Forums » Suggestions

Charged Cannons

Sep 07, 2003 SirCamps link
Face it, it sucks. Here are some suggestionness to help. :)

1. Charge meter, show how fully charged it is (%-wise).
2. Allow the user to stop charging without discharging.
3. Allow the user to specify how much energy/second goes to charging the cannon.
4. Increase its velocity to 190 m/s.
5. Increase maximum damage to 10x the capacity of whatever battery the charger has..
Sep 07, 2003 Phaserlight link
Regarding 5: I could be wrong but I think charged cannons can already do up to 6000 damage regardless of battery. In that case 5 would actually be a nerf.

Otherwise I agree with you. I think the charged cannon could stand to be beefed up a little and made into an l-port weapon.
Sep 08, 2003 The Kid link
4 could create problems, it'll make it the fastest energy weapon (well, rails are different).
Sep 08, 2003 Suicidal Lemming link
Uhhhh, i see no problem with 4 as you need to be a sitting duck for awhile in order for it to do any damage.
Sep 08, 2003 SirCamps link
SL, you ARE a sitting duck for the 25 seconds it takes to charge the cannon. Without 2 or 3, you're completely vulnerable due to the fact that you can't boost.

Phaser, the current damage is 400-2800.

Blaster, it's hardly rapid fire. This is to balance the frustration that occurs when a fully-charged shot misses at close range because its aimbot is terrible.
Sep 11, 2003 Nalar link
The current damage is 3k per full charge, the listed damage is wrong.

They do stop chargeing, allowing turbo etc. Try it with a heavy bat. Takes longer witha fast charge but it will fully charge after a minute.
Sep 11, 2003 SirCamps link
Right, but I want to stop charging at say, 40%, to avoid a pursuer, boost out a bit, let the batt recharge, and continue charging.

Nalar: It takes less time with a fast charge because the recharge rate is faster.
Sep 12, 2003 Daon Rendiv link
Just remember, for max damage it is charged in about 2 secs.

The extra "over-charging" is just to prevent you from endlessly holding a charge to fire at your leasure. Ok, so the oc times out after about a min, but it still prevents discharing at the begining of a dogfight (which is scary if the enemy is a valk/hornet)
Sep 14, 2003 SirCamps link
Daon, it takes much longer than two seconds to charge up to max capacity (~3000 I'm told).
Sep 15, 2003 Daon Rendiv link
The CC is my favorite weapon, so I think if anyones an expert I am.

It takes 2 seconds to charge to max damage. All the extra charge you put in has NO effect AT ALL. It acts as a deterent for those not one with the cannon from useing it effectively.

However I sugest you keep that the way it is and just have the weapon's description warn all who can read.

The change I like is #4, just make sure that the speed scales based on charge. At rapid fire have it go 140-160 then at max charge go 180-200.
Sep 16, 2003 Nalar link
Bad logic SirCamps. Too fully charge (not as in damage but as in chargeing enough where it stops sucking energy) the charge cannon, it is best to use a heavy battery. We are not compareing recharge rates of the battery in this case. The heavy does not have to recharge during the process, the fast charge does, so its slower.

A freash heavy can go through the entire process much faster then a freash fast charge, as the heavy will not have to recharge. - Draining already stored power is much faster then draining power as it charges.
Sep 16, 2003 SirCamps link
Time to charge with heavy battery: 19 seconds

Time to charge with fast charge: 17 seconds.

Go try it yourself, I just did.

The point is, it doesn't matter how much (capacity) the battery holds, but how fast it can recharge. If I had a battery that could hold 1 unit of energy, but had a recharge rate of 500, I could load anything I wanted and never run dry.

Point is, the charged cannon charges at 60 e/s.

The fast charge battery recharges at 50 e/s, and the heavy battery at 45 e/s. Therefore, the fast charge battery will only lose 10 e/s, while the heavy battery will lose 15 e/s.

That means that the fast charge lost (17 sec * 10 e/s = 170 e) 170 energy units while the cannon was charging, while the heavy lost (19 sec * 15 e/s = 285) 285 energy units while the cannon was charging.

Time it takes to charge two cannons:

Fast charge batt: 35 seconds
Heavy batt: 33 seconds

Time it takes to charge three cannons:

Fast charge batt: 56 seconds
Heavy batt: 55 seconds

Time it takes to charge four cannons:

Fast charge batt: 76 seconds
Heavy batt: 78 seconds

This is interesting, and you are free to verify the results. The ship used was a Hornet, and the engine was a medium engine. It seems that a battery can transfer energy to the cannon faster than producing it, therefore the heavy battery is more useful when you are going to completely drain it, yet the fast charge is more useful with one cannon.

Damage: You were right, the charged cannon--it fully charges in around 5 seconds. Here are the results below, tested on UncleDave, who can verify the claims:


Damage:
Five second charge on Prom: -19%
Two second charge on Prom: -4%
Full charge: -19%
Sep 16, 2003 Celebrim link
If it is true that a full charge is 5s, then before the weapon can truly be usable it needs to get the full charge down to 2s or so. Actually, full charge in 1 second would be better if you weren't going to play with the speed. Three hundred energy for 3000 damage (or 10 damage per point of energy) is just not a good deal, especially if it takes five seconds to do it. A better exchange rate is around 60 damage per point of energy. A weapon with 1s to full charge and doing max 3600 damage would be more popular and more in line with other weapons like Sunflares, Tachyons, and Gauss.
Sep 18, 2003 Daon Rendiv link
Yes that would put it up with those above all others weapons but because its so versitile set it to 2secs and current damage range, possibly tweak the speed.
Sep 19, 2003 Hunter Alpha link
I used charged cannons to bot in sector 8 the other day and they where quite good my only gripe was you had to be in real close to hit those 250 bots but it was a one hit kill every time. It might be possible that they were meant to be used against heavy targets but I'd still like to see their velocity increased to 180 (or more).
Sep 20, 2003 Sage link
I'd like to see the charged cannon have decent auto aim with a big charge, and the auto-aim slowly shrinks as you charge it. Meanwhile, the velocity should slowly increase as charge increases. It will give the weapon much more versatility.
Sep 22, 2003 Hunter Alpha link
I like that idea.