IDEA: New Projectile-based Machine Gun for Battleships?

[Jinx]

firstly - i have read only about the first half of the posted replies to the OP - so i might repeat something that was already said

anyway - i ll only comment on how such a feature "could" be implemented in a way that the server can deal with it ... and the problems it may encounter.
- if you want to simulate something with a ton of shots per minute without actually simulating tons of shots per minute - you do what pretty much every game does that features such high refire weapons.... :
-- you only "draw" every other shot ( think of it as a tracer round ) - while your SOUND displays and simulates a high refire. - because only the tracer round would be a "real" projectile ( you d still need a fairly high refire - like 8.33 or so ) - you give it a large radius ( normal radius is 1 pixel - you could give it like 20 pixels or whatever is balanced to simulate a "firestorm" projectiles )
-- to make it not look like your normal 8.33 rapid fire laser - you can add dispersion variations - so the tracer round never shoots straight at the curser - but at a small but random angle.

but guess what - that idea is not new - and it also failed. - we had ( or do we still have them?! ) gattling solaris - which were meant to be pretty much that.
original idea solaris: accurate high refire PD at short range
original idea gattling solaris: inaccurate extreme refire defense weapon creating more random firestorms at longer range
put them together - and you were meant to get both - a psychological intimidation ( gattling firestorm ) at mid range - and a highly accurate PD at short range ( original solaris idea was about 2500ms at around 2k range ) - but yea - kinda failed.

about the problems

when you introduce ammo, you have to give a weapon "something" in return compared to its ammo-less weapons. ( remember missiles vs. guns ) - especially this age old missles vs. guns debatte gives you a good idea of the different perceptions of the problem.
an ammobased weapon is meant to be:
- more accurate
- more damaging
- requires less skill for a greater return
an ammo-less weapon is meant to be:
- less accurate ( meaning out of all the shots fired, less shots will hit )
- less damaging
- requires more skill for less return ( because each hit does less damage )

a pilot relying on ammo would be MUCH more effective than a pilot with ammo-less weapons while he has ammo - but MUCH less effective the longer the fight drags on ( and the more he depletes his ammo - up until the point when he is out of ammo )

disco has not yet mastered the balance of those two types of weapons ( or we would not have had a more recent complaint about missiles being too effective )

if you think of an ammobased battleship weapon - you are inevitably thinking about a HIGH caliber cannon that has to be superior to the ammo-less counterpart while it has ammo - or there would be no reason to pick a weapon that can run out of ammo - and actually adds "maintenance/running costs" to flying the ship. - so the big question is - what should those advantages be?

- faster projectiles? ( kinda strange considering the ammo-less weapons are mainly particle or laser based - which is both either very near or at the speed of light )
- greaeter range? - physically it makes sense ... balance wise it might give the snub/cap balance a headache
- use absolutely no energy to fire? makes sense, too - but then - firing full barrages of solaris doesn t exactly strain your typical battleships core either
- just be cool and different? yea, not so sure it ll catch on...


personally - i like cosmetic variation - even of the same weaponstats. - but ammo-based vs. ammo-less is not cosmetic anymore and a real problem for balance - at least from my pov.

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