Weapons, man-portable, specification thereof

[Wildeblood]

In is the ability to set laser properties from [wiki]equipment.plist[/wiki], including defining new laser weapons. You do so by adding a weapon_info property to the equipment. Here's the current one for the beam laser.

Code: Select all

weapon_info = {
	range = 15000;
	energy = 0.5;
	damage = 6.0;
	recharge_rate = 0.1;
	shot_temperature = 3.2;
	color = "yellowColor";
	threat_assessment = 0.5;
};

You'll notice that the properties here are not quite the same as in 1.80 - this build will also include, experimentally, some adjusted laser parameters to try to fix the combat balance issues.

What do folks think would be reasonable specifications for a laser side-arm to use while you're outside your ship, EVA-ing in your spacesuit?

I assume there is no simpler way to make sure portable weapons are not available to ships than with a condition script checking that player.ship.dataKey == spacesuit?

[Diziet Sma]

Damn.. combined with some of the other coding questions you've been asking recently, this is starting to sound like a very interesting project you have going..

[Disembodied]

What do folks think would be reasonable specifications for a laser side-arm to use while you're outside your ship, EVA-ing in your spacesuit?

My instinct would be to say that, at the very, very most, a laser sidearm is to a ship weapon what a pistol is to a fighter plane cannon - if not to some sort of naval gun. Definitely enough to spoil an individual's day, inside 100 yards, if they don't have any body armour, but about as good as harsh language against a ship (and harsh language would be effective over a greater distance).

But if you want or need a sidearm that can be used to any effect against a ship, then start with that, and work backwards. Pick some stats that are workable - i.e. challenging but not impossible - and justify them later. Or make targets that the sidearm is effective against, like anti-personnel drones, or mini-mines.

[Diziet Sma]

My instinct would be to say that, at the very, very most, a laser sidearm is to a ship weapon what a pistol is to a fighter plane cannon - if not to some sort of naval gun. Definitely enough to spoil an individual's day, inside 100 yards, if they don't have any body armour, but about as good as harsh language against a ship (and harsh language would be effective over a greater distance).

Unless, of course, it's a sidearm like this one..

[Smivs]

Weapons, man-portable, specification thereof
Well, to start with it obviously needs to be portable, which limits the size quite a bit. Weight may not be so much of an issue if it is intended for use in space, but mass and inertia would be, so it needs to be small and low-mass to be useable.
Also, to be marketed successfully, such a weapon would need to be useable by all - humans/humanoids, Avians, Insectoids etc. It would therefore need to be designed to be operated/fired by (gloved) hands, wings, clawed apendages, fins and flippers etc.
Are you thinking directed-energy or projectile? A projectile weapon might pose as much of a danger to you and your ship as to any potential enemy, whereas an energy weapon might be effective against other suited protagonists but would be useless against another ship (which can withstand the heavy weapons carried by ships for shorter or longer periods depending on the type of weapon being used and the shielding available). A projectile weapon would also suffer from recoil - you wouldn't want to discharge it and find yourself flying backwards into the void, would you?
In essence I don't think 'hand' weapons for use in space are actually very workable. If you are talking planetary EVA then maybe something similar to current Earth weapons might do (providing it can be used while wearing a presumably cumbersome space-suit), but my view is that any sort of suited combat is impractical.
As has been suggested, if you really need this for some project, you may need to work backwards and decide what scenarios you will be using these in, then handwaving like there's no tomorrow to try to justify/validate/explain how everything works.

[Stormrider]

I don't see why a spacesuit couldn't support a shoulder mounted weapon that is fairly substantial. A large caliber hunting rifle has about a tenth the muzzle energy of a fighter plane cannon although there is a 50 cal sniper rifle that produces nearly half the muzzle energy of the fpc. Keeping this in mind I think a suit mounted sniping laser could be something like this :

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weapon_info = {
   range = 5000-8000;
   energy = 1-10;
   damage = 1.0-3.0;
   recharge_rate = 0.5-1.5;
   shot_temperature = 6.2-12;
   color = "yellowColor";
   threat_assessment = 0.1;
};

I think anything that is powerful enough to touch a ship should heat up fairly quickly and use energy rapidly.

[Disembodied]

I think anything that is powerful enough to touch a ship should heat up fairly quickly

Which could be a potentially fatal problem if it's attached to your shoulder. Overheating is one thing when you have an entire ship's hull to use as a heat sink, but if it's just a person in a spacesuit, surrounded by all that insulating vacuum ... maybe the laser temperature could feed directly into the "cabin temperature" of the person wearing the suit.

[Wildeblood]

Damn.. combined with some of the other coding questions you've been asking recently, this is starting to sound like a very interesting project you have going..

Nah, there is no project yet. I've found a copy of the Galtech Spacesuit model Shipbuilder made for me years ago and want to make use of it. We were ahead of our time with that idea, but now core Oolite has caught up to us with the necessary functions it should find a place in the game.

I can tell you from memory that a shoot out with a ship from a spacesuit was great fun: the ending was inevitable but because you're such a small target it lasted longer than one expected.

I'd like to do a starting scenario like Ports of Call, were you start with a wad of cash instead of a new ship, and your first act in the game is to make a decision whether to use all your cash to buy a modern ship or buy an "economy" ship and retain some working cash. But if you start in just a spacesuit, only the pathologically un-curious wouldn't want to try an EVA at least once before visiting the shipyard, so the spacesuit player ship should have properly thought out capabilities; one can't just say, "Any stats will do since they'll never know."

And then I thought, why shouldn't one be able to tool up the spacesuit with suitably scaled down equipment: a welding laser with a range of only 2m, a one-shot anti-ship laser, a jet-pack so it can move in directions other than straight down, a man-portable tactical nuke...

And yes, I think a player should be able to use the market screen before they buy their first ship. That should be possible by giving the spacesuit a cargo bay, but swapping the manifest out to a mission variable whenever one launches, and only returning it if re-docking at the same station...?

[Diziet Sma]

Some interesting ideas there.. I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

[Dawn Trader]

You are onto something.... EE Smith's character Lensman Kinnison had the ultimate in personal weap ons: thought activated thought demoleculizer.
It is a small electronic device that is implanted under his skin and is activated by Kinnison's thoughts (backlash protected shielding in the device keeps Kinnison's thought from destabilizing) His thoughts turn on the device which emits a wavelength that according to his friend Worsel is 1/10th of the energy to kill by thought with his lens and 10X more efficient as it does not disable but kills at 100 % efficiency and it kills whoever or what ever is in his kill zone of about 10 meters.

This would work for any sentient being who can think a thought without have a cumbersome, inefficient,device like blaster.