The Current State of Weapons

[Merddyn]

Forgive my lack of knowledge, I literally just got this game Sunday, and I've been busy as hell all week, but it seems to me with cannons, a major problem is only affecting one block. Problem is, missiles already do a blast, so adding that to cannons is redundant and detracts from both. Why not make cannons punch through and hit some blocks in a line or a cone from the point of impact (shrapnel from the shell)? It handles the single block problem, while, still keeping it different.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

Forgive my lack of knowledge, I literally just got this game Sunday, and I've been busy as hell all week, but it seems to me with cannons, a major problem is only affecting one block. Problem is, missiles already do a blast, so adding that to cannons is redundant and detracts from both. Why not make cannons punch through and hit some blocks in a line or a cone from the point of impact (shrapnel from the shell)? It handles the single block problem, while, still keeping it different.

interesting. i never thought about that. That could work

 

[Criss]

Forgive my lack of knowledge, I literally just got this game Sunday, and I've been busy as hell all week, but it seems to me with cannons, a major problem is only affecting one block. Problem is, missiles already do a blast, so adding that to cannons is redundant and detracts from both. Why not make cannons punch through and hit some blocks in a line or a cone from the point of impact (shrapnel from the shell)? It handles the single block problem, while, still keeping it different.

Well that combination is also already in the game with the punch through modules.

 

[karkinosz]

Well that combination is also already in the game with the punch through modules.

Isn't the same true for missiles and explosive effect modules? The modules would simply make the guns natural punch through better like how explosive modules further increase a missiles damage radius.

 

[Merddyn]

As for the fire rate = accuracy, that can be handled by keeping the projectiles on the cannon, and cannon+ cannon, the same speed. Load a weak cannon+ cannon system in to use as tracers next to your main cannon, then fire the single cannon once you have a fix on them with the machine gun fire.

 

[marcus87]

Why is it that only missiles got tageting capabilities? Anyone still remembers the smart bullets from 5th element? :D

I dont want bullets that turn around again like missiles, not even curve as much as the missiles. But when we have a slow firing weapon like the cannon, when the bullets aim a little bit in on the target it could help a lot with the aiming problem.

 

[Merddyn]

Yah, but then you have to worry about it deviating from where you're aiming, be it by multiple enemies near your target, or aiming at a specific component. That could be a good module/support, though...

 

[marcus87]

It could be the effect missiles get on cannon.

 

[Merddyn]

Is the cannon what they're referring to with lasers being able to shoot down missiles? (I haven't had a chance to try combat against anyone yet, so I haven't tested) because if so, I'd WANT a shotgun effect, for shooting down swarms, at least for my point defense turrets.

 

[Yetimania]

Anyone here ever play Wing Commander?
The game had a really neat feature--the enemy spaceship that you targeted would get a little green diamond that floated in front of them on your HUD. The diamond represented where you should shoot in order to hit your target, assuming they continued in the same direction/speed.

I think adding that feature (maybe requiring additional blocks, maybe not) would solve this problem.

 

[marcus87]

Is the cannon what they're referring to with lasers being able to shoot down missiles? (I haven't had a chance to try combat against anyone yet, so I haven't tested) because if so, I'd WANT a shotgun effect, for shooting down swarms, at least for my point defense turrets.

I think Schema stated only laser will be able to engage missiles.

 

[Merddyn]

...? I haven't seen any ship weapons called lasers, though, just the hand held ones... admittedly, I've not seen any of the modifier modules yet either...

 

[jzimmerman4]

...? I haven't seen any ship weapons called lasers, though, just the hand held ones... admittedly, I've not seen any of the modifier modules yet either...

Lasers= Damage beams

 

[Lecic]

...? I haven't seen any ship weapons called lasers, though, just the hand held ones... admittedly, I've not seen any of the modifier modules yet either...

Beams. Beams are the lasers.

 

[Criss]

I think Schema stated only laser will be able to engage missiles.

Damage beams? Uh calbiri mentioned it would only be cannons.

 

[Merddyn]

That's hilarious that it's mixed up somewhere? XD I thought of the cannons as lasers because they act like the lasers in the star wars flight Sims, and I tend to think of lasers as the most basic sci-fi weapon ...

 

[jayman38]

Is the cannon what they're referring to with lasers being able to shoot down missiles? (I haven't had a chance to try combat against anyone yet, so I haven't tested) because if so, I'd WANT a shotgun effect, for shooting down swarms, at least for my point defense turrets.

oh wow didnt realize that mistake. i fixed it in the news. it should say "cannot be shot by anything but lasers"

sorry for the confusion

Directly from Schema in the latest Game News thread for version 0.171. Now let's take strike out the qualifiers in the post to get:
can not be shot by anything but lasers to get "can be shot by lasers".

Apparently, tests have shown that the shotgun effect pulls to one side (meaning that the grouping is off to the side, even if one of the shots manages to go straight), so it won't be quite as efficient for point defense as one might expect.

 

[OdraNoel]

theres been a lot of great mentions on this thread about various aspects of weapons. however since i started playing this game theres been a couple of things about weapons that have constantly bothered me but lately iv seen almost no one mention it. so please forgive me if its already been discussed before in past threads.

my main issue really is the fact that you can place weapons anywhere on your ship and they will end up firing out into space. this is a hugely illogical to me and really breaks the "fantasy" for me. when ever i see ships in videos fire weapons that come right out of the hull form some concealed inner weapons system, i cant help but frown. does anyone know if this will be changed in the in some future update? i imagine its mostly a temporary thing before further balancing and finalization is done. but id like to get some confirmation on that. or is there is a reason for this being the way it is and it will it remain that way indefinitely?

also one more small thing. the front barrel part or "fire aperture" part of the weapon textures them selves. currently all weapons of the same type obviously have the same texture no matter how you group them. which can make it a bit hard to identify the active output of the group. i think it would be nice if only the active out put block in a weapon group got the "fire aperture" part of the texture. and all the other weapon blocks in that same group would have the same texture on all 4 sides. (tops and bottoms are fine as is)

because right now say you place down a group of cannons in a 2x2x10 (2 blocks wide and tall, and ten blocks long or deep) group on the front of your ship. while looking at it you would visually see 4 different outputs. but only one of them would be the active out put. making all the rest of them visually redundant. so it would be cool that only the active one got the out put part of the texture. maybe there is a technically limitation preventing this. but if not, i think it would make a great little addition.

but ya my main beef is with the weapons being able to magically shoot through its own ship without any sort of consequence. if i place a missile launcher in my ships living room and fire the thing, i would expect my living room to not maintain its aesthetic appeal. much less the missile find itself out in space and on towards my enemies.

 

[Lecic]

theres been a lot of great mentions on this thread about various aspects of weapons. however since i started playing this game theres been a couple of things about weapons that have constantly bothered me but lately iv seen almost no one mention it. so please forgive me if its already been discussed before in past threads.

my main issue really is the fact that you can place weapons anywhere on your ship and they will end up firing out into space. this is a hugely illogical to me and really breaks the "fantasy" for me. when ever i see ships in videos fire weapons that come right out of the hull form some concealed inner weapons system, i cant help but frown. does anyone know if this will be changed in the in some future update? i imagine its mostly a temporary thing before further balancing and finalization is done. but id like to get some confirmation on that. or is there is a reason for this being the way it is and it will it remain that way indefinitely?

also one more small thing. the front barrel part or "fire aperture" part of the weapon textures them selves. currently all weapons of the same type obviously have the same texture no matter how you group them. which can make it a bit hard to identify the active output of the group. i think it would be nice if only the active out put block in a weapon group got the "fire aperture" part of the texture. and all the other weapon blocks in that same group would have the same texture on all 4 sides. (tops and bottoms are fine as is)

because right now say you place down a group of cannons in a 2x2x10 (2 blocks wide and tall, and ten blocks long or deep) group on the front of your ship. while looking at it you would visually see 4 different outputs. but only one of them would be the active out put. making all the rest of them visually redundant. so it would be cool that only the active one got the out put part of the texture. maybe there is a technically limitation preventing this. but if not, i think it would make a great little addition.

but ya my main beef is with the weapons being able to magically shoot through its own ship without any sort of consequence. if i place a missile launcher in my ships living room and fire the thing, i would expect my living room to not maintain its aesthetic appeal. much less the missile find itself out in space and on towards my enemies.

But then how can players build nice looking guns with glowing outputs, like they currently do?

 

[Mariux]

I dislike the shotgun weapons overall. Swarm missiles are fine, even if they are heat seeking only. But shotgun lasers? I wouldn't mind if they were a bit more focused. I think it honestly looks so dumb when they are fired. It just doesn't feel right to me. Looks like a mess and feels like there is no real structure to it. I feel like it brings little to the game in a way. Why would I bother spreading my weapons capabilities out over a dozen or more less powerful shots? I would have to be close for those to all count.

Might be of some use on salvage arrays, but not sure if it's possible to slave missiles to salvage lasers...