Titan Weapons?

[Edymnion]

So, taking a brief break from my titan project to build some smaller ships, and while arming them I got to seriously thinking "What weapons should a titan actually have?"

Now, I'm considering the main defensive and offensive capabilities of a titan to be the realm of turrets. Lock-on torpedoes, beams, cannons, whole nine yards are present all over the thing in turret form, but I still want some actual ship mounted "fixed" weapons to give me something to play with instead of "Just sit there while the game plays itself".

First consideration is that this thing is going to turn like a beached whale, so smaller ships aren't going to be a target for these weapons. They're going to have to be for VLSs (Very Large Ships, like other titans or near-titans) and/or stations.

So, my first thoughts are:

1) Secondary Effect Weapons
Power/Shield drain beams, stop beams, etc. Things that don't necessarily destroy anything, but allow me to severely weaken a target so that the turrets can take them out. These types of weapons really need to be quite large to be most effective, which mostly rules out turrets. Going nose to nose with another titan, the ability to do millions of shield damage a second would likely be quite beneficial, and since its titan on titan action, they're not going to be able to turn/outrun my turning fast enough to prevent me from keeping a bead on them.

2) Insanely Powerful, Insanely Slow Weapons
Namely Missile/Pulse, but also things like Beam/Pulse. Weapons that wouldn't do jack against smaller targets (like pulse missiles being too slow to hit anything), but that do well against stationary targets. I'd also imagine a 100% Missile/Pulse/Ion torpedo would do absolutely terrible things to any shield system, but then I'd have to worry about their point defense (assuming it isn't being overwhelmed by my own torpedo turrets) stopping them. A pulse missile is going to be easy pickings for PDTs, after all.

3) Spammers
Just put in something huge and destructive that I can spam to feel like I'm doing something. Big explosive cannons, beams that will slice things in half, etc, and just hope something is stupid enough to fly in front of my ship so I can shoot at it for something to do.

4) Broadsides
Like spammers, only have them on the sides of the ship with extra cameras so that I can hop around to each side of the ship and start firing spammer arrays wherever there is a target. Would require many times more arrays and would be harder for one person to operate, but would allow for human controlled weapons fire no matter where the enemy might be.

5) Forget it, read a book
Acknowledge that human controlled weapons aren't viable on titans and just read a book during combat and let the turrets do the work.

Any advice from the experienced titan builders?

 

[Ixalite]

*disclaimer* I am not an experienced titan builder. I have never finished a ship over 1000 meters long. I build for RP, not for hugeness.

I just want to throw in an opinion on the side of complicated logic systems. I feel that titan scale weapons systems should focus around warhead blocks, which should be given a significant buff. This can already be done in the block config, and I plan to implement it on my next server (when/if the game reaches a certain state) With both warheads, and push pulse given massive bonuses in the config files, you can in fact have a (necessarily) enormous weapon that fires very slowly, is very complicated (you probably want a separate real human manning the gun), has limited ammunition, is very dangerous to everyone, and can destroy smaller ships and stations with a single hit.

A secondary implementation of warheads is of course for AI torpedoes. There is, I recognize, a workaround to use logic to drive a torpedo, but they will never truly come into their own until the AI can be set to attack target and ram, then be pushed out of the ship to steer themselves.

http://starmadedock.net/content/experimental-warhead-turret.2978/

This is the prototype nuke cannon I developed. It is too small. For safety, the system would seem to require a full block of space around the projectile, although firing at faster speeds may prevent the projectile from rotating in the barrel.


TACTICAL NOTES OF NUKE WARHEAD CANNON SYSTEM:

- targets moving fast or at range must be led
- Traditional point defense turrets will not target projectiles
- Standard turrets WILL target projectiles.
- (depending on settings) Detonation will damage other ships than the target within a certain range.
(my test server has the warheads hitting everything in 150m)
- (depending on settings) warheads WILL damage your ship if detonated early.

 

[sayerulz]

I would go with logic activated composite weapons. Like a beam array that contains beams with ion and explosive effects, and perhaps some stop beams thrown in to hold targets in place. A few nukes can work well to finish off damaged ships that have had their point defense largely destroyed. Swarm missiles work, since you don't need to aim them, but a titan sized array could be bead for the heath of whatever server you are on, and it's questionable how useful they would really be, unless you are attacked by a huge number of drones. Overall, I would favor siege type weapons for finishing off structures that are largely disabled but are too large to easily destroy outright.

 

[Dire Venom]

I suggest including a large missile-spam array, simply for the point of completely overwhelming their point defense systems and doing some extra damage.
No ships point defense can deal with hundreds of missiles at once and they dont cost much power

 

[Drakkart]

personally i still like the idea of unshielding the enemy from a distance before going in... cannon beam ion ...

 

[amimai]

If you want a gamey munchkin Titan that has the manuverability of a fighter while bein 700m long and nearly as wide it is possible.

Your controll ship should be just a core and thrusters, then you just dock guns and armour aroun it and controll those using internship witless logic.

Because turn rate does not count docked you can get really nice turn rates doing this.

Enjoy your supermassive ubermunchkin.

 

[skunkiferous]

beams that will slice things in half

Yeah, that's something that is, and probably ever will be, missing in StarMade. It would be really cool to see a large ship cut another in half, but both half would still just stay there instead of drifting apart, which kinds of spools the show.

 

[TheFloorMatt]

Swarms in large arrays do wonders against smaller ships that can outmaneuver you. I really hate swarms personally, though, so I tend to use long range weapons like missile/beam. The farther away you are from something, the less you'll have to turn to keep it in front of you. That being said, some day you'll have to deal with some other titan your same size. You'll want something that can do large amounts of shield damage. Really large amounts. I've used beam/pulse/ion before, and they really do some incredible burst damage vs shields. Only downside is power, and if you're in a titan then I'm sure you have enough space to account for it somehow.

Overall, I'd say my weapon of choice on titans would be missiles.

 

[Control]

I feel like missiles with the current meta of turret AMS, are not the best option unless you have superior maneuverability. Delivering a payload of Missile/Pulse in nearly melee range is the only way to ensure they land, which requires a small quick ship, who can get in under AMS.

For Huge v Huge combat, I feel the beam/pulse/ emp or ion is likely the best choice for maximum effect.