Weapon Expansion, a few ideas for more anti-ship weapons.

[Burnside]

A selection of weapon concepts that are intended to be slightly less optimal than the current core roster of ship-to-ship weapons while providing interesting trade-offs.

Light Mount
(Light) Beam Laser/Continuous Beam Laser: longer range and projectile speed than the laser cannon, but even lower damage- a long-range military version of the mining laser and can fire until overheat; all beam lasers lose damage potential with range, dropping to 50% at max range
Railgun: roughly half as strong as the rail cannon with a similar range, speed, and slightly increased charge time- uses 30% of the power
Light Autocannon: low-caliber single-barrel autocannon with a large magazine (1000rds+) and a socket for a radiator or coolant board, a cheap anti-personnel and light anti-air weapon to rival the laser cannon
Heavy Autocannon: another single-barrel design with a small magazine (~100rds) and a lower fire rate, a bridge between the autocannon and plasma thrower

Heavy Mount
Heavy Beam Laser/Pulse Beam Laser: a more powerful version of the (light) beam laser, deals ~1/6th (15%) of the railcannon's damage per second, slightly longer range than the light version due to increased projectile lifetime, capacitance limits allow a 3 second beam before recharge (~2000eps for 4-6sec, standing draw of 500eps); all beam lasers lose damage potential with range, dropping to 50% at max range
Plasma Bombard: a bigger version of the Plasma Thrower, more damage, greater projectile lifetime, same low projectile speed, best for station bombardment
[Name Undecided] "EMP Gun": performs damage calc against armor without causing damage, any projectile energy that makes it through armor/framework can only damage wires (and yolol chips?), could also work as a missile/torpedo warhead

Special
Heavy Railcannon Base/Rail Mortar: an oversized short-barreled rail cannon that generates recoil and has two device base mounts for enhanced bracing, the spinal mount you always wanted
Heavy Railcannon Barrel: a stackable barrel section with replaceable rails (each shot causes corrosion and damage, variable rail material) and two device bases, increases projectile lifetime, damage, and recoil; recoil forces are split between all HRC parts but increase geometrically requiring better/heavier/smarter bracing as the barrel length increases

 

[CalenLoki]

Personally I'd try to keep it simple, and avoid adding too many weapons that are too close to existing ones.

Beam weapons are usually boring. No leading, no dodging, easy to aimbot. And they should never have range/damage even remotely close to projectile-based weapons. Additionally they require quite a lot of calculations if you wan't the beam to be close to continuous, rather than visibly just high rof.

Light railgun seems unnecessary. It serves the exact same purpose as heavy one.

Light AC looks way too close to LC. Low damage, hard to deplate ammo.

Heavier cannon would be nice. But to make it differ more from PC I'd go for APHE ammo.

We already have missiles for station bombardment.

The EMP gun seems interesting as non-lethal weapon, even if I prefer parasite approach.

Huge modular railgun would hurt mostly big ships, and they really don't need any more counters.

Recoil should be applied to all weapons, once it's feasible. It's too fun feature to limit it to single weapon.

 

[Killer_Rabbit]

I think the devs are aiming (no pun intended) to have the weapons modular so the players could modify a weapon have a "heavy" or a "light" build so the only real question is introducing entirely new weapons

 

[Cavilier210]

Continuous laser with a beam duration and recharge would be nice. If not only for aesthetics. I don't think it needs to have a high ROF to give the illusion of a beam, but a shot that hits, a damage over time model, and an animation that last for a few seconds.

Could make the beam have to remain stationary on its mount while firing too.

 

[Burnside]

The beam lasers, either version, would just try to use the same mechanic as the mining laser, the light version especially would mostly be a long-range version, so to balance I came up with the damage reduction mechanic to mimic beam dispersion, the balance would likely be a power and/or overheating cost (as well as using more rare materials, etc) to keep them from simply replacing the mining laser in all cases.

 

[LaughingJackal]

EMP gun. I wanna build the malevolence.

 

[Rubyyburrocks]

Idea: some sort of super hard to field mega weapon (devastator cannon or something like that) which works like explosions do currently, straight DELETING material. Would be massive, impossible to mount on a turntable, and very, very heavy.

 

[Burnside]

Somebody suggested either a heavy-mount (i.e. railcannon tier) or multi-part (rail mortar tier) version of the Reaper Cannon, call it the "Reaper Loom Cannon" or "Reaper Weave Gun", big giant whipping threads of nasty energy beams

 

[Otac]

EMP weapen is so op

 

[Vis]

While it is nice to have many different types of weapons to pick from, I would really like to have more sizes of weapons.

 

[Otac]

While it is nice to have many different types of weapons to pick from, I would really like to have more sizes of weapons.

i think allow players reserch there own weapen will be fun

 

[Vis]

i think allow players reserch there own weapen will be fun

I would have really liked weapon building to be more like From the Depths, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen and we will not have that level of customization.

 

[Otac]

i think allow players reserch there own weapen will be fun

research

I would have really liked weapon building to be more like From the Depths, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen and we will not have that level of customization.

yeah that‘s not simple to Development and production

 

[Vis]

yeah that‘s not simple to Development and production

From the Depths does it well, but yeah they went in a different direction here.

 

[Amos.37]

I don't think a weapon like this would be made, as it would be very hard to balance, but a AP-AP weapon (anti-armour/anti-personnel).
Idea being, a shot that penetrates 1st layer of armour, and then explodes. Purpose built for damaging ship internals and killing crew.
This would more likely be an alternative configuration/ammo for missiles or railguns, rather than a completely new weapon. Heck, it might even be possible to make a basic version using missiles already, just using a delayed explosive, but I think that using current models, a missile with a delayed explosive is more likely to bounce off the target than penetrate.
Highly effective against lightly armoured and small ships, but easy for larger ships to counter with double layers of armour.

 

[Otac]

From the Depths does it well, but yeah they went in a different direction here.

ture

 

[CalenLoki]

There is flak cannon worked on. So I'd expect APHE ammo for it, or eventually AC, rather than missiles or RC.
Missiles don't penetrate. And RC can't is more an oversized sniper rifle than stereotypical naval cannon. Realistically using any explosive ammo would reduce muzzle velocity by half or maybe even blow the barrel.

 

[Amos.37]

I guess my thought on the AP-AP ammo is more thinking about a fragmentation round, so shrapnel damage, rather than explosive, but I believe explosive would be much easier to program than shrapnel.
But yeah, a flak cannon makes more sense than a railgun.
A missile could be explained as a shaped charge, much like modern anti-tank weapons. The idea of a HE anti-tank weapon isn't to destroy the tank, but rather kill the crew by blasting superheated shrapnel into the cabin via a shaped charge. I'm thinking a weapon along those lines.
Interestingly, that's also the principle anti-missile mesh on APC's and tanks work on, detonating the missile before it hits the armour, so the blast dissipates on the armour rather than propelling shrapnel inside the vehicle.

 

[quantin]

I will use a lot of high firing rate to suppress enemy.

 

[HotPotato]

I selected the rail gun/cannon, but not as a complete weapon, but components to build a weapon so you are not limited by size. You should be able to launch large masses, like asteroids, at bases.