Author Topic: Chimaera Triple-A, the Heavy version of the Calais  (Read 4664 times)

Offline Naoura

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Chimaera Triple-A, the Heavy version of the Calais
« on: November 15, 2016, 01:30:14 pm »
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.

Offline Richard LeMoon

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Re: Chimaera Triple-A, the Heavy version of the Calais
« Reply #1 on: November 16, 2016, 12:08:12 pm »
Looks to be a well rounded piercing weapon. The click-to-range is interesting, and would require a skilled gunner with range changing ammos to really take advantage of it. Heatsink and lesmok could be useful at all ranges, filling in the gaps.

Good gunner gun that would make use of the same ammo types as mines. Likely the same evil mindset as well.

Offline Naoura

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Re: Chimaera Triple-A, the Heavy version of the Calais
« Reply #2 on: November 16, 2016, 12:25:30 pm »
Exactly what I was building it off of. Mines are the highest risk-reward weapon in the game, and this is exactly what I was thinking around.

The Typhon is already a high enough skill weapon, and making something that pairs with it should be even higher skill, or lower damage. I based what not to do off of the Mino, because, well, Mino.

Besides, we don't have any actual Triple-A. We've got field artillery and high-explosive shells. Not actual anti-air cannons.

And I was hoping (beyond hope) that making click-to-arm would encourage a revamp of the Rangfinder, same hope I had with the Hydra. Knowing enemy range would become critical with these weapons.