STEAMPUNK QUAD BOFORS

[Ace of Hawks]

I had an idea for a new "heavy" weapon. I am a huge fan of the quadruple bofors AA seen on second world war ships. I thought of having the same damage as light flak guns except that there would be 4 barrels firing at once instead of 2 as well as a larger clip size. Too make sure it's not over powered the guns traverse speed would be slowed when firing, similiar to the apollo lense array. For a design idea i thought of four copper coloured barrels that would have horn shaped ends like a blunderbuss, as well gold springs on the barrels to absorb recoil. I'm taking a wild guess in the dark that maybe 5 shells per barrel for a total of 20 shells depending on what ammo type you take may be a good number. An ammunition reload animation is yet to be thought of. This gun will probably find more use in Alliance mode because there are aircraft but im sure it would find some use in Skirmish.

Would love to hear some feedback as this is my first forum post about a future idea!

Your eye in the sky,

Ace of Hawks     

[Naoura]

Finally, Ace, been waiting for the post.

Anyways, the damage would need to be a bit higher, and the firing rate I think would be a little slow, but steady. Slow traverse speed is a plus, but a semi-flat trajectory would serve it well for dealing with enemy ships and planes at a distance.

Damage types? Piercing is an obvious, but what might be the second?

[Ace of Hawks]

ill leave that up to the devs and community to decide on what it should be

[Skymonger]

Quad barreled Bofors AA mounting huh....
You mean this?



I wont deny that it eminates strength, but the real question i have for you right now is...

Why?

Why should Muse spend time and effort to animate and program a gun that basically acts like a Flak based gun already ingame?
What sets this apart from the Typhon heavy flak cannon or the Echidna light flak cannon?

Do the shells explode after a certain distance? Or are they Impact detonations?
Is this gun for Piercing armor? Why this over the minotaur?
Does it pop balloons? What about Heavy carro or Lumberjacks?
Will it disable everything? Over hwatcha?
Is it a hull breaker? Again why over the current flak?
Is it a long range weapon? Close?

Does it fill a specific role that the other heavy mounts havent been able to?

You say this would find more use in alliance for swatting Airplanes...
But alliance brought out the Chaladonian Gas mortar launcher which swatted out planes by the dozens in a single shot with its huge cloud of green death. And it doubled as an Armor melter. For a light mount...

Many questions. Need answers.

[Naoura]

I actually was discussing it with Ace in game a while ago, and here's what my thoughts on it were:

This weapon would be more endurance based rather than high damage. It would be an armor melter, but rather than creating a defensive screen or else launching out a single shell, this would be longer duration with effective armor destruction and perhaps kill potential.

The idea is to, perhaps, simply lay down withering fire into an area and attempt to keep said fire going. Rather than the slow fire and AoE of the Gas Mortar or else the quick-reload-small-clip Light Flak needing a quick trigger finger to make it fire quick enough, this could possibly launch rounds out over a longer range and with a large enough clip to simply clear a forward area.

While yes, the Gas Mortar is extremely effective against the basic fighters and acts as a melter, it's slow fire rate and reload, as well as quick dissipation, means that the clouds are almost more of a defensive weapon rather than an offensive one, especially since the gas doesn't affect your own ship or allies. This would take the role of offensive, plowing the road with lead, so to speak.

In response to current flak, this would have higher piercing rather than whatever the secondary damage type would be, which Ace and I discussed as being very lightly Explosive, though that might be a little too powerful. This would be designed to grind away at larger enemies, instead of simply hitting in a short spurt and then requiring the reload. With current flak, you could grind away with the Typhon and simply keep pouring rounds down, but it is a tad less effective against armor, and it has a substantial drop over a longer range, requiring a deal of skill to arc it appropriately. This would have an equivalent range but a much flatter trajectory, meaning that you could engage and strip an enemy while another ship lines up the shot, or else your secondary heavy Typhon readies for the kill.

Now, the major role would be a mid to long range armor stripper. The Minotaur can do this, yes, but it acts as a scrap-cannon, and for longer ranges requires Heavy. Not to mention its slow fire rate, horrible recoil, and small clip. This offers an alternative to a heavy armor stripper in an impressive and potentially deadly manner. It would deal less damage than the impressive Minotaur, but it would still be worth the time and effort to learn how to use it.

I hope I answered at least most of the queries, and this is a majority of what I remember from the conversation (It's been about a week, apologies mate)

[Richard LeMoon]

Why?

Why should Muse spend time and effort to animate and program a gun that basically acts like a Flak based gun already ingame?
What sets this apart from the Typhon heavy flak cannon or the Echidna light flak cannon?

Sooooooooooooo...... I feel like people that ask these types of questions don't understand how games and gamers work. People like variety, even if it is very minor variety. Lets look at other games that have a ton of different guns. They have MUCH less variety in function than GOIO. They shoot faster or slower, load faster or slower, and do a bit more or less damage. 

Why have more than one tank in each class in World of Tanks if they are all pretty much the same in function, let alone different turrets on each tank? Why have hundreds of guns in TF2 that are basically the same, with a quirk or two? Don't even start with games like Diablo and Borderlands with their nearly infinite weapons.

These are the same reasons you have more than one gun in GOIO that does a similar action to another gun. It is necessary. I want to have five guns that are basically the Whirlwind with varying stats, or even IDENTICAL stats but in a twin barrel machine gun. I want several minelaunchers that each have their own quirk. I want a heavy carro that does less damage, but adds some Minotaur force.

Why? Because variety is necessary in a game like this. Not only wide variety of mechanics. It also needs small variety in function.

In essence, it is time to stop worrying about making guns and ships that are unique, and start looking at more variety. It is far easier to look at something that is working, and say, "This is working. How can we make another a little differently?"

The Heavy Flak is a prime example of a failure to do this. Rather than simply making a new gun that would be the current 4 shot spammer, they completely removed the 2 shot beast. Hell, even a different colored Hflak would be enough. Changing model colors is a classic way of making new and distinguishable assets. "Take the bronze flak if you want 4 weaker shots instead of 2 for about the same DPC." then when more models can be made, "Take the Atlas howitzer if you want to pack all that damage into one slow moving shot. If you want a small amount of armor damage and constant weaker hull damage, take the BOFORS."

Nothing has to set it apart from other guns. It just has to be different. And not even in any major way. We already have the gun classes (defined by the current guns). It is time to add to those classes. If someone asks why you would take a 4 shot flak over a 3 shot flak that does about the same thing, there is nothing wrong with simply answering, "Just preference."

[Ace of Hawks]

All of these responses are good. As many of you have brought up the game just needs to have new items to bring some interest back into the game. The original idea started because we thought it would be cool to have light gun weapons in a heavy gun mount. or in other words to take a light gun and make a heavier version of it. This however will not work for all light weapons. i thought the Bofors would make a good prototype model of a light gun made heavy. As Richard LeMoon is doing his howitzer is sort of a heavy version of the mercury field gun but with a cool reload animation and model. GOIO has been losing players recently because of lack of new content. Some new weapons and ships would bring a major change to the game and give it a face lift. Hopefully bringing back players and possibly new ones with it.

[Naoura]

Possible thoughts on Bofors after some shoddy math while being bored

Two projectiles per shot, meaning that both barrels on either side would be firing at the same time. At medium range the grouping would be good enough, but at longer ranges the spread would be similar to that of the Whirlwind, spreading 12 meters at maximum range. It'd make engaging with the weapon very tricky at long range, but extremely dangerous at medium and short ranges. The secondary

Thoughts on damage:
Direct: ~15 piercing
Burst: ~10 Explosive (Perhaps less)
Arming distance for Burst: ~0.9
Possible fire rate: 2.0, same as the fire rate on an actual Bofors (Note, this is the rate of fire for the barrels. Rounds per minute would be more accurate at 4.0)
Reload: 5.5 per second
Clip size: 16, 4 per barrel.
Spread at max distance: 12
Bullet drop: ~3/s (Perhaps less? Light projectiles being fired at high velocity, basing the drop off of the Echidna)
Range: 1200-1400? Shorter range than a majority of the Medium weapon, meaning that it simply can't be used to spam from extreme range.
Arcs-
Verticle: 55 upwards, 35 downwards? Powerful for upwards attacks and defense, weak against lower attacks.
Horizontal: 35 left/right? Utilizing same to similar arc of Typhon.
Verticle speed: 25? (Slow turning speed so that competant pilots can outmaneuver the weapon)
Horizontal: 15? (Slow turning speed so that competant pilots might be able to outmaneuver the weapon)
Zoom: 1.80-2.00, mixing the zoom of the Gatling and the Typhon

Reminder, this was just me being bored and trying to do maths, which I am awful at. Thou hath been warned.

[Ace of Hawks]

Here have some concept drawings:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1UHyB2jV_MgU2dVMVFzQ3ZPR28/view?usp=sharing

[Arturo Sanchez]

current guns and ammo and game meta isn't even properly balanced and yet these threads keep popping up...

[Richard LeMoon]

As they should. If they did not keep popping up, it would mean people have given up on the game.

Besides, current guns are fine. What they lack is variety within type, the hallmark of successful MP PvP games.

[Naoura]

Would you rather nothing but complaints about current guns, ammunition, and the meta, Arturo?

Not trying to be a jerk, but is that any better than asking for more weapons while current one's still need tweaking? Tweaking current weapons is necessary, but so is introducing new content. Any kind of new content, not just upsetting the meta a little by changing how much damage a weapon does, or how high the arc on it's projectiles are.

[Unarmed Civilian]

Historically, guns like these were defensive guns that effectively were area denial weapons for aircraft. The question is how this can be ported to the game without any obviously overpowered builds stemming from it. If it had heavy piercing,  it would be a goto weapon for Galleons, comboing too well with the heavy flak. Or it with triple banshee on a Spire.

What about a defensive, supporting heavy gun? Give it nothing but shatter damage, horizontal arcs like a gatling, an excellent upwards arc, and carronade quality downward arcs. It is now an excellent weapon for denying attacks in its range, forcing enemies to approach low to attack or putting you self dangerously low to take advantage of it, but has neligible killing power. It would be great at setting up kills for allied ships or other guns, but the other guns still need to do work for the kill.

Some immediate strategies would be putting one on each side of a Galleon to defend against highly maneuverable ships or ships trying to outrise you at the cost of killing power.  Or making a "trapping" Spire that hangs low, disables a target, then rises up on its prey to kill with its other guns. For a Goldfish, it would be like the Heavy Flak: almost completely useless. It may be able to be used as a weapon to occupy and harass one ship so the ally can have a 1v1 against the other, but that's it.

The idea of this is to give Galleon a heavy gun without abysmal arcs to defend itself with without augmenting it's killing power and to give the Spire another playstyle without giving another powerful option to the ubiquitous Goldfish.

With wide arcs and a good rate of fire, it would also be reasonable at shooting down Alliance planes, unlike all the others save the heavy flak.

[Naoura]

I don't know about nothing but shatter, as the Hwacha already fills that niche extremely nicely, but I definitely agree with you on the area denial, and that's kind of how I'd fit my math together on it.

The general idea was for a mid-short range weapon that dealt effective piercing damage, but I played around with it and decided the double projectile-cast would actually do nicely for it. Overall, the thought was for dangerous power at mid to closer range, due to the projectiles spreading apart from one another, but for it to be very slow with it's arcs, as slow as a Lumber.

A fish could easily use it as a front gun, trying to get in close and deal a lot of damage with the front and swinging to a flak on the side, but that requires a great deal of coordination between the crew, encouraging higher level play. The slow turning speed of the weapon means that the captain would aim it more than the gunner, and make it very difficult to stay on target.

I completely agree on terms of the gally, and that's the other reason I figured the double projectile-cast would balance it somewhat. Keeping the damage lower per projectile hit, but encouraging hitting with both projectiles for higher damage. This makes keeping a Galleon at range more difficult, since the rounds are supposed to spread at longer ranges, allowing a skiled captain to dodge the worst of the fire.

I do agree with a secondary of shatter though. Give them an actual AoE, unlike the Gatling, and you could have an effective pierce/disable.

[Unarmed Civilian]

I don't know about nothing but shatter, as the Hwacha already fills that niche extremely nicely, but I definitely agree with you on the area denial, and that's kind of how I'd fit my math together on it.

...

Hwacha does all of its disable at once, then has a 14 second reload. It's also a potent kill weapon, as it can one-clip a Pyramidion. It is good at disable, but the enemy can simply rebuild their artemis faster than the Hwacha can reload and now you're the one permanently disabled. My idea was slower, but more consistent pure disable that isn't as easily countered but that doesn't double as a kill weapon since it would already be a potent and consistent disable weapon. It would also bring a new weapon type into the game, as all current shatter weapons either double for killing or double for balloon shredding. There is no gun that is purely a defensive option besides mines, and even those are used as kill weapons.

I also don't want the fish to get another powerful option, it already is everywhere in pubs and I'm tired of seeing it. Any heavy gun that has been too potent on a Goldfish has gotten nerfed (Heavy carronade has terrible shatter damage now, Hwacha has damage nerfs and I think lowered arcs, all from being good on the goldy), so it needs to be something that a Goldfish can't use to be oppressive.

I also specifically do NOT want it to be a pierce weapon. We already got a heavy gun with piercing, and you can tell the devs were afraid of it being good at actually taking down armor, because they made it have absolutely terrible damage output unless you use nothing but Lochnagar. And they're rightfully afraid of making a powerful piercing heavy gun, the heavy flak, the most powerful explosive weapon in the game, can be slotted right next to it.

If this enters as a piercing weapon, they'll likely do the same thing and make it another Minotaur that doesn't see play outside of newbies' and Jedi's ships.