If you want some sort of flux-based weapon, I think the following:
- The weapon has a charge time before firing (graphically visible charging as well as an indicative of imminent use.)
- While charging, the flux on your ship is brought to full or near-full. (It is a flux-based weapon, after all.) Perhap ship speed is reduced as well.
- Once charge is complete and it fires, it overloads your ship (like a standard flux overload), but the actual flux on your ship is fully drained. As a penalty for using it, though, your time in overload is maxed. I do believe the amount of time you spend in an overloaded state is based on how far over your ship's flux cap the enemy forced you past.
While the weapon could be quite powerful, the above gives the opposing side some countermeasures against it:
- Charge time - Time to evade/clear the area or target the vessel for immediate attack and destruction. The visual cue (maybe audio as well) will act as a warning.
- Flux load - If the opponent is gutsy, can try to overload the charging ship to prevent fire (assuming the shields are up. This combined with the above forces a choice on the weapon user to actively defend with the shield, risking an overload, or eating the gunfire, possibly being destroyed outright.)
- Overload state - If you screw up and don't kill what you needed/wanted to, they can counter attack. (This would conuteract the full venting of flux effect.)
Lastly, you can add a few other criteria for it's use, like being above/below a certain flux percentage, ship damage state, single use per battle ("The weapon burns out its core after use, necessitating replacement each time"), etc. I can also imagine it damaging the ship as well, so if you use it at full health, you just helped cripple your ship. If it fires while your ship is below a given threshold, it essential becomes a self-destruct device. (Perhaps at what threshold also determines is you ship is obliterated/destroyed outright, or simply disabled; salvage chances for the latter state would be lowers as a consequence though.) All the above conditions during use I outline helps prevent it from becoming a suicide bombing weapon.
Well, just my thoughts on the topic. *shrug* I'll leave the weapon effects for another time (range, any AoE, damage, blast radius, shot speed, shot coverage, shot type, etc.)
