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Capital Devastator

Sep 18, 2018 Knauf link
Capital Devastator
David Class Large Port Weapon

As the description suggests, the Capital Devastator is a weapon designed to take down a Goliath (or similar ship) in one shot. The weapon is a hybrid of  gauss, charged, and chemical rail gun technologies. The CD was developed in secret by a collaboration team consisting of Itani and Tunguska weapons research scientists. The object of their research was to combat the growing armor threat on Serco capital ships as well as the hive threat. Research was halted for reasons that are not important for your pay grade. Because you completed this random and convoluted mission tree, we are going to give you access to manufacture one of these. To build another, you will need to complete the random and convoluted mission tree again. And due to operational security issues, you may only build one of these every 12 months of the ancient earth solar cycle.

Port: Large
Damage: 620k
Velocity: 500 m/s
Energy: 0/shot
Delay: 2s*
Mass: 15000kg
Targeting: Excellent
Grid: 125
Ammo: 8
Ammo cost: 250k a round
Lifetime: 10s

Operation: The firing switch must be held down or 3 minutes. If the weapon is not fully charged it will not fire. After 3 minutes, the charging cycle will be complete and the weapon will fire upon release of the trigger switch. Once firing has commenced, the weapon requires a 2 second period to vent gases and cool down before the next cycle can begin. If the charging sequence is interrupted for any reason (operator letting go of the triggering device, or the result of the ship being power drained), the cycle must be started from the beginning before firing will commence.

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Reasoning: The grid is set high to make a pilot need to choose between defense turrets, or a powerful offensive weapon. The long charge cycle period is to add a period of anticipation, uncertainty, and vulnerability before it fires. I believe there should be a graphic effect as this weapon is charging.

The canceling of charging cycle upon being power drained means users of this weapon will need to work with others to protect offensive capital ships. VO is game that is best played with other (imho of course). A cap ship needing a fighter escort to protect it as it engages another capital ship sounds like a good game play idea. Likewise, being able to disable a dangerous capital ship weapon by engaging it with light fighters armed with power drains sounds fun as well.

The limited ammo means means spamming these weapons (not that one can truly spam these) is not a good idea. The high cost reflects the high damage potential. Fire all eight round and you need to spend 2 mil credits to reload it.

Limiting it to one built per year keeps it as a rare weapon. Making the mission tree just to build one long and tedious will make it hard to mass produce the weapon, even with the use of alts. We don't have a lot of "end game" items, and this item would count as one. Something to build in one's spare time. I would also suggest that a currently unused levi drop be one the required items needed to manu this item.
Sep 18, 2018 DeathSpores link
lol
Sep 18, 2018 Luxen link
For draining, how much energy has to be drained to disable the weapon's current charging cycle? Also, what's the shot size look like? If it hits a small fighter ship, would that block the entire attack from reaching the capship?

I dunno how the numbers work, myself, but sounds like a cool concept weapon to me.
Sep 18, 2018 IronLord link
Maybe make it capital gauss sized when shot? Goli and dent should be able allowed to use such a weapon. I can see a few problems, what if some one jumps in and holds thea trigger while the capship is fleeing? A dent with a full set of these able to kill four golis at once? We all know this will turn into players using turret bots to auto shoot these while the pilot keeps them in sight. -1
Sep 18, 2018 Knauf link
It shouldn't take too much to disable the charging cycle. The capital ship should be able to charge the weapon and turbo at the same time. Beyond that, if the ship gets drained, the capship pilot should need to make a choice between turboing or continuing the charge cycle. Also, imagine you are being stalked by a another capship with this weapon, you look back, and notice it is its charging primary weapon. And like a boss, you drop a few drain mines. The attacker hits the mines, and instantly the cycle is reset. You make your get away, and suddenly drain mines are useful for something in the game.

I was thinking of just use the current shot size that the Concussion Railgun rail gun uses. Maybe just give it different color, like purple or something. In real life, this kind of weapon would probably go right through a small fighter. But for the purposes of game play, it should be blocked by a fighter. That would be an interesting counter tactic to use against the weapon.

The numbers I just came up with as per the name (the david vs goliath concept). They are starting point. I'm sure we flesh the idea out farther.
Sep 18, 2018 Knauf link
@Iron lord: I said Large port weapon. This is not a turret. Dents and Goliaths only have one large port.
Sep 18, 2018 IronLord link
Woops, sorry knauf. I saw goli killer and had a spasm =p
Sep 19, 2018 scared star link
+1

3x time the size of a gauss cannon, because the high dmg.

Large port siphon effect when charging?

Purple color and red trails at the end?

Over all feels like an Op weapon but has more cons than pros, so i in my opinion i say its balanced.
Sep 20, 2018 PaKettle link
Everyone wants a one shot weapon untill its used on them. Then they cry for a nerfing.

-1
Sep 20, 2018 greenwall link
Pretty well thought out idea. I would be careful of how rare you try to make it... too rare and people will only keep it in their set of collectible items and never actually use it. This isn't a Space Museum game (speaking of does anyone have any red CTF flags for sale?). This idea would also benefit the game much more if it weren't only exclusively a deep game manufacturing pursuit.

Suggestions:

-An energy weapon of this size with no drain seems irrational. Since the charge time is so long, I think an minimal drain would be appropriate. Suggest 171/s drain (~3800 energy remaining on a standard capship battery if no turbo-ing involved).

-For enhanced turbo capability, suggest manufacturable premium capship battery variant to accommodate higher recharge (and possibly higher grid). Note that effective offensive pursuit with this weapon is highly unlikely in Tridents, and more likely in Goliaths. Goliaths should therefore require an additional modification to utilize their speed advantage.

-Suggest Queen Matrix is used rather than rare, non-samoflange Levi drops (pursuant to caution about making too rare)

-Lastly, I kinda hate when people do this, but I'm still going to -- this suggestion really should be second in priority to better anti-capital ship weapons that can be utilized by non-capital vessels. It's a very good suggestion, but if you truly want to involve more people in the "escort" scenario -- we need better anti-capship weapons first. Or at least simultaneously.
Sep 20, 2018 scared star link
Greenwall,

shield drainer mine or missiles, when hit by it, you lose x amount of sheild from it and it doesn't go back untill your shields recharge starts, but its 3/4 faster than normal recharge, like take normal recharge, and make it 3/4 recharge timer. So for a bad example lets say i hit your sheilds with it, it'll take ,2-4 mins for it to go back to normal percent.

6km capital warp wormhole disruptor(prevent wormhole warp)?

Turbo jammer mines? X amount of range that prevents only capital (and non caps?) From using turbo, (effect user and group?)

Emp photon disruptor (drains 350 power from user cell before auto fire because of charge max) that does 400 (?) Energy drain or a 2.1second turbo disable? Missile/flare variant thats does either but less ammo and low refire rate but x2 (x3?) The amount from the emp photon disriptordisruptor

All i thought up for now
Sep 20, 2018 Luxen link
and all great for their own suggestion thread ;)
Sep 21, 2018 Nyscersul link
I think the high level of damage on this weapon is extreme.

No weapon should be able to one hit kill a ship of the same class, its just too unbalanced.

That being said, i like the idea otherwise.

Maybe change it to be more like a 30 second charge, and 100k damage, or, maybe considering that could deshield a levi in one shot, maybe a little lower... Balanced to be able to deshield everything up to but not including a connie in a single shot.

Thing is, one hit kills of any player owned capital ship is not balanced at all... Far too high a damage.

+1 otherwise tho, assuming better damage.

(As a frame of reference, this weapon would leave a connie at 80% after one shot, a queen at about 15%, and a dent at about 40%.)
Sep 21, 2018 Aryko link
Suggestipn seems to have been made considering only its PvP application. This could easily chew through Levi shields.
Sep 21, 2018 greenwall link
I like the extreme nature... dial it down and you get a capital version of the charged cannon we already have, which is worthless. It doesn't really change the leviathan situation from where things already stand, since you can already solo a leviathan without this.
Sep 24, 2018 Nyscersul link
I think it would cause serious game imbalance to enable a gun this powerful.

However the idea sounds good, if it were limited only to the potential to deshield, and only up to a teradon, meaning 2-3 players need to work together on bigger things - like the levi.

Also, 3 minute charge time is insane hehe