| Author |
Weapon damages. |
Rhiawhyn Zerinth
Fleet Admiral
Templar Knights
Joined: October 31, 2005
Posts: 257
From: I.C.C Deep space refueling station
|  Posted: 2008-07-22 21:34
While I know the weapons in DarkSpace arent realistic i think we should have SOME "realistic" damages, just something to think about.
I personaly think ammo based (projectile) weapons should do more damage overall than energy based ones. Why? Simple, they are solid masses of already stable atoms. While I understand how energy based weapons can do MORE damage than projectiles, they should do less due to the fact that the ship using them never needs to jump out for ammo (or have a sup ship reload them)
So here is my idea: at close range (100, 800 gu) have things like pcannons
do 180% more damage than rails, but at medium range have them do the SAME damage (900 to 1500 gu) as rails, anything farther and rails do more
damage than energy weapons.
something of a graph of damages:
P-cannon: point blank 200%, close 180%, med 100%, long 50%.
Railgun: no damage falloff, damage is a constant 100% (all others are compared to that)
Psi cannon: point blank 280%, close 220%, med 80%, long 0% (cant shoot long range)
Gauss cannon: point blank 80% (explained later), close range 100%, med range 110%, long range 130%.
Emp cannon: point blank 150% damage (all system/shield damage % here.) close 80%, med 50%, long 25% (the system damage drops the farther you get from the ship; while its still deadly even at 25%, that's still system damage if it hits hull)
For the gauss cannon, I belive it should be more of a long range "sniper" weapon, while it may have a slower reload time than rails, it flies faster and hits harder near its max range then rails (close range rails still beat them)
This would add something to the ICC that most other factions have--alternate weapons and playstyles (to a degree) that allows players to modify the ships a little to better fit the playstyle they use.
All factions should have at least two cannons that can damage hull, and one secondary cannon that has a utility to it, if done correctly, no gun can be "better" than another, as they all will have their own advantages and disadvantages. For example, emp cannons shread shields, but do nothing to anything but systems/shields, railguns never gain or lose damage, particle cannons do more at beam rage then at any other range. ext ext.
This way the modding system stays in place, everything has an advantage to being used, and no one weapon or system has more "power" then another--while one may work for you, it wouldn't work for how another person likes to play.
Thanks to a friend of mine who helped me edit this long post, without his help i am sure it would be semi unreadable >_<...
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death is not the greatest loss of life, the greatest lost of life is what dies inside of us while we live.
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Sardaukar
Admiral
Raven Warriors
Joined: October 08, 2002
Posts: 1656
| Posted: 2008-07-22 21:53
This would certainly put more emphasis on choosing range for damage versus accuracy.
As an aside, I think it'd be nice to see ballistic weapons that actually capitalize on using ammo rounds that are physical and modifiable. Railgun slugs that have a chance to pierce armor, but do less overall damage, or high-explosive rounds that cause extra system damage or deal a little splash, etc.
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Enterprise
Chief Marshal
Raven Warriors
Joined: May 19, 2002
Posts: 2576
From: Hawthorne, Nevada
| Posted: 2008-07-22 23:08
You do know right, that pcannons and psi cannons already have falloff, and railguns don't right?
Don't know about gauss though.
I also want to point out that this overwhelmingly favors close combat cannons, as to be honest, most combat takes place within 500gu. This is because beyond that range, most weapons miss. You have to make weapons meant for long range fast enough that they are almost impossible to dodge for them to be just as effective as close combat weapons (because honestly, at close range, you aren't missing either).
This is a serious factor that alot of people overlook. The range bonus on railcannons (currently) is pretty useless because you're going to miss at that range against anything but the largest ships (read: stations). The same thing applies with damage. Unless the damage is higher to account for the miss rate or the miss rate is significantly reduced, then using long range over short range is pretty redudant (as the best supporting weapons are also close range, like torpedos and lasers).
Theres also the fact that keeping your distance in Darkspace is very very hard. You either need a dictor to keep ships from point jumping you, or... actually, thats the only way. In actual fleet combat, if you short jump away, you'll just get pounced on by someone else. In effect, its simply easier to use something that gives an enormous boost in damage by just doggedly closing the distance. Kluth and UGTO do this very well. ICC gets the shaft, because direct confrontation gets them killed very fast. They have to go through so much extra effort as it is to maximize their effectiveness, which is why next version they'll be by far the hardest to use.
Try to keep in mind how tactics really work.. there are alot of things that look great on paper, but alot of the time, they don't work in practice.
There are alot of ways to make specializations, but not soley through damage.
Range and speed, are also very good ways to get different effects. Especially when used together.
One thing that I feel should always be done, is that if you increase the range, you should increase the speed too. If you don't then you just make your shots shoot far - and always miss. Only new pilots don't dodge.
If you don't up the speed, then you could up the damage through inverse falloff, like Rhia suggested with the gauss cannon. That way, you make using it far away a good thing. There are two ways I think to make railguns specialized. You can make railguns speed up and do more damage the farther it travels (a 10% increase in speed and damage over every 100gu traveled). Or you could decrease the damage, increase the ammo, and increase the speed it travels no matter what.
For UGTO, I think their cannons have too much range. Even with falloff, they still do considerable damage at 500gu, the prime area where most combat takes place. It really does give them an advantage here, because they don't have to really consider what each of their shots do. with no ammo limits and enough energy reserves to spam cannons without fear.
So if you wanted to make them specialized (and more in tune with their faction), just decrease their range, and make them behave alot more like beams, but without as much reduced damage at max range. After all, the shots that do hit should do damage, it should give ICC incentive to stay the hell away.
The way it works like this, is that it drives ICC to stay at range (which right now, is pretty useless since ICC does more damage at close range), and it drives UGTO to really get close and not waste their shots and energy.
-Ent
[ This Message was edited by: Enterprise on 2008-07-23 13:07 ]
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Rhiawhyn Zerinth
Fleet Admiral
Templar Knights
Joined: October 31, 2005
Posts: 257
From: I.C.C Deep space refueling station
| Posted: 2008-07-23 14:25
Quote:
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On 2008-07-22 23:08, Enterprise wrote:
[snip]
[ This Message was edited by: Enterprise on 2008-07-23 13:07 ]
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Well what i was trying to go for was rails would have a higher overall damage than any other cannon, (the table has the rail base damage as 100%) while i agree that they should be faster, if you make rails as fast as gauss there would be no reason to pick gauss, unless gauss gets even FASTER projectiles.
all i am saying is that for ugto to have no "punishment" to spacebar spam for the cannons aside from the energy use (and its mostly unnoticable on cruisers and under.. for ugto)
It just irks me that icc have to carefully manage not only power, but shield rotation, ammo counts and sup ships, were ugto/kluth only need to worry about power (and cloak for kluth) the ammo for the torps/missiles is moot when they have infinite ammo cannons :
This is why i say we should make projectile based weapons (rails/gauss/missiles) do far more damage currently, the sheer fact that there wont be icc sups online all the time and near you all the time to reload you is a ballancer, you would have to kill the sup otherwise they have "unlimited" ammo. kill the sup, and you make the icc go "oh hell, i need to worry about ammo now..."
and before i forget to add, yes i am well aware of the pcannon damage falloff, but the thing is, the amage falloff is negligable at the ranges the cannons are used at :.
so there are two options, make rails stronger so that pcannons only have the advantage at close range, or make them fly faster with a longer range (to give them a better chance to hit).
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death is not the greatest loss of life, the greatest lost of life is what dies inside of us while we live.
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