AESTHETIC: Intrepid Weapons

posted on June 14th, 2010, 5:53 pm

Sorry to necro this thread, but I've noticed this effect a lot on other ships (the Excelsior I, Canaveral, and D'Deridex for instance) as well. I'd love to see a delay on the torps or something so they don't ever fire at the exact same time as the beams.

posted on June 14th, 2010, 5:57 pm

With weapons having different firerates (like they do), the delay between one firing then the other firing would vary with each shot. No matter how you do it, they will always fire together sometimes.

posted on June 14th, 2010, 7:27 pm

With weapons having different firerates (like they do), the delay between one firing then the other firing would vary with each shot. No matter how you do it, they will always fire together sometimes.

Yeah but the point here was that every single volley fires together because both weapons have 3 second delays .

posted on June 14th, 2010, 7:35 pm

Excelsior Phaser 1.9
Excelsior Photon 2.2

Galaxy Phaser 2.0
Galaxy Photon 1.5

Aside from the Intrepid, I see only weapons with different delays... quite opposite what Nebula said about it happening on a lot of ships.

[Nebula_Class_Ftw]

posted on June 14th, 2010, 8:27 pm

Last edited by Nebula_Class_Ftw on June 14th, 2010, 8:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The problem is mostly the opening volley. For non-opening shots, the phaser beam stays around for part of a second, and photons take just a little less time to get to target than the phaser stays around. The result is they overlap quite often, but mostly when attacking then retreating (one of the reasons the Excelsior does it a lot, it has low defense so you repair it and it comes back for another opening shot.)

My idea is to make photons not fire immediately like phasers, but fire about a tenth of a second after the phaser fires on the opening shot (meaning after both weapons hav recharged shot delay but did not fire within several seconds of doing so.) Then go back to normal shot delay once combat is initiated. That way the opening volley would be like having to load torpedo bays.

EDIT:Added last paragraph.

posted on June 14th, 2010, 8:31 pm

So changing it would require the Phaser lifespan be a bit shorter than it is right now.

I don't think the opening volley can be changed. Well, not unless the three weapon types have slightly different ranges...

posted on June 14th, 2010, 8:35 pm

A range-based system could also work, but the different ranges would make microing a fleet a real hassle (even more than now.)

posted on June 14th, 2010, 9:32 pm

The opening volley makes perfect sense as it is now with what we've always seen on Star Trek - every time a ship opens combat, all the weapons fire at once upon the initiation.

posted on June 15th, 2010, 4:13 am

I second that Dom...  The only time you ever see them not open with an alpha strike is when they are holding something back...
-Clintsat