Brainstorm This Weapon Combination Tweaks

[Sven_The_Slayer]

So a recent thread has got my mind spinning about how to take advantage of the weapon system that we have. The current weapon system allows us a lot of customization options when outfitting our ships but there are a few clear kings that get chosen more often than others.

Some combinations need a reason to choose them over others while some current weapons may need some downsides. We may need to throw out the "All weapon systems equal" in terms of E/D and DPS per module to achieve this. With the current system every weapon combination theoretically will deal identical DPS and consume the same power when compared to any other weapon system of identical size. Every module you add to a weapon system will add 5 DPS and ever point of damage will consume 10 "energy" For example a cannon + cannon with only two modules will fire 10 times a second and deal 1 damage per hit. and consume 10 E per shot. Missile systems are slightly different and list 2x damage due to the way they apply damage and the fact a lot of their damage will be lost to empty space.

Canon Slave: The current obvious king of the hill. These may need decreased range and decreased ability to spread damage out with effects.

Missile Slave: Spread shot, due to the inability to focus targets this system gets a damage buff (perhaps excluding missile + missile, more on that later) (>5DPS Per Module)

Beam Slave: These are already well balanced in my book, their stats are comparable and they have increased range and projectile speeds.

Pulse Slave: Pulse slave is too similar to beam slaves without the increased range and projectile speed. They are able to deal more alpha damage but they have no other benefits. I think this system should allow a weapon to be more power efficient as they have a longest cycle time and should lower the power consumed from the 10E/Damage and consume less power. (<10E/Damage) For example in the current system a million damage "nuke" would consume 5 million energy (due to the 2x damage of missiles). The change would allow this weapon to consume less power, 4.5 million for example (10% less). It now becomes easier to equip nukes or artillery on ships now because you need less capacitors to offset this alpha damage. They should also expand a weapons ability to spread damage such that cannon+cannon+explosive will deal damage in a larger radius.

Cannon:

Long range, penetration, decent projectile speed​

+ Cannon:

Rapid fire at the expense of range and penetration​

+ Missile:

Spread shot, deals additional damage.​

+ Beam:

Increased range, damage, penetration, and projectile speed at the cost of reload speed.​

+ Pulse:

Increased damage, increased penetration/explosive effects, decreased power consumption.
​

Beam:

Shorter range, spreads damage, hit-scan​

+ Cannon:

Constant output​

+ Missile:

Spread shot, deals additional damage.​

+ Beam:

Increased range, damage, reload​

+ Pulse:

Increased damage, increased penetration/explosive effects, decreased power consumption.
​

Missile:

Long range, capable of being intercepted.​

+ Cannon:

Rapid fire and faster projectiles.​

+ Missile:

Heat Seeking, spread shot.​

+ Beam:

Tracking, increased range, damage, penetration, and projectile speed at the cost of reload speed.​

+ Pulse:

Slower projectile, greatly increased damage, radius, reload time, and decreased power consumption.

​

Personally I think a few other changes should be done to missiles. I feel an additional flare system should be implemented to help counter heat seekers. Better AMS AI so they are not as easy to become distracted by missiles that are not a threat. Better turret mechanics so turrets won't focus on missiles they can't even see and hit. I also think that because they can be intercepted they generally should get a damage boost. Potentially your weapon system could be dealing zero DPS when fighting a ship with proper AMS.

There is also a general consensus that beams need increased range which would probably need a cannon range buff as well to offset the hit-scan nature of beams. We also need the ability to zoom from cameras and a ballistics computer so where we need to aim but that's for another thread

 

[Malacodor]

I also think that because [missiles] can be intercepted they generally should get a damage boost.

There is also a general consensus that beams need increased range which would probably need a cannon buff to offset the hit-scan nature of beams.

Or we just nerf beam damage in exchange for more range instead of buffing all weapon systems, which would suggest buffing shields and armor as well.

 

[Xskyth]

i would add slightly decreased accuracy for cannon slave instead of decreased range, if possible.

 

[Madman198237]

I personally like the idea of differing effects and the like....though I would like to see a combo (I've been thinking pulse slave) that causes cannon rounds to explode on contact, like modern large-caliber weapons like artillery, which are packed with explosives.

Lesson from naval warfare: The more explosive content, the less penetration, the faster the shell (Due to reduced weight), and the better the damage spread.

In other words, a straight-up cannon will penetrate and deal no area damage, while a 100% cannon-slave arrangement will detonate the round on impact, dealing damage just like a missile.
The smaller the cannon-slave ratio, the further the projectile can penetrate (A % of overall damage used in standard cannon fashion, determining how far the round will penetrate before detonating.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Or we just nerf beam damage in exchange for more range instead of buffing all weapon systems, which would suggest buffing shields and armor as well.

I only meant a range buff in relation to the beams getting an increase in range.

I personally like the idea of differing effects and the like....though I would like to see a combo (I've been thinking pulse slave) that causes cannon rounds to explode on contact, like modern large-caliber weapons like artillery, which are packed with explosives.

Lesson from naval warfare: The more explosive content, the less penetration, the faster the shell (Due to reduced weight), and the better the damage spread.

In other words, a straight-up cannon will penetrate and deal no area damage, while a 100% cannon-slave arrangement will detonate the round on impact, dealing damage just like a missile.
The smaller the cannon-slave ratio, the further the projectile can penetrate (A % of overall damage used in standard cannon fashion, determining how far the round will penetrate before detonating.

Hopefully cannon + pulse + explosive effects could be increased so that artillery is actually capable of acting like artillery.

 

[Lecic]

We also need the ability to zoom from cameras and a ballistics computer so where we need to aim but that's for another thread

Zoom? Sure, maybe for sniper weapons. For EVERY weapon? No. And an "aim here" indicator? Christ, no thanks. As if combat wasn't already point-and-shoot enough.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Zoom? Sure, maybe for sniper weapons. For EVERY weapon? No. And an "aim here" indicator? Christ, no thanks. As if combat wasn't already point-and-shoot enough.

Perhaps sniper weapons would have a better zoom ability, I just want to push combat engagement range back from fist fight range so you can hold back and fire more powerful weapons and still have a chance to actually hit. Some kind of ballistics computer would greatly improve dog fights between small maneuverable ships.

 

[Jarraff]

I very much like the Idea of adding explosive effect to pulse slave it just makes sense
[DOUBLEPOST=1462761718,1462761318][/DOUBLEPOST]Why would future tech rely on the mark one eyeball, a targeting computer could be fun especially if it would be disabled by a jamming

 

[TheWurm]

So I just want to clarify, do you want pulse slaves to cost less energy than a non slaved shot, or just less than they do currently? Your post seems ambiguous on that point.

Something else to think about is an overhaul of the tertiary systems. I'd like to see them include a few special combinations, for instance a cannon/pulse/emp could damage power regen instead of stored power, but that might be something that shouldn't happen until the secondary systems are finalized.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

So I just want to clarify, do you want pulse slaves to cost less energy than a non slaved shot, or just less than they do currently? Your post seems ambiguous on that point.

Something else to think about is an overhaul of the tertiary systems. I'd like to see them include a few special combinations, for instance a cannon/pulse/emp could damage power regen instead of stored power, but that might be something that shouldn't happen until the secondary systems are finalized.

Currently the damage dealt by a weapon is directly proportional to the power it takes to fire. My suggestion is for the Pulse slave to use less power per point of damage "E/D" than the other weapon combinations. The biggest deterrent for me using pulse slaves is there is really no benefit over beam slaves, sure they can achieve higher alpha damage but you need a lot more capacitors on your ship making them less efficient over all if you count the volume of the modules in the weapon and the additional volume of the power capacitors you need to fire.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

slaving a camera to a weapon computer should give that a weapon a togglable zoom like the sniper rifle. Although i think sniping is useless since the only way you can destroy a ship is if you take out a mass number of its system blocks.

I propose that hitting the ship core with a weapon should continuously drain a ship's structure. that way you dont have literally destroy half the ship in order to overheat it. also hitting the ship core should deal bonus damage to structure. that way sniping weapons have a reason to exist.

 

[Az14el]

pls no damage boost on missile beam -_-
they're more than good enough, exceptional in fact on turrets/drones & forward fire pods, and to less experienced players/against smaller ships just straight up OP compared to other options.

Definitely agree with most of these though, especially the general buffs to pulse slave

 

[Lecic]

I propose that hitting the ship core with a weapon should continuously drain a ship's structure. that way you dont have literally destroy half the ship in order to overheat it. also hitting the ship core should deal bonus damage to structure. that way sniping weapons have a reason to exist.

That is a HORRIBLE idea. The main downside of all the alpha weapons is that they either have trouble doing any penetration (beam/pulse, missile/pulse) or overpenetrate, not doing as much damage as they could (cannon/pulse). If you allow for high power alpha weapons to dump massive amounts of damage into a ship core, we'd end up with instakills and other insanity.

 

[Az14el]

the actual destructive potential of these weapons is based on design every bit as much as system size, which is gonna lead to a whole lot of heresay & straight up wrongness as to what IS actually powerful.

That way sniping weapons have a reason to exist.

Popping off the 5billion different buried docked reactors, turrets, mudflaps and dinglebobs that make up half the average ship these days lol, lots of sniper weapons (like, cannon - beam or beam - beam) on a ship makes a crippler, which have a good role to play if not as generally useful as "sniper weapons" (waffled missile - beam - explosive - hurr - durr)

That said I still only really use beam slave on non missile weapons if i plan to have an AI fire it.

 

[Malacodor]

I propose that hitting the ship core with a weapon should continuously drain a ship's structure. that way you dont have literally destroy half the ship in order to overheat it. also hitting the ship core should deal bonus damage to structure. that way sniping weapons have a reason to exist.

Reintroducing core-drilling and making armor useless again? Really?

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Reintroducing core-drilling and making armor useless again? Really?

Technically it wouldn't be the same as the old core drilling. When core drilling was a thing the core was a relatively weak block that would kill an entire ship. If the core were to keep taking damage away from a ships HP pool it would still have to go through the entire pool to kill a ship. I could talk about it more but it's a bit off the topic.

 

[Malacodor]

Technically it wouldn't be the same as the old core drilling. When core drilling was a thing the core was a relatively weak block that would kill an entire ship. If the core were to keep taking damage away from a ships HP pool it would still have to go through the entire pool to kill a ship.

Crimson-Artist also suggested bonus damage to structure, so we would not have to go through the entire HP pool. Plus, we could circumvent almost the entire armor and armor HP pool. This would reduce armor to a decorational block.

 

[Az14el]

I think he's made a misconception for the most part is all.

literally destroy half the ship in order to overheat it.

This part, depending on size only a small fraction of the ships actual blocks must be destroyed (larger ships = higher system HP damage penalty), and the ship can be more or less rendered inert before that point due to various debuffs in addition to actual destroyed systems.

 

[Lecic]

There's also the fact that armor can be a large number of a ship's blocks, while contributing very little to the SHP pool. This makes killing a ship more like gutting half of its INTERNALS rather than destroying a whole 50% of its blocks.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

dam. I do believe started a flame war. Excuse me for derailing the thread. I just wanted add my thoughts on the problem I see with ship combat and how weapon buffs play into it.