Author Topic: More Deeply Customizable Beam Weapons  (Read 3243 times)

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Offline Borealis4x (OP)

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More Deeply Customizable Beam Weapons
« on: November 08, 2016, 03:31:34 PM »

Instead of relying on technology to increase the size of beam weapons they should be more like radars where the bigger you make the caliber, heatsink, and barrel the heavier the weapon becomes with tech making each component more and more effective.

Or at least give us a way to give them the x2, x4, x.5 modifier, I want my UNSC ships.

 

Offline 83athom

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Re: More Deeply Customizable Beam Weapons
« Reply #1 on: November 09, 2016, 07:26:35 AM »
I am all for this, but there has to more balance to how you go about designing. Also when starting a new topic for people to discus about, you need a semi-working idea before hand. Like; Heat sinks are size modifiers but reduce RoF (1.25x size, 80% reload), Capacitors adjust power required vs damage and reload (more capacitors = more damage and slower reload), Barrel width adjusts damage compared to range (bigger barrel = more damage but lower range), Barrel length modifies damage and range but is a size multiplyer (2x size = 1.5x damage and 1.25 range), etc.

I think there should also be beam type specific techs (like the laser wavelength) for rails, plasma, etc.
Rail techs; Shell types (scatter, solid shot, seeker shells, explosives, etc), Rail magnetic (velocity), Rail numbers (multiplyer to size and velocity/damage), Burst fire or autoloading (burst making it more like a Gauss but requires a larger charge time. Autoloading is exactly how we have it.), etc.
Plasma techs; Generator boosting (multiplies damage and power required),  Flow control (lets it fire every increment at a slightly reduced damage but a massive power requirement), etc.
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Offline TCD

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Re: More Deeply Customizable Beam Weapons
« Reply #2 on: November 11, 2016, 10:43:07 AM »
I'm sorry, but I think the last thing we need is to make Aurora more complicated, especially without a very clear benefit. There are already more than enough moving parts in building a working beam weapon system.

Couldn't you get the effect you want simply by introducing bigger spinal weapon mount options?
 

Offline Tree

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Re: More Deeply Customizable Beam Weapons
« Reply #3 on: November 11, 2016, 11:54:23 AM »
Spinal weapons offer no real benefits if you already have unlocked the next level, and I'm guessing they aren't even really spinal. After all, a spinal 12cm laser (reaching the stats of a 15cm one) isn't different from a 15cm laser, except that you somehow can only mount one. But there doesn't seem any problem having a 12cm spinal laser (equivalent to a 15 cm one) next to a bunch of 15cm lasers. Which unless they are turreted, seem to all point forward too, and probably also run along the length of the ship.

Something for a proper spinal weapon should work like jump engines. Design a 1000 tons spinal railgun, and it can't be used on ships larger than 10000 tons, for example. Maybe make higher capacitor recharge rate technology allow you to make lighter spinal guns, as less space needs to be dedicated to the capacitor. I'm not exactly sure what stats it should affect. I suppose railguns would have more space to accelerate the rounds and have higher velocity and damage. I don't think the other weapons would benefit from having spinal mounts as much.

To keep the oversized lasers, the spinal box could be replaced with an "Oversize Weapon" box (added to other guns too), allowing you to inefficiently size up a weapon to its next tier, with higher size and power requirements than normal because you're bruteforcing through instead of refining the tech (so that if a 12cm laser is normally 4HS with 4 power requirement, upscaling a 10cm laser would make it 5HS big and need 5 power). And there would still be the reduced sized box, since it only concerns itself with the weapon's capacitor and not the focal size. I don't think that'd clutter or complicate things too much. It'd add another usefulness versus size choice, like there are already a few in the game.

I'm not sure having spinal, oversize and reduced capacitor size boxes would make sense on all weapons. Gauss don't even need power, for example.
 

Offline TCD

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Re: More Deeply Customizable Beam Weapons
« Reply #4 on: November 11, 2016, 12:59:28 PM »
Spinal weapons offer no real benefits if you already have unlocked the next level, and I'm guessing they aren't even really spinal. After all, a spinal 12cm laser (reaching the stats of a 15cm one) isn't different from a 15cm laser, except that you somehow can only mount one. But there doesn't seem any problem having a 12cm spinal laser (equivalent to a 15 cm one) next to a bunch of 15cm lasers. Which unless they are turreted, seem to all point forward too, and probably also run along the length of the ship.

Something for a proper spinal weapon should work like jump engines. Design a 1000 tons spinal railgun, and it can't be used on ships larger than 10000 tons, for example. Maybe make higher capacitor recharge rate technology allow you to make lighter spinal guns, as less space needs to be dedicated to the capacitor. I'm not exactly sure what stats it should affect. I suppose railguns would have more space to accelerate the rounds and have higher velocity and damage. I don't think the other weapons would benefit from having spinal mounts as much.

To keep the oversized lasers, the spinal box could be replaced with an "Oversize Weapon" box (added to other guns too), allowing you to inefficiently size up a weapon to its next tier, with higher size and power requirements than normal because you're bruteforcing through instead of refining the tech (so that if a 12cm laser is normally 4HS with 4 power requirement, upscaling a 10cm laser would make it 5HS big and need 5 power). And there would still be the reduced sized box, since it only concerns itself with the weapon's capacitor and not the focal size. I don't think that'd clutter or complicate things too much. It'd add another usefulness versus size choice, like there are already a few in the game.

I'm not sure having spinal, oversize and reduced capacitor size boxes would make sense on all weapons. Gauss don't even need power, for example.
I like your idea on oversized weapons, but I don't think it would quite meet the need of the op- which I read as wanting to put a massive gun on his ships. Steve seems to have already come up with something along those lines in his Particle Lance change for 7.2
Off-Topic: show
Particle Lance

The Particle Lance is a large, potentially devastating weapon that is variant of the Particle Beam.

Once Particle Beam Range 200,000 km and Particle Beam Strength 6 have both been researched, the Particle Lance can be researched for 30,000 RP. The Lance is a modification of the normal Particle Beam and is an extra option in the design window.

The Particle Lance modification affects the Particle Beam in the following ways:

2x Damage
2x Size
2x HTK
2x Crew
2.5x Power Requirement
3x Cost
2x Development Cost

As well as the above modifications, which essentially creates a weapon twice as large, that recharges 2.5x more slowly and costs 3x as much, the damage template of the Particle Lance is a single column of armour, rather than the Particle Beam which has a template between that of missiles and lasers. The Particle Lance retains the constant damage of the Particle Beam, creating a weapon that can penetrate enemy armour at significant range.

So perhaps all is needed is to lobby Steve to make the Lance available at a slightly lower research level so it is more accessible?
 

Offline Tree

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Re: More Deeply Customizable Beam Weapons
« Reply #5 on: November 11, 2016, 01:06:19 PM »
It would also be nice if every weapon had its own variant like that.
 

Offline ChildServices

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Re: More Deeply Customizable Beam Weapons
« Reply #6 on: November 20, 2016, 09:02:43 AM »
Couldn't you get the effect you want simply by introducing bigger spinal weapon mount options?

I'd like to build on this idea a little.

Spinal mounted weapons could have stats that scale with ship size in tonnage to make them unique as opposed to just letting me have a single laser weapon 2 calibres higher than my current research level (which is something that's not even useful until you've maxed your calibres out). You could keep their damage the same for whatever calibre they are, but increase their recharge rate and/or maximum range for how "long" the gun ends up being when you mount it into a ship. Of course, you'd have to make the gun itself actually occupy more space as the ship grows in size just like armour does.
I also believe spinal mounts should keep the bonus they have now (larger size than you've researched, however with an added penalty of being less efficient than that tech might be if you had it "naturally") and should should be opened up to more weapons.

A spinal carronade would be pretty goddamn excellent and I reckon it might not be a bad weapon if spinal mounts did what I suggested. Mount it in a big enough ship and you'll basically be plastering a motherfrakker for 200 damage (for every ship that has one) every 5 seconds at higher tech levels.
« Last Edit: November 20, 2016, 09:05:47 AM by ChildServices »
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