New Weapon Ideas

[Neithrantulre]

We need more gunly guns, and more content in general.

Pluton Heavy Cannon:
Medium weapon, like a big naval cannon from the age of sail. Long range accurate gun that does primarily armor damage, very slow fire rate. Within 150 meters it is armed and does fire damage, making it much more devastating in close, like a real cannon. Pairs well with Flak at long range, does slightly more DPS to armor than Merc, but at close range does closer to Gat armor damage.  Satisfies many roles/requests that I see people wanting. It functions like a heavy merc/gat/flame/hades and the only heavy gun focused on doing armor damage, but really its something unique that nothing quite does yet, but I think it can be made to be balanced and fun. Shot would burn like hades visually with slightly less arc and faster projectile, and would run out of 'fuel' at the 150 meter mark. Makes the Galleon more piratey, and is probably the Goldfish's wet dream.

Vagabond Light Autocannon:
Light weapon, double barrel larger-caliber gatling gun. Medium close range gun with reasonable effectiveness vs armor and hull. No disabling capability this gun is for killing. 6 shots rapidly fire(automatically like gat manti and flame) very small explosion radius, and very quick reload. Called Vagabond because its a 6 shooter . In the current state of the game, if you want a single gun that can score a kill without a brother, you have to use either a 200 meter gun (flame) or a 1400 meter gun (hades). This closes the gap and gives more options for Goldfish, Squid, back gun on Galleon, front on Junker, and anytime you must rely on a single gun. Should reach out to around 400 meters (680 with lesmok), but accuracy will make it a bit less effective at the edge of the range. Great upward arc like an anti-air cannon.

Phalanx Repeating Rifle:
Like a chain-fed Mercury, you must repeatedly hit components precisely to break them, approx as quickly as Artemis but requires direct hits. Large magazine and slowish fire rate makes it last about as long as a gatling before it runs out, but then has long reload. Secondary damage is explosive with a much more forgiving AOE. My gunners complain that the Scylla is too easy, so this is a rewarding high-skill replacement for a mortar. Scylla gunning on most ships means a lot of waiting. Though more accurate than a mortar, it is worse unless you are breaking components, so it will kill less quickly with a skilled crew, but for new crews the increased accuracy is a blessing. I think this would be a more fun way to kill ships, and there are relatively few guns in the disabler category that can still get a kill.

I have a chart of current weapon stats, and how these new weapons stack up to them, keep in mind that the massive armor damage of the Pluton is only available within flamethrower range, when at long range it does negligible hull, balloon, and guns damage and about 54dps to armor, with consistent hits. I think all 3 of these would have a positive effect on the game, metagame, and amount of fun.



Stuff you can calculate from the chart but I forgot to put in...
Fire rate( not including reload):
Pluton is 2.5 seconds per shot ( 12.5 seconds till empty)
Vagabond is 0.25 seconds a shot (4 shots a second and 1.5 seconds till empty)
Phalanx is .75 seconds per shot ( 15 seconds till empty)

[obliviondoll]

Well, apart from my agreement that a heavy weapon with piercing damage would be nice, all your suggestions sound game-breakingly OP.

The Pluton seems the least ridiculous, but even so, Piercing and Fire damage is a pretty harsh combination. Not as broken as putting Piercing and Explosive damage into a single light weapon though. The Vagabond literally sounds like a Gat/Mortar combo in a single gun. And the Phalanx is pretty much a more accurate Heavy Hwacha with better killing capabilities at the cost of fire rate and disable power, and that's once again listed as a light weapon.

I really would like to see more weapons, particularly more heavy weapons. And I'd particularly like to see a heavy weapon that deals piercing damage. But your suggestions seem like you're building dream weapons instead of balanced concepts.

I'd be in favour of a Heavy Gatling Gun with shorter range (350 at most) and the same piercing/shatter damage as the Whirlwind, but with higher numbers, or with two gatling guns strapped together for the same damage per shot but twice as many shots fired and maybe even more than double the ammo reserves.

With the disarm range on the Pluton, it seems semi-viable but would need to have a MUCH shorter maximum range to be balanced. The Vagabond is a ridiculous idea from concept stages, and a piercing/explosive weapon is just a terrible, terrible idea. I like the concept behind the Phalanx, but giving it Flechette or Piercing damage for the AoE would probably be a better idea than Explosive. The best alternative I can see would be a significant nerf to the explosive damage on the gun.

I would like to mention that I'm still relatively new, and this is based on a less-than-thorough examination of your post - I have read it through and looked over the stats, but I haven't gone into great depth in my theorycrafting here. I won't be surprised if my current comments are debunked soon. But that's the impression I'm getting so far from your write-up. Hope I'm not coming across too harshly.

[Milevan Faent]

I haven't got the time to read through all of this right now, though I will attempt to remember to do so later. I do however have to make a comment. The Flamer data is entirely out of date. For that matter, I think some of the other information here may also be old as well.

[Neithrantulre]

I don't think the entire concept of a Piercing/Explosive gun is bad just because of the concept, it just needs to be balanced. Piercing/Fire is pretty close in damage breakdown, except with more disabling ability(balloon) and the devs have found it right to include the Hades. This would be effectively a closer range Hades with less engineering hell and disabling and less armor damage for an increase in hull damage. The Hades is already kind of a Gat/Mortar combo but with the ability to shoot 1400 meters. Its possible the Vagabond would need slightly less hull damage to be balanced, but since it is shorter range it is justified to be higher reward than Hades, and it already has no disable and less armor damage. The effect of a double Vaga pyr should be similar to a gat/flak but without the ability to hold shots for the kill. Ideally Gat/Flak and Gat/Mortar would get the kill faster, but you have gun redundancy(can still kill them even if they disable one of your fore pyr guns) or independence in the case of squid. You could also pair it with a disabler and not have to rely on your carronade to break their armor.

 I think the Phalanx is more aptly compared to the Artemis and Echidna than the Hwacha. If you look at the damage breakdown, we already have a light Hwacha, its called Artemis. I like the primary damage being Shatter because that means that it takes much skill to get the most out of the weapon, and even when you are getting the most out of it, it has less disabling power and much less range than the Artemis, and has much less killing power than mortar or flak. Banshee is also a good comparison with greater range, similar damage, and fire capability, its just a bit less precise with its disabling.

Obviously there would need to be play-testing to balance them.

[obliviondoll]

I don't think the entire concept of a Piercing/Explosive gun is bad just because of the concept, it just needs to be balanced.

In a game which is focused on teamwork and coordinating the efforts of multiple players, a single long-range gun that does the entire job of killing - both penetrating armour and destroying hull - with the utmost efficiency, is a terrible idea. Its damage output is buffed to the extreme against BOTH primary kill targets, and it's literally the only weapon to be doing that. Hades works in part because it uses Fire and NOT Explosive damage.

The Hades is already kind of a Gat/Mortar combo but with the ability to shoot 1400 meters. Its possible the Vagabond would need slightly less hull damage to be balanced, but since it is shorter range it is justified to be higher reward than Hades, and it already has no disable and less armor damage. The effect of a double Vaga pyr should be similar to a gat/flak but without the ability to hold shots for the kill.

You're saying "without the ABILITY to hold shots for the kill" when it should be "without the NEED to hold shots for the kill". You have to use two players coordinating and working together to make efficient use of Gat/Flak or Gat/Mortar weapon pairs. With dual Vagabonds as you're proposing them, you could just both fire at the same time and get the same result without the need for coordination, planning and teamwork.

I think the Phalanx is more aptly compared to the Artemis and Echidna than the Hwacha. If you look at the damage breakdown, we already have a light Hwacha, its called Artemis. I like the primary damage being Shatter because that means that it takes much skill to get the most out of the weapon, and even when you are getting the most out of it, it has less disabling power and much less range than the Artemis, and has much less killing power than mortar or flak. Banshee is also a good comparison with greater range, similar damage, and fire capability, its just a bit less precise with its disabling.

More aptly compared to the Echidna with only explosive damage and an arming range? I don't see it.
More aptly compared with the Artemis which, as you mentioned, is a similar-ish weapon to the Hwacha I'm comparing it to? Not really.

You're proposing a faster-firing weapon than the Artemis with lower damage per shot and a larger magazine, which makes it more like the Hwacha. Also, the damage profile for each shot is far closer to the Hwacha than the Artemis - if anything, I'd say Carousels feel more like the Hwacha than the Artemis does, even if they do lack the Shatter damage.

Obviously there would need to be play-testing to balance them.

Obviously. But I think it's better to release it underpowered and buff gradually into line than to release it already OP and have to nerf it.

EDIT: I simply don't think "killing everything on its own" is a role that should be filled by any single weapon, and if there is a valid reason for such a gun, it really shouldn't be a light weapon.

[Neithrantulre]

Roles I'd like to see:

* Heavy weapon that does Armor damage
* Higher skill gun that fills the Mortar/Flak role
* More options for an independently killing gun like Flame/Hades

for the Heavy/armor role i'd like to point over to this excellent thread about Tesla weapons
https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,4288.msg72614.html

New concepts:

Ifrit Heavy Fire Lance
Heavy double barreled fire lance( ancient chinese weapon). Close range, under 350 meters, less fire stacks than flamethrower but with more base damage. Like an automatic shotgun loaded with these http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A162aCDluNU Dragon's Breath rounds. Shoots direct fire narrow bolt of shrapnel and flame, every shot would have 100% or close to 100% chance to start one fire, but only on the component hit, with decent AOE disable like artemis, but less. Would be effective at really anything you pointed at, and stack fires pretty fast, but isolated unlike the flamethrower. Fire rate about 2 shots/second with a large clip and normalish reload. Widest horizontal arc of heavy weapons like flamethrower and because its the shortest range. Concept is east asian so name is middle eastern, like the Korean Hwacha with persian name Manticore.

Rex Light Howitzer
Fills role of a mid range weapon with capability to kill alone, but with less damage and more harrassment. Very effective vs balloon, but less than carronade or lumberjack. Again primary fire damage so you get isolated fires, mostly on armor and balloon because those are the easiest to hit. Slow firing with approx 100% fire chance per shot( one component) and reasonably large blast area with flechette, so even when shooting at hull you get SOME balloon damage, but you don't get the devastating damage unless you shoot it directly, and then you get practically 0 armor/hull damage. Kings/Vagabonds naming is intentional.

New chart to include new concepts, and a pre-nerfed version of Vagabond.


Edit: I'd also like to mention the Kalskel https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,4251.0.html which is similar in concept to the Vagabond, and would fulfill my desire for more single-gun kill options.

[SirNotlag]

awhile back i came up with an idea for a Sonic gun that dealt shatter and explosive damage with a unique ability to disrupt incoming projectiles.

https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,4046.msg69823.html#msg69823

There the thread for it, i know it doesn't fit any of your wanted roles but maybe you'll find it interesting.

[Neithrantulre]

awhile back i came up with an idea for a Sonic gun that dealt shatter and explosive damage with a unique ability to disrupt incoming projectiles.

https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,4046.msg69823.html#msg69823

There the thread for it, i know it doesn't fit any of your wanted roles but maybe you'll find it interesting.

Yes that looks very interesting and I'd love to see it added.
I mainly just think the game currently has too little content so I am trying to come up with unique ideas so maybe one of them will catch the devs attention enough to go 'hmm'. I don't even care which one, or if its my suggestions, though those are the ones that I would want to use because those are the things my playstyle would benefit from (in diversity at least, even if there is no power creep). I love to see gun ideas, I THINK that they are easier content to add to the game, they are certainly easier to come up with than ships.

[SirNotlag]

I do like your repeating rifle. I feel there should be more weapons that can be used in place of the Scylla mortor to give brawling builds more variety. Also I am one of those people that finds the Scylla mortor builds very boring to use.