Antimatter Cannon Overhaul

[DrJaska]

### Antimatter Cannon Overhaul ###

The following idea suggests some big changes in the way AMCs work and would, in my opinion, make everything more interesting. Note that all values just act as examples!

# The Group Scaling and Settings #

Adding more AMC blocks to one group only increases its damage and maximum range. Damage scales similarly to now. Maximum range starts at ~500m and slowly scales up to a limit of something like 2000m. Projectile speed always stays the same.

Replacing the current percent system to tweak ROF/damage/etc, ROF and range both get one slider each, which can be moved independently from each other.

# Adding Accuracy #

Accuracy would be a neat thing to have, indeed! It also gives another way to balance AMCs.

# The Rate of Fire Slider #

The ROF slider changes how fast the weapon fires and scales the damage output accordingly. The slider goes from 0.1 rounds per second to 10 rounds per second.
The slider affects ROF, damage and accuracy.


0.1 RPS (Lowest possible): 125% damage, 100% accuracy
1 RPS (Middle value): 11.25% damage, 87.5% accuracy
10 RPS (Highest possible): 1% damage, 75% accuracy


Example:
Assuming the cannon does 1000 damage:


0.1 RPS: 125% damage - Equals to 1250 damage per 10 seconds.
10 RPS: 1% damage - Equals to 1000 damage per 10 seconds.


A slowest firing cannon will do 125% damage per 10 seconds to compensate for its slow reload.
A fastest firing cannon will do 100% damage in the same amount of time.

# The Range Slider #

The range slider is similar to the ROF slider. It'll go from 10% to 100% range. The more of it, the less damage and the more accuracy.


10% Range (Lowest possible): 150% damage, 75% accuracy
55% Range (Middle value): 100% damage, 87.5% accuracy
100% Range (Highest possible): 50% damage, 100% accuracy


Example:
Assuming the cannon does 1000 damage and has a maximum range of 1000m:


10% Range: 1500 damage and 100m range
55% Range: 1000 damage and 500m range
100% Range: 500 damage and 1000m range


# The Damage Effects (Additional Thing) #

Instead of only dealing direct damage, the projectiles could deal radius damage dependent on their direct damage, which is scaled with the percentage of the ROF slider. The higher it is, the higher the radius the damage is spread over. This way you can have point defense turrets that have low range, high ROF and shred every small ship in seconds that dares to get too close, and huge long-range cannons that do devastating damage over wide areas.

 

[DrJaska]

Don\'t fear my little topic, I\'m saving you from drowning!

 

[McDili]

I like how this idea started out, it was fairly interesting on how you could customize the AMC\'s differently.



However, that changed when I read the part where you want AMC\'s to do AoE damage after a certain damage threshold.



Such a change would make missiles completely obselete, and I don\'t think that would be good.

 

[WaffulMann]

I think the aoe should be extremely minor, like an extra 2 blocks taken out per 1,000 damage or something.

 

[Planr]

# The Rate of Fire Slider #

The ROF slider changes how fast the weapon fires and scales the damage output accordingly. The slider goes from 0.1 rounds per second to 10 rounds per second.
The slider affects ROF, damage and accuracy.


0.1 RPS (Lowest possible): 125% damage, 100% accuracy
1 RPS (Middle value): 11.25% damage, 87.5% accuracy
10 RPS (Highest possible): 1% damage, 75% accuracy


Example:
Assuming the cannon does 1000 damage:


0.1 RPS: 125% damage - Equals to 1250 damage per 10 seconds.
10 RPS: 1% damage - Equals to 1000 damage per 10 seconds.


A slowest firing cannon will do 125% damage per 10 seconds to compensate for its slow reload.
A fastest firing cannon will do 100% damage in the same amount of time.

# The Range Slider #

The range slider is similar to the ROF slider. It\'ll go from 10% to 100% range. The more of it, the less damage and the more accuracy.


10% Range (Lowest possible): 150% damage, 75% accuracy
55% Range (Middle value): 100% damage, 87.5% accuracy
100% Range (Highest possible): 50% damage, 100% accuracy


Example:
Assuming the cannon does 1000 damage and has a maximum range of 1000m:


10% Range: 1500 damage and 100m range
55% Range: 1000 damage and 500m range
100% Range: 500 damage and 1000m range



These features have been in the game already for >5-6 months

 

[DrJaska]

Hrm.

I like how this idea started out, it was fairly interesting on how you could customize the AMC\'s differently.

However, that changed when I read the part where you want AMC\'s to do AoE damage after a certain damage threshold.

Such a change would make missiles completely obselete, and I don\'t think that would be good.


I completely ignored missiles there Pretty sure there is a way to have AMCs deal radius damage in a way that makes missiles not obsolete. Might put some more thought into that later or scrap the radius damage completely.


These features have been in the game already for >5-6 months


I know, I\'m suggesting changes to the current system.

 

[McDili]

The thing is, Missile have a very slow fire rate.



In your proposal, you could have high ROF high damage low-range AMC\'s. You\'re suggesting the highest fire-rate be 10 Rounds per Second, which translates into 600 RPM. Which mind you, isn\'t actually that high compared to what we have currently, so it\'s not AS bad.



Even if the AMC\'s damage radius was smaller than missiles though, once you get past shields, there are 10 AoE damage radius\'s going off per second, per cannon with that setup. That\'s obscenely better than missiles.

Really this is the only issue I have with this thread so far, if you were to scrap the damage radius part on AMC\'s, then I would endorse the thread. But adding AoE to AMC\'s is just too OP.

My two cents.

 

[CrusaderDeleters]

If AMC = new Missiles, Schema might as well remove Missiles from Code.

 

[DrJaska]

The only possible way I see would be to have damage radius dependent on the overall damage which is then scaled with the percentage of the ROF slider. The radius damage could be calculated in a different way than the missiles damage. They usually blow a nice hole into stuff, not many blocks are being left damaged. The AMC radius damage would only kill one third of the affected blocks or so.

Hmm. I really don\'t know. I guess I just really would like to see big cannons that blow big holes into stuff

 

[Captain Fortius]

Increasing range shouldn\'t boost your accuracy; The further your target, the harder it is to hit it.

A slider of range vs damage doesn\'t make sense either; While over a long range the shot\'s power indeed dissipates, many real and imaginary weapons have both great range and great destructive power. Think of naval cannons or laser-lance batteries. Simply because they\'re big.

So;

-Range and Damage; The more AMC blocks you add to your cannon, the further it shoots, and the greater it\'s damage will be; as it is right now. No changes needed.

-Penetration from Damage; An AMC bolt should not disappear upon impact, but keep on punching through it\'s target until it deals all the damage it can deal.

Example; You shoot once from a 1000-damage AMC cannon. The bolt strikes an 8 block thick wall of basic hull. It destroys the 1st block, and since basic hulls have 100 hp and 25% armor, it takes about 133 damage to destroy one. 1st block is destroyed, 133 is deducted from the AMC bolt\'s original strength of 1000, and it keeps flying on, at 867 strenght. It hits the next block, and the procedure repeats all the way until the bolt\'s strength reaches 0 and it disappears; It destroyed 7 blocks, and damaged the last one.

-Accuracy VS Splash Radius; The longer and thinner your amc cannon, the more accurate it\'ll be. A long barrel makes for accurate shooting. Small diameter, long projectiles fly accurately.

Example: 100 block long 1 block diameter amc cannon = splash radius 1 (damages one block in one hit), accuracy is length - (height x width) = 100 - (1x1) = 99%

However, if you build a thicker barrel, say, 100 long, with a 2x2 mouth, your projectile will be scaled up to look fatter, will have a 2x2 splash radius (can damage 4 blocks in a 2 by 2 square in one hit), and it\'s accuracy will be 100 - (2x2) = 96%

**: Barrel diameter should be checked at the output of the gun. Further inside we tend to build them in any shape we can.

It\'d have a neat side effect; For short range, it\'ll be more beneficial to use wide-mouthed howitzers, while at long ranges sleek-barreled and precise cannons will be more effective.

Rate of fire: Rate of fire should be freely adjustable between a fixed* minimum and maximum value, like you thought. Since a weapons power consumption is counted by shot, you\'ll keep draining your power faster and faster as you increase your rate of fire, and it doesn\'t even need any extra coding. (Id also like to see an overheating effect eventually, but that\'s a thought for another day...)

*: Rate of fire vs Splash Radius: Maximum possible rate of fire should be reduced by relative barrel thickness, much like accuracy, simply because chambering a large fat shell (or loading in a larger amount of plasma, or any sci-fi magic material) should take longer. It\'ll be good for balance.

Rate of Fire vs Accuracy: No one wants to be torn apart from two sectors away by a mutant sniper-minigun. Solution; The growing targeting circle seen in many games. Every shot fired adds a temporary accuracy penalty at the value of the cannons original accuracy penalty from barrel width. Penalty drains away when the gun stopped firing, at the same speed as it\'s rate of fire.

Example; 5 round burst with the 100 x2x2 cannon; First shot\'s accuracy is 100-(2x2) = 96%, second shot is down to 96 - (2x2)= 92%, the third is 88%, fourth is 84%, fifth is 80%, after the fifth, you\'re down to 76%.

Cap this effect at 50% of the original accuracy (cannon with 96% can\'t fall below 48%) to avoid ridiculiously sideways-shooting cannons.

Neat addition; Weapon Stabilizer blocks. Connect them to the weapon computer like the amc blocks. build them in any shape you like, place them anywhere. (you don\'t want to mess with the freedom of creative building). Their function would be to negate some of the accuracy penalty per shot and reduce the maximum accuracy penalty, based on the difference between the amount of AMC and Stabilizer blocks connected to the weapon computer.

And finally, I\'d like to adress the claim, that \"AMC Splash Damage would make missiles useless\";

Yes they would. If they weren\'t already useless. Rockets are slow, and they won\'t hit anything that doesn\'t want to be hit. Heat seekers are just as slow, slightly harder to avoid, but they can hit your own turrets or your friends, because they are yet to be taught to ignore the ships of your own faction. Guided missiles are also slow and easy to evade, and by the time I lock on to a target, I could have killed it (or, in case of really big ships, inflicted more damage than the missiles will) with AMC fire.

More than that, we already have a workaround to achieve splash damage. Scattercannons, built of several separate AMC lines. If built properly, it can be absolutely devastating, especially compared to missiles. In some cases it\'s nice, and probably a lot of ships would still use this setup, even if AMCs were to get splash damage. However this method is not without fault; Build a big enough scattercannon, and your shots will start to glitch out, and it can make smaller servers lag horribly.

So we really need AMC splash damage. And visually bigger AMC bolts. It\'s horrible to see your capital ship\'s 10 block wide cannon shoot one block wide blasts that hit one block wide holes...

 

[lman94]

you just want to replace them? am I hearing you right? you would just have schema remove all variety because he isn\'t done making the game?

what AMCs really need is a nerf, they are way overpowered. in particular, they need something to limit them against hull like missiles are against shields.

and by the way, she shape of a projectile only makes a difference to accuracy in atmosphere.

 

[Captain Fortius]

I don\'t want to replace them, I\'d merely like to have amc cannons that work way better and way more logically. It\'s not even about boosting or nerfing, it\'s about what\'s awesome.

And then boost missile performance to a level where they\'re worth using again.

I really don\'t believe AMC\'s are overpowered.

The evidence cannot lie; A single, solid AMC cannon, no matter how large, how powerful, will only ever destroy one block on hit. There\'s a little lag between a hit and the block\'s destruction, so cannons with high rates of fire tend to waste a few shots on blocks that are already destroyed. Meaning, you can\'t dig an 1x1 wide straight line into your enemy as quick as you\'d like. That means it takes more time to reach the core.

But, even a little bit of movement could take the hole you\'re already shot into the enemy out of alignment from your gun, and you\'ll have to start poking a new hole in your target, further delaying the destruction of it\'s core.

Imagine you\'re flying a gigantic capital ship. You want to shoot down a tiny little fighter that could fit inside your main gun\'s barrel, but instead of instantly vaporizing it in a giant blast of energy, you\'ll start poking tiny holes on it as described above. Usually you\'ll have to destroy almost every block, one by one on that ship until you can reach the core. It\'s just wrong.

Fighting bigger ships isn\'t any better. In relative scale, your shots do even less damage. What does one missing block matter when your target was built of three million? (Yes, I have fought a ship that large. It was miserable. 15 minutes of punching tiny pockmarks into the frontal hull, and no end in sight.)

You can\'t cripple your enemy; take out a few thrusters and he\'ll still have thousands more to fly with.

You can\'t break their cannons; as long as there\'s some blocks left, it\'ll keep firing.

Just watch or read any sci-fi stuff. You need large blasts of energy that can cut through a ship in one shot, and destroy entire chunks at once. That\'s how you reach the core, or destroy other important systems.



So, in light of all that, AMC cannons aren\'t really overpowered right now, are they?

 

[lman94]

use a different weapon. campaign to make missiles better and you won\'t need to worry about tunneling, which in my opinion and in the opinion of many others, detracts from gameplay.

and with AMCs, if it takes 15 minutes to put tiny holes in their ship, you are just plain outclassed by their shields.

and in sci-fi, most ships have more than one type of weapon. phazors and photon torpedoes for example. the death star wasn\'t destroyed by a minigun like weapon, but by a torpedo.

 

[McDili]

For the most part I agree with the way you want AMC\'s to work.



But I still completely disagree with the splash damage part on AMC\'s.

I also don\'t see your argument as a justifiable reason to have splash damage. Missiles should be more useful than their current state, I think many would agree with that. d1000\'s need to be significantly faster, they don\'t like on so it relies completely on aim and prediction.

Heat Seekers just need to ignore friendlies.

And SD-BB\'s should just lock on to your target instantly instead of taking a while to lock. I also think that, the heat seekers and SD-BB\'s should travel at 98% of the max speed set by the server. They\'re missiles for goodness sake, they\'re supposed to be fast.



But even still, I\'ve got 40 4-block wide cannons on my most recent ship. If I made 40, 4 block holes in a shit for each that, that\'s 160 blocks in one shot. AMC\'s are already extremely powerful. However that all depends on how much the ROF penalty would be by using 4-block wide cannons. I would assert that in your proposal, making the width increase should be a very noticeable ROF decrease, because then I could come closer to supporting this.

 

[lman94]

make the rof 1/4 of what it would be otherwise. that way it is the same dps, and therefore not overpowered.

and by the way, the chat box coming up while you are typing is very annoying.

 

[artillarmech]

the only problem with missiles right now is the speed, but with the manuverability changes they made, that might be fixed, since large ships are basically stations now

 

[McDili]

But don\'t confuse me for getting upset or calling your proposal overpowered for the sake of argument. It was because I legitimately felt that way.



However, now what you\'re saying makes more sense to me. But before I go on I\'ll answer your question about how AMC\'s are too powerful right now.

It\'s actually not a problem within AMC\'s particularly, it\'s just that missiles are comparitively useless by being slow, and also being ineffective against shields.



So in the scenario where missiles are more useful, and with all the facets of your proposal, I agree with you about having some sort of AoE radius tied to the AMC\'s based on width of the cannon.



And now that you\'ve put it in a better perspective, I\'ll reference my ship from before. I said I have 40 4-block wide cannons in that ship, and I get a pretty good damage output out of that. But if I decided to fill the entire area with just 1 160-block wide cannon, I agree that I should get the same damage output in a different way.



The AoE radius would actually balance out the grouping elements of how that works, and together with your proposal on how the effects of grouping balance out the way the gun handles, along with Cone of Fire bloom with sustained fire, I actually have taken a complete turn and fully support that idea now.

I support it now because, well it\'s just plain silly that in order to do competitive damage, I have to have multiple frontal cannons, but filling up my ship\'s spine and nose with one massive grouping of AMC blocks, and my gun is weaker? It doesn\'t make any sense, I\'ve dedicated more mass to grouping my AMC\'s, I should have a more comparitively powerful cannon.



I certainly agree that having the girth of the AMC grouping reduce the ROF of the cannon really balances out the AoE damage that it gets in relation to the girth. It also solves a lot of the requests people are making for kinetic weapons, because essentially if I make a 300m long cannon that\'s 20 blocks on the Y axis and 20 blocks on the X axis, and 300 blocks on the Z axis, I definitely agree that the rate of fire should be slow, and I should pack a massive punch. I gotta say it\'s dissatisfying to say the least to build something like that in the current game and have it be pretty weak, compared to if I had used a bunch of smaller cannons.



Fortius, your suggestion and all its details are very... detailed. And it\'s does things differently than the OP here in this thread.

If you could make a thread based on this suggestion, I will certaily endorse it.

 

[Captain Fortius]

I wasn\'t calling you upset, when I was writing, Iman\'s comment was still the last. He snapped at me a little.



I\'m glad you like my ideas. I\'ll combine the two posts, try to shorten it up, and post it separately soon.