I need some more ideas

I am working on a plug that will add TON of (hopefully) unique new weapons and outfits to EV. I am up to 18 guns and a few outfits right now, and I need ideas. This is the first plug that I've done that could be of any interest to anybody but me, and I'm kind of new to this entire thing (although not incompetant, I can make eveything work), so I would really appreciate some ideas. The weapons so far:

M32 High Explosives - something akin to a stellar grenade that will actually go somewhere, although much more powerful
Piranha Missles - multi-shot missles like the polaris multi-torp. Not as powerful, but easier to get, and looks cooler
Light/Medium/Heavy Anti-fighter Laser - point defense beam
Telsa Beam - LIGHTNING BOLT! does high shield damage, no armor damage, ionizes
Anti-Fighter Droids - like a fighter bay, but it launches 10 small robots with heavy point defense
Ion Missle - does a ton of ionizing, and can only disable
Nanites - now you can buy them
Light/Medium/Heavy Beam Weapons - self explanatory
Etheric Laser - Low damage, uses a ton of fuel, but can be fired from cloak, expensive as hell
Raider/Assult Droids - small space fighters that disable and add to capture chance
Heavy Bays - fighter bays that weigh 120 tons each and hold 1-2 starbridge, valk, or other similar sized ship
Flamethrower - fire
Electric Hull - acts kind of like a melee weapon, would be made with a very short beam that hit anything that came within, say 10px of the ship
Mine Laying Missles - breaks into submunitions that scatter lots of mines
400/600/800mm Coilgun - like the railgun, but slower and much, much nastier
Ultra Missle - missle that does the most damage possible, max ammo is 3, launcher weighs 50 tons, each missle weighs 20 tons
Gauss Rifle - fires like a railgun accept in bursts
Neutron Gun - big blaster that fires in bursts
I also plan to make "pirated" and "cheap" versions of some weapons

----Outfits----

Engine Pack - all the engine upgrades rolled into one
Repair Crew - boosts shield and armor recharge
Inertia Dampener - makes your ship inertialess

That's it for now. If you want me to make a weapon and are very specific about what it has to look like, please give me the spins. Or if you have any really cool looking spins that I can use (you'll get credit, of course), please give me them. Also, please tell me if there's something I should change or remove.

Give the ultra missile a cooler name. Say Mega Missile.

Descent :wub:

First of all, I am highly thankful someone's taking the effort to create a plug with all these weapons and is accepting other ideas; now I can submit ideas of my own.

Second, I know this is rather harsh, but spelling needs some work. It's not that bad, but if I have to cross my eyes and squint barely 3 inches from the screen to make out what you're saying, I probably will not play the plug for long before removing it (and no, I'm not saying this is one, it's just I've played maps/plugs/etc. like that, and was turned off immediately by such poor quality; just for your knowledge ).

Anyway, errors I spotted:

Missle -> Missile
Assult -> Assault

Inertia isn't spelled incorrectly, but the correct usage is "inertial" (note the "l")

Stuff I'd like to add:

The "Ultra Missile:" I'd say rename it to Anti-Matter Missile, but keep the stats on it as is. Since Anti-Matter/Matter reactions are the most powerful in the Universe, it would make sense to name it as such.

Alright, what else to put...Oh yeah.

Spun Carbon: Rebuilds your ship entirely from the durable material, gives you extra mass depending on how large the ship was (I'd say like a 1 to 5 ship mass/weapons mass ratio would be a bit high, but reasonable (i.e., for five tons of ship, you get one ton of weapons space to use)), and makes it faster and more maneuverable, also increases armor; though to make it reasonable, it should be one of the most expensive upgrades to get, and it scales with the ship's size.

Currently, that's all I can come up with, but I'll put more down later.

Can't wait to see this finished. Keep up the good work, sir.

Um, Warlord, a couple of nit-picks...

1. Spun Carbon sounds a lot like Spun Diamond... As a matter of fact, Diamond, effectively, is Carbon.

2. Anti-matter Missile is a very general a name for a missile. Is it carrying a gram of Antimatter? A kilogram? Five?

As a parallel example: Two nukes.
One is a 5 kiloton device. The other is a 100 megaton device.
Both types actually exist, they've been built (The Soviets had one of the latter type).
Both are nuclear, but the difference in payloads is so wildly disparate that it would be misleading to put them next to each other and say just "These are two nukes." It would be true, but it would also be misleading.

To compare, a bomb with a payload of half a kilogram (0.5 kg) of pure Antimatter would produce an explosion about the same as that of a 20 megaton bomb (Closer to 21.5, if my calculations are correct).

A weapon with a payload of five kilograms (5.0 kg) of pure Antimatter produces the blast of a 215 megaton bomb (I don't think one of these exists!), but if your story can accept a means of storing half a kilogram, five kilograms should not be a major leap.

(Edit) I suppose this is all stuff that would go in the weapon's description.

This post has been edited by Eugene Chin : 23 March 2007 - 08:41 PM

@eugene-chin, on Mar 23 2007, 08:38 PM, said in Weapons Plug:

1. Spun Carbon sounds a lot like Spun Diamond... As a matter of fact, Diamond, effectively, is Carbon.

Yes, if I may quote the Spun Diamond dësc:

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Nearly a century ago, P'aedt scientists working with Ver'ash engineers stumbled across a biological process that could be adapted to allow their ships to literally extrude carbon atoms around themselves , forming a diamond shell. Since then, Polaris shielding technology has been greatly enhanced, but many of the Nil'kemorya in particular still ask their Ver'ash cousins to modify their ships to also gain this armor advantage

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Spun Carbon: Rebuilds your ship entirely from the durable material, gives you extra mass depending on how large the ship was (I'd say like a 1 to 5 ship mass/weapons mass ratio would be a bit high, but reasonable (i.e., for five tons of ship, you get one ton of weapons space to use)), and makes it faster and more maneuverable, also increases armor; though to make it reasonable, it should be one of the most expensive upgrades to get, and it scales with the ship's size.

I like the basic idea, but a 1/5 ratio is WAY too big. Also, realistically, how would increasing the mass and armor of a ship make it go faster? The entire package would be a little too powerful, because to the determined player, money is no object. Good idea, though. I will have a prototype manufactured by my minions now. And thanks for the spellcheck.

Edit: New weapon will be added- Stealth Missile- Can be fired while cloaked, can't be jammed, can't be targeted by point defense, passes over asteroids.

This post has been edited by .:KaoZ:. : 23 March 2007 - 11:42 PM

Presumably, replacing the metal hull of a ship with some carbon derivate would reduce the overall mass of the ship (and I'm talking actual mass, not outfit-space mass), thereby allowing the constant thrust of the engines to produce a higher acceleration. I agree that the overall concept is far too powerful; I can see either making the ship faster, or giving extra outfit space, but not both. And probably it should reduce your armor rating, not increase it; carbon's terribly brittle and shatters under stress.

@--kaoz--, on Mar 24 2007, 03:49 AM, said in Weapons Plug:

Edit: New weapon will be added- Stealth Missile- Can be fired while cloaked, can't be jammed, can't be targeted by point defense, passes over asteroids.

Make sure to give it durability anyway. I've had some of my own ships shooting down their own 'Can't be targeted' missiles while trying to defend against enemy 'Can be targeted' missiles.

Wait, no. If the missile's gimmick is stealth and it can't be targeted, it doesn't make sense that it could have enough protection to defend against any stray PD shots. Armor would make the missile too heavy and expensive, and shields would betray its stealth.

You've got missiles that lay mines... Why not mines that lay missiles.
I once made a plug-in that had numerous mines laying the various
missiles in a couple of diferent quantities. It means you can get some
extra range onto your missiles when your running away for example.
Or the mine lays in the path of your enemies for a couple of seconds
then fires a number of missiles at them. The larger number of
missiles at once also help overwhelm the enemies point defences if
they have any.

What about missiles "drop" out of your ship aim at the enemy then fly
towards them. Similar to the mines but then there would only be one
instead of a cluster of them.

Another one could be similar to your melee style weapon but it would
have a high rate of fire and have wide graphix so that there would be
a near constant circle around your ship which could be used as a
shield against swarming fighters.

Also I really enjoy weapons with a really high positive or negative
impact. Like a tractor/repulsor beam but instead of being constant its
just a quick burst that throws the enemy ship in whatever direction
and causes damage due to its hull being stressed by the sudden
change in direction.

Thats all I can come up with at the moment.

In response to all the stuff at my suggestions:

@EC: Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear device topped out at about 57 megatons. A 100-Megaton model was possible, but never built. As for how much antimatter would be in this missile...well let's see here...

From the wikipedia article (specifc section), Matter-Antimatter Reactions are the most powerful in the Universe; so much so, in fact, that it's more than 300 times as powerful than fusion reactions (what causes the sun to shine), 1000 times more powerful than fission reactions (what Nuclear Reactors operate under), and more than 10 BILLION (10*109) times more powerful than standard combustion reactions (like burning O2 and gasoline in a car).

To give you an idea what that means, from another wikipedia article, just one gram of Antimatter, if annihilated with an equivalent amount of Matter, would set off an explosion roughly equivalent to 43 kilotons of TNT. So, if you annihilated 3.5 ounces (or 100 grams in SI) of Antimatter, you would generate an explosion of roughly the same caliber of a 5-Megaton Hydrogen Bomb (a little less than that, but, meh). I think you do, in fact, need to check your calculations.

So, back to the original question: how much Antimatter should the missile have?

Well, 2 kilograms and you've got the same explosive power of the EMP Torp, which says it contains a Gigaton of TNT, but in a much smaller package.

Therefore, even for something 20 times bigger than the EMP Torp's reported explosive power, an Antimatter Missile would be actually quite small. I think probably this amount would satisfy what Kaoz is looking for.

Alright, enough geek-talk. Other things I'd like to see:

Antimatter Cannons/Turrets: Cannons are about 15 tons each, and Turrets 45, but it deals a crazy amount of damage. When fired, they should sound like the Turbolasers from Star Wars (you may have to watch one of the movies to see). Also rather expensive (like 150,000 just for the cannons, say). Damage done to shields should be slightly less than that done to armor, but about the same. Max No. of Cannons/Turrets: 6 and 4, respectively.

Striker Bays: Need I say more? Catches include that you MUST be in the Polaris Storyline, and they weigh about 20 tons more than Manta Bays. They'll hold 6 Strikers each, though. Max no. of Bays: 2.

Rebel T-Head Bay: Same deal, different craft. Weighs around 75 tons, holds 3 Rebel T-Heads, max qty: 2. Must also be in the Rebel Storyline.

Abomination Bay: Same story here. Weighs about 90 tons, holds 2-4 Abominations (you can decide on that yourself), max qty: 2-3. Auroran Storyline Required. Also comes in varying types.

All right, that'll do for now.

I've already made the electric hull and inertial damper for EV in my EV Enhancer plug, so it would be a little bit redundant if you made them too, unless you found some other way of doing the electric hull.

Edit: Some of the things that you said make it sound like you're doing this plug for EVN. If you are, I don't mind if you get some of the weapon values from my plug. Just be aware that several other weapons that you're proposing to make are already in the PlugPackV16 by Terek'e'ban, such as the flamethrower and drone bay. However, it would be pretty easy to make it original, since there are many other ways you could make these types of weapons.

This post has been edited by Nil'kimas : 24 March 2007 - 03:00 PM

I just thought that I should make it clear that this plug will be for Nova. I do, however, intend to make an EVC version and possibly an EVO version if I have time.

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Therefore, even for something 20 times bigger than the EMP Torp's reported explosive power, an Antimatter Missile would be actually quite small. I think probably this amount would satisfy what Kaoz is looking for.

The problem is, that he actually wants the Missiles to be heavier than EMPs, so i suggest you fill up with some techspeak explanations like: "These Missiles contain both antimatter and matter (although you wouldnt actually have to supply the matter, as the antimatter could explode the hull of the missile) in magnetically suspended in tightly sealed and vacumed containers made of extra durable super-dense alloy to prevent the missiles from accidentally going off, destroying not only the ship carrying them but possibly also a vast portion of the planet where it might be landed."

Then, there are some weapons i'd like to suggest which i wanted to include in some plugins of my own:

-A "net" which holds ships in place. It does so by repeatedly spawning a flack type mine with a very high negative impact

-A mist of explosive gas/fluid, which will for a short time build a barrier for ships and then dissipate. This would be done by creating an invisible minefield (or, to suggest a mist something along the nanites sprite). As soon as a ship gets within a 1 pixel fuse distance, it would explode and destroy fighters or do massive damage to heavier ships. This is really just a minefield, but it would add a cool feeling.

-A kamikaze fighter. This would either be a missile type weapon lookin like a fighter and doing massive damage to a single target upon impact, or a real fighter "loaded with explosives". It would have a single weapon with fairly short range and a rather large blast radius which would destroy the fighter when fired.

-A "warp core" outfit. It helps you enter hyperspace sooner, and you can drop it out of the ship and explode it to ionize a large radius, possibly the whole system.

-A hunter-killer missile, which can even track cloaked ships

-A real flak type weapon, that fires fast shots which fly straight for a short time and explode

Anyone else notice his 'Flamethrower' outfit? It wouldn't work in space as there is no air for the flame to feed on. There wouldn't even be much heat.

A "flamethrower" in space would be more aptly termed a "heat thrower". Flames are little more than highly-energetic airborne particles, some of which are still undergoing an oxidation reaction. Once you stick high-energy particles into space, they stay high-energy, because the only way they have to dissipate heat is through black-body radiation, which is fairly slow.

Of course, other terms for weapons that throw around high-energy particles include "blaster", "laser", "chaingun", and so on. It all depends, really, on how coherent, how collimated, and how large your particles are.

Couldn't you make a space flame-thrower by adding a stream of oxygen to your flammable liquid? It would have extremely short range, but it would by real fire.

Sure, but there's really not much difference between that and just burning the particles and then ejecting them from your hull.

In fact, if you like, the Fusion Pulse Cannon is a "flamethrower", since the particles are still reactive when released.

@gray-shirt-ninja, on Mar 23 2007, 03:39 PM, said in Weapons Plug:

Give the ultra missile a cooler name. Say… Mega Missile.
Descent :wub:

YES!!

Side note: You know I have a small Descent addon, right? It should be in the addons section somewhere. However, I did not include a mega missile in it.

This post has been edited by Fnoigy : 28 March 2007 - 07:25 AM

I have a couple suggestions.

1. Definitely make sure you keep everything nice and balanced. If some weapon is exceedingly powerful, make sure it is costly and takes up a lot of space.
2. Some of these weapons may be good for some AIs to use. Consider adding some new shďps and düdes.

You have a lot of cool ideas, so you want to keep this away from being a cheat plug, and making these things available to everybody means a more realistic and interesting plug-in.

I'll clear up some technical data regarding the functioning of of certain weapons:

The flame thrower- The Pyrogenises Space Flamethrower works by mixing higly explosive chemicals, similar to rocket fuel (but much, much more powerful), pressurising them to about 3,000,000 PSI, and spraying them in a wide arc out of the nozzle of the weapon. In zero gravity, the liquid forms into globs that stick to enemy ships and burn. The fact that the weapon is basically shooting out explosions means that the range is somewhat limited, but anything caught in the stream will take heavy damage.

Antimatter Missile- Given that the antimatter missile uses a large quantity of antimatter to create a reaction, huge space-time stablizers are required on each missile to make sure that it won't accidentally go off in an uncontrolled manner and totally shred space and time around the ship, and quite likely most of the solar system. The missile itself weighs only about 1000LB, including armor plating and rocket boosters. The other 19 1/2 tons are from the stablizers.

At this moment, I am working a few kinks out (mainly that the AI has stopped using the normal weapons and started with mine- either they're just that cool, or the weapon and outfit settings are wacky) and fixing some art (I can't import about 2/3 of my coilgun rleD, and I'm adding good outfitter pics), along with adding a few more weapons. For anyone who wants, I may put the plugin up for early testing once I hit 30 weapons. I am trying my best to add all of your suggestions. I will however, be adding storyline-specific outfits last (I don't have pilots in all the story lines, and I don't have time to get them there). Thanks for all the input.