True, that may make it easier, but how would that be different from a hunter killer drone? I purposely wanted to make the weapon near-instantaneous and without LOS requirements.

So, to appease the programming gods, how about dumbing it down in the following way: same concept applies, same statistics, however the three beams converge to create the explosion instantaneously. If you have problems with the gunner "setting" the range, then just make the range proportional to the length of time the weapon is charged. I.e. at 2 seconds the explosion takes place 500m away, at 10 seconds it takes place 2.5 km away. This would actually throw in another skill factor into manning the weapon which wold help balance out the fact that the explosion occurs instantaneously.

Personally, however, I don't think this weapon would be that difficult to program as first stated above. It makes sense to me, and isn't overly complicated. The "beam algorithm" need not be more complicated than "draw a line from point A (fixed to turret) to point B (fixed to target pos)." Come to think of it, the l-mines *already* do something like this so it wouldn't really be new programming at all. Just a different graphic.

I think Daon Rendiv's point is brilliant. The gunner would be able to adjust the range using the forward/backward keys. Who knows what a gunner's HUD will look like anyway... and the devs have to program this eventually. Just have a little number next to the targeting reticle that gives the detonation range.

Yes I do Celebrim, thats how I designed it, There are serious drawbacks to the release of one of these godforsaken missiles

and the chance of it not hitting is high

but now that I look at it, the damage could be booosted a couple hundred thou

"Yes I do Celebrim, thats how I designed it, There are serious drawbacks to the release of one of these godforsaken missiles."

I'd say. Lets do the math here - 82% chance of doing a couple hundred thousand damage to yourself, versus a much less than 18% chance of doing any damage to any target more than 1000m away. In fact, we might as well make the chance of actually hitting a target 0, because any captain worth a @#$% is going to turn and run a couple hundred meters until the 'suicide bomb' blows up and does his work for him.

"but now that I look at it, the damage could be booosted a couple hundred thou"

I see. So instead of being a weapon with nearly a 100% chance of destroying half your hull and doing no damage to the target, you'd rather change it to a weapon with nearly a 100% chance of destroying all your hull and doing no damage to the target.

I have no responce to that.

Damage should not be specific on weapons. If you hit an area of a ship that was hit before, it is weaker armor and thus you will do more damage. Damage should not be done overall to the ship as a whole, but to certain "Sectors" on a ship, like say you hit the engines on a ship a lot, you can blow off an engine. Or if you shoot at the weapons, you can blow off a weapon. Or a wing lowering manueverability. Which would make a more skilled pilot concentrate all his fire onto say an engine making their speed in half reducing thier abilty to flee and dodge in battle. Or shoot down all thier turrets and an engine to make them almost crippled. You should be able to board crippled ships "EV Style" and steal money, cargo, ammo, maybe some batteries or engines or if the ship is in semi good state you could attempt to capture the ship and use it as your own, or as an escort.

Phoenix: I really like your "sector" specific damage idea. This idea has actually been brought up recently in the "Disabling" thread:

http://vendetta.guildsoftware.com/?action=msgboard&thread=2243&page=2

I also like the idea of being able to board a crippled ship, but I disagree with the stealing money bit. AFAIK credits are not hard currency but data stored within computer databanks. Why would you be able to steal credits from a player by virtue of crippling their ship when there isn't actually any hard currency on board? I think it would be awesome if some sort of "hacking" interface were developed within the station where you could hack into an opponent's bank account and transfer credits to your own provided you didn't get caught. Stealing credits from a disabled ship however just doesn't make much sense imho.

Also it would suck big time if you had to just sit there defenseless and watch as some trash talking player came up and took all your stuff.

Phoenix: i beleive the damaged components should not be for the ships we have now, instead for the bigger ships to come.

Right now you can blow turrets off of the frigate. :)

"Also it would suck big time if you had to just sit there defenseless and watch as some trash talking player came up and took all your stuff."

I dare say that it would 'suck big' time if you had to sit there defenseless and watch as some quite cordial and friendly player came up and took all your stuff.

"Thank you for your consideration, kind sir. I'll be sure to put all of this to good use. And my my, a Molovian Mark III Super Mega-Generator. I see you are a man of exceptional taste and industry. I wonder how many long hours you must have slaved to earn the money for one of those. Well, I'll not take any more of your time, dear sir, and I do hope that I'll be doing business with you again some time soon. Really soon. Ta ta."

I think that the critical point is that its not fair to deprive someone of something if they can't defend themselves. It might be 'realistic' to jam an opponents communications, capture his vessel, hack into its systems, and trick Galactic Express into handing the contents of the owners savings accounts over to you, but realistic or not its really sucky as far as game play goes. Typically in such circumstances, players aren't just happy that thier character is alive.

Equally bad is making it easier to earn something through direct violence than through missions, trading, and story arcs. What good is it to spend three weeks exploring the universe in order to earn the rights and the revenues to buy a Hyper Galactic Mega Blaster, if some scrub and five of his friends who've only been playing for a week ambush you and take it. So much for the sense of accomplishment. The economy would tend to degerate to the level of Afghanistan's - the robbers control most of the resources and the producers can't get ahead.

cele how are you getting 82% of harming you?
now that I look it over all I see is a 50% chance of it blowing up in your face

10% over 100m for 500m doesnt equal 82% in my mind

Ahhh... I see. Yes, it does have only a 10% chance of blowing up each 100m. I misread that and assumed that it had a chance of blowing up each second, since generally speaking thats how ranges are measured. That's what I get for assuming that everything is measured at the same scale.

Actually 10% per 100m doesn't equal 50% either, but it is significantly less than 82% (the number you'd arrive at it if had a 10% chance of blowing up per second). In that case, it still has a 41% (1 - (.9)^5) chance of blowing up in your face, and while thats a whole lot better, its still bad enough that I think that all my other analysis still applies.

The AGP Corp Hevy™ Hitting Capital Ship Cannon (yes, that is how i want heavy spelled)
Fires 500mm rounds of 90% depleated Xrithcite (no, i cant spell). When it hits the velocity of such a large round does plenty of damage, and the energy still held in the X is released, making a big boom.

Name: The AGP Corp Hevy Hitting Capital Ship Cannon (APG HHCSC)
Dmg: 20000
Speed: 300 m/s
Range: 10 seconds
Reload: 3 seconds
Energy: 5000
Ammo: 500mm X rounds (you get.... 20 rounds)
Splash: 300 meters

a true capital ship weapon. Think about the bad ass guns we have on our navy's ships.

HEY! I'm an rpg fan. I wanna get Final Fantasy Tactics Advance soon tho... *Drools*

Urza:

Lots of damage, check.
Lots of range, check.
Lots of speed, check.
Very energy efficient, check.
Makes a big boom, check.

Err, explain to me what the drawbacks of this weapon are?

"Err, explain to me what the drawbacks of this weapon are?"
-It makes fights very short and boring. Duh!

this is sort of off the topic of primary weapons but with the shooting sectors of a ship.
i think that instead of being able to bord a ship and taking money, there should be a cargo bay on a capital ship and if shot it could break open shooting all of the ships cargo out into space

heh heh, that would be hilarious/awesome rorman. Kind of similar to the "cargo bay" damage idea I had in the "Disabling" thread:

http://vendetta.guildsoftware.com/?action=msgboard&thread=2243&page=2

Well people were whining how cargo doesn't vaporize in an explosion, so i was making it so that if you blow up the ship, you don't get any cargo, pirates have to disable the ship, and then board it and steal the cargo. which would make pirating a lot harder, and keep the whiners off our back.

A suggestion on the disabling and boarding... EV Nova has got this aspect, but it also makes it so that you have a certain probability of getting anything. For instance, you have a 40% probability of setting off the security self-destruct system on the ship you're boarding. The longer you stay and the more you try to take, the higher the probability is that the boarded ship will blow up around you and take down your ship with it. This could be that method of last-line defense.

One phrase for the RPG fans here (oh wait, there are none, lol)

"Moonstone Cannon, FIRE!"

Cargo comes in explosion-proof alloy containers *duh*.

Seriously though, that is an interesting idea. I'm definitely not against being boarded and having someone pillage my ship, I *am* against being totally defenseless while this happens.

In fighter to fighter combat, "boarding" another ship doesn't really make sense, however I could see it working if a much larger ship with a docking bay "force docked" another badly damaged ship, like in the beginning of "Star Wars."

How this would happen I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps the larger ship would have to damage the smaller ship sufficiently, score a critical hit on its engines etc., or lock on to it with a tractor beam. If it was able to "force dock" the smaller ship, then not only would it get the cargo, but it would capture the ship as well. The larger ship could hold the pilot prisoner, or even shanghai them (e.g. "Well son, we're under attack by the Itani navy and we need an extra gunner. You can help us out or we can all go down together").

Point being.... the victim would *always* have some say in the outcome of events. They could try to outmaneuver the tractor beam, they could continue to fire on the boarding ship etc. Anything but just sitting there and pleading.

"A suggestion on the disabling and boarding... EV Nova has got this aspect"

*Celebrim radar active*

Radar shows Celebrim closing on Gemini14's position... closing, closing, closing...

RUN FOR COVER GEMINI14!