Hi,

right now all weapons are for attacks only - how about some defensive gadgets which will take one weapon port?

That would make quite an interesting balance - you have to chose if you are 100% aggressive (no defense gadgets) or peaceful (only defense gadgets).

I suggest something like:

- Chaff. Fireup a chaff charge and your ship will be surrounded (for a limited amount of time) by chaff. Missiles and rockets will harmlessly detonate on the chaff cloud.

- Booster rockets. Fire one booster rocket, and it'll give you for a limited amount of time a huge speed boost (above the limit of turbo). Disadvantage: you can't change course while the rocket is burning.

- Decoys. Like submarine decoys, a decoy will be small robot ship flying around and giving oppents the same radar signals as the ship which fired it. This decoy is able to perform basic evasive maneuvers. You'd have to have visual contact to distinguish between the real player and his decoys.

What do you think about this?

Regards,
Mark (Commander Jameson)

i kinda like the booster rocket idea. but i'd rather have a Star Trek style warp drive. :D

One idea that was mentioned in-game (I think it was silentsuicide) is a weapon specifically geared to setting off mines and rockets. It would have a huge blast radius (I would think something between 500m and 1000m, tending a little away from the higher end there, making it about double that of an avalon), but do very little real damage to things it hit, just enough to detonate any mines, rockets, missiles or torpedoes in reach. I think it would be especially nice for this (and other weapons, for that matter) to have a hand timed mode, where there's a command you can bind to detonate the missile.

Here's an example of what I mean:
Name: Tsunami T.L.
Price: 10000 c (whatever, for now)
Price/Round: 4000 c (again, doesn't really matter yet)
Size: Large
Damage: 120 D/R
Speed: 40 m/s (5 m/s faster than an Avalon at present)
Firing Interval: 2.0 s
Proximity: 10 m
Radius: 650 m
Rounds: 2 R
Maneuverability: None
Providing that 120 is enough to take out mines, rockets etc. It could even do near-zero damage if it just set them all off. (You want it to do something to whatever it hits though.) Anyway, this is just to give an idea. The number of rounds available is also questionable, but I think keeping it fairly low is a good idea, seeing as it's mainly to disable defenses, not disable them repeatedly in an annoying way without having to go back to buy more giving the defence a chance at repairing the damage. Seeing as it is able to take out a rather large minefield effectively, keeping it down to 2 rounds helps increase the chances the defenders can actually defend, but gives the attacker one free chance against a miss.

rear-firing turret to shoot down would-be pursuers. I suppose it could be offensive, but not really.
I also think making proxy mines an S-port weapon would be a good defence.

Yes, something that perhaps shot closer to where you were looking rather than where you were pointed (with a controlled damage rate of course) would be a nice way to try to fend off someone chasing you. (Turbo, spin view around, fire at pursuer.)

How about a radar jammer?
It could be made to work only when traveling really slow so it's worth nothing in combat.

----From ingame chat, 1 month(?) from now----
<Zathras> Oh no! 3 red pirate scum entered this sector. Dropping my speed and enableing radar jammer. I'm a sitting duck here! RESCUE ME!
----

I'd happily sacrifice an Advanced Gatling on my Heavy Freighter to be harder to spot for pirates.
I'd have to hug an astroid or slowly creep to a station to escape, but it gives me better chanses. They should still see me in the player list for the sector even though I'm jamming my radar signature.

Using radar jammer should also disable using weapons to stop someone from creeping up on others. Jumping while cloaked shuld also be impossible since it draws energy from the battery.'

Another 2 cents from Zathras. That makes $12 or something today.

Many defensive-weapon ideas have been brought up before.. I'm a being fan of the idea myself. The way I see it, there are three primary ways to make a weapon defensive.

1) Mines. There were about a dozen or so mine ideas posted a while ago of which probably 1/2 were really good.

2) Rear-facing weapons. The "get off of my back" gun, with good auto-aim. Basically, the energy-weapon equivalent of mines.

3) "Special" weapons that effect an enemy ship somehow other than by damaging the hull. Examples are EMP blasts, energy siphons, mines that interrupt turbo, tractor/repulsor beams, etc.

Of course there is no purely defensive weapon. #1 could be used to mine enemy supply routes. #2 could be used for strafe runs*. #3 could be used to cripple someone who is fleeing from you so you could close in for the kill. However, these types of weapons would be a welcome addition to the game IMHO. I also think the game is _almost_ to the point where adding some of these weapons would actually make sense from a testing perspective.

* Put the adv. gattling and a rear-facing gun on a bomber. Turbo in. Shoot with the adv. gat on your way in. Set someone up the bomb. Fly away, laying down rear fire as you go. It would be great for capital ship battles.

Set someone up the bomb.

Classic.
-What happen?
-Someone set us up a bomb.
-Main screen Turn on!

lol.

"Someone set us up a bomb" is far too correct to have been from Zero-Wing :)

For great justice, it was "Somebody set up us the bomb."

Cool, but the decoy would probably be better at evasion than i am... ;)