Calais Light Air defense weapon. An actual Flak.

[Naoura]

Calais Light Air Defense (Light)

(All data subject to change)

Direct Damage: 10 Shatter
Burst damage: 15 Piercing (Per sub munition) (possibly higher, see description)
Burst radius: 50 meters.
Arming range: 600 meters (Reversed Arming)
Rate of Fire: 1.40
Reload time: 4.75 seconds.
Magazine size: 4
Projectile speed: 300 m/s
Range: 600 meters.
Shell drop: 10 m/s^2
Jitter: (Unsure of at the moment)
Arcs: TBD
**Important**
Projectiles per Cast: 14

General idea of this weapon is to become, well, an actual anti-air and area denial weapon.
The staple of an air-defense weapon is to have a shell that detonates at a certain distance in order to defend against incoming aircraft. The detonation of these shells are supposed to send shrapnel in all directions, potentially killing the pilot, disabling the aircraft, or else destroying the aircraft by hitting critical parts, such as the fuel lines, wings, or munitions storage.
The idea for this air defense weapon is along the same lines, with a new way for the burst damage to be distributed; Ray-casting in an orb when the main shell bursts. Each of these rays applies the burst damage, rather than the Orb-cast that the usual weapons have.
The wider burst radius allows for extremely easy hits, but this is balanced by the way the damage is dealt. The rays are cast in all directions from the Burst point, meaning that the relatively weak rays make fewer impacts on the target, lowering the overall amount of damage that each shot will be able to do. On grouped enemies, such as in Alliance, this is extremely useful, but should this be considered for Skirmish, it would be very, very difficult to ensure an armor break on a target.
The primary function of these weapons is to discourage an enemy from getting close, punishing captains and crews who do not actively keep up their defense. Should the enemy stay in the arming distance, and the burst distance, the steady fire of the Calais offers a great amount of damage for very little skill. However, should an enemy get inside of the arming distance of the Calais, it is punished somewhat heavily, taking away the greatest source of damage for the weapon for a rather weak amount of shatter, offering very little threat to an enemy.

[Naoura]

A possible alternative, which was originally suggested for a different weapon, that could work for this one is as a Shatter AoE weapon. Instead of the more surgical nature of, say, the Merc and the Artemis, this would act as a general deterrant,putting up an "iron shield" of Shatter damage, potentially making a quicker firing, slightly lower damage weapon.

Projected changes:

Secondary damage changed to Shatter
Secondary damage increased to 65
Radius changed to 25
Arming distance reduced to 550
Magazine size increased to 6
Rate of fire increased to 2.5
Remove ray-cast mechanic after burst.

[Richard LeMoon]

We have several mechanics from Alliance and Skirmish guns that could be utilized to make this gun interesting and function somewhat like you are asking.

1. Tempest spreadfire mechanic. After a certain range, the missile breaks apart and flies in a set pattern. It didn't always do this, and the missiles would fly off randomly before locking on to your target.

Use: Remove the tracking ability and have the projectiles produced go out from the central point in a random direction with a very short life. The result is an expanding sphere of projectiles rather than being raycast. The benefit over raycast is the the ability to have bullet trails, lending to the cool 'flak flower' effect.



2. End of life arming like mine launcher. This means the projectile does not arm until it explodes.

3. Gas Mortar click arming. This is something extra I would add, allowing the user to try to set the exact range of detonation. Othewise, you would have the issue of it acting like an even higher skilled version of a mine launcher, with less effect since it is harder to judge ranges the further away you get. Basically, it would act like a long range mine launcher with less damage and the mines instantly explode.

Doing this would result in a gun that acted like a gas mortar, Tempest, flak, and Gatling combined. If you can detonate the shot very close to an enemy, you can do major damage.

Should still be a heavy gun, though. Real flaks are massive. Since this would be a 'real' flak, it creates a name/type conflict with the current 'not really a flak' cannon.

[Naoura]

Richard, I'm actually working on a heavy version of this. This version is very similar to the Flak 38, link here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_cm_Flak_30/38/Flakvierling

This is just a light version, because I know how people are with heavy piercer's. and I was planning on almost all three of those mechanics, especially with the mine-launcher. However, I don't want it to have clikc-to-arm, as I think that would make this weapon too easy. I want people to keep it in range, and work hard to do so, and be punished for NOT doing so. That's part of it's balancing point, and the focus behind it.

And I used to have it as a projectile-cast, but I thought the Raycast mechanic would be a bit easier to implement. Could just make the explosion nice and pretty, similar to the Echidna end-of-life.

The heavy version I have planned out is a fast-reload, one shot weapon with a drastically increased ray-cast amount, but without any change to damage. I also think you'll like the right-click, as it is similar to the Gas Mortar:  Variable arming distance, reducing the arming distance by a set amount for each click, making it easier to keep the enemy inside the damage radius, but still having blind-spots in between. Projected ranging is 1000 meters, 750 meters, and 500 meters, walking the arming time backwards for each right click.

This light version was mostly a test, see if anyone would be remotely interested. Due to the number of replies I've gotten... it's looking like a no...

[Unarmed Civilian]

Looking back at this, it looks like a well-placed shot from this would do armor damage comparable to a single shot from a Merc (usually a bit lower) without the ability to OHK modules. Would definitely be an interesting light weapon to use. Would make an interesting high skill-floor armor-piercer to compete with the Hades, heavily favoring piercing rather than being reasonable even if the balloon is hit.

...

As a side note, from what I've read, weapons like these were not massively effective against zeppelin hulls (part holding balloons) for similar reasons normal solid bullets were ineffective: they would only cause inconsequential small leaks from their small entry holes. Flak shells were basically big airburst frag grenades, designed to give a higher margin of error for hitting planes and giving a higher chance of damaging a critical part of the plane.

The hull of our airships is probably more comparable to sailing ship hulls with metal reinforcement. Kinetic penetrators (cannon balls, solid ammunition, armor-piercing rounds) and explosive shells would be far more effective at damaging them (not far from weapons that we currently use).

As for balloons, it's mostly about making a really big entry wound, or many significant wounds.

[Naoura]

The idea behind the Calais and the Chimaera are more so WWII flak rather than WWI flak against airships. To illustrate, shrapnel shells: