The Icarus Cannon

[macmacnick]

Airship Flame party? I'm interested... and, would the gun cut through clouds in a linear manner, to be, at range, a searchlight/if on a goldfish (assuming it's a medium gun) a fish with a flashlight on the front? A kinda powerful flashlight that flashes enough light that it sets fire?

[Milevan Faent]

Airship Flame party? I'm interested... and, would the gun cut through clouds in a linear manner, to be, at range, a searchlight/if on a goldfish (assuming it's a medium gun) a fish with a flashlight on the front? A kinda powerful flashlight that flashes enough light that it sets fire?

Acting as a searchlight through clouds would make a lot of sense.

[Fyren]

Always up for more variety, and those concepts look pretty cool

[Coldcurse]

I believe Mythbusters did a bit on the "Archimedes Death Ray" which is essentially what we're discussing here. While I don't believe that weapon functioned I do think it makes the basis of good naval combat lore. I stand by my initial thoughts on the weapon. It's a medium/heavy loadout, so it'll only fit on the Spire Galleon or Goldfish. It would be a medium to long range weapon that had a large ammo capacity.  The mechanic that would balance the damage of this weapon is it's obviously slow turning rate and long build up time to do effective damage. The numbers are irrelevant, but imagine the weapon started by doing .1 damage. Then .2, .4. .8 1.6 etc etc. That .2 damage counts for very little. The half minute it would take to reach full potential would count for a lot more. Fire damage is implied but I could imagine the weapon working without it.


-Heavy weapon.
-Medium/Long Range
-Large ammo cap.
-Long build up time to reach full damage potential.
-Slow moving turret.

I would go against this because it shouldn't be treated as a heavy weapon if we have a mercury fieldgun that does physical damage over a long distance. In my opinion this would be the most useless heavy weapon since its countered by a single chemspray or exstinguisher. Keeping this as a light gun would make more sense overall.
the turret shouldnt be moving slowly, when the turret moves you lose some damage potential that you have to build up again. make the turret move at a medium speed but not slow.
dont make the build up time too damn long, 5 to 7 seconds for full damage potential is good enough if the damage you are dealing is 7 flamestacks max per 2 seconds.
dont make it a flashlight because we have the flaregun for that, if you give it the same aspects of a flaregun then you just make the flaregun not needed anymore. If you could make the mechanics to only light up a small portion of the cloud then it will be ok since it then becomes a less usefull flaregun and flareguns still hold their value.

For the animation of reloading I would suggest that the gun would change the magnifying glass due to the ammo type. The speed of the turret would be the as a mercury field gun since that is also a mid to longrange weapon (mercury fieldguns are also used up close but since it's mostly used for sniping i think they both need to have the same turning value). For gaining more damage potential the gun must not move faster then 7% - 10% of its turning speed. If the gun does move faster then 10% - 15% of its turning speed then the overall damage of the gun will be reduced with 25% each 0.5 second. The full damage potential should be discussed but I think that for a light gun at long distance should do 3.5 flamestack per second or something in that direction. This is based on fair play since it's a longrange flame weapon, this would be les powerfull then a flamethrower but still usefull to place in a sniping build to make a more variated damage on enemy ships. Making this gun a second flaregun would not make sense since we already have a flaregun, as discussed before the light of this gun would be blocked by clouds and means that it cannot be used as a flaregun. The range of this gun should be similair to a mercury fieldgun but needs a minimum range a bit less then a lumberjack. The ray itself should visible on darker maps such as: Partian Rumble, fight over firnfield. But invisible on brighter maps such as: Dunes, Fjords. If the gun takes damage then you should make it look like the glass has cracks in it and when the gun is detroyed you should make the glass look really damaged. to indicate that you are reaching full damage potential I would suggest to add an indicator meter on the right sight that looks like a meter of a boiler, like this one:

numbers and words on the meter can be changed or removed.

[Milevan Faent]

I believe Mythbusters did a bit on the "Archimedes Death Ray" which is essentially what we're discussing here. While I don't believe that weapon functioned I do think it makes the basis of good naval combat lore. I stand by my initial thoughts on the weapon. It's a medium/heavy loadout, so it'll only fit on the Spire Galleon or Goldfish. It would be a medium to long range weapon that had a large ammo capacity.  The mechanic that would balance the damage of this weapon is it's obviously slow turning rate and long build up time to do effective damage. The numbers are irrelevant, but imagine the weapon started by doing .1 damage. Then .2, .4. .8 1.6 etc etc. That .2 damage counts for very little. The half minute it would take to reach full potential would count for a lot more. Fire damage is implied but I could imagine the weapon working without it.


-Heavy weapon.
-Medium/Long Range
-Large ammo cap.
-Long build up time to reach full damage potential.
-Slow moving turret.

I would go against this because it shouldn't be treated as a heavy weapon if we have a mercury fieldgun that does physical damage over a long distance. In my opinion this would be the most useless heavy weapon since its countered by a single chemspray or exstinguisher. Keeping this as a light gun would make more sense overall.
the turret shouldnt be moving slowly, when the turret moves you lose some damage potential that you have to build up again. make the turret move at a medium speed but not slow.
dont make the build up time too damn long, 5 to 7 seconds for full damage potential is good enough if the damage you are dealing is 7 flamestacks max per 2 seconds.
dont make it a flashlight because we have the flaregun for that, if you give it the same aspects of a flaregun then you just make the flaregun not needed anymore. If you could make the mechanics to only light up a small portion of the cloud then it will be ok since it then becomes a less usefull flaregun and flareguns still hold their value.

For the animation of reloading I would suggest that the gun would change the magnifying glass due to the ammo type. The speed of the turret would be the as a mercury field gun since that is also a mid to longrange weapon (mercury fieldguns are also used up close but since it's mostly used for sniping i think they both need to have the same turning value). For gaining more damage potential the gun must not move faster then 7% - 10% of its turning speed. If the gun does move faster then 10% - 15% of its turning speed then the overall damage of the gun will be reduced with 25% each 0.5 second. The full damage potential should be discussed but I think that for a light gun at long distance should do 3.5 flamestack per second or something in that direction. This is based on fair play since it's a longrange flame weapon, this would be les powerfull then a flamethrower but still usefull to place in a sniping build to make a more variated damage on enemy ships. Making this gun a second flaregun would not make sense since we already have a flaregun, as discussed before the light of this gun would be blocked by clouds and means that it cannot be used as a flaregun. The range of this gun should be similair to a mercury fieldgun but needs a minimum range a bit less then a lumberjack. The ray itself should visible on darker maps such as: Partian Rumble, fight over firnfield. But invisible on brighter maps such as: Dunes, Fjords. If the gun takes damage then you should make it look like the glass has cracks in it and when the gun is detroyed you should make the glass look really damaged. to indicate that you are reaching full damage potential I would suggest to add an indicator meter on the right sight that looks like a meter of a boiler, like this one:

numbers and words on the meter can be changed or removed.

Some of what you've mentioned has already been discussed. Making it a Medium gun (and it's Medium, not Heavy, I asked several people who all agreed on this) is actually a better idea. Medium guns are very limited in what they can do right now, while Light guns are all over the place with a wide range of options. What we DON'T need is another Light gun that's just an alternative to the Flamethrower, which is what this would become. Combining the Flare effect as a beam with the weapon actually makes sense too. The Flare kind of sucks right now anyway. If done properly, Flares would reveal large areas, while this would be a narrow beam that has to be aimed. It would burn through ammo constantly while you're using it as a searchlight, leaving less ammo for damage/fire purposes. That said, it's been generally agreed it shouldn't be a sniper weapon, but a medium range weapon. That's not to say it couldn't be otherwise, but I personally agree with this view. It's also been suggested to not have the damage scale, as that would add unnecessary complication and be more of a feature, requiring more work than the gun would otherwise.

[Coldcurse]

I just made this up out of nowhere, assuming the gun was supposed to be a sniper kind of gun. as for saying as light gun I would say that i only see 2 sorts of guns, guns that heavy guns and guns that you cant place on heavy gun spots. I was just mentioning that this gun shouldnt be used as a heavy weapon due to its lack of power compared to a hwacha, heavy flak or shotgun (I forgot it's name). This was just an suggestion. This idea is not based as a flamethrower its based on doing flame damage rather then physical impact damage, as an opposit of what a mercury field gun does. Instantly doing full damage over such a long range would be overpowered in my opinion so thats why I do suport the damage scale if it would be used as a sniper. But for medium range with ammo I would suggest that the ammo itself is one of the glasses.

I also have the idea of making the rangefinder play a great role for this gun and give it +5% damage since its based on the archimedes project where you have to aim for the target.

medium range medium weapon suggestion:
Having this particular gun as an mix-up of a artemis flamethrower flaregun I came up with the following.
By firing the gun you create a beam of light that does a good overal damage on medium range but less damage on short range. While using the gun you place alot of pressure onto one of the lens and make it crack overtime, this lens has to be replaced with a new lense and this would be called reloading. maybe muse could make different lenses for different ammo types to make it more fancy. one lens should be having a 7 á 8 second lifetime, you don't have to use it all at once. The gun should be doing creating a narrow beam of light that can't go through clouds or damage ships inside clouds. Using this gun on clouds would partially reveal the content, this will not reveal the whole cloud. The damage done by this gun would be around 5 flamestacks each 1 or 2 seconds, maybe 2 flamestacks each 1.5 seconds from a little outside the medium range. damaging this gun would apply the little spark animations you find on a damaged artemis. For rotation I would say it would be similair to an artemis since you can't pick up sunlight when pointing upwards. Moving the turret while firing would not affect the damage since the damage would be fixed to a standard value. This gun should have a crosshair on the top where you can look through better when using the right mouse button. To notify that this is not a flamethrower, the icarus cannon would make a narrow beam of light for accurate flame damage dealing rather then a big firecloud that damges all with flames on short range. For lochnagar round I would like to see a lense with a heart scratched on being loaded in the gun, because who doesn't love lochnagar.

I hope you like this idea better Milevan.

[-Muse- Cullen]

The basis for this kind of weapon is focusing light to a single point. Picture a magnifying glass and an ant. When the magnifying glass is too far or too close, it does nothing but mildly warm the ant. You have to be at -just- the right distance to cook it.

This... with the Rangefinder... Hmmm...

[Coldcurse]

The basis for this kind of weapon is focusing light to a single point. Picture a magnifying glass and an ant. When the magnifying glass is too far or too close, it does nothing but mildly warm the ant. You have to be at -just- the right distance to cook it.

This... with the Rangefinder... Hmmm...

this will encourage players more to grab a rangefinder rather then just all spyglass

[Coldcurse]

for this project it might be a nice experiment to see how particular tools could have a positive effect while using them. because most people do not use a rangefinder because everyone knows how to shoot a gun, why not give it a try and add a little damage bonus on the icarus gun while the enemy ship is being targeted by the range finder. this will make one crew member or pilot pick a rangefinder rather then a spyglass or other helmtool.

For the icarus gun I would say that this might be a nice thing to implement because it makes sense. Ofcourse there won't be a massive damage boost but at least it's some extra damage that you could use in a fight. unlike a buffhammer where you have to run around like a monkey and buff things that take ages and get destroyed the second you buff things, the use of the of the rangefinder can be stimulated by adding a little extra buff on particular guns as you use the rangefinder.

The "Icarus gun" should have a little ammo capacity boost normal damage boost when it is buffed. This would make sense because you buffed the gun and the lens inside of it.

[Mattilald Anguisad]

As far as I remember from concept standpoint the Godlamp was a gun that focused sun's light, and was dependant on sunlight, witch would make useless in clouds and dark maps like paritan, anglean and fjords.

[Milevan Faent]

As far as I remember from concept standpoint the Godlamp was a gun that focused sun's light, and was dependant on sunlight, witch would make useless in clouds and dark maps like paritan, anglean and fjords.

That's the kind of thing you really can't do in this game, as it would pretty much make this gun never used, ever, because the opponent's just have to pick maps that it can't work on. So, no matter what, this gun will have to always work. It can be assumed it's not actually focusing sunlight, but rather some internal light source.

[Richard LeMoon]

Make the light source a carbon arc lamp. To change focal ranges, switch lamps and lenses with a cool animation.

[Kestril]

I LOVE the idea of swapping out lenses by the way

I like this idea, however, I also think that the gun should be fun to shoot, and be fun to play against.

Because of this, I support the idea of the "sweet spot" to of the light beam at some certain range--not too close, and not too far.

This would make the gun a joy to shoot, as, depending on the range, the way the gunner shoots at enemies will differ. In the "sweet spot" the gunner will want to drag the beam across the enemy ship to stack lots of fire damage on as many components as possible.

Outside or inside of that effective range, the gunner will want to hold his aim on one component at a time in order to apply fire stacks effectively.

I'd also like to add that there should be a visual indicator on the light beam indicating the gun's "sweet spot" (maybe the beam is brighter, or a slightly different hue). This would help captains keep them within effective range, and gunners to be able to identify how the gun works in an intuitive manner. Furthermore, it will help enemy captains know what is going on, and help them realize where that gun is most deadly, and hopefully maneuver in/out of range.

[Omniraptor]

Make it so the scale for adjusting the sweet spot gets more coarse with distance, so the gun gets harder to adjust at longer ranges, requiring you to both adjust the beam and micro-control maneuvers to maintain optimal range. It's actually kind of similar to gilder's torpedo with the varied arming ranges.

Again, the role is spreading insane fire stacks on specific components, or enveloping the ship with low-grade (less than 5) fire stacks on EVERYTHING outside of the focal point.

I'm starting to really like this gun.

[Milevan Faent]

So, here's a radical idea. Normally right-clicking is just a zoom (boring most of the time, and generally not too terribly useful except on certain guns IMO). What if, instead, right-clicking cycled through a series of lenses that had different "focal points", thus changing the sweet spot? The RANGE of the gun doesn't change, just where it's most effective. Swap time would be relatively fast, but not so fast as to make it easy to keep stuff in the sweet spot. Also, having things in the not-sweet spot of the various lenses could change the shape of the area hit. Just a random idea, but something I figured I'd toss out there at least.