Forums » Suggestions

The Beam Cannons.

Sep 04, 2005 DragonEmpire link
Yesturday, I came to thinking about the cap ships and the beam cannons. Well, what if the beam cannons had two different settings? The first setting could be the same as it is now, but the second setting would have longer range (Maybe 2x?) but do less damage (Maybe 1/4?).

Just a suggestion, what do you guys think?
Sep 04, 2005 LeberMac link
Either way, but they need to be dodge-able. Right now, they basically never miss.
Sep 04, 2005 KixKizzle link
How about we trash the beam cannons and go back to agt.
This way ppl start having fun during cap ship battles.

OR we could keep SOME beam cannons but make the animation look cool and make the tracking speed so slow that killing light fighters should be a 1/100 deal.
Sep 04, 2005 Lord Q link
beem cannons CAN NOT be made dodgable. then they would be perjectile weapons like all the other energy weapons. the problem with the cap ships having beam cannons is that the playerbase doesn't have anything big enough to assault a HAC.

all ow me to quote several refrences from the media that illistrate this point:

"two fighters against a Star Destroyer, that's suacide"

"whatever you do don't get in the way of Galactica's shooting solution"

"what good are stunt fighters going to do against that thing?" <-- admitedly this one was refering to the death star but still.

"Sir, the odds of surviving a frontal assault on a star destroyer are 100,000,000 to 1"

anyway the point is something isn't nesesarily unbalanced just beacause it is good at what it is designed to do. And the HACs at the moment are realy more of a test engijn than any direct indication of what cap ships will be like in the future.
Sep 04, 2005 CrippledPidgeon link
instead of beam cannons, how about gauss bolts (or something equally nasty looking) that just travel really fast (like 1000m/s fast)? Easy to dodge at 2000m, but 1000m and closer gets more and more impossible to dodge.
Sep 05, 2005 Beolach link
Beam cannon CAN be made dodgeable - sort-of. The suggestion I liked was that there be a small delay while the beam "powers up" before it actually fires, and during that delay it can't track. So it's still insta-hit, and as long as the target hasn't moved too far it will hit, but the target may very easily have moved away and the beam will miss it. So you have to dodge BEFORE the shot is fired. It could also be somewhat like the charge cannon - the longer it is charged, the more damage and/or the longer range it has, but it also cannot track while charging, so you can't aim.

I like the suggestion of having some longer range beams, that do less damage. Some time ago I suggested that the damage the beam cannon do be based partly off the distance, so if it hits something just short if its maximum range, it does very little damage (the "range" of the beam is caused by the beam diffusing, and as it diffuses it does less damage).

I also think that the Cap Ships should have a variety of weapons, including various beams, gauss, gatling turrets, rails, missiles, and anything else anyone wants.
Sep 05, 2005 Ghost link
As long as we're doing starwars references. The turbolaser batteries on the Stardestroyers and specifically the death star were actually very slow to track. They were designed to target capital ships and have a great deal of difficulty tracking fighters. Stardestroyes did have some other weapons that were designed as fighter defense but note that the more powerful turbolaser batteries would have a difficult time hitting a fighter. That's the way I think it should be with Vendetta cap ships. Mix the weaponry so that the more powerful weapons have a tough time hitting fighters, but throw in some agt type weapons like were on there before in order to combat fighters.
Sep 05, 2005 Lord Q link
i agree Ghost,
but the beam cannons are the anti-fighter weapon, ther curently is no anti-capitle ship weapon in game.

Beolach,

i wouldn't call that dodgable because the ship doing the "dodging" isn't reacting to a known attack (because they don't know when the cannon begins to fire, what it is firing at or if they are in the line of fire) it is more a change of the dificulty in accurately aiming the weapon (a subtel difference but one that can become inportant).

Anyway the curent loadout of the HACs is largely what i would expect for a carier, it has a near inpenitrable anti-fighter deffence and no armarments desinged to be effective against other capitle ships (for that it relies on it's fighters and or bombers). Adding perjectile weapons that move fairly fast, and have extreem range and damabe in place of some of the beam cannons, would be an inpruvment.
Sep 05, 2005 Phaserlight link
Sep 05, 2005 Ghost link
Okay,I suppose I can see beam cannons being anti-figher weapons if, like phaserlight mentioned, the range on them is cut down. IMO I think it would be a lot more fun to be able to dodge and weave your way through fire to make a strafing run on a cap ship. Being in a fighter and getting instantly blown up as soon as you come in range just doesn't seem fun to me. I'm all for cap ships being good at what they do. But if you're just gonna die everytime you get within 1000m it's just not fun. This is a game after all.

Also, I love the ideas mention in the post phaser linked.
Sep 05, 2005 Phaserlight link
The one thing I could see beam weapons being really useful for is if the devs ever implement targetable warheads. Imagine staring down a volley of 10-20 incoming avalons from a beam turret, trying to take out as many as possible before impact....