Make Lasgun Great Again (Suggestion for 1.3)

Tremulous Evil Genius Think Tank
1

Lasgun has always been an underwhelming weapon. It is viable to an extent but severely outclassed by many other guns.

Its only true use is against S1-2 aliens. Even then, the mass driver, shotgun, and rifle are distinctly better weapons. The lasgun has no application against a rant or an average advanced goon.

Here is my proposal:

Increase the damage from 9dmg/bolt to 10dmg/bolt as well as adding in a zoom feature similar to the Mdriver’s.

This will drastically increase the viability of the weapon and make it fun to play with.

3 Likes
2

Lasgun is just a stronger,slower sniper rifle type. It’s a great idea for when traveling in packs but honestly it’s pretty useless as of right now. Zoom would be nice though.

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I believe @romdos said it best that most of the weapons in Tremulous feel like they belong better in Quake 3 than they do against an alien invasion (which isn’t surprising, as Tremulous used to be a Quake 3 mod!). I have no doubt there are plans in the future to tweak them, at the very least to give them interesting alt-fire mechanics.

As for lasgun balance, I personally think it was a seriously underrated weapon in 1.1. I remember people kicking me for abusing the secret lasgun + jetpack wombo combo.

4

What can we do to improve it? Well, what tactical niche does it fill?

It has pinpoint accuracy (better than rifle and chaingun but not mdriver) continuous fire (unlike rifle and mdriver), and reasonably high DPS (better than rifle and mdriver but not chaingun). It also has consistent DPS across all ranges, provided its user is a good shot, unlike shotgun or chaingun. I see it primarily as a compromise weapon, a step up from the rifle and bridging the gap between sniping and brawling.

Its main problem is that it’s significantly more expensive than your economy brawler, the shotty, with no obvious advantages over other weapons.
However, buffing it as bird proposed

would make it better at both brawling and sniping, and perhaps justify its cost.

Statistics on lasgun as compared to other s1 weapons:
Rifle has 1050 damage in its ammunition (in 150 damage bursts), with ~56 DPS per burst and ~32 DPS average: 31 seconds total firing time. Damage/$ and DPS/$ are… well, infinite :stuck_out_tongue:

Shotgun has 1792 damage total in 448 damage bursts, with 56 DPS per burst and ~45 DPS average (assuming you hit with every pellet!), with 38 seconds total firing time. Damage/$ is 11.9, DPS/$ is ~0.30.

Lasgun has 1800 damage total in continuous fire at 45 DPS for 40 seconds firing time. Damage/$ is 7.2, DPS/$ is 0.18.
Lasgun + battpack has 2700 damage total for 60 seconds firing time. Damage/$ is 7.7, DPS/$ is ~0.13.

Mass driver has 950 damage total in 190 damage bursts, with 38 DPS per burst and ~27 DPS average for 33 seconds of fire. Damage/$ is 2.7, DPS/$ is ~0.078.
Mass driver + battpack has 1330 damage total in 266 damage bursts for ~29 DPS average and 43 seconds of fire. Damage/$ is ~3.0, DPS/$ is ~0.066.

Chaingun has 1800 damage total in continuous fire at 75 DPS for 24 seconds of fire. Damage/$ is 4.5, DPS/$ is ~0.19.

I could do some handwaving and pull random numbers on how weapon spread affects actual damage deliverance, then give an “accuracy-adjusted” total damage and DPS, then factor in how the shotgun and mass driver deliver all their damage in a lump sum, but I don’t have any conversion constants and it varies too much between players for empiricism.

Now, with bird’s[quote=“bird, post:1, topic:2300”]
10dmg/bolt
[/quote]

the lasgun would get 2000 damage total and 50 DPS in continuous fire with damage/$ at 8 and DPS/$ at 0.2 without battpack, or 8.6 and ~0.14, respectively, with. DPS would be better than any average except for the chaingun (67% of that), DPS per dollar would be next only to shotgun, and it would have more available damage than any other weapon even without battpack.

With my suggestion of reducing its cost, to, say, 200c, it gets 9 damage/$ and ~0.23 DPS/$ without battpack, 0.15 DPS/$ with (same damage/$). Its damage economy stays in 3rd place, but its DPS economy surpasses the chaingun at this point.

At this point, after running through all the statistics, I’m inclined to agree with Hendrich.[quote=“Hendrich, post:3, topic:2300”]
it was a seriously underrated weapon in 1.1.
[/quote]

– rlb

1 Like
5

i thought it said make lasagna great again. my bad
that’s the only reason i’m here.
lasagna

4 Likes
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This is false, to an extent. Lasgun has 45 DPS flat (9 damage per bullet, 200 ms delay per shot, so Rifle has 55.55555 DPS within a single clip, but if it takes a player two full clips (60 bullets exactly, which is 300 damage; this is just an example for the math, usually you can do it in less than two full clips) to kill a Dragoon then they will only be doing 40.54054 DPS over the course of the 7.4 seconds it takes to fire 30 bullets, reload once, and fire 30 more bullets. Staying within its first clip, Rifle has higher DPS, even if you miss as many as 5 of those 30 bullets (not that you can assume the player with the Lasgun will hit every single shot either). However, when you consider that players will usually be sticking in groups (as humans), players rarely need to fire more than one full Rifle clip in a single battle; 150 damage into a normal Dragoon will allow a teammate with shotgun to finish it off in one shot (56 damage at most, 150+56 > 200). It takes 3 seconds for a Lasgun to do 144 damage, while it takes only 2.52 seconds for a Rifle to do 145 damage, both getting a Dragoon to one-shot range for Shotgun. Obviously these examples are hand-picked, but it does show that Rifle is better than Lasgun in a lot of situations. For going solo, Lasgun is much better of course, since reload can be deadly (for the human).

It would also further enable and encourage lasgun camping on maps such as rotcannon (sitting on one of the lights or just using a jetpack to fly) and even in the skies of ATCS. I’m not opposed to adding a scope or giving it a slight damage buff (50 DPS puts it more in line with Shotgun and Rifle), but I would be wary of not thinking through the possible repercussions.

I am of the opposite opinion; I believe the Lasgun is the third weakest purchasable gun in Tremulous after the Flamer and the Mass Driver (the latter of which I understand to be an unpopular opinion), and the Flamer actually has higher DPS than the Lasgun. I have probably spent more time with every single weapon in Tremulous, including the Lasgun, than almost every other current player, and I have spent a lot of time going through the tremulous.h file and figuring out the math behind which guns are best, and the Lasgun has almost no redeemable values in comparison to the alternatives. Even if the Lasgun was free, I would pick the Rifle over it the majority of the time.

Now, I can’t really just end this post without explaining how I would change the Lasgun if I were to rebalance Tremulous. Giving it a scope hardly matters for most normal maps, but it would appease many players, so sure, we’ll give it a scope in my mod. But that doesn’t balance it. Personally, I would leave it at 9 DPS and just modify the fire rate to balance it out. It takes much longer than the Chaingun or Shotgun to fire all of its damage, even though it has (approximately) the same amount as each of them. A delay of 180ms after each shot would change it from 45 DPS to 50 DPS just like that. 50 bullets would go from 10 seconds to 9 seconds. 23 bullets (207 damage, enough to kill a Dragoon) goes down by 460ms (nearly half a second). Raising the damage amount would feel weird, but increasing the fire rate makes it smoother (ever so slightly more similar to the Rifle’s fire rate) while also bringing it closer to the DPS of better, cheaper weapons. Same effect, different method, and can be fine-tuned until “balance” is achieved.

2 Likes
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Dunno where you live but here Lasagna in always great.

You can improve the cadence of bullets, but if used well the lasergun is one of the best weapons

1 Like
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As per @Menace13 's recommendations, for swirl development, the repeat rate of the laser has been reduced to 180 ms, and zoom functionality has been added to the laser. These changes are now available on the test7341 server.

2 Likes
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Over a time period of only 3 seconds, that only shows you the burst damage, DPS is usually calculated over times of 30 seconds. Although tremulous is a fast paced game and like you said you will rarely need more than 1 clip when travelling in a pack. If someone is standing at the back with the lasgun and you engage multiple goons, you will definitely fire for more than 3 seconds making the lasgun dps exceed the rifle in that encounter. The longer the distance between you and your target, generally the more worthwhile the lasgun is to EVERY weapon besides maybe MD (if vs dretchs).

I agree it’s underrated, It has the most consistent/reliable accuracy and DPS in the game with a cost of only 200 credits. A zoom feature would be nice to imply it’s strength are pressuring down long distance targets, but any form of buff (even a minor one suggested here) might even be too strong. [quote=“Menace13, post:6, topic:2300”]
but increasing the fire rate makes it smoother
[/quote]

This would certainly be better than buffing the damage. Currently on the test server the lasgun has brighter bullets when you miss and hit a texture, I find this can help in tracking your last missed shot and aid in lining up your next one.

1 Like
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I’m on test right now. I love what you have done with the lasgun. The glowing bolts are also a very nice touch. Well done. Thank you.

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11

I thought that was part of a visual mod around since like 09 that krtv also suggested to put on the pub servers.

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I think @cron modified the laser assets (among many other assets) on on the test7341 server a little while ago. Also we added dlights to all the human weapons (before only the flamer used dlights) thanks to @Odin .

1 Like
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On a side note, lasgun is already stronger than most weapons U just need to WAKE UP. The slow firerate is a key feature, but most ppl r too lazy learning the cadency so they don’t give a shit. 2 bad for them U will tell me.

Fuck making lasgun chaingun#2.

1 Like
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Lets see how these changes workout in-game. Changing the fire rate and adding zoom were easy modifications, it would be no big deal to fine tune further. Also, if we find that the change in the firerate makes the laser op and the original dps was ideal (or close to it), rather than reverting the fire rate, we could decrease the damage per shot and increase the ammo accordingly, as so far I am liking the “smoothness” from this current fire rate.

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Because chunking over 100 hps off someone before they even reach you in hall and not having to reload at all wasn’t OP enough.

Hey, let’s make everything have the firerate of a SMG because it’s smoother!

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Any good alien can kill a las gun despite the aforementioned damage.

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No shit, this is when you learn a goon can kill 3 shotties if it’s not shit and start playing in a team because it’s a fucking team game.

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I agree with MaeJong. This is coming from someone who used to pick the lasgun religiously.

To be fair, the lasgun was best when paired up with the jetpack. Now that the jetpack isn’t the infinite-fueled rocketship that it was in 1.1, I wouldn’t mind a buff (of sorts).

However I don’t think a buff to it’s DPS/firerate/etc is what it needs. What made the lasgun so good wasn’t it’s damage output or it’s firerate, it was it’s sustain. You can go out and use the lasgun way longer than most weapons thanks to it’s ridiculous ammo count and the fact that servers allowed it to reload next to free repeaters (offense) or reactors (defense). Unlike most weapons, I didn’t feel like having to run back to the base after two encounters.

Its not supposed to be “Chaingun #2”. Honestly, I think alot of weapons in Tremulous can be improved simply by keeping them the way they are, but adding in alt-fire modes that compliments the weapon’s role.

1 Like
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It’s sad how no one is teamworking in humans anymore so everyone wants to turn every weapon out there into a ‘solo/rush’ weapon though, kek

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To be fair, the concept of “synergy” in Tremulous has always been completely fucking garbage.

What do I mean by “synergy”? In other games, the humans or the aliens would be designed in such a way that grouping up is encouraged and compliments each other’s capabilities. An example of this was the Basilisk’s area heal to the other aliens, which would have encouraged them pushing forward as a group, if it wasn’t for the fact that it was poorly communicated by the game how the fuck it worked.

The human synergy (atleast what I think Dark Legion was going for) was for Ckits to push for forward bases to support the riflemen. Except in 1.1, had you either failed to build a forward base or had it gone down, would mean your main base would be crippled, incentivizing people to instead keep all the BP back home.

I’m not saying Tremulous should become a FPS-RPG where everyone gives each other passive buffs, but weapons should be designed so certain weapons compliment each other. Same for alien classes.

Right now it just feels like the “synergy” is grabbing (X) amount of players for a rush to defeat (Y) amount of enemies based on DPS, which is probably why so many people on this thread are focusing on how much damage a weapon can do.