Space Artillery concept or something

[The Joker]

First of all, I'm just brainstorming so let's just discuss this if you don't have anything better to do at the moment.

New class of ship - Space artillery (silly name, yes).

Think about it; you fire away a projectile in a swarm of incoming enemies and, once it detonates, it does massive damage on wider a spherical area. Of course, one would have to be very precise and skilled in using such weapon.

Kinda like one huge flak cannon. It'd have let's say 2,5 K range and that range is fixed, so it's like - in whichever direction you fire, it detonates on 2,5 K range with blast radius of 0,3 K unless you make a direct hit which would be very hard to achieve, because this class of ship would be hard to maneuver.

So it's more powerful than mortar, it's mounted on a ship size of a gunboat (with let's say -50 reverse trust speed so you can move backward while firing), it's somewhat inaccurate, fires one projectile every 3, 4 seconds but it's kicks ass and it's very valuable if used wise. It'd have defensive capabilities of maybe 4 gunboat turrets but it would, for example, have transport shields along with 500 nanos/batteries. Of course, It'd would be a lot more vulnerable than any heavy gunboat and it'd require protection but in most cases it would be sacrificed.

Think about scenarios in which fighters, which are taking heavy long range fire, have to disable artillery barrage first in order to secure the area for incoming friendlies (example - capital ships). Or even strange scenario in which fleet/group commander orders artillery to fire in the area which is occupied by both hostiles and friendlies, in order to gain the upper hand by gambling/sacrificing his own men. There are endless strategic possibilities.

What do you think? A new class of ship - do we need something like this? Can it be implemented even if it's hypothetically accepted?

Not many people would use it but I think it'd be a fine addition and it'd change the way of fighting in a big way.

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[Sprolf]

This... would actually be an epic weapon that would make combat that much more interesting and maybe give skilled caps a bit of an edge against fighters. I'm not sure if gunboats should be able to use it (I've always been in the favour of flak cannons for gunboats and cruisers as well, especially cruisers), but that's not really a major issue.

I think the concept sounds good.

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[The Joker]

This... would actually be an epic weapon that would make combat that much more interesting and maybe give skilled caps a bit of an edge against fighters. I'm not sure if gunboats should be able to use it (I've always been in the favour of flak cannons for gunboats and cruisers as well, especially cruisers), but that's not really a major issue.

I think the concept sounds good.

It wouldn't be strictly a gunboat but it'd would have few similar specifications. Only few for minimal defense. Gunboats are on its own a very vulnerable targets if not the most vulnerable after transports etc.

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[sean24]

Sounds nice. Seems like a massive plasma grenade launcher. Could really change how group fights operate.

For example: Two ships are jousting each other in a group fight. Both have their shields down. Someone fires one of these babys into the middle of the group. They both die. Friendly fire would happen alot but thats the risk.

Im sort of 1/2:mellow:1/2:yes:about it.

[Death.RunningVerminator]

Seems cool and would probably be awesome, but, just how much lag would this cause and how hard would it be to imply such a thing? Pretty tough im guessing..

[Sprolf]

The lag wouldn't be that much, if the refire wasn't high... and it would be very easy to implement - just a modified flak.

Even I could probably do this.

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[The Joker]

Sounds nice. Seems like a massive plasma grenade launcher. Could really change how group fights operate.

For example: Two ships are jousting each other in a group fight. Both have their shields down. Someone fires one of these babys into the middle of the group. They both die. Friendly fire would happen alot but thats the risk.

Im sort of 1/2:mellow:1/2:yes:about it.

Yeah, it'd require to be used with great care, hehe.

The more I think about it the more I like it - fighters are only vulnerable to fighters. Why not make them very vulnerable for a artillery barrage, just like infantry is vulnerable to artillery in RL. Special task forces would rise with time, who are capable of flanking these units with great skills.

House factions would have the most powerful artillery units but other factions could have some more specilized artillery units, with different type of ammo, higher fire rate, or greater range or something.

What's also so great? No other FL server would have anything like this.

Edit: it would be essential that the artillery shot is followed by a very unique sound which makes people "head to cover" when they hear it. Just like in RL. I've lived few years in a "mild" war zone when I was kid. Sound of incoming projectile really gives you chills.

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[Boss]

Mmm, I'd love to make a few of those for the Rogues and go lolcap hunting.

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Just go play the game and have fun dammit.

all in all the conclusion is that disco doesn't need antagonist factions, it doesn't need phantoms, it doesn't need nomads, it doesn't need coalition and it doesn't need many other things, no AIs, the game is hijacked by morons to confuse the game with their dickwaving generic competition games mixed up with troll-of-the-day.

[Death.RunningVerminator]

The lag wouldn't be that much, if the refire wasn't high... and it would be very easy to implement - just a modified flak.

Even I could probably do this.

Well then it seems this should be considered being implemented.

[Reacher]

Sounds like BS Missiles minus homing and the shield bug and with a proximity sensor.

I can dig it.