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General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Drogoth on April 13, 2011, 11:51:36 pm

Title: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Drogoth on April 13, 2011, 11:51:36 pm
DISCLAIMER: If any of the things I'm about to mention are already implemented and I've just missed them, or if they've already been brought up, or they'd be impossible to create for any and all reasons, disregard me completely, Im totally ballparking and may be way out to lunch.
--

Ok, so I was really bored today and just stared at a wall, thinking about things that would be cool in Freespace, and I finished another playthrough of WiH recently. The thing that struck me was that the UEF outranges the GTVA by a fairly substantial margin, and the GTVA's main weapon (beam cannons) are fairly short range. After that, as we saw, jamming can completely nullify them. The reason this isn't in BP discussion is because that was only the springboard that got me thinking. I was basically brainstorming how could ships get their beam weapons in close range fast. Against the shivans it was never an issue, against the UEF it was. So anyways, end of the day I thought up a lot of things I think would be cool, and some are downright ridiculous, but if any are workable or make sense i figured I'd throw it out there.

So my ideas are as follows:
(Blue Planet got me thinking, but is not what these ideas are for, these ideas I think would be cool just in general, pan game)

Weapons

-Bomb-pumped Lasers (Beam Warheads)
My solution to getting beam weapons into range of enemy capital ships without exposing yourself to return beam fire, or to long range missile bombardment as you close the range. The idea is basically that a missile has a beam emitter on its front, flies out toward the target and detonates. The force of the explosion is channeled to the emitter to create a short lived (compared to the actual ship based beam duration) and lower damage beam that can hit the enemy ship. This is additionally immune to the jamming used against current beam weapons, because the missiles would have individual guidance systems, just as our on-fighter missiles do, which don't appear to be affected. If anything, more ECM support would have to be developed to counter this threat, lowering enemy electronic warfare capabilities. Anyways, pack loads of these missiles and we can get beam fire in high numbers over incredibly long range.

-Flak Missiles (maybe?)
The inspiration here for me was the slammer from WiH. Basically, cap ships could try to thin out bomber squadrons by firing these missiles towards them, detonating them sending a cone of flak forward, hopefully destroying the fighters. Problem being fighters/bombers would most likely easily avoid these missiles once they were fired

-Mines
Pretty simple idea really, mines that track onto enemy IFF, collide and detonate. Require fighter sweeps to eliminate, but would be highly effective in jump node defense or areas where you know the enemy capships will have to jump in without recon.
         - Smaller mines that put out a huge load of flak to act as anti-fighter mines maybe? But fighters would be able to deal with that fairly easily to that might be wasted.

-Arbalest
The Arbalest would be new ship class, either a destroyer or in the frigate size range, built around this missile warfare, while the Orions and the Hecates with their fleet elements would handle the close in warfare and the fighter ops respectively, the arbalests and their fleet elements could hang back and bludgeon the enemy from range. This might be particularly effective in dealing with threats the Sathanas

Support

-ECM Missiles
In keeping with the missile theme here, we want to maximize the number of missiles that get through, thus we seed our salvo with EW missiles that lower the effectiveness of enemy defensive fire and interfere with fighter targeting systems. Pretty much just really bursty jamming that plays havoc with sensor arrays rather then with communications.
Defensive ECM missiles that do the same thing to missile guidance would help in defending against incoming salvos

-Fighter ECM
Could be loaded on Capital Ship missiles and sensor arrays, or compacted in a smaller form into fighter missiles. Fighters could fly a support role and launch one of their ECM missiles which then creates false sensor images of other fighters (2-3?) that look real and attract enemy weapons fire. The only way to ascertain whether the target was real would be for a fighter to attain visual ID. Would be useful to fake some fighters and bombers when attacking cap ships.

-Cloaking ECM
Have an AWACS ship in the area 'mask' the signal of a cap ship or wing of fighters, holding their emissions down so that they could only be detected at very short range

-Footprint Magnification
Once again relying on an AWACS ship to fake out  enemy sensor arrays by making a ship look like something its not. Either by masking part of its emissions (make an orion look like Deimos for example) or making it look more nasty to discourage attack (Triton disguised as Deimos). Adjustment would of course have to be within reasonable limits there's only so much that fancy sensor manipulation can do. A Perseus would never be able to pretend to be an Orion with the support of even two AWACS ships

-Shield Transfers
Make defending ships easier as the larger ships could emit beams that increase friendly fighter shield recharge by maybe 25%?

-Local Shield Emitters
Cap ships could be equipped with local shield emitters with a certain range of influence between them (ideally spread across the hull to overlap). Thus, when a bomber wing sends its payload out targeted at a certain point, the local shield emitter could bring up a temp shield (4-5 second duration) about the strength of a fighter shield ballooning over that section. It can take some of the damage negating, or at least lessening the initial damage. However, crushing damage to the shield would overload the emitters, at best increasing their cycle time (already high) at worst, destroying them outright.

The ECM roles I mentioned I thought would be cool, but the AWACS ships wouldn't be able to preform many of them at once, if even two. Basically I really liked what WiH did with their AWACS ships and how they played a very real role in the outcome of the war, and I think they can be broadened and made more dynamic in their role.

Again, if any of these things have been covered, wont work for any given reason, would be to hard to implement, cant be implemented, or are just plain crazy, sorry for the waste of time. But i thought they'd be neat, so I figured I'd get some opinions. And if they are actually good ideas, then their in the hands of people who know what to do with them, because I have literally ZERO idea how to FRED in anyway whatsoever, or do any kind of programming. It's something I'd like to learn when I get the time though.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: The E on April 14, 2011, 01:02:58 am
-Bomb-pumped Lasers (Beam Warheads)
My solution to getting beam weapons into range of enemy capital ships without exposing yourself to return beam fire, or to long range missile bombardment as you close the range. The idea is basically that a missile has a beam emitter on its front, flies out toward the target and detonates. The force of the explosion is channeled to the emitter to create a short lived (compared to the actual ship based beam duration) and lower damage beam that can hit the enemy ship. This is additionally immune to the jamming used against current beam weapons, because the missiles would have individual guidance systems, just as our on-fighter missiles do, which don't appear to be affected. If anything, more ECM support would have to be developed to counter this threat, lowering enemy electronic warfare capabilities. Anyways, pack loads of these missiles and we can get beam fire in high numbers over incredibly long range.

Not really doable with the engine ATM. Unless, of course, you use a workaround similar to the one found in FS1 for the beams, then it is quite possible.

Quote
-Flak Missiles (maybe?)
The inspiration here for me was the slammer from WiH. Basically, cap ships could try to thin out bomber squadrons by firing these missiles towards them, detonating them sending a cone of flak forward, hopefully destroying the fighters. Problem being fighters/bombers would most likely easily avoid these missiles once they were fired

You mean something like the Infyrno (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Infyrno) featured in retail?

Quote
-Mines
Pretty simple idea really, mines that track onto enemy IFF, collide and detonate. Require fighter sweeps to eliminate, but would be highly effective in jump node defense or areas where you know the enemy capships will have to jump in without recon.
         - Smaller mines that put out a huge load of flak to act as anti-fighter mines maybe? But fighters would be able to deal with that fairly easily to that might be wasted.

We have sentry guns, which are arguably more effective than mines.

Quote
-Arbalest
The Arbalest would be new ship class, either a destroyer or in the frigate size range, built around this missile warfare, while the Orions and the Hecates with their fleet elements would handle the close in warfaree and the fighter ops respectively, the arbalests and their fleet elements could hang back and bludgeon the enemy from range. This might be particularly effective in dealing with threats the Sathanas

Say hi to the Solaris.

Quote
Support

-ECM Missiles
In keeping with the missile theme here, we want to maximize the number of missiles that get through, thus we seed our salvo with EW missiles that lower the effectiveness of enemy defensive fire and interfere with fighter targeting systems. Pretty much just really bursty jamming that plays havoc with sensor arrays rather then with communications.
Defensive ECM missiles that do the same thing to missile guidance would help in defending against incoming salvos

-Fighter ECM
Could be loaded on Capital Ship missiles and sensor arrays, or compacted in a smaller form into fighter missiles. Fighters could fly a support role and launch one of their ECM missiles which then creates false sensor images of other fighters (2-3?) that look real and attract enemy weapons fire. The only way to ascertain whether the target was real would be for a fighter to attain visual ID. Would be useful to fake some fighters and bombers when attacking cap ships.

-Cloaking ECM
Have an AWACS ship in the area 'mask' the signal of a cap ship or wing of fighters, holding their emissions down so that they could only be detected at very short range

-Footprint Magnification
Once again relying on an AWACS ship to fake out  enemy sensor arrays by making a ship look like something its not. Either by masking part of its emissions (make an orion look like Deimos for example) or making it look more nasty to discourage attack (Triton disguised as Deimos). Adjustment would of course have to be within reasonable limits there's only so much that fancy sensor manipulation can do. A Perseus would never be able to pretend to be an Orion with the support of even two AWACS ships

Interesting idea.

Quote
-Shield Transfers
Make defending ships easier as the larger ships could emit beams that increase friendly fighter shield recharge by maybe 25%?

Not supported by the engine.

Quote
-Local Shield Emitters
Cap ships could be equipped with local shield emitters with a certain range of influence between them (ideally spread across the hull to overlap). Thus, when a bomber wing sends its payload out targeted at a certain point, the local shield emitter could bring up a temp shield (4-5 second duration) about the strength of a fighter shield ballooning over that section. It can take some of the damage negating, or at least lessening the initial damage. However, crushing damage to the shield would overload the emitters, at best increasing their cycle time (already high) at worst, destroying them outright.

Relatively easy to do via sexps.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: CaptJosh on April 14, 2011, 01:42:41 am
The local shield emitter idea actually sounds a lot like the substitute shields they came up with for the SDF-1 in Robotech, where they'd have these big...Photon discs, I think they called them, that were controlled by operators and moved into place to intercept an much incoming fire as possible. Though this idea sounds  like it's just to try to protect critical systems and defenses for a little bit longer during an attack...
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: bigchunk1 on April 14, 2011, 02:02:09 am
The weapons.tbl is a beautiful thing and there are tons of creative opportunities to be had.

The Beam Warhead idea can be done if you are willing to put it on a fighter instead of a bomb. I'm thinking of a Kamikaze RBC.

Missiles can do some interesting things. Weapons that force a tactical responce are of great interest to me. I was thinking of a cluster warhead which deploys slow moving but high area damage mines on detonation. This mines would detonate after a set amount of time. An evading player will have to think quickly and burn out of the way to avoid taking a heavy hit.

Here's a few of my favorites from mods I have played:
BPWIH: Shrike - long ranged EMP warhead
BPAoA: Balor - rapid fire cycle weapon with low energy consumption
Cardinal Spear - ?? - High damage single shot plasma gun mounted on bombers for use against capital ships
Descendants of Sol - Springfield - A high damage high velocity sniper rifle which is hard to use due to a long cool down
Casualties of War - Banshee X - A rapid fire pulse cannon for strafing subsystems. Very high energy consumption.
Wings of Dawn - Heavy Swarm Missile - a large slow moving cluster of warheads which is effective against wings of units
                       - player mounted beam cannons - ;)   



 



Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: X3N0-Life-Form on April 14, 2011, 04:08:18 am
Gotta table my subspace flak idea some day ...
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: BengalTiger on April 14, 2011, 05:10:36 am
Weapons
-Flak Missiles (maybe?)
The inspiration here for me was the slammer from WiH. Basically, cap ships could try to thin out bomber squadrons by firing these missiles towards them, detonating them sending a cone of flak forward, hopefully destroying the fighters. Problem being fighters/bombers would most likely easily avoid these missiles once they were fired
Modern missiles have proximity fuses which detonate them at a small distance from their target aircraft. The warhead explodes and sends a cone of thousands of metal shrapnel.

This could be doable in FS by pimping the Inferno to have a detonation range, say 30 meters, and giving it a smart spawn, with the spawn angle set to some 15-30 degrees. That would make all the bomblets fly forward, and most should get a lock on the target, or any nearby bombers/fighters, and the hit rate would get much bigger than when the bomblets shoot out in random directions.

You could also use a smaller cone (5 degrees or so), and have the missile spawn 20-30 unguided projectiles when it explodes (the engine won't handle thousands of shrapnel).

Quote
-Mines
Pretty simple idea really, mines that track onto enemy IFF, collide and detonate. Require fighter sweeps to eliminate, but would be highly effective in jump node defense or areas where you know the enemy capships will have to jump in without recon.
         - Smaller mines that put out a huge load of flak to act as anti-fighter mines maybe? But fighters would be able to deal with that fairly easily to that might be wasted.
Just go with the sentry guns.

Unless you use untargetable, kamikaze asteroids in an asteroid field. Those would be nasty.

Quote
-Arbalest
The Arbalest would be new ship class, either a destroyer or in the frigate size range, built around this missile warfare, while the Orions and the Hecates with their fleet elements would handle the close in warfare and the fighter ops respectively, the arbalests and their fleet elements could hang back and bludgeon the enemy from range. This might be particularly effective in dealing with threats the Sathanas
More on this in Teeth of the Tiger when it gets released. :p

Quote
-ECM Missiles
In keeping with the missile theme here, we want to maximize the number of missiles that get through, thus we seed our salvo with EW missiles that lower the effectiveness of enemy defensive fire and interfere with fighter targeting systems. Pretty much just really bursty jamming that plays havoc with sensor arrays rather then with communications.
Defensive ECM missiles that do the same thing to missile guidance would help in defending against incoming salvos
There is this thing called an "Electronics" flag, combine that with the "EMP" flag and you could get an enemy capital ship temporarily combat ineffective. For reference- check TotT Intro, mission 3.
Spoiler:
The Tiigran-Merisst use a swarm bomb called the Falconet, fired from the T-MB Cataphracts against the Lamias, causing their Flak and Beams to lose accuracy

As for defensive missiles- EMP missiles also temporarily disable bombs causing them to float with 0 speed for some time. Turrets with EMP missiles should give the regular ones more time to shoot the incoming bombs.[/color]

Quote
-Fighter ECM
Could be loaded on Capital Ship missiles and sensor arrays, or compacted in a smaller form into fighter missiles. Fighters could fly a support role and launch one of their ECM missiles which then creates false sensor images of other fighters (2-3?) that look real and attract enemy weapons fire. The only way to ascertain whether the target was real would be for a fighter to attain visual ID. Would be useful to fake some fighters and bombers when attacking cap ships.
Simply launching swarm missiles that have a long lifetime, fly really slow and have the "bomb" tag would keep turrets busy. You could make a semi-transparent model of a fighter using the same evil black magic they use to make glass textures, or a model with it's only texture being a glowmap. Then use some kind of "no-collide" voodoo to keep enemy shots from hitting the semi-transparent model.
In the end you'd get a missile projecting a hologram of a fighter around it, which AI turrets would really love to shoot at.

Quote
-Cloaking ECM
Have an AWACS ship in the area 'mask' the signal of a cap ship or wing of fighters, holding their emissions down so that they could only be detected at very short range
And a feature request from me:
A "Max Detection Range:" and "Max Targeting Range:" feature for the ships.tbl. The first one would define where a ship appears as a blurry dot on sensors, the second would define where it becomes a clear contact that could be targeted.

Quote
-Footprint Magnification
Once again relying on an AWACS ship to fake out  enemy sensor arrays by making a ship look like something its not. Either by masking part of its emissions (make an orion look like Deimos for example) or making it look more nasty to discourage attack (Triton disguised as Deimos). Adjustment would of course have to be within reasonable limits there's only so much that fancy sensor manipulation can do. A Perseus would never be able to pretend to be an Orion with the support of even two AWACS ships
SEXP's I guess...
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Drogoth on April 14, 2011, 10:11:33 am
-Bomb-pumped Lasers (Beam Warheads)
My solution to getting beam weapons into range of enemy capital ships without exposing yourself to return beam fire, or to long range missile bombardment as you close the range. The idea is basically that a missile has a beam emitter on its front, flies out toward the target and detonates. The force of the explosion is channeled to the emitter to create a short lived (compared to the actual ship based beam duration) and lower damage beam that can hit the enemy ship. This is additionally immune to the jamming used against current beam weapons, because the missiles would have individual guidance systems, just as our on-fighter missiles do, which don't appear to be affected. If anything, more ECM support would have to be developed to counter this threat, lowering enemy electronic warfare capabilities. Anyways, pack loads of these missiles and we can get beam fire in high numbers over incredibly long range.

Not really doable with the engine ATM. Unless, of course, you use a workaround similar to the one found in FS1 for the beams, then it is quite possible.


Well glad to hear it might be possible, as it was frankly my all star favorite idea of the bunch

Quote
-Flak Missiles (maybe?)
The inspiration here for me was the slammer from WiH. Basically, cap ships could try to thin out bomber squadrons by firing these missiles towards them, detonating them sending a cone of flak forward, hopefully destroying the fighters. Problem being fighters/bombers would most likely easily avoid these missiles once they were fired

You mean something like the Infyrno (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Infyrno) featured in retail?

Was thinking longer range and warship mounted with a proximity fuse


Quote
-Arbalest
The Arbalest would be new ship class, either a destroyer or in the frigate size range, built around this missile warfare, while the Orions and the Hecates with their fleet elements would handle the close in warfaree and the fighter ops respectively, the arbalests and their fleet elements could hang back and bludgeon the enemy from range. This might be particularly effective in dealing with threats the Sathanas

Say hi to the Solaris.

Fair enough, I'm not familiar enough with Solaris's actual combat performance, the one time I see it in action the Hood jumps out pretty fast so I lack knowledge of the Solaris's extended combat capabilities. That being said, thats due to my ignorance and not looking at raw data most likely

Allthough I'm wondering, is the GTVA working on an equivalent missile ship for operations in Sol? Or is that something we have to wait to find out? :)

On the topic of shield transfers, bummer.

Glad the ECM ideas were well received, and once again, if they already exist and I'm just stupid (more then possible) then disregard me haha
Quote
-Mines
Pretty simple idea really, mines that track onto enemy IFF, collide and detonate. Require fighter sweeps to eliminate, but would be highly effective in jump node defense or areas where you know the enemy capships will have to jump in without recon.
         - Smaller mines that put out a huge load of flak to act as anti-fighter mines maybe? But fighters would be able to deal with that fairly easily to that might be wasted.
Just go with the sentry guns.

Unless you use untargetable, kamikaze asteroids in an asteroid field. Those would be nasty.

Damn that would be scary. On the topic of mines just because I like the idea would it be possible to supplement sentry guns with mines if the mines were small, and had stealth gear so could only be targeted at very short range if at all? Provides a little more use for them then hunter killers in an asteroid field
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: BengalTiger on April 14, 2011, 11:24:58 am
Was thinking longer range and warship mounted with a proximity fuse
That's easy to construct, just make the missile big. IIRC it's also possible to have missiles spawn different types of submunitions, so there could be, for example, a mix of very destructive, unguided warheads set to blow up more/less when they reach the target(s) as well as less powerful heat seekers.

Now that we're at it- guess I'll spend some time building weapons. This thread is good for inspirations.
Quote
Glad the ECM ideas were well received, and once again, if they already exist and I'm just stupid (more then possible) then disregard me haha
Quote
-Mines
Pretty simple idea really, mines that track onto enemy IFF, collide and detonate. Require fighter sweeps to eliminate, but would be highly effective in jump node defense or areas where you know the enemy capships will have to jump in without recon.
         - Smaller mines that put out a huge load of flak to act as anti-fighter mines maybe? But fighters would be able to deal with that fairly easily to that might be wasted.
Just go with the sentry guns.

Unless you use untargetable, kamikaze asteroids in an asteroid field. Those would be nasty.

Damn that would be scary. On the topic of mines just because I like the idea would it be possible to supplement sentry guns with mines if the mines were small, and had stealth gear so could only be targeted at very short range if at all? Provides a little more use for them then hunter killers in an asteroid field
That would be a good use for the "Max Detection Range:" and "Max Targeting Range:" features, the asteroid IEDs could be set to appear as blurry dots at 200 meters, become targetable at 150 meters, and detonate at 140.
Now if the mission features a few other blurs on the radar screen that are to be investigated, the player would most likely think the sensors are showing something new behind the asteroid, then for a fraction of a second the Auto Target would pick up the asteroid, and then BOOM.

This should scare people into flying far away from asteroids, or shooting each one on their path.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: General Battuta on April 14, 2011, 11:41:10 am
Was thinking longer range and warship mounted with a proximity fuse
That's easy to construct, just make the missile big. IIRC it's also possible to have missiles spawn different types of submunitions, so there could be, for example, a mix of very destructive, unguided warheads set to blow up more/less when they reach the target(s) as well as less powerful heat seekers.

Now that we're at it- guess I'll spend some time building weapons. This thread is good for inspirations.

Isn't this basically just a Slammer?
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: BengalTiger on April 14, 2011, 01:53:08 pm
If the Slammer spits 2 types of bomblets in a narrow cone after reaching a certain distance from it's target, then I guess it is (never checked the .tbls).
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: General Battuta on April 14, 2011, 01:53:56 pm
Just one submunition type, but otherwise yeah.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Drogoth on April 14, 2011, 03:16:41 pm
Just one submunition type, but otherwise yeah.

Is there a warship mounted slammer? If there is, I guess i just haven't noticed it, if not, that's what I was aiming for, mainly the longer range but I suppose it would be arguably very redundant as fighter based slammers would do the job effectively.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: General Battuta on April 14, 2011, 03:19:28 pm
Well you could put a Slammer on a warship turret and it'd do the trick. Though yeah, could use extended range. Would not be much fun to fly into though.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: StarSlayer on April 14, 2011, 03:36:23 pm
How about a beam cannon that silently judges the enemy's tastes until he simply dies of shame?
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Droid803 on April 14, 2011, 03:37:20 pm
I've put a slammer on a Fenris before.
Couldn't get close.
Damn thing is scary.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: X3N0-Life-Form on April 14, 2011, 03:43:06 pm
How about a beam cannon that silently judges the enemy's tastes until he simply dies of shame?

I'd see that in the next JAD :P
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: headdie on April 14, 2011, 04:23:33 pm
How about a beam cannon that silently judges the enemy's tastes until he simply dies of shame?

I'd see that in the next JAD :P

speaking of jad can we have a massive subspace missile uber strike using this http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=75602.0;topicseen ?
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Reprobator on April 14, 2011, 05:28:02 pm
And a Request from me:
A "Max Detection Range:" and "Max Targeting Range:" feature for the ships.tbl. The first one would define where a ship appears as a blurry dot on sensors, the second would define where it becomes a clear contact that could be targeted.[/color]


I agree. the actual detection system lacks of modding ability imho.
$Max Detection Range : Number
but instead of
Max Targeting Range:
i would replace this by
$Emission signature force : Number
'Cause depending size of ships or weapon (actually we can detect/target bomb ) the targetting range would depend of your own detection system and your target's signature ; this would allow flexibility with stealth fighter etc...

Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Marcov on April 14, 2011, 08:38:56 pm
I've got some ideas.

1. Kamikaze Drone - This is not your regular Kamikaze fighter. It's a Strikecraft filled with Cyclops/Bomber torpedoes with its shields and weapon reactor stripped out. However, the engine is still there. When summoned, these Drones jump in VERY CLOSE to the target warship - as in like 300-50 meters away from it. Then, boom.

2. Non-Lethal Ion-Blast Missile - Works perfectly for capture operations. It's less immoral and impersonal to use this than your basic Laser Primaries, as it can't kill anyone. This missile's design combines the shield damaging capabilities of the Circe, the Subsystem-destroying of the Akheton SDG, and an added EMP effect as well as the energy draining ability of the Lamprey. Fire a couple of these to an enemy fighter/bomber and it will be FULLY disabled; it can't move, it can't fire, its shields are disabled, and there's nowhere to go.

I also thought you could make Uber-versions of this; one that could take out entire capital ships with ease. So, you can actually capture stubborn fanatic Rebel warships who don't want to surrender (e.g. Imagine if the Colossus fired these at the Repulse. Koth would have no choice but to be boarded).

3. Bomb-Killer Torpedo - Works excellently for defense of capital ships against bombers. When launched, these torpedoes target any incoming bombs, and explode in a massive shockwave, obliterating all bombs in the area. However, damage is sacrificed for shockwave radius, since you wouldn't need a deadly torpedo to bring down fragile bombs, anyway.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: -Norbert- on April 15, 2011, 03:10:26 am
Quote
1. Kamikaze Drone - This is not your regular Kamikaze fighter. It's a Strikecraft filled with Cyclops/Bomber torpedoes with its shields and weapon reactor stripped out. However, the engine is still there. When summoned, these Drones jump in VERY CLOSE to the target warship - as in like 300-50 meters away from it. Then, boom.
Sounds a lot like the SSM strikes from BP: WiH, where the missiles' model is replaced by that of a drone.
Quote
2. Non-Lethal Ion-Blast Missile - Works perfectly for capture operations. It's less immoral and impersonal to use this than your basic Laser Primaries, as it can't kill anyone. This missile's design combines the shield damaging capabilities of the Circe, the Subsystem-destroying of the Akheton SDG, and an added EMP effect as well as the energy draining ability of the Lamprey. Fire a couple of these to an enemy fighter/bomber and it will be FULLY disabled; it can't move, it can't fire, its shields are disabled, and there's nowhere to go.
Stiletto? Okay, the Stiletto doesn't have an EMP effect and isn't manouverable enough to chase most fighers, but that is easy enough to change in tables alone.
Quote
I also thought you could make Uber-versions of this; one that could take out entire capital ships with ease. So, you can actually capture stubborn fanatic Rebel warships who don't want to surrender (e.g. Imagine if the Colossus fired these at the Repulse. Koth would have no choice but to be boarded).
Why would you want an "instant win" missile? Just finding a blind spot and blasting away with ion cannons and ion missiles to take out even the biggest capship sounds really boring. Much better to have to take out each subsystem by itself on capital ships.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: BengalTiger on April 15, 2011, 04:29:00 am
I agree. the actual detection system lacks of modding ability imho.
$Max Detection Range : Number
but instead of
Max Targeting Range:
i would replace this by
$Emission signature force : Number
'Cause depending size of ships or weapon (actually we can detect/target bomb ) the targetting range would depend of your own detection system and your target's signature ; this would allow flexibility with stealth fighter etc...
I'd say that max detection range could also be replaced with something like $Detectability:, which would be used along with $Sensor detecting power: to calculate the max distance a given object appears on radar as a blurry dot, just like $Emission Signature: (or perhaps I'd call it $Targetability:) would be used to calculate the max range the object could be targeted at.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Marcov on April 15, 2011, 05:49:45 am
Wouldn't it be awesome? You could capture all sorts of Shivan fighters, cruisers, or perhaps even corvettes and destroyers with those Ion Missiles...

...unless the Security Council goes **** again with their "Classified" crap...
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: X3N0-Life-Form on April 15, 2011, 06:01:01 am
Coming soon : the Overkill mk2 missile :
    1.TAGs a target,
    2.calls in SSBombs that also spawn TAG missiles
    3.goto 1
    4.pray that the universe won't be destroyed in the process
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: headdie on April 15, 2011, 06:03:01 am
cool
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Reprobator on April 15, 2011, 07:03:44 am
overkill? why not calling it big bang mk2 ?
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Retsof on April 15, 2011, 08:09:57 am
Coming soon : the Overkill mk2 missile :
    1.TAGs a target,
    2.calls in SSBombs that also spawn TAG missiles
    3.goto 1
    4.pray that the universe won't be destroyed in the process
No, you're doing it wrong.  You want a missile that is heat seeking and spawns two of itself.  This will eventually crash the game.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: MatthTheGeek on April 15, 2011, 08:29:24 am
Meh, FSO is so sensible. When you try to do something similar in HW2, it doesn't crash. It just becomes exponentially slow until you reach 1 frame per x minutes or more.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Marcov on April 15, 2011, 09:22:31 am
I've got a minor idea. How about "mini-beams" mounted on fighters? The main advantage would be to ignore the hostile target's shields, which are pretty tough on Shivan fighters.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: General Battuta on April 15, 2011, 09:23:12 am
I've got a minor idea. How about "mini-beams" mounted on fighters? The main advantage would be to ignore the hostile target's shields, which are pretty tough on Shivan fighters.

Done so many times
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: headdie on April 15, 2011, 09:26:22 am
not only that but beams can be a pain to use on a fighter
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Marcov on April 15, 2011, 09:37:09 am
How about Space Monsters? They have a melee attack by biting their opponent?? Space Kraken (well that would probably require a ridicolous amount of animation-editing)?
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: X3N0-Life-Form on April 15, 2011, 10:37:10 am
No, you're doing it wrong.  You want a missile that is heat seeking and spawns two of itself.  This will eventually crash the game.

see #4
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Snail on April 15, 2011, 11:09:31 am
I've got a minor idea. How about "mini-beams" mounted on fighters? The main advantage would be to ignore the hostile target's shields, which are pretty tough on Shivan fighters.
Done so many times
I've yet to see it done well (in any released mod) though.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: General Battuta on April 15, 2011, 11:21:29 am
I've got a minor idea. How about "mini-beams" mounted on fighters? The main advantage would be to ignore the hostile target's shields, which are pretty tough on Shivan fighters.
Done so many times
I've yet to see it done well (in any released mod) though.

Wings of Dawn did it well :colbert:
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Marcov on April 15, 2011, 11:37:20 am
Cluster bombs that send Disruptor bomblets against the target warship's turrets?
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: FSW on April 15, 2011, 12:03:57 pm
Manually-guided missiles:
The player launches missiles as if they were dumbfire, then 'paints' the enemy with a targeting laser or with an aspect lock. The missile changes course to make a beeline for the target, but only for as long as the player maintains the lock. If the lock is broken, the missile continues on its current course, until a new target is painted.

Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Drogoth on April 15, 2011, 02:41:45 pm
Manually-guided missiles:
The player launches missiles as if they were dumbfire, then 'paints' the enemy with a targeting laser or with an aspect lock. The missile changes course to make a beeline for the target, but only for as long as the player maintains the lock. If the lock is broken, the missile continues on its current course, until a new target is painted.

Ooooo i like
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: BengalTiger on April 17, 2011, 05:07:12 am
No, you're doing it wrong.  You want a missile that is heat seeking and spawns two of itself.  This will eventually crash the game.

And what's the upper limit for the amount of primary/secondary projectiles before the game gives up? Is it hard coded anywhere?
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: -Norbert- on April 17, 2011, 06:55:58 am
I thought when the limit is reached, the "oldest" projectile is thrown out of the memory, to make room for the new one.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: MatthTheGeek on April 17, 2011, 07:00:29 am
yeah, I remember a campaign based on the BtRL demo. They used the Raynor as a human capship and the amount of projectiles thrown out by those made that most of your own bullets just were never fired.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Marcov on April 17, 2011, 10:53:41 pm
Beams that "curve/bend" towards their target?
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: BengalTiger on April 18, 2011, 03:44:50 am
Guns firing the lightning that's found in nebulae during EMP storms?

P.S. Can anyone figure out that max projectiles limit?
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: The E on April 18, 2011, 03:51:30 am
No, this information is so incredibly obscure and hard to find that I am quite certain that noone has ever even thought about placing it on the wiki. (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Engine_limitations)
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: BengalTiger on April 18, 2011, 04:40:40 am
OK, thanks.
And searching for a projectile limit, max number of projectiles/weapons, and a few others did not give the "engine limitations" article in the results, so yes, the information is obscure and hard to find.

P.S. The limits are 500 beams and 350 weapons. Who needs 500 beams?
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Droid803 on April 18, 2011, 12:24:16 pm
The engine prefers glorious beamspam over moar dakka.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: -Norbert- on April 18, 2011, 12:45:53 pm
P.S. The limits are 500 beams and 350 weapons. Who needs 500 beams?[/color]
Wings of Dawn 2, judging from the screenshots :p
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: BengalTiger on April 19, 2011, 04:40:55 am
But it takes a single fighter with 2 M61 Vulcans shooting for 1.75 seconds to generate 350 projectiles...
Or 250 fighters with 2 beams each firing at the same time to reach the beam limit.

P.S. Would changing the dakka limit to moar dakka (such as 1000 projectiles) destroy the program?
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: The E on April 19, 2011, 04:47:54 am
Bumping the weapons limit would require bumping the global objects limit. Also, given that collision detection already is rather costly, you're going to get some noticeable slowdowns anytime you go near those limits.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: BengalTiger on April 19, 2011, 07:37:05 am
I'd personally prefer having 15 FPS in a projectile rich moment of a big battle than firing rounds that evaporate instantly.

Were these limits set for retail FS, or did SCP already raise them?
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: General Battuta on April 19, 2011, 07:45:44 am
They were raised once already.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: The E on April 19, 2011, 07:54:29 am
Also, limits are what makes you creative.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: jr2 on April 19, 2011, 10:41:47 am
Have the engine cull more projectiles or beams when the FPS dips below a certain amount?
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: The E on April 19, 2011, 10:42:57 am
Which would be a really bad idea as well. I mean, it sounds good on paper, but what criteria would you use to cull stuff?
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: General Battuta on April 19, 2011, 10:43:28 am
Have the engine cull more projectiles or beams when the FPS dips below a certain amount?

Absolutely not. That would be a nightmare.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Droid803 on April 19, 2011, 12:26:31 pm
Have the engine cull more projectiles or beams when the FPS dips below a certain amount?

You run into.
"lol I can't hit anything cause my fps sux"
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: MatthTheGeek on April 19, 2011, 01:03:56 pm
^This. Believe me, it's hard enough to hit stuff around 1 fps when you actually fire stuff, so if the engine doesn't generate your projectiles at all...
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Destiny on April 21, 2011, 09:10:44 pm
ECM Missiles suggested by the opening post...uhh...


If you give the EMP Adv. an EXTREME amount of range, you've got what you want. Except it doesn't do the fighter-scrambling crap on capships (I got a bunch of Vajras to shoot at my Aeolus with Shrikes before, EMP'd my turrets so I had to call for several Atalantas to eat the Vajras).

For defensive EMP/ECM missiles, I really, really, really do love that idea. Even though I mount the BP Raynor's missile turrets with EMP missiles, they never seem to hit, or even want to lock onto incoming torpedoes. Occasionally torpedoes get disabled to 0 speed by luck of chance, but...heh. Believe me, if you mount the GTM Tempest instead and if the launchers actually target the incoming torpedoes, you get to see an impressive screen of almost flak-like fire.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: FSW on April 22, 2011, 03:28:28 pm
Smokescreen:
I had an idea yesterday while dogfighting online. After I damaged an enemy fighter's hull, the particle spew obscured my vision, allowing my quarry to evade my next attacks. Such a thing could be intentional: imagine an alternate countermeasure that produces a dense cloud. It would have no effect against aspect-seeking missiles, but in a close-quarters dogfight would confuse a tailing human enemy. It could be associated with a small EMP burst to throw off the follower's targeting computer.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Snail on April 23, 2011, 06:23:32 am
Smokescreen:
I had an idea yesterday while dogfighting online. After I damaged an enemy fighter's hull, the particle spew obscured my vision, allowing my quarry to evade my next attacks. Such a thing could be intentional: imagine an alternate countermeasure that produces a dense cloud. It would have no effect against aspect-seeking missiles, but in a close-quarters dogfight would confuse a tailing human enemy. It could be associated with a small EMP burst to throw off the follower's targeting computer.
That's an interesting idea and probably easy to implement too.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: -Norbert- on April 23, 2011, 02:00:55 pm
Would it also be possible to have a wider spread smoke screen. Something like in Gundam 00.
There they would sometimes spread a cloud of special particles, that inhibited visibility, causer a few light interferences with the systems and reduced the range of energy weapons drastically.
Now the thing with the weapons I only mentioned for completenes' sake. The interface interference and the limited visibility are what I'm really interrested in. Kinda like a localized neblua with a very small EMP effect.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Destiny on April 23, 2011, 04:18:00 pm
I'd be up to it if it doesn't cause FPS stoning the moment it flies into my face. I imagine to be something like extremely dense chaff, dense enough to not disperse instantly at 3000m/s into space in a second and yet able to obscure vision. Maybe an electrical current is conducted within the super-dense chaff causes the EMP effect.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Leuthesius on April 30, 2011, 02:11:43 pm
Here's a thought that I'm pretty sure the engine would support.

Beam weapons on bombers. The anti-fighter beam weapons, anyways.
The bomb pumped lasers I think ARE possible with the engine if you simply have a bomb as a static object that moves, and when it hits detonation range it fires a very short and powerful Heavy Beam along with harbinger bomb scale explosive.

Also I want to make note--I know NOTHING of the engine and how it works. Just thinking along outsider lines on how I would do it if I knew what I were doing.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: General Battuta on April 30, 2011, 02:13:46 pm
Yeah, bomber mounted beams can work (and have worked), they're are pretty fun. Should play with the bomb-pumped laser...
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: -Norbert- on April 30, 2011, 02:40:32 pm
I think Inferno had a heavy shivan bomber with AAA turrets.
As far as I know TBP were the first to feature main-gun fighters beams in any meaningfull way (Minbari Nial, Brakiri Faloski and Vorlon Lightning all have beams).
Dawn of Sol also featured a fighter mounted beam in the 2nd to last mission.
Wings of Dawn also had two fighters wtih beams (Hertak Reaver and the Prometheus frame - if you want to call that monster a fighter).

So there are plenty of examples of beams on fighters and bomber already released.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Drogoth on April 30, 2011, 11:26:14 pm
Yeah, bomber mounted beams can work (and have worked), they're are pretty fun. Should play with the bomb-pumped laser...

I really hope it works, it was my fave idea haha
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: 666maslo666 on May 04, 2011, 11:46:04 am
Shotgun-like weapon? Something like Federation flaks in WiH, but for fighters, and using lazors. Sacrifices long range for short range efectiveness.

Also regarding the limits, why not having current limit for objects as default, and increase that limit only if its filled and fps is still sufficient? Best of both worlds.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: General Battuta on May 04, 2011, 11:48:52 am
Shotgun-like weapon? Something like Federation flaks in WiH, but for fighters, and using lazors. Sacrifices long range for short range efectiveness.

Check out the Sidhe in War in Heaven (you can access it with cheats or via FRED).
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Marcov on May 04, 2011, 12:29:28 pm
Would be nice if a fighter had an AAAf beam as a "special attack"; meaning you can only fire it in like 20 seconds.

But seriously, has anyone ever tried making an organism as a "ship"? Space Kraken/Leviathan? Or is it simply too complicated (might require complex animation technique)?
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: The E on May 04, 2011, 01:29:31 pm
Shotgun-like weapon? Something like Federation flaks in WiH, but for fighters, and using lazors. Sacrifices long range for short range efectiveness.

Also regarding the limits, why not having current limit for objects as default, and increase that limit only if its filled and fps is still sufficient? Best of both worlds.

WARNING: MASSIVE INFODUMP TO FOLLOW.

This is not possible.
Objects[], the array that holds all references for all objects currently in a mission, is a static beast. It is allocated, in its entirety, when the mission starts. Once allocated, it cannot change size.

Now, there are objects called Vectors, which work like an array in some aspects but which are able to dynamically change size. However, turning Objects[] into one is impossible, since the game is built on the assumption that references to objects in Objects[] are valid for more than a single frame, which simply isn't the case with a Vector structure. Every time a vector changes size, internal references become invalid, or at best unreliable.

Making Objects[] dynamic, in short, is something we cannot do without a massive refactoring of every single instance where a member of the Objects[] array is referenced. Which is not something we want to be doing.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: -Norbert- on May 04, 2011, 01:41:09 pm
But seriously, has anyone ever tried making an organism as a "ship"? Space Kraken/Leviathan? Or is it simply too complicated (might require complex animation technique)?
The closest thing to that I know of are the Cordi Bombers in Wings of Dawn. While they are, for all intents and purposes, still "normal" fighters, they do have a rather organic look and tentacles that move, when you activate the afterburner.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Marcov on May 04, 2011, 08:20:22 pm
One idea I have now is to have a massive asteroid, at least 20 kilometers in diameter, with a hollow structure, and we want important minerals out of it. Problem is, you never know what's lurking within there, so there might be a horrible Kraken inside you need to fight...plus it's pretty dark, so the only lighting you see is from laser fire, revealing a portion of the Kraken's body/tentacles.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: NGTM-1R on May 04, 2011, 10:45:20 pm
I still think we're making insufficient use of submunition weapons in capships. It'd be possible to create huge walls of fire with single turrets under the current system, just nobody does.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: -Norbert- on May 05, 2011, 02:29:00 am
Probably because they don't want to be shred into little pieces the moment they get within firing range....
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: X3N0-Life-Form on May 05, 2011, 05:31:43 am
I still think we're making insufficient use of submunition weapons in capships. It'd be possible to create huge walls of fire with single turrets under the current system, just nobody does.

tried that to add firepower to FS1 era warships and some shivan ships

results were mixed :
    -using Piranha on its missile batteries made it a lot more dangerous against fighters
    -not that effective on cains with a lighter version of the Piranha, the cruiser still dies very quickly
    -I had balance issues on the Molochs, because they have 4 or 5 missile batteries
    -not very good on Ravanas, but at least it was kinda annoying when attacking the front beam canons

I also used multi-shots lasers to have a more effective blob-like turret (using $shots: X & &FOF: Y) ; it was decent against warships, and it would either rape fighters BP-pulse weapons-style, or be utterly useless. It looked kinda pretty though ...
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Marcov on May 05, 2011, 07:25:23 am
I always thought the Mainhalls of the Aquitaine and Psamtik were merely the "bridge" of the ship, but not after I discovered it was just enormous, given how small a platform carrying an even smaller fighter is, and it even seems in the distance (in Psamtik's case). For the Aquitaine, I also thought it was the bridge, until I found out that an entire collection of fightercraft were displayed on the "hangar" left of the "control room". Damn, those "bridges" are pretty huge! :lol:
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: NGTM-1R on May 05, 2011, 01:58:30 pm
results were mixed :
    -using Piranha on its missile batteries made it a lot more dangerous against fighters
    -not that effective on cains with a lighter version of the Piranha, the cruiser still dies very quickly
    -I had balance issues on the Molochs, because they have 4 or 5 missile batteries
    -not very good on Ravanas, but at least it was kinda annoying when attacking the front beam canons

Not really what I meant. I've long had an idea floating around for a custom "screen" weapon which would create huge shockwave walls for attacking bombers to fly through, but I'm not entirely sure how it would be executed, particularly since I'd sort of like to shape the the submunition pattern and I don't know that can be.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Marcov on May 06, 2011, 01:03:34 am
I always thought we should make shockwaves to represent EMP blasts...it'd be nice if we made those "shockwaves" look like expanding, transparent spheres like this one;

(http://i54.tinypic.com/e8sql2.jpg)

Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Destiny on May 06, 2011, 04:18:39 am
You play too much ZH/Shockwave, ha. WoD's Dragonslave missile has a sphere like this, although it looks the same from all directions. Would be pretty cool doing it the way you suggested.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Marcov on May 06, 2011, 05:46:02 am
You play too much ZH/Shockwave, ha. WoD's Dragonslave missile has a sphere like this, although it looks the same from all directions. Would be pretty cool doing it the way you suggested.

Actually, considering the size of the bubble, I think this is from the original Command and Conquer: Generals, not Zero Hour (and definitely not Shockwave).

Zero Hour's EMP was smaller, but flashed luminously after the disappearance of the bubble. These bubbles also are the result of the exploding warheads from the EMP Patriot point defense launchers.

Anyway, why is it that fictional depictions of EMP shockwaves always result in "energy bubbles" like that?
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: ssmit132 on May 06, 2011, 07:15:07 am
Probably rule of cool (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool).
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: headdie on May 06, 2011, 07:35:07 am
You play too much ZH/Shockwave, ha. WoD's Dragonslave missile has a sphere like this, although it looks the same from all directions. Would be pretty cool doing it the way you suggested.

Actually, considering the size of the bubble, I think this is from the original Command and Conquer: Generals, not Zero Hour (and definitely not Shockwave).

Zero Hour's EMP was smaller, but flashed luminously after the disappearance of the bubble. These bubbles also are the result of the exploding warheads from the EMP Patriot point defense launchers.

Anyway, why is it that fictional depictions of EMP shockwaves always result in "energy bubbles" like that?

it is difficult to go wow at something you can't see
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: -Norbert- on May 06, 2011, 07:55:58 am
And it avoids the obligatory "My game is bugged, because my ship suddenly mulfunctions" posts in techsupport, which will unavoidably happen if the EMP doesn't have any kind of visual representation.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Destiny on May 06, 2011, 11:56:44 am
Exactly. Things need to be cool, being too realistic graphics-wise is kinda harsh to the eye-candy lovers.



...didn't think vChina's EMP bomb was that big. Maybe a mod or something.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: headdie on May 06, 2011, 12:01:31 pm
probably an illusion from the resolution and cropping
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Marcov on May 06, 2011, 09:31:52 pm
probably an illusion from the resolution and cropping

It came from this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FScC8X9Gtg

Scroll to 1:02 to see the bomb's explosion.
...didn't think vChina's EMP bomb was that big. Maybe a mod or something.

It isn't a mod. It's really huge in the original CNC Generals. Go play it and drop an EMP again. It's massive.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Killer Whale on May 14, 2011, 11:25:22 pm
Wall of fire - A weapon which basically ignites the space in front of it (well... in front of the turret it's launched from). I'm thinking a torpedo that launches at fighters then releases a huge mass of flak in every direction. Very damaging to fighters and bombers, can destroy them depending on how far they are from the torpedo when it goes off.

A Fenris with Trebuchets - long range anti-bomber ship. Suddenly perhaps not so obsolete. As long as the AI knows what to do with them.

Anti-fighter ship - Like one of those ships which are built around a single huge beam cannon, this one has a (or a set of) ultra-AAAs (or even better). When positioned correctly, these things would do a lot of damage to fightercraft. To go up against one you'd have to break formation and try and circle it.

Shotgun - Like an Archer (BP) except does high shield and hull damage, and you might get closer to 100 shots then 64. Not insta-kill but still does a lot of damage. Especially good against bombers.

Anti-bomb restricted weapons - These weapons do incredibly low damage, but they still do enough to take out bombs. Long range, rapid fire, high velocity primary. Long range, heat or aspect seaking, high velocity secondary.

Mine - Yes, another one (our mines are different). This one one is a missile that starts off with zero speed, then after a few seconds, activates as a heat seaker and flies off to hit that pesky fighter behind you.

Ultra-AAAs on an RBC.

EMP burst - A missile which immediately (as soon as it's launched) explodes with an enormous EMP shockwave but doesn't do any damage.

EMP Meson bomb - You know how in that mission where you pilot a Karuna (which I don't know how to win), the GTVA launches a meson bomb into the field of engagement. Well, how about it has a strong EMP to it and doesn't do hull damage. Just knocks out shields and subsystems, that way you can spend marine lives boarding enemy ships... wait...

Big anti-fighter beam - This beam is really big. Freaking enormous, probably a greater radius than a LRBGreen. But it does minimal damage, maybe only as much as an SGreen. It fires at fighter/bomber wings when they warp in. DIVE, DIVE, DIVE! Or at least just have the occasional huge weapon targeting fighters and bombers, cause if a bomber just happens to be right in front of that mass driver with several of it's friends, and they're all about to or have launched bombs which will likely take out that mass driver, I'd fire at them. Or does that already happen...

Goddamn bat missile - This missile is either trebuchet powered or an insta-kill. Launched rarely, they have a range of a couple of kilometres but a lifetime of several minutes. They home in on you and you have to keep avoiding them or get a countermeasure into them. Maybe have a poor maneuvarability to speed ratio so they often fly straight past you, these missiles are like the ones in movies.

Ion cannon - You know in The Empire Strikes Back. That big ion cannon takes out a star destroyer for a few moments so that the transports can get past it. Something like that (probably SEXP'd with a "play dead", but being able to table it would be nice). Rule of cool says to (impractibly and not worth it) make the target have those arcing electrical stuff when ships are at low hull integrity also get them when temporarily disabled by or hit by electro-weapons, but yeah, probably impractible.

Swords - A very short range but also very destructive primary. Yeah, I said it.

Asteroid Fun - Bury a mjolnir in an asteroid. Bury a helios, or even a meson bomb (probably something between the two actually) in an asteroid. Bury a few slammers in an asteroid so that if/when it gets destroyed by passing hostiles, it detonates and releases a swarm of sub-munitions. Proximity charges which blow the asteroid off of sentry guns, maybe with the proximity detector in the centre of the minefield or just on the sentry gun. Asteroids with turrets on them. Reinforced asteroids that still fly at escorted ship but have HP that (almost) suit their size. Maybe set up a Xanatos Gambit where you have a battle in the path of a comet or realistically fast and large asteroid, so you jump out as soon as it comes by and hopefully it crushes a few enemy ships.

Machine Gun - All primaries are kinda like machine guns, but this one has modern day fire rates. Same sort of DPS as a subach though. Maybe have have an ammo limit if you bump the DPS up to kayser level.

Swatter - A ship only as powerful as a cruiser or corvette. But it has the habit of jumping in (or out) into enemy fighters and has a large, flat panel on it's nose to help. Dive indeed.

Node installation - inspired by that jump gate in INFR1, around the most important nodes and entrances to capital systems you put a really big installation. Armed with very big guns to take on very big ships, as well as small ones. Stupendously expensive, but a very impressive blocade which won't fall in 10 seconds to a Sathanas (maybe closer to a few minutes, unless you put really big (BFGreen/LRBGreen) guns on it).

Kinetic weapon turrets - They were in INFR1, annoying as hell.

Mini-drones - Tiny, pilotless, fighters. With short range weapons not much better than Avengers, but with a very good speed & maneuvarability to size ratio. ie, goddamn bats. They just fly around, maybe launched by ships that don't have fighterbays or just launched like secondaries, and slowly tap away at your shields because they're too small to bother fighting or just waste time while you try to hit the things. Maybe get destroyed the first time you hit them, or have a shield that can withstand 1 shot, and a hull that can withstand 1 shot. Weaponry can range between balanced, hull, shield and energy leeching.

Superlaser - Can't find the trope for it so I don't know what to actually call it. No its not a one hit kill weapon, but its got that cool beams hitting each other and resulting in a beam that's really powerful. Could do it with SEXPs (can you fire a beam at a position? Or would you have to put an invisible ship at there. Then create a beam at that position that fires at another ship. Now that is likely impractlibe, but it looks cool. Ah-ha! Here's (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConvergingStreamWeapon) the trope.

Spread gun - Like a flak gun, but fighter strength and on a fighter. You might need limited ammo to balance and make it realistic.

Time bomb - This missile hits an enemy ship. Waits for a few seconds, then explodes. Wait, this has no purpose. Why would you make a weapon like that? Well... maybe it burrows into the ship and overloads the reactor, or sets off the magazine or....something. Nah.

Big interceptors - These are ships, without cap-weapons, and very good anti-fighter and bomber coverage.

Meat shield - Big ships with very heavy armour, but little weaponry that are, relatively, cheap. And who's goal is to draw fire from other ships to themselves. Which they can do to poor enemy tactics, or by physically getting in the way of hostile weapons. They can cut off hostile ships from the battle so that their side has a greater ratio than if the meat shield wasn't there. Sort of like the firepower, hull strength and size of a great war era orion, but a lot cheaper (corvette cost?).

Parasitic Bomb - A weapon which, once it hits, doesn't explode, but lands on the hull and commences to fire a powerful laser straight into the hull. Stack enough on a ship and that's some serious damage that doesn't stop till a fighter can blow them off. I have no idea how you'd make that.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Destiny on May 14, 2011, 11:54:19 pm
We do have quite a few of them already, you know...

Wall of fire - UEF flak, GTVA Balls of Steele Standard Flak

A Fenris with Trebuchets - FRED

Anti-fighter ship - GTC Aeolus

Shotgun - Slammer/UEF flak

EMP burst - Kinda useless because you're EMPing yourself, Alpha 2, Alpha 3, Alpha 4, Beta wing, Gamma wing, Delta wing, Epsilon wing and friendly ship turrets upon firing.

EMP Meson bomb -  Meson bombs were made to blow stuff up, a super-mega-giga-hyper-ultra upscaled EMP Adv. Missile would do better.

Big anti-fighter beam -  GTCv Deimos

Goddamn bat missile - Zy seeker

Ion cannon - All ships go 'bzzt bzzzzt' when at low health. Probably. Not sure.

Asteroid Fun - Asteroids are pathetically weak in FS, even a TC-Meson is stronger...probably.

Machine Gun - Potentially will crash the game. Balls of Steele Standard Flak, GTW Maxim, SCWS-something Gattler.

Swatter - GTVA Colossus, GTD Hecate, GTD Orion, LSF Skirmisher, Hertak Armageddon, Hertak Flagship, SJ Sathanas, GTD Sanctuary

Kinetic weapon turrets - FREDed Alastors

Mini-drones - Training drones in TSM-xxx modules

Superlaser -  Sara's Valhalla weapon satellite

Big interceptors - http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/User-made_Ships (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/User-made_Ships)

Meat shield - GTVA Colossus (Well...maybe not.), SC Lilith
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Marcov on May 15, 2011, 04:21:29 am
Uh, I have an idea, how about a "1000-times-harder-than-diamond-Element" launcher or something. It could launch something like knives at an enemy fighter, only the "knives" are made up of an element that's...1,000 times harder than diamond, so hard that they easily pierce through ship hulls and into their reactors and consequently make the target go "bzzt...zz--zt" and blow up (witness an entire Sathanas juggernaut being taken down by another Juggernaut's debris after the latter blows up).

No need to worry about taking out the shields since solid objects ignore them. Although yeah, it's limited ammo, it still is a perfect fighter-killer. And anyway when they run out you can just call a support ship anyway.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Destiny on May 15, 2011, 05:01:39 am
It's good to watch anime, but in a dogfight you would not have time to watch a mobile suit fighter suddenly spin/stop, go bzzt, and explode. Fighters already spin and (occasionally) bzzt before exploding, so I've no idea what you mean...

Shields do block solid objects moving at high speeds, i.e. GTW Maxim, SCWS-something Gattler, GTM Harpoon, GTM Trebuchet

Why would you use a kinetic energy penetrator when you have unguided nuclear-scale rockets carried in hundreds? If you're using the Archer against fighters...uhh...you shouldn't (because it is REALLY REALLY MEAN for a human to do something like that).



...gotta remind myself that nuclear-scale does not mean nuclear-tipped, and hence not as effective as nuclear weapons themselves... *chant*
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: -Norbert- on May 15, 2011, 05:18:35 am
Quote
Machine Gun - All primaries are kinda like machine guns, but this one has modern day fire rates. Same sort of DPS as a subach though. Maybe have have an ammo limit if you bump the DPS up to kayser level.
Did you play the Unification War mod (offspinn from the Terran Vasudan War Project)? They have plenty such weapons there.

Quote
Kinetic weapon turrets - They were in INFR1, annoying as hell.
Just use FRED and give Morningstar or Maxim on some turrets.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Marcov on May 15, 2011, 09:11:26 am
Shields do block solid objects moving at high speeds, i.e. GTW Maxim, SCWS-something Gattler, GTM Harpoon, GTM Trebuchet

Are you entirely sure? It might be because of the explosives, which are also repelled by shields. I'm talking about pure projectiles here, sort of like arrows (only harder).

Quote
Why would you use a kinetic energy penetrator when you have unguided nuclear-scale rockets carried in hundreds? If you're using the Archer against fighters...uhh...you shouldn't (because it is REALLY REALLY MEAN for a human to do something like that).

Although fluff dictates that Freespace anti-fighter missiles are equal to kilotons of TNT, realism refutes it; should you have weapons that powerful you should be able to vaporize an asteroid (or something close to that) with a Trebuchet.

Also, these flying knives aren't just flying knives. I'm talking about knives that are made of an element literally 1000 times harder than diamond which is really rather pretty tough (to back it up with a story, how about a "this weapon shoots sharp projectiles made of Element X, a mineral found in a mysterious planet; this element is so hard it matches laser fire against a ship's hull").
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: X3N0-Life-Form on May 15, 2011, 10:34:39 am
Although fluff dictates that Freespace anti-fighter missiles are equal to kilotons of TNT, realism refutes it; should you have weapons that powerful you should be able to vaporize an asteroid (or something close to that) with a Trebuchet.

What about the asteroids you casually vaporise with a couple of shot from the Subach HL-7 :P
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Snail on May 15, 2011, 10:55:32 am
If shields can be pierced by any solid projectile, that would make them utterly useless.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Marcov on May 15, 2011, 08:18:02 pm
What about the asteroids you casually vaporise with a couple of shot from the Subach HL-7 :P

You just blow them up into several fragments; vaporization is another matter. It's what happens when the SD Beast's LRED hits you as you try to disable that dang beam cannon.

If shields can be pierced by any solid projectile, that would make them utterly useless.

Yeah, and combined with the AI's stupidity they can just randomly crash into the Aquitaine's superstructure. :lol:
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Droid803 on May 15, 2011, 08:24:53 pm
Quote from: Killer Whale
Meat shield - Big ships with very heavy armour, but little weaponry that are, relatively, cheap. And who's goal is to draw fire from other ships to themselves. Which they can do to poor enemy tactics, or by physically getting in the way of hostile weapons. They can cut off hostile ships from the battle so that their side has a greater ratio than if the meat shield wasn't there. Sort of like the firepower, hull strength and size of a great war era orion, but a lot cheaper (corvette cost?).

GVC Mentu.
Kinda big, flat.
Lots of HP for a cruiser (67k).
****ty weaponry (no guns on bottom, food for capships, aeolus and even leviathan pwns it a billion times at anti-fighter work)

Only good thing about it is if you put two of them with their flat side facing each other and put a freighter or two in between, the freighter(s) survival rate increases dramatically.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Drogoth on May 15, 2011, 11:51:34 pm
Quote from: Killer Whale
Meat shield - Big ships with very heavy armour, but little weaponry that are, relatively, cheap. And who's goal is to draw fire from other ships to themselves. Which they can do to poor enemy tactics, or by physically getting in the way of hostile weapons. They can cut off hostile ships from the battle so that their side has a greater ratio than if the meat shield wasn't there. Sort of like the firepower, hull strength and size of a great war era orion, but a lot cheaper (corvette cost?).

GVC Mentu.
Kinda big, flat.
Lots of HP for a cruiser (67k).
****ty weaponry (no guns on bottom, food for capships, aeolus and even leviathan pwns it a billion times at anti-fighter work)

Only good thing about it is if you put two of them with their flat side facing each other and put a freighter or two in between, the freighter(s) survival rate increases dramatically.

THE LATEST IN DESIGNS FROM THE VASUDAN DESIGN BUREAU!

*drumroll*

We've taken a GVC Mentu... AND GLUED IT TO THE BOTTOM OF ANOTHER GVC MENTU! The Mentu Mk 2 is the latest in Vasudan cruiser technlogy, buy one today and show up your neighbor!
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: BengalTiger on May 17, 2011, 01:32:19 pm
That dual-Mentu would be pretty nice.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: PsychoLandlord on May 17, 2011, 01:51:47 pm
That would certainly take care of the massive blind spots the stock Mentu has.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Marcov on May 18, 2011, 11:02:44 am
What's the point of this "big hard ship blockade" thing? All the enemy has to do is not attack it.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: X3N0-Life-Form on May 18, 2011, 11:28:49 am
Well, we might just drop all non-destroyer capships then :P
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Drogoth on May 18, 2011, 11:25:48 pm
What's the point of this "big hard ship blockade" thing? All the enemy has to do is not attack it.

And when they have the same ships? Ideally tougher ships would have to be engaged by capships of equal strength, but refusing to engage isn't always an option.

The Lucifer when it jumped to Vasuda Prime. Should we have told the Vasudans "all you have to do is not attack it and it will be all good". Ships must be eliminated before they eliminate you.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: -Norbert- on May 19, 2011, 04:50:34 am
Your argument has merit only if the ship is very tough AND has good firepower, which we weren't discussing ("Big ships with very heavy armour, but little weaponry"). If you build one ship that can take massive damage but dish next to nothing out, the enemy will just leave it for last, since it's no real threat and concentrate on the ships with the real firepower.

And you can't even use such a "tank" to shield any low health, high firepower ships, since that would block their shot at the enemy just as much as the other way round.
It could work to some degree with something like the Narayana in BP2, since it shoots it's torpedoes out to the side, before they turn towards the enemy.

The only sensible way to use such blockers would be to buy time, either for a retreat or so the strike craft can take out the enemy heavy weapons.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: BengalTiger on May 19, 2011, 09:33:58 am
Unless the firepower ship has it's turrets in big towers- the shield ship could be between the enemy fleet and the firepower ship, and the firepower ship could have everything but it's turrets hidden.

On the other hand, I'd personally connect both ships (either by permanent docking or making the shield a subsystem with a "carry no damage" flag), and delete the shield ship's engines and subspace drive to save cash.

A ship docked with multiple shield units covering most of it's hull would be pretty cool.
Title: Re: Weapons Brainstorm
Post by: Marcov on May 20, 2011, 07:39:40 am
Hmm...the big, hard ship can actually have a use.

Well, suppose a Shivan Demon is beaming a large, important ship to death, the "tank" ship will jump in between them to buy the victim some time to escape.

Then again, the Tank ship will only be limited to such situations.