Hydra Phosphorus Mortar (Disregard past ravings)

[Naoura]

Hydra Phosphorus Mortar

Heavy Class
Direct damage (Shell):  35 Fire
Burst Damage (Shell): 15 Fire
Direct Damage (Sub Munition): 25 Fire, stackable
Burst Radius: 10 Meters
Arming time: 2.33 seconds
Arming range: 350 meters
Reload Time: 18 seconds
Projectile speed: 150 m/s
Projectile drop (Shell): 8 m/s^2
Projectile drop (Sub Munition): 4 m/s^2
Projectile spread (Shell): 5 meters.
Projectile spread (Sub Munition): 25 meters
Sub munitions per Shell: 5
Sub munition spread speed: 3 m/s

Arcs

Horizontal: 25 deg Left; 25 deg Right
Vertical: 30 deg  up; 8 dge Down
Horizontal speed: 20 Deg/s
Verticle Speed: 15 deg/s

Fire chance

Shell: 25% chance for 10 stacks
Sub Munition: 100% chance for 7 stacks, stackable for each sub munition.

The idea behind the Hydra is for a GOIO equivalent of this:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/Ex-USS_Alabama_%28BB-8%29_-_NH_57483.jpg/800px-Ex-USS_Alabama_%28BB-8%29_-_NH_57483.jpg

Which is the U.S.S. Alabama being hit with Airburst white phosphorus. It’s primary purpose is to address both the wish for a heavy Flamer and a heavy Phobos in one weapon. It’s supposed to offer the chaos that the flamer can create along with the area-denial and heavier damage that the mine launcher provides.

The general gameplay is supposed to work like this: The singular shell goes up until it reaches its arming distance, and then will burst into multiple, slow moving sub munitions. These munitions will act in the same regard as Mines do, hitting all targets regardless of their team affiliation. The slow speed of the munitions would make it very difficult to fly through an area they are falling in, but the wider spread could offer some smaller ships a chance to maneuver through the veil of fire that they would create.

These munitions would be very obvious to view, especially on dark or dreary maps. Extremely bright, brighter than the rockets of the Hwatcha in flight, in fact, and streaming thick, white smoke, telegraphing their descent, speed, number, and spread. This increases the skill ceiling by a small degree, as the regularly difficult to spot mines would have their strength in the fact that they are much more difficult to spot when compared to the munitions of the Hydra. This is part of their balancing, so as to make them more obvious than the mines, and therefore somewhat less dangerous.

The automatic deployment of the munitions is a part of the balancing for the weapon, rather than giving the player control over when the munitions deploy. This is in the same vein as the mine launcher, attempting to deploy the mines directly on top of the target or at a perfect point where the enemy is likely to fly into it. Attempting to cluster all of the munitions onto one target or onto one specific part of the target would be very similar in nature, rewarding higher level play. Lower level play, of course, would be to deploy the munitions into an area that the enemy would likely be or will likely be going to, in order to close that avenue of travel.

Hopefully I’ve done my math correctly on it, though I doubt it. This is a continuation of a past post I made, so disregard the other and utilize this one, if you would!

[Richard LeMoon]

This is basically what the guided missiles in Alliance do. I like the idea, but would implement a little differently. First off, the reload time is way too long. It should only be 4 seconds. Second, give it a much higher arc and travel, like the Lumberjack. Third, I would combine this with your Scipio 'cooked' arming time idea, so you get this:

(times just examples, range not accurate)


So, if you want to shoot closer range, you just hold the fire button longer. This would add tremendously to the skill needed. As gunner, you would have to know distance to ship, travel time, ammo speed modifiers, and math. "They are at 800 meters and closing! Angle up 15 degrees and cook 1.5 seconds."  It would also balance the gun out so it was useful at close ranges, but fire much more slowly. Gun autofires before the round explodes in your gun.

People can rush Lumberjacks and Flaks with impunity. They can outrange mines with ease. With cooked rounds and a good gunner, you have to be careful at all ranges, though total damage output at close range is cut by 30% or more.

[Naoura]

I thought the reload might be too long, but I figured it would discourage simply spamming the rounds out and lagging the game out as well as making basic navigation impossible. Might drop it down to 8, 4 is a little too fast for what the weapon should do.

I like what you mean with combining it... That would definitely reward high level play, but would make the weapon more of a specific air-burst weapon rather than a specific area-denial weapon.

Perhaps if the phosphorus munitions had a short life, such as just one or two seconds after their burst and they wink out as they fall, then it would work fairly well. Might just go with that, actually, that rewards skill way more than anything else. Low level players could still get the long-range benefit to it, but it would be dangerous as they learned how to use the weapon, due to the munitions spraying across any allies... and yourself. It'd be extremely interesting and very fun to play with though. I would turn it into a kind of full burst weapon instead, in this regard, where multiple projectiles are thrown from the central explosion, falling at a more rapid rate but with a short life.

However, I kind of think that modifying the weapon like that would require a rangefinder overhaul. At least a way to properly and non-obnoxiously show how far the target is and how many seconds it is to your ship. In old maritime gunnery, seconds to target was just as important as distance to target, so maybe we could see a change to the rangefinder like that.

I somewhat disagree on having the damage cut. You have close range weapons for the very purpose of being close range, and the weapon is supposed to be a threat unto all. If your gunner is desperate enough to detonate the shell right in front of your bleeding ship, then you're in for a very, very bad day.

Regarding what you said, might respec it like this:

Heavy Class
Direct damage (Shell):  35 Fire
Burst Damage (Shell): 15 Fire
Direct Damage (Sub Munition): 8 Fire, stackable
Burst Radius: 10 Meters
Range: 1300 meters
Arming time: 6.66 seconds
Arming range: Variable on cook time, 1300 max
Reload Time: 8 seconds
Projectile speed: 210 m/s
Projectile drop (Shell): 8 m/s^2
Projectile drop (Sub Munition): 12 m/s^2
Projectile spread (Shell): 5 meters.
Projectile spread (Sub Munition): 35 meters
Sub munitions per Shell: 10
Sub munition spread speed: 5 m/s
Sub munition life: 2 seconds

Arcs

Horizontal: 25 deg Left; 25 deg Right
Vertical: 30 deg  up; 8 dge Down
Horizontal speed: 20 Deg/s
Verticle Speed: 15 deg/s

Fire chance

Shell: 25% chance for 10 stacks
Sub Munition: 50% chance for 5 stacks, stackable for each sub munition.

That is a respec for the airburst Phosphorus... maybe not a mortar? Rocket or so? We already have the Lumber for a long range mortar. Maybe it's time for a rocket.