I was thinking today during the 2 hour stretch that I had nothing to do and was nowhere near a computer, and I came up with yet another long-range weapon, so here it is. Clebrim, tear it to pieces!
-Pcc (Particle collector cannon)
Port:Large, perhaps medium

Range: 3000m

Energy: 550e

Speed: Base=10 max=700

Damage: Base=1 max=8000

Autoaim: 0

Splash radius: 5m

Special(s):
Speed increases by 3m/s every 10m

Damage increases by X multiplied by 1.5 every 100m, where X is the current damage(i.e. dmg is 300, for the next step multiply by 1.5)

Explodes when reaches 3000m for a splash radius of 5m


Is it balanced or does it still need working? Too me it looks totally useless at close range (~500m) but you decide.


EDIT:Changed the dmg formula!

I'm not sure if the numbers would work (I'm the WRONG person to ask about numbers)

But I like the idea of limiting the weapon's usefulness at short range. By providing an effective "minimum range" you can make long-range weapons without unbalancing short-range combat.

Thanks Slappy!
/me continues to hover over this thread

I like it.

very similar to my Self-Sufficient Charging Avalon.... except it's an energy weapon.

It's good, but I have a *few* nitpicks.

First off, how can a bolt of plasma gain energy (ie damage/speed) if all it is is plasma? And of course how would it gain speed without a source of propulsion on the bolt? The only feasible (read: realistic) way to have a weapon that increases speed as it travels is for it to be a missle/projectile weapon.

And then there's the speed progression. 10m/s is basically one Valk length per second, just in case you didn't realise. The damage... explain this to me; maybe I got it right... at 1000 meters damage is equal to 1000?ã(2)? If so, you'll never get to 8000 damage. Explain it better.

"how can a bolt of plasma gain energy (ie damage/speed) if all it is is plasma?"

I tired to hold this back... but I have to say this, just because I know it will irk Celebrim :-)

...Because it's MAGIC!!!!

/me runs and hides

Plasma = matter

All matter can gain energy, be it heat or momentum, plasma can't gain much more heat being it is a super heated gas but it can gain speed, thus adding kinetic energy to it.

slappyknappy, it is, in fact, MAGIC!

A distortion in the fabric of spacetime is expelled from the ship, and the vibration of the quarks in the plasma is excited to match that of the spacetime distortion, thus causing the plasma to be pulled towards an infinitely distant point of ripple in spacetime, and thus increasing its speed until the distortion runs out of energy (it is a special timed distortion) and the plasma explodes.

Sui, I'm afraid you don't realize the only kinetic energy the plasma would recieve (if it behaves at all like normal matter) would be in the reverse direction, in the form of drag (and thus slowing the bolt down).

What if your ship were expelling some kind of wave behind it to push it fowards with ever-increasing speed, also adding to its power?

Hint hint: look at the name!

It collects the energy from passing photons, tachyons, and gravitons, causing the particulate bolt gather more kenetic energy and more energetic particles, pushing the bolt forward at ever increasing speeds and also expanding.

^----MAGIC!


And im not sure about what you wrote down as a formula there, I cant see it to well

But after I did the calculation the damage maxed out at around 2300m and the speed at about 2000m

Dmg increases by (current damage)multiplied by(the square root of 2) every 100m

check again!

I saw the name, which is what prompted me to say it was like my own invention... but yet if it is not a piece of equipment (ie a bullet or missle with ramscoop) there's no way that it wouldn't be forced to SLOW DOWN. It may gain damage energy, but that puppy is gonna slow down through the friction of particulate matter. It needs a propulsion system.

The idea of the wave behind it is reasonable, but if implemented, you must require that *only* one bolt is flying at one time. The reason being, each bolt would have slightly different frequencies and wavelengths, so the wave propulsor must be tuned to one at a time.

Celkan, give up. Go away. There doesn't need to be a logical reason behind it. Talk about it in relation to its effect in the game, but don't try to talk away our pseudo-science and replace it with something that actaully tries to be real and fails.

Tachyon guns cant exist because tachyons are FTL particles and cannot be slowed down to 200m/s!
But they exist dont they?
So why cant this?

This gun isn't balanced.

It's a nerf gun.

After 1400m it will do 128 damage. Guns with normal auto aim only hit their targets at around 1.5 x speed away, the speed will have reached 430m/s (a little better than the rail gun. But the current speed isn't that important because the average speed is going to be less than 210m/s meaning it will take more than 6.6 seconds for the shot to travel the 1400m, with out auto aim the only way you're going to hit a target is if they're standing still, if you're able to adjust your aim to very small increments, at the moment you can't. With auto aim you'll be able to hit noobs at that range, but not if they're turboing, changing direction, or changing speed (again assuming that the aim is adjustable to smaller increments than it currently is).

Well Eldrad, what could be done to make it better?
Dont just criticize it, try to improve upon it!

Change the (sqrt of 2) to 2!

Sorry, making it faster would un-nerf it. It's going to be hard to balance though because the speed is based on distance not time it doesn't have a constant acceleration and is a pain in the butt to integrate and there fore is hard to tell exactly how long it takes to travel a given distance. (note this isn't really a problem with the gun it's just that it's harder to model). For convenience sake I'd say make the speed and damage be based on time instead of distance.

Whoa... I just realized that if you fire the gun while turboing at 200m/s it's a completely different gun.... There fore I'd really suggest that the damage and speed be based on time not distance.

So your goal is to hit someone at 3000m thats not moving?

Sounds like a cool gun, but I have to point out one logical problem:

The whole idea of making it move slowly so it's ineffective at close range but move fast at longer ranges so it's more effective doesn't make sense.

Say Humpy fires this gun at two targets, one is 100m away and the other is 1000m away. The bolt takes x seconds to reach 100m which we are saying is long enough for the first target to dodge, correct? Well then the bolt won't reach the second target until x+y seconds > x seconds which is long enough to dodge in the first place, so why the heck wouldn't the further target be able to dodge also?

If you try to solve this problem by increasing the speed then the 100m target won't be able to dodge, leading to the following conclusion:

Regardless of speed, it is ALWAYS easier to hit a target at a closer range with a bolt weapon.

The only exception to this is if the target is too close for you to maneuver into firing position, but this is really a function of your ship, not the weapon.

I posted this in a different thread, but what about having a weapon that creates an instantaneous explosion a certain distance away from your ship? (i.e. the explode-o-ray from Calvin and Hobbes. Anyone remember this?) The longer you held down the trigger, the further away the explosion would occur up to 1 km. Kinda like throwing a grenade.