Forums » Suggestions
Shield Drain Weapons
All this talk about making bigger badder missiles and ships to deal with shields is really unnecessary... I propose a few new weapon types instead.
1. Lamprey Mine: place one of these near a capship and it will continually drain the shields, one might not be enough to pull the shields down (2 or 3 might not even be enough) but it would keep them from charging up as fast, so a fighter or two could pull the shields down with regular weapons. This mine would not do damage, only shield drain, so can't be abused against fighters. Mine is destructible!
2. EMP Flare: Disables shield recharge for 10 seconds (arbitrary number). Much like a lamprey mine this would allow normal fighters to come in and pull the shields down with regular guns, while not being useful against fighter craft.
3. Inverse Phase Blaster: Regular gun, but does no damage to armour, only shields. This could have a much higher DPE/DPS then other guns while only being useful against capitol class shields.
1. Lamprey Mine: place one of these near a capship and it will continually drain the shields, one might not be enough to pull the shields down (2 or 3 might not even be enough) but it would keep them from charging up as fast, so a fighter or two could pull the shields down with regular weapons. This mine would not do damage, only shield drain, so can't be abused against fighters. Mine is destructible!
2. EMP Flare: Disables shield recharge for 10 seconds (arbitrary number). Much like a lamprey mine this would allow normal fighters to come in and pull the shields down with regular guns, while not being useful against fighter craft.
3. Inverse Phase Blaster: Regular gun, but does no damage to armour, only shields. This could have a much higher DPE/DPS then other guns while only being useful against capitol class shields.
But how hard would that be to program? Have the Devs ever tried to program weapons to do damage only to one class of ships?
its a cool idea, but I think the number of mines needed to affect the shields should be some what higher...IDK, maybe 10 to 20? because lets face it, fighters are pretty tiny where as cappies are fairly huge.
It could be pretty cool to have a beam based L-port weapon that sucks shields, but does no other damage. Give it very high grid usage so only nothing else can be equipped for balance. It could add another element to gameplay.
I'm not sure that I agree that fighters should particularly be able to damage cap ships... Bombers or other cap ships, ayuh, but fighters? That seems to blend the classes a little much.
Nah, seeing as capital ships still have an amazing amount of health...
I agree with roguelazer, one to three fighters shouldn't be able to take down cap ships and these new weapons that possibility is not out of reach.
In the spirit of balance, a Cap-ship could fairly have anti Cap-ship weaponry.
In case no one has suggested it, let me throw up the idea of special projectile weapons which do not interact with shields but punch straight through to the hull.
A few adjustments would be in order.
1) Weapon design and therefore damage would have to include the ability to only affect shields. While at it, why not also the ability to affect weapons, thrusters, or other things?
2) I like the idea of a weapon that can somehow slow down shield regeneration. Perhaps for the mines it would be possible that as long as they're on the mine (they can move, after all) they are taking constant damage rather than one time damage and specifically to shields. The more mines they are on (as in your example) the more of a drain on the shields and therefore the harder to regenerate.
3) I'd suspect that anything like an EMP as you're suggesting would actually affect all power systems, not just shields, so what you're also talking about is slowing down the recharge rate of energy weapons, leaving only missiles or projectile weapons as the only form of constant attack during the period of the pulse.
Good luck with this. It's an interesting set of ideas if nothing else.
1) Weapon design and therefore damage would have to include the ability to only affect shields. While at it, why not also the ability to affect weapons, thrusters, or other things?
2) I like the idea of a weapon that can somehow slow down shield regeneration. Perhaps for the mines it would be possible that as long as they're on the mine (they can move, after all) they are taking constant damage rather than one time damage and specifically to shields. The more mines they are on (as in your example) the more of a drain on the shields and therefore the harder to regenerate.
3) I'd suspect that anything like an EMP as you're suggesting would actually affect all power systems, not just shields, so what you're also talking about is slowing down the recharge rate of energy weapons, leaving only missiles or projectile weapons as the only form of constant attack during the period of the pulse.
Good luck with this. It's an interesting set of ideas if nothing else.