Weapons Prospects

[Siirenias]

I have, of the last few months, discovered that I have a great liking for the works of David Weber, and it inspired a few weapons that I feel would be significant.

However, for some reason, when I attempt to create them, I am sorrowfully unable to implement them (aka, crash to desktop).

I won't request help directly...but I thought it would be fun to discuss possible additions to the rather impressive lists of ship armaments.

GRASER: Lasers in the gamma frequency employed in a heavy capital ship capacity. Less powerful and shorter range than anti-proton beams, but more rapid in firing repetition. Energy requrements are similar for anti-proton mounts, but skyrocket in larger mount sizes.

Laser Cluster: Computer-controlled, stationary but high-response turrets for point defense, including mines, fighters, and missiles. Faster fire rate than PDTs, but requre three successive hits to shred a capital ship missile. However, they can take out Standard Missles (below) in one hit.

Countermissile: A Standard Missile that lacks a warhead, opting for a much cheaper solid core, combined with a more complex sensors suite and computer brain to allow it to make direct hits on incoming missiles.

Standard Missile: The little cousin of the Capital Ship Missile, it was decidedly obsolete with the introduction of more automated CSM launchers. However, with further development of missile box technology, a 5-missile reloadable launcher has been produced that is of relative size to a single CSM Launcher. The reasoning is to overwhelm a target's PD with a small swarm of missiles a third the power of a single capital ship missile, and improved speed.

[Suicide Junkie]

One thing to definitely try is running in windowed mode. You might be able to see error messages that way.

When adding weapons, one of the most critical things to do is make sure that beam weapons have beam animations, missile weapons have missile animations, and so on. Mixing that up = no go.

[Fyron]

Siirenias said:
I won't request help directly...

Why not? We won't bite.

[Phoenix-D]

You can't have anti-missile beam weapons, unfortunately. Starfury is a bit bugged and crashes when a beam weapon fires on a missile.

[Suicide Junkie]

I suspect that the beam PD issue might be related to the missile dying and being erased from the game quickly... then the beam's destination would be undefined. But that's just a wild guess.

Beam PD against fighters works great. They burn and roll a bit after dying, so the beam has time to finish.

[Siirenias]

The reason I don't want someone to do it for me is that I want to learn how to do it right. I became a good Homeworld 2 modder that way

I guess it'll have to do against sattelites and fighters :/
Do AMMs work? I thought that was kinda cool. Allows for more fireworks during missile duels.

[Phoenix-D]

AMMs work if I remember right. Only one way to find out..

The problem you'll run into concerning point defense is that its *stupid*. Every gun fires on the same incoming missile/sat/fighter at the same time, regardless of overkill..

[Siirenias]

If you limit its cone of fire, it ought to play area defense. Of course, that means that these would require weapons stations.

That's what I had planned...but I'm still negotiating my way to get starfury to work.

[bearclaw]

Wouldn't having different PD weapons having different ranges fix that issue of all firing? In theory, the longest range would fire first then the shorter ranged ones should fire at the next and so one. Problem is that you would need to have a varity of PD weapons on a single ship. That could easily be overcome with something like:

1st Perimiter PDC: Range 15
2nd Perimiter PDC: Range 10
3rd Perimiter PDC: Range 5

[Suicide Junkie]

If you have multiple PD weapons on your ship they fire in a stagger pattern.

If you increase the shot speed of the PD, then the first shot will have a chance to hit the target before the second PD cannon fires a fraction of a second later.