Transponder Railgun Mk I

Damage: 400
Speed: 400 m/s
Energy: 75
Delay: 2 seconds
Mass: 500 kg
Targeting: None
Ammo: 20
Level: 5/5/-/-/- and Corvus (or Evil Co.) +850

Description: A rail gun modified to fire light armor-piercing transponder projectiles. These projectiles do moderate damage to the targeted ship as they embed themselves in its hull, and will transmit the target's coordinates until removed at a dock or by a repair gun.

Transponder Railgun Mk II

Drain: 100
Speed: 400 m/s
Energy: 75
Delay: 2 seconds
Mass: 350 kg
Targeting: None
Ammo: 10
Level:6/6/-/-/- and Corvus (or Evil Co.) +1000

Description: This modified variant of the transponder railgun fires an advanced projectile light enough to avoid any tell-tale damage and powers up by draining the target's battery. Like the Mk I variant, it will transmit the target's coordinates until removed at a dock or by a repair gun

+1

Great idea, +1

-1 gives the attacker way too much of an advantage. As if one would have time to repair gun these things off with some assclown not only knowing your exact location at all times but also yapping about it on 100.

Then run for a dock, or have a buddy scrub you clean on the fly. But there needs to be some way to counter the issue of random jumping until sector load times, ping differences, and random dice roll warp-ins make escape a trivial matter.

A way to temporarily tag someone is a no brainer.

+1

Not only could this be used by ebil pirates to chase a victim, it could also be used by traders to avoid a rat, or force one to dock, or anti-rats to locate a rat. A nationalist to locate a CTC runner etc.

-1000000
Rats that want to chase/kill someone do just fine w/o them knowing where you are at all times.

+1 I think this is quite balanced. The 'rat' in question needs to use this weapon instead of a 'real' weapon, sacrificing 1000-2100 damage per shot and 80m/s velocity for the tracking information. This practically means that a hound only has the large port left for dealing damage, which is quite a sacrifice

Of course, this lends itself to team work (wolf packs), but anything that promotes team tactics is good (including getting traders to actually get an escort when they are carrying something important through grey!).

It could be considered to require a pvp badge similar to conventional railguns and increase the mass as conventional railguns are much heavier.

Just another case of the Pirates wanting another weapon to help make up for their lack of ability. If you can't catch us, you now want to know exactly where we are at all times till we can get repaired with you on our tail. This may be ok once there are docks for Dents in nearly every sector, but is stupid with the current setup. I say Dents, cause you are good at shooting the unarmed XC's.
And some keep mentioned escorts, at times they are hard to find, just like you finding help to shoot at our Dents.

-99999999999999 to this and other stupid ideas!!

-1
Who is going to equip one of these in favor of a weapon? Nobody. It's only use is to track Tridents so that attackers can find and kill them. How many times has a Moth escaped and a pirate got frustrated because he couldn't find it and kill it? Never...

The Tridents are big moth's... They have no weapons able to kill an attacker reliably so their only means to survive is to escape...

I'd be ok with this idea if we also got a turret that launched missiles that are fast and very maneuverable like the firecracker, but with only about 5 seconds burn time and high damage.

Give the Trident good shields to where a single player can't de-shield them, and this idea would be ok also.

+1

This is a brilliant idea. The people complaining about it are missing the point- this is a weapon slot that cannot be used to murder you. If it proves too powerful, you can restrict it further by upping the Grid usage. If it still proves too powerful, have the signal be scrambled on targets with active shields.

You guys realise you can bring a repair ship with you in a Trident, right? If you suspect you've been tagged, just hop out and repair, then continue on your merry way.

Adding this also creates new possibilities for mission objectives and branching plotlines, which is something that should interest everybody. In addition, like yoda mentioned, it fleshes out a bounty hunter role, empowers Vipers and those of similar bent to hunt down Problems, allows hive hunters to locate Queens more easily, or puts the proverbial bell on the cat.

There are reasons to not include a gadget like this due to current game balance, yes, but the benefits of introducing it are far greater.

I like the idea of tagging a ship with a transponder, but I think this is a powerful enough feature to warrant the loss of a weapon port. This should do no damage and have no other secondary effects.

A bonus side-effect of that would be that you could tag someone in the NFZ of a station, though.

+1. I don't care whether or not it does damage or drains.

"Who is going to equip one of these in favor of a weapon? Nobody."

I would, and presumably Lector would as well. But really, if "nobody" is going to use it, why do you care? Clearly you do believe people will use it. You fail at deceit.

"It's only use is to track Tridents so that attackers can find and kill them."

You also lack imagination. This item would be useful to people who might want to double-crash a nation war (i.e. track them to the new location) or whatever. It would also be useful for locating hidden CTC stashes. It could be used to track a mission-runner to the location where his mission is taking place, so that you can threaten to interfere, or take advantage of drops the mission involves, or something of that nature.

"The Tridents are big moth's... They have no weapons able to kill an attacker reliably so their only means to survive is to escape... "

That is patently incorrect. Teller-Ulam mines can reliably kill an attacker. Missile turrets can also kill an attacker, if you use them intelligently. And of course, now you can simply undock and fight. Note that with the exception of the valk, pursuit ships are not geared for dueling, and as has been noted in this thread, this weapon uses up one of the weapon ports. If you cannot successfully defeat or chase off a single-weapon greyhound with a real fighter, then you deserve whatever happens.

To quote your commander, Lisa: Vendetta is a game of combat. Bring a gun.

Teller-Ulam mines are anything but reliable. You get two shots and half the time they don't even detonate when someone's in range unless you actually shoot the friggin mine with your own turrets.

Trouble is, once someone hears the mine drop, they're going to immediately back off to a safe distance where they can still hit you, and still dodge your turret fire.

I don't even equip them anymore.

Note that with the exception of the valk, pursuit ships are not geared for dueling,
What about the SVG or the BioCom Vulture XT? Both of those are fine chase ships and can handle a duel as well. It doesn't take a Greyhound to stay on top of a Trident.

I fail to see how this would counter ping differences.

But +1, and file it in the bin of suggestions that will never happen.

Someone tell me why the trident counter isn't a undocking in a ship with a repair gun.

-1

Here are the facts for dents (as they are as of today):

* TU mines are only reliability, and all other trident weapons are jokes.

* You can not risk exiting your dent easily to repair if you are homed 2 wh away.

* You don't always tow a rep ship, and you can't go and grab one with a sitting duck dent with an aggressor on your ass.

* You wouldn't believe, but lots of players are on mobile devices 90%+ of the time, so exit and pvp as it is "easy"? Come on!! Who are you fooling? And you have to pvp with a ship whose one port is occupied with a rep gun?

* Carrying a rep ship AND a fighter MIGHT work, so ok, let's sacrifice minimum 300 cu of space for that "might" and die anyway.

Dent has a thick hide, but not infinately thick. Such a weapon will almost guarantee death of a dent when two aggressors attack. As far as I can see, only a "lucky" storm can save the dent.

Short version: no thanks...

Not everyone will give up a weapon port for the ability to tag people, and those who do will have to PvP with one port occupied with a tag gun. If you want to skip carrying a ship you can deploy, or equip such a ship with weapons and no repair guns, those are cost/benefit choices you're free to make...but they should have costs.

Sounds balanced to me.

+1