Hi
Today I wanted to speak about weapons, their combinations and effects. There are quite a few things which bother me about how they work, especially how penetration and AoE works.
1. Cannons (and Beams): With increasing size the following should happen: Damage and power consumption increases linearly. Based on the damage it also gains gradually AoE. Insignificant AoE (range 1 with like ~50-80% damage) for weapons of medium sized ships, but AoE with range ~3-5 with capital ship weapons. Whenever a block gets destroyed and AoE deals its damage to surrounding blocks, the shot travels ahead with its remaining damage to deal. This repeats until its damage has been dealt. The bigger the weapon, the slower the shots, the higher the range, the higher the cooldown (and damage+power consumption scaling along with that).
The idea is that bigger weapons should fire bigger shots, having higher impact on damaging blocks. Also they should have a harder time in hitting smaller targets, but if they do, it shall be devastating. This should apply to beams aswell.
2. Weapon slaves should still apply their effects. The DPS and DPP (damage per power) should basically scale with the amount of total blocks just like now, and the slaves and effects only modify specific behaviours, which do not alter the DPS themselves.
Cannon + Cannon: Decreases cooldown. Rapid fire.
Beam + Cannon: Decreases cooldown. Allows permanent firing of beams.
Missile + Cannon: Decreases cooldown, but they slightly chase their target without the need of a lockin. Their maneuverability depends on the amount of cannon modules, but even with 100% they are less effective than actual regular target seeking missiles, but you can fire way more often with them. This should grant missile ships an option for primary basic weapons for when other missile launchers are on cooldown. Their block damage will be quite low, but they would deal nice damage to shields and faster ships.
Pulse: Well, pulse alone is quite a weird and impractical weapon. It has a fixed range, which is also too low, barely any damage. I would replace it with something new. As of now it's not even worth mentioning.
Cannon + Beam: Increases range, cooldown, projectile speed.
Beam + Beam: Same as above.
Missiles + Beam: Increases range, cooldown, projectile speed, and allows lock-in for target seeking missiles.
Cannon + Missile: Fires multiple projectiles, which fire randomly in a cone in front, but weighted in the middle of the point you fired at. If there is to decide if to fire 3 or 4, it will randomize the 4th shot based on how much module effect is remaining for that; still, if there is no 4th shot, 100% of the damage is within the 3. With 100% effect, there might be ~8-12 shots. This one should be more effective when fighting in short range, as it won't hit very well on longer ranges. Also this means the power consumption should be lowered in order to increase overall DPS and DPP, or the damage increased without altering the power consumption.
Beam + Missile: Just as above.
Missile + Missile: Just rework it to make missiles aim what they should, and not anything they can find. Consider something like multiple target lockon with a shortcut in order to select all potential targets - else they aim for the current target. Their chasing potential should be between missile + cannon and missile + beam.
Cannon + Pulse: Pulse should be the thing which makes weapons go big or go home. Their best use is when fighting slow or immobile targets, like bombers vs big ships. The cooldown should increase slightly, the damage goes way up, power consumption increases, projectile slows down enough to be dodgable, range goes up, AoE goes also up. The DPS and DPP should increase significantly. This is intended to be super effective for small ships to bombard way bigger ships than themselves. They should still have a cadence of like ~3-5 seconds with 100%, but dodging would be quite easy and hitting quite hard.
Beam + Pulse: The Deathray. Similarly to cannon + pulse, the DPS and DPP increases significantly, but to give it a disadvantage, it gets a very high cooldown. Also the beam goes for several seconds instead ~3-6, with increasing damage if it can hit the same (or nearby) spot for a longer time, meaning in order to be really effective, it needs to hit a target constantly for 3-6 seconds to actually deal its real damage. If it doesn't, it still might deal nice damage, but way less than it could.
Missile + Pulse: Similar to cannon + pulse, with one difference. The missile becomes a torpedo, which may chase targets, but with the least maneuverability. Also it cannot be shot down and gets a high cooldown. DPS and DPP is increased significantly. Effective for bombardement, but not for same size combats.
As of now, missiles are super effective at finishing off ships, while cannons and beams really lack of effectivity at it. Also the playaround with armor has barely any impact on the players. It's just there and goes down along with hitpoints mostly. But that's another topic. I personally would prefer it to be like in EvE with shield, armor and structure hitpoints, whereas block damage is only taken if shields and armor are at 0. Each "layer" of hitpoints should be roughly ~1/3 of the total time needed to destroy the complete ship, varying based on what is exactly needed by each hitpoint type and how much is built.
Today I wanted to speak about weapons, their combinations and effects. There are quite a few things which bother me about how they work, especially how penetration and AoE works.
1. Cannons (and Beams): With increasing size the following should happen: Damage and power consumption increases linearly. Based on the damage it also gains gradually AoE. Insignificant AoE (range 1 with like ~50-80% damage) for weapons of medium sized ships, but AoE with range ~3-5 with capital ship weapons. Whenever a block gets destroyed and AoE deals its damage to surrounding blocks, the shot travels ahead with its remaining damage to deal. This repeats until its damage has been dealt. The bigger the weapon, the slower the shots, the higher the range, the higher the cooldown (and damage+power consumption scaling along with that).
The idea is that bigger weapons should fire bigger shots, having higher impact on damaging blocks. Also they should have a harder time in hitting smaller targets, but if they do, it shall be devastating. This should apply to beams aswell.
2. Weapon slaves should still apply their effects. The DPS and DPP (damage per power) should basically scale with the amount of total blocks just like now, and the slaves and effects only modify specific behaviours, which do not alter the DPS themselves.
Cannon + Cannon: Decreases cooldown. Rapid fire.
Beam + Cannon: Decreases cooldown. Allows permanent firing of beams.
Missile + Cannon: Decreases cooldown, but they slightly chase their target without the need of a lockin. Their maneuverability depends on the amount of cannon modules, but even with 100% they are less effective than actual regular target seeking missiles, but you can fire way more often with them. This should grant missile ships an option for primary basic weapons for when other missile launchers are on cooldown. Their block damage will be quite low, but they would deal nice damage to shields and faster ships.
Pulse: Well, pulse alone is quite a weird and impractical weapon. It has a fixed range, which is also too low, barely any damage. I would replace it with something new. As of now it's not even worth mentioning.
Cannon + Beam: Increases range, cooldown, projectile speed.
Beam + Beam: Same as above.
Missiles + Beam: Increases range, cooldown, projectile speed, and allows lock-in for target seeking missiles.
Cannon + Missile: Fires multiple projectiles, which fire randomly in a cone in front, but weighted in the middle of the point you fired at. If there is to decide if to fire 3 or 4, it will randomize the 4th shot based on how much module effect is remaining for that; still, if there is no 4th shot, 100% of the damage is within the 3. With 100% effect, there might be ~8-12 shots. This one should be more effective when fighting in short range, as it won't hit very well on longer ranges. Also this means the power consumption should be lowered in order to increase overall DPS and DPP, or the damage increased without altering the power consumption.
Beam + Missile: Just as above.
Missile + Missile: Just rework it to make missiles aim what they should, and not anything they can find. Consider something like multiple target lockon with a shortcut in order to select all potential targets - else they aim for the current target. Their chasing potential should be between missile + cannon and missile + beam.
Cannon + Pulse: Pulse should be the thing which makes weapons go big or go home. Their best use is when fighting slow or immobile targets, like bombers vs big ships. The cooldown should increase slightly, the damage goes way up, power consumption increases, projectile slows down enough to be dodgable, range goes up, AoE goes also up. The DPS and DPP should increase significantly. This is intended to be super effective for small ships to bombard way bigger ships than themselves. They should still have a cadence of like ~3-5 seconds with 100%, but dodging would be quite easy and hitting quite hard.
Beam + Pulse: The Deathray. Similarly to cannon + pulse, the DPS and DPP increases significantly, but to give it a disadvantage, it gets a very high cooldown. Also the beam goes for several seconds instead ~3-6, with increasing damage if it can hit the same (or nearby) spot for a longer time, meaning in order to be really effective, it needs to hit a target constantly for 3-6 seconds to actually deal its real damage. If it doesn't, it still might deal nice damage, but way less than it could.
Missile + Pulse: Similar to cannon + pulse, with one difference. The missile becomes a torpedo, which may chase targets, but with the least maneuverability. Also it cannot be shot down and gets a high cooldown. DPS and DPP is increased significantly. Effective for bombardement, but not for same size combats.
As of now, missiles are super effective at finishing off ships, while cannons and beams really lack of effectivity at it. Also the playaround with armor has barely any impact on the players. It's just there and goes down along with hitpoints mostly. But that's another topic. I personally would prefer it to be like in EvE with shield, armor and structure hitpoints, whereas block damage is only taken if shields and armor are at 0. Each "layer" of hitpoints should be roughly ~1/3 of the total time needed to destroy the complete ship, varying based on what is exactly needed by each hitpoint type and how much is built.
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