Brainstorm This Warhead Launcher Weapon

[Lecic]

As much as people love designing warhead torpedoes, they have some ailments that are pretty much incurable in their current state as an exploding block. They fail under lag, cause collision lag, clog the server database with spent torpedo entities, and most importantly, are (and will continue to be) impossible to detect as hostile without causing any neutral carrying warheads to be fired on automatically.

I am proposing that the current warhead block be replaced with a 4-part weapon system.

Warhead Launcher Computer- The controller. What goes on the hotbar. Warhead Launcher Tubes and Cargo Spaces are linked to it to turn it into a functional weapon. It locks on. It cannot be fired by logic or docked AI.

Warhead Launcher Tube- This is the weapon module for the system. Determines the output, number of outputs, warhead cost, and damage per output. Damage per module would be around 5000.

Cargo Spaces- This weapon borrows the cargo spaces from the cargo system. The storage can be accessed by pressing R on the computer. The difference being that this cargo can only hold warheads, and does not compress cargo at all, with each warhead taking up a full block of space. Transfer speeds from normal storage to warhead storage are extremely slow, for balance purposes, to prevent people from just keeping all their warheads in the much more compact standard cargo system.

Warheads- Warheads are now inert without a computer and tube to prime them. Once fired, like current warheads, they ignore shields. They will home in on whatever entity has been locked on to. Warheads can be targetted by point defense, as well, with a new setting for AI- "Missiles (Prioritize Warheads)." This goes along with "Missiles (Prioritize Missiles)." Warheads travel at 3x server max and have much higher health than standard missiles, making specialized anti-warhead PD a good idea for taking them down at anything but longer range.
The ammo cost of warheads for a launcher is determined by the number of modules, outputs and separate computers with linked weapons on board, going up an exponential scale. 1 launcher means 1 warhead consumed, 2 launchers means 2, 3 = 4, 4 = 8, 5 = 16, etc. The ammo cost accounts for separate computers, meaning if you have 4 separate warhead launchers with 1 module each, the ammo cost would still be 2 warheads each. If you have a number that can't be split evenly (3 1 block launchers, meaning ammo cost 4 total), the ammo cost per launcher rounded up. (1.33 warheads per launcher for the 3 1 block launchers means ammo cost of 2 for each launcher.)

 

[Nickizzy]

As much as people love designing warhead torpedoes, they have some ailments that are pretty much incurable in their current state as an exploding block. They fail under lag, cause collision lag, clog the server database with spent torpedo entities, and most importantly, are (and will continue to be) impossible to detect as hostile without causing any neutral carrying warheads to be fired on automatically.

I am proposing that the current warhead block be replaced with a 4-part weapon system.

Warhead Launcher Computer- The controller. What goes on the hotbar. Warhead Launcher Tubes and Cargo Spaces are linked to it to turn it into a functional weapon. It locks on. It cannot be fired by logic or docked AI.

Warhead Launcher Tube- This is the weapon module for the system. Determines the output, number of outputs, warhead cost, and damage per output. Damage per module would be around 5000.

Cargo Spaces- This weapon borrows the cargo spaces from the cargo system. The storage can be accessed by pressing R on the computer. The difference being that this cargo can only hold warheads, and does not compress cargo at all, with each warhead taking up a full block of space. Transfer speeds from normal storage to warhead storage are extremely slow, for balance purposes, to prevent people from just keeping all their warheads in the much more compact standard cargo system.

Warheads- Warheads are now inert without a computer and tube to prime them. Once fired, like current warheads, they ignore shields. They will home in on whatever entity has been locked on to. Warheads can be targetted by point defense, as well, with a new setting for AI- "Missiles (Prioritize Warheads)." This goes along with "Missiles (Prioritize Missiles)." Warheads travel at 3x server max and have much higher health than standard missiles, making specialized anti-warhead PD a good idea for taking them down at anything but longer range.
The ammo cost of warheads for a launcher is determined by the number of modules, outputs and separate computers with linked weapons on board, going up an exponential scale. 1 launcher means 1 warhead consumed, 2 launchers means 2, 3 = 4, 4 = 8, 5 = 16, etc. The ammo cost accounts for separate computers, meaning if you have 4 separate warhead launchers with 1 module each, the ammo cost would still be 2 warheads each. If you have a number that can't be split evenly (3 1 block launchers, meaning ammo cost 4 total), the ammo cost per launcher rounded up. (1.33 warheads per launcher for the 3 1 block launchers means ammo cost of 2 for each launcher.)

I liked this up until the point where you described launching it. I don't think torpedos and warheads should become something like a more expensive missile. What if the launcher tubes were like rails that launched the warhead out? Then warheads would be built around a rail docker like they are now, the computer system would designate the entity as a torpedo, and the torpedo would be of the ship that launched it's faction.

 

[Employee763]

Naaaah. The Engineering challenge of building a torpedo launcher is something the game could use. -1

 

[SkylordLuke]

I agree with everything except one thing,homing in on targets.
This would pretty much be a rail gun,ignores shields,its super fast,but... its trajectory ,once fired..cant be changed.
othervise ships with tons of these launchers would decimate everything

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

I agree with everything except one thing,homing in on targets.
This would pretty much be a rail gun,ignores shields,its super fast,but... its trajectory ,once fired..cant be changed.
othervise ships with tons of these launchers would decimate everything

Yeah that would be the biggest objection I would have.

 

[Jake_Lancia]

Absolutely yes. I love the idea of using the otherwise near-useless warhead block as ammunition for this devastating new weapon system. I agree with every point of this. Although the ignoring shield effect of this weapon should be reduced to, say, 33% of the damage, so it acts like an expensive Transphasic torpedo from Star Trek.

 

[lupoCani]

I can't say I support this. As I find myself saying quite often these days, the entire point of a sandbox is giving the player a set of tools and letting them do what they want with them. Removing said tools and implementing a feature for one specific application, even if it is the most common one, undermines that idea.

Also, detection can't be that hard to implement- Even if they're not factioned themselves, they'll nearly always be launched from a factioned ship.

 

[EricBlank]

Using a torpedo launch tube to fling your warheads at extreme speed without having to include a core sounds cool.

This does make them pretty much an alternative missile that bypasses shields. True, it rids us of worrying about torpedoes causing collision issues and the back end of the torpedo continuing to exist (the core, at the very least) after detonation, but it's not that much more appealing anyway.

I'd be more interested in a shipyard-type system on-board a warship, where cargo space containing the components to construct a torpedo are used to produce it, with the centerpiece being a warhead instead of a ship core. Your little "shipyard" constructs your torpedo as you designed it, and then you launch it via logic push-beams or off a rail. After launch, it has mass, volume etc but doesn't check physics collisions on any component besides the core warhead, acting like a "ghost." weapons can still interact with it, though, and it has hitpoints, power and thrust based on the block components (although the hitpoints register hits to the entity as a whole and don't affect individual blocks) and a radar signature. It becomes an unguidable dumbfire weapon, unless the parent has a targetting beam-weapon linked to the warhead shipyard, which shows it where to go (using its own thrusters and power you built-in, if at all) so long as you have line-of-sight for that beam. Therefore, constructing it does employ blocks and you'd want to watch your thrust-to-mass ratio and power generation, and the shipyard can't build it instantaneously. Building in additional warheads ups the damage potential on detonation.

If the warhead-torpedo takes damage exceeding its hitpoints, it explodes in place, damaging anything that might have been in its radius. If the core warhead collides with an object (remember, the rest of the object doesn't even have collisions) it explodes, dealing damage relative to the number of warhead blocks it carried. In either case, the warhead as a torpedo and the blocks that composed it cease to exist. No mess, no cleanup, no junk to bump into. I would suggest an additional parameter; if the warhead is travels into a sector that isn't loaded or the sector it is in is unloaded, it is deleted/considered destroyed. So you don't have warheads potentially flying off into oblivion.

The warhead as a block, then, doesn't need to be added to a ship to do its job. If I were a monstrous paranoid anti-griefer, I might even say warheads can't be placed in the world through other means. But having a self-destruct sequence sounds cool, too.


There's also talk of using warheads as breaching charges. I like that idea, too. Give astronauts a tool to deploy warheads from their inventory onto a location on another entity once every little while (that isn't home-base protected of course) and destroy blocks adjacent to them, when a corresponding detonator is employed. With, of course, the risk of blowing yourself up.

 

[Reilly Reese]

So a warhead is it's own core now?

I find this to be unlikely to be implemented.

 

[Lecic]

I liked this up until the point where you described launching it. I don't think torpedos and warheads should become something like a more expensive missile. What if the launcher tubes were like rails that launched the warhead out? Then warheads would be built around a rail docker like they are now, the computer system would designate the entity as a torpedo, and the torpedo would be of the ship that launched it's faction.

There's still collision lag.

Naaaah. The Engineering challenge of building a torpedo launcher is something the game could use. -1

Riiiight. Look, there's a difference between interesting engineering challenge and "wow, this is a laggy unusable mess." Torpedoes fall under the second.

I agree with everything except one thing,homing in on targets.
This would pretty much be a rail gun,ignores shields,its super fast,but... its trajectory ,once fired..cant be changed.
othervise ships with tons of these launchers would decimate everything

This a torpedo launcher, not a rail gun. I made it homing because you can ALREADY MAKE HOMING TORPEDOES. And no, I've balanced the ammo cost specifically so that it's nearly impossible for a ship to solely use warhead launchers to take something their size. So ships with "tons of these launchers" aren't going to do much damage before they run out of ammo.

So a warhead is it's own core now?

I find this to be unlikely to be implemented.

Uh... did you READ the suggestion?

Using a torpedo launch tube to fling your warheads at extreme speed without having to include a core sounds cool.

This does make them pretty much an alternative missile that bypasses shields. True, it rids us of worrying about torpedoes causing collision issues and the back end of the torpedo continuing to exist (the core, at the very least) after detonation, but it's not that much more appealing anyway.

I'd be more interested in a shipyard-type system on-board a warship, where cargo space containing the components to construct a torpedo are used to produce it, with the centerpiece being a warhead instead of a ship core. Your little "shipyard" constructs your torpedo as you designed it, and then you launch it via logic push-beams or off a rail. After launch, it has mass, volume etc but doesn't check physics collisions on any component besides the core warhead, acting like a "ghost." weapons can still interact with it, though, and it has hitpoints, power and thrust based on the block components (although the hitpoints register hits to the entity as a whole and don't affect individual blocks) and a radar signature. It becomes an unguidable dumbfire weapon, unless the parent has a targetting beam-weapon linked to the warhead shipyard, which shows it where to go (using its own thrusters and power you built-in, if at all) so long as you have line-of-sight for that beam. Therefore, constructing it does employ blocks and you'd want to watch your thrust-to-mass ratio and power generation, and the shipyard can't build it instantaneously. Building in additional warheads ups the damage potential on detonation.

If the warhead-torpedo takes damage exceeding its hitpoints, it explodes in place, damaging anything that might have been in its radius. If the core warhead collides with an object (remember, the rest of the object doesn't even have collisions) it explodes, dealing damage relative to the number of warhead blocks it carried. In either case, the warhead as a torpedo and the blocks that composed it cease to exist. No mess, no cleanup, no junk to bump into. I would suggest an additional parameter; if the warhead is travels into a sector that isn't loaded or the sector it is in is unloaded, it is deleted/considered destroyed. So you don't have warheads potentially flying off into oblivion.

The warhead as a block, then, doesn't need to be added to a ship to do its job. If I were a monstrous paranoid anti-griefer, I might even say warheads can't be placed in the world through other means. But having a self-destruct sequence sounds cool, too.


There's also talk of using warheads as breaching charges. I like that idea, too. Give astronauts a tool to deploy warheads from their inventory onto a location on another entity once every little while (that isn't home-base protected of course) and destroy blocks adjacent to them, when a corresponding detonator is employed. With, of course, the risk of blowing yourself up.

Now, this is a good idea. I disagree that it shouldn't be homing by default (no one is going to use the non-homing version if there's a choice), but otherwise, very good. I think I'd prefer this over my own suggestion.

 

[Blobfscrazy]

Make this happen!

 

[Madman198237]

I dislike this idea. It's more of a way around the logic-based mechanic than a necessary piece of gameplay.

I think that the use of a warhead or computer linked to a warhead as core and docker for a basic weapon would make it possible to create proton torpedo-style limited ammunition weapons, provided that warheads get large grouping bonuses to prevent the spamming of one or two block warhead bombs, while still giving vessels the capability of killing ships far above their weight class.....once or twice. Because after that, you're out of ammo and vulnerable once again.

Also, increased mass on warheads would be useful to prevent mass spamming of these things. Bombers would once again necessarily be slow and ungainly, not just a fighter with a missile launcher.

 

[Employee763]

Riiiight. Look, there's a difference between interesting engineering challenge and "wow, this is a laggy unusable mess." Torpedoes fall under the second.

...I've never found them a "laggy unusable mess." Improve your system, perhaps?

 

[Lecic]

...I've never found them a "laggy unusable mess." Improve your system, perhaps?

Right, because warheads causing collision lag on impact, when they glitch inside another ship and spazz out, or the system of having either a homing warhead that tries to AVOID crashing at the last second or having unguided torpedoes that have difficulty hitting a moving target at any decent range, all while hoping that the server isn't lagging too badly for your logic to work and that the clocks didn't get stopped at some point isn't "laggy and unusable."

This has nothing to do with "my system," whether you mean my warhead launch system or the computer system I play the game on. It has to do with FLAWS with the current warhead launching system that cannot be ignored.

 

[Employee763]

Right, because warheads causing collision lag on impact, when they glitch inside another ship and spazz out, or the system of having either a homing warhead that tries to AVOID crashing at the last second or having unguided torpedoes that have difficulty hitting a moving target at any decent range, all while hoping that the server isn't lagging too badly for your logic to work and that the clocks didn't get stopped at some point isn't "laggy and unusable."

This has nothing to do with "my system," whether you mean my warhead launch system or the computer system I play the game on. It has to do with FLAWS with the current warhead launching system that cannot be ignored.

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. It's always worked fine for me.


...at any rate, game performance isn't a good reason to change something. It is something the Devs should weigh the positives/negatives of and make a decision, letting the game's limitations inhibit the creative process isn't a good idea.

 

[Imagination01]

Warheads are overpowered as is, they completely bypass shields and (when designed correctly) can do a significant damage, and some servers even buff warheads further.

Your suggestion makes them an I win button, locking on and homing in on targets when they bypass shields is ridiculous.

The only way to keep them balanced is to leave them alone.

I think for a weapon this powerful, its completely justified to have to build a torpedo and use logic to launch it.

 

[Lecic]

Warheads are overpowered as is, they completely bypass shields and (when designed correctly) can do a significant damage, and some servers even buff warheads further.

Your suggestion makes them an I win button, locking on and homing in on targets when they bypass shields is ridiculous.

The only way to keep them balanced is to leave them alone.

I think for a weapon this powerful, its completely justified to have to build a torpedo and use logic to launch it.

Warheads are not overpowered. They are hilariously underpowered. The only "overpowered" bit about them is that PD doesn't know how to shoot them down. Warheads being buffed on SOME servers doesn't matter, because they aren't strong in vanilla. They're hilariously weak.

Sure, it bypasses shields and homes in on targets, but that's already possible with AI guided torpedoes. And it's incredibly unlikely that someone would be able to even make an "I WIN" warhead, given that the damage needed to instakill a ship with them would result in something so expensive to fire that it would have been cheaper to just use regular weapons and bruteforce your way past the shields instead.

 

[Reilly Reese]

Warheads are overpowered as is, they completely bypass shields and (when designed correctly) can do a significant damage, and some servers even buff warheads further.

Your suggestion makes them an I win button, locking on and homing in on targets when they bypass shields is ridiculous.

The only way to keep them balanced is to leave them alone.

I think for a weapon this powerful, its completely justified to have to build a torpedo and use logic to launch it.

I'd assume this belief is from when someone tore a nice hole in a Vaygr Cruiser on EI?

Warheads don't have a radius worth anything.

 

[Criss]

Sounds like a great way to make warheads viable and interesting. I like it. I will pass it along. No idea when we will work on weapons again though :/

 

[Benevolent27]

As much as people love designing warhead torpedoes, they have some ailments that are pretty much incurable in their current state as an exploding block. They fail under lag, cause collision lag, clog the server database with spent torpedo entities, and most importantly, are (and will continue to be) impossible to detect as hostile without causing any neutral carrying warheads to be fired on automatically.

I am proposing that the current warhead block be replaced with a 4-part weapon system.

Warhead Launcher Computer- The controller. What goes on the hotbar. Warhead Launcher Tubes and Cargo Spaces are linked to it to turn it into a functional weapon. It locks on. It cannot be fired by logic or docked AI.

Warhead Launcher Tube- This is the weapon module for the system. Determines the output, number of outputs, warhead cost, and damage per output. Damage per module would be around 5000.

Cargo Spaces- This weapon borrows the cargo spaces from the cargo system. The storage can be accessed by pressing R on the computer. The difference being that this cargo can only hold warheads, and does not compress cargo at all, with each warhead taking up a full block of space. Transfer speeds from normal storage to warhead storage are extremely slow, for balance purposes, to prevent people from just keeping all their warheads in the much more compact standard cargo system.

Warheads- Warheads are now inert without a computer and tube to prime them. Once fired, like current warheads, they ignore shields. They will home in on whatever entity has been locked on to. Warheads can be targetted by point defense, as well, with a new setting for AI- "Missiles (Prioritize Warheads)." This goes along with "Missiles (Prioritize Missiles)." Warheads travel at 3x server max and have much higher health than standard missiles, making specialized anti-warhead PD a good idea for taking them down at anything but longer range.
The ammo cost of warheads for a launcher is determined by the number of modules, outputs and separate computers with linked weapons on board, going up an exponential scale. 1 launcher means 1 warhead consumed, 2 launchers means 2, 3 = 4, 4 = 8, 5 = 16, etc. The ammo cost accounts for separate computers, meaning if you have 4 separate warhead launchers with 1 module each, the ammo cost would still be 2 warheads each. If you have a number that can't be split evenly (3 1 block launchers, meaning ammo cost 4 total), the ammo cost per launcher rounded up. (1.33 warheads per launcher for the 3 1 block launchers means ammo cost of 2 for each launcher.)

Though I like the idea of an ammo-based weapon utilizing warheads, I don't like the idea of making warheads work completely differently from existing weapons systems and also different from entities. As it stands, warheads could use some help though, but I don't think this is quite what is needed. I believe we should help bridge existing game mechanics and to make it less specific to warheads, to allow more creative uses.

What I advocate for are small shipyards being allowed on ships, which can only be used while the ship is docked to a base or shop. These small shipyards could be logic controlled. So it may be set to load a design automatically when the shipyard's build area is clear. Upon receiving a logic signal, it would create the loaded design. Then a logic signal to the shipyard anchor would undock the entity, thus allowing pick-up points to direct the entity onto a pick-up rail inside of the ship and to a storage bay. This would then allow a person to have a warhead carrier, which can be restocked by docking and running some logic. It could also be used simply for a carrier, to have small fighters created onboard the ship. I say let the mass of the parent ship be what determines whether the shipyard can load a design or not. The larger the carrier, the bigger the ships it's shipyard can load.