empty mag, it should still have that half-empty mag in it when I pull it back out.

 

As for the OP, I agree. The possibility of overheating, and accuracy degradation due to heat build-up makes much more sense; think Mass Effect 1. But then this is Bethesda, making sense isn't exactly their strong suit

[Jexster13]

 

The video in a nutshell. 

 

Laser weapons have no moving parts so why the recoil?

They have should build up heat and become less accurate but don't.

 

I figure someone will mod that but now that it's been pointed out....it's gonna bug me.

 

there is a mod that removes rocoil from laser weapons, however there is no alternate recoil system in place for it so, maybe not what you're looking for.

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/9417/?

[windu190]

Personally I'm more annoyed by the fact laser rifles sound like guns more than actual lasers.

[pinky6225]

Laser weapons have no moving parts so why the recoil?

They have should build up heat and become less accurate but don't.

 

 

When we say laser weapons have no moving parts what are we comparing to decide this? since to my knowledge other than some huge laser weaponry that is being developed by various navies/air forces there are no real life hand held laser weaponry to compare to

 

As i recall fallout is a mixture of ye old tech (vacuum tubes) combined with future tech to make an interesting settings - the fluff is something along the lines of fallout tech diverging from reality tech at some point after WW2 so i would have thought it would be quite easy to dream up some pseudo science about inefficent ye old tech capacitors discharging creates the recoil

[windu190]

The recoil is caused by the detonation of explosive material in the bullet casing. With laser weapons there is no detonation of any kind, just the emission of a beam of light. Fotons don't even have mass. So there is no reason for there to be recoil. Or to make "bang" sounds. 

 

 

 

[AsariX]

The recoil is caused by the detonation of explosive material in the bullet casing. With laser weapons there is no detonation of any kind, just the emission of a beam of light. Fotons don't even have mass. So there is no reason for there to be recoil. Or to make "bang" sounds. 

 

Bang sounds make some sense, since the photons would heat up the air in front of the lense, which would quickly expand and could theoretically make some noise. Though what kind of noise is up for debate. It might be a bit of crackling, but it might as well be a short humming sound.