The Icarus Cannon

[Dolphirus]

I had an idea for a new medium weapon as I feel mediums could use a little more variety to set them apart. While the name is less important than it's function, the name plays right into the lore of the game and the function of the weapon. The Icarus Cannon would rely on a series of mirrors and lenses to focus a beam of light on a target. The longer the beam is on the target the more damage is done. This weapon could work as an infinite ammo'd weapon that took a long time to reach full damage potential. There are similar examples of this mechanic working in tower defense games of all variety as well as Starcraft II. (Voidray)

Limiting this weapon to the medium slot would further diversify potential load outs and hopefully give larger ships a little more "oomph" on the field. What are your thoughts?

[Spud Nick]

http://gunsoficarus.com/wp-content/gallery/gun-concepts/concept___searchlight_by_musegames-d4l9zdn.png

Something like this?

[Thomas]

Or this?

[Dresdom]

Light... Infinite ammo... Full damage...


The sniping is strong with this one.

[Spud Nick]

If it operates like other beam weapons it might be too easy to use. A good way to balance it out would be to make it a support weapon and have it dish out fire and shatter damage.

[Dresdom]

Make it a heavy medium-range fire weapon and I'm buying it. It may resurrect the Goldfish.

[Crafeksterty]

And the gun itself takes fire. Making heatsink sort of required. OR engineer chemspray.


Not only that, this beam SHOWS like, it should be easy to see where it is coming from.


I like the idea. I just dont know how it can balance out.

[Dolphirus]

Spud Nick and Thomas, something exactly like that. Just seems a fitting weapon.

[Spud Nick]

Maybe the weapon could lose some of it's damage if you are in a cloud away from direct sun light. Tho I can imagine that would be hard to implement.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Also useful if Superman needs his power recharged...

[Thomas]

In this case, a small portion of realism could make it an interesting weapon. The basis for this kind of weapon is focusing light to a single point. Picture a magnifying glass and an ant. When the magnifying glass is too far or too close, it does nothing but mildly warm the ant. You have to be at -just- the right distance to cook it. That's how lenses and focused light works.


So for this kind of weapon, just toss in an 'arming' time and a rapid bullet decay. For it to be useful, you'd still need a decent range of effectiveness; like 50-100 meters. If it only worked at a very specific distance (only lasted for say 1 meter after arming) it'd be impossible to use effectively. Then like all other weapons, using the different ammo is essentially changing the lens for things like having it work closer or further away.

[Coldcurse]

I think this weapon would do flame damage.
So how do you make it special since we already have a flamethrower?

good known solution:
Make it do more damage when its being aimed at targets that are far away, and make it do significantly less damage when the enemy is really close. the same mechanic is being used for the lumberjack and the hades.

To make sure all the ammo types work on the gun you dont need to overpower the amount of flamestacks overtime.
further then its minimum range I think it's right to apply 4 flamestacks each 2 seconds, inside the minimum range.
greased rounds would reduce the maximum range otherwise it would get overpowered.
lochnagar would hurt the gun but apply 2 times more flamestack each 2 seconds.
incindiary rounds would add +1 on the flamestack making the gun do 5 flamestack each 2 seconds.
heavy clip makes the beam more concentrated.
lesmok would extend the max range but also extend the minimum range.

hopefully you guys can use this information.

[Thomas]

Coldcurse brings up some good points, especially about there already being some flame weapons. Specifically the flamethrower which is a close range weapon, and the hades which is mid to long range. (We'll ignore the flare gun which is delightfully fun, but not a direct damage role)

I don't see an issue with another fire weapon, as we already have weapons that overlap in roles.

The flamethrower is fire/fire damage within 200 meters
The Hades is fire/piercing damage up to 1400 meters (no aoe under 150 meters)


The weapon could easily go fire/fire for simplicity, or mix in another damage type. Such as flechette for balloon popping.

Likely a mid range weapon, probably difficult to turn to compensate for the accuracy of the weapon. Of course it would need some kind of ammo limitation, I don't think an infinite ammo beam weapon would be balanced.


Would it react in a certain way with clouds and dust storms? Light would refract off the water in the clouds and be blocked by dust, making it relatively ineffective (in reality). Would it light up the clouds like a flare gun while it's being fired at them?

[Rainer Zu Fall]

In this case, a small portion of realism could make it an interesting weapon. The basis for this kind of weapon is focusing light to a single point. Picture a magnifying glass and an ant. When the magnifying glass is too far or too close, it does nothing but mildly warm the ant. You have to be at -just- the right distance to cook it. That's how lenses and focused light works.


So for this kind of weapon, just toss in an 'arming' time and a rapid bullet decay. For it to be useful, you'd still need a decent range of effectiveness; like 50-100 meters. If it only worked at a very specific distance (only lasted for say 1 meter after arming) it'd be impossible to use effectively. Then like all other weapons, using the different ammo is essentially changing the lens for things like having it work closer or further away.

That's something that would make it quite balanced, totally with you on that. (Arming time + ray range limited?)

Specific range, medium or close range weapon, shatter and piercing damage? Pretty obvious ray (pretty easy to trace even if inside clouds  http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs13/i/2007/007/b/3/Light_Beam_by_coolthang.jpg ) as crafeksterty said?

Sounds promising.

[redria]

Of course it would need some kind of ammo limitation, I don't think an infinite ammo beam weapon would be balanced.

Continuing the theme of using lenses to focus the light, and knowing how, when you use lenses that maybe aren't the best quality to focus light it makes a burn mark on the lens, I would suggest that the ammo be sort of a lifetime per lens deal, and when you break, or burn up, a lens, it signifies you running out of ammo. The animation would involve mechanisms pulling a black smoking lens out of the machinery and replacing it with a shiny new one.

This would be a very interesting heavy weapon. I like the idea of it having flechette logically. Lasers are often used to pop balloons, so having fire and balloon popping would work well together logically.

Would be interesting, though not necessarily feasible, to let gunners use scenery to help them shoot. I don't know what the arcs would be, but if you could shoot down at water in one of the water maps and have the beam reflect back up towards the enemy it would add in some interesting tactics. It could be a heavy gun with better downward arcs, unlike the lumberjack which has good upwards arcs.