IDEA: New Projectile-based Machine Gun for Battleships?

[Fluffyball]

Are you seriously trying to infer that players are going to leave because there won't be any NPCs? Are you seriously implying that AI-controlled ships that have 2 or 3 generic phrases that we've all heard 9000 times add life to a system? And furthermore that they contribute to activity, instead of the in game interactions and encounters created by players?

You can't be serious. No way.

You know what? Fuck this. Don't mind me, do as you wish. I don't care anymore. I wanted to point out this is RP server, and PvE is also a way to RP here, because there's not much players after all at some places and NPCs fills their place to being shoot at. Good, do it as you wish. Don't expect me to follow though. I quit this nonsense.

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User was banned for: http://discoverygc.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=138636
Time left: (Permanent)

[Highland Laddie]

Let's keep this on topic, please. I'm not the author of this thread, but my gosh...way to turn it into an argument about NPCs when it's supposed to be about a new BS weapon. You guys go make your own thread for that.

I don't want Zappers gone, either, but I would like them turned into something actually useful, like a good point-defense anti-torp weapon, or maybe even a special weapon that drains a ship energy without damaging shields like pulse weapons do? Or....maybe turn them into Repair Guns that can help heal hull?

[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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Shipdesigns made for DiscoveryGC

[Black Widow]

Well the whole point of it is to have a machine gun in space, the idea of it being ammo based only makes it more realistic.

It could be ammo less machine gun such that the dps is the same as a Class 9 Primary Gun but just divided up over a large number of bullets / sec.

The only requisite would be that it fires and sounds like a machinegun, see this video for an e.g of what it could be like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8MIzv4W2TE

All the guns in disco at the moment are too similar and there needs to be some more diversity to it than just lazers missiles and flaks. Machineguns I believe provide that diversity, while being engineered to not be as effective against snubs say by reducing the shield damage the projectile does to 0, so it only does hull damage. They could be an effective primary turret.

Maybe reduce the range of the machine guns projectiles (2k) while buffing up their dps when a target is in range, this will counteract the loss of damage done to a target when its not in range say when compared to a regular primary turret that has a range of 3k.

[Highland Laddie]

See, I was thinking less machine-gun like, and more akin to a high powered, long range rifle

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coilgun

Make it medium-long range, high projectile speed, lower refire rate, uses little to no energy, limited ammo count (maybe somewhere between 25-40), does little to no shield damage, but does MASSIVE hull damage.

[Black Widow]

you mean like a navarone gun

[Mímir]

You could make them like multicannons from Elite:



-Better against hull but worse against shield
-Requires less power to fire, but also requires ammunition
-Great at sustained damage (which could be neat for cap vs cap warfare)

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[Moberg]

See, I was thinking less machine-gun like, and more akin to a high powered, long range rifle

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coilgun

Make it medium-long range, high projectile speed, lower refire rate, uses little to no energy, limited ammo count (maybe somewhere between 25-40), does little to no shield damage, but does MASSIVE hull damage.

Reminds me of this. Could be like an ammo-based mortar. Around 10-15 shots available, then it grows useless. Could be great for burst damage in combat to take out important targets first in fleet battles.