Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy - Manual (Page 84)

Trigger Happy
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but—damn!—you didn’t aim far enough ahead of the
fighter. By the time your lazy laser bolts reach their
destination, he’s sailed past. Videogames have nearly
always displayed lasers in this way, from the simple
fire-ahead of Space Invaders or Asteroids to the
rainbow-hued pyrotechnics of Omega Boost (1999).
But it’s wrong. Firing laser beams is not like skeet
shooting, because lasers are made of light,
13
and light
travels very, very fast, at 300 million meters per
second. At the sort of distances modeled by
videogames, where fighting spacecraft are never more
than a mile or two apart, lasers will take about a
millionth of a second or less to hit home. It has been
demonstrated that the human mind cannot perceive as
separate events things that occur less than roughly three
thousandths of a second apart, so you will never have to
wait and watch for your lasers to hit home because, to
you, they will do so immediately.
But what of your enemy? Say he’s a nippy little
xenomorph, flying at thirty thousand feet per second.
That’s about twelve times faster than Concorde.
Unfortunately, even if he’s two miles away, and flying
directly across your sights (perpendicular to your line
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13 Light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, to be precise.