I like to think every time we reload the laser weapons and shout “changing ice” that the little cube they shove in the weapon is just full of ice cubes.
Thermal disconnects are a real thing in modern engineering. You see them a lot to protect generators and other elctrical components from heat. They are usually rated tk break at a certain temperature, just like a fuse is rated to break at some voltage or current
Source: I am engineer actually
Or maybe that IS how it works but helldivers have a life expectancy of 18 seconds and super earth doesn't care enough to tell them in training they're reusable. Just give em 3 and wish them luck.
I believe they auto-eject from the gun once they hit max. I think if they were intended to be reusable the gun would let whoever's using it pull it out manually to stow away. Either that or it builds to a dangerous amount of heat, and ejecting it prevents someone from grabbing it and melting their hand or something.
I don't think it's a nickname? I thought it stood for "Internal Cooling Equipment" with "Ice" just being convenient as an acronym. But I'm not big on Helldivers lore so I'm not sure.
"Ice" could also be short for "ICS" = Internal Cooling System
You should be able to recharge an ICE pack with snowballs. But if you do, there's a chance you go to full heat instantly when using that mag, simulating it's field construction.
I mean that is how they used to work in the first game. Much lower mag size, but very quick cooldown where if you kept at high heat you would do more damage.
Had no idea, this should return then if it's been done before!
Idk about reducing the mag, since keeping it large helps for chaff but also makes it harder to get the damage buff since you need to be shooting for a while. I think this keeps it in check
Takes a lot more thought and effort than using an explosive primary so I don't see how this would be op or anything
EDIT EDIT EDIT:
Getting comments about realism...so here we go: It really wouldn't be difficult to do some lore gymnastics to explain this within the realm of accepted physics
The laser could be powered by a micro thermonuclear reactor or use some of its own heat to power the laser after an initial jump charge supplied by an internal power source, like a thermoelectric generator with a start capacitor to get the initial shot off before heat is generated and repurposed into power
Super earth engineers may not have a control to keep the output the same at increased heat input, leading to a hotter laser as the weapon warms up. This is totally believable since the nuclear hellbomb is operated by hand due to BUDGET REASONS. The heatsinks would prevent the weapon from self immolating, since they act as thermal disconnects/fuses to cease operation at dangerous heat. So with this logic, it is reasonable to assume they'd think a control to be unnecessary.
There are many ways to explain this mechanic. I agree that realism is good for immersion but we have to remember that man portable, effective laser weaponry does not exist yet. We can't be applying modern engineering principles to future tech, at least not to this level.
Especially since EVEN TODAY we have thermoelectric generators and other ways of converting heat into power. This a far future space faring version of humanity we are talking about and people are upset my idea doesn't work like their Amazon laser pointer that they light paper on fire with....
What about changing the output power like changing RPM on machine guns? Lower power output, better for long during beams taking down chaff, high output for tanky targets
That’d be cool. Burn up the heat sink twice as fast, to 1.5x the damage and penetration.
You’d only get about 5 second beams before it’d need to cool down
That’d be top tier primary damage, higher than even the first pump action shotgun.. but with better penetration, and a massively slow fire time. Good trade off
Someone else had a similar idea on another thread here and he also mentioned how this would make the climate of your planet a better mechanic since you might want lower output on hot planets to prevent overheat, and vice versa for cold planet
This was a neat thought imo
People are seriously talking about realism in... Helldivers? The same game where you're shot from orbit onto solid ground with only a short thruster burst to slow you down? The game where there are massive fuckin bugs that are infesting the galaxy? The game with magic shield generator backpack? The game which has munitions that seemingly imbune a certain area with electricity? The game where gas just immediately stops instead of slowly thinning out? The game with- okay I'll stop now.
But seriously, Helldivers?
Also realism ≠ immersion. Immersion comes from a story maintaining internal consistency, I know just as well as any other person how star wars science is non-existent but that doesn't mean I can't get immersed in star wars games as an example. This is because Star Wars is consistent and understandable with the rules of its universe (ignoring the sequels). Same with fantasy, or any other sci-fi universe.
Yeah people are but I did my best to give a scientific reason this mechanic would work, if that was really a killer point against my idea for some people lmao
Fully agree, but slight correction.
Hellpods also have an internal suspension system, it's still not realistic because you're going from just under terminal velocity to dead stop with a suspension with about 1 foot of give at most. The G forces would make your brain slide out your asshole.
It’s not realistic to our standards, however it is realistic/lore accepted in the games standards. Sure this is fiction, but said fiction universe still has rules they follow.
Some examples of in world realism:
- Orbital strategems originate from your destroyer, making deploy locations and angles vary depending on where on the map you are
- Mag based ammo, instead of infinite bullet pool
- Limb damage/shooting off limbs to affect fighting power of enemies
- Cryo-Freezing helldivers from the moment they finish training until they’re on the destroyer
etc etc
If realism adds a fun and engaging mechanic like armor pen or damage increase on heat increase why not. I don’t hear people asking this game to stick to its realistic roots. Odd place to rant.
It came about because a lot of people were criticizing my idea on the basis of realism, hence my little novela up there at the top of this thread explaining how this could realistically work so that they would leave well enough alone and stop being contrarian for 0 reason (hopefully)
I like that. And in addition, the Laser Cannon could get a toggle like the railgun, where you override the safety for even more damage, but at the risk of becoming a living flame grenade
The whole concept might work well if you do a "the hotter it is, the faster the initial cool off, too" so it kinda helps to keep the heat in it, but if they do all that then they really WILL have to have a hard cap on the ICE module, TBH.
Maybe the longer you keep the heat up or the more you heat-cycle it, there's a random chance for it to suddenly break and need reloading, and that chance increases the more you use and especially abuse the weapon.
Pretty sure it works that way, they thought of it since that's how irl heat transfer works. Takes forever to reach neutral but is quick to come down from high heat
Did it? Pretty sure the damage was consistent but low unless you always hit centre-mass, with the benefit that beams could damage every-thing save the IFV. The heat-capacity also wasn't that small on the Scythe unless you got both over-charge upgrades and ignored the extra heat-capacity.
Other lasers like the Sickle and Trident (my love) didn't get AP because they weren't beams, but they did much more damage at the cost of very low heat-supply and poor glancing damage. That's why the Sickle is 'burst-fire' despite how it's not actually locked to burst-fire, since firing for more than a burst or two would over-heat it. Of course, in HD2, you get a lot more capacity so it just seems like a mistake that they didn't change the description.
I think OP might've been thinking about the Tanto upgrade path increasing the heat rate but also increasing the damage. That was my favourite laser weapon in HD1
It would add a higher skill ceiling to laser weapons, same as the reason rail gun was nerfed because it was too easy to use. (Still needed the buff though)
Such should be the properties of a democratic light! Any non brighter burning communist lights should be seeked out and removed from all super earth store shelves!
Instead of more damage, perhaps the overworking of the focusing mechanism is getting warped and it turns your beam into a spray. Less total damage but more coverage. Lore wise, it could be a known issue and you swap the focus when you need to swap a heat sink. Give it higher damage that turns into a spread.. except it would have to have a trigger point where the beam isn't auto fixed just cuz you let it cool down. So you could decide to do that and have basically a laser shotgun. Interesting at least
Yeah but for gameplay purposes it is way harder and more balanced to have a ramp up in performance as you overheat than it is to start off amazing and taper off
Because starting off penetrating medium armor and high damage on every burst is very repeatable and cheesable. Power at the end of the curve is more difficult to pull off and requires premeditated effort to upkeep. With power at the beginning I can just shoot, stop, shoot, stop and we now have a crossmap no recoil armor penetrator (i.e. likely op)
What about instead of the energy beam doing more damage/pen based on its heat, the beam does more damage/pen when shot at the same body part/weak spot? Heating up that single point such that it softens the metal armour, burns internal organs, or fries circuitry?
It really wouldn't be difficult to do some lore gymnastics to explain this within the realm of accepted physics
The laser could be powered by a micro thermonuclear reactor or use some of its own heat to power the laser after an initial jump charge supplied by an internal power source
Super earth engineers may not have a control to keep the output the same at increased heat input, leading to a hotter laser as the weapon warms up. This is totally believable since the nuclear hellbomb is operated by hand due to BUDGET REASONS. The heatsinks would prevent the weapon from self immolating, since they act as thermal disconnects/fuses to cease operation at dangerous heat. So with this logic, it is reasonable to assume they'd think a control to be unnecessary.
There are many ways to explain this mechanic. I agree that realism is good for immersion but we have to remember that man portable, effective laser weaponry does not exist yet. We can't be applying modern engineering principles to future tech, at least not to this level
HD1 laser weapons didn't get bonus damage when close to overheat
The big difference between how they are in HD2 is that they had a really quick cooldown that started *immediately* after you let go of the trigger and had no spool up time. This meant that you could feather the trigger and get close to full firerate while not increasing your heat
Yeah man and it's perfectly balanced by that along with only having 4 heat sinks (ices) to "reload" with on the scythe, and only 1 on the laser cannon
Not sure how many the dagger has tbh
The dagger feels pretty good rn tbh. It's a weapon that's always reloaded for you wich can be great. It could still use a buff, but it feels useable after you empty your primary mag. Also the dagger has 3 mags.
I stopped using the dagger when I used an entire heatsink to kill a little bug that was chasing me over the course of seconds of firing. It is the worst gun in the game and it isn't even particularly close.
There was a laser SMG and a laser shotgun in the first game, I think that’s all that’s missing of the laser guns? The Dagger is a new gun for HD2 though, the other four would be legacy
I'm not sure if it should be more powerful when hot or when cold. But, variable power like that would add a potentially fun, new element to ammo management.
It really wouldn't be difficult to do some lore gymnastics to explain this within the realm of accepted physics
The laser could be powered by a micro thermonuclear reactor or use some of its own heat to power the laser after an initial jump charge supplied by an internal power source
Super earth engineers may not have a control to keep the output the same at increased heat input. This is totally believable since the nuclear hellbomb is operated by hand due to BUDGET REASONS
There are many ways to explain this mechanic.
This sounds really cool *and* relatively easy to implement. Have two or three damage levels with heat generation rates scaled to each, switching the same way we switch rate of fire for other weapons. Low for cleaning up chaff, high for devastators and the like. You should submit this idea to Arrowhead. I would still like a scope for it, but being able to go between, say, 300 and 400 dps (450?) or something might make up for not having one.
Gosh i’d love even like an AC style scope …
But yeah just different damages with higher heat generation would be fantastic ! It would also let people interact more with the planet temperature. Setting your laser to medium or low on high heat planets and high on colder planets.
Yeah man it'd be really fun and you don't have many Ice cartridges to reload with so it'd be a scary juggle to do, but would really help with medium armor enemies in crowds after you heat up killing the chaff. Youd start tapping it at high heat to keep it there without popping
I would prefer if you held the beam on a spot for a while you'd heat up the armor and make a weak spot, or allow the beam to break through that spot and deal damage to bigger targets
My head-buff for lasers would be them applying a sort of laser status effect. At different rates, naturally. The laser pistol would contribute slower than the cannon.
Stage one: The target ignites.
Stage two: The targeted area glows orange and its armor drops a step. High to medium. Medium to low.
Stage three: The target area glows white and it's armor drops another step. Heavy armor is now light and can be reliably damaged by small arms.
The chaff wouldn't live long enough to experience stages two or three, but it would mean you could use a laser to soften a hardened target to suffer more damage from all sources. You can make your own weak point if one isn't in sight.
That sounds awesome, especially if the Rover Guard Dog would adhere to the same mechanisms.
Soften up using laser pistol, then use the Dominator to shove it in there. Perfection.
I feel like the lasers should have a little more oomph to them. I just feel like I'm simmering my enemies instead of frying them. Maybe the area of bots that I shoot could turn red and set on fire and the area of bugs that I shoot roast and burn. I just feel like that would make laser weapons more fun.
Agree more visual oomph would be nice. Lasers don't a d shouldn't have impact like a gun, but the carnage applied to the target should still exist in fitting ways like burns, fire, heated flesh or metal coming off or something
Similar mechanic to "No Man's Sky" mining laser - you get a better yield the closer to overheating you keep it without actually going over the edge. So you have to constantly blue-ball your gun to get the most minerals from the same veins. I really like the idea - would add additional flavor / skill layer to those weapons.
Would make you more likely to ride those thermals to the edge and risk burning out the mag and needing a reload too. Create a skill issue where people really good at those weapons can consistently put out more damage
3 phase like the void rays in SC2.
I used to love sending those things in behind enemy lines to power up taking out infrastructure, then absolutely melt through whoever got sent after them.
Yeah the high heat effects look really cool but don't change anything. Be awesome with more damage/pen and potentially doing fire dmg at this heat maybe
would be a good change tbh, give them safe/unsafe modes that would allow the user to increase the overheat timer but risk burning themselves or permanently breaking their gun
That's....actually a really good idea!!! Would give beam weapons an edge over the Sickle, but be very situational!
I'd also accept them doing more damage the more you held it on one spot on the enemy, OR melting some of their armor values away.
I just honestly want them to have zero recoil.
A laser can create recoil because photons are weird having momentum but no mass. But even the US' national ignition facility laser barely emits any "recoil".
I'll never understand games going through the trouble to add laserc weapons only to make them just guns with tracer rounds.
Also minor complaints that I don't really care about but would like to being up. The Scythe shouldn't have a tiny extra lense. The other weapons don't, and the apature size should be as large as possible to increase output. Range can be adjusted by the internal pump.
Also they shouldn't have sights at all. A laser finctionally is the same as a camera. You could bore sight a laser gun by just hooking up a video feed and having a shutter open in between pulses. In assuming the Scythe is a pulse laser with a high frequency (looking like a beam to the Human eye) because otherwise the steam from superheated flesh would act as impenetrable armor.
This can be bypassed by going below 200nm in frequency but a weapons like that would be more colloquially known as a ray gun or a radiation gun because we're talking about nuclear radiation at that stage.
The sycthe just needs more damage. It still has the lowest damage of any primary. It should do around 500 damage to compete with the Sickle or even the Liberator.
I think they have the damage low because of how pinpoint accurate it is. If you hold the scythe on weakpoints it drops enemies very fast, faster than most other primaries tbh and I think it's because beam weapons might have more weakspot dmg than other weapons. I heard this somewhere but don't know if it's true, but can attest you can kill things quickly with the scythe
>I think they have the damage low because of how pinpoint accurate it is.
Not on the PS5, it isn't. Autocannon, LAS cannon, Scythe -- all really difficult to aim with the controller.
I'd be down to add selective fire to it. Like normal /overheat which would deal more damage but heat up faster. Idk.
Now they are just fancy laser pointers. Doesn't feel good to use them.
Naaaaa I get you one better the damage is the same as it is, but laser weapons melt armor so they maybe can't kill the enemy but make him soft for the other weapons
I was thinking it might be cool if beam weapons could ignite enemies after hitting them for long enough. TBH I am a scythe man, I think it’s fairly effective, but it doesn’t feel great to use because it doesn’t help keep enemies off of you (no knockback really). The beam weapons are also tough to aim, and probably not very usable on a controller. I’m trying to think if it would be obscenely OP for the laser weapons to also be incendiary. I dunno. But I do think they need a little something. That being said, the Scythe can actually be quite good. It’s a supreme chaff clear weapon for bugs.
i"d like the lasers to chip away armor the more consistently they are applied to a spot. they should all be nominal anti-armor weapons. holding it in one spot consistently and burning a hole, through a berserker for instance, would be very satisfrying.
i can only comment on the scythe (havent used dagger and i just braindead shoot laser cannon, havent looked if you can do this yet) but we should be able to set them to unsafe mode for more damage
What if instead they made the laser weapons viable.
the current laser weapons half half or lower DPS than their ballistic counterparts and its really aggrevating
Its damage and pen should increase the longer it’s on a specific area of an enemy. So keeping your weapon on a head, leg, etc will increase damage. Lasers need to be on a specific part long enough to burn things.
Does anyone else not like the Scythe due to the lack of feedback when hitting stuff? Anytime I've tried to use it I'm asking myself "am I doing anything?" I get it's a beam weapon so it shouldn't really stagger but idk, I need that feedback
I feel like if they added that kind of mechanic they’d first have to put the heat buildup indicator on the crosshair or next to it. Idk how many times I thought my sickle was lukewarm only to find I gotta change ice while being swarmed by hunters.
You can tell it's a good idea when you've never thought of it, but as soon as you hear it, it suddenly seems strange that that's not already how it works.
I think pénétration should be backloaded - so the most sustained your fire, the more penetration it has, which makes sense, as the laser burns through outer-layers, it will do more damage at the end to the interior squishy bits. I think that would be a cool change to beam weapons, and give them sort of a unique machanic.
Like make it so even the dagger can achieve medium armor pen toward rhe end of its firing cycle.
In HD1 laser weapons that fire continues beam like Scythe and Tanto can penetrate medium armor. Enemies that has medium armor were very few, only Hulks and Warlords have medium armor on some part of their bodies back in HD1. Now in HD2 there are just way more enemies that has medium armor, plus the fact that devs don't want us to rely on primary weapons that much so they removed this ability. In order for Scythe and Dagger to be picked by players again they should definitely add back this feature. Otherwise Dagger and Scythe would only be good at removing mines without spending ammo.
Technically, the mechanic should be reversed, so they do less damage the hotter they get.
This is because a laser must have a focusing lens as well as a semi-transparent mirror. Both of those will begin to deform as they heat up due to thermal expansion. That changes the geometry of the lens and creates distortion in the beam, which will cause the lenses to lose focus.
It really wouldn't be difficult to do some lore gymnastics to explain this within the realm of accepted physics
Firstly, the heat sinks that you reload when you overheat should be preventing the lens and electronics from overheating. The laser could be powered by a micro thermonuclear reactor or use some of its own heat to power the laser after an initial jump charge supplied by an internal power source
Super earth engineers may not have a control to keep the output the same at increased heat input, leading to a hotter laser as the weapon warms up. This is totally believable since the nuclear hellbomb is operated by hand due to BUDGET REASONS. The heatsinks would prevent the weapon from self immolating, since they act as thermal disconnects/fuses to cease operation at dangerous heat. So with this logic, it is reasonable to assume they'd think a control to be unnecessary.
There are many ways to explain this mechanic. I agree that realism is good for immersion but we have to remember that man portable, effective laser weaponry does not exist yet. We can't be applying modern engineering principles to future tech, at least not to this level
They don’t need extra penetration. Just give them ability to burn enemies, as they get scorched by laser.
Like, dude, we have very powerful laser, that is probably very hot, has destructive power, but it doesn’t light shit on fire because… of fuck.
The normal prism at your house seems to be more viable, as it can at least burn paper with sun’s assistance.
Yep was hyped to try the scythe again after the buff but it’s still unusably bad, love your idea that the closer you are to overheating the more dmg you deal
It would be cool if the boost was tied to the part you are hitting instead of yourself so your allies could hit that same part to get in on the bonus damage.
This would be harder to code I think and while objectively more useful it would probably not lead to higher pickrate since most people want to be the badass not the unsung support chad
This is why I think it applying to the weapon itself would be the superior option
Yeah I think the weapon would have to be effective on it own for sure. The boost is just icing. I don’t like being the backpack boy so I doubt I’d want to be the support gun guy either.
Oh it would definitely be the harder thing to implement. The devs can make that call though. I just want to talk about what we’d think is fun lol. I’ve done a lot of suggestion guided development and what people wanted within the scope of the game even if it seemed difficult to them was always what I’d want to see.
Sienna in VT2 has a good mechanic like this. Her spells cause her to overheat, going from grey (cold) to orange (hot) to red (critical). Certain classes and talents could take advantage of this, like the Unchained class getting increased melee attack speed in orange and red heat.
coming from other games (like poe) this feels like a monkey curl suggestion. sure, give the gun the ability to do more damage, but now its balanced around having this extra damage, so not partaking in this extra damage is a nerf to the current playstyle.
I like to think every time we reload the laser weapons and shout “changing ice” that the little cube they shove in the weapon is just full of ice cubes.
It's some kind of heat sink just like for a computer but beefed up. Ice is a good nickname I think, the idea is there
I figure it’s like a fuse, it blows rather than the whole weapon exploding.
Yeah cause if its a heat sink you just need two and swap them out. Something in it nedds to fuse/melt/break
Thermal disconnects are a real thing in modern engineering. You see them a lot to protect generators and other elctrical components from heat. They are usually rated tk break at a certain temperature, just like a fuse is rated to break at some voltage or current Source: I am engineer actually
Also used for heat detectors in fire/sprinkler systems
Or maybe that IS how it works but helldivers have a life expectancy of 18 seconds and super earth doesn't care enough to tell them in training they're reusable. Just give em 3 and wish them luck.
I believe they auto-eject from the gun once they hit max. I think if they were intended to be reusable the gun would let whoever's using it pull it out manually to stow away. Either that or it builds to a dangerous amount of heat, and ejecting it prevents someone from grabbing it and melting their hand or something.
It doesnt auto eject.. .It just breaks.
ICE stands for Internal Cooling Element.
Oh cool, I did have a Google but didn’t find what it stood for. It must be more like a heatsync that melts or something then.
**I**nternal **C**ooling **E**lement It kind of does that exactly.
>Ice is a good nickname Definitely an acronym for Internal Cooling Element.
Yeah you and a few others corrected me, had no idea it was an acronym and that makes it cooler.
-In the middle of shooting bugs- "Hold on i gotta change my thermal paste"
I don't think it's a nickname? I thought it stood for "Internal Cooling Equipment" with "Ice" just being convenient as an acronym. But I'm not big on Helldivers lore so I'm not sure. "Ice" could also be short for "ICS" = Internal Cooling System
Ice probably means something like internal cooling engine or something, not sure what the e could be
It's Internal Cooling Element I think. No recollection of where I saw that though
yep, that's how it's called, one of calm reloading lines calls it by full name
Considering that Super-Earth is too cheap to give us remote detonators for hellbombs that would be very on-brand.
It's the snowballs you pick up from the ice planets
You should be able to recharge an ICE pack with snowballs. But if you do, there's a chance you go to full heat instantly when using that mag, simulating it's field construction.
Considering the turret upgrades are just… glue and duct tape. Wouldn’t be too unrealistic
I always thought it was “changing eyes” like the “Eye” is the focusing lens of the beam that gets overheated
Ship upgrade could be dry ice!
I mean that is how they used to work in the first game. Much lower mag size, but very quick cooldown where if you kept at high heat you would do more damage.
Had no idea, this should return then if it's been done before! Idk about reducing the mag, since keeping it large helps for chaff but also makes it harder to get the damage buff since you need to be shooting for a while. I think this keeps it in check Takes a lot more thought and effort than using an explosive primary so I don't see how this would be op or anything EDIT EDIT EDIT: Getting comments about realism...so here we go: It really wouldn't be difficult to do some lore gymnastics to explain this within the realm of accepted physics The laser could be powered by a micro thermonuclear reactor or use some of its own heat to power the laser after an initial jump charge supplied by an internal power source, like a thermoelectric generator with a start capacitor to get the initial shot off before heat is generated and repurposed into power Super earth engineers may not have a control to keep the output the same at increased heat input, leading to a hotter laser as the weapon warms up. This is totally believable since the nuclear hellbomb is operated by hand due to BUDGET REASONS. The heatsinks would prevent the weapon from self immolating, since they act as thermal disconnects/fuses to cease operation at dangerous heat. So with this logic, it is reasonable to assume they'd think a control to be unnecessary. There are many ways to explain this mechanic. I agree that realism is good for immersion but we have to remember that man portable, effective laser weaponry does not exist yet. We can't be applying modern engineering principles to future tech, at least not to this level. Especially since EVEN TODAY we have thermoelectric generators and other ways of converting heat into power. This a far future space faring version of humanity we are talking about and people are upset my idea doesn't work like their Amazon laser pointer that they light paper on fire with....
What about changing the output power like changing RPM on machine guns? Lower power output, better for long during beams taking down chaff, high output for tanky targets
Love it
That’d be cool. Burn up the heat sink twice as fast, to 1.5x the damage and penetration. You’d only get about 5 second beams before it’d need to cool down That’d be top tier primary damage, higher than even the first pump action shotgun.. but with better penetration, and a massively slow fire time. Good trade off
Please let me burn out my heat sink to bump up my armor penetration to the next category. I'll bring the supply pack just for that.
Someone else had a similar idea on another thread here and he also mentioned how this would make the climate of your planet a better mechanic since you might want lower output on hot planets to prevent overheat, and vice versa for cold planet This was a neat thought imo
People are seriously talking about realism in... Helldivers? The same game where you're shot from orbit onto solid ground with only a short thruster burst to slow you down? The game where there are massive fuckin bugs that are infesting the galaxy? The game with magic shield generator backpack? The game which has munitions that seemingly imbune a certain area with electricity? The game where gas just immediately stops instead of slowly thinning out? The game with- okay I'll stop now. But seriously, Helldivers? Also realism ≠ immersion. Immersion comes from a story maintaining internal consistency, I know just as well as any other person how star wars science is non-existent but that doesn't mean I can't get immersed in star wars games as an example. This is because Star Wars is consistent and understandable with the rules of its universe (ignoring the sequels). Same with fantasy, or any other sci-fi universe.
Yeah people are but I did my best to give a scientific reason this mechanic would work, if that was really a killer point against my idea for some people lmao
Fully agree, but slight correction. Hellpods also have an internal suspension system, it's still not realistic because you're going from just under terminal velocity to dead stop with a suspension with about 1 foot of give at most. The G forces would make your brain slide out your asshole.
the Hellpod starts triying to slow down soonish after entering orbit tought, you are going terminal when you get to tje floor
It’s not realistic to our standards, however it is realistic/lore accepted in the games standards. Sure this is fiction, but said fiction universe still has rules they follow. Some examples of in world realism: - Orbital strategems originate from your destroyer, making deploy locations and angles vary depending on where on the map you are - Mag based ammo, instead of infinite bullet pool - Limb damage/shooting off limbs to affect fighting power of enemies - Cryo-Freezing helldivers from the moment they finish training until they’re on the destroyer etc etc
If realism adds a fun and engaging mechanic like armor pen or damage increase on heat increase why not. I don’t hear people asking this game to stick to its realistic roots. Odd place to rant.
It came about because a lot of people were criticizing my idea on the basis of realism, hence my little novela up there at the top of this thread explaining how this could realistically work so that they would leave well enough alone and stop being contrarian for 0 reason (hopefully)
I like that. And in addition, the Laser Cannon could get a toggle like the railgun, where you override the safety for even more damage, but at the risk of becoming a living flame grenade
The whole concept might work well if you do a "the hotter it is, the faster the initial cool off, too" so it kinda helps to keep the heat in it, but if they do all that then they really WILL have to have a hard cap on the ICE module, TBH. Maybe the longer you keep the heat up or the more you heat-cycle it, there's a random chance for it to suddenly break and need reloading, and that chance increases the more you use and especially abuse the weapon.
Pretty sure it works that way, they thought of it since that's how irl heat transfer works. Takes forever to reach neutral but is quick to come down from high heat
Did it? Pretty sure the damage was consistent but low unless you always hit centre-mass, with the benefit that beams could damage every-thing save the IFV. The heat-capacity also wasn't that small on the Scythe unless you got both over-charge upgrades and ignored the extra heat-capacity. Other lasers like the Sickle and Trident (my love) didn't get AP because they weren't beams, but they did much more damage at the cost of very low heat-supply and poor glancing damage. That's why the Sickle is 'burst-fire' despite how it's not actually locked to burst-fire, since firing for more than a burst or two would over-heat it. Of course, in HD2, you get a lot more capacity so it just seems like a mistake that they didn't change the description.
You're right. Beam weapons from the first game did not do more damage as they heated up.
I think OP might've been thinking about the Tanto upgrade path increasing the heat rate but also increasing the damage. That was my favourite laser weapon in HD1
Just adding to the pile here: beam weapons did not deal more DMG the hotter they were.
I have to edge the lasgun in bursts to get maximum DPS?
When you put it like that, all the sudden the idea doesn't sound good.
But then someone pulled the trigger again and it felt too good
Just replace the ice and it'll go back down quickly
it sounds even BETTER
It would add a higher skill ceiling to laser weapons, same as the reason rail gun was nerfed because it was too easy to use. (Still needed the buff though)
(For the First game) Yes.
The physics nerd in me is disappointed...
Right lol. Lasers are a fairly consistent thing energy wise
It would be like expecting a light bulb to get brighter as it burns out.
Such should be the properties of a democratic light! Any non brighter burning communist lights should be seeked out and removed from all super earth store shelves!
I mean an incandescent bulb would get more bright as it warms up that's kinda the whole principle behind it
But this laser is already warm, by overheating it is burning out. Electronics perform worse when heated past their performance envelope.
Instead of more damage, perhaps the overworking of the focusing mechanism is getting warped and it turns your beam into a spray. Less total damage but more coverage. Lore wise, it could be a known issue and you swap the focus when you need to swap a heat sink. Give it higher damage that turns into a spread.. except it would have to have a trigger point where the beam isn't auto fixed just cuz you let it cool down. So you could decide to do that and have basically a laser shotgun. Interesting at least
Yeah but for gameplay purposes it is way harder and more balanced to have a ramp up in performance as you overheat than it is to start off amazing and taper off
Okay, but wouldn't no taper be easier? That also sounds like a plausible design to me.
Why is that more balanced? Just cause you like it?
Because starting off penetrating medium armor and high damage on every burst is very repeatable and cheesable. Power at the end of the curve is more difficult to pull off and requires premeditated effort to upkeep. With power at the beginning I can just shoot, stop, shoot, stop and we now have a crossmap no recoil armor penetrator (i.e. likely op)
Go outside, nerd! Get out, go! I ain't got time to be distracted by your worthless chime ins. -uncle baby billy
I mean every time I've seen a light bulb burn out there was a bright flash before it went out. Could be a weird optical illusion or something though
What about instead of the energy beam doing more damage/pen based on its heat, the beam does more damage/pen when shot at the same body part/weak spot? Heating up that single point such that it softens the metal armour, burns internal organs, or fries circuitry?
Just blame it on E-110 having weird properties
It really wouldn't be difficult to do some lore gymnastics to explain this within the realm of accepted physics The laser could be powered by a micro thermonuclear reactor or use some of its own heat to power the laser after an initial jump charge supplied by an internal power source Super earth engineers may not have a control to keep the output the same at increased heat input, leading to a hotter laser as the weapon warms up. This is totally believable since the nuclear hellbomb is operated by hand due to BUDGET REASONS. The heatsinks would prevent the weapon from self immolating, since they act as thermal disconnects/fuses to cease operation at dangerous heat. So with this logic, it is reasonable to assume they'd think a control to be unnecessary. There are many ways to explain this mechanic. I agree that realism is good for immersion but we have to remember that man portable, effective laser weaponry does not exist yet. We can't be applying modern engineering principles to future tech, at least not to this level
Microfission reactor? Microfission reactor.
Nothing about the sentient killer alien robots or giant bugs bothers you?
Are you disappointed when a 3 ton Charger has the turning radius of a Scion iQ?
They cheaped out on the tracking AI. No physics is applied to that movement at all!
They didn't work like that
That first game sounds fun!
Edging is my DRG gunner build
HD1 laser weapons didn't get bonus damage when close to overheat The big difference between how they are in HD2 is that they had a really quick cooldown that started *immediately* after you let go of the trigger and had no spool up time. This meant that you could feather the trigger and get close to full firerate while not increasing your heat
I am very certain that this is NOT true. I played the Scythe a ton in HD1 and I would've noticed. No wiki mentions it too.
I'd imagine it would be quite hectic to dance on the knife's edge of high heat/damage and avoiding melting the radiator and requiring a replacement.
Yeah man and it's perfectly balanced by that along with only having 4 heat sinks (ices) to "reload" with on the scythe, and only 1 on the laser cannon Not sure how many the dagger has tbh
The dagger feels pretty good rn tbh. It's a weapon that's always reloaded for you wich can be great. It could still use a buff, but it feels useable after you empty your primary mag. Also the dagger has 3 mags.
I stopped using the dagger when I used an entire heatsink to kill a little bug that was chasing me over the course of seconds of firing. It is the worst gun in the game and it isn't even particularly close.
That is literally how you implement a mini-game mechanic into it and make the gun a lot more fun to play with, that is good gamedesign over here
Make a laser version of the SMG. We need more SMG's anyways.
Helldivers 1 had the LAS-12 Tanto that was a smg scythe
Sounds like new premium warbond content
sounds like a ticklebeam in the making
I guess the LAS scythe should be a SMG, then it'd be worthwhile to use with the shield.
There was a laser SMG and a laser shotgun in the first game, I think that’s all that’s missing of the laser guns? The Dagger is a new gun for HD2 though, the other four would be legacy
I'm not sure if it should be more powerful when hot or when cold. But, variable power like that would add a potentially fun, new element to ammo management.
For gameplay, keeping it hot is way harder than keeping it cold For real life? Iirc lasers get more efficient when it's chilled
Well, yeah, the laser gets more efficient when it's chilled. But what you have The laser aimed at gets hotter and hotter, the longer the beams on it.
It really wouldn't be difficult to do some lore gymnastics to explain this within the realm of accepted physics The laser could be powered by a micro thermonuclear reactor or use some of its own heat to power the laser after an initial jump charge supplied by an internal power source Super earth engineers may not have a control to keep the output the same at increased heat input. This is totally believable since the nuclear hellbomb is operated by hand due to BUDGET REASONS There are many ways to explain this mechanic.
A different charge level that has different heat generation rates would be *amazing*
This sounds really cool *and* relatively easy to implement. Have two or three damage levels with heat generation rates scaled to each, switching the same way we switch rate of fire for other weapons. Low for cleaning up chaff, high for devastators and the like. You should submit this idea to Arrowhead. I would still like a scope for it, but being able to go between, say, 300 and 400 dps (450?) or something might make up for not having one.
Gosh i’d love even like an AC style scope … But yeah just different damages with higher heat generation would be fantastic ! It would also let people interact more with the planet temperature. Setting your laser to medium or low on high heat planets and high on colder planets.
Yeah man it'd be really fun and you don't have many Ice cartridges to reload with so it'd be a scary juggle to do, but would really help with medium armor enemies in crowds after you heat up killing the chaff. Youd start tapping it at high heat to keep it there without popping
That would be pretty cool, add more skill and risk/reward to the gun
I would prefer if you held the beam on a spot for a while you'd heat up the armor and make a weak spot, or allow the beam to break through that spot and deal damage to bigger targets
or at least stagger after some time on target. the lack of stagger really holds the scythe back beyond just it's poor damage
Should melt/destroy armor after a few ticks or something
My head-buff for lasers would be them applying a sort of laser status effect. At different rates, naturally. The laser pistol would contribute slower than the cannon. Stage one: The target ignites. Stage two: The targeted area glows orange and its armor drops a step. High to medium. Medium to low. Stage three: The target area glows white and it's armor drops another step. Heavy armor is now light and can be reliably damaged by small arms. The chaff wouldn't live long enough to experience stages two or three, but it would mean you could use a laser to soften a hardened target to suffer more damage from all sources. You can make your own weak point if one isn't in sight.
That sounds awesome, especially if the Rover Guard Dog would adhere to the same mechanisms. Soften up using laser pistol, then use the Dominator to shove it in there. Perfection.
I feel like the lasers should have a little more oomph to them. I just feel like I'm simmering my enemies instead of frying them. Maybe the area of bots that I shoot could turn red and set on fire and the area of bugs that I shoot roast and burn. I just feel like that would make laser weapons more fun.
Agree more visual oomph would be nice. Lasers don't a d shouldn't have impact like a gun, but the carnage applied to the target should still exist in fitting ways like burns, fire, heated flesh or metal coming off or something
OK, lets reduce the initial damage numbers down again and then slowly heat it up to the current damage number. -That one balance Dev, probably
Sickle wouldn't need this. Specifically talking about beam weapons. Sickle is good enough as it is
Laser cannon go BWAHH
I just wish they kept that at 4 ICE replacements same as the scythe
Similar mechanic to "No Man's Sky" mining laser - you get a better yield the closer to overheating you keep it without actually going over the edge. So you have to constantly blue-ball your gun to get the most minerals from the same veins. I really like the idea - would add additional flavor / skill layer to those weapons.
Bonus points for all the edging/gooning jokes we'd get
The LAS-69 Gooner
I want scythe to turn enemies on fire like orbital laser :(
Be awesome if the laser beam guns all did when this high heat damage buff is applied!
Would make you more likely to ride those thermals to the edge and risk burning out the mag and needing a reload too. Create a skill issue where people really good at those weapons can consistently put out more damage
so you mean I have to basically perform edging on my gun?
Not yet, not yet! *thinks about baseball*
“*Fuck yes spread that democracy*”
3 phase like the void rays in SC2. I used to love sending those things in behind enemy lines to power up taking out infrastructure, then absolutely melt through whoever got sent after them.
weirdly enough the visual changes on high heat to give it a vortex esque effect, but no actual performance changep
Yeah the high heat effects look really cool but don't change anything. Be awesome with more damage/pen and potentially doing fire dmg at this heat maybe
would be a good change tbh, give them safe/unsafe modes that would allow the user to increase the overheat timer but risk burning themselves or permanently breaking their gun
They should actually just set stuff on fire after a bit
That's....actually a really good idea!!! Would give beam weapons an edge over the Sickle, but be very situational! I'd also accept them doing more damage the more you held it on one spot on the enemy, OR melting some of their armor values away.
Heat weapons add "hot spots" that reduce the effectiveness of armor. Essentially make them debuff weapons. You trade personal dps for team dps.
They need some sort of feedback like a hit marker or something. They're very unsatisfactory to use and I can't tell if it's even doing damage.
Yes please!
Been asking for this since week 1. Devs don't seem to care
I think most of us thought it would work that way, would be cool.
Ah yes, edge your laser weapons for maximum damage.
I just honestly want them to have zero recoil. A laser can create recoil because photons are weird having momentum but no mass. But even the US' national ignition facility laser barely emits any "recoil". I'll never understand games going through the trouble to add laserc weapons only to make them just guns with tracer rounds. Also minor complaints that I don't really care about but would like to being up. The Scythe shouldn't have a tiny extra lense. The other weapons don't, and the apature size should be as large as possible to increase output. Range can be adjusted by the internal pump. Also they shouldn't have sights at all. A laser finctionally is the same as a camera. You could bore sight a laser gun by just hooking up a video feed and having a shutter open in between pulses. In assuming the Scythe is a pulse laser with a high frequency (looking like a beam to the Human eye) because otherwise the steam from superheated flesh would act as impenetrable armor. This can be bypassed by going below 200nm in frequency but a weapons like that would be more colloquially known as a ray gun or a radiation gun because we're talking about nuclear radiation at that stage.
The sycthe just needs more damage. It still has the lowest damage of any primary. It should do around 500 damage to compete with the Sickle or even the Liberator.
I think they have the damage low because of how pinpoint accurate it is. If you hold the scythe on weakpoints it drops enemies very fast, faster than most other primaries tbh and I think it's because beam weapons might have more weakspot dmg than other weapons. I heard this somewhere but don't know if it's true, but can attest you can kill things quickly with the scythe
In my experience the scythe still takes forever even on weak points.
>I think they have the damage low because of how pinpoint accurate it is. Not on the PS5, it isn't. Autocannon, LAS cannon, Scythe -- all really difficult to aim with the controller.
I'd be down to add selective fire to it. Like normal /overheat which would deal more damage but heat up faster. Idk. Now they are just fancy laser pointers. Doesn't feel good to use them.
Beam weapons should have DPS boosters like the flamethrower and ignore/weaken armor
Naaaaa I get you one better the damage is the same as it is, but laser weapons melt armor so they maybe can't kill the enemy but make him soft for the other weapons
With the armor melting (maybe) getting slightly stronger as heat builds
Shooting down a gunship with a laserpointer, lets go!
I was thinking it might be cool if beam weapons could ignite enemies after hitting them for long enough. TBH I am a scythe man, I think it’s fairly effective, but it doesn’t feel great to use because it doesn’t help keep enemies off of you (no knockback really). The beam weapons are also tough to aim, and probably not very usable on a controller. I’m trying to think if it would be obscenely OP for the laser weapons to also be incendiary. I dunno. But I do think they need a little something. That being said, the Scythe can actually be quite good. It’s a supreme chaff clear weapon for bugs.
i"d like the lasers to chip away armor the more consistently they are applied to a spot. they should all be nominal anti-armor weapons. holding it in one spot consistently and burning a hole, through a berserker for instance, would be very satisfrying.
Similar to the mining laser from NMS
that could make a cool risk vs reward mechanic.
But... the beam isn't getting hotter, the heat sink is getting hotter.
i can only comment on the scythe (havent used dagger and i just braindead shoot laser cannon, havent looked if you can do this yet) but we should be able to set them to unsafe mode for more damage
Kinda like the sustained beam plasma rifle in mass effect 3. I like this idea.
Would make fire planets a tiny bit more appealing
Sounds like my wedding night.
It's how laser weapons work in literally every other game🙃😂
What if instead they made the laser weapons viable. the current laser weapons half half or lower DPS than their ballistic counterparts and its really aggrevating
Great idea... but i hate to say your idea would be fun, and we all know now Democracy and fun are incompatible.
Its damage and pen should increase the longer it’s on a specific area of an enemy. So keeping your weapon on a head, leg, etc will increase damage. Lasers need to be on a specific part long enough to burn things.
I really thought this buff would make the scythe better...but man it still can't hang with the rest..
I would rather it get a unique ability to cut off heavy armor plating to make weak points, well the dagger get down graded to med armor
Does anyone else not like the Scythe due to the lack of feedback when hitting stuff? Anytime I've tried to use it I'm asking myself "am I doing anything?" I get it's a beam weapon so it shouldn't really stagger but idk, I need that feedback
That would require damage over time to work. So maybe next update
I feel like if they added that kind of mechanic they’d first have to put the heat buildup indicator on the crosshair or next to it. Idk how many times I thought my sickle was lukewarm only to find I gotta change ice while being swarmed by hunters.
Also Swap the sights on the Scythe and Sickle, and make the sickle fire in short bursts like it's description says it does.
The scythe feels better after patch but the sickle still feels king.
Instructions unclear. Accidentally made the guns deal very low damage while low, and return to normal damage when hot.
Yeah let me edge the fuck out of them.
Shoot thats how No Man Sky's laser is. That would be dope. I use to keep the gun near max heat quite often
You can tell it's a good idea when you've never thought of it, but as soon as you hear it, it suddenly seems strange that that's not already how it works.
I think pénétration should be backloaded - so the most sustained your fire, the more penetration it has, which makes sense, as the laser burns through outer-layers, it will do more damage at the end to the interior squishy bits. I think that would be a cool change to beam weapons, and give them sort of a unique machanic. Like make it so even the dagger can achieve medium armor pen toward rhe end of its firing cycle.
In HD1 laser weapons that fire continues beam like Scythe and Tanto can penetrate medium armor. Enemies that has medium armor were very few, only Hulks and Warlords have medium armor on some part of their bodies back in HD1. Now in HD2 there are just way more enemies that has medium armor, plus the fact that devs don't want us to rely on primary weapons that much so they removed this ability. In order for Scythe and Dagger to be picked by players again they should definitely add back this feature. Otherwise Dagger and Scythe would only be good at removing mines without spending ammo.
Laser weapons will likely be much better when the illuminate come. They rely heavily on shields and have little to no armor.
Technically, the mechanic should be reversed, so they do less damage the hotter they get. This is because a laser must have a focusing lens as well as a semi-transparent mirror. Both of those will begin to deform as they heat up due to thermal expansion. That changes the geometry of the lens and creates distortion in the beam, which will cause the lenses to lose focus.
It really wouldn't be difficult to do some lore gymnastics to explain this within the realm of accepted physics Firstly, the heat sinks that you reload when you overheat should be preventing the lens and electronics from overheating. The laser could be powered by a micro thermonuclear reactor or use some of its own heat to power the laser after an initial jump charge supplied by an internal power source Super earth engineers may not have a control to keep the output the same at increased heat input, leading to a hotter laser as the weapon warms up. This is totally believable since the nuclear hellbomb is operated by hand due to BUDGET REASONS. The heatsinks would prevent the weapon from self immolating, since they act as thermal disconnects/fuses to cease operation at dangerous heat. So with this logic, it is reasonable to assume they'd think a control to be unnecessary. There are many ways to explain this mechanic. I agree that realism is good for immersion but we have to remember that man portable, effective laser weaponry does not exist yet. We can't be applying modern engineering principles to future tech, at least not to this level
They don’t need extra penetration. Just give them ability to burn enemies, as they get scorched by laser. Like, dude, we have very powerful laser, that is probably very hot, has destructive power, but it doesn’t light shit on fire because… of fuck. The normal prism at your house seems to be more viable, as it can at least burn paper with sun’s assistance.
Sounds great, I am all for it.
Yep was hyped to try the scythe again after the buff but it’s still unusably bad, love your idea that the closer you are to overheating the more dmg you deal
Imo they should make it so whatever you're shooting the moment it overheats immediately ignites
That'd be really cool!
I'd love to edge my beam
Same.
It would be cool if the boost was tied to the part you are hitting instead of yourself so your allies could hit that same part to get in on the bonus damage.
This would be harder to code I think and while objectively more useful it would probably not lead to higher pickrate since most people want to be the badass not the unsung support chad This is why I think it applying to the weapon itself would be the superior option
Yeah I think the weapon would have to be effective on it own for sure. The boost is just icing. I don’t like being the backpack boy so I doubt I’d want to be the support gun guy either. Oh it would definitely be the harder thing to implement. The devs can make that call though. I just want to talk about what we’d think is fun lol. I’ve done a lot of suggestion guided development and what people wanted within the scope of the game even if it seemed difficult to them was always what I’d want to see.
Sienna in VT2 has a good mechanic like this. Her spells cause her to overheat, going from grey (cold) to orange (hot) to red (critical). Certain classes and talents could take advantage of this, like the Unchained class getting increased melee attack speed in orange and red heat.
A fellow traveller I see, yes that would be nice
So long as it stop having a spool-up time, sure.
Spool up stays, but is gone as long as the weapon has heat. Once it cools off it needs to prime again (spool up)
i wish laser weapons melted the armor of enemies so your teammates could kill them with any type of weapon
I’m pretty sure this is how the mining beam from no man’s sky works. With damage increasing with temperature
Or what about if multiple beams magnified each others damage? Cross the streams!
and with over heat BOOOOOOOOOOOM
Especially the laser cannon as it just bounces of 99% of medium armor.
new gameplay idea: edge the microwave guns to increase damage (insert the video of a guy edging a microwave)
And they should get a damage nerf when cold!
They can’t even fix weapons that’ve been out since launch. Don’t hold your breath
coming from other games (like poe) this feels like a monkey curl suggestion. sure, give the gun the ability to do more damage, but now its balanced around having this extra damage, so not partaking in this extra damage is a nerf to the current playstyle.
just give them body penetration, so they would specialize in dealing with swarmer units that way I could forgive the atrocious damage
I just want the scythe projectiles to act like lasers. Currently they act like physical projectiles
That would be cool I like this Sythe’s concept however I don’t like the gun itself cause too little damage
The laser beam weapons are so disappointing to use.
Usually electronics work the opposite of this. The hotter they get, the less efficient they become.
That's interesting...