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Laser beams aesthetics/balance

#1
Sorry if this has already been discussed I tried searching but my google-fu may be weak.

Right now laser "beams" are essentially candy colored bullets with a "pew pew" sound. I doubt Josh will change that but I was wondering if there are plans (or if it's being considered) to add a class of laser weapons that act more like the attached picture. That is, a large continuous beam that extends from it's origin all the way to whatever unfortunate target it is aimed at.

I feel like beam weapons like the attached picture are almost essential in any space game, they look incredibly cool in ship battles (especially when capital ships are involved). It also adds a little more differentiation to weapons then "bullets" and "colored bullets".
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Re: Laser beams aesthetics/balance

#4
That being said continuous laser beams would mix up the weapon meta a little as kinetic bullets and laser "bullets" are essentially the same in terms of how they deal damage (bullet damage * bullets hit).

Whereas beams are something like (time on target * beam DPS) so continuous beams would add a little more variety in terms of how damage is dealt.
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Re: Laser beams aesthetics/balance

#5
In some balance megathread I suggested something like continuous beam weapons ramping up damage slowly AS they fire but also, their turret turn rate is reduced drastically while firing.

You can probably keep a capital ship in your sights and ramp up to some serious damage but keeping something small bracketed would be difficult. Impossible at close range.
There is no "I" in Tea. That would be gross.
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Re: Laser beams aesthetics/balance

#6
i'd like beam type weapons to have a whole range of variations, not only the capship cracker variant.

to take up your old "it eats all the available weapons energy" idea:

maybe they have a defined energy limit, but they have a special "overallocation" mode where they take energy from other (weapon) systems.
for example:
500MW weapons energy overall
400MW allocated to other weapons
beam cannon gets 200MW allocated.

when it fires it reduces the allocation of the other weapons to 300 to get its 200 together, and reverting that change when its done with its cycle to cool down again.

(actually, overallocation could be used in general, not only for beam cannons, production modules powering down when not in use for example)

if their energy limit isnt "overallocated" they just spool up to their set limit and then power down again.
(like any other equipment)

this then also works with smaller variants, as your whole ship shouldnt shut down when you fire a point defence variant :S


important point is that all the beam cannons spool up from 0 to their max energy in some time thats dependent on the cannon and its allocated energy limit.

big capship crackers work with that, small point defense guns work with that, and everything in between (and the energy allocation works with other kinds of equipment too :mrgreen: )

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