Weaponry

[PrinceCorrin]

The biggest point is probably that an acid weapon would be unreasonably difficult to code, and with the armor used on these titans it would not do enough damage to rival the machine gun. It takes vast pools and submersion of body parts to damage a titan with acid AFAIK in WS. and then it will do only a few points of damage, I've been told.
So an acid gun would have to be huge to even be effective. And a huge weapon that doesn't do a signifigant amount of damage, even if it might over time, would never be used.

And regarding that whole damage over time vs damage NOW argument. The machine gun and small laser can do a lot of damage over time. The AC20 does a great deal of damage NOW. Which would you rather be packing?

[mutt2050]

I don't see it as an issue of delayed effects, but more of the dangers of this weapon. If you have acid missles and some one hit you with an AC or masongun hitting the ammo your internals would be covered in acid. Plus what would be the contanor for the delivery system if the acid is powerfull enough to eat through a titans armor (yes I do know some acids will eat through metal but not plastic). The point is does it just break open on impact or does it explode throwing acid every where. It just has to many down sides and variables to be very effective. I say if you want some thing like that maybe we could look in to heat rounds (heat rounds are made to penetrate armor and fire super heated metal in to the inside of the target). Heat rounds could be made to do high internal damage but no external damage.

[Thorgrim]

And throw mesons out the window?

Anf megrez, are you talking about acid arrows or poisoned arrows?

[mutt2050]

No keep the masons but maybe a small weapon made to do internal damage instead of armor damage. I have used masons but they rarely do any internal damage and run out of ammo before ever doing any damage to the internals.

[CrushU]

Hi, Im new to boards, but long time ToS player. (had a team rank 6)

Let's get right to it.

Someone said that AP reflects the thickness of armor, not holes that have been drilled into it. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) Doesn't the Black Ray Gun drill holes into armor?

About DOT weapons (Damage Over Time).
Just about every weapon does DOT. When creating a ToS, you dont just look at damage, slots, heat, and weight. You also check the Recycle time.(or PUs for energy) (Well, I do at least.) For example, the Autocannon 4 will do less Damage over a give time then a Autocannon 7. It will also make more heat. The reason you take a Autocannon 4 is because of its range/accuracy. DOT weapons arent really useless, but they aren't the badasses of them all either.

About the concerns that acid wont melt titan armor...
Give it little damage, maybe just one point from the warhead that contains the acid hitting the titan. The acid, as I understand it, isn't meant to kill a titan by eroding its armor, but to kill a titan by knocking out its systems. I dont think systems are all made out of titan armor. They are much more sensitive, like a computer. You're trying to take out the chip, not the case.


And why hasn't anyone voted? (save 18 people, other than myself)

[Megrez]

First of all: The idea about the acid weapon is not mine.
I think Thexder is able to uphold his idea better than I can do.
Anyway It seemed to me very interesting.
You say that probably it's too difficoult to code a weapon like that; maybe it's true, maybe not. I'm not a programmer and I don't know. We should ask directly to VB.
Second: It was in April that I subscribed to this forum and from that time I noticed that on this forum people prefers demolishing comments instead of constructive ones. This guy said something new... I see people that try to prove his idea is wrong: maybe it's true that the actual formulation of his idea is not very good, but the basical concept is good 'cause I saw similar weapons also in other games. As I said we should be more constructive, suggesting things that has to be improved or changed in his initial idea, and not only saying that it's "wrong".

Meg :rolleyes:

P.S.: In Baldur's Gate there are acid arrows If I remember well there are also poisoned arrows but they have a different effect.

[Thorgrim]

Here we go again...
Noone is demolishing anything. We're discussing it. If we wouldn't be discussing it, you'd be wining about noone caring. Sheesh. The fact that other games have similar weapons means squat. This is not just another game. There's a solid "conductive line" that keeps it balanced and as real as you can get. Suggestions that go out of that line have to be debated, and that's what happens. You don't see it that way, it's your prerogative.

And I know there are acid arrows, but what I ASKED was, the effect you're talking about, is it the acid or the poison? Seems like poison to me.

[Thorgrim]

Originally posted by mutt2050
No keep the masons but maybe a small weapon made to do internal damage instead of armor damage. I have used masons but they rarely do any internal damage and run out of ammo before ever doing any damage to the internals.

Smaller than the mesons? How will you do that? 1/2 slot?
Never had any major problem with the mesons. They're supposed to be used en masse BTW. Single mesons are not effective. And try calling shots to a bodypart, it'll drop in no time. You won't need system damage for anything

[Thorgrim]

Originally posted by CrushU
Someone said that AP reflects the thickness of armor, not holes that have been drilled into it. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) Doesn't the Black Ray Gun drill holes into armor?

Nope, not in terms of game mechanics.

[CrushU]

hmm...

Technically speaking, AP represents average armor thickness over that body part, yes? So a Black Ray Gun, drilling a hole, would do 10 damage to the average armor thickness... hmm...

heh, thered be a cute weapon... one that removes the bolts from the target's armor... causing it to fall off once you have enough bolts removed... heh, fun, but rather impractical.

[mutt2050]

Well maybe I was not useing the mason guns right, but I would still like to see more armor piercing weapons.

[rosary]

The biggest mistake I see with mesons is the lack of a good scanner. No point in having mesons if you don't know where to target them.

[Thorgrim]

Originally posted by mutt2050
Well maybe I was not useing the mason guns right, but I would still like to see more armor piercing weapons.

There'll be another one in WS, you'll just have to be patient

[Thorgrim]

Originally posted by CrushU
hmm...

Technically speaking, AP represents average armor thickness over that body part, yes? So a Black Ray Gun, drilling a hole, would do 10 damage to the average armor thickness... hmm...

If you want to be technical, mms represent armor thickness, APs represent damage absorption capability. A BRG's damage is the same as any other weapon's, it removes 10 APs in a given location. The "drilling" effect, which really isn't drilling but vaporizing a large chunk of armor, is just fluff text on the weapon, for context. To explain the skill check, and the cockpit perfuration special abilities. There was no reference to the weapons in the manual, so I wrote that short description (assuming that's where you got this from) just so people could better "picture" the weapons when using them - and have some reference to their use in the game of course.

[rosary]

Rather than say that its 'fluff text' I prefer the term; Color commentary.

[Megrez]

There are many kinds of arrows in Baldur's Gate:
you can buy the acid arrows at the Sundries' shop in Baldur's Gate (the main city on the Sword Coast): the vendor in that shop sells many magical artifacts and many other kinds of arrows (for example arrows of detonation).
The effect of the acid arrows is the one I described before: the arrow makes a sudden damage when it hits the target, then, after a while, the acid starts to make a low damage at regular intervals of time (if the target is hit by two arrows the delayed damage is double, and so on...)
If I remember well there is also someone (it seems to me he is called Eldoth or something similar) who sells or makes poisoned arrows (he is one of the NPCs in the game that could join your party): these arrows have got a different effect 'cause if they hit their target they temporary lower the stats of that target or something similar, weakening him/her/it.

Meg

[Thorgrim]

Well, in AD&D (where BG gets its origins) acid only has 2 or 3 effects depending on the DM. The damage is not regenarable (has to be healed normally), it may destroy items, and it may leave scars in the character. It also only shows as a projectile weapon (breakable flasks or beaks), and it is very rare.
Poison, OTOH, deals damage to the character at regular intervals, and may result in death over time. I think this was the effect you were refering to, applied to titans. And no, I'm not gonna quote anything.

BTW, acid, as a liquid, will not do whatever was being talked about here, that is, penetrate armor some time after impact. You don't need to know a lot about Physics and Fluid Mechanics to know that any liquid impacting on a slab of armor will flow to the ground, and not stay in place and corrode its way to the internals. When you're standing on a pool of acid, then you get the permanent corrosion. On impact, at best, you have a few secs of corrosion, and then damage would be transferred to another location below the hit location. Acid deals 1 damage every 5 secs, so how would this be effective?

[CrushU]

Thor, I believe they're talking of a delivery system somewhat similar to mesons, in that they penetrate armor. But once they penetrate armor, they also leave something behind, in this case, a container of acid that breaks once its inside. That is a logical delivery system that overcomes the problem of acid flowing down the outside of a titan. Now, I dont think acid would be practical for damage of external armor. I believe that acid should do mebbe 1dmg to inner or outer armor on impact, and every 10secs or so after, make some sort of skill check (mebbe similar to the ammo explosion avoidance check) that determines whether the acid eats away at an internal component. Obviously, the component would be in the part of the titan that the acid is in.

[mutt2050]

I had always thoght skill checks were for some thing the jock physical does to avoid something as in " ejecting the ammo to avoid damage from the explosion" I do not see any thing you could do to stop acid from burning through the internals. Plus what thor was saying about acid running down was what I was talking about you would have to have some very strong acid for it to do any real damage. As for the doing damage over time acid losses its strength and dilutes very quickly as it burns through an object, so the delayed damage would not be for very long. I just do not see it as being a very effective weapon.

[Thorgrim]

Exactly. CrushU, how do you propose to do that nifty trick of penetrating armor with a *breakable* container? I mean, breaking through, at times, *100* mms of armor. Check out the description of mesons if you have any doubt as to how they do it.