Targeting Laser

Targeting Laser is an unused weapon found from FreeSpace 2

Weapons in Descent: FreeSpace

Primaries Secondaries Turrets Weapon Comparison Table, FS1

Weapons in FreeSpace 2

Primaries Secondaries Turrets Weapon Comparison Table, FS2

Performance

Statistics

Range	Undefined m
Recharge Time	0.2 s
Beam Lifetime	0 s
Type:	Targeting
Shots	0
Damage per second	0
Damage per second (sustained)	0
Damage per pulse	{{{8}}}

Notes

Veteran Comments

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Unused in "vanilla" FreeSpace 2, the Targeting Laser was originally intended to, upon 'hitting' the target, summon a strike of bombs arriving from subspace. It is likely the Targeting Laser was removed simply because this would effectively give the player an infinite amount of warheads, unbalancing the game. The Targeting Laser can actually work as intended in the vanilla version of FreeSpace 2, provided the ssm.tbl (blank by default) is correctly edited.

It is also notable as a beam weapon mountable on fighters with FreeSpace 2 pre-SCP, although it has a number of issues (namely the lack of energy consumption and that it always fires from a fixed point rather than the actual gun barrels).

Might be used as some kind of TAG laser if someone can do that in the weapons.tbl?

Useful, I suppose, if you create a campaign involving a new class of warship that carried subspace-capable missiles to attack a juggernaut-scale threat from a safe distance. The mission involving this would need a limit of runs that could be made with a very long cooldown time (a minute or more, I think) to simulate the limited supply of massive and prohibitively expensive torpedoes capable of such a feat and the time it would take the ship to reload and retarget. I reckon the missiles would have to be close to Erinyes or Boanerges-sized if not more to be believable to produce the size of blast wanted with a subspace device, fuel and engine speed. I suppose the current day equivalent would be a cruise missile using GPS for general guidance with laser guidance for the final approach.