[WEAPONS PACK] GO BALLISTIC! version 1.3 "OFF THE RAILS!"

[Auron1]

I have used several times this MOD and I really like the weapons; I can't say the same for the drones, especially the defending ones which are "weaker" than the laser counterpart because the last ones can hit incoming lasers.
About the Gauss weapons, the bullets fly too slow: defending drones can block your attacks!

[R4V3-0N]

I have used several times this MOD and I really like the weapons; I can't say the same for the drones, especially the defending ones which are "weaker" than the laser counterpart because the last ones can hit incoming lasers.
About the Gauss weapons, the bullets fly too slow: defending drones can block your attacks!

Will look up on the speeds for the Gauss rifles. I do want it fast but not so fast that there's literally no projectile.
However that does give me an idea on a branch off for the gauss rifles; one that fires and hits instantly and ignores all shields, 4 energy probably as the idea of basically a breach bomb that does damage that's ammo-costless is a little powerful....

The defence drones and autocannons are on average worse then a laser counterpart- until the later variants. An Autocannon 2 and 3 will still fire 1 shot but recharge faster. Making it more of a DPS weapon/ shield suppression then a burst weapon.
(The Ultra Autocannons are obviously a straight buff, as well as the Rotarys being a poor mans vulcan). The Defence drones are weak besides 2 main variants: the first one and the last one. the first one is good because it has 1 power. 50% of the power of the regular defence drone, the last one can be considered good because it doesn't shoot at lasers- you may find that a weakness. However it also means it's better at shooting down missiles then any other drone:
Defence drone 1 takes longer to reload, the Defence drone 2 priorities the lasers often, meaning missiles escapes the defense drone 2...

The anti ship drones are a bit more fun as it means you can trade in 'fire rate' for spam ability... on say ships that have 3 drone slots: you can have 3 AC drone 1's for the cost of 3 energy... 3 energy for a bunch of drones every few seconds firing together 3 shots. For 3 energy you got yourself nearly set on taking the shields down on any ship with up to 3 layers.

This whole mod is mostly niches.

we've got obsolete but cheap and/or easy to spam weapons.
we've got semi piercing low damage/ fire rate weapons.
we've got cheaper/ worse drones. (arguably the LBX defense drone is OP considering it shoots at enemy drones and instead of stuns them- it kills them instantly).
we've got no/ low energy anti infantry weapons that need shields down.

Niche stuff! None of these are akin to a Burst Laser II, or an Ion Blast II, a Halberd Beam or a (player) Artemis missile.

My laser+ beam / Ion+electrical / bombs, missiles, and mines / information warfare, artillery spotter, etc mods will be more along the lines of 'competitive'. (and that's my mod order of release currently planed). Posted a lil bit to much as a resposne here but it's also for anyone else with the question of "why all the useless stuff in this mod?".
I do hope you enjoy the later mods that I will be making.

[Auron1]

I was thinking... are shields meant to block only energy attacks? Because missiles and bombs get through them everytime (provided the enemy doesn't dodge), so I wonder if the same should be applied to bullets as well.

Now that I think of it, asteroids are stopped by shields, but they are quite big if compared to "standard" bullets... what do you think Raven?

[GianTell]

I think in FTL's universe, solid matter that has booster can go pass through shields, but not all shields.

Some energy weapons can go pass thru shield provided they got enough booster/propeller (like a magnetic propeller) and maybe a more dense/concentrated energy.
So since bullets are solid matter and being propelled by the exhaust from the weapon when fired, it can go pass shields but not the entire shield.

Imagine if it's a propelled energy matter, it would pass 1 or 2 shield at most, while propelled solid matter will go through 2 or 3.
In case of missiles, they have continuous booster on its end, not a burst exhaust effect from a gun or magnetic propeller. (although ironically, most missiles travel slower compared to bullets and propelled energy weapons in FTL xD)

Or maybe missiles just have those special coating or metal around it which negates shield, I dunno xDDD

[R4V3-0N]

Well, there's a few theories about...

First off let's see what goes through shields and what doesn't in the vanilla game

ASB is an energy weapon that pens all shields
Vindicator beam (the Federation Artillery Weapon for the type A and B) is an energy beam weapon that can pen all shields.
All beams can pen shields if they have enough energy
The Lasers can't penetrate shields unless it's specifically the Heavy Piercing Laser on the rock cruiser B which only penetrates 1 shield bubble.
Asteroids can not penetrate shields
Ions can not penetrate shields
Crystals can only penetrate 1 shield bubble.
Missiles can penetrate all shields
Bombs and teleportation is not blocked by shields unless it's a Zoltan shield unless you have a Zoltan shield bypasser.
Mind control is also blocked by zoltan shield without the zoltab bypass.

Now, we've got missiles, we've got lasers, beams, ions, ASB's, and asteroids and crystal here...
We know missiles pens all, some lasers can pen 1, crystal pens 1... etc.
So how does the shields work again?... well, let's look at it like this, It is something that is made of a form of energy - it may NOT be visible without the aid of electronics potentially as well as beams just to allow us to understand the battlefield.
Shields isn't a solid thing like it isn't a metal or what ever in a solid state...

The things that pen it have a theme minus the laser and ASB: The missile and crystals are sharp, however it can be a form of 'reflective' coating or something that lets the missile through and crystals are naturally like that- it does NOT explain how beams get through however or how the heavy pierce laser does...

So- what's up?...

Well, the other idea is to do with energy...
Missiles have thrust- decent thrust. All the way from the launcher to the ship, it may have the power to bypass the shields...
only beam weapons with higher damage can pen shields, a glaive beam at 3 damage pens 1 shield bubble dealing 2 damage, 2 shield bubbles make it do 1 damage, and 3 negates damage/ penetration... this is because this beam of light doesn't gain any momentum or energy as it's thrown at the ship, it gets as much as it starts.
Vindicator beam is basically dedicated weapon for this- the ship is literally built around the system so we can see how this can bypass the shields by having a lot of power in a specific spectrum or frequency...
Crystals may have a degree of energy within them that cancels out the initial impact but can only do it to 1 shield bubble
piercing lasers may follow a similar line- higher energy or something...

In a way, it's like a power struggle between how much "Shield piercing energy" a projectile has versus how much shields / more much energy the shields have.

So if...
Ksp < Ks
Shields withstand the force
if Ksp = Ks or if Ksp > Ks
than the shields have been pierced.

so for eg, a heavy pierce laser may have a Ksp value of "1" and there is 0 to 1 shield bubbles up, the weapon will pen it, but if it's 2 then it can not and performs as normal...
I can't go into advance physics here because this is only a game

The shield is only put into 6 strengths- none, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 (normal/ hard mode, auto assaults can have 5 layers of shields on sector 8 and sometimes 7)
Weapons thus can be put to penetrate 0 shields, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc....
In FTL vanilla, we can only see a few examples of 1 shield piercing and a few 5 shield piercings...only mods can say pen 2, 3, 4 things but not 5, 1, or 0.


The Autocannons will not have the ability to penetrate shields and only the rail, gauss, coil, etc weaponry can and that's their niches and such.
Specific versions of an autocannon that can pen or something may occur as an event some time much later in this mods update list... however, it's unlikely anytime soon.... can always make 'heavy autocannons' and have the mk 3 or what ever have the ability to pierce 1 shield bubble or something or 'hyper autocannons' being all autocannons that cost 1 more power, can pierce 1 shields, and all are 5 rarity (max)... maybe make it only the mk 3's and the hyper AC's for the mk 1 and 2's are only velocity related.

[Auron1]

In case of missiles, they have continuous booster on its end, not a burst exhaust effect from a gun or magnetic propeller. (although ironically, most missiles travel slower compared to bullets and propelled energy weapons in FTL xD)

One of my first physics lessons explained the difference between a bullet-type object and a rocket-type one.
To put it simple, the bullet receives only an initial thrust, which grants it a faster traveling speed and higher kinetic energy; a rocket doesn't require all that thrust in a single moment because the engine will provide further thrust during the travel.
(English is not my main language, I hope you managed to understand me there! )

[GianTell]

Okay, this turning into some theory-making here xD

Yeah I do understand Auron.
It's like if we throw a ball, it will gain a burst momentum from the force we put and the velocity, but it will inevitably slow down and stop.
Whilst a missile, which has its own engine powering its momentum, it has a steady travel speed and longer travel distance.

In 50m distance competition, a bullet fired from a firearm would win against a missile. But if the distance increased to 10km, the missile would win.

Anyway,
I would go for theory of special coating on missiles for FTL universe, since travel speed is clearly not the cause for the missile to be able to pen shield xD

[R4V3-0N]

Okay, this turning into some theory-making here xD

I would go for theory of special coating on missiles for FTL universe, since travel speed is clearly not the cause for the missile to be able to pen shield xD

and what off the Heavy Piercing laser?
ASB?
VIndicator beam?
Beams in gneeral? You might coat plasma- but you can't coat Light.

[GianTell]

and what off the Heavy Piercing laser?
ASB?
VIndicator beam?
Beams in gneeral? You might coat plasma- but you can't coat Light.

>The piercing heavy laser probably have much denser energy than other conventional lasers, so it can pass thru one shield

>The ASB might be a solid matter (cannon ball or some sort) but covered in fire/energy from friction (you know, when a satellite fall down and entering atmosphere, they covered in fire as if it's a meteor and we can't see the satellite itself), and since it always guaranteed breach, that would also seem highly probable that it's actually a solid matter. (think like an ICBM being shot from planet onto space ship)

>Vindicator Beam as you said, a specialized beam that deliver the weakest damage, but can go thru all shield (probably a very different frequency of light used for it but can only be fitted to specific ship and do minor damage)

>Beams in general have high damage and thus higher concentration of light/heat/density, so it can go pass thru shield, but in return its density got reduced in each shield bubble, thus reducing its damage.

[R4V3-0N]

So, I am making quite a few new weapons and drones for the next update, 1.3 Guns blazing, however my coding speed is rather low especially since I am rapidly making quite a few weapons. Specifically the area of my fault is animations (for some reason that's the hard part for me). If someone willing to do this it could vastly decrease the time for the next update. Due to me being in a situation of being very short on time testing out the weapons and animations (which I often screw up) is the most time consuming part of the mod.

It's not because I am lazy but because I am busy and the update was meant to come out months ago before many many things (most of which negative) occurred that kept delaying it for me and that in the past for this mod other people were happy to chip in to make compatibility patches and other things to polish this mod up and I am thankful for that.

Also apparently the rotary auto cannons are bugged and I have no idea what's causing them to be so...

A quick list of things to come in 1.3:

Hyper Assault Gauss rifles: Similar to regular gauss rifles, but fires many smaller pallets instead per charge (aka an LB-X for the Gauss world)
Gauss, LB-X, Machine gun, etc drones!
Blue events for ranged combat using the Gauss rifles! (will be heavily WIP and not able to function with CE yet. in all events where you see an enemy first you got an opportunity to 'strike' at the enemy first, causing them to be scared off, damaged in some ways (ie: reduced reactor power or what ever system you 'hit', etc) or in rare instances take out a ship instantly. I will later on adapt this for later mods using ranged weaponry as well as make a CE update personally to allow for ranged combat (as well as put the Vindicator beam, artillery cannons, etc into it)
Some other things in this update will be Anti Personnel Gauss rifles (picture the CE light lasers sorta)
Properly set up the rarity of items depending on sector (pirate, civilian, and in CE Federation sector will be more likely to sell these then say a zoltan or rock sector for eg.)
What else what else....oh yes, I will also be working on Light autocannons (similar to the standards but has lower power requirements and deal only system damage.).

That is coming near the end to the mod. After this an energy weapon pack mod will be in the works.
I might throw in a chain gun (a Vulcan that takes longer to spool up, contrasts differently to the Rotary Autocannons since they act more like burst lasers that turn into 'auto burst lasers') as well as a machine gun array, basically a 'vulcan' of the machine guns... nothing to impressive since it can't pen shields but for a good build to take down shields it can be deadly.

However still debating how light autocannons can work...