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Not Enough Variety In Heavy Weapons. Yet.
brian334
Member Posts: 2,214 Arc User
Like any new thing Heavy Weapons are currently limited in variety. Once the novelty wears off the focus of the developers will naturally go to other new ideas. In between there is a sweet spot where we can explore the potential of a concept and perhaps spark a developer's interest.
To that end, then, I present Heavy Weapon ideas:
Tachyon Pulse Cannon - Emits pulses of Tachyon energy which inflict heavy shield damage to the target and may cause a Shield Offline proc. A 2km burst radius centered on the target does secondary effect level shield damage and resets the cooldown on any operational cloaking devices in the burst area..
Aceton Beam Array - This weapon drains power from the target's subsystems and grants 7.5% of the amount drained as bonus power to the attacking vessel. It might work subsystem by subsystem, so power drained from the target's shields feeds power to the attacker's shield.
Plasma Lance - A powerful blast of warp plasma fired in a narrow arc that extends for 10k from the point of origin through the target. This effect mimics the Eject Warp Plasma BOff power, and although the damage done is small, the effects persist until cleansed. Some of the effects include shield and hull damage, engine offline, and persistent plasma fire DoT and any radiation bonus from captains' skills. The narrow stream of plasma persists and may snare other enemy vessels which contact it.
Antimatter Rail Gun - fires anti-carbon projectiles at targets inflicting small damage to shields, but massive kinetic and radiation damage to the target hull.
Hybrid Weapons - includes all known types of hybrids including phased polaron and tetryon, plasma/disruptor hybrids, and a host of other mixed type weaponry.
Target Painting Torpedo - When this weapon strikes an enemy it inflicts very little damage, but it begins to do two things; first it sends out a beacon which allows all ships firing on the target improved accuracy and penetration, and second it begins to debuff randomly one buff per six seconds until its sixty second timer expires. It can be removed via Engineering Team or similar captain's powers.
Temporal Displacement Weapon - This weapon is a byproduct of Noye's research into Krenim weapons technology. It shoves a ship out of time for a random interval between 60 and 3600 seconds. The targeted vessel, if hit, vanishes, to reappear after a random interval in the exact same condition, (including cooldown timers!) it was in when it left. A near miss results in Chroniton procs, and a miss has no effect whatsoever. In this case Drain Resistance is used instead of Defense to determine the effect of the weapon on its target, and can reduce the time spent out of time. If a player ship is targeted the player will see his vessel freeze and all timer activity halt in place, while others sharing the map will see the ship vanish, possibly into a blue swirly cone or disc. Halve the duration of the effect in case of use against player ships.
These ideas are heavy on support type effects and inflict minimal or incidental damage in most cases, but this need not be the case for all or even most heavy weapons: my point was to show how non-damage based weaponry can be incorporated. If you prefer more damage, then by all means brainstorm your concepts here. More ideas equal more fodder for the STO team's imagination.
To that end, then, I present Heavy Weapon ideas:
Tachyon Pulse Cannon - Emits pulses of Tachyon energy which inflict heavy shield damage to the target and may cause a Shield Offline proc. A 2km burst radius centered on the target does secondary effect level shield damage and resets the cooldown on any operational cloaking devices in the burst area..
Aceton Beam Array - This weapon drains power from the target's subsystems and grants 7.5% of the amount drained as bonus power to the attacking vessel. It might work subsystem by subsystem, so power drained from the target's shields feeds power to the attacker's shield.
Plasma Lance - A powerful blast of warp plasma fired in a narrow arc that extends for 10k from the point of origin through the target. This effect mimics the Eject Warp Plasma BOff power, and although the damage done is small, the effects persist until cleansed. Some of the effects include shield and hull damage, engine offline, and persistent plasma fire DoT and any radiation bonus from captains' skills. The narrow stream of plasma persists and may snare other enemy vessels which contact it.
Antimatter Rail Gun - fires anti-carbon projectiles at targets inflicting small damage to shields, but massive kinetic and radiation damage to the target hull.
Hybrid Weapons - includes all known types of hybrids including phased polaron and tetryon, plasma/disruptor hybrids, and a host of other mixed type weaponry.
Target Painting Torpedo - When this weapon strikes an enemy it inflicts very little damage, but it begins to do two things; first it sends out a beacon which allows all ships firing on the target improved accuracy and penetration, and second it begins to debuff randomly one buff per six seconds until its sixty second timer expires. It can be removed via Engineering Team or similar captain's powers.
Temporal Displacement Weapon - This weapon is a byproduct of Noye's research into Krenim weapons technology. It shoves a ship out of time for a random interval between 60 and 3600 seconds. The targeted vessel, if hit, vanishes, to reappear after a random interval in the exact same condition, (including cooldown timers!) it was in when it left. A near miss results in Chroniton procs, and a miss has no effect whatsoever. In this case Drain Resistance is used instead of Defense to determine the effect of the weapon on its target, and can reduce the time spent out of time. If a player ship is targeted the player will see his vessel freeze and all timer activity halt in place, while others sharing the map will see the ship vanish, possibly into a blue swirly cone or disc. Halve the duration of the effect in case of use against player ships.
These ideas are heavy on support type effects and inflict minimal or incidental damage in most cases, but this need not be the case for all or even most heavy weapons: my point was to show how non-damage based weaponry can be incorporated. If you prefer more damage, then by all means brainstorm your concepts here. More ideas equal more fodder for the STO team's imagination.
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We come in peace, SHOOT TO KILL!
I have to admit, I was surprised at the 360 arc, I was originally thinking it would be a spinal mount type thing.
We come in peace, SHOOT TO KILL!
I would love to see a change/addition. Narrow the firing arc to 15 degree front and rear, while the damage goes up.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
I would say Beams, Cannons, and Projectiles giving one craftable of each type since currently Heavy Weapons can upgraded using Beam, Cannon, and Projectile upgrade tech. I'd put them at Level 15 along with the other special items.
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l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
My character Tsin'xing
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Level 20 lets you create mod accelerator items. Want [Acc]x3, you need 3 [Acc] items. Make the high demand mods cost more to encourage less popular choices.
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Seems like to me it should fall under whatever the weapon being crafted falls under. If it's a Beam type, then let it be in that School, but give a high level requirement to unlock the schematic. Given how long it takes to get the schools up in level, I wouldn't be in favor of a new school either. However, if it did give us more options, and thats the only way they were willing to give it to us, I'd take it.
Cannon/railgun > Cannon
exotic damage heavy weapons > Science
torp/missile > projectiles
currently the potential of R&D is going to waste with so many levels that currently unlock nothing atm.
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USS Brakiri - T6 Elachi Escort
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Yeah, me too. But I'd first revamp their name. Call them Advanced Tactical Weapons. That way these 'tiny' escorts don't have something called a 'heavy' weapon. Additional weapons could be something similar to the VATA console the Avenger, a variety of missiles (offensive and defensive) and maybe an effective area-denial minelayer (like the Defiant when it mined the wormhole).
I believe there was talk at STLV that they wanted/were planning on renaming them to Experimental Weapons.
Personally, I want to see a Shockwave Generator; a 3km pulse every couple seconds that can either be used offensively at point blank range or as a sort of point defense system against incoming destructable threats. Tachyon, Plasma, Photonic, Electromagnetic, whatever.
Also I firmly agree the 360 arc seems inconsistent with a hvy wpn I agree it should be 15 degrees at most - with that said, I can see 360 for something such as the flak cannon concept. I hope that does not sound hypocritical but I can see flak cannons all around the ship hull.
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Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
Then you can relax here. This weapon slot is more of a joke compared to the DPS benefits a regular weapon slot, a hangar bay or especially a deteriorating secondary deflector can provide.
It is better than nothing, yes, but it’s not much more than that.
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it's useful in PVE although i'm not sure how much use it is in raids.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Heavy_Proton_Charge
The Fx are wonderfully subdued: its basically the torpedo launcher you always dreamed of. Being AoE proton damage instead of kinetic, it hits like truck. I built a T6 TSAD around it and the results were very satisfying.
What I envision is heavy weapons in every R&D school. Beam type HW as the level 20 unlock of Beam R&D, Torpedo R&D for torps, Cannon R&D for cannons.
But I also envision HW possibilities such as field generator weapons, (Engineering R&D,) and manipulation weapons, (Science R&D.)
With a HW unlock at level 20, the items will be cutting edge research items, upgradeable and moddable, (unlike store-bought items which are what they are.)
Given this premise, the potential to create Ground HWs like the portable phaser from The Cage/The Menagerie becomes a possibility. Imagine an equippable Control item which summons a mobile phaser turret that follows the character around like a drone:
Infantry Support Vehicle: small tank drone with a Cover Shield. Generates massive threat as it follows the player around providing shelter in the storm. Unlike regular cover shields, these degrade as they are damaged.
Ground Attack Drone: fragile flying craft with a limited hover time firing a gatling type pulse weapon. Excellent Exploit weapon.
Spy Drone: a flying craft which increases team accuracy as it hovers over the battlefield, with a single missile which creates Expose opportunities when it does its AOE damage.
Mecha: Infantry level weapons on an armored chassis.
Rather than automatically firing, activating the control item allows the player to choose the target area for AoE attacks, and the Heavy Ground Weapon fires at it, or which allows the player to choose 'Fire at my target'.
Not going to happen, I guess, buy hey, why should Space have all the fun?
The VFX on that REALLY need to be toned down too.
Though i would say that I would rather have a module that can be used to give normally stationary turrets/generators a hover mode that can be activated, but which also would reduce the defensive stats of the turrets/generators have while it is slotted, than gaining access to a single mobile turret type module.
I could see both options for how to gain the ability to craft heavy weapons, which could be a stand-alone school, or just adding heavy weapon recipes to schools based on the weapon type of the heavy weapon (beam, torp, mine, cannon, and such). Though i could also see it where the schismatics you need to gain access to craft the heavy weapon recipe might actually be a drop in certain stfs, with even in some high difficulty stfs having unique versions that are linked to that stf's rep.