[Karash]

Well since supposedly all the ships and grahpics are changing, lets talk possible new weapons (I do play an Oct after all):

Autocannons: Generally high rate of fire weapons that do small to medium damage. Good at closer ranges, or used in large fleets. Shot velocity lower that other weapon types, but ammunition footprint is very small in a ship's magazine stores. Can alternate between several shot patterns such as spread, salvo, and alternating fire. Damage Types: Kinetic, Explosive, Thermal.

Railguns: Medium to Low rate of fire weapons that fire only salvo type shot patterns. Very high velocity shots with medium to high damage. Very large ammunition footprint in a ships magazine stores...leading most railgun setups to larger ships. Damage Types: Kinetic.

Artillery: High damage aera of effect weapon that is used at long range. Has an activation timer of 1 second per shot leaving 2km to 4km deadzone where the weapon is completely ineffective. Good shot velocity, and large ammunition footprint. Damage Types: Explosive.

Pulse Plasma: Medium to low damage weapon that most mimics autocannons in types and functions. Requires no ammunition, but draws capacitor power (and thus power from defenses) away from the ship that can leave it more vulnerable. Used more for extended patrol setups that prize sustainability over hitting power. Damage Types: Thermal.

Light Missiles: Wide array of secondary munitions that target small piloted ships. Varies from damage to speed to time of flight. Some area of effect missiles. Damage Types: Explosive, Kinetic (fast rocket types), and Thermal.

Torpedos: large area of effect secondary weapons that are primarily used against enemy freighter shipping, conflux hive removal, and other large slow moving or static targets. Damage Types: Explosive, Kinetic, Thermal, EMP (Nuclear).

Electronic Warfare: Broad class of equipment and weapons that 'attack' a ship in non-traditional ways: Webifier light missiles, Signature Shade ECM devices, HUD/'Duelist' Scrambling equipment, Ship ID Scramblers.

Ideas?

[Wild_Bill]

Wow! Good ideas there. Add in my long range, high velocity, high damage, slow rate of fire sniper cannon to the list. Something that could reliably hit out to 20k range and totally wipe out a sz4 shield. Perhaps splash damage as well? To give a better chance of a hit at long range.

Alternately the "splat gun", short range, high damage, moderate rate of fire weapon (semi-automatic sawed-off shotgun style) for close in, last ditch defensive fire. Perhaps effective as an anti-missile measure? Or as flux defense? At 1.2k range take out two-three C3 squids if they are close to each other. Could be a good weapon for miners.

[JoCool]

Great ideas!

Most interesting, Artillery and the ID scrambler. It would be great to sacrifice a Modx and be able to hide your name for some time, to make you "unknown" on the radar. It should work in short bursts and take energy much like the high end ECMs while it is active.

I would have loved that back in Jumpgate Classic as I've always been the primary target.

What it can do:
Hide your name for a minute, with a cooldown of 2.
Make it harder to call you a target, to increase your survivability.

Only works when:
You have wingmen that fly the same race and ship as you, with the same modx fitted.
You sacrifice part of your capacitor power, decreasing your battle effectiveness, especially the offense in group combat where speed and full throttle fire counts.

[dahalb]

More weapons of different types and different damage types would be a good thing. It adds variance. With new/different weapons types new/different defensive techs would be needed as well giving a multitude of possible combat outcomes.

[Aphelion]

Yay, Mechwarrior!

Good ideas. Putting more options in breeds creativity and specialization for pilots. (I've always been a fan of Gauss Rifles... ) Balance issues should be closley monitored and updated if "suprises" are found. (kinda like the old Vantage boost then nerf, although I think they were nerfed beyond balance)

Should there always be the option of multiple weapon "types" in each weapon "flavor?" ie, thermal, kinetic, explosive, etc for each slow rate-of-fire, close range gun, or should there only be a few combinations leaving pilots that like high-accuracy guns limited to medium to low damage?

Ever notice how sniper-rifles always seem to become the weapon of choice in FPS games? They're so hard to balance because the average player needs them to be one-shot-kill weapons to make up for their lack of skill, but once mastered they become too deadly.

[Karash]

The damage types are there and only effected by the type of ammunition you load inside your ship. This is something different from Jumpgate Classic as the gun always had "ammo" tied to it.

I would love a system more inspired by Battletech (aka Mechwarrior), and that is my main influences.

High velocity, long range weapons should always have a delay on the munition to become active. This prevents them from being used up close and personal insta-gib weapons. They always have a low ROF, but shot armament is important as well.

[Tim]

Very cool stuff..

perhaps some sort of concussive weapon that might have an effect on nearby missiles?

How about a 'phase gun' concept that does heavy damage to shields but doesn't do much to armor?

[Karash]

Tim, I was thinking Thermal Rounds would do (on average) more damage to Shields, Explosive to Armor, and Kinetic to Hull/Critical Components.

Some sort of "Ion Blaster" could work for dedicated shield damage...but i think most pilots would want to use weapons that work on everything equally well. At least in theory.

[Tim]

Nice, good thinking... tho as to which weapon is picked, it'll come down to balance. If the ion thing does enough damage to shields, it might be popular. Not that i'm advocating it, i'm just saying that adding in a bunch of types of damage won't be a matter of creativity, it'll be a matter of balance.

mmm... balance issues...

As to the sniper thing, why not carry the general logic of 'damage is inversely proportional to range'? Long range missiles do less damage than short range, etc.

[Ambrosius]

Originally Posted by Karash

...but i think most pilots would want to use weapons that work on everything equally well. At least in theory.

I guess this depends on how Jumpgate "evolves." Right now there is little to no mixed fleet fighting, so I (for instance) would definitely customize for max shield effectiveness against Sols and switch to max armor effectiveness against Octs.

In larger fleets, there could be interesting tactics, where shield-strippers preceded armor-piercers in wave-based attacks.

[Karash]

Absolutely Ambro.

And I find it disturbing that there is no mixed fleets seen in Jumpgate (?). We always tried to roll with several different ship classes, even backed up with TOWs equipped with PWD support

[Ambrosius]

When BIG furballs are 6 v 6 there's not a lot to "mix."