Artillery Beam: Manual Control & Effects!

[Arcalane]

The Arty Beam is a nice little feature for the Fed Cruiser and balances out its inability to ever gain a cloaking device (since they share the same room in the code!), but I have two issues with it;

1) Even if we can't control where the beam fires, it'd be nice to be able to control when it fires. Just make it a 'FIRE!' button. Having to depower it to avoid blowing up your own boarding teams is a chore.

2) The effects are rather... well... weak, to be blunt. It's a normal little red beam laser like all the others. I was hoping for some blueish monsterbeam the width of a room that rips across the target and ruins their day. Make it fire 'along' the beam path (sort of like existing projectile paths) rather than doing a stroke like normal beams do and throw in a suitable BFG-esque firing sound. Bam, instant awesome.

[BigD145]

It penetrates shields with no loss of power. Did you really expect it to have no tradeoffs and just do 50 bajillion damage every 20 seconds?

[User232365]

Did you read his post? What he was asking was mostly for aesthetics, not a boost in damage or power. And I agree, the beam should have a unique sprite and color, to signify its power, rather than a wimpy red beam used normally for the Mini-Beam.

The other thing he mentioned could actually be considered a nerf. Having to push a Fire button to fire the Artillery Beam would make it fire a second or two slower, generally, since the user has to manually fire it, rather than automatically shoot on its own the very instant it is charged, essentially netting a loss, albeit minor, in firing speed.

[Maze1125]

It'd definitely better with it's own graphical effect, colouring it blue and making it slightly thicker would probably be enough.

And I'd certainly take the slight firing speed nerf to be able to manually fire it without losing the charge.

[Arcalane]

Indeed. I'm fine with the firepower and most of the tradeoffs (the loss of the cloak, as I mentioned, is a pretty serious hit during the boss fight!) - that part is fine and well-balanced. All I'm saying is that the visual and audio effects for the beam itself don't match up to that firepower, and that it'd be nice to control exactly when it fires. Every other weapon can be held at full charge and ready to fire without actually firing.

If I'm packing a gun with enough firepower to tear chunks out of the enemy with a single shot, it should look and sound suitably deadly. That's my primary concern here.