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Poll

New name for energy damage/mounts?

Yay
Nay

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Author Topic: New name for energy weapons?  (Read 27351 times)

Axiege

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Re: New name for energy weapons?
« Reply #15 on: September 03, 2013, 04:48:13 PM »

Currently all energy weapons deal energy damage, it pretty obvious that that energy weapon require energy mount.

Graviton Beams. Also, I tihnk the problem Gothars has brought up has been misunderstood. He's saying that it is potentially confusing to have a damage type and weapon type have the same name, especially in cases, such as the Graviton Beam, when energy weapons are not doing energy damage, and when non-energy weapons are doing energy damage, such as the Mjolnir Cannon.

I think what we need here is some consistency across the systems. The weapon and mount types are, for the 2/3rds majority, named for the delivery method of the damage type (ballistic weapons fire shells, missiles fire self-propelled explosive, and neither restrict what kind of damage you would assume the weapon can do). Energy works just fine as a damage type, but does not very well describe the delivery method of the damage.

Since nearly all vanilla energy weapons use beams or lasers, beam weapons/mounts would be a suitable replacement I think.

Hyph_K31

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Re: New name for energy weapons?
« Reply #16 on: September 03, 2013, 05:10:18 PM »

So perhaps simply adding a prefix Pulse or Beam before energy would suffice for damage types. Whilst there would be no actual difference between the two damage types, the difference would be in the delivery, which is what seems to count.

(Yet another sleepy post, gotta stop doing this)
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icepick37

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Re: New name for energy weapons?
« Reply #17 on: September 03, 2013, 06:10:50 PM »

Reasonable measures to reduce confusion and ambiguity aren't really bad. Neither is leaving things the way they are if it ain't broke.

I don't really mind how this falls out either way.

I would think the damage type should change though. Since "energy" isn't really destructive per se. I am having a hard time coming up with a good alternative, though, haha. Which I daresay is the reason this is even a thing.  :p
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xenoargh

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Re: New name for energy weapons?
« Reply #18 on: September 03, 2013, 06:11:57 PM »

Just call it Directed Energy.  

That's factual (it's what it's really called), covers a broader variety of weapons, and doesn't create confusion with the damage type ENERGY and the Weapon Slot.

That said, yes, it's confusing, and probably needlessly so.  

The whole system as it is right now is needlessly complicated and confusing, though.

Getting rid of the Ballistic / Energy system didn't make Vacuum less playable or make it any worse to balance; the whole idea of Ballistic / Energy / Universal is one of those things that sounded great on paper but has largely pigeonholed a lot of ships to the point where they're not really viable, anyhow.
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Re: New name for energy weapons?
« Reply #19 on: September 03, 2013, 07:42:44 PM »

Reading all of everyone's different ideas makes me hope Alex won't change it.
I still think it's unnecessary and most ideas posted here would just make it confusing, instead of removing any form of confusion (which I don't see in the first place), in my ever so humble opinion.
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RawCode

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Re: New name for energy weapons?
« Reply #20 on: September 04, 2013, 08:00:37 AM »

call energy damage "searing" then, any use of "energy" will cause confusion for users who unable to read tooltips.
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jhb

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Re: New name for energy weapons?
« Reply #21 on: September 04, 2013, 08:12:10 AM »

Maybe radiation or electrical for one or the other?
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Gothars

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Re: New name for energy weapons?
« Reply #22 on: September 04, 2013, 09:01:16 AM »

call energy damage "searing" then, any use of "energy" will cause confusion for users who unable to read tooltips.

Searing sounds really good and makes sense.
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icepick37

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Re: New name for energy weapons?
« Reply #23 on: September 04, 2013, 11:38:19 AM »

Yeah I like that sound of that.
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Wyvern

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Re: New name for energy weapons?
« Reply #24 on: September 04, 2013, 11:39:54 AM »

I'd second the notion of leaving energy damage as it is, and considering renaming energy mounts to powered mounts.  That helps clarify statements like "Powered weapons gain increased damage based on your current flux levels." - which is, as the Mjolnir cannon and graviton beam demonstrate, unclear when both mount type and damage type are named "energy".
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xenoargh

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Re: New name for energy weapons?
« Reply #25 on: September 04, 2013, 11:50:15 AM »

"Powered" feels too vague.

Flux Weapons?

Flux Mounts?

Directed Flux?

High Tech?

That might actually work: High Tech vs. Low Tech.  No more confusing stuff about "ballistics" when a lot of beam-bolt weapons are, well, ballistic.  No more confusion about damage types.  Fits with lore.
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Hari Seldon

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Re: New name for energy weapons?
« Reply #26 on: September 04, 2013, 01:14:26 PM »

call energy damage "searing" then, any use of "energy" will cause confusion for users who unable to read tooltips.

Searing sounds really good and makes sense.

"Searing" is good.

How good is "energetic"?  So many people are saying Nay to changing the name that "energetic" might be good because it's pretty much the same thing as the original "energy" but not the same word as the "energy" damage type so there is less confusion.
« Last Edit: September 04, 2013, 01:21:01 PM by Hari Seldon »
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Re: New name for energy weapons?
« Reply #27 on: September 04, 2013, 02:30:37 PM »

@Gothars: Not all energy weapons would do searing damage. When I think of searing I'm thinking of serious cooking and/or frying.
What about EMP energy weapons and molecule disrupting weapons, radioactive stuff and dark matter/dark energy? (Not that we'd know anything about the last two.)

@Wyvern: Ballistic weapons are also powered.
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Wyvern

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Re: New name for energy weapons?
« Reply #28 on: September 04, 2013, 02:50:58 PM »

@Wyvern: Ballistic weapons are also powered.
And every energy weapon that's not a beam fires a ballistic projectile.  Ballistic weapons don't gain additional power from flux.  Neither do missiles.  That's the reference I was aiming for, and why I seconded Gothar's original suggestion of "Powered" as a name for the mounts.
« Last Edit: September 04, 2013, 02:59:45 PM by Wyvern »
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icepick37

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Re: New name for energy weapons?
« Reply #29 on: September 04, 2013, 02:55:53 PM »

How about dynamic mounts. As a nod to "dynamism" :)

@Gothars: Not all energy weapons would do searing damage. When I think of searing I'm thinking of serious cooking and/or frying.
What about EMP energy weapons and molecule disrupting weapons, radioactive stuff and dark matter/dark energy? (Not that we'd know anything about the last two.)
Yeah, it's not perfect, but it kinda makes sense. All cooking is is a rearrangement of molecules which kind of makes sense with radioactivity and disruption and whatnot.

Maybe Disruption damage would work.
« Last Edit: September 04, 2013, 02:58:22 PM by icepick37 »
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