a weapons idea: beam cannons

spodilbunny

well,i was going over some basic beam tactics..one of the more popular being a beam boat broadside...

then i notice people`s issues with some types (not all) of cruisers

then i remembered how broadsiding was the bread and butter tactic of old wooden warships with there cannons

but then i also realized that a beam boat broadside fires far too fast for a classical type of broadside manuever

so i had a thought,why not beam cannons?they could have the same 45 degree arc as DBB,drain around 20 weapon power with each shot,fire one shot every 5 seconds,and have around the same hitforce as a DBB combined with a regular beam array

now you might think this is too overpowered..but with a possible 4 beam cannons,firing once every 5 seconds,draining 20 wep power per shot on each cannon...that would be close to draining 80 weapons power every 5 seconds (perhaps 25 power per shot would be better.im not sure)

so the only way to make this work would be for a ship to be fine tuned mostly for weapons power...

this would give some of the more dysfunctional cruisers more relevancy,as only cruiser type ships could equip them....and with an engineer`s special skills treating power gains,this would be perfect for them

now some might say there is no presidence for this,but i disagree...the NX-01 had phase cannons...narrow firing arc turret style things that between them could fire mostly once every few seconds (i just finished watching a marathon run of enterprise,so i should know)...now if these cannons were updated with modern technology,id think they would be perfect for cruisers

now on the graphics side,i was thinking perhaps the graphic from the heavy graviton beam could be copied over and reworked,the charge cycle would need to be extended by two seconds,and the sound remodulated for different weapon elements,but it would work relatively easily (atleast on paper) and be cheap to implement

thoughts?suggestions?(everything is up for grabs with this idea,a collective mind is a healthy mind)

timezarg

Two issues here: One, it's not really a 'broadside' at that point. It's more like 'another narrow-arc energy weapon type that's essentially unnecessary when compared to DHCs'. The only possible use is if non-cannon cruisers could use them.

That leads to the second problem: It's a narrow-arc weapon. Narrow-arc weapons need good turnrate in order to really work. Even on the vaunted KDF battlecruisers, you've gotta stack a decent amount of buffs to turnrate in order to make DCs and DHCs truly viable for something other than shooting stationary objects and ships that only move along a rigid predefined path (such as probes and assimilated KDF ships in STFs).

Now, if you were to advocate for weapon slots on the side of a ship, or a ship with a console that acts as 1-2 of these 'beam cannons' aimed out the side (kinda like the side-firing torpedo launcher), you might have an argument there.

rakija879

spodilbunny wrote: »

well,i was going over some basic beam tactics..one of the more popular being a beam boat broadside...

then i notice people`s issues with some types (not all) of cruisers

then i remembered how broadsiding was the bread and butter tactic of old wooden warships with there cannons

but then i also realized that a beam boat broadside fires far too fast for a classical type of broadside manuever

so i had a thought,why not beam cannons?they could have the same 45 degree arc as DBB,drain around 20 weapon power with each shot,fire one shot every 5 seconds,and have around the same hitforce as a DBB combined with a regular beam array

now you might think this is too overpowered..but with a possible 4 beam cannons,firing once every 5 seconds,draining 20 wep power per shot on each cannon...that would be close to draining 80 weapons power every 5 seconds (perhaps 25 power per shot would be better.im not sure)

so the only way to make this work would be for a ship to be fine tuned mostly for weapons power...

this would give some of the more dysfunctional cruisers more relevancy,as only cruiser type ships could equip them....and with an engineer`s special skills treating power gains,this would be perfect for them

now some might say there is no presidence for this,but i disagree...the NX-01 had phase cannons...narrow firing arc turret style things that between them could fire mostly once every few seconds (i just finished watching a marathon run of enterprise,so i should know)...now if these cannons were updated with modern technology,id think they would be perfect for cruisers

now on the graphics side,i was thinking perhaps the graphic from the heavy graviton beam could be copied over and reworked,the charge cycle would need to be extended by two seconds,and the sound remodulated for different weapon elements,but it would work relatively easily (atleast on paper) and be cheap to implement

thoughts?suggestions?(everything is up for grabs with this idea,a collective mind is a healthy mind)

yes another narrow-arc energy weapon for escorts with alpha strike and BO to be abused great idea :P what about something with less power drain bigger arc?

theraven2378

Even better idea, give the beam arrays an extra buff to have them on par with cannons

spodilbunny

i do wish to reiterate that this idea is just something i came up with after several cups of coffee...so it needs imrpovement

and in answer to that one post about escorts,i wish to also re-state that this would be a cruiser only weapon

i do support rearranging the weapons slots on cruiser ships so there are side weapon slots...it would make alot of sense for a large elongated ship like a cruiser...but i was thinking more on the practical side...honestly it seems more likely to me that cryptic would make a new weapon rather than fundamentally "fix" a concept in-use in the game that needs fixing

and the 45 degree arc was just an idea,given thats about the aim radius of the disruptor javelin on the guramba seige destroyer

and also another thing i wish to clear up...of course things like the DHC needs a decent turn rate to reaim on a moving target....but what im referring to is something that is supposed to be used either at long range on slow moving enemys,or in tandem with things like subspace snare,or fishtailing with Evasive manuevers..

the whole idea is that for one thing,obviously pvp is flawed...firing dozens upon dozens of beam shots over ten seconds on an over shielded escort whipping around at near warp speeds wont work out well unless you have spent alot on acc mods and the like

the more the amount of shots i reduced,the less chance you have to miss in the end..given that this game pins chance to hit per shot...and even if you did miss with this proposed beam cannon,once you finally hit it would mean something,and you wouldnt need an unfeasible amount of resources either

superfoxyplush

spodilbunny wrote: »

i do wish to reiterate that this idea is just something i came up with after several cups of coffee...so it needs imrpovement

and in answer to that one post about escorts,i wish to also re-state that this would be a cruiser only weapon

i do support rearranging the weapons slots on cruiser ships so there are side weapon slots...it would make alot of sense for a large elongated ship like a cruiser...but i was thinking more on the practical side...honestly it seems more likely to me that cryptic would make a new weapon rather than fundamentally "fix" a concept in-use in the game that needs fixing

and the 45 degree arc was just an idea,given thats about the aim radius of the disruptor javelin on the guramba seige destroyer

and also another thing i wish to clear up...of course things like the DHC needs a decent turn rate to reaim on a moving target....but what im referring to is something that is supposed to be used either at long range on slow moving enemys,or in tandem with things like subspace snare,or fishtailing with Evasive manuevers..

the whole idea is that for one thing,obviously pvp is flawed...firing dozens upon dozens of beam shots over ten seconds on an over shielded escort whipping around at near warp speeds wont work out well unless you have spent alot on acc mods and the like

the more the amount of shots i reduced,the less chance you have to miss in the end..given that this game pins chance to hit per shot...and even if you did miss with this proposed beam cannon,once you finally hit it would mean something,and you wouldnt need an unfeasible amount of resources either

Forgive me if I missed anything but it's late here and I just wanted to ask afew things.

If this were to be a side arc mounted weapon, I'd assume it'd come under a new category ( Akin to Cannon / Beam ) so we would need new skills to boost the Dmg of these new "Beam cannons" ( Doffs, Boff etc ) so what would be protecting the front or rear of our Cruisers? We'd be mixing our weapon types and thus either being less effective or having "blind spots" of fire arcs in order to boost broadside dmg, surely ?

Secondly, as nice as the idea sounds (From a FED point of view) our ships are suppose to be laden with "Phaser strips" which give unparalleled direction of fire, which I think Beam arrays try to emulate. Whilst the "Beam Cannons" would work, it's drifting further away from actual Canon of Starship design. In-game we broadside so we can get two firing arcs to over-lap, we're weak in front and from behind but strong side-to-side. Which I think is the whole Idea you're trying to pitch here.

I'm not trying to just berate you for throwing an idea out there, Kudos to you for actually taking the initiative but I think we already have a good system in place. It just needs a little boost, say, Built in [Acc] or [Acc]x2 mod into beams like cannons have Natural Crit?

chuckwolf

Don't we already have these, they're called Dual beam banks.