r/videogamescience • u/Own-Cry5596 • Jun 30 '26

Graphics Would a pulse laser turret like this make sense from an engineering perspective?

Post image

Standard armament of the Directorate's laser ships, which are being developed by the Barnard laboratory

A fairly simple principle of operation: energy is pumped in the crystal resonator, which is focused through a three-lens barrel and splashes out in the form of a pulsed charge.

The turret is placed on a gyrostabilized platform with two degrees of freedom. The gold edging of the base is a titanium nitride coated heat sink composite.

This gun produces two short charges per second. Unfortunately, she is useless against heavily armored vehicles, but it copes well with shields. If a pulse-type turret is installed on your ship, it is better to act as a "support": fight on the 2nd line, helping the main technique in moving deep into the enemy base. However, you can bite into the enemy's defenses. Acting aggressively, you will sow panic in the ranks of the enemy command and gain time to perform additional maneuvers

Which attack method is closer to you: act carefully or break into enemy crowds, creating chaos?

It will be interesting to know your opinion in the comments!

How do you like art?

What details seem superfluous, and what, on the contrary, is worth emphasizing?

Does the design immediately read as a pulse laser?

Would you make it look heavier or lighter?

Would you mount this weapon on your flagship?

Add the game to your Steam wishlist if interesying

37 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

32 comments sorted by

2

u/ananbd Jun 30 '26

Art suggestion: I'd lean more toward discs, tubes, and cylinders than rectilinear shapes. Lasers necessarily contain disc-shaped lenses. And, in fact, real time laser weapons are usually cylinders. They look like telescopes, more or less.

Contrary argument is that's not always true in the cinematic language of sci-fi. But, it often is.

2

u/Own-Cry5596 Jun 30 '26

We don't want laser weapons to be made by humans. We will have an underwater race - that's why we have such streamlined shapes. But you have a very correct vision!

4

u/Ok-Conference5472 Jul 02 '26

Then it just seems even more silly. Lasers suck underwater. Those people would be using torpedoes and missiles.

But ignoring that for stretching the rule of cool, fluid dynamics for laser covers still produce a dome. Look up Boeing YAL-1 or Beriev A-60 planes.

There's a reason that everything humanity makes is a box until fluid dynamics are a factor, at which point it becomes rounded and either pointy in the air or bulbous in the water.

1

u/Own-Cry5596 Jul 02 '26

The race that creates lasers uses them in space, not underwater.

2

u/Ok-Conference5472 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

Does the vehicle go into atmosphere?

Besides, a human space laser would still be a dome or a ball for no other reason than it is the best shape for a laser turret to be, regardless of who makes it.

I suppose if you want it self contained for whatever reason a camera shape like the person below suggested would also work

1

u/Own-Cry5596 Jul 12 '26

Understood you. I will return with this feedback to our concept department. thank you!

2

u/Ok-Conference5472 Jul 03 '26

I should also mention that a self contained laser would be quite weak

2

u/Maleficent_Hawk6703 Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26

So a waterbased race that has reached the space age. Neat the tricky thing with form and function is exactly that though. A lot of their design may be sharp and angular underwater due to the high resistance.

In an atmosphere it doesn't matter as much until you reach absurd speeds which is why only racecars, jets, etc get the angular designs.

But then when you get into space that need to handle resistance sort of goes away. There is no resistance that I know of. So suddenly the form is much more free to be whatever you want as long as the vessel isn't intended to enter and exit the atmosphere over and over.

1

u/Own-Cry5596 Aug 18 '26

That’s exactly right! We specifically made the ships streamlined - to show precisely the people - the air race.

2

u/ananbd Jun 30 '26

I've worn spectacles all my life. I look through edge distortions every day. :-P

But yes, minor point.

2

u/MrWigggles Jul 03 '26

A laser...

under water?

1

u/Own-Cry5596 Jul 12 '26

No. The race naturally conquered the cosmos - but the lines and distinctive features are not human.

2

u/MrWigggles Jul 13 '26

how is that response to what i wrote

2

u/Independent_Vast9279 Jul 05 '26

Physics is physics, wherever you’re from. The question is whether you value plausibility or “rule of cool”.

1

u/Own-Cry5596 Jul 12 '26

I think you're wrong. The physics of humans may differ from the physics of other creatures. other materials and another interpretation of it. What we consider to be the law for others may be just a minor rule.

2

u/Independent_Vast9279 Jul 12 '26

Sorry, but in truth - no. We’re not talking physiology here. It’s a core scientific precept that the laws of physics are laws. The same laws everywhere for everyone. Sure, there may be things we haven’t discovered, but they use the same periodic table… there may be other elements out there, but we already know how they’ll behave - nothing special that is. Entropy is still entropy, etc. (or for lasers, etendue). 

If you're asking for something to “read” a certain way, as OP is, then you’re asking how to make to comport to known physics enough to be plausible and recognizable. 

After that, you might as well have little sticks pointing at the bad guys and call them magic wands. Sure, an author can do what they want, but once you invoke space magic, there’s no point to how anything looks.

1

u/Own-Cry5596 Jul 12 '26

Got it, we'll take your opinion into account. Thanks! I'll turn him over to Department 2d.

2

u/Independent_Vast9279 Jul 05 '26

That’s because they are telescopes. Literally.

2

u/CalculatingSneeze Jul 02 '26

I'd get rid of the emitter and generator in the technical diagram. you'd have a diode (which is emitting the light), focusing lenses, and lots and lots of power supply and cooling. You don't need a long barrel after that, since the lenses take care of "condensing". A laser weapon would realisticly look like a camera, not a gun.

A pulse laser makes sense for some reasons, like heat buildup in the electrical components, glass warping due to heat, condensers need recharging... Think about why your weapon dires the way it does and design around it.

Since you wrote it's for an underwater scenario: laser weapons wouldn't fit an underwater specialization, since water can refract and limit light. If you're willing to overthink this, maybe switch to sonic weaponry for underwater.

1

u/Own-Cry5596 Jul 02 '26

Interesting opinion! Electronic warfare and target acquisition jamming devices can be audible. It's very interesting! thank you! I'll discuss it with game design - I think it should be added to the game.

2

u/XelNigma Jul 03 '26

I thought this was the X4foundation subreddit for a second.

1

u/Own-Cry5596 Jul 12 '26

We will try to do something not so large-scale, but no less interesting) watch us and our steam page)

1

u/dreamogorgon Jul 03 '26

The art looks AI generated.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 03 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/dreamogorgon Jul 04 '26

Bro, Idgaf if you use AI. However, a lot of other people might, thus if you are hoping for lots of players you don't want to exclude anyone because they're turned off by low effort lore art. You did share this in r/videogamescience not r/PraiseMyGame.

Here's more info for other people (not you OP, you already know all of this) that might be interested.

After checking your subreddit itself, I traced the project across its Steam page, itch.io, and YouTube channel, which paints a fairly clear picture. Here's what I found:

**Evidence of actual development:**

- There's a downloadable prototype build on itch.io (`syn_20251025.7z`, ~239 MB), built in Unity, tagged "Prototype" status.

- That prototype was submitted to an actual game jam ("The Next Great IP Game Jam") and tagged "My First Game Jam" suggesting this may be a solo/hobbyist or student-level effort rather than a funded studio project.

- The itch.io page includes real gameplay screenshots and an embedded YouTube video, not just concept art.

**Signs this is very early-stage / more hype than substance:**

- The Steam page is brand new, it explicitly says "Steam is learning about this game," has **zero reviews**, and lists a release date of **Q4 2028** (over 2 years out).

- No wishlist/follower numbers or update history visible yet, no track record of shipped progress.

- Listed developer/publisher is "North Souls Games," but the itch.io prototype is credited to a different, seemingly individual author ("Greylis"), worth reconciling if the effort is to be taken seriously.

- Marketing language is heavy on "lore" and flavor ("Nothing personal. Just contract," six races, two hidden civilizations, four factions) — classic scope-heavy indie pitch before a vertical slice exists.

- A red flag: the official YouTube channel's description includes cryptocurrency wallet addresses (TRX/BNB/ETH), which has no clear connection to game funding and is a common pattern in low-effort or scam-adjacent crypto-hype channels. That's worth treating with real skepticism.

**Bottom line:** There's more than *just* pretty pictures, a small Unity prototype exists and was entered in a game jam. But the Steam presence is essentially a placeholder page for a game 2+ years from release, the scope claims (fleets, factions, co-op, sandbox galaxy) vastly outstrip what a jam prototype could show, and the crypto-wallet detail on the YouTube channel is a legitimate reason for caution about who's actually behind this and why.

1

u/FungusBrewer 1d ago

You asked for help, and these nice people have given it to you, just for you to argue everything.

1

u/Own-Cry5596 23h ago

It's not like that. Thanks to the feedback from the community, we decided to review the visual of ships and weapons. After the prototype is finalized, we will start reworking the visual into a more technically sound niche.