Weapon Request - Rail Gun!

[WhiteFang]

Evochron Legacy is the greatest spacesim ever.

The only feature that I would really like to spice up the combat is a single RAIL GUN!

I suggest the following features:
- key point is to be a real viable alternative to the Excalibur missile pack and to encourage in combat different alternating playstyles eg think Chimera with Excalibur versus Nighthawk with Rail Guns with the Nighthawk alternating between head-on and strafing as well as extreme range shots. Encourages leading the target shots even while strafing (so for this needs to be weaker than Excalibur but faster)
- damage 3/4 of a single Excalibur missile
- range is 5k
- much faster than Excalibur but slow enough to encourage leading the target
- FIXED weapon
- use up all 8 slots like Excalibur
- cannot be defeated by countermeasures (but harder to hit and less damage than Excalibur and cannot fire quickly due to spooling, energy usage and needs - see below)
- have a timer to produce more same as Excalibur
- big thumping sound upon hitting the enemies ships
- have to hold down the trigger to spool it up before firing
- have spool up sound
- if release trigger before fires spool sound stops
- after release weapon energy drops 50%
- must have energy over 75% to fire or get sound indicating not enough energy to fire
- upon spooling lose 25% energy whether use it or not.

Rail guns in the Expanse - Remember the Donnager!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpElvkhw_tk&t=40s

[matchbox2022]

Kudos to that,
Direct aiming with a secondary weapon with a cooldown would be exceptional!!!!

New animation sequence for it would look sick,...any chance it could one shot most light ships (minimal armor/hp) with a cool down time. Perhaps it could pass directly through shields?
The animation sequence of the strider firing it's "railgun" from Half life 2 would make for an extremely, cool, new addition to the game as a weapon if it didn't take much time.

On the topic of weapons.....
Any chance the disruptor could be modified more for capital ship strikes or fleets? So that it knocks out shields (they can recharge as per normal) but any ship in the blast would have it's shields reduced to ZERO and allowed to recharge. Would provide a benefit for me to go after big prey. I know it already does damage to what it impacts, but the EMP effect of it would be quite cool (especially if it also acted as a giant LEECH missile in that sense too).

Feel lilke these would bring some new life to the game for sure!!!

[Vice]

A rail cannon type weapon is something I've considered, both along the lines of a cannon and as a secondary weapon type emulating direct fire (non-tracking) rockets or rail projectiles. Might be something I visit at some point, but all-new media for something like that is not very feasible at this point. Maybe something within the confines of existing media and just involving coding.

On the topic of inflicting higher damage on capital ships through a more powerful weapon type and/or one shot solution, I'll provide a quote from a discussion a few years ago that would still apply ( https://www.starwraith.com/forum/viewto ... 90#p192890 ):

"... would just need some careful review and design consideration after what went on with Fulcrum Torpedoes in EM. With Exodus missiles being as powerful as they are and as effective as they are against capital ships now, the idea of weakening capital ships and/or Exodus missiles further with some new weapon would need careful review. If enough players were mostly after just wanting to make capital ships weaker and easier to destroy, I'd probably prefer to make a global change to their shielding and/or armor levels to adjust things as a whole."

Any chance the disruptor could be modified more for capital ship strikes or fleets? So that it knocks out shields (they can recharge as per normal) but any ship in the blast would have it's shields reduced to ZERO and allowed to recharge. Would provide a benefit for me to go after big prey. I know it already does damage to what it impacts, but the EMP effect of it would be quite cool (especially if it also acted as a giant LEECH missile in that sense too).

That I may try out in the experimental branch of things I'm working on at the moment. The effect of knocking out shield arrays entirely in addition to the jump drive with the weapon might be a nice trade off for the high price and more complex use. So unless there's feedback from players indicating that would be too overpowering, it's something I'll likely look into and test with the new codebase.

[Marvin]

That I may try out in the experimental branch of things I'm working on at the moment. The effect of knocking out shield arrays entirely in addition to the jump drive with the weapon might be a nice trade off for the high price and more complex use. So unless there's feedback from players indicating that would be too overpowering, it's something I'll likely look into and test with the new codebase.

IIRC, you can already do that when scripting a quest. I think I did it once with a booby-trapped sensor.

[WhiteFang]

Wow, thanks for looking into it!!

Keeping my fingers crossed

[matchbox2022]

Well if the sound is modable and the effect had wavering in it (like when using the build constructor, the object looks like there's motion blur attached) and was as simple as a coloured blob (like capital ships fire..maybe green?) with the "warp" effect that'd be cool enough.
Kinda like this? Hopefully it would use everything the game already has built in so to speak.
Could even have a "charge up" function where your movement is agility/movement is greatly impeded until it / you fire (possibly similar to how the disruptor countdown already works)...but it'd be a "reuseable" weapon taking up say 2 to 4 secondary slots just like excalibur.

https://youtu.be/G_BdWX61G4w?t=21 <--that game is also DX9/SM3 if that matters.

[Vice]

Most of the challenge comes in the coding elements for:

- New weapon placement index for item ID and linked weapon entity values.
- New inventory sequence to allow item to appear in certain planetary markets plus pricing.
- Update to inventory console preview object system to render a new structure for the Rail Cannon.
- Stats addition for damage and range values and item description added to itemdata.dat for display.
- New lines of text added to text.dat file for weapon name, stage status labels and MFD secondary readout.
- Timing and staging sequences for charge time (press and hold secondary weapon button), fire process, and reload time.
- Two new separate collision systems added for various in-game entities and to distinguish between player fire railed cannons and other player fired rail cannons in multiplayer.
- Visual effects using existing media to provide a 'rail' type effect and the underlying code to generate them.
- Dedicated range system to stage collision and object pass-throughs.
- New sound files added for charging stage and firing stage.
- Explosion activations for impacts on objects.

Things like rendering path and behavior are more minimal (this wouldn't likely be for a DX9/SM3 route anyway being part of an experimental branch effort). It's internal functional elements from an interdependent codebase and in-code technical operations are where the bulk of the challenge exists.

[matchbox2022]

Well as far as sound files, if there are any in the mod pack I made that are of interest, if they aren't clearly ripped (I made some) you can use them. I can do a quick inventory to see which I made using free non-copywrite sources on my own. If that helps at all. I'm no good for much else