Yesterday Toby tried out the laser target gadget and we had a pretty productive time killing lots of stuff with it. You can equip it from the ammo crate but also need to grab a few batteries as the lasers ammo. I suspect that like ammo the battery will run out sooner or later and will need reloading. The laser works like a gun so you equip it from the mouse button scroll wheel and fire it at a target. It seems to have a minimum range of about 50-60m. The cool thing is that whatever you 'paint' with the laser appears as a legitimate target on the hud of the Apache, A-10 thunderbolt and I think some of the hand held guided launchers (Javelin). We tried it out yesterday with Toby spotting from a hill and me flying about in an Apache. The trick was for me to move into position behind a hill. Toby targeted an enemy with the laser and I 'popped' up over the hill, targeted his laser shown as "Laser Target" on my hud and fired a Maverick Missile. I then immediately dropped back down behind the hill. It was a really effective way to play as Toby can target anything including concentrated groups of infantry, bunkers or buildings. The Apache by default will only 'tab key' target legitimate vehicles, weapon systems on it's own so the laser gives options to target 'other' stuff as well. The problem with the Apache is that when it can be seen by the enemy it can be fired upon by them, obviously. With this in mind it can take several seconds to find the right target using the 'tab' key where the 'Laser Target' seems to be visible before I raise the Apache over the hill. So I can target, rise up and fire much faster.
So there you go. One caveat is that sometimes if you don't cancel the laser when moving about you can paint yourself by mistake. This generally leads to you playing catch with an air to ground missile that I've fired at you by mistake!
Excellent - I've never tried using the laser marker before but it sounds like a very effective way of clearing enemy armour.
Quote from: Tutonic;323856Excellent - I've never tried using the laser marker before but it sounds like a very effective way of clearing enemy armour.
And I thought it was just to shine into someones eyes :doh:
I was using it to pop balloons and cut bin bags.
I wore out the battery by pretending to be a policeman and pointing it at cars on the motorway.
Seriously I think it's uses might be limited on our server. I'm still not sure what exactly can and cannot be targeted effectively. Most stuff that fires guided missiles can do it's own targeting built in. Apart from getting an early lock in the Apache I'm coming to the conclusion it's a bit of a gimmick. It may work well in other scenarios with larger groups etc. though, or if we want to target troops or buildings that won't normally allow a weapon specific lock on.