Are Harpoon launchers with lights just Cosmetic?

[BoogieMan]

I can't discern any effectiveness that harpoons that lights have over ones that don't. A character manning a turret shows penalties if THEY are in darkness, not their target. You can remove that penalty by putting a standing light near the gunner and a harpoon with a light doesn't itself remove that penalty. I can't tell if a well lit target is hit with any better degree of accuracy.

Beyond that, the extra resources and power consumed by the harpoon lights is wasteful when you could illuminate the same area with far fewer wall or structure mounted lights.

So, does anyone know - for certain - that they have any real purpose?

[Stryderunknown]

If it's dark there is an increase in Stealth. Stealth reduces the chance of being spotted, which means that your turret gunners will take longer to spot what to shoot at. I couldn't say Stealth factors in on if you get hit when being shot at (instead of dodge or dexterity), but it would make sense that if you can't be seen properly, how is a gunner going to hit you?

As for the turrets light, the turret can move beyond just looking over the wall (if they get in your compound I'm pretty sure they can turn the turret around to an extent) so you've the chance of light following the target so the gunner doesn't lose the targets position and also it draws attention to what they are shooting.

Ideally it's actually best not to floodlight the area completely, as it can't act as a spotter if there is no contrast of darkness to spot within.

So a prototype design in defense (Something to test out.. for me anyhow) would place lighting a distance from the gate/wall to generate an initial point that troops are spotted by the gunners who can then train their turret light on them to follow them into the dark void between the gate/wall and those lights. (Just keep your guys from meleeing in that light, as they might well suffer friendly firel)

[Raymond]

yeah, it is just cosmetic as far as I know. It probably do something, i don't know.

[Spack Jarrow]

Originally posted by BoogieMan:

I can't discern any effectiveness that harpoons that lights have over ones that don't. A character manning a turret shows penalties if THEY are in darkness, not their target. You can remove that penalty by putting a standing light near the gunner and a harpoon with a light doesn't itself remove that penalty. I can't tell if a well lit target is hit with any better degree of accuracy.

Beyond that, the extra resources and power consumed by the harpoon lights is wasteful when you could illuminate the same area with far fewer wall or structure mounted lights.

So, does anyone know - for certain - that they have any real purpose?

No , in some cases my harpoons did not target at night , because they could not see them.