New Weapons
 

What this game needs are more weapons.

Along that line I have decided to make the Big F***ing Gun, or BFG. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif This weapon will be housed on the largest vessel ever conceived in SEIV, the Doom Star.

Additional weapons:

Spinfuser - Fires an energy disk at great speed and accuracy. Long Range Weapon. (LRW)
GodHammer - LRW - Powerful missles that PDF can not stop. Expensive and have a longer reload time.
Arbitor - SRW (Short Range Weapon) Energy beam weapon that targets other weapons.

Thoughts? Other weapons? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ April 14, 2003, 11:34: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

Re: New Weapons
 

"Swarmers": missiles that can only attack fighters. The idea is that these missiles are small, highly maneuverable craft that can actually catch a fighter and detonate in just the right place to take the little bugger out. Perhaps targeting only fighter engines. Would it be possible to make missiles fire like PDC?

"Longboats": fighters weapons-like components that allow them to carry marines. Each fighter would have an almost insignificant amount of boarding party, but in large numbers they should be able to whittle-down opposing craft. Does the game track the loss in security stations from boarding attempt to boarding attempt? Or does it just reset all numbers to their max?

"Infestation": an Organic Version of the Allegiance Converter that has the unfortunate side effect of doing significant damage to the targeted vessel, as the cancer-like projectile tears through the ship. Would it even be possible to have an allegiance converter that also does damage?

"EMP" Missiles: missiles that target the Master Control Computer. Just a longer range Version of the Computer Virus that also happens to be counterable by PDC.

"EMP" Rockets: fighter borne Computer Viruses, also counterable by PDC.

Is there any way to target cargo? There should be.

"Monkey-Wrenchers": fighter-borne little guys in suits with tools. Fighters carry these little jerks over to enemy ships, let them loose, and they go after ship engines. In mechanical terms they would be once-per-combat use missiles with really low speed. Not sure what their range should be. It might be amusing to have slow missiles with just about infinite range following your ships around, intent on destroying your engines, long after the rest of combat has been resolved; picture them with teeth and high-pitched voices. You would only need to avoid them for thirty turns...

"Damn": a great Religious curse that requires the sacrifice of large amounts of .. stuff... but does immense amounts of damage. It would be a once-per-combat, heavy damage, long range weapon that used up _huge_ amounts of supplies (that's the sacrifice).

"Shove": super cheap, super small repulser beams that can only target seekers, fighters, and maybe drones. They have short-to-middling range (six, maybe), but push about twice that far.

"Transporter": does not do anything. This component is used to resolve plot issues, not mechanical issues.

Re: New Weapons
 

Why would one wish to bLast hypers?
Hmm, what are hypers?
I call them - Chippers because of the low hit points they chip away at the incoming ship.

Re: New Weapons
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">There's some BFGs for ya (especially for those players who like to use swarm tactics).....Billions of Freaking Gremlins.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

I like it.

Re: New Weapons
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Boarding is all or nothing. Plus, Fighters don't have the capture command available.

Re: New Weapons
 

Thank you, Junkie, I was not aware that feature was non-fighter.

After further thought, it seems that Monkey-Wrenchers should not be strictly fighter-type weapons. With their terribly limited speed, but long, long range, they would be pretty reasonable ship-launched missiles as well.

If you wanted a good chance of a hit, you'd have to get your ship right up alongside the enemy craft, so your gremlins could hit them in their first round of movement, maybe.

Picture escorts full of the little jerks, kind of like freaks on the city bus, with mismatched space suits, talking to their tools, rocking back and forth to music only they hear, raging against the machine, itching to jump out the hatch and go take something apart. No sane man is going to step out of a perfectly good spaceship to go take another space ship apart, not while that other ship is likely to shoot at him. These guys are naturally wonked, drugged-up, or have been otherwise cleverly manipulated into thinking this is a good time.

Also, it would be reasonable to have multiple kinds of gremlins: Duct-Jerk (anti-engine), Gun-Jammers (anti-weapon), Sappers (anti-shield), Hackers (anti-Master Control Computer), Demolitions Specialists (skips armor and shields). Each component is just a specialized missile launcher, once-per-combat, slow moving, near-infinite range.

And I have bit more on the Transporter for you role-playing types. It would be perfectly reasonable to have Transporter component on any ship that just does nothing. After all, the Deflector Dish and Plasma Injectors are used to tactical gains as frequently (or more frequently, I think) as the Transporters are. So make the component, throw it on, and make up your own stories for what it's good for. Like we need to board ships from more than one square away, anyway.

Re: New Weapons
 

Mining Satillite: satilite-only, very small, very limited shipyard. This tiny shipyard has only capacity to procude a mine, maybe even only a mine every two or three turns. These satellites would be useful in large numbers, but would be expensive to make, as the miniaturized full-auto shipyard should not be cheap.

[edit]
I forgot, these satilite-only shipyards would have exactly no capacity for repair.

[ April 14, 2003, 14:37: Message edited by: Loser ]

Re: New Weapons
 

I don't like those Gremlims, they are going to be just another object in the combat screen. But I like the BFG!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: New Weapons
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">More objects in the combat screen is a bad thing?

How does that work?

Re: New Weapons
 

DE-LURK http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

'Old' Weapons from the final build of the D-Mod (posted somewhere on the Shrap Boards http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif )

I heavily experimented with rof (rate of fire) and adding percentage to hit for certain weapons (Torpedo's were stock +15% to hit weapons, Quantum was +20 and Chaos Torp was +30).

Laser, 10kt, rof2; minimal damage

Heavy Mining Laser, acted as a robo-miner for all 3 resources as well as a Last ditch defense for the mining ship.

Psychic Shields, shields that had built in PDC

Missiles, totally re-vamped. Rate of fire 2 for the most part, Short Range Missiles were rof1 with ( http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif ) shorter range and less damage and PDC resistance. 'GodHammer' seige missile added, huge damage, rate of fire 4 and huge PDC resistance (150 at high level). External 'one shot' missiles (rof 30) and armor piercing missiles. Plasma missiles were default skip shields.

Chaos weapons (missiles, torps, beams), damage was backwards (ie, the farther away the target the greater the damage, up close damage was minimal). Bonuses to hit as well.

PDC-Lasers, rof 2,

'Chaff', one shot (rof30) 75 point damage PDC cannon.

Anti-Personell-Beams, damage to boarding parties only. (as well as a Version that did only Security Parties damage).

PPB's were re-vamped, first few levels were just a 'Hard Beam', x4 shield damage, then PPB's, then a 'Hard Poleron Beam', skipped all shields, rate of fire 2.

Tachyon Missiles, destroyed weapons.

Warp Gun, skip everything, rof 4 (warp missile rof 3)

Shield Depleter and Shield Destroyer missiles.

Troop Transporter (think Alliegence Subverter...but less chance to convert).

Gauss Cannon , rof2 DUC cannon.

Heavy Weapons, rof 2 heavy Versions of the APB and Meason BLasters.

Gatling Cannon, small weapon, added in multiples to produce a 'machine gun' effect.

Armor Piercing DUC's.

Asteroid Sling (my Version of a 'sci-fi' cannon type weapon http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ), rof4, 300 damage, range of 6, did about 500 damage for higher levels. Ship/Planet only.

Short Range Parasites, smaller Versions.

Crystal Resonator (crystal tech), skipped all, rof4

Fighter Missiles, (were fun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif )

Prayer Lance (religious weapon), rof2, +99% to hit.

Transdimensional Cannon (say that 10 times fast), rof 3, +30% to hit, skipped shields/armor.

Of course, with the additions of so many new weapons my Mount Mod that went with the mod only had a 'few' mounts as most of the earlier mounts were made into actual tech.

RAISE LURK SHIELDS http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: New Weapons
 

How about bombs that only target weapons platforms? (For those of us who like to practice "regime change with minimum civilian collateral damage"?) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: New Weapons
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Actually, repair does work with satellites. What does not work is consruction. Units cannot access the Build Queue. So satellites with repair bays (if you mod repair bays small enough to fit in a satellite) work fine.

Re: New Weapons
 

You know, we could have lots of fun with drones if the 'special' damage types worked with warheads. We have to get MM to fix that so we can have plague drones and Quad Damage to Shields warheads and other cool stuff.

Re: New Weapons
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">In the current patch WPs are always hit before other cargo anyway. How about a change to the way damage affects planets? Normal weapons should be nearly unable to completely slag a planet. You should need 'special' weapons to completely wipe a colony out. It's buildings and population spread over thousands of square miles, after all. And conversely, you should not be able to destroy military vehicles with ground-attack weapons. The current 'planetary weapons' are just high-powered 'normal' weapons that cannot target anything but planets. You can pound WPs to dust with them once you get in range. That should not be possible.

IF we had a special damage type that canceled the 'damage to kill one population' ratio we could have normal weapons able to destroy planet defenses but NOT population at any reasonable rate, and planetary weapons able to use this special damage type and destroy population/facilities without being cranked up to huge damage levels that can paste planet defenses.

[ April 14, 2003, 20:55: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: New Weapons
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">See, when I think "Mining Satellite", I'm thinking a 110kt Sat so i can just squeeze a comp core and a mining droid in without having to spend a quarter-mil in research points and years of time...

Thank god (or SJ, whatever http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) for Big Thinkers!

Re: New Weapons
 

What we really need is the Chalkboard Eraser Launcher. It would do no damage but the dust cloud created on impact would obscure ALL sensors and make all experience meaningless. The only defense is to get rid of the cloud either with the F. D. water cannon or the Molly Maid Dustbuster. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: New Weapons
 

hmm, Big Furry Gun?

[ April 14, 2003, 15:03: Message edited by: Rollo ]

Re: New Weapons
 

Puke's weapon.... The SCI-FI Cannon...

Re: New Weapons
 

Long Range, Cheap, Small, and Weak beam for early game. It Would cost a lot in research on its own tech tree. The trade off being you could research 2 or 3 other cheaper techs to start with or this one.

Re: New Weapons
 

Hum what to name them? Hyper BLasters?

Re: New Weapons
 

create storm.

Re: New Weapons
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You can almost do something like this with some creative modding. Can increase the damage resistance capacity of weapon platforms to higher levels so they can resist damage better. They always get targeted first so before reaching the planet have to blow through them. In addition increase the amount of damage needed to destroy population. Use the only damages population for weapons to kill the actual population and give them the corresponding damage levels to effectively do so. Use all or a combination of these and you can get some very interesting scenarios for planetary combat and invasion. Only thing that is hard is making facilities harder to kill. Only way you can really do this is adding shielding to them which affects the planet as a whole and protects all the units etc as well. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

I have some of my own custom mini mods that alter things like this with the good planet invasion AI files to make ground combat much more important for taking over a planet without removing the need for planetary bombardment (to kill the WPs) or the option for glassing the planet (if you invest in bomber ships and the tech).

Would be nice if there were easier ways to do it of course.

Re: New Weapons
 

Every shot that hits a planet that could possibly kill a pop (no units left) will kill at least 1 mil pop, regardless of the damage resistance of the pop. Set pop dmg resist. to 10000, and even a 1 dmg weapon kills 1 mil pop per shot.

Re: New Weapons
 

here's an idea - raise ALL weapon reloads by 1.
Now talk about the usefulness of gatling weapons.

Re: New Weapons
 

bigger gatling weapons?

Re: New Weapons
 

For all of those that like technology, ie advanced sensors and master computers. An anti-sensor or computer weapon is a good counter technology. Basically a weapon that skips shields and armor and manipulates ship movement and firing mechanisms by a computer virus.

The higher up the technology tree for these anti-computer weapons, the more random the movement and weapons fire. Good weapon to break up formations. Alternate sub techs, could be complete sensor black outs, so no bonus are granted and no scanners could be utilized.

Like the warp cannon that causes a ship to randomly move, it could also randomly cause the ship to fire at anything, even allies. I don't know if the second part could be modded, but it would lead to new counter strategies, which would involve that highly advanced fleet to be retrofitted with the good ol basic bridge. The basic bridge would be immune to such devices (in game terms) because of the high degree of manual automation, versus higher computer automation with advanced targeting sensors, master computer, ect.

Re: New Weapons
 

Another component-specific weapon (tho not currently do-able, unfortunately):

Religious Talisman-only Missles...yes/no? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: New Weapons
 

I'de like to see "artillery" style ships. Huge range weapons (various types) with enough of a bonus to hit to get rid of the range penalties, slow moving in combat and easy to hit.
Make not breaking formation a strategic option.
Can you restrict components to only certain hulls?

Askan

Re: New Weapons
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yeah, something like a siege cannon, 1000 kt big. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: New Weapons
 

railguns. nuetronium railguns. antimatter nuetronium railguns.

Re: New Weapons
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Actually, it is do-able. Just give the religious talisman the "boarding defense" ability and the missile the "damages only security stations" damage type or somesuch. Now you have a weapon that can target the massed biosigns of defenders or acolytes attending the sacred relic.

Re: New Weapons
 

I don't know if any of you here have ever played Tribes, but if you have, I would hope that you had a chance to play the SHIFTER mod before the games all became inundated by frelling cheaters.

The Rail Gun was my weapon of choice. If I aimed at you, you died. No BS, just one shot one kill. If you were lucky, and some were, you were zoomed in on me and pressed your triger a hair second after I did and were witness to my accuracy as your lifeless body fell from the field of play. Yes I was indeed guilty of many Atrocities in that game from a high kill score of 255 kills in one 30 minute game, to newbie fraging on a grand scale. Oh the wonders of the Rail Gun and those who knew how to weild its deadly power.

I honestly miss playing Tribes so very very much. It is one of only four games that I have requested that I be buried with when my time comes. I will never be able to explain why I love that game so much, why any of the million Tribesmen do, but I will say this, we are a rabid bunch of gamers and we were a grand multiplayer universe long before half-life and counterstrike stoled our support from Seirra.

I hate cheaters and I especailly hate them more so now than ever before for having reduced my beloved Tribes to little more than a pointless and futile act of auto aim and hacker cheat emporum.

Death to cheaters! Long Live Tribes! And SEIV two.

Tribes was the first game I have ever played that I played for twenty four hours straight without even realizing it. And I did this with my friends on more than one occation. Now my friends have all gone their own ways, and none of them play SEIV or Tribes any more. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Why did you have to mention Rail Guns? Now I will go to bed tonight feeling depressed. It is a lonely feeling to be the Last man standing on a mighty battle field. No more wars to fight no more glories to seek, and no more enemy flags to cap. The life, the challenges, the adventure, the team work, the strategy, the passion that was Tribes/Tribes 2 are lost to me now. Oh how I miss my mighty Rail Gun.

Re: New Weapons
 

tribes...great game...don't own it, though.in both senses of the word. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: New Weapons
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'm pretty sure you can already mod this, like so:
1) Have an ordinary PDC
2) Mod Damage Type from Normal into 'Pushes target'
3) Mod range to 6
4) Mod 'Can Target' to seekers/fighers/drones
5) Set damage values to however far you want to fling the seeker/fighter/drone...personally, I'd make damage be less & less as the range increases.

Re: New Weapons
 

Personally, I'd like to see more missile mounts, like in MOO2 - armoured, ECCM, etc... This way they wont' become obsolete so early in the game.

Re: New Weapons
 

Check out P&N for repulsor PDCs.

Re: New Weapons
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">How about smaller "swarmer" missiles, with a lower payload, but harder to hit, and a higher refire rate?

I would like to see the following sort of dynamic:

Laser PD: Long range, high accuracy, low damage
Kinetic PD: Short range, lower accuracy, high damage
Missile PD: Medium range, moderate accuracy, medium damage

Or that sort of thing, anyway.

Meanwhile, a hardened missile would be capable of taking numerous hits from a Laser PD without being destroyed, but fall prey to a Kinetic defense with just one shot, maybe taking two shots from a missile defense to destroy it. Swarmers would die to everything easily, but only if they hit, and even then, only one at a time. The Laser PD would be the only truly effective defense against such a barrage. Meanwhile, fighters would be easy prey for the missile defense, harrassed by the laser defense, and in extreme danger from the kinetic defense.

Just some thoughts, some of it has undoubtedly been done before, but hey. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: New Weapons
 

Maybe what this game needs is MOO weapons converted to SE4. Maybe slight tweaks to existing weapons. Why should race A's DUC be just like race B's DUC. I would think each race was able to slightly modify their own weapons with a little more research. Slight tweaks like Auto Fire, Armour Piercing, Range difference, Miniturization, slight speed differences in Missles. Despite MOO 3's problems, it did have more slight variables for it's weapons.

Re: New Weapons
 

With my Tech gridder, you can now do that in minutes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

See the tech-grid-mod for an obvious example.
Fyron's Adamant mod is including grid techs as well.

Re: New Weapons
 

Is there any way that burst effect weapons could be modded. A variety of weapons that have burst effects that can damage a multiple of close proximity ships with low damage, or something that pushes ships apart like the worm hole beam. Good way to break up formations.

Re: New Weapons
 

EvilG: The B5 MoD has some of what you say on weapons. So yes, it could be done if one has the time and will to do it...

either MOD it yourself or maybe Deathstalker's Mount mod or....

One of the missiles in the B5 MOD has a proximity fuse, so yes that can be done too...

[ May 19, 2003, 00:41: Message edited by: pathfinder ]

Re: New Weapons
 

As part of the Highliner Mod burst of activity, I have created an external website for my SEIV things - including some datafiles for new weapons. I invite inspection and comments...

http://galileo.spaceports.com/~woundwrt/index.html