New Weapons

[Sven_The_Slayer]

So I wanted to talk a little about the new weapons not in the news section.

We don't know much beyond this image and a few brief replies to comments. I for one am really excited for this addition, it seems like the best way to add many weapon types (in Total:30) without adding a ton of new modules to the game.

Cannons will probably act as they are now, we don't know what the new default missile will be, beams will be instant travel, pulsars will send out a bubble of damage and mines... well we know nothing about how they function. In addition to these five base weapons we will have 25 hybrid combinations.

It's not current clear exactly the extent the slave will have on the master. We know that they seem to be made to change a specific stat but will they effect other stats as well? Do we make a cannon deal a specific amount of damage and add beam slaves on until we have a desired range or will the slaves effect all stats but have higher impact on their specific stat?

Weapon Types Explained, (Warning Contains Conjecture)

Cannon: Current cannon we know and love/hate

Rapid Cannon: Machine guns/ Gattling guns, who won't love these

Shotguns: Spread shot originating from the output, more slaves = more "pellets"

Sniper Cannon: Long range cannons, I'm not sure how effective these will be as you can only really shoot as far as you can see.

Artillery Cannon: I'm assuming "Slower, Stronger" refers to lower rate of fire and higher damage, I am excited for this one but I do feel that this needs some splash damage effect or "Hull Absorption" to really set itself apart from the other cannons

Flack Cannon: I think this will act much like the shotgun but the spread effect will occur after a set distance instead of at the output and spread in all directions

Complex Projectile: It's unknown as to how the "complex projectile" and it's slaves will track targets.

Rapid Dumbfire Missiles: Fast firing Rockets. Hopefully missiles will be more effective and volleys of rockets will be effective at taking down large targets, perhaps not as fast as cannons would due to their explosive effect once shields are down but still be able to do it eventually. Or of course you could drop the shields and switch to your ships rocket pods.

Swarm Missiles: Many small missiles, tracking characteristics unknown (perhaps IR/ SD-KB guidance but it would need to be severely improved to actually track hostile targets)

Tracking Long Missiles: I hope these will be better than our current SD:BB, the missile speed is speed is pathetic. Actually I imagine a missile modified with a laser would act like an laser guided missile where you track it to the target with your reticule.

Heavy Hulk Missiles: Doomsday weapons of the past? Tracking unknown (this could end up being the SD-BB replacement, actively tracks targets but kind of slow)

Sleeper Missiles: Fires a missile, missile waits, missile tracks target. (I have not Idea how these will ultimately work)

Beam: "Beams will, as their name implies, visually function like lasers/beams. They will pulse every time a damage tick occurs. (Instead of a constant beam.)"

Rapid Burst Laser: Pulses quickly due to short cool down

Broad, Needle Shotgun laser: uh... I guess this will fire in a cone of smaller beams.

Long-Range Laser/Maser: Really reach out and burn somebody

Heavy Siege Laser: High Damage Laser. Being "Siege" I feel that this one would be neat if the visual stayed on as long as the beam was being fired, it would still have the same damage tick but it would be visibly constant.

Massive Charge Laser: I feel that this is the most anticipated laser and probably the best explained. The laser will not fire immediately on attack but instead will build a "charge" Once the mouse button is released the weapon will fire dealing all its damage. Limits on charge will probably be put in place to prevent fighters from charging for an hour and then taking down a capitals shields on one massive shot. I'm also curious to see how AI will handle this. Perhaps we will need more AI settings to control aspects like this.

Pulsars: Like it is now, but instead of pushing things away from you it will deal damage

Rapid Pulse: I just assume less cool down

Carpet - Bombing Small Pulses: Is it true are we finally getting Bombs?! How will they work?! ... This will probably be just a series of small pulses over time when triggered.

Long-Range Neutron Pulsar: Longer range, not sure what neutron denotes.

High-Power Nova Pulsar: Lots more damage dealt I assume

Proximity Pulses: I feel that this one will be a weapon you trigger, and then it will emit when something gets close to you. Like you have this on a slower capital, and as soon as a wave of fighters approach, BOOM!

Mine Layer: It's only been stated that there will be a hard cap on the number of mines in each sector. What mines look like and exactly how they function is unknown.

Line-Layer Mines: Either this drops mines fast as you fly or drops a single line all at ones

Grid Pattern Minelayer: Sets up the mines in a specific pattern over wider area

Massive Radius Tsar Bomba: Large area of effect mine

High-Power Nova Mines: High damage

Chaff Cluster Timed Mines: This seems like it's a weapon to help you flee from a pursuer, the mine will drop and detonate like the flak cannon

More unknowns:
How will the current "shotgun" setups of cannons be addressed in this update?

Is a 50/50 split of master slave always the best way to go or is there benefits to having a larger maser/smaller slave or the slave being the larger of the two systems? Or is it like I mentioned above where you just use the slave to tune your weapon to a single desired stat?



Feel free to add your own conjecture and I'd love to see some of the smaller details cleared up by the officials but many of the finer workings of the system may not even be known to Calbiri, Schema, Omni at the moment. If that is the case our conjecture may even effect the final design.

 

[Stakhanov]

Statistics are undecided and subject to change , so the only things that matter are weapon mechanics.

For example , missiles are currently slow and poor against shields. Those attributes ensure they can only be of use against slower , fat targets , and combined with anti-shield weapon systems. The lack of coring mechanic could raise their relative utility. Variants that increase specialization (highest damage or fastest tracking) would be favored by different ship types.

Hitscan beams will be overpowered regardless of their statistics. No matter how weak , you can always add more sniper beam turrets and have them consume enemy ships at arbitrary ranges thanks to perfect damage projection. Also working as area denial on light ships.

Pulse may be fearsome if radius scales well , or useless if it damages docked turrets. It\'s likely to remove any tactical subtlety from asymmetric engagements by covering any and all possible blindspots. Most likely they\'ll hardcounter short ranged AI drones.

Now , mines are the wildcard among weapon systems. Should they linger for hours on end , the ability to add damage out of combat would change tactical considerations quite a lot. Flying into a cloud of sleeper missiles while your shield is drained would spell death. This would promote manoeuvering instead of brainless charging , but might produce nasty stalemates and deter short range combat too much. Short lived mines would be unlikely to work as reliable weapons except against idiots chasing you.

My recommendations : reach a balance in hulls vs antimatter before adjusting missiles. Playtest minelayer mechanics extensively. Keep pulses pre-nerfed until AI revamp. Ditch hitscan beams for damage projection.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Yeah the statistics are undecided and it will be up to the players to push the system to the limit to test it and see what\'s broken, AMCs were never designed to be used in waffle boards.

Fat slow targets? slow turning maybe but all ships are capable of outrunning SD-BB because all ships have the same default speed.

I disagree with beams being inherently overpowered just because they hitscan. Big targets are easy to hit regardless of if it\'s a projectile or hitscan, and small ships can still dodge around. I\'m sure a balance can be found. AI will finally need to have appropriate inaccuracy though because I do agree AI with beams will be extremely deadly and that one setting doesn\'t do anything.

Weapons are a core mechanic of the game and should be worked out sooner than later, the new system will introduce a whole lot of new balancing issues that will need to be worked out so properly balancing the current system and then introducing a new system which will throw the old balance out the window is pointless. Also how is the current pulse system a nerf? Does anybody even use them, does just being able to push things have any point in an actual battle?


Shields currently, are set to function with the weapon systems as we have them now.

With a major weapon overhaul planned, defenses of course will need to be re-visited, re-adjusted, re-done, whatever is needed until they again give a proper balance with the weapons.


I imagine this includes some armor balances as well.

 

[Tydeth]

Does anybody even use them, does just being able to push things have any point in an actual battle?


From what I\'ve seen on YouTube, Pulsars with their current push effect are also used for simulating an Orion Nuclear Pulse Propulsion system, and a Mass Relay from Mass Effect. In this sense, the pulsar change is a nerf as it removes the ability to use them as either alternative thrust mechanism.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

From what I\'ve seen on youtube Orion Nuclear Pulse Propulsion isn\'t an effective alternative to thrust and is nothing more than a concept.


In addition, the Pulse weapon will have damage added to it and its push/disorient affect removed. (To be used in a seperate new system, more on that another time.)


So the pulse \"weapon\" will actually be made into a weapon, actually making it usable by more people, and the push mechanic will be moved to a new system.

 

[Lecic]

I haven\'t heard anything about new push systems being added. I found the old pulse system interesting at times, being able to shove things away and disorient them. It\'d be nice if basic pulsars were the way they currently are, and pulsar/pulsar gave more rapidally pulsing and damaging, but not pushing, pulses.

 

[SuperMeep]

Siege lasers look to be the greatest thing ever. My dreadnaught\'s massive amc will be replaced with a massive siege laser for ultimate doom. Possible lag death of everything too.

 

[theB33R]

My thought on Sleeper Missiles is that perhaps they impact the target and then detonate after a certain amount of time?

So you could shoot a capital ship with them and THEN take out its shields in time for the missiles to explode.

 

[ante185]

A sleeper missile is a missile that will probaly be deployed like a mine and when a ship comes to close it will fire up it\'s engiens and get on a colision course with that ship.

 

[NeonSturm]

I like beam weapons to be anti-projectile or build-up their damage. Beams may raise a local-heat-level which will increase the damage percentage. turning your ship might lower the local-heat-level.

• Beamer-weigth: Block-count compared of total of all attackers.
• new localHeatLevel = previous 0..100% + damage * (100- localHeatLevel)
• damage = damage * (old?) localHeatLevel
• turning: the greater the speed and angle of your turn-axis to the line from your center to enemy, the greater the decrease of the local-heat level.
• 
  
• +1% rof, -0.8% damage, -0.2% range
• +1% split, -0.8% damage, -0.2% range
• +1% range, -0.8% turn rate, -0.2% reload
• +1% damage, -0.8% reload, -0.2% turn rate
• -1% delay, +1.2% damage, -0.2% turn rate

Just an example. + is good, - is bad for the owner.

 

[???]

Phaser beam arrays please

 

[johnrekhyt]

What I dont understand is how Beams will differ from Pulsars. It seems that the way the work is almost identical. Why not have a constant animation with damage dealt every tick (for a visual look at how repair/powersupply/powerdrain beams work) combined with a cooldown time that depends slightly on the size of your Beam cannon but mainly on the slave system attached to it. For example, the rapid burst laser would be able to fire in a few continuos bursts before needing to recharge, something similar for the shotgun laser, and for the Long Range Laser/Maser and the Heavy Seige Laser a medium cooldown with energy being expended at a more reasonable rate (maybe the long range laser would fire for slightly less time than the seige laser), and the Massive Charge laser requires a charge up followed by a comparitively longer release followed by a cooldown. The cooldown and the charge up\'s needs could be met seperately and simultaneously for more effecient designs. The reason I suggest these thing is that to me, the shorter duration burst and shotgun lasers seem to be more point-defense related: focusing on neutralizing fighter swarms. The long range laser and the seige laser seem to be oriented as primary weapons on mid-sized capital ships aimed at dealing a fair amount of damage at medium to long range, where as the massive charge laser would be used to cripple larger ships or space station/planetary installations by storing a massive amount of energy for a release that couldnt be met without the added charge up period.

 

[ltmauve]

The default laser behavor will be similar to the utility beams - applying a damage effect every \"tick\" to the target. Meanwhile the pulsars can only intermittly apply damage pulses to the enemy.