Weapon - Charged Drive Disabler

[CMDR Hagglebeard]

"Radical new weapon hits the market, pilots stunned! (zing)

The Charged Drive Disabler (or CDD for short) is a new weapon introduced by Manticore this week. This weapon can be used to temporarily disable the engines of an opponent's vessel, if shields are down, at the expense of a long charge-up time and an extreme WEP capacitor draw."

Now, popping out of character - the CDD should be a weapon used to temporarily disable a ship's drives and activate it's inertial dampeners (to force it to a stop) for a very limited amount of time, at massive expense - it should take up a weapon slot, and have the following properties, or close to them:

- A charge-up time, as a Guardian Plasma Charger would have.​

- Extreme WEP capacitor draw - the weapon would slowly empty your WEP capacitor, then fire when it's empty. The more % of the WEP capacitor used, the longer the stun.​

Then, based on the size of the weapon (2, 3, or 4?), the stun time could have a minimum and maximum value. If, like the Guardian Plasma Charger, the CDD is fired by clicking, not clicking and holding, the stun effect will fail. If the weapon is charged by fully draining your WEP capacitor from it's maximum with, for example, a class 4 weapon, the stun could last ten seconds - and any value in-between would be WEP capacitor % divided by .1 - so,

A full WEP Capacitor % = 1, 1/.1 = 10 (seconds). A half full WEP Capacitor % = .5, .5/.1 = 5 seconds - so the charge is uniform. Hopefully that makes sense, my power of description is pretty weak

As an added measure, to not ruin the experience of the person at the receiving end of this weapon, the WEP capacitor could have a 'cooldown' where it does not recharge for some time after firing. This weapon is incredibly powerful - it's user should not be able to just disable a ship and start beating it up - the disabled ship should be relatively safe from harm by the attacker while it is affected.

Thoughts? Trying to make this weapon both usable (with piracy in mind) while making it gank-proof. I worry somewhat about wing-ganks, but of course, any ship having to face a wing of players is very likely to disintegrate quickly anyways.

 

[metatheurgist]

This is a troll right? This is basically Drag Munitions on steroids.

 

[CMDR Hagglebeard]

This isn't a troll. Pirates, for the longest time, have needed some way to disable their targets. This used to be accomplished by destroying the power plant module, which in most ships (any that didn't set up their power priorities), would cause the ship to come to a screeching halt until a Reboot/repair was initiated. Now I'm sitting here brainstorming something better, and I'm having trouble doing so, so any tips would be appreciated.

Perhaps this weapon could have fewer restrictions, but only be able to be used if the ship is damaged to a certain point, say, below 10% hull integrity?

 

[Exeider]

This isn't a troll. Pirates, for the longest time, have needed some way to disable their targets. This used to be accomplished by destroying the power plant module, which in most ships (any that didn't set up their power priorities), would cause the ship to come to a screeching halt until a Reboot/repair was initiated. Now I'm sitting here brainstorming something better, and I'm having trouble doing so, so any tips would be appreciated.

Perhaps this weapon could have fewer restrictions, but only be able to be used if the ship is damaged to a certain point, say, below 10% hull integrity?

Have you tried the new Drag Munitions? because it basically does this now, in Ammo form.

This is a troll right? This is basically Drag Munitions on steroids.

Oh yeah, this is like Lance Armstrong levels of troll.

 

[CMDR Hagglebeard]

Drag munitions doesn't do this. Take. for example, the Type 9 Heavy Private Courier Vessel I tried to steal from yesterday.

The vessel is equipped with point defense on either side of the cargo hatch, which you need to destroy before you can attach a limpet. This, however, is impossible, as the courier vessel constantly pitches towards you, denying you a shot at the point defense. I had both dumbfire and seeker (drag munition) missiles installed, as well as a pair of superpen railguns, and couldn't destroy the point defense - the superpen railguns seemingly don't affect exterior modules on the opposite side of the ship, and I couldn't get an angle on the underside to fire the missiles.

This is even more ridiculous when you consider that, even in a medium-security system againnt an elite-opponent (even if it as Type 9), I could very easily destroy his ship, in seconds if I wanted to, but I still have no way to get to the cargo.

So, either FDev needs to implement some way for NPC to PROPERLY submit to demands (and not drop 20-30t of crap, I have a 200t hold!), or I need a way to reliably damage the enemy's defenses. Because at this point (or better put, how it's been since 2.2 dropped), All I can feasibly do besides shield tanking is kill them and get nothing, or not play.

"Oh hur dur it's a troll". I'm working with nothing here. Gimme ideas.

 

[Exeider]

Drag munitions doesn't do this. Take. for example, the Type 9 Heavy Private Courier Vessel I tried to steal from yesterday.

The vessel is equipped with point defense on either side of the cargo hatch, which you need to destroy before you can attach a limpet. This, however, is impossible, as the courier vessel constantly pitches towards you, denying you a shot at the point defense. I had both dumbfire and seeker (drag munition) missiles installed, as well as a pair of superpen railguns, and couldn't destroy the point defense - the superpen railguns seemingly don't affect exterior modules on the opposite side of the ship, and I couldn't get an angle on the underside to fire the missiles.

This is even more ridiculous when you consider that, even in a medium-security system againnt an elite-opponent (even if it as Type 9), I could very easily destroy his ship, in seconds if I wanted to, but I still have no way to get to the cargo.

So, either FDev needs to implement some way for NPC to PROPERLY submit to demands (and not drop 20-30t of crap, I have a 200t hold!), or I need a way to reliably damage the enemy's defenses. Because at this point (or better put, how it's been since 2.2 dropped), All I can feasibly do besides shield tanking is kill them and get nothing, or not play.

"Oh hur dur it's a troll". I'm working with nothing here. Gimme ideas.

I would say propose an overhaul of the limpet system to fix this issue rather then another weapon. Change the hatch breaker to a minigame like interdiction. You pop them with a hatchbreaker anywhere, it launches some kind of "hacking" minigame, attacker wins, cargo pops and theirs nothing they can do, defender wins, cargo stays and there is a small cool down before you can try to tag them again.

just off the top of my head.

 

[fus roh potato]

We already have a weapon that disables drives. We also have the ability to shoot them out quite easily. Anything additional at this point would only be harmful to the game.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Now, popping out of character - the CDD should be a weapon used to temporarily disable a ship's drives and activate it's inertial dampeners (to force it to a stop) for a very limited amount of time, at massive expense - it should take up a weapon slot, and have the following properties, or close to them:

- A charge-up time, as a Guardian Plasma Charger would have.​

- Extreme WEP capacitor draw - the weapon would slowly empty your WEP capacitor, then fire when it's empty. The more % of the WEP capacitor used, the longer the stun.​

Then, based on the size of the weapon (2, 3, or 4?), the stun time could have a minimum and maximum value. If, like the Guardian Plasma Charger, the CDD is fired by clicking, not clicking and holding, the stun effect will fail. If the weapon is charged by fully draining your WEP capacitor from it's maximum with, for example, a class 4 weapon, the stun could last ten seconds - and any value in-between would be WEP capacitor % divided by .1 - so,

A full WEP Capacitor % = 1, 1/.1 = 10 (seconds). A half full WEP Capacitor % = .5, .5/.1 = 5 seconds - so the charge is uniform. Hopefully that makes sense, my power of description is pretty weak

As an added measure, to not ruin the experience of the person at the receiving end of this weapon, the WEP capacitor could have a 'cooldown' where it does not recharge for some time after firing. This weapon is incredibly powerful - it's user should not be able to just disable a ship and start beating it up - the disabled ship should be relatively safe from harm by the attacker while it is affected.

Thoughts? Trying to make this weapon both usable (with piracy in mind) while making it gank-proof. I worry somewhat about wing-ganks, but of course, any ship having to face a wing of players is very likely to disintegrate quickly anyways.

Good suggestion, but needs one final tweak to make it useless in ganking.

Incoming fire disables the effect immediately.

Done!

 

[varonica]

the superpen railguns seemingly don't affect exterior modules on the opposite side of the ship,

You expected a weapon to destroy an exterior module on the other side of the ship?

I don't see that as big problem, there's a few thousand tons of metal and armor between you and the other side of the ship.