First of all in relation to your "In the open Ork situation" the cover does significantly less than you think, out in the open you gain a statistical increase of .6ish of a kill, taking you from 1.1 to 1.7. Now I wonder if you find 10 Orks charging in to Heavy Bolter fire and almost 2 being killed as reasonable. None of which is significant since statistical math doesn't stand up when brought against the power of the dice gods, and perfect statistical outcomes when rolling dice are hardly predictable given all the variables which could effect a dice roll. The mechanics, once more, are for game balance and to create an entertaining tabletop game. The 'reality' of the situation would be something resembling the chaos of a battlefield. The closest we get to direct illustrations of weapon function would be the 'fluff' or the lore. Because only then do the weapons need to make some kind of functional sense to us in order to be described adequately. Where the TT and the lore seem to line up for a Lascannon is its immense destructive potential in a single shot. From a TT perspective, assuming you hit (which is far more likely in 'reality') it is unlikely to the tune of 16% (keeping in mind the use of 6 sided dice is mandatory) that a Space Marine survives taking a hit from Lascannon, outside of this it is instantly killed, no armour, nothing, just dead. It's also worth noting that because of Instant Death mechanics even Marines, Traitors, Orks, Gribblies with the capacity to take multiple injuries are instantly killed, no armour, nothing, just dead. Ignoring the TT Auzor's link provides substantial 'fluff' or lore reasons, again, which explain a Lascannon basically vaporising a Space Marine. How there is any comparison between a Space Marine's armour/Physicality and penetration of 41st Millennium Main Battle Tank armour is baffling to me. Aside from all this the application of realistic scientific principles to a game which is meant to take place across an entire galaxy, in the 41st millennium, with super soldiers, aliens and an entire dimension of gribblies dedicated to the complete and total destruction of everything is at the very least confusing. It is basically speculation as to how something might function assuming the 'relevant' real scientific principles apply. I am not attempting to take away from your scientific knowledge or detract from your conversation, but I can't agree that it would make for any solid argument as to why something fictional should function a certain way. tl;dr: all 'reliable' sources seem to be in favour of a Lascannon messing up your Space Marine/Traitor day irreversibly. The argument either way in the first place is pointless because unless a substantial amount of the player base is convinced and in turn convinces the devs there won't be any change. Now if I could think of an ineffective way of going about that kind of change it would probably be pursuing the conversation in this thread rather than in an appropriate measure. But given its more likely you just want to express your opinion and engage in some healthy debate with like-minded individuals feel free to disregard my post, I shall bow out here until more information on Eldar as faction becomes available.
Actually, this is pretty easy to do; a single devastator, in tabletop game, with a heavy bolter, fires at some Orks in the open: -the heavy bolter gets 3 "shots" (yeah.. in thise case one "shot" is several bolter rounds, sure), which is therefore the maximum he could kill. Spoiler alert: 3-5 kills is pretty unlikely -Odds of Hitting and wounding with all 3 shots: (2/3 * 2/3)³ =8.78% odds. Not bleeding likely. -Odds of hitting and wounding with 2 out of 3 shots: (2/3*2/3)²*(1-2/3*2/3) * 3=32.92% -Odds of hitting and wounding with 1 out of 3 shots : (2/3*2/3)*(1-2/3*2/3)²*3=41.15% -Odds of zero kills: (1-2/3*2/3)³= 17.15% Overall, the average is simply 3*2/3*2/3=1.33 dead Orks. Pathetic, ridiculous etc. In the tabletop, space marines have zero reason to use cover vs enemy heavy bolters, normal bolters etc. TT= pretty bad idea to use for Eternal Crusade balance. Photons massless etc: and yet they have kinetic energy, and are affected by gravity; photon physics still is an area with ongoing research. (photons behave according to the wavefront function iirc. Pity, we don't have the wavefront function in a way we can calculate ) Plasma-atmosphere: eh, such calculations are at least a bit suspicious. Besides, he is shooting 500 Terra-Watt times 5 billion people at the moon. So that is 10 to the 12th, times 10 to the 9th, we'll make it 2500 times 10 to the 18th kW. Or, 2.5 * 10^(21) kW. The entire sun puts out approximately 3.8 * 10^23 kW. Yeah, putting 1/100th of the sun's energy output on earth is a bad idea. Aha, but those fools are using a laser in the visible light spectrum. To reduce plasma-creating and improve atmospheric penetration, we switch to a Maser, or a Laser which does not shine in the visible spectrum. How about some nice gamma rays to shoot at pesky enemy vehicles.
The Spartan Laser from the Halo franchise doesn't fire a single beam, but rather a large amount of beams in rapid succession. I have been wondering about the weapons the Fire Dragon and the Dark Reaper will be able to use, so I wonder if this is correct (italic = unlikely): Fire Dragon: - Fusion Gun - Fire Pike - Ice Hawk Fusion Pistol (Fusion Pistol variant, since only Harlequins use Fusion Pistols?) - Shuriken Pistol - Combat Knife - Dragon's Breath Flamer is a no go, since there are no flamers in game Dark Reaper: - Reaper Launcher - Eldar Missile Launcher - Tempest Launcher - Shuriken Cannon - Shuriken Pistol - Combat Knife - Ice Hawk Fusion Pistol (would look good alongside a Ice Hawk Cannon) - Star Cannon. Plasma Cannon equivalent, but only found on vehicles and fire support platforms. - Bright Lance. Dark Reapers can carry these by lore, but should the be able to in Eternal Crusade? - Scatter Laser. Space Marine "can" carry the Multi-Laser in lore, so this would be fair? - Pulse Laser. The child of a Bright Lance and a Scatter Laser, only found on the Falcon, so probably a no go to. It seems like the Dark Reaper should be of the "Lore Breaker Aspect" if they were allowed to use laser or plasma weapon
Reaper armor is somewhat different than the rest of our warhosts, the boots incorporate a complex stabilization suite able to 1) absorb and negate ground shock and vibrations during combat (which could affect their aim), 2) small claw-like grips can eject out of their soles to attach them firmly to virtually any surface like velcro - operated with only a thought and retracted and stowed instantly just as easily. The reapers describe it as being like a cat - for cats do not contemplate the operation of their claws - they lament the absence of their boots when they walk bare. 3) exoskeletal wraithbone leg and back bracing that enables them to carry heavy weapons with ease. So they aren't really breaking lore in any way - they're just specialists in heavy weaponry who have the gear to make it possible, and make it look easy.
I meant in relation to carrying laser and plasma weapons, since none of those are use by Dark Reapers in the lore. But I can see that I might have to call them "Dark Kittens" now
@Angelic While the Orks dropped faster than that in Space Marine, but they were a little more L4D balanced rather than TT or EC balanced. Remember that the TT, just like EC, is a simulation. In the TT, the number of die rolls do not represent actual number of shots, but represent the maximum number of possible wounds from the ~40 seconds of combat that occur during the Game Turn. This is factoring in reloading, overheating, dodging, missing, etc. Maximum 3 kills is completely reasonable for a Heavy Bolter. After all, its not an Assault Cannon like everyone seems to make it out to be. FYI, in 2nd edition 40K lore, a Heavy Bolter didn't particularly have a faster fire rate than a bolt gun, it simply fired larger shells with more explosive powder to cause more damage to both medium and lightly armored infantry. Also its max hits was 4 instead of 3, while the Assault Cannon could kill up to 6 targets in one shooting phase. A Rhino is in no way at all a main battle tank. Its a fairly lightly armored APC. It only has margianally better armor than a space marine, and probably less armor than a Terminator. A Lascannon blast against it ought to have similar effects. Only reason a Pen doesn't 1-shot a Rhino in TT is because it didn't "hit the fuel/ammo", or it didn't "hit the pilot", etc. If it instantly vaporized and/or plasmising the armor, a Rhino ought to be toast with a single shot as well, or at least all its passengers. Yes I realize the What If example is ludicrous. I was putting forth my own what ifs to question the "1000 Gigawatts" that someone mentioned earlier in this thread.
So, what I was saying 4 pages ago is the Lascannon doesn't need the lock on. Its bad. I don't want the melta or fusion to be like it and become a "move or fire" weapon when they are supposed to be assault weapons. Lascannon can be better balanced by reducing its damage to infantry or adding additional cooldown and increasing its damage against vehicles. Either solution fixes the problem of the lascannon being too good of a sniper weapon, but the latter solution also makes it far more bursty.
@Zed-Avatar All fair points. In that vein, would you mind explaining what you mean regarding the Lascannon lock on? I haven't seen this in action.
Compare it to this from Space Marine Multiplayer: View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqDi8l4Rj-4 Statistically - This player is fairly skilled with his use of the gun. He fires something in the range of 45-55 shots and gets 7 kills, 3 assists, and 2 deaths. He is almost constantly engaged in combat. One kill / assist every ~27 seconds. He is using his gun exclusively to snipe Traitors, Havocs, and Raptors. Most targets take 2 shots to kill. The only time he gets a 1-shot is a lucky head shot against a Traitor Tactical. Most enemy Havocs have Iron Halos in this match so they take an extra ~2 shots to take down. Once when he turns and sees a Heavy Bolter at close range, he runs because he knows he is overmatched. At one point a Heavy Bolter guns him down in all of 4 seconds. The second time he dies is because a Raptor gets into melee range and dices him. I do think this version of the gun is slightly overpowered, because of the drastically low time between shots, and the ability to quickly move and fire like its a Rapid Fire classed weapon instead of a Heavy Weapon. The TTK in Space Marine is much lower than it is in EC. But the actual Damage per shot is pretty spot on. If we duplicated the stats of this Lascannon, reduced the ROF to maybe 1 shot / 10-12 seconds, including a short venting/reloading period in which the firing Devastator/Havoc is significantly slowed, we wouldn't need the artificial lock-on to reduce the gun's effectiveness against Infantry. It would be Naturally mitigated by the basic stats of the weapon. * Edited the text ~4 times
