No, I'm not flaming anyone, I'm opening the topic of FIRE up for discussion...

You know: flamethrowers, napalm, blobs of plasma, etc.

The effects could be uber-cool, and the possibility of hit-once for slow continual damage could be a great deterrent weapon (you get hit, better run for a station!)

in space?

You'd have to carry a lot of oxygen.

<eg>

Napalm, simplistic to make, but short range because well, every try to throw sticky jell-o? It would be a DOT (damage over time) weapon like poison because real napalm *can* burn for 5 hours, and it doesn't really explode.

Napalm a station!

Ummmmm in space is a good point. What's going to ignite the napalam and how is it going to keep burning? And if it's a flame thrower, or some similar weapon there's the whole ammo + rapid fire problem. (For those who don't know the devs have said that the servers can't deal with rapid fire weapons that take ammo.)

That would be simple... make it burst fire. ie: you press the trigger and 10 units of ammo are used up and the gun fires for 5 straight seconds or something like that. :)

you could have a plasma beam.

go plasma beam!

that weap is teh shit in Metroid Prime...

Speaking of plasma, and my understanding of chemistry is pretty limited mind you, isn't plasma more of like, this gloopy super-energy stuff? Maybe there could be, like, plasma globs that do DOT. Stick to the ship and "burn". Dunno, there really can't be fire in space, so maybe this could be, like, "space" fire. I'm tired, goodbye and don't make me look like too much of a jackass.

Plasma can be solid, luqid or gas.

hrm, to deal with napalm, youd have to have it fired in a canister, and be able to puncture the fabric of the target, therefore providing the fuel oxygen. . . of course, the canister can also contain some Liquid Oxygen onboard for the inital firing.


More logically, an acid or extreme heat(producd by CR would work) weapon would be good for DOT

there is clearly not enough biological warfare in this game. I would love to have a weapon that punctured the hull and let loose gas, and the player would be posined and his veiw would get really screwed up.

nice idea, but how will that effect gameplay? What bonus/drawbacks would it have? Is it feasible? Would it be balanced?

SirCamps: that's exactly the discussion I was hoping to spark. The science is irrelevant: this is a game not real life. See 1,043 other threads that explain why realism should not be a limiting factor in a game.

The concept introduces: you hit once with a short-range spray weapon, and then damage keeps happening... what would this do to gameplay? It would certainly force us to change our combat from the way it is now, as it could force ships to retreat to the local car-wash. I think it would add an interesting element, so long as the damage (initial and recurring) isn't too great; otherwise this could be the uber-weapon we're all trying to avoid.

or we could use an immediate treatment potion :D "antidote anyone :D"

as to say it in RPG terms

cheers

To address the oxygen issue everyone seems to be bringing up...there are self oxygenating fuels out there. What do you think torpedos run on?

Now here is the real question, will the DOT weapons:
A) stack in dmg, if 2 are on and they do 4 dmg per second, it would do 8 dmg per second
B) stack in time, if 2 are on and they last for 4 seconds, it would last for 8 seconds.
C) not stack

The numbers are just to explain junk, not to be real or anything. We do need at least one DOT weapon in this game, alot of the games i have played have DOT dmg.


Oh yah and on the topic of plasma, you know those cool globes that have the blue stuff in em? I beleive that is a form of plasma.

"there is clearly not enough biological warfare in this game"
*goes off to "liberate" Panda*
:P

<Physics Lesson>
Plasma (in a physics sense) is a super heated gas.... E.g. the medium in a fusion reactor is a plasma, cos its at some ludicrous temperature (millions of degrees)...
</Physics>