An expansion of a concept I briefly touched on in another thread:
So, you've got chainguns, plasma, cannons, all this good stuff. Right now the only differences between them are their stats - damage, rate of fire, projectile velocity/hitscan, overheating and all that. What I propose is no small change: Give each weapon class a different purpose.
For now, let's say:
Chainguns/Bolters are effective against shields, decent against hull and components, but fare extremely poorly against armour - able to do raw damage, but with a diceroll to be deflected. Some chainguns/bolters could have an "AP ammo" trait reducing this chance by a large degree, ensuring more of the shots do damage to armour.
Cannons are the anti-armour. Their shots can penetrate X units through the point of impact, doing damage to all components it intersects with. It doesn't damage armour much, so against cannons, armour acts as a buffer against that penetration and nothing else. Very thick armour will defeat a cannon round, but this'd come at a huge expense in speed/maneuverabilty. Spaced hull/armour pieces would be a thing too. As for their performance against shields, I think they should be the primary defence against cannons, but with a chance for the shot to penetrate or something, using the shield as the point of impact, meaning sometimes it'll only reach as far as the outmost hull/armour bits, but still giving them a means to punish otherwise unprotected tech components.
Plasma is the dependable all-rounder; at the expense of its slow projectiles, general inaccuracy and poor performance at range, and energy consumption, it does equal damage to shields and melts individual blocks - Thick and layered armour would be the primary means of protection, with maneuverability and speed being an alternative.
Lasers take the role of a supporting weapon: Low DPS, but long range hitscan and near-perfect accuracy (But still dependent on gunnery ofc). Lasers would slowly sap shield and hull alike, and be a good means of defence against small, and fast, but lightly protected ships, helping keep them at bay. They'd help swing the qualities of the target ship leaving them more open to the vulnerabilities of your main armaments by draining the shield and slowly stripping away armour blocks and rubbing salt in the wound.
Lightning becomes a special-purpose weapon: Instead of dealing raw DPS, its purpose is now screwing with the target's energy production, essentially eventually rendering it unable to fire or recharge its shields. Armour would act as insulation, meaning the lightning needs to be focused on the target longer to have an effect, but firing it on exposed tech components would increase their energy drain on the target ship, and as they drain more energy, they also do more damage to those components, upon destruction of which the target ship's energy systems are much less taxed at the expense of having lost a shield generator for example.
Tesla, I'm not sure on, I kinda see it as superfluous. Feel free to fill this in for me
Railguns become dual-purpose. They generally have a good chance to negate shields entirely, but when it fails to do so, it does no damage to the shield or what's underneath it. However, when they do hit hull, they take a good chunk out, dealing hefty damage to blocks in a small radius, with armour able to withstand the splash but not a direct hit.
Missile launchers, well. Further diversification! The warheads of each launcher's missiles would inherit the properties of one of the above weapons: Ballistic missiles have the same effect on targets as chainguns (good v shields, bad v armour, alright v hull), Anti-Armour the same as cannons (penetrates, does linearly falling damage to each block it intersects), Plasma the same as Plasma (Good for hitting weak points and tearing away at layers of blocks), you get the picture.
It gets more complex. Missile launchers are then split up into three categories: Rocket launchers, Missile launchers and Torpedoes.
Rockets can be either guided or unguided, but are generally slow (Still faster than current missiles though, they're awful for that) and do a small amount of damage. They are fired in large salvos with a medium reload time, with a successfully connecting salvo doing a fair bit of harm to the target. Some could have a dicerolled quality of trading damage for speed and/or tracking, to perform better against faster/smaller ships.
Missiles however would be taking that role. Typically missiles will always be guided and fast with a medium payload, about equivalent to near a full rocket salvo. Against fast ships, the missile will stand the highest chance of getting there and delivering the warhead's damage, while it will typically be inefficient against bigger, more heavily protected ships, however with the highest guarantee of hitting the target. They'd have a pretty long reload, making the timing of their use essential if the target's vulnerability is enough for it to be decisive.
Torpedoes are anti-capital-ship. Slow and weakly, if not un-guided, they are nevertheless the most powerful, delivering a large payload to the target. They have two further qualities: A large splash, which may damage the firing ship, and a diceroll for a minimum arming distance - Proximity to the target becomes a big factor in their use, meaning your target has to be immobilised or otherwise sluggish to be vulnerable to them. Their reload is very slow, meaning you have a limited number of opportunities to put them to use against the target. As with missiles, timing and target choice are key: A ballistic torpedo can potentially cripple a target's shields, but if its shields are down and there's armour underneath, you've missed the opportunity to put it to its greatest use. Likewise, you're going to have to wait for the shields to go down to use an Anti-Armour torpedo effectively.
(Note: Maybe swap the railgun's properties with those of the cannons - considering hitscan, the cannon's properties may be more appropriate)
The diverse properties of how these weapons interact with the different defences they're to overcome will result in weapon choice being truly meaningful, making a comparison between two ships much more granular, but also wider-ranging - An armoured box with railguns and no shields against a shield-generator with chainguns and an engine strapped to it? Ship design would be so much more involved with accounting for the different types of damage you are or expect to be facing, and your choices in weaponry will help further define your methodology in combat. That about sums it up.
Suggestion
Morbo513
An expansion of a concept I briefly touched on in another thread:
So, you've got chainguns, plasma, cannons, all this good stuff. Right now the only differences between them are their stats - damage, rate of fire, projectile velocity/hitscan, overheating and all that. What I propose is no small change: Give each weapon class a different purpose.
For now, let's say:
Chainguns/Bolters are effective against shields, decent against hull and components, but fare extremely poorly against armour - able to do raw damage, but with a diceroll to be deflected. Some chainguns/bolters could have an "AP ammo" trait reducing this chance by a large degree, ensuring more of the shots do damage to armour.
Cannons are the anti-armour. Their shots can penetrate X units through the point of impact, doing damage to all components it intersects with. It doesn't damage armour much, so against cannons, armour acts as a buffer against that penetration and nothing else. Very thick armour will defeat a cannon round, but this'd come at a huge expense in speed/maneuverabilty. Spaced hull/armour pieces would be a thing too. As for their performance against shields, I think they should be the primary defence against cannons, but with a chance for the shot to penetrate or something, using the shield as the point of impact, meaning sometimes it'll only reach as far as the outmost hull/armour bits, but still giving them a means to punish otherwise unprotected tech components.
Plasma is the dependable all-rounder; at the expense of its slow projectiles, general inaccuracy and poor performance at range, and energy consumption, it does equal damage to shields and melts individual blocks - Thick and layered armour would be the primary means of protection, with maneuverability and speed being an alternative.
Lasers take the role of a supporting weapon: Low DPS, but long range hitscan and near-perfect accuracy (But still dependent on gunnery ofc). Lasers would slowly sap shield and hull alike, and be a good means of defence against small, and fast, but lightly protected ships, helping keep them at bay. They'd help swing the qualities of the target ship leaving them more open to the vulnerabilities of your main armaments by draining the shield and slowly stripping away armour blocks and rubbing salt in the wound.
Lightning becomes a special-purpose weapon: Instead of dealing raw DPS, its purpose is now screwing with the target's energy production, essentially eventually rendering it unable to fire or recharge its shields. Armour would act as insulation, meaning the lightning needs to be focused on the target longer to have an effect, but firing it on exposed tech components would increase their energy drain on the target ship, and as they drain more energy, they also do more damage to those components, upon destruction of which the target ship's energy systems are much less taxed at the expense of having lost a shield generator for example.
Tesla, I'm not sure on, I kinda see it as superfluous. Feel free to fill this in for me
Railguns become dual-purpose. They generally have a good chance to negate shields entirely, but when it fails to do so, it does no damage to the shield or what's underneath it. However, when they do hit hull, they take a good chunk out, dealing hefty damage to blocks in a small radius, with armour able to withstand the splash but not a direct hit.
Missile launchers, well. Further diversification! The warheads of each launcher's missiles would inherit the properties of one of the above weapons: Ballistic missiles have the same effect on targets as chainguns (good v shields, bad v armour, alright v hull), Anti-Armour the same as cannons (penetrates, does linearly falling damage to each block it intersects), Plasma the same as Plasma (Good for hitting weak points and tearing away at layers of blocks), you get the picture.
It gets more complex. Missile launchers are then split up into three categories: Rocket launchers, Missile launchers and Torpedoes.
Rockets can be either guided or unguided, but are generally slow (Still faster than current missiles though, they're awful for that) and do a small amount of damage. They are fired in large salvos with a medium reload time, with a successfully connecting salvo doing a fair bit of harm to the target. Some could have a dicerolled quality of trading damage for speed and/or tracking, to perform better against faster/smaller ships.
Missiles however would be taking that role. Typically missiles will always be guided and fast with a medium payload, about equivalent to near a full rocket salvo. Against fast ships, the missile will stand the highest chance of getting there and delivering the warhead's damage, while it will typically be inefficient against bigger, more heavily protected ships, however with the highest guarantee of hitting the target. They'd have a pretty long reload, making the timing of their use essential if the target's vulnerability is enough for it to be decisive.
Torpedoes are anti-capital-ship. Slow and weakly, if not un-guided, they are nevertheless the most powerful, delivering a large payload to the target. They have two further qualities: A large splash, which may damage the firing ship, and a diceroll for a minimum arming distance - Proximity to the target becomes a big factor in their use, meaning your target has to be immobilised or otherwise sluggish to be vulnerable to them. Their reload is very slow, meaning you have a limited number of opportunities to put them to use against the target. As with missiles, timing and target choice are key: A ballistic torpedo can potentially cripple a target's shields, but if its shields are down and there's armour underneath, you've missed the opportunity to put it to its greatest use. Likewise, you're going to have to wait for the shields to go down to use an Anti-Armour torpedo effectively.
(Note: Maybe swap the railgun's properties with those of the cannons - considering hitscan, the cannon's properties may be more appropriate)
The diverse properties of how these weapons interact with the different defences they're to overcome will result in weapon choice being truly meaningful, making a comparison between two ships much more granular, but also wider-ranging - An armoured box with railguns and no shields against a shield-generator with chainguns and an engine strapped to it? Ship design would be so much more involved with accounting for the different types of damage you are or expect to be facing, and your choices in weaponry will help further define your methodology in combat. That about sums it up.
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