Recognized Changes to Warheads

[Exozen]

Let's face it: Warheads are pretty garbage... but this thread isn't about Warheads' damage, nor is damage why these things are complete trash.

But Mr. Exozen, you ask: "Then why are they sooo bad?"

Wellllll... it's because they're simply too volatile to be of any use without being coated in a good layer of doors. This is absolutely unacceptable, and completely unnecessary.

Spoiler: Through experimentation I discovered a few things:

• Warheads LOVE to explode.
  
• Pressing F on them makes them stop glowing.
• pressing 'F' again makes them glow and immediately explode.
• At both stages (initial glowing, not glowing) Warheads explode on contact.
• Warheads can be slaved and primed by Logic.
• Warheads LOVE to explode.
  
• Logic cannot be slaved to Warheads.

What I suggest: Two stages for warheads, [Armed] and [Unarmed]. Armed Warheads glow red, blink and have that little "armed" texture on them. Unarmed warheads do not glow or blink, and say "unarmed" on them.

Spoiler: Armed

[Armed] Warheads: act like current; exploding on contact, when being shot, primed by Logic, or activated manually.

Spoiler: Unarmed

[Unarmed] Warheads: do not explode on contact, or when being shot*1; cannot be primed by logic*2,
but can be activated manually.

*1 configurable; I highly suggest the default setting to be "Destruction Prime Warhead Unarmed = false."
*2 configurable; I suggest the default setting to be "Logic Prime Warhead Unarmed = false."

Make Warheads start [Unarmed] when placed. Activating them manually now opens a small UI, with options to arm/unarm, set a timer for, and prime the Warhead.

VERY IMPORTANT: Allow Activation Modules to be slaved to warheads, allowing the explosive to be armed and unarmed, but NOT primed.

 

[terra mining corp.]

The timer function would be good for self destruct/boobytrap functions.

 

[Madman198237]

I like the idea behind this.
I think that warheads should have the "Disarmed" status, but can be moved into an "Armed", contact-fuse mode by touch or logic, and detonated by activating them by hand when armed or triggering another logic pulse.

These warheads will be stable when disarmed, but can be detonated by gunfire (Explosives can't be made all that stable, really. At least not if you still want them to explode), which allows for a timer system on a warhead launcher which will prevent detonation from accidental touches on the mothership.

 

[kiddan]

which allows for a timer system on a warhead launcher which will prevent detonation from accidental touches on the mothership.

Yup, we do really need the OP's suggestion. You have no idea how many times I have ruined my ships because I wasn't able to disarm my warheads before they leave the launcher...

 

[NorseEngineer]

This does have some merit, though I'd still say it should be detonated if you break the block or such, it should be a weak point for any ship, I like using them for torpedos on the big capital ships, they are highly effective against well shielded ships, if you can hit. But I do think it should be dangerous.

(Explosives can't be made all that stable, really. At least not if you still want them to explode)

ehm, heard of c4? very stable explosive, you could soak it in gasoline and ignite that, and it would not detonate, heck it was eaten by soldiers to fake illness, without causing any real harm to them because it barely reacted with anything.
Of course if you want high explosives, like these warheads are, you'll have to use something volatile

 

[Madman198237]

Yes, but a shock such as an explosion would still set off C4. It's a relatively stable explosive, needing specific factors to set it off, but it'll still explode when hit with a blast.

 

[HolyCookie]

I would love to see the use of torpedoes increase, being able to arm them with activators and detonate them with any other gate would be awesome. But it shouldn't get too confusing how to arm it and how to detonate the warhead.

 

[Exozen]

I would love to see the use of torpedoes increase, being able to arm them with activators and detonate them with any other gate would be awesome. But it shouldn't get too confusing how to arm it and how to detonate the warhead.

I don't know, I thought it was pretty simple:

Activation Module slaved to Warhead: Armed/Unarmed control
Warhead slaved to Activation Module/other Logic: Detonation control

But perhaps we can have the Warhead only slaved to a Button for detonation control?

 

[HolyCookie]

I don't know, I thought it was pretty simple:

Activation Module slaved to Warhead: Armed/Unarmed control
Warhead slaved to Activation Module/other Logic: Detonation control

But perhaps we can have the Warhead only slaved to a Button for detonation control?

Yea that would be a lot better instead of say, detonating 100 warheads all at once, think of linking all that to a logic gate, bluergh. You should be able to shift + V the warheads when connecting them to say, a button.

 

[Madman198237]

Explosions should set off unarmed warheads. Therefore, use logic to arm and detonate one warhead, and then everything else follows it into an explosion.

Also, my idea for the logic system is to use one logic block: One pulse to arm, a second pulse to detonate.

 

[StarWars1981]

When one warhead detonates, ALL ATTACHED ONES should detonate instantly - at least in a 5x5x5 cube around the initial block. Because this ripple-fire laggy-as-heck mess bothers me. Let's take 10 minutes, enough to overheat a large vessel TWICE (saved it once to continue watching mayhem), to blow up a few hundred warhead and annihilate the ship. I'd love a massive BLAST off of multiple warheads. Could just be my laggy server but Idk.

 

[HolyCookie]

Explosions should set off unarmed warheads. Therefore, use logic to arm and detonate one warhead, and then everything else follows it into an explosion.

Also, my idea for the logic system is to use one logic block: One pulse to arm, a second pulse to detonate.

Yea well, if you want it to chain explode and stuff. But say you have 20 clusters of warheads spread across a ship (don't ask me why)
then having warheads as slaves would be a lot faster instead of slaving logic to warheads.

 

[Madman198237]

Allow warheads to set off a logic pulse when detonating, rather than accept a logic pulse to detonate?
Why not do both?

Or did I really misunderstand something here?

 

[kiddan]

Allow warheads to set off a logic pulse when detonating, rather than accept a logic pulse to detonate?
Why not do both?

Or did I really misunderstand something here?

The idea that kinda developed was that one way would arm it and the other way would detonate it if armed. I'd rather just have it work both ways but require two pulses, one to arm and the next to detonate. No disarm feature for the sake of simplicity.

 

[Madman198237]

No disarm feature because this is weapons safety, and this videogame will make you take it seriously.


One way to arm it versus the other way? Do you mean a high signal versus a low signal?

 

[kiddan]

No disarm feature because this is weapons safety, and this videogame will make you take it seriously.


One way to arm it versus the other way? Do you mean a high signal versus a low signal?

Naw, I mean an activator slaved to a warhead Vs. a warhead slaved to an activator.

 

[Benevolent27]

I don't like the idea of having to manually prime each one. I think they are most useful in swarms of small sacrificial drones, and this would completely make that worthless by making it far too difficult to manage.

How about this? They start unarmed. If you connect an activation block to it, pressing C on the activation block and then V on the warhead, activating the activation block will arm the warhead and make it explode, as it is now. However, if you connect an activation block by pressing C on the WARHEAD and then V on the activation block, and then turn ON the activation block, the warhead becomes activated and will explode on contact (or the previous method is used to explode it).

I think this would be the most useful way to do it, so that warheads become more viable.

And if we want to get creative, perhaps they could be disabled temporarily (perhaps 1 minute) if hit by an EMP blast. (I'm a fan of adding tertiary effects that make the game seem more realistic and add value to effects like EMP)

 

[Nickizzy]

Naw, I mean an activator slaved to a warhead Vs. a warhead slaved to an activator.

So, this is the debate, this is what I think is the definition:

Master:warhead
Slave:logic
When logic activated the warhead will toggle between armed and unarmed states.

Master: logic
Slave: warhead
When logic activated warhead explodes no questions asked.

I think warhead should start out armed because, well, it's really really really slow to C every single warhead you want to one activator.

I in this thread: We want to be able to link logic to the warhead somehow to activate a safety feature, but that would conflict with logic detonation of the warhead. The solution suggested in the OP is that if the warhead is the master then it will toggle safety, if the logic is master than it will detonate. Because of a variety of reasons like inability to shift-c like shift-v to select groupings it would be extermely annoying to set up safety systems, especially if for every warhead you placed you would need to activate it anyway first(if it starts unarmed).

I personally think a safety system takes away some of the risk and fun of warheads, they can be extremely powerful (with some config changes, I shpuld make a poll to change that) but can be an extreme weakness due to their fragleness and voltaity. Ships with them need to designate space for them and be careful before and during launch.

 

[Exozen]

Something like Shift+C for mass selection of the same type of block would solve the linking problem first mentioned by cookie.

 

[kiddan]

Something like Shift+C for mass selection of the same type of block would solve the linking problem first mentioned by cookie.

This would be interesting, or maybe allow players to press V without any master selected and then press C to select as many masters as they want, being only for logic use and not weapons, of course.