Dream Weapon (No, I'm not proposing another OXP here)

[Dragonfire]

Game restraints, OXP design challenges, and other pesky limitations (such as reality) aside...if you could design your DREAM weapon/weapons, what would it/they be?

Me personally, I'd like a gravity missile that will attract everything but me to it, then detonate. It would be even better if it could ONLY draw in individuals with a record, and leave GalCop and "clean" ships alone.

I'd also like double lasers on my ship...

[Commander Wilmot]

Personally, I would like a dogfighting weapon, like an auto-cannon on modern combat aircraft. I do hard level random hits contracts, and just about any fight I have been in has degenerated to a dogfight. I generally choose a target and stay on him until he is dead. I think that a redone version of the twin plasma cannon, with rounds traveling 1-2 LM and at least as much range as a civilian beam laser, would be my ultimate weapon. My military lasers are nice, but I personally need a weapon that has decent range and that can keep firing for long a period of time while putting out a lot of rounds. I wouldn't care if each round only did 2.5-5 damage as long as I could keep firing quickly for a long. My military lasers put out a lot of damage, fast; but in a dogfight they don't last long, and my target especially when I am on a random hits mission can come back for a second or third helpings.

[Ganelon]

All practical considerations and restraints aside? I'd want Commander McLane's railgun but in multiple. A pair of the medium ones near the center of the ship, and a pair of heavy ones out a bit further, with separate triggers for the mediums and heavies. Rather like the .30 and .50 inch guns on the old F4U Corsair planes from WWII. The close mounted mediums would be mostly for dogfighting and the wider spread heavies would be for the bigger jobs.

And as long as we're wishing, I'd want some NPC ships to have them as well. Limited ammo for both player and NPC could add some interesting changes to fight dynamics.

[Yah-Ta-Hey]

What I would like to see is something like the mark 46 torpedoes that we have today... a missile that can be put in standby mode... launch it into an area that is known to have pirates and have it sit there quietly until it's internal circuitry picks up the status of offender or Fugitive... then initiate search and destroy against that target... if it is unable to get the target because of speed or skill of the target, it will then self destruct and telemetry the destruction of the target or itself back to the owner who then gets credit for the kill.

I would also like to see a space shot gun: low velocity, rotary feed rapid deployment of... wide spread projectiles that will override a units defense by sheer numbers so that the laser can come in unimpeded but that was Ronald Regan's idea also and that never came about in the star wars initiative.

[Dragonfire]

It isn't exactly a weapon, but I would love to have a tracking device that I can stick on any ship, kinda like Obi Wan Kenobi has in Star Wars Episode II (he put it on Jango Fett's ship). That way, I can tag a ship, leave the fight and refuel/repair, then go after him.

[Fatleaf]

I'm afraid for this game when such discussions go on and on about dream this and dream that. As in the end what are we all looking for with Oolite? What draws us to this game in the first place? To suddenly flood the game with new super weapons and new super uber ships will to me be like taking drugs, great to begin with but ultimately destructive to the core principles that drew us to it in the first place.

Think why Oolite is such a great game to play? Isn't its balance and maturity of gameplay? Isn't it the way that you have to use your brain to know when to fight and when to flee? Just like the world we live in today. And to make these super weapons then think what that would do to the whole ethos of playing the game. It would go the way all games go, dead, boring, dull, nothing to keep you interested, blow everything up, I am the big guy ect, ect to ad infinitum... So think as to why you were drawn to it and be glad for the way it is. If you want to be the big bad ass for a while then get yourself a Caduceus Omega alter its stats and go and be the hero it is dead easy I have done it. But please believe me when I say it gets boring and dull when you do. The missions are written for balance for maturity not for the gun ho kill em all shoot em up.

I would refer you to my other comment (https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f= ... 59#p145559) but also to Commander McLane's post before mine.

What I am urging is maturity of long term enjoyment over immature I'm the bad ass. I can see that later attitude being the ruination of not just this game but the great community that has grew around it.

That is the thing I have noticed about Oolite. It is not really about the game but it is about the community that hold a comon interest which is the game.

I would just hate to see it ruined.

This is Fatleaf's rant signing off.

[Okti]

That is the thing I have noticed about Oolite. It is not really about the game but it is about the community that hold a comon interest which is the game.

I would just hate to see it ruined.

+1 on that.

[Smivs]

I have to agree as well. There is already plenty of scope to do the Uber thing if that's what you want, and this includes OXP weapons and equipment as well as ships. The point is these all make the game easier (which isn't necessarily cheating) and thus less challenging.
This to me devalues them, because as most of you know I like a challenge. Impossible odds....take me to it! So I choose not to install them. Others do, and that's fine if that's what they want. Oolite is a broad church in that our members do vary widely in what they want, and the OXP community responds with a broad range of OXPs for all tastes.
And as people do we sometimes disagree, and sometimes the disagreements become heated - too heated. As Fatleaf so cogently put it, the Community is the other thing that makes Oolite great, and all it will take to maintain that is a bit of common sense, realising that people are different (both in what they look for from Oolite and also culturally), and that a bit of 'Live and let live' will let this community live on happily for many years to come.

[Yah-Ta-Hey]

OK, I posted my replies as a a"wish list" not a let's make it happen list.
There are already too many "Uber weapons floating around: cloaks of invisibility, rail guns(what ever they are that appear to be restricted to certain ships), Ships with weapons, missiles, bombs, etc that frankly scare the pants off of me...
Many of these are in oxp form and no one has mentioned how they upset the game play...
Like you, I like OOLITE just as it is....but with all these discussions about aplied physics, newtonion applications, etc is making an even larger imbalance inevitiable. So there is now a thread about a wish list for OOLITE 2.0.... isn't that the same type of things that is going on here? A wish list to modify how the game is played? All this differentiation is bringing a lot of bickering to the threads and I have seen several instances of people replying as if they have been flamed by another.

May be the moderators should look a little harder as to what needs to be posted in order to help keep this game and it's threads in perspective.
I don't mind screen shots, The increased technology of skinning out and making more realistic the planets and the ships but those become subjects for modifications to other items( weapons, planetary outfitting,etc).
Many of the subjects are interesting in that they flesh out what I sense and see in my OOniverse. Some subjects, I think are intrusive devices to see what players do.

Now, my rant is over also for what it is worth , Thank You. Please forgive me my dyslexia that affects how I see words. I really am a good speller and enumerator at times.

[DaddyHoggy]

Y-T-H - a perfectly elegant response, irrespective of your dyslexia - your meaning comes across loud and clear and I whole heartedly agree.

The wish list for Oolite 2.0 started off as practical things such as saving anywhere, transparent textures, different lighting models, reflections, etc and seems to have turned into a - can I have everything that makes the game as easy as possible for the player. That's the difference between core game engine stuff and OXP stuff - People can do what they want with the OXPs but the core game stays true to Elite. If some things need to be unlocked to make OXPs "easier" or more expansive well fair enough, but I hope I don't see anything that breaks the nature of Oolite put in to v2.00

[Cody]

Y-T-H - a perfectly elegant response

Indeed... sensible words, brother sky warrior. One thing though... I wouldn't class the Railgun as an 'uber' weapon. It is a nicely 'balanced', single-shot projectile weapon, that takes skill to use properly, hits ones energy banks with every shot, and costs money for every slug (and it will take quite a few to kill a ship)... a close-quarters dogfighting weapon, although it can be used at some distance with practice... and skill.

[Ganelon]

Ubericity isn't really the question when considering "dream weapons" in a "No, these are not actually being proposed" sort of discussion. If they *were* being proposed, there is an entire section to the forum for things that a community member thinks *might* be a good enough idea to at least ask about.

Even in the "vanilla" game, the weapons are already uber enough. A military laser that is accurate and does full damage at 30 km range when scanner range only goes to 25 km, and no NPC in the "strict" form of the game will fire at such ranges? Add to that the ECM hardened missiles and the quirium mines, and it seems fairly obvious that avoiding ubericity wasn't really a huge priority of the game in the first place.

Therefor a "dream weapon" isn't actually about getting more destructive functionality or worrying about reality, game restraints, or whether it would even be possible or not, it is more about style. Wanting something that one thinks might be cool to use, or might look neat in use. If it was really a dead serious idea one thought could perhaps really improve the game, then it would be typed up and submitted in the already existing sections of the forum dedicated to those sorts of suggestions or ideas. I took the topic question to indicate some sort of weapon that would just be something interesting to try or perhaps might be something very interesting to see in use.

In light of the notion that my earlier post might have seemed too much like a serious suggestion (which it obviously wouldn't have been, in light of the qualifiers in the original post for this thread including items that might be impossible or definitely in violation of current game balance restraints), I withdraw it and submit instead:

Ok, how about a ship mounted trebuchet? It would be bolted somewhere on your top deck, and instead of firing rocks or something traditional, it would launch poodles in 1950's style "Michelin man" spacesuits with the old fishbowl style helmets. The poodles would have to be bought by the pack, a pack being let's say.. six poodles? Each poodle would be highly trained, and armed with a small toolkit or miniature cutting laser, so they could attempt to damage or disassemble whatever part of the enemy ship they attached themselves to with their little magnetic boots. Well, assuming you actually managed to hit the enemy ship with any of them anyway. It would take making more parts of all the ships frangible so the poodle trebuchet's damage could include things like the storage closet on deck "B" or the restroom/"head" just off the galley.

To limit the poodle trebuchet a bit, lest it give the user too much of an advantage, we can assume a very limited air supply in the poodles' little spacesuits. They'd only live a little while, and since the poodle "packs" would be expensive (Hey, highly trained poodles don't just grow on trees.. well.. ok, except for that one place rumoured to exist somewhere in G6), that might be a reasonable enough factor for game balance.

Ok, yeah, it's perhaps a bit absurd.. But can you imagine the screenshots???

[Dragonfire]

Ok, yeah, it's perhaps a bit absurd.. But can you imagine the screenshots???

I LOVE IT!

And thank you for bringing reason back into this topic.

[Commander Wilmot]

Sounds to me like the primary weapon version of the Anti-Missile System, except it requires an even more awesome amount of hubris to use it.

[Bugbear]

Well I see no harm in discussing weapons that may or may not ever happen.

For me, it would be a +1 to a limited ammo, low heat weapon - balanced you see, just like lasers are high heat, unlimited ammo.

Kind of takes me back to my MechWarrior days where you had to select your weaponry based on the terrain that you were entering...