Let's take the higher end (Cruiser/Battleship) Missiles...give them a bigger model, change their impact effect to a cool looking explosion, call them something else...like Ballistic Missile Turret or Cruiser Torpedo Battery
Gauss Weapons: long rang (should be infinite), very powerful, very fast projectile speed, very slow refire, very very accurate, weak against shields but very very powerful against haul, lots of energy consumption and you have to buy the rounds (since its a projectile weapon)
Capitol Ship Torpedo Tubes: long rang, very powerful, slow projectile speed, very slow refire, they can be shot down by enemy fire, each fire you shoot 4 torps (you could have some weapons that fire spreads and some that don't). These would hopefully be put on specially made Torpedo Boats that would carry like five launchers and a few defense weapons. The ships would be used for stand off spraying or close quarter charges.
Beam Weapons: you could have it so the gun shoots faster than the chainguns with really little projectiles so it looks continuous. Each level of weapon would fire longer before it "overheats" or you run out of energy. These weapons would be supper accurate (it would have a very small beam) and pretty powerful against the shield and somewhat deadly against the haul. These will eat energy and could only be used on Capitol Ships.
Rocket Pods: like the screamer pods of Starlancer, it would be on bombers and fighters. Each click fires 10 dumb-fire rockets in a salvo. Fast but with some spread (if it could be done to be random) they would not be powerful individually but if all 10 hit its powerful. Really shot range, you need to get almost on top of the ship to hit them (think the Helicopter attack in Apocalypse Now). Amo would be cheap.
Jammer Pods: It would take up a hard point but each time you fire it, it makes the enemies attacking you loose the leading crosshair. Each level would improve the distance and the duration of the jamming. Big energy drainer.
Ion Weapons: They would disable ships cruising ability (like a cruise disruptor, but for a shorter time than the really powerful disruptors), do A LOT of shield damage and hurt the power core and make it recharge at a slower rate (same for the thrusters). You could make the Liberty Cruiser's Main Gun an Ion Cannon but smaller ships could field weaker versions as well.
As a noob who can model or code I have no idea how to do any of this but I think that these are good ideas!
I think it would be cool to have rank-oriented weapons for the military. More than your Vengeances and Skyrails. Something ship-specific. Which would encourage the restriction of Avengers from recruits.
Something like this;
Executioner- LN issued. Outfitted with Recruit lasers that do enough damage to be effective in a PvP fight against pirates and such, but not enough to combat gunboats. Lieutenant lasers are available for purchase at LN player faction bases.
Upholder- LN issued. Outfitted with Commander/Captain/Whatever lasers that are enough to pound through GB/Cruiser shields. Not much use for anti-fighter combat, though.
Ballistic Weaponry Would be a nice addition to make some variety.
Examples:
Capital Ship Type:
Heavy:
Higher Speed then Normal Capital Weapons
High Range
Moderate-High Energy Us
Low Re-fire (1.0 or 0.5)
Ammunition Based (70 Rounds Total) Moderate/High Priced
Low Shield Damage
High Hull Damage
Fighters:
High Speed (1000m/s?)
Moderate Range
Low/Medium Energy
High Refire
Ammunition Based (70 Shots)
Very Low Shield Dammage
Moderate - High Hull Damage
Quick Controlled Bursts for quick damage output.
Edit: Their were Rocket Pods before called Swarm Pods. I heard it didn't go all that well
I feel that the missiles from Cruiser's and Batleships are already torps in their own right, heck they do more damage don't they and are longer ranged? I suggest that they be renamed perhaps as Torpedo Launchers. Keep all the same stats but make some changes in the visuals of the projectile and the explosion in particular.
Make different Forward Cannons for the classes that use them and provide them with a property since the Caps they are used on use shields with properties but the weapons that any ships uses against them effectively don't have properties of their own. Let's begin filling that gap by making these Forward cannons have more variety and have a more significant tactical role. Imagine that BD cruiser letting off Particle based shots while the Liberty Siege ship uses Tachyon encased projectiles, for example.
Well, my Idea involves the fact that everyone uses graviton shields, since they're the most effective against debilitators. It basically is to add new "Debilitator style" weapons, but to counter all 3 shield types.
Quote:Edit: Their were Rocket Pods before called Swarm Pods. I heard it didn't go all that well
Yup. They actually did pretty well as a weapon, but were taken out for causing server lag or something practical like that. Also, they were a little over-powered, in my opinion, just in the way that they were energy-based homing missiles that you could fire nonstop without having to worry about ammo. Ah, how I used to missile-spam them a few years back on my Rheinland Bomber...
I don't know. I would love to get something like the Swarm Pods back, if we could just figure a way around the technical problems.