Yes, a list of pretty unique weapon types. Some more ideas:Ranos wrote: Now, here is my idea of cross breeding utilea's and my ideas. There are different weapons types which have different characteristics. Here's a list:
Beam (Direct Fire) - A sustained beam of energy is fired at the target. Due to the requirements of sustaining the energy, damage is not high.
Bolt (Direct Fire) - A bolt of energy is fired at the target. Damage is high due to the concentrated nature of the energy.
Projectile (Direct Fire) - A solid projectile of some kind is fired at the target. Damage is moderate and does not disipate over distance. Ammunition is limited.
Subspace (Direct Fire Area Effect) - A weapon that travels through and/or effects subspace. These weapons can cause very high damage, but due to their unpredictable nature, can cause damage to the ship on which they are mounted.
Wave (Area Effect) - A weapon that creates a wave of energy that expands as it travels from the ship. It does moderate damage, but can cause damage to freindly ships if they get in the way. Some weapons are directional, some expand in all directions from the ship. (Think shockwave)
Missiles (Indirect Fire) - A large, self propelled projectile with homing capabilities. They are capable of doing moderate to high damage. They are limited by a limited ammount of fuel and ammo.
Torpedos (Indirect Fire) - A large ammount of energy of some kind contained within an energy field That does severe damage. Their range is not as great as Missiles due to the fact that the energy field dissipates over distance. There is no ammunition since these are charged within the ship. Reload time is longer than that of missiles.
Add to this if you can think of more.
Area Effect Emission (a better name?) - basically there could be a number of effects. Eg. all friendly's in area gain +50 stealth or all enemies in area gain poison effect (they are hurt every now and then while poisened).
Distortion Tear/Blackhole - create a rip within space/time within visible sight. The tear slowly draws nearby ships torwards it. Nearby ships are damaged slowly. If nearby ships are close enough for long enough they are destroyed.
Ring Emitter - a ring of energy expands outward from the ship that created the effect. Damage is dealt to ships hit by the ring.
Energy Spores - they look like glowing energy balls. They fly at enemy ships and pass thru enemy ships doing damage. They then return to take another strike. They continue bombarding the enemy ship until the the spores die (they slowly die by themselves, but can also be damaged from pd weapons, flying through shields, nebula ???)
Laser Drones - these drones fly at an enemy ship at full speed and then attach to the enemy ship. Once attached, the drone deploys its laser cannon and starts shooting other enemy ships. The enemy ships must attack their own ship to get rid of the drone.
We should make a seperate thread for cool weapon ideas.
With this method you describe, lets say you reifne lasers, then can now refine phasors, so you reinfe phasors. Can you put max level lasers on your ships and put max level phasors on your ship?Ranos wrote: I'll use beams as an example. You start out with Lasers. You must research refinements to make lasers stronger. At some point, one of your refinements unlocks the key to a new beam technology: Phasors. When this occurs, lasers can no longer be refined. Researching these costs more than refinements due to the new nature of the energy being used. Once researched, phasors can be refined until the next new beam energy is discovered.
Really though this is the same as having a laser, refining it up 5 levels, then the name changes and you can refine it up another 5 levels. This is ok though, because you would essentially end up with lasers and phasors (there differences between each other being enough to make them stand apart, ie what mods they may have).
Seems good.Ranos wrote: Does that make sense? It allows for the wide variety of techs and the refinement of the tech types until the new tech of that type is discovered. This gives a reason why techs have to be refined, but also gives the feel of having new techs to discover. And maybe you have to have researched Beam and Bolt techs to aa certain level before you are able to research the basic Wave tech. Any suggestions on changes to be made utilae?
Maybe you should gain some mods outside of refinements, eg multi missile mod and missile size, travel range and missile engine mods.