Instead of the primary/secondary slave system, have weapon attributes modifiable by connecting groups of upgrade blocks to the base weapon group via conduits. Effectiveness and added power consumption would be in relation to the base weapon size. Each weapon upgrade would increase its own attribute but decrease all others.
Changes to base weapons:
Some examples:
Changes to base weapons:
- All weapons add ship velocity to weapon velocity.
- All weapons can have a number of instances/ticks. By default, cannons and missiles would only have a single instance.
- All missiles can lock on to a target but have variable turning speed. If fired without locking on, a missile will attempt to hit nearby targets after a short period of time.
- Beams spread out as distance increases. This would be small by default and could be upgraded to be insignificant. Damage would be proportional to the area of the beam which hits the target.
- Beams have a travel time. This would be fast by default and could be upgraded to be effectively instant.
- Pulse weapon is brought back in the form of a directed wave which expands outwards as it travels forward. Damage would be proportional to the area of the pulse which hits the target.
- Speed - Increases weapon speed
- Range - Increases weapon lifetime
- Damage - Increases weapon damage
- Recharge - Decreases weapon recharge time
- Duration - Increases number of weapon instances. In the case of beams this would just result in a longer firing time.
- Accuracy - Decreases cannon spread. Decreases angle of beams and pulses. Increases missile turning speed.
- Control - Increases weapon's firing arc. Decreases missile lock-on time.
- Delay - Increases cannon, beam, and pulse damage significantly at the cost of requiring an active charge up period. Allows missiles to be untargetable by AMS for a short period of time after launch.
- Proximity - Causes cannons and missiles to explode when near an object. Increases beam latch-on distance. Allows pulse to impart a larger fraction of its total damage to any affected targets.
Some examples:
- Burst cannon: Cannon with duration upgrade
- Charge cannon: Cannon with delay upgrade
- Flak cannon: Cannon with proximity upgrade
- Lock-on missile: Missile with accuracy upgrade
- Swarm missiles: Missile with accuracy and duration upgrades
- Bomb (current missile/missile combo): Missile with damage upgrade many times larger than the base weapon to decrease all other attributes to near 0
- Short-range cutting beam (current beam/missile combo): Beam with damage upgrade many times larger than the base weapon to decrease all other attributes to near 0
- Ray beam: Beam with other upgrades so that accuracy is decreased
- Discharge beam: Beam with other upgrades so that duration is decreased to near 0
- Spherical pulse: Pulse with other upgrades so that accuracy is decreased to near 0
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