Inertia Bombs (Brainstorm, not bug)

[hookoa]

I was thinking a new fun weapon would be inertia-delivery bombs.

They have no engines for maximum payload. They're heavy. They have a fair number of hitpoints. They go BOOM! (or other effects, such as EMP, radiation, degenerative nanos).

To deploy, one needs to get their speed up in the direction of the enemy. Then you just flush it out the airlock and turn tail.

It would be great as an uncommon weapon, maybe installable like the DM missile racks. It's purpose would be "bunker-buster" station killers. Long range, so players can line up 250 ls outside of an enemy station and torpedo it.

Balance: It would add a new tactic to the game that would be balanced out by cost and rarity.

(But really, what's rare in the game besides gems of elysium and the Mikeno destroyer?)

[schilcote]

You USED to be able to do this with jettisoned cargo containers... you just load one up with presumed volatiles and then blast it for a Big Boom. I can't get the container to detonate anymore though... maybe you would have a "detonator" item that you use, which brings you to the "jettison" dockscreen. It'd launch the crate, then a user-selectable amount of time later the container explodes, with force and effects relating to the contents of the container (so if you put a couple tons of hydrogen gas, a few hundred MAGs, and twenty or so fuel rods, you'd get a relatively massive explosion at a very, very high cost.)

[hookoa]

Cargo container bombs are very close to what I'm thinking, but jettisoned cargo doesn't move. This is something where you'd get your speed up, and it would continue along your trajectory at your speed at the time of launch. basically a pre-packed volatile crate, but it keeps moving and explodes on impact.

[Bobby]

Some possibilities:

1. a single use mine launcher (self install or sysCreateWeaponFire on invoke) with velocity of 0 and no acceleration/drag factor. I see a big problem with the fact that missiles don't always explode on a direct hit.

2. A space object (ship or station, station will need to periodically reset it's velocity) set to look like a crate/bomb, created and set to match your velocity through an invoke, and is detonated when shot enough or by code (proximity, possibly detonate when distance from the nearest station(or ship if no stations nearby) starts to increase. The fuse could have a fail-safe distance and be completely in-discriminant, apart from prioritizing stations).

[Song]

1. a single use mine launcher (self install or sysCreateWeaponFire on invoke) with velocity of 0 and no acceleration/drag factor. I see a big problem with the fact that missiles don't always explode on a direct hit.

I attempted to modify my Gunpod mod into something similar (except it was a ~5 shot missile weapon).....it didn't work because I mixed the code badly. But I'm confident that a single-shot weapon is both codeable AND able to be balanced... Maybe to get around the proximatry issue, have it ripple-fire ("repeat", in transcendence lingo, I believe) ~3-4 of them, and reduce the damage a little....

One issue though that I've noticed with my SZ-70 gunpods during testing: unless you code it so the thing vanishes instantly (which is beyond me, fortunately. Otherwise, knowing my ways, I'd code it so that it ALWAYS vanished on removal, regardless of whether or not it had been USED..which would be..."fun"...), it can get confusing with the installation, as there's no real difference between the "used" and "unused" piles of launchers in your hold....so you can accidentally install the wrong launcher/gunpod/whatever.


Although I SUPPOSE you could get around that with sysCreateWeaponFire, and/or by having the 1-shot weapon automatically uninstall and delete itself after firing......

[Prophet]

For fun I threw together a rough approximation of the weapon here.

It's not balanced but all the functionality is coded:
- auto-install
- once used it will remove and delete itself
- very long lifetime and 0 speed so it continues moving in the direction of the ship until it hits something
- 100 hitpoints to survive the long trip into a station

I made it illegal but common, so it should show up in anarchist stations and BM stations. Only level 2 with 2d6+3 blast damage and WMD4. There could be a few variations with radioactive or EMP effects.

Please feel free to modify it and reupload to xelerus, my rough weapon is in the bugtesting section right now as it's not fully tested. If you have any questions I'll try to help.

[Song]

Hmm. I'm going to try to make a military version....then maybe fiddle with graphics and the explosion it makes.....

[Song]

Ok, I've got a few ideas for this. I can't do this entirely myself, and certainly not at 10PM, but here are my suggestions.

1. Make it rare, and up the damage to a high level (so that if one hits you, you notice). Increase mass to ~5 tons, and REALLY ramp that damage up. Oh, and have bigger explosion. But do NOT have it be an instakill.

2. Code new encounters, of T31/T55 Class transports, armed with these weapons, AND NOTHING ELSE, with escorts of standard transports.....that will pick a friendly station, and do a bombing run on it. Maybe even 3-5 aainst big targets like fortresses and maybe even St. Kats arcology. (Heeeeey, that could make a SWEET militia mission)

3......Bigger boom-boom please?

[Prophet]

I think rather than one giant explosion it could shoot a number of fragments that could then have explosions themselves. I saw a video of a train that overturned while carrying rail car full of propane cylinders which inevitably caught fire. Think fireworks but with fireballs instead of pretty colors and instead of being in the sky it's happening right in front of you.

As for the transports actually using them, that might be more difficult. It might require a custom event handler to use the weapon effectively. Although, watching a fleet of ships swarm a station and start dropping clusters of these would be very entertaining. Maybe the Aurauchs mine layer ship code could be useful for this....

[schilcote]

As for the transports actually using them, that might be more difficult. It might require a custom event handler to use the weapon effectively. Although, watching a fleet of ships swarm a station and start dropping clusters of these would be very entertaining. Maybe the Aurauchs mine layer ship code could be useful for this....

I think we could maybe base it off of the way Sung ships that use the Quinalong Archcannon reload it (they actually have to reload it too, which is neat).

[hookoa]

Thanks for writing up the mod.

I tried it with ramped up damage. Thermo:17d10; wmd5 puts it at about 95hp and with the 256x256 explosions picture, it looks pretty cool. I think that prophet's got the right idea. It'd look best with something like what the Manticore's mags do; fragment all over the place and team kill like no other weapon can. Actually, I think it'd be a cool idea. I'll have to look to see if the mag fragments can end in miniature explosions.

I always envisioned it as a weapon that could be delivered against ventari stations and sung/huari fortresses as a good opening shot, dealing about 50% damage or so. Rare is good, so you can't just double bomb every station out of existence.

I do like the "illegal" modifier. Gives it a gritty feel. It would probably benefit from a "volatile" modifier too.

It does kind of feel like an anarchists weapon. Also, it seems like something that tinkers could put together with enough mag rounds or some such.


After much work with the robots the woman comes back with a crate bomb. "Here you go," she says."It's like a bomb with ball-bearings, except the ball-bearings are also bombs!"

[schilcote]

I think I'll do an Anarchists mod if I fall into a fey mood today. Catbombs anyone?

[Prophet]

I reuploaded the cargo bomb with a new area explosion type and now uses my UNID.

It is available here