Crazy weapon Idea! Why not mix defense with offense?

[SirNotlag]

      So I had a very peculiar idea for a new weapon hit me when I noticed that the particles from the flamers were hitting enemy projectiles. Why not make a weapon that can intercept the enemies projectiles before they hit your ship? How would that work? What would it even be? What is to stop it from being overpowered and frustrating to fight?

   Eventually I came up with an idea for perhaps an interesting sonic weapon, or electric weapon depending on what the particles it shoots would look like. For lack of a name lets call it the resonator for now.

    Anyway it would shoot particles in a cone in front of it similar to the flamethrower but probably wider and slower to help with intercepting incoming projectiles. If these particles hit an enemy projectile they would cause it to explode in the air leaving your ships hull unscratched. To make sense and to stop it from being op certain weapons would be immune to this effect and able to shoot straight through the cone at your ship, I figure those should be: merc  field gun, chain gun, light carronade, heavy carronade, flamer, mortar, pretty much the brawling weapons and the merc gun so snipers can disable the resonator and bombard the ship. Bonus idea projectiles that haven't armed yet because your ship is too close will still hit you rather than explode so hades can still set your balloon on fire if you are close.

   As for the weapon itself I figure it would do a small amount of shatter and explosive damage so when you close on an enemy ship it can help disable it and chip away at the perma hull when the armour is down. I am not talking about this being a disabler weapon because since it fires in a large cone it is going to be hitting the entire enemy ship so the damage to components cant overpower an engineer by itself but it could make their lives very difficult since now all components are dropping.

    I think something like this would be really fun for brawlers especially against a sniper ship as you watch the incoming flak shots and try to shoot them down.


   Feel free to criticize, question, expand, or tell of your own crazy weapon ideas  .

[macmacnick]

Dust storm gun?

[Crafeksterty]

Ive made a similar (Exactly same) thread where there is a heavy gun that eliminates projectiles. Still would be cool.

[Spud Nick]

 I would like to see impact damage as the guns damage type.

[Dutch Vanya]

I like it.

I also like the idea of an impact damage shockwave weapon.

I also like the idea of a weapon the reflects projectiles back to the offensive ship rather than destroying them.

[Richard LeMoon]

Optional idea:

Large gun. Tesla industrial electronically charged magnetron web canon. Fires a charged net that shreds any metallic object that touches it.

Story: Used to be used to keep sky critters out of the shipyards. That is until a few mad tinkers figured out how to crank up the juice. Now it will melt bullets and your fillings.

Effect: Creates a large net that travels a short distance before disintegrating. Optionally stays until destroyed, suspended by mine balloons.  No projectile of any kind can pass through it. Like a mine, it has a physical form, hitbox, and hull heath, so it can be destroyed. A ship touching it will instantly destroy it, but will cause some impact (slowing a ship down) and shatter damage (since guns and engines are mostly metal).

Only one net can be fired at a time. Firing a second destroys the first. Stops friendly and foe fire alike. Does not stop fire.

[Crafeksterty]

Give me that shit right now, omg that looks amazing.

Ive mostly tought of an electrical cloud but this is alot more visualy apealing and less graphicaly demanding.

Ide LOVE this on my spire! No ship can out gun the spire with that!

[Susurrus]

This seems a really interesting idea!
I'd love either the "sonic wave" OR the "bullet-stopping net" option.
Although I think the 'sonic wave' type would lend itself better towards having an offensive use, if one was close enough.
(I'm not sure I like the idea of a gun that wouldn't practically be able to do any actual damage; it would seem particularly biased towards certain ships & builds.)

Perhaps have it as a "sustained" barrier.
Sort of like generating successive waves to knock projectiles away if they fall into the cone of influence.
That way the enemy can strike whilst reloading is going on or they can hit it from a different angle or rely on simple human & mechanical inability to catch everything.

[SirNotlag]

I do like the idea of the electro net, but the only way i can think of it being fun or effective would be to either give it like 70 degrees rotation either direction for good coverage, a very fast reload so there are short intervals between each net being launched, or have a clip of like 4 to 6 nets that you can fire out with a very long reload time so you can form a wall to give yourself a breather to repair while the enemy blasts through it. Another problem i see with setting up nets is it would only be good for snipers or ships that sit still as trying to move at full speed and launch the nets to use as cover doesn't seem very feasible even if they did carry the ships momentum. Though i can see it being used to just deny another ship from ramming you by launching nets in front of them to slow and damage them before they hit you.

As for the offensive capabilities of the of the "sonic gun" i figured it would be like getting hit by a sandstorm that also chips away at the armour of the ship and more significantly at the perma hull if the armour is down. That way a ship suffering from its effects can keep most things running if they have good engineers and the gunner can fire back, but if the armour goes down the damage to the hull could not be ignored so as engineers scrambled to get the armour back the other components might fail due to the damage to the whole ship. This makes the weapon itself unable to disable or kill but paired with another weapon it would overcome most crews, and if given 50 to 60 degrees rotation in either direction it could be used in a lot of bifecta weapon setups.

[SirNotlag]

As for the Sonic weapons ability to stop incoming projectiles I think the cone is better than any form of  barrier as it would not be able to protect the whole ship easily, which is kinda the point. Nothing would be more frustrating than shooting at a ship and having some force field stop your bullets in their tracks. While if your firing at the balloon of an enemy ship and a stream of power keeps shooting up from the hull to block the incoming shots it will still be frustrating as your not getting the kill but you'd have to give credit where credit is due as that would take a skilled gunner.
 
To further stop it from being an impenetrable force a long reload time could be given to the gun so even if the gunner can intercept every single one of your shots he cant do it forever even if he times his reloads with yours. That would also give a ship that has one of these on top of them and has broken all their components a chance to repair and fight back as the weapon reloads.