Support weapons

[Solidusbucket]

The idea of using support ships got me thinking. What about support weapons?

Enemy light your teamate on fire? Use a medium ranged water hose to extinguish flame for them.

Teamate getting bombarded by long range? Shoot some webbed armor out in front of them to block shots. http://imgur.com/eq8xOqL << there is an example of what I am talking about. It is used to block RPGs and other explosive munitions by causing them to explode when the munition hits one of the metal things on the net.

Those are honestly the only two ideas I have right now. However, the idea is that these weapons have no real offensive capabilities. They cannot control a ship (pulling / pushing teamates, blocking paths) they only affect munitions, extinguish fires, or (somehow) rebuild/repair.

Thoughts?

[DJ Logicalia]

I'd be down for that. I'm all for more utility weapons
 Right now all we have is the flare

[Daft Loon]

A modified mine with a larger balloon profile and something like that RPG net in place of the bomb could be pretty neat. About the same health as the current mine so it would block 1 Mercury shot or a few Gatling bullets and only deal moderate damage before breaking up on collision with a ship.

A similar thing that floats and emits smoke or light tar in a moderate area for the duration of its existence (maybe only 1min or so) could be neat.

A possibility:
Utility launcher
-Replaces both the flare and harpoon gun
-Selects from a range of uses including flare and harpoon and any of the above (and below?) ideas. Either by having ammo correspond to a utility or replacing ammo entirely with a choice of utility (so when getting on the gun instead of seeing your ammo types you see icons for each utility).

[Richard LeMoon]

On water and freeze guns.

On further thought, a 'stream of liquid' gun would not be that great as an assault weapon for damage on its own. Rather, I suggest two types of gun.

The 'Trident': One is a small gun that just shoots a stream of chem-water, much like the chem spray. The effect would be reducing fire stacks (2 stacks per 1 second?) and adding a chemspray buff for the usual amount of time (without the timeout). It could cause a very small amount of damage with extended use, perhaps more to the balloon than anything. Infinite ammo, no reload, short range particle. Can be used on friend or foe ships.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpbrady/6874805218/sizes/z/in/photostream/
or


The 'Aquilon': The second gun would be a medium, air-powered device that fires a volley of liquid nitrogen or highly compressed CO2 canisters. These explode on contact, causing all sorts of havoc in a localized area (little burst or AOE). On its own, it could do medium shatter damage, moderate piercing, and instantly puts out any fires as a side effect. If it hits a chemsprayed component, however, it would do heavy shatter and piercing, as well as moderate hull damage. 8-12 ammo capacity, rapid fire rate, long reload (to pump up the launcher compressor), short range physics projectiles. No friendly fire.



On their own, neither is a frightening gun. The Aquilon would be basically a shorter range Hwacha as far as damage is concerned, and the water cannon is just a big squirt gun. Combined, however, they would be quite frightening and effective.

On net guns

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.

An additional idea I have been mulling about for a while is a decoy mine launcher heavy gun. It is a mine launcher that tosses out large drone mines (the size of target balloons) that look similar to whatever ship you are on. Using the new AI ship system, it may even be able to fly towards an enemy.

[Arturo Sanchez]

friendly fire poon.

[Solidusbucket]

Indeed. I did not do a search. This would suffice. These would (have) be[en] a great addition to the co-op mode

[Richard LeMoon]

Don't worry about it. I knew what to look for and still could not find them with a search. Had to go through my old posts manually.

[Hoja Lateralus]

I don't want to burst your bubble, but how about we make all guns we already have balanced, valid and fun and THEN we'll think about adding another? I mean, GOIO has a multitude of options, but it all comes down to like 5-ish guns that are most useful, so there's no true choice in that matter.

[Helios.]

a gun that would launch canisters that would release a huge obfuscating cloud would be awesome.

if you shoot an artemis or something at a ship it leaves a little puff of smoke that you cant see through. what if instead of the damage, it just made a really big cloud of smoke. you could use it to give yourself some breathing room by shooting enemy ships, which would then have trouble seeing you through the cloud. alternately if you used something like lochnagar, it woudl explode earlier and put the cloud closer to you, to give YOU some cover from others.

[Helios.]

basically you shoot it at someone and they are all like... dang we cant see anything till we get out of this stinking cloud...
maybe if you wanted it woudl be like a tar cloud, so it did some damage, i dunno

[Richard LeMoon]

Liquid nitrogen canisters would do both.

[Helios.]

true, but i think you would almost have to create a entirely different damage type of 'cold damage' wich realistically could only have that one weapon in it. also i dont think the clouds caused by such a weapon woudl last very long. also a weapon designed to heal is not going to be useful, and nobody will end up putting it on their ship

[MightyKeb]

true, but i think you would almost have to create a entirely different damage type of 'cold damage' wich realistically could only have that one weapon in it. also i dont think the clouds caused by such a weapon woudl last very long. also a weapon designed to heal is not going to be useful, and nobody will end up putting it on their ship

Actually, if you give it good arcs and turning speed like the Flare gun, aswell as somewhat of an ease of use when firing, it could easily end up being handy in many utility slots on ships, a Pyra's side, squid/galleon's back, even junker's front, a fish's left side, Maybe the 3rd or 4th slot weapon on the spire, top left on mobula etc. Every ship has some room for a convenience weapon.

[Atruejedi]

a gun that would launch canisters that would release a huge obfuscating cloud would be awesome.

if you shoot an artemis or something at a ship it leaves a little puff of smoke that you cant see through. what if instead of the damage, it just made a really big cloud of smoke. you could use it to give yourself some breathing room by shooting enemy ships, which would then have trouble seeing you through the cloud. alternately if you used something like lochnagar, it woudl explode earlier and put the cloud closer to you, to give YOU some cover from others.

I would love something like a smoke grenade launcher. Could be useful on a Galleon's rear gun, a Pyramidion's side gun, or one of the Mobula's million guns. Can't guarantee how often I'd use it, though, if it straight-up replaced a gun position. Maybe if it were an ammo type, or a flare gun secondary fire option? Or, as was suggested earlier, turn the flare gun into a "utility" gun with flares, smoke grenades, shot-blocking-nets, etc. That would be the best option, IMO.

[BlackenedPies]

Flares are OP enough