Beam Weapons (long idea)

Okay, so i posted this on a mod list that people may work on after the release, but im curious what you guys think of it and may want to change, because only my opinion isn't good enough to make a successful mod, it needs help. so here it is.

Okay, so I have an idea that i think would be pretty cool, and would have done for the 1000$ gun pre-order bonus, but couldn't afford it, as well as i could only make one of wanted many.
Beam weapons.
-Small ordinance
I would love to see a laser rifle or pistol that fires a continuous beam that lasts around 3-4 seconds, more or less as variables. (maybe letting go of the fire key would stop it as well). it would slow the way y turn as it IS a beam weapon and we don't want a glitchy laser with high dps being too crazy. It would require precision aim as it would be a small line at most, and i mean small, 1-2 pixels in some color, although i imagine it being red. They would be decently valued weapons at it's dps but at the same time the slowness of turning and the precision needed would add the cons to actually using the weapon.
-Heavy ordinance
Laser Cannons. this is what I would have chosen for the preorder bonus. Basically they are large carriable cannons that would slow your walking speed, but for a good benefit. The cannons won't be like the rifles or pistols , it isn't an instant fire, instead, it takes around 3-5 seconds to charge (again, variables such as armor or that weapons traits can change it) and when fired, it fires an insanely large beam, anywhere from almost as big as the player to nearly double their size. The cannons would not only have the slowed turning, but would be stuck at a certain angle, somewhere i would assume to be 70-90 degrees, so when they fire they need to be sure that the target will stay in that range from where they fired. The angle would be coming off the player at a direction like this little guy here (>). Depending on the size of the gun and beam, it would continue to push you back as you fire, leaving a nice little dust trail under your feet, for cosmetic purposes obviously ;P. But to keep being serious, moving forward while firing would keep you barely actually moving, if not just kept still, and walking back while firing would cause you to fall down onto your butt, you can keep firing, but you're accuracy would lower as being on the ground from falling would make your gun shake a bit, or just go up and down against your will as well after it'd take you a second to get up. So you'd either need to be against a wall, have a team gathering the aggro or protecting you, or deal with being stationary with a boat load of armor.
-Crafting
The crafting would basically go as anything else, you gather materials that seem likely for the weapon and its type, and the bigger and badassery it is the more it would cost. Something like the rifles or pistols, in my mind, would take stuff like metals and crystals, and maybe like a mini solar panel or an energy gatherer, to project through the crystals to form a beam. The cannons would take more of the same as well as; rarer items, more complex circuitry pieces and wires, and a higher energy output needed (maybe it needs to be at the peak of the day, or need more room to gather energy from the life forms around you or chemicals in the air). I'd imagine you could customize it with certain add-ons to make the guns just more awesome as well, such as electricity that creates a drill looking formation around the laser, or to make the laser nuclear using some item to irradiate the crystals, making the beam do minor explosive and toxic damage on contact, or explosive and fire, and other random traits of possible irradiated colored crystals.
-Thanks
If you read that all and you didn't facepalm at ideas, thank you. I understand many things may not be needed and are OP and I'd love feedback or even support on this from you guys. Im not expecting much out of this, but it'd be awesome if maybe this single post could lead to some weapons in Starbound. Please tell me anything you see fit to change or add. Thanks, Love you all.

~Facethelight

 

what would be the benefit of using this weapon? I can see nothing but annoying drawbacks here as we already have shotguns that has a larger bullet spread than the in game characters. If it is just about damage then that seems rather boring for having such an elaborate drawback mechanism

why not make it so that laser cannons are only mountable on vehicles?

 

The benefit would be large damage in a quick burst. Yes, shotguns do have spread, but it still has gaps in the bullets, as well as it isn't continous, you have to keep firing. But the beam weapon will hit an enemy dozens of times with great damage faster than any shotgun. As well as you'd be able to hit multiple targets by it piercing through whichever enemy is hit, which unless its a special weapon i don't think ive seen that many weapons with a piercing shot on streams and such.
But on another note, i didn't think about vehicles at all and maybe that'd still be good, it seems like it would fit. But at the same time, that could make a reason for the drawbacks, what if you could rip it off the vehicle and use it (for some reason idk, a challenge?) or put it back on or salvage it from the vehicle if destroyed.

 

Oh, and if you were to aim down and fire the cannon, it would propel you up depending on the dps and charge time

 

I love this idea! Stick the cannon on your hot bar and pretend you're Iron Man.

 

I Don't think it could have been possible to post anything more relevant than that

 

I'm thinking that the lasers could fire continuously as long as you have energy left. It'd be a little heavy of a nerf for a weapon to have limited angle, but the weapon aiming slower than your mouse seems reasonable.
However, it does seem to have great potential. Imagine if the laser was larger than your enemy and "Pierced" through to hit other enemies. So most laser cannons could kill groups of zombies or something, however Boss-type monsters would "Block" the laser from hitting minions behind it. The idea of continuous fire probably means no knock-back with the "Requires 40% or more damage to total health for knock-back" sort of thing the developers posted somewhere, so it NEEDS to have a little extra power and debuffs thrown onto enemies (However, enemies who "Block" laser cannon shots would probably have a decent chunk of knock-back)
Some debuffs that seem reasonable: Burning (heat of laser) Bleeding (smaller lasers seem fitting to pierce through monsters) Blinding (LASER POINTER IN YO' EYES!) Permafrost (Freeze ray!)

 

i didnt think of debuffs thats a great idea, and yeah, i know about the knockback, so i was thinking maybe slow them down when hit depending on the size of the enemy and how many have already been pierced, small enemies fly back, medium slow down, and huge almost negates the slowdown, as well as maybe half the debuffs effectiveness per enemy pierced

 

omg, what if two lasers collided diagonally it doubles the laser size and goes straight from wherever the two collided, or if they hit straight on a huge energy ball starts to form, and it gets bigger and bigger, then quickly shrinks down and makes a huge explosion :O

 

So much doubleposting it hurts. There's Edit button, people!

Now, I like both continuous fire idea from handguns and charged shot from the cannons. Push-back during fire is also something quite decent. The rest of it I am not overly fond of. First, shots affecting each other would require whole new feature to be implemented as far as I know - quite a lot of work for what could be rather minimal effect. And even assuming I am wrong here, things like character being unable to move when firing - or risk falling on their butt would also require new sprites. Then, you have a problem with the fact that if the weapon will be only useful in certain situations (stationary position when shooting heavily armored enemies) I'd suspect for all this work, it would seldom be used as it would be just impractical. It may look cool on paper but probably wouldn't do us good when in game, in this form.

 

well thats the point of posting it on this thread, to change it up to the point it can be implemented without doing so much work it outstands the actual point of having it. its true i didnt think of the spriting, which really does make a big problem, as well as the interacting shots, but thats why its a suggestion on the forums, to build something together with other members of the community, i came into this knowing much of my idea may be scrapped, or changed, and thats why i thank you, you gave some good criticism that made me think of stuff i should have. but again, there may be stuff we can actually make from the idea maybe that wouldnt require much more work other than making the guns themselves

EDIT: just so i don't have to double post, im gonna talk about my idea here. Basically, today we learned every race will have atleast one mech. Im thinking the beam cannon (or even some bigger version) would be great for the "glitches" mech. idk, just an idea, because their robots and all, yet at the same time medieval, idk, i think itd fit since its a mech

 

I really like the idea of beam weapons, I was going to start a thread like this, beam weapons I think should be fairly low in damage, but you do bonus damage if you hit enemies for a longer time.
I however, imagine moving while using laser weapons would not be a problem, they wouldnt have any kind of recoil

 

Increasing damage as the player 'focuses' the beam on a single target would definitely help distinguish continuous lasers from other weapons and make them useful for high-energy players. Should definitely lose damage at range due to blooming to prevent cross-map shenanigans.

Portable heavy cannon seems like a waste of resources better spent making a rocket launcher. Stick it on a mech and call it a boss-killer.

 

of course, they should be lower damage then most guns at their tier of rarity and such, but i think recoil would be there for the big guns atleast cause youre charging a huge thing up and firing a giant beam of pure energy. now if you have a one shot beam sniper rifle with no charge, then there would be no recoil
EDIT: damn, ninja'd. i like the idea of carrying a huge cannon because it just seems cool, i still love the idea of like dual beam giant mechs of death, but i wanna seem like some overpowered pyscho that carries a huge thing around , and i think damage should increase over range, and then decrease, and then it would eventually fade out, and all depending on the type of beam cannon it is

 

A giant laser beam is still a laser beam, it would not have recoil.
however, a plasma beam might

 

Since we're running with real science here, a plasma weapon is more or less a flamethrower.

 

Like i said, recoil would depend on the type of cannon it is...or did i say that? hm, too lazy to look back to my post. and i don't know much about real science yet, but would plasma still be able to be concentrated into a long beam?

 

I don't know, but yeah, plasma weapons are more like flamethrowers generally, perhaps if the plasma was projected at very high speeds

 

Only if you're somehow able to confine it along the whole length. Otherwise, everything goes kapoof and you're back to flammenwerfing with science.

EDIT: Regardless of speed, you're going to hit an atmosphere if you're bringing it anywhere remotely inhabitable.

 

hmm, so rather than if it was a plasma beam cannon, instead of charging it up you wore some type of backpack while you had the weapon equipped. and you know, for cosmetic effect, have it match the color paletteof your current armor, i always hated when things clashed
EDIT: damn, ninja'd again. Well, maybe something in the cannon can generate some sort of field around the plasma, and then after a while it'd degenerate and the plasma would drop and cause burn damage in an area of effect sort of thing, beam cannon / artillery flame thrower?