In all of the space combat games that I have played, the optimal attack is to line the enemy up in your sights (they are in front of you) and keep them in your sights, blasting all of the time. If the enemy is behind you (and thus might fly into your mine/grenade) then you're probably Doing It Wrong™. Even then, getting them directly behind you is very difficult (especially when you are looking forwards). Either you need to be guessing their position or you need to 'switch' your viewscreen to rear-view mode, in which case you're flying blind and can't see what you might crash into.

Star Trek Online handles this pretty well. You have a third person view of the ship and you can rotate the camera in all directions, like Josh has shown in his videos. Too look behind and in front of you is actually very easy and quick.

In that game they have forward weapons and aft weapons. My strategy is to blast the other ship as I'm heading towards them when I get too close I turn around and continue firing at them with my aft weapons. I do agree that mines are fairly useless in space sims, in STO the ships don't fly fast enough to play chase. Typically both ships are sort of flying in their own random direction. occasionally you get stuck flying circles, orbiting a central point consisting of your exchanged weaponry fire

But regardless, I definitely agree with having weapons on the front and the rear of my ship, at least with the smaller fighters. Realistically carriers will probably have large turrets that can turn 360 degrees, I'm not sure if all weapons are going to be on turrets in this game regardless of your ship size...I am getting off topic here though I think...

But long story short, I agree that mines don't usually serve much purpose in a 3D environment but I disagree with having difficulty seeing behind me in a space sim

Unguided missiles aren't that feasible against small, agile ships. Slow, lumbering giants on the other hand are quite easy to hit with an unguided missile.

Yeah, but that's where the trouble starts. Small ship usually use missiles against targets that they have trouble hitting, or trouble damaging with their guns. In most cases, small craft missiles do piddly damage in the first place, unless they're specialized payload like torpedoes.
In nearly all iterations so far, however, unguided missiles seem to consist of low-payload junk with extremely limited range. You can't use them against small craft (which are too fast to be reliably hit) and you won't use them against large craft (since the damage you do per shot is pitiful, and the time you need to unload the complete rack is too long - that is, if you actually have a decent rack, and not just a handful of them). So you end up with a weapon that is useless, despite having decent stats on paper.

I can think of two way to make them somewhat worthwhile. The first would be to have them behave more like an actual gun instead of a missile (i.E., projectiles that are fast enough to hit small moving targets, and fired like a gun, including target lead estimation in the HUD).
The second would be to give them an ungodly large payload, turning the craft employing them into the equivalent of a torpedo or dive bomber.
Heck, I'd probably use both systems.

Those are some great weapon ideas, I will work on adding them into the OP later today. I'm curious how exactly a bomb/explosion pumped laser functions, if you can explain it for me that would be amazing.

In a nutshell: a focusing element is used to bundle the gamma radiation from a nuclear bomb detonation into a coherent burst of x-rays. In a conventional design, this is obviously a one-shot thing, as the focussing element will be vaporized a few moments later. The USA had devised an anti-ICBM system based on the idea called "Project Excalibur", but the idea wasn't feasible with current technology.

Given that SF usually is full of forcefields, advanced alloys and other fancy unobtainium, the idea of focusing a nuclear blast into a coherent beam of gamma rays seems more feasible, and probably also slightly more reusable (the bomb as a x-ray source would still be consumed, but given enough shielding, the blast chamber and focusing array/lasing rod might be reusable).

Hardenberg wrote:In nearly all iterations so far, however, unguided missiles seem to consist of low-payload junk with extremely limited range.

I see two immediately "worthwhile" uses for rockets.
Both salvo-weapons, of course. Firing lots of them is the cool part about rockets. =)

1. Low range but HEAT warhead instead of HE.
   A nutcracker. A small ship can get close enough to target a capital ship's subsystem and fire a barrage of those.
   
   Useless at long range because you need high accuracy and a big target for a direct hit. Ergo, low range.
2. Long range point defense.
   Proximity fuse + HE warhead with decent damage area.
   Low accuracy so a high degree of scatter is a given.
   
   This is what a capital ship could use to try and intercept a swarm of fighters or missiles at long range.
   
   Also useful if a fighter got too close to a friendly capital ship and you want to brush it off with "soft" damage that won't dent the capital ship's shields.

Gazz wrote: Low range but HEAT warhead instead of HE.
A nutcracker. A small ship can get close enough to target a capital ship's subsystem and fire a barrage of those.

Useless at long range because you need high accuracy and a big target for a direct hit. Ergo, low range.

Why not use a longer range missile that 'MIRVs' into such rockets when in proximity to target? Surely it has a better chance of getting close than your ship?

Long range point defense.
Proximity fuse + HE warhead with decent damage area.
Low accuracy so a high degree of scatter is a given.
This is what a capital ship could use to try and intercept a swarm of fighters or missiles at long range.

Rather like a longer range version of modern-day disruptors (APS)- they should be pretty effective if they reach the target. The problem is that fighters could just as easily use disruptor disruptors if they detect them approaching.

Ok, so I looked through a majority of this thread, and I'm fairly sure I hadn't found any one post with the answer or a possible one.. but! here's an idea for the 'mine' weapon. and correct me please if I missed a weapon type int he beginning that is the same as this. so imagine a sort of star wars scenario, with boba (or Jango) Fett and he has that sort of concussion wave weapon that he drops behind his craft , now you could have two types. one that is like a mine, sits still, (btw was thinking if you can cloak a ship why not a mine?) and it's either stealthy or well hidden, and it could do minor damage but a large blast radius. and then the fast deploy like Boba (or Jango) has where it's timed for a said number of seconds and since you have to aim with this one and hitting is harder, it could have a slightly smaller blast radius, but an increased damage.

please tell me what you think, cause I hate playing games with weapons that only have a few weapons! so I will certainly try my best to keep the list up and more!

tuinces wrote:one that is like a mine, sits still, (btw was thinking if you can cloak a ship why not a mine?)

Because no one likes getting hit by random damage in the middle of nowhere. More people will be like "WTF" than "Ahhh, cloaked mine!"

Regardless of how vast space is and how unlikely it is to hit a mine just sitting there, it becomes damage that you are unable to mitigate since it is hidden and you can't avoid it.

DWMagus wrote:

tuinces wrote:one that is like a mine, sits still, (btw was thinking if you can cloak a ship why not a mine?)

Because no one likes getting hit by random damage in the middle of nowhere. More people will be like "WTF" than "Ahhh, cloaked mine!"

Regardless of how vast space is and how unlikely it is to hit a mine just sitting there, it becomes damage that you are unable to mitigate since it is hidden and you can't avoid it.

Ok I see the point there, but there is still the possibility of the.. well, maybe more of a timed detonator than a mine, but I'm still thinking of the weapon that Boba was dropping, technically it isn't a mine, but still that could still be a good weapon when you're in a tight spot. that weapon was never intended for damaging larger vessels anyway, it was mostly for dispersing fighters.

tuinces wrote: Ok I see the point there, but there is still the possibility of the.. well, maybe more of a timed detonator than a mine, but I'm still thinking of the weapon that Boba was dropping, technically it isn't a mine, but still that could still be a good weapon when you're in a tight spot. that weapon was never intended for damaging larger vessels anyway, it was mostly for dispersing fighters.

Like an AoE weapon that would -for instance- resists the speed of ships caught in the field?

Katorone wrote:

tuinces wrote: Ok I see the point there, but there is still the possibility of the.. well, maybe more of a timed detonator than a mine, but I'm still thinking of the weapon that Boba was dropping, technically it isn't a mine, but still that could still be a good weapon when you're in a tight spot. that weapon was never intended for damaging larger vessels anyway, it was mostly for dispersing fighters.

Like an AoE weapon that would -for instance- resists the speed of ships caught in the field?

YES! I've had that term on the tip of my tongue since yesterday but just couldn't get it out.
and, the way you explained that brought other ideas of differing variants to that weapon, though, I'm sure emp is probably already in here, that could be one, also, possibly a variant that would cause a momentary electronic blindness, more or less a flare but could work on pulse or beam turrets as well. And of course there is the one that would do some damage just from the wave of energy that of course could harm any vessel within say a hundred meters after a given amount of time, no doubt only fighters could deploy this since only they could get away in time before it detonates.

tuinces wrote: YES! I've had that term on the tip of my tongue since yesterday but just couldn't get it out.
and, the way you explained that brought other ideas of differing variants to that weapon, though, I'm sure emp is probably already in here, that could be one, also, possibly a variant that would cause a momentary electronic blindness, more or less a flare but could work on pulse or beam turrets as well. And of course there is the one that would do some damage just from the wave of energy that of course could harm any vessel within say a hundred meters after a given amount of time, no doubt only fighters could deploy this since only they could get away in time before it detonates.

I like AoE weapons with random buffs/debuffs, but in a mine-form I don't see how they add to gameplay.
The ships that are small fly fast enough to be clear of the blast in time. And ships that are large won't be bothered by it at all. Worst case scenario is as DWMagus said, some random mine kills you at a random time without a real cause.

With the danger of getting into arcade-waters, I'd propose this instead:
Special support ships could deploy drones/turrets that do various buffs or debuffs. For instance, they could shoot a beam of energy to passing friendly ships that reinforces their shields. Others could shoot AoE effects that slow all fighters down in its radius (friend and foe). These drones/turrets would have a small power supply and would self destroy / turn into space debris after their power is emptied.
This way, people who like to play supportive roles can have their cake too.

Pretty extensive discussion on Mines already in this topic, if you're interested:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=217

I see someone has yet to add drones into this melting pot of weapons (other than the OP's short description)

I came up with a few classes of drones below:

Hull Leeches -

These drones will try to suck out energy or air from the hull of the enemy ship. Players would deploy these at the beginning of a battle to try and have ongoing damage. These would be much smaller than an enemy fighter, but slow. They would be able to get under shields, just like fighters.

Combat Drones -

These are your generic, everyday drone. However, they come in different shapes and sizes. You can choose to have a swarm (10-20? Too many drones would cause some extreme lag during large ship battles.) of weak drones that are small and harder to hit, or a few, well equipped/upgraded/whatever drones that are larger, take up more cargo/mass and may require a larger dispenser. Smaller drones could also have maneuverability bonuses.

EMP Drones

These would be your expensive but high-damage drones. There could be medium cost ones, that a established player may be able to buy one or two, however would be much weaker. A well-established player might be able to buy better ones.
these drones could do quite a few things:

Temporary shield takedown- This would have to be VERY weak. (1-2 seconds?) it may be useful against smaller vessels, but this would not be enough to destroy large capital vessels. Also, small chance to malfunction certain shield quadrants? Possibly require high-end drones? Destroying these drones brings shields back up? Friendly fire?

Guidance/targeting system malfunction- This would give you a short advantage (30 seconds?) of making your enemy really bad at aiming.
Or, it could possibly hurt you, too, where it would be more of a flight weapon then a fight weapon. Certain weapons might be invulnerable to this, like unguided missiles that trained pilots can shoot without targeting

Cloaking System malfunctions- Kinda obvious, prevents the enemy, (or yourself) from cloaking away in a battle.

Mini jump malfunctions- Also obvious, the targeted ship can either not make mini jumps ( resource intensive [or not] jumps that travel short distances but good for flight [may also be hard to get a mini jump modification]) OR the targeted ship may lose its calibration, which may take a while to regain. Any uncalibrated jumps are random. If you decide to take a uncalibrated jump, I wish you luck in not warping into a star.

I personally, would be a major user of drones.

I agree the idea of drone sounds excellent, what about also including other specialist types of drones?

Specifically I was thinking of two types:

1) Shield drones that move to where your shields are receiving the greatest volume of fire reinforcing them, the drawback is if the shield goes so does the drone, also if a shield is penetrated by fighters then they are vulnerable to direct fire.

2) Repair drones, I imagined these to float around the ship and repair any damage that impacts the ship, Id imagine these to have their own working shields to help protect them from damage, but they would have no offensive ability's as a consequence

Not sure as its quite right thread, but I would like to make some suggestions regarding weapon procedural generation:

1. As i see it now every weapon will be generated. My only concern is that every single ship in let’s say factions fleet will have different weapons. Its much realistic to generate some fixed quantity of this weapons (let’s say 100-200 different weapons per faction) and make their ships use this weapons, because it doesn’t makes sense in term of engineering to make new weapon for every single ship that comes from shipyard.
2. As seen from last Josh's develog there can be missile launcher with 75m/s projectile speed. Ist it too slow? it will be wise to limit some min/max numbers so there will no be some "strange" weapons that are almost useless, what was the point for engineer to make this weapon?

Well it was just a cheep starting weapon,
just immagine it as a cheep antique in a pawn shop.
Besides it's just the first generation prototype of the
rendomly generated items gadget.