Delayed Damage

posted on March 20th, 2012, 1:27 am

Concept: Add a weapon that results in damage several seconds after the weapons hits such that the vessel still takes damage after it has moved out of range of the attacking vessel/cloaked etc.

    This would be an interesting concept which alters micro especially making it more risky to wait until the wire before pulling your ship out.

Thoughts?

[godsvoice]

posted on March 20th, 2012, 1:45 am

Last edited by godsvoice on March 20th, 2012, 1:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

Well, for one, it would make it harder to know when you should retreat/recycle your ships. If my ship takes damage from say 3 of these weapons all from separate attacking ships, it will have no visible damage, then suddenly later in the battle, it will just drop and continue dropping. You might not always know when a ship is being damaged or under fire (except visually, that the ship is getting bombarded).

Beyond this, what kind of a weapon are you thinking? Something like torpedo bombs that have timed detonation or something?

At this point, I'm not sure, mostly because you need to weigh the potential positives with potential negatives, which I'm not to sure about right now.

As far as ideas for the actual weapon, for the new faction, it might be like a technological 'poison' or acidic substance to hull that eats it away, or from other factions, something like a shield breaking torpedo that doesn't detonate on impact, instead has delayed explosive. Not so sure what the reasons would be for a faction using this kind of weapon. If I fire a torpedo, I'd probably want all the damage I could get as soon as I could get it... but yeah.

Edit: Instant edit... haha just had a potential use for it.

Romulans!

Long range torps that can be shot from far off, but they don't immediately set off an alarm that you are 'under attack' until they explode. Maybe used while cloaked... maybe not. But yeah, they would do something sneaky like this. One, they could just do the damage and retreat and you'd never even see them. Or they do the damage from long range, while short range ships swoop in. Right as the detonation goes off, you uncloak the rest of your fleet to finish it off. Just gives them more options for how to conduct raids and be overall sneaky and unpredictable.

posted on March 20th, 2012, 1:53 am

There are already a few weapons that behave this way . The LuSpet's Field of Fire ability as well as its normal torpedo and the Norway's Plasma Coil deal damage over time.

Were you requesting this for an ability or normal weapons, or a special ability, and did you literally mean it does damage only after a few seconds instead of damage over time?

posted on March 20th, 2012, 2:11 am

I meant it literally.  Being the standard fire for a vessel. 

this type of vessel wouldn't be mass produce because like godsvoice says you normally want all of the damage right away.

the functional concept would be that a fleet with a few of these vessels would cause an experienced opponent to have to take more caution in determining when to micro ships away.

[Andre27]

posted on March 20th, 2012, 3:10 am

Last edited by Andre27 on March 20th, 2012, 3:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

Like artillery shells with a timed fuse.

I could see it as a special:

Penetrator warhead ( hits target, explodes after 5 sec)

Edit: Perhaps double damage against loaded miners. What will happen if a torpedo explodes inside the cargo bay 

posted on March 20th, 2012, 12:58 pm

I think he means more of a time bomb which latches to the hull of the ship and blows up a short while later.  It would be an interesting trade off between instant damage and possible delayed destruction.  Sounds like a romulan weapon.  Beam explosive device aboard enemy ship. 


Alternatively, some plasma weapons like in STO would be cool.  I would love to see that plasma fire effect on a small group of klinkers or feds. 

posted on March 20th, 2012, 2:58 pm

Some transphasic mines and heavy anitproton canons wouldn't be bad either