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Author Topic: HE Point Defense (And other weapon ideas)  (Read 3074 times)

cjuicy

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HE Point Defense (And other weapon ideas)
« on: July 24, 2016, 05:46:10 PM »

I've played starsector since 0.6 came out, and in my time I have continued to wonder why there isn't a HE point defense option. Perhaps it is due to the amount of damage it could do in a ship-to-ship knife fight. I'd think it would be like a flak cannon, but with a weaker splash or shorter range but the benefit of increased DPS. Or maybe it would be a slower firing LMG, trading accuracy and fire rate for increased range (450) and damage.

If anyone has an answer to this, or a suggestion for another weapon, please leave a comment.
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King Alfonzo

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Re: HE Point Defense (And other weapon ideas)
« Reply #1 on: July 24, 2016, 07:07:16 PM »

I think the problem with that is that HE does extra damage vs armour, not hull. Missiles and fighters tend to have low armour, but higher hull. This is why fragmentation is better at point defence, once it gets through the armour, it eliminates the fighter / missile in a heartbeat. HE would simply strip the armour, then have difficulty actually killing the thing. However, I do admit that some of the heavier, shielded fighters are rather a bit too steadfast. Maybe a slow firing HE beam PD weapon, similar in action to a phase lance? Additionally, a knife-fight HE weapon would be rather risky - you wouldn't do much damage to shields with it, and when you do get through the shields you'd be vulnerable once the overload is finished. Although I imagine such a thing would be hilarious to muck around with...

One thing I'd like to see is a 'Chaser' missile: A high speed, long range, well guided fragmentation missile that disables engines on a hit with said engines, kind of like a salamander except faster and no 'circling' behaviour. During pursuits (especially with big ships I tend to favour) I feel like I'm missing a missile that fills the role of 'catching that friggin kite that keeps getting away from me' or 'finish off that low CR battlescarred ship that I only nearly destroyed in that last battle'. Outside of that situation the weapon would be useless beyond shooting targets of opportunity in combat, but I think a lot of people wouldn't mind having that attached so bigger battle ships can double as pursuits.

Another thing I wouldn't mind seeing is a fast missile that pops and releases long lasting, high EMP / low strength HE homing mines (like the flare launcher), as a phase ship suppressor. However, the missile only deploys the 'mines' when it's within the bounds of the ship, otherwise it's just a low strength HE missile. So if the missile hits an uncloaked ship, it's just a pathetically weak missile. If it passes over a cloaked ship, the 'mines' will follow it around and punish it's weapon systems if it uncloaks.

Harmful Mechanic

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Re: HE Point Defense (And other weapon ideas)
« Reply #2 on: July 24, 2016, 07:15:54 PM »

I think the problem with that is that HE does extra damage vs armour, not hull. Missiles and fighters tend to have low armour, but higher hull. This is why fragmentation is better at point defence, once it gets through the armour, it eliminates the fighter / missile in a heartbeat. HE would simply strip the armour, then have difficulty actually killing the thing. However, I do admit that some of the heavier, shielded fighters are rather a bit too steadfast. Maybe a slow firing HE beam PD weapon, similar in action to a phase lance? Additionally, a knife-fight HE weapon would be rather risky - you wouldn't do much damage to shields with it, and when you do get through the shields you'd be vulnerable once the overload is finished. Although I imagine such a thing would be hilarious to muck around with...

BRDY Sunjets with IPDAI are a pretty good mockup of what you're describing. And they are, indeed, great against fighters.

One thing I'd like to see is a 'Chaser' missile: A high speed, long range, well guided fragmentation missile that disables engines on a hit with said engines, kind of like a salamander except faster and no 'circling' behaviour. During pursuits (especially with big ships I tend to favour) I feel like I'm missing a missile that fills the role of 'catching that friggin kite that keeps getting away from me' or 'finish off that low CR battlescarred ship that I only nearly destroyed in that last battle'. Outside of that situation the weapon would be useless beyond shooting targets of opportunity in combat, but I think a lot of people wouldn't mind having that attached so bigger battle ships can double as pursuits.

I have just the thing for you ;). Give me a bit to get to release.

Another thing I wouldn't mind seeing is a fast missile that pops and releases long lasting, high EMP / low strength HE homing mines (like the flare launcher), as a phase ship suppressor. However, the missile only deploys the 'mines' when it's within the bounds of the ship, otherwise it's just a low strength HE missile. So if the missile hits an uncloaked ship, it's just a pathetically weak missile. If it passes over a cloaked ship, the 'mines' will follow it around and punish it's weapon systems if it uncloaks.

This would be hard to balance - It might be worth running off a mini-mod with your idea to see how well it works, though.
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Histidine

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Re: HE Point Defense (And other weapon ideas)
« Reply #3 on: July 25, 2016, 05:00:58 AM »

I think there's no HE point defense simply because there are already plenty of PD weapons with the damage type deemed to make sense for them, and there's no real need to add a new one that happens to fire HE shots. The Exigency mod does have HE machine guns for PD.
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Ranakastrasz

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Re: HE Point Defense (And other weapon ideas)
« Reply #4 on: July 25, 2016, 11:47:14 AM »

HE point defence would work better. According to the wiki, HE does doule damage to armor, and half to shield, while Fragmentation does 1/4th damage to everything but hull. Hence, HE would be better in every respect, except that each point of damage would be more expensive.

There is a reason why Fragmentation weapons have excessively high damage values.
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SafariJohn

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Re: HE Point Defense (And other weapon ideas)
« Reply #5 on: July 25, 2016, 01:06:21 PM »

Missiles don't have any armor AFAIK.
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King Alfonzo

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Re: HE Point Defense (And other weapon ideas)
« Reply #6 on: July 25, 2016, 06:29:15 PM »

I could have sworn I heard someone say they have just a little bit in a discussion on damage types.