Chimaera Anti-Air Artillery (Triple-A)
Direct damage: 25 Shatter
Burst Damage: 15 Piercing (Per sub munition)
Burst radius: 75 meters.
Arming range: 1000 meters, 850 meters, and 700 meters (Variable arming distance by right-clicking)
Rate of fire: 0.3
Reload time: 3 seconds
Magazine size: 1
Projectile speed: 300 m/s
Range: 1000 maximum
Shell drop: 20m/s^2
Jitter: 0 deg
Size: Heavy
Arcs: TBD
**Important**
Projectiles per Cast: 50
The heavy version of the Calais, the Chimaera is a strange weapon. While it has a rather fast reload and an incredibly low skill ceiling in order to actually get hits, the Chimaera requires decent accuracy to be even moderately effective.
The damage from the sub munitions has not changed in the slightest from the Calais, making it, at face value, seem on the weak side. However, the numbers of projectiles/rays that are cast from the detonation is heavily increased. This means that the amount of potential damage is greatly increased from the Calais, as the weapon’s primary damage output is by its sub munitions.
By far the most important and powerful part of the Chimaera is the variable arming distance. Removing the possibility for zoom, the Chimaera gains the ability to change its arming distance by 150 meters per click, reloading the weapon for the new distance. Starting at 1000 meters and going down to 700, the Chimaera has the potential for being a powerful defensive weapon, creating an area in its arc that would be very risky for a captain to attempt to fly through, and would encourage diversionary and ambush tactics.
The primary balance for this, of course, is the area inside of its arming distances. If an enemy were to be able to get within 625 meters, the Chimaera is rendered mostly useless, making ramming a ship armed with it a very effective tactic, or else disabling the Chimaera from range in order to clear out the denial zone. Attempting to attack a target with the Chimaera equipped would require hitting the enemy either from behind or from the sides, closing in on the target before the weapon can acquire and get ranging on your vessel. As such, faster, more maneuverable ships are this weapon’s bane, despite its fast reload. Any kind of ship that can engage within 625 meters, or outside 1075, directly counters this weapon and makes pairing it with the Typhon somewhat risky against an enemy armed with a Lumberjack, or any form of Metamidion.
Overall, the Chimaera is designed for mid- to long-range defensive measures, providing a hazardous zone that the enemy would likely not be able to move through. The greater range requires a much higher skill ceiling to use with the Typhon, and would give higher level players a much more skill-based, rewarding combo, and allows for lower level gunners/ engineers to be able to crew with higher level players while still being combat effective.
Props to @Richard LeMoon for the name. On my Calais post, he listed the number of weapons that it borrows from, and with all of the hodgepodge of mechanics this weapon is, it was obviously a Chimaera at best.
