User:Lukc/Weapons

Here is my view of SF weapons, compared to what Naev offers at the time of this writing.

= “Energy” weapons =

Machineguns
Real life: Projects small bullets. I guess a good armor would protect well against it.

Naev: Should IMHO be the poor man’s self-defense weapon. Any kind of gauss gun or railgun is far too powerful for a self-defense turret or basic fighter weaponry, while machineguns would have (compared to them) an average power, its projectiles would have a low speed and it would be technologically much inferior, and therefor should be much cheaper.

Lasers
Real life: Beam weapons, can cut through metal at a very long range, is a precise weapon, but armor would limit its damages. Continuous beams would be better at cutting through amored targets. Firing on precise weak points to circumvent the target’s armor would also be possible, but would require important calculation capabilities.

Naev: Well, currently, lasers are slower than railguns, are not beams, and are the most destructive weapon (and at the same time the most basic one), … In my opinion, lasers should be beams. Turrets should have a high CPU consumption and armor penetration, while fixed-mount canons should have low penetration and low CPU consumption. Laser should not be the beginner’s weapon.

Neutron weapons
Real life: would work much like lasers, but with excessive levels of radiations that would poison anyone in the vicinity. Not really usable except by robots, but then a few shots would kill the pilots of the whole area in a few minutes… or be useless.

Naev: Maybe make of it a disabling weapon that deals damage only against shields? Would also generate a lot of heat (radiations…). Should be beam weapons.

Plasma canons
Real life: Not much to say, except that you’d need a tokamak or other kind of fusion ring/reactor. Average power (compared to lasers), higher (raw) energy consumption, but more effective against heavy armors. If the ships use that plasma to generate power anyway, the real energy consumption would then be minimal.

Naev: Should be average weapons with average penetration, low energy consumption, low CPU usage (precision is not needed to inflict damage), but should not be available to small crafts, as the equipment required is heavy!

Could work as medium-range projectiles weapons or short range beams.

Gamma-rays
Like lasers, a bit more powerful, with a bit higher energy consumption? (but no higher CPU consumption)

EM pulses
Real life: Well, destroys electronics. Nothing else.

Naev: Average damage against shields, no damage to the ships’ structure, high disable rate. (pretty much what is currently done, right?)

Ion cannons
(includes razor cannons)

Real life: N/A

Naev: I have nothing to say, except it’s probably too unrealistic for me to comment. \o/

= Missiles =

Torpedoes
Heavy, slow, guided. High damage. Average difficulty to destroy with point defense weapons.

Missiles
Average mass and size, average speed, guided and agile. Average damage, hard to destroy with PDW.

Variants in the missile tree should allow higher speeds, agility and resistance to PDW.

Bombs
Heavy, slow, not guided. Very high damage, easy to destroy with point defense weapons.

Rockets
Of varying mass, speed and size, are not guided but usually faster than bombs, and pretty useless against ships having point defense weapons. (hey, it’s essentially a dead projectile that explodes :o)