Projectile that is not destroyed when it damages ships

[thenerdfreak]

Maybe a decently powerful railgun or something that could penetrate multiple ships

[endless-sky]

Right now, the only way a projectile can damage multiple ships is if it has a blast radius. Making a projectile that could pass through one ship (damaging it) and then go on to damage another would mean every projectile would need to remember what ships it has already hit so that it cannot damage a single ship twice. That's doable, but maybe not worth adding support for unless there's a big demand for it.

[luiges90]

what about having the projectile damages any ship that is overlapping with it every frame, and will not get destroyed upon hitting any ship? The projectile just go through it.

(Yes large ship will take more damage that way, but this is one simple way of doing similar effect the OP mentioned)

[brick96]

It makes sense that a bigger ship would take more damage since the shot would go through alot more of the ship

[jafdy]

Nice idea but I think I would be inclined to put it as a main gun and use it as an artillery weapon.

[thenerdfreak]

I was thinking more of a huge beam cannon that fired a single shot that instantly pierced all ships it went through (no need for modifications to the engine if it was instant right?) and then had a recharge time

[Tufton]

I was thinking more of a huge beam cannon that fired a single shot that
instantly pierced all ships it went through (no need for modifications to
the engine if it was instant right?) and then had a recharge time

Lux Ult

On Wed, Dec 9, 2015 at 8:04 AM, thenerdfreak notifications@github.com
wrote:

I was thinking more of a huge beam cannon that fired a single shot that
instantly pierced all ships it went through (no need for modifications to
the engine if it was instant right?) and then had a recharge time

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#424 (comment)
.

[fcfort]

How does this piercing rail gun make sense within the game? Does it only pierce if shields are down? Is it going right through all the shields and hull of every ship it pierces? Does it destroy every ship it pierces? How is it not destroying all these ships when it leaves holes in all of them?

[thenerdfreak]

@fcfort I was thinking ignored shields but did decent hull damage, and imparts a lot of heats (Think particles moving through the ship, not something blasting a big hole in it)

[Pointedstick]

I think you can see how that would be an unbalanced no-brainer of a weapon.

[thenerdfreak]

It's downside would be extremely slow fire rate and moderately low accuracy

[thenerdfreak]

And to further nerf it, 120 pts of weapon space :p

[brick96]

A big weapon, on a big ship, perfect for large targets but weak against smaller ships. The particle cannons are alot like rail guns now that I think about it

[frameworld]

@endless-sky > Right now, the only way a projectile can damage multiple ships is if it has a blast radius. Making a projectile that could pass through one ship (damaging it) and then go on to damage another would mean every projectile would need to remember what ships it has already hit so that it cannot damage a single ship twice. That's doable, but maybe not worth adding support for unless there's a big demand for it.

Well, you can let the projectile remember the last+current target (last 2). Should be sufficient if a ship can't catch it.
And is cheaper than iterating through a variable-length list.

[anonybosch]

120 tons of slow-fire, moderately-accurate goodness for battles that last on average 20 seconds?

Put me down for a dozen... to start.

[vnprc]

I can see some very interesting combat and story elements here. I like the idea of a ship with a single large gun for use against very large ships, but useless against smaller ships. However you will need to be very careful about balancing it.

There are lots of knobs you could turn:

• damage scales with the size of the target
• gun is forward firing but ship is slow to turn, making targeting difficult
• takes up multiple gun slots (useful to limit what ships it can be installed on)
• consumes an excessive amount of weapon space
• consumes excessive power, draining your battery after each shot
• generates a lot of heat, further restricting your rate of fire

Taking up several gun slots could be graphically represented by merging several beams into a single beam like the death star superlaser.

If it's still too imbalanced for player use, make it a one-time alien superweapon that takes up a story arc. E.G. your side has a fleet of warships decimated in the initial encounter, so a second fleet of smaller, nimbler ships is assembled to destroy the menace. Maybe a watered down version becomes available to the player some time after the mission is completed. Or the same gun is made available but player options for installing it are very limited.

[frameworld]

I would like an unique extremely powerful weapon slot on your ship.

Some ships are built around cargo, others around engines and again others around some sort of super-weapon? Nice!

[thenerdfreak]

I agree maybe make it a 1-time weapon, so you can't just obliterate everything with a fleet of them. Death star beam sounds nice :p

[brick96]

a HUGE energy drain, making it so it requires a large (or several large) batteries