Weapons with abilites
 

While writing a component modding tool it occured to me I could make a cleaner layout due to the fact that it seem that only componets with a weapon type of 'none' have abilites. The questions is can weapons have abilities? Is it legal or is there any reason to do so?

Re: Weapons with abilites
 

"Can weapons have abilities?"

Yep, I think they exist only in peoples modds. I have a 'heavy mining laser' in my modd that can double as a weapon or a resource extraction device.

Re: Weapons with abilites
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Interesting. So in that case the laser works as a weapon in combat but if your just in orbit is works like a robo miner?

Re: Weapons with abilites
 

Yep! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif As far as I can tell you can add any ability to weapons (ie, imagine a weapon that uses the suns energy to power it so you have a solar beam weapon and it could double as solar panels to power the ship outside of combat. The limit is your imagination, the se4 game model and abilities that make 'sense').

Re: Weapons with abilites
 

One of the interesting ability combinations that was possible in SE III was engines with shield regeneration. That's makes a sort of sense, given that engines are generally a power source.

If only something like the MOO 'engine pulsar' were possible in SE IV!

Re: Weapons with abilites
 

Hmmm reminds me of an old Larry Niven story were the humans fried the nasty aliens with their fusion drive. Guess there could be all sorts of possibilities

Re: Weapons with abilites
 

"If only something like the MOO 'engine pulsar' were possible in SE IV! "

Closest thing to this would be modding the engines and giving them the 'Point-Defense' ability, make it very short range, (like 1 or 2 spaces). Don't make it too strong as most ships have 6 engines meaning minimum of 6 pdc like cannons http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif .

Yep, it would be REAL nice if there were some 'area affect' weapons in se4. Stellar Converters, Pulsars, Reactor explosion shockwave, all this would add lots more fun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Weapons with abilites
 

Back in SE3 i made a huge mod with lots of weapons. I once read one book about humans mastering annihilation technology and using it on their ships, and i inserted the thing to SE3:
"Annihilator Engine" - nice thing with +9 speed bonus; "Annihilating Engine" - large (2) engine with high cost and a lowly +4 speed bonus (highest one was +10) but with 40 damage (keep in mind that Doom of SE3, WMG had only 20 damage). OK, maybe it was once-per-combat damage, but 40*6 (number of engines) could easily wipe out any enemy out there. Just keep a tractor handy and thats it.
Another one was Annihilation Module, engine with no movenment bonuses but a nasty "destroy planet" ability.

Made for realy interesting variety of engines.
And so on, i used the weapon-component-ability combinations quite a lot.

Also i've seen a mod for SE4 using a component as sun,storm,WP,planet destroyer + a weapon, more powerful than WMG.