[George] What damage type would a tachyon weapon be?

[PM]

Or other FTL particle weapon? This question would probably be more appropriate for modding, but if part 2 entities have FTL tech, such weapons could appear there.

[george moromisato]

That's a great question.

Presumably tachyons would be particles, so they would be either positron or (with a hand-wave) graviton. Or you could bundle them with dark energy/matter can give it a darkLightning type.

But I think we could also make their FTL nature orthogonal and have FTL weapons for several damage types. Perhaps there are FTL variants of all the major (energy) damage types: particle, ion, positron, and graviton.

[EditorRUS]

It doesn't really matter because tachyonic weapons are supposed to be extremely piercing weapons which pierce through shields and armor. On the second thought they also carry less damage because they basically interact with matter fewer times. So it should be something insanely piercing and not really damaging too much at the same time. I'd say something like Dark Steel.

[Watch TV, Do Nothing]

because tachyons travel faster than light, obviously a tachyon weapon would work by firing back in time and killing the enemy pilot's grandfather, preventing them from ever being born

[PM]

The point of a tachyon or other FTL weapon is to justify long range hitscan weapons.

Due to the way the game is set up, humans effectively have FTL tech, even if oblivious to it. They are called communications (instant knowledge of crimes, orders, scramble cube) and large nuclear explosions (from M5 missile and the like).

[Watch TV, Do Nothing]

I agree that hitscan weapons would be a great addition. Ships' sensors operate faster than light too (they pretty much have to or gameplay would be very, very different albeit unique).

[Atarlost]

I believe that under symmetry a particle moving backward in time is equivalent to its antiparticle moving STL. Under relativity FTL objects are moving backwards in time from some frame of reference. I'm sure both statements are gross oversimplifications, so I'm not sure it actually follows that it follows that tachyonic matter and antimatter are equivalent, but I'd therefore still tachyons under positron or antimatter because this is not a game that has ever striven for scientific realism.

[digdug]

since tachyons are FTL, you cannot see them approaching and to a less than FTL observer, when interacting with matter, they will simply appear and depart in 2 different directions, after a cherenkov blast.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon

It would look awesome if you can make a hitscan weapon that starts from the target, make a radius hiteffect and then moves towards the playership

also, positron sounds like a decent damagetype. it would fit with the role of the weapon. Otherwise just use a dark damagetype.

[FourFire]

That's a great question.

Presumably tachyons would be particles, so they would be either positron or (with a hand-wave) graviton. Or you could bundle them with dark energy/matter can give it a darkLightning type.

But I think we could also make their FTL nature orthogonal and have FTL weapons for several damage types. Perhaps there are FTL variants of all the major (energy) damage types: particle, ion, positron, and graviton.

In physics antimatter is mathematically equivalent to normal matter which is time reversed.
They anihhiliate upon contact with normal matter because the spin values are all opposite.

[Aury]

While weapons such as the short range explosions in vanilla and hit-scan lasers in TSB are technically FTL in terms of in-engine units, they are canonically not actually FTL. Their gameplay mechanic is just a stylistic departure from the engine mechanics backing them. Long-range FTL weapons would actually be FTL in-canon however.