Weapon thoughts and ideas.

[PM]

Kytryn Launcher
Since pointing out underachieving weapons seems to be the order of the day, I like to submit another: the Kytryn Launcher. The problem with this weapon is the ammo it launches, Kytryn Plasma Pods, have a high enough probability of not spawning anywhere in the game. Without ammo, the Kytryn Launcher is useless. If you are lucky enough to find a few plasma pods, as level XII ammo, you will need to feed a huge quantity of resources to a fabricator to get enough ammo to last long enough for a few fights. The Kytryn Launcher needs an alternative, lower level and easier to find ammo source. Perhaps an alternative missile can fire a single missile that explodes into one of those wimpy plasma explosions like those spawned by exploding Iocrym ships. Another alternative missile can just emulate the attack from the Ferian Plasma Cannon.

Disposable Launchers
An advantage for disposable weapons is they do not count toward weapon slot limits. In fact, the NM900 is slotless like patch spiders. This means the freighter can equip two weapons, then install a disposable launcher, giving the freighter three weapons. This would be nice except disposable launchers are rare and cannot be replenished, except with great difficulty from the fabricator. Disposable launchers would be more useful if they can be reloaded with more missiles, or new ones built. Ideally, it would be nice if the player can load and unload the launchers himself, much like in DoomRL. If adding support for loading and unloading sounds like too much work, other simpler ideas that could work would include the following:

* KM100s, KM500s, and XM900s can be used like various consumables, and if you have the appropriate missile pod installed, the missiles refill the launcher automatically. You can load the launcher, but you cannot unload the missiles from it.
* Let dock services of various stations reload the launchers for a fee. May or may not require missiles from your cargo hold.
* Tinkers can build new launchers if you provide the missiles. For example, 12 XM900s for a shiny new NM900 missile pod.

[Song]

Kytryn Launcher
Since pointing out underachieving weapons seems to be the order of the day, I like to submit another: the Kytryn Launcher. The problem with this weapon is the ammo it launches, Kytryn Plasma Pods, have a high enough probability of not spawning anywhere in the game. Without ammo, the Kytryn Launcher is useless. If you are lucky enough to find a few plasma pods, as level XII ammo, you will need to feed a huge quantity of resources to a fabricator to get enough ammo to last long enough for a few fights. The Kytryn Launcher needs an alternative, lower level and easier to find ammo source. Perhaps an alternative missile can fire a single missile that explodes into one of those wimpy plasma explosions like those spawned by exploding Iocrym ships. Another alternative missile can just emulate the attack from the Ferian Plasma Cannon.

For all I've tried to make an armor-piercing missile that fires a stream of plasma, I have yet to succeed. it would certainly be useful, however.


I would like to add the SmartCannon to the list. it is worse than useless ATM.

[Aury]

Smartcannon ... is only as useless as it is because: 1) it uses ammo that can only be bought/looted from 1 specific type of ship (and then cannot be sold back), 2) it is a level III weapon, and therefore is below the player's interest anyways, 3) the only enemies that use it have a super low fire-rate-adj, meaning that they only make it look bad, because they fire so slowly. It's actually about on-par with the RK15

[PM]

SmartCannon is suboptimal, but it is not always useless. I have used it a few times when I could not find anything better than an omnidirectional laser, or if I wanted an early omni weapon but did not have the cash to buy one. Tinkers can build them from damaged AK15 Partisans, and T31 ships can drop an intact one once in a while.

[Aury]

Tinkers should make RK15's, not smartcannons, out of AK15's

[Prophet]

The smartcannon is sometimes my 1st upgrade if I can find a cannon accelerator. I deem it a defensive weapon because you can sit safely behind an asteroid or a wreck and the shots will track at your target, unlike an omni weapon. It quickly becomes obsolete and I wish there was a higher level equivalent.

[Bobby]

It can be offensive too, if used with strategy. I've beaten the arena with it twice (the slicer takes a couple/few hundred rounds though).

[Aury]

If you really needed it, its actually effective (re; it does damage) as far out as... level... VII? armors.
It will do damage to any shields (if it can beat the regen is another question. Kaidun though, it will; even the centauri recoiless can take it down! (eventually))

[PM]

I have more thoughts about various weapons, but I will just share one for now.

IM90 Multitarget Blaster
When enhanced to 150% this weapon is so powerful (because it auto-aims and can inflict high damage) that you can use this against almost everything. This is my weapon of choice against the Iocrym Command Ship when I do not use the Gem of Sacrifice and Circle of Wrath combination. The reason is the enhanced IM90 can still do respectable damage against the command ship, and I can focus my whole attention dodging Iocrym ships and anything they fire at me. It weighs 16 tons, heavier than every other weapon except the Gaian Demolition cannon, but it is so useful the load is worth it. This weapon needs a nerf, and maybe one way to do so is to make this weapon require two slots instead of one. Every other superheavy weapon the player can install (i.e., Gaian cannon and APA) needs two slots.

[BlakeG228]

I think their should be some expensive one use Nuclear Warheads.

Bunker Busters to use on highly reinforced stations that need destroying.

Make them rare and expensive to balance it out.

[PM]

There are already killer nukes in the game. Have you fired Warhammer missiles against a base? A few well-placed Warhammers will smash any late game base (aside from Iocrym). Nemesis missiles are not quite as effective, but they are a close alternative.

You need the Ares Launcher to fire Warhammers, and the NAMI Heavy Launcher to fire Nemesis missiles.

And if you cannot find those weapons, there are crate bombs.

Edit - And for Iocrym, there is the Kytryn Launcher that shoots missiles that explode into a F.R.I.E.D. plasma ring. Good as supplemental damage against Iocrym (because Iocrym have high resistance against thermo damage), but good luck finding the missiles for the Kytryn launcher.

[BlakeG228]

Excuse my greenness...

Haven't beat it yet. Just getting to the 23rd system. Seems like I got a lot of cool stuff to look forward to.