Starship Corporation

Hey there,

Very keen on this game's concept! Having read in Gundam's ideas thread that you're keen for new weapon ideas, I thought I'd rattle off a few.

Are you focusing on energy or kinetic weapons, or more exotic ideas? A combination of the three? I have some kinetic weapon ideas but I can probably think of some energy ones as well.

"Canister" cannon rounds: These would do less damage over a wider area, serving the same purpose as historic canister rounds or shotgun shells. While ineffective against armour, the damage to less protected areas of the hull - breached sections, gunnery decks, observation areas - would be catastrophic.

Thermite incendiary rounds: These would adhere to armour plates and begin burning through them, possibly spreading fires to the ship interior. Their primary purpose, however, would be to destroy armour to make the ship vulnerable to subsequent attack.

Armour-piercing payload: These would be designed to punch through armour and deliver a special munition to the interior of the ship. These could include gas munitions, to kill or incapacitate crew members either to disrupt shipboard operations or soften the crew for a boarding action; or incendiary or shrapnel explosives, for conventional damage. This might be a bit unbalanced, however, and should probably have considerably less punch than conventional weapons, or be much rarer to encounter.

I'd also love to see some weapons that change the rules of engagement; a projectile that injects combat drones into a starship to catch the crew off guard, for instance, or a nanite-based, hull-eating weapon that would need a sacrificial tactic to stop (such as jetisonning 'infected' armour plates or voluntarily incinerating an affected compartment).

good stuff. I like the canister shot, haven´t thought of that, but thats a classic.
Gas - nasty! I like it! Altough It would have to be some agent, that affects materials used in standard spacesuits. You can only counter it by using "special" suits.

I will have Combat Drones that drill themselves into the ship (like the Matrix sentinels), as a cheap alternative to manned boarding operations.

I think your idea of game changing weapons is really interesting, I would love to fire combat drones at an enemy ship only to watch as their marines have to fight them on the ships hull (because why limit the combat to the inside of the ships), this would also make equipping your crew important or at least having such equipment as space suits on your ship so you are ready for every contingency

Maybe that does not fit here but what is about "bridging" to a other vessel?

Like oldschool pirates in movies. I just thought how interesting it could be to attach your space ship to another via a temporary gangway.
This would have as benefit a fast embarking on the foreign ship and also fast transfer of goods and stuff.
Of course if you have not marines but monkeys the enemy could easily use this connection to start occupying your very own ship.

BTT:
What about certain types of ammunition?
You have a standard rocket-shell and can decide if you want it to be a strong unguided missile (by removing the electronics and adding more exploding stuff) or many guided missiles with less energy ( advanced electronics but only small amounts of blasting agent).

Also what is about Laser Types? Will there be homing laser or plasma launchers? I would also be interested if there are going to be non-lethal weapons. Like a rocket of some sort that instantly deactivates engines.
Do you perhaps played Freelancer? Think about the Journey Canceler Missile

Another type of weapon can be Microwave weapons, this type weapon overheat to death only biological subjects and some inner structures with liquids, whitch isn't prepared on high temperature. Also can you can create Supersonic weapons, with very similar effect. It is important how you setup your crew between people and droids.

Are there going to be Emp's at all? Or radar jammers? or any technological? And I was also thing of, instead of having human soldiers, for the cargo/trading vessels you could just have "Auto-turrets" , that can't move, do slightly less damage, but aren't effected by morale, and don't retreat. (Mayeb they could have limited ammo or something.) Oh yeah, and stealth systems, what about those?

I believe EMPs and Stealth systems are planned.

Auto turrets are an awesome idea. Maybe like the ones in Evil Genius (stationary, limited firing arc), only 'mobile', in the sense that you can get your soldiers to drag them out of the armoury and set them up to cover hallways, crossroads, weak points...

I really think that something like that will be integrated because the developer seems to be a big fan of the Alien franchise ^^

This is a good point, and a real life technology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System. Seems acceptable as a preemptive strike against enemy marines, then send in yours to neutralise them.

As some of my own suggestions:

Railguns
Helical Railguns - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helical_railgun
Laser
Pulsed energy projectiles -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsed_Energy_Projectile
Plasma
Matter-Antimatter Torpedo - Essentially instead of conventional explosives, the system uses a collision of antimatter with matter.
Conventional Torpedo
Conventional Missiles
Particle Beam - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_beam_weapon

I wanted to use the AutoGuns of the Directors Cuthttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FQR-JgqAwU, but didn´t want the game to have inventroy managent (yet), so that marines can carry around stuff and place it somewhere. Would be cool to make it as detailed as in Men of War, but that would be another game. So it decided to make the sentry guns seperate untis (robotic), that can move around, and are most effective when set up at a strategic spot with a designaged firing line (takes some time).

Or like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfEpdVqOLXs&feature=plcp