Spaceship weapon ideas?

allnamestaken · 2020-02-09T01:55:17

So I'm I've been thinking of doing a type of space-sim (lite on the sim part) for awhile and have been toying various ideas of weapons used on my spaceships. I'd like quite a variety with hopefully different types of weapons having unique properties to each other. Most of the ideas have a loose base on science, more leaning towards the art of Space Opera (e.g. Star Wars) for inspiration, so flashy projectiles, sounds, etc. I was wondering how these following weapon ideas sound and if anyone can think of any tweaks or additions. Ballistic/Kinetic Weapons: Basically equivalent to modern day guns, using a chemical propellant to launch a solid projectile. So far these come under 3 categories on ships: Gatling Guns, Autocannons and Battle Cannons. Their main advantage is being able to operate without energy and being fairly cheap and low tech. Their main disadvantage in this universe is that they do about 50% damage to energy shields (on top of being on the low damage range), limited range and slow projectile speed. (Also not sure there is a better name to differentiate them from say Mass Driver or Missile weapons). May visibly have a 'tracer' round look to them. Pulse Laser Weapons: Working a bit like Star Wars blasters, shooting a short partial beam of laser energy. Where ballistic weapons are more the cheap everyman weapon, lasers are the standard of military forces. They are mostly even across the board, with damage better than ballistics, average rate of fire, low energy consumption with excellent projectile speed and range. Beam Laser Weapons: Rather than a short 'blaster bolt' these lasers fire a constant linear beam. Compared to the pulse laser they have a greater damage output over time, but less range, possibly needing recharging time between beam shots. Ion Weapons: A specialty weapon related to particle weaponry. They fit almost an opposite niche to ballistic weapons, having significant effect on energy shields but minimal impact directly against ship armour. Though possibly if they do penetrate armour they can temporarily 'disable' systems. They may come in pulse and beam versions, firing a white'ish bolt or writhing white (almost lightning-like) beam respectively. Mass Driver Weapons (Rail Guns/Gauss Guns): Using magnetic or gravitational energy to accelerate a projectile to extreme speed. A kinetic weapon that fires with a similar speed and range to the more advanced lasers and such above. They shoot a fast traveling yellow/white (hot/superheated looking) shot. Although like the prior kinetic weapons they are less effective against shields, they are also quite powerful in themselves, their main trait is the ability to penetrate ship armour effectively and may have a sort of 'penetrate' through multiple systems sort of damage, rather than just damaging one system. Their disadvantage is very slow rate of fire and some energy consumption. Plasma Weapons: The main heavy energy weapons of the universe. Of course shooting super-heated plasma at targets over a distance. They have great damage (below Mass Drivers vs armour), good rate of fire but poor range and also big energy consumption. Their unique trait is a sort of 'splash' damage effect. Possibly come in pulse and beam form, pulses being green globule like bolts and beams being green almost liquid like energy streams. Those are the main ones I've thought out so far, but there are others I'm toying with and not sure what traits they should have. Rockets/Missiles: Basically very high damage weapons but with a limited resource and adverse to countermeasures. Particle Weapons: Visibly similar to the ion weaponry (more blue tint) but with preferably a different effect. Fusion Weapons: Plasma weapons plus basically (colour switched from green to violet). Others in the back of my mind: Meson weapons, Neutron weapons, Tachyon weapons, Disruptor weapons, Shard launcher weapons, EMP weapons? Not sure how these would fit amongst the others and what unique traits they could have.

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by allnamestaken March 27, 2017 09:49 PM

11 comments, last by Tom Sloper 4 years, 9 months ago

allnamestaken

Author

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April 02, 2017 05:44 AM

I had a rethink on the suggestion on naming above, taking away the real world science elements, a few came up like this.

Blaster: Pulsing 'laser'. I'm a bit hesitant to call them blasters though.

Pulse (Gun): Energy needle rapid firing weapon.

Beamer: A 'laser' beam/phaser type weapon.

Accelerator: A powerful kinetic weapon.

Lance/Lancer: A powerful beam/stream type weapon.

Arc (Gun): A sort of lightning generator.

Devastator: Fires big globs of energy (Plasma?).

Given it doesn't take place in the 'same' universe as modern earth (Although there is a bit of a story of humanity leaving the 'homeworld' several millennia ago, but its name has long been forgotten), some newer more ambiguous naming might work ok.

captainhavoc

February 08, 2020 11:47 PM

@undefined How about some kind of nuclear powered weapon that would do even more damage then a normal nuclear warhead. Like have the weapon shoot out a highly radioactive slag/round. The first impact breaks the shields then a secondary explosion happens creating a radioactive pulse that damages not the the ship the the ones inside as well if the ship don't have some type of radiation protection.