Age of Strife: Capital City

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[Upgrade received: Laser designator]
[A device designed to "paint" a target with a pulsing, coded laser that continuously bounces off of its target. Once received, the information is processed and guides the munition or weapon towards the target...]

The laser designator, while a small tool compared to everything else he has, is nevertheless extremely useful in extreme situations. In particular, this tool was meant to substitute his radar in the event that a malfunction occurred or the dishes broke. 

Which, you know, they did. 

These laser designators function by painting a target with a coded laser, which is then picked up and received by sensors. Combined with some sort of target acquisition software, the sensors can guide a weapon towards its target, even in windy conditions or when the target is moving. 

If the weapon veers off course, it will use the painted target as a point of reference to correct itself, thus guaranteeing a near 100% hit rate as long as the change in course isn't anything too drastic. 

Of course, the original function of this device was to work in tandem with air support units as a way of guiding precision bombs and missiles. However, he doesn't have that here, so they've been modified for a slightly different purpose. 

Only the Oerlikon turrets have been given laser designators as they're the only ones with targeting computers that can actually process the information. As such, he's gained 2 new gun sights for the Oerlikons, which previously didn't have gun sights to manually aim through. 

Looking through these sights is no different to how one would normally look through a handheld laser designator. It is however, different from his normal gun sights as the markings aren't the same, plus you can't see the actual laser. 

It's certainly better than trying to aim the Oerlikons by eyeballing it from his viewports though. 

The sensors that actually make the lasers useful are not attached to any bomb, or even the 35 mm shells. Instead, they're attached to the turrets themselves, wherever there was room to put them. 

This, in a sense, gives his Oerlikons a new way to lock onto his targets. As an object is painted, the sensors in the Oerlikon turrets pick up the laser, providing the same information to their targeting computers as the radar would, with the laser rangefinder also contributing. 

Now, what's different is that the locked target doesn't appear on the radar screens, should the radar be unable to pick up the target. After all, the target isn't being detected by radar waves, but with a laser. How the "locking" part works is a bit more vague. 

He still gets that same snap feeling, like the radar. But instead of electronic equipment bugging him to track something, it's more like this instinctive feeling. A nudge, or an itch. A feeling that only the lasers can give. 

It's like having a dog tug on your shirt. You don't have to look in that specific direction, but the back of your mind is constantly telling you to. A better metaphor would be like a magnet to a refrigerator, actually. 

Hold the magnet far enough away from the fridge, nothing happens. Get close enough though, and the magnet sticks to the fridge as quickly as someone snapping their fingers. 

This logic can be applied to the Oerlikons. Paint a target, any target, like a boar or something. Look to the left of the boar, and the instinctive feeling is faint. Same if you look to the right, above, or below. 

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