Author Topic: Primary concepts  (Read 3017 times)

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I've thought of a few ideas for primary weapons that seem interesting to me, and I thought you guys might like to read about them. Of course, some might have already been used; I'm not even close to having played all the campaigns out there. But it's struck me how many potential gameplay gimmicks for primaries there are (and how lackluster the retail ones are).

1. Shrapnel sabot gun. Kind of like the primary equivalent of a cluster bomb -- it's a high-velocity, low-ROF weapon that shoots a single shell. On impact, it fragments into a Sidhe-like blast.

2. (Actual) leech cannon. Fires a beam that drains energy from hostiles and adds it to the wielder's ship. That might actually make it worth using, in conjunction with a heavier weapon.

3. Antimatter projectile cannon. This is less about the weapon concept itself and more about the surrounding balance issues. When I played Freespace Blue, something about the modified Morningstar -- probably the impact shockwave it generates -- made it feel as though putting a pair of them on something like a Pegasus let it hit above its weight. I tried to think of how a weapon could be designed specifically for light fighters, and I got this.

 It's a ballistic weapon, with a moderate-to-high fire rate, absurd damage, and a short range that makes it best used with a highly-mobile ship. The actual rounds are tiny -- because you don't need much antimatter to do a lot of damage -- but there's a cap on how many can be carried on one ship. I thought about how to justify that with a fluff explanation -- I'm not sure how much difference it would make to have a stupidly excessive amount of antimatter accidentally detonating inside your ship rather than just a moderately excessive amount -- but it turns out that justification already exists in the Tsunami techroom description, which is probably why I was thinking about it to begin with.

Anyway. It's designed to be absolutely lethal when used with something like a Pegasus or Loki, but of limited utility on heavy fighters, since they can't actually carry any more ammo for it than smaller ones can.

4. The tractor gun. My personal favorite. Low damage, but extremely high range and velocity. It's like a backwards Morningstar -- it fires negative-mass projectiles that, upon impact, drag the target back toward the shooter. Oh, and it propels you forward, so it's best used with a ship that can generate reverse thrust. Not that effective on its own, but it doesn't need to be -- you sit next to an Aeolus with this thing and reel in enemy fighters to get chewed apart by the triple-a defenses. Or just cut out the middleman and stick it on a turret.

Of course, the question is if it's even possible to give a projectile negative mass without the game ****ting itself. I'm pretty sure the effect could be scripted in a pinch, though.

 

Offline Spoon

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1. More or less done in WoD
2. Actual health leech gun is done in JAD
Negative mass works
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Offline starlord

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Expanding on this thread and out of curiosity:

Chargeable primaries (think descent fusion cannon).

Blinding effect missiles (think descent 2 flash missiles)

 
Ah! Charging guns! I knew I'd forgotten something. Yeah, that too. Good idea.

I need to play WoD and Dimensional Eclipse. Anime is cool. (Well, it depends on the anime, but...)

 

Offline General Battuta

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The Gauss Sidhe in BP is a single shell which proximity detonates into a shotgun cone.

Blinding weapons don't work well because the AI ignores/doesn't know how to use them.

One of my favorite hacks is the Maul in BP, which does more damage up close.

Just now I've thought it might be possible to create a weapon with 'backlash' that spawns projectiles back towards the firer...no, wouldn't work the way I was imagining, damn.

You could make a primary with a sweet spot - say it does max damage at exactly 800 meters or whatever, maybe even no damage up close. Hard to get the AI to use it right.

 

Offline Mito [PL]

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There are a couple of interesting primaries in Cardinal Spear, i think #1 and #3 are usable there. A charging-like gun is there too, but it is rather just chewing up all of your energy reserve in a second (if you let it). You can also find some primary ideas in Ghost Revenants IIRC, especially that one super precise gun able to massacre whole wings of fighters.
Eagle Takes Flight has got a variant of Avenger, which has shots actually breaking apart into multiple smaller ones and bouncing from the enemy when hit. Not very effective when there's just a couple of enemies, but definitely quite a view.

My idea on this - combo weapons. Anyone remember ASMD from basically any Unreal game?
A player could have two primaries, of which both separately would be ineffective against enemies, but firing both in a specific way could result in some serious damage. My idea here would be a weapon capable of temporarily disabling active armor of the target or weakening molecular bonds in passive armor, designed to be used in tandem with a powerful mass driver or basically any anti-hull weapon. The way to use it would be: fire weapon 1. at a capship, wait a couple of seconds (the effect might not occur if player gets the timing wrong) and then fire weapon 2. at the same area of the ship. Or a torpedo. Or a beam.

Oh, by the way... tractor gun: http://worth1000.s3.amazonaws.com/submissions/148500/148794_1e8c_1024x2000.jpg :D
How do you kill a hydra?

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Offline General Battuta

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Unfortunately we don't have a table-side method of applying status effects in FSO. Maybe lua could reduce the target's armor class against a specific type of damage...

 
The Gauss Sidhe in BP is a single shell which proximity detonates into a shotgun cone.

Blinding weapons don't work well because the AI ignores/doesn't know how to use them.

One of my favorite hacks is the Maul in BP, which does more damage up close.

Just now I've thought it might be possible to create a weapon with 'backlash' that spawns projectiles back towards the firer...no, wouldn't work the way I was imagining, damn.

You could make a primary with a sweet spot - say it does max damage at exactly 800 meters or whatever, maybe even no damage up close. Hard to get the AI to use it right.

...I specifically thought of the Gauss Sidhe, which I don't think I've ever used, and specifically meant to check if that was what it does. And then I completely forgot. Oh well.

I don't really like the Maul, but I think that's mostly because you're stuck using it at the same time you're stuck using the Uhlan, which I hate. Well, that, and I'd much rather be using the Vulcan at that point because it's just a cool-looking and -sounding weapon, but it's worse.

There are a couple of interesting primaries in Cardinal Spear, i think #1 and #3 are usable there. A charging-like gun is there too, but it is rather just chewing up all of your energy reserve in a second (if you let it). You can also find some primary ideas in Ghost Revenants IIRC, especially that one super precise gun able to massacre whole wings of fighters.
Eagle Takes Flight has got a variant of Avenger, which has shots actually breaking apart into multiple smaller ones and bouncing from the enemy when hit. Not very effective when there's just a couple of enemies, but definitely quite a view.


Aagh, that mission in Cardinal Spear. I just used the disruptor and disabled all the enemy fighters because of how impossible to use that weapon is. (Also, why was every mission in that campaign a scramble mission? For that matter, why is any mission in any campaign ever a scramble mission? Scramble missions are terrible.)

I'm not sure what Starlord meant, but what I meant by a "charging" weapon was that you'd hold down the firing button, and the weapon would charge up and do more damage when you released it.


 

Offline starlord

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Correct. Those are the chargeable weapons I mean. For instance, is it possible to recreate in all its aspects the descent fusion gun for the player?

Actually the blinder missile is more of a technical question. Of course the AI would have problems handling such a weapon but it could be an interesting effect to add to EMP. Question is, can the engine handle the blinding effect?
« Last Edit: August 26, 2017, 11:19:30 am by starlord »

 

Offline Spoon

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You could fake it by changing the a.i. profile of enemies hit by the flashbang missile, to something that has really bad accuracy
Urutorahappī!!

[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

 

Offline asyikarea51

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Give that fusion-style charging weapon to a big battleship and link all the barrels!

Charging beams? What beams?!?!!!! THAT IS A BROADSIDE!!! (/insert Bessimer-Kohn marketing campaign against beam cannons) :lol:

(how would the charge sound work with playership, NPC ship, NPC bigship though? Same with gun charging and how would the AI handle that... :nervous:)
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TheHound: "Nice idea, but I have a thing against announcing campaigns before having them already finished."
G5K: "The flipside of that is that if you don't announce your campaign, yet take too long to finish it, other people may independently come up with some of the same ideas."

 

Offline Mito [PL]

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We could also think of some primaries dealing damage in a certain area. I mean, like a bubble around the ship.
How do you kill a hydra?

You starve it to death.

 

Offline Kie99

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Just now I've thought it might be possible to create a weapon with 'backlash' that spawns projectiles back towards the firer...no, wouldn't work the way I was imagining, damn.

This already exists in multiplayer if you fire a Pirahna in a deathmatch.
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