REI:TTC Ship-Mounted "terraforming" Tool Idea

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    • Legacy Citizen 2
    • Legacy Citizen
    ====DECRYPTED TRANSMISSION====

    01> Is it ready?

    04> The Terrain Transmission Cannon... I wouldn't advise release just yet, sir. There are... problems.

    01> What do you mean?

    04> Well, we haven't managed to work out a way to circumvent the IFF protocols on other ships, so firing it at them might cause issues where the terrain doesn't actually collide, but instead reflects back at the firer

    01> What.

    04> Well, you did ask for a terraformming cannon, and I would suppose that you would want it for our weapons division...

    01> I ask for a device that can shoot dirt in high frequency, and you have been attempting to weaponise it. Stop working on it now. You're fired. We're releasing it as is, and hope to high heaven nobody figures out how to use it as a weapon. And don't you dare pull a Brian from the Planar Division and release it by going to our competitors before we release it, on pain of death.

    ===END OF TRANSMISSION==



    So, what I'm saying in this suggestion is a cannon device, with its own computer and whatnot, that fires a block of dirt or sand (aka junk high-weight terrain blocks), from one's inventory, at speed, towards a target, at which point it 'sticks' to that grid.

    While this would be useful for someone terraforming a planetary or asteroid surface, it could be useful for building other structures out of dirt/sand...

    And, since ship turning speed and maximum speed can, to my understanding, be affected by the total mass on the ship, firing dirt at unfactioned ships would cause them to gain weight and be slowed down.

    A maneuverable ship with this cannon could feasbily 'anchor' other ships to other structures in this way, which I assume law enforcement factions would find of use to 'handcuff' enemies to a structure on their ships designed for dragging criminals to a lockup.

    Of course, ships protected against anti-griefing measures, such as those with a faction block and those with a shield system, should not have the blocks stick. This is the one part of this cannon that I'm not sure about, and have ideas ranging from it reflecting back at the emission point to the fired block simply disintegrating.

    The primary purpose of this cannon is for the construction of natural-esque terrain via on-board systems to repair damaged environments on worlds...

    But of course, someone's gonna shoot it at an enemy. that's inevitable. So it should have functions relating to that.
     
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    A good and useful idea, essentially a reverse salvage beam, im not great at programming but i know that this would be difficult to do, also how would the cannon know which block to \'shoot\' down? you could end up with a patchwork planet.