Numbers may need a tweak: but how are you defining 'hit'? This is a X damage per Y second (or fraction thereof) of contact with weapon beam model I'm suggesting, so hit is however long one or more is in contact with the other hull.

toshiro, in kobudo (katori shinto ryu & daito ryu style), blocks are done using the median part of the blade such as in ko ga sumi and teora ga sumi blocks (aka, forming a tore gate above your head with the blade). the end (tip) part, the monochi, is preserved for the cut.

back on topic...

Oh! And can we have it so the Big HACs trasform into huge robots with swords >_>.

What? Transformers are way cool!

Cunjo, Don't get me wrong, I think shorter fights is a wonderful thing.

My issue with these weapons is that because fights would be so short with them, everyone would just fly other weapons, and fight at long range. And no one would furball anymore.

Sweet christ, can you read Lecter? He was talking about Gears of War.

I can't read Lecter. He's too unpredictable.

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upper case, have you got pictures of that? I am entirely unfamiliar with the terminology, so using it is lost on me. And how do you block, then? Edge to edge? Won't the fragility of the steel cause horrid nicks? I'm really interested, since all I heard and saw until now led me to believe otherwise.

On Topic: Shape, I think you misunderstood, they are not one-hit-one-kill weapons, like e.g. the lightsabers in the Jedi Knight game series, or the chainsaw in Gears of War, but a weapon like others. Personally, I could think of very interesting weapon combinations, e.g. for a Valkyrie, with a Neutron Blaster MkII, a Sunflare launcher/Gauss Cannon MkII and a lance. That way, you would have mid-range, close-range and 'melee' weaponry, a very versatile fighter.

However, I don't know how it would affect furballs.

off-topic reply for toshiro

aikibudo (redirected to aikido) is a martial art that comprises a number of different styles. it comes from aikido which has for source aiki jujitsu. aikibudo includes material from daito ryu and (Tenshin shodin) katori shinto ryu

tenshin shoden is a term wich means "god given" or "divine". Katori shinto ryu, according to tradition, was given to great masters by the gods themselves and thus is referred to in this way. the weapons part of the practice of aikibudo is wrapped in kobudo.

the asked pics: ko ga sumi and teora ga sumi. (from left to right Master Daniel Dubreuil, 6th dan and my teacher Mario Pelletier, 3rd dan in photos from 3 years ago or so.)

as you can see (particularly in the second picture), the blade are not quite perpendicular. the receiving one is angled a bit to avoid notching too much the blade. if faced with the choice, i'd rather have horrid nicks on my blade than my head. japanese blade polishers made a fortune back then.

back on topic...

How about the beams are more like the capacitor pulse laser in EV: Nova? That would be awesome, you charge em and let go and see a 100 meter long purple laser that lasts 3 seconds and does more or less damage depending on how long you charge. I suggest 80 drain at charge and lots of damage. Not too much, but its hard to hold onto a target for 3 seconds.

I want my purple lasers back rawr!

The suggested weapon already functions in much the same way (fixed length, constant drain at max power), but isn't as, shall we say, FUBAR.

Bump. I think this could be easily implemented, and should be.

/me imagines a swarm of cents darting around a HAC using these to drop the shields

Oh cmon melee weps on ships? I think it ridiculous.

Zed: why? They're not exactly unheard of in space combat games (EVN has the concept spread across three weapon classes), and it meshes with the VO space combat ideal particularly well, uniquely well for the Itani. The idea of a weapon that depends solely on twitch flight for hitting and evasion of being hit is what VO is all about.

That you can dodge by moving your ship around tends to negate the whole "but unlike swords you can't block" objection. Hell, if a decade of epee and saber has taught me anything, it's that your best defense to a sword attack is control of distance and body position, not the parry.

This would just remove the whole "shooting at" middle part of combat flight and leave you with just the flying.

I agree. I still like the idea.

Yeah but a decade of epee and sabre should have taught you that the dude with the gun is the one that wins. ;)

I just find it too silly and artificial.

I didn't get all the way through the thread before the thought hit me...

"who brings a knife to a gun fight?"

...then i thought...

"well, i would..."

I support the idea with a 9/10. I give it a 9 because we will be unsure of it's ability untill implamented. That and the stats are still a little fuzzy. Still, a very good idea.

Zed: This isn't Indiana Jones. The dude with the gun only wins because the human form is utterly unlike a ship's hull in VO. The massive ranged versus melee weapon divide evaporates when you're working with a combat context such as we have here. If my tri-lance valk gets inside the poor AAP SVG's effective range and slices through his hull with the energy beams, that he lands a few hits while I'm closing distance or in the furball matters not at all.

The same is not true of a swordsman (unarmored) trying to close distance or circle around a guy with a semi or fully automatic weapon. Think ships, hulls and the fact that the ability to deal damage via ramming has always been a useful tactic in vehicle-on-vehicle combat contexts, genius.

Lecter is quite right. Bullets from rifles and humans are in ranges of speed quite far apart when compared to the ship-projectile ratio.