Multiplayer Plasma Weapons!!!

[blackether]

Cannons stack right now so people can have more interesting weapons than just 1 kind of gun. The functionality provided by 'stacking' is a precursor to a wider variety of weapons coming down the road, but have not been implemented (remember, weapon overhaul got 3rd place behind ship movement and player movement in the vote).

As soon as there is a sufficient depth in weapons, I can assure you that the days of 'stacking' as we know them will be over. That said, 'stacking' will be first replaced with prefab weapons (the first of which we have already seen). After prefabs have been well defined, work will then begin on making many systems modular and component-driven. This means that the function of the _______ (weapon in this case) will be determined by its component blocks, and not necessarily by a predetermined weapon type. Therefore it will come down to decisions like: if I add this flux reflector damage will be increased by 10%, but power requirements will be increased 25%. Things will be much more complicated but will provide us with the freedom to make a huge variety in weapons (as well as many other important devices like FTL drives and shipboard computers).


Ships are very easy to destroy at the moment because shields have yet to be implemented. They will fundamentally change the game when they are, and gameplay will have to evolve with them.

[mamastoast]

Completely dominating and obliterating a ship should be possible, it shouldn't be easy!!! normally people would be satisfied with just blowing the ship to chunks, but say you and your Nemesis were duking it out, and even though technically your ship was weaker, you managed to beat him, who wouldn't enjoy rubbing your victory in your frenemies face even more by completely annihilating every last chunk? it would probably be hard as heck, maybe even harder than the battle was itself, but it should still be possible. Ok, im done

pfft, I'd bring avoid my repair crew and salvage the ship how better the rub in your victory than by stealing his ship

[Neonivek]

Cannons stack right now so people can have more interesting weapons than just 1 kind of gun. The functionality provided by 'stacking' is a precursor to a wider variety of weapons coming down the road, but have not been implemented (remember, weapon overhaul got 3rd place behind ship movement and player movement in the vote).

Actually that would be too bad. I actually like stacking to a certain extent. As it allows you to essentially make an appropriate weapon no matter how big the ship is.

[mamastoast]

It wouldnt be too bad at all. BR is supposed to become a game. Allowing you to stack cannon makes no sense at all, we're supposed to have to make tactical choices about which guns we choose to mount on our ships, not simply throw a bunch of plasma cannon stacks. The fact that cannons shoot through eachother is just an issue they haven't gotten around to yet. It's the same with thrusters, I'm sure thrusters wont be able to just be stacks in the same manner they are now

[Neonivek]

It makes perfect sense as it is mostly the game allowing you to adjust the weapons and thrusters yourself instead of having an infinite number of thrusters and plasma weapons.

It was actually one of the neater aspects of the game even when I knew they were adding prefab weapons and engines too.

I kinda hope it remains in the game in some form. Even if it has to be weakened.

[Strait Raider]

It would be a shame to lose this capability completely. IMO, this should be carried on in at least a couple of different weapon systems. The customizeability is great.

Think of what we have created - 400 meter superlasers, weapons that shoot words, a ship named Thor that fires a massive hammer-shaped projectile.

How awesome is this?

[mamastoast]

How does it makes sense for a weapon to fire through another? If you want a stronger small weapon you'll have to buy it and power it with whatever it requires. If it stays I would consider it a bug or at best an exploit. We're gonna have all kinds of different weapon types for our ships, the current plasma cannon was just implemented to test the system.

@Strait and this is exactly why it shouldnt be in the game, . 400 meter superlasers would break the game completely. Making words come out of cannons is all fun and good to mess around with, but it doesn't fit in an actual game, specially not one that isn't supposed to be completely cartoony


The game is gonna feature an oxygen system, power and all sorts of cool stuff, do you guys honestly think that they're gonna have such a silly weapon system that actually allows us to stack weapons ontop of eachother?

[Neonivek]

Simple Mamastoast

It is like having a long tube that increases the power of the weapon as it goes along.

Like a railgun or the death star.

As for balance, that would be the diminishing returns and increasing power requirements... a 400 meter super laser would require a simply massive ship with excessive engine requirements that could probably only fire once.

[mamastoast]

Simple Mamastoast

It is like having a long tube that increases the power of the weapon as it goes along.

Like a railgun or the death star.

As for balance, that would be the diminishing returns and increasing power requirements... a 400 meter super laser would require a simply massive ship with excessive engine requirements that could probably only fire once.

That is completely different from the stacking of weapons. First of all that would amount to one projectile, as it should, not a line of  projectiles able to slice through an entire ship as it would most likely react upon impact with the hull. It would able to able to be destroyed by hitting a single section, which stacked weapons wouldnt. Lastly You wouldnt be able to hide the power of such a weapon seeing as when stacking a weapons you have no chance to see the amount of stacked layers behind the front. With a cannon with "extended barrel" you could easily read this.

Yes, but that would amount to (as you said) a huge, huge ship to power and support such a cannon, hence it wouldn't be a spacelaser of the designs we've seen so far, it would actually be a ship with everything that comes with it.

[Neonivek]

First of all that would amount to one projectile

Unless it had a feeding system like the death star. Since these arn't solid systems.

[mamastoast]

First of all that would amount to one projectile

Unless it had a feeding system like the death star.

Yes, but I was talking about if the weapon in question was similar to our current plasma cannons

[Neonivek]

So there you go, the current stacked weapons are functional within the realm of logic.

I don't know what your objecting to. Since stacked plasma weaponry is more representational.

Though if you want to get into a "what makes sense" war I guess I could bring up that for some of these ships they should snap right in half and that not having a continuous set of retrorockets would destroy them.

[mamastoast]

... what.... ? How did you even come to that conclusion at all? I just raised several objections and none of them have been adressed

[Neonivek]

... what.... ? How did you even come to that conclusion at all? I just raised several objections and none of them have been adressed

Your issue is that when you see two stacked plasma blocks you picture it as one plasma block magically shooting through another

Rather then both of them working in tandem or both of them being one plasma weapon that just looks like two.

Its a stuck perception that cannot be penetrated by all means this conversation is done

[theallmightybob]

the plasma stack is just a test run for more complex "stack" weapons from what I understand.  in the end the devs said weapon stack would likely be more like the current engine prefabs. with a base a middle and an end. allowing for any scale really.