So, I dropped a $1000, and here's my concept:

Reasons why I would donate $2000 if I could allow myself such things:

1. Designing a weapon for a game you're very excited about is AWESOME. I'm so jelly of all the people who bought this category.
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2. Supporting the devs with a whopping $2000 is something to be proud of.

 

Giving large amounts of money to homeless people is always a sound investment

 

Hello everyone, I am the one behind the concept of this weapon and I would like to give a full explanation of what EXACTLY we had in mind.

First of all the drawing was done by myself, and is meant to be a rough draft of the weapon sprite. The finished product will be done by the very capable graphic designers of Starbound and likely be much more coherent with the visual style of the game.

Second, the end product will be heavily decided by what said graphic designers are willing to produce, and how far they are willing to take it. That said, here is my fleshed out but still "raw" concept:

I imagine a horn-like object that (as explained) takes contained "primal" energies of positive and negative, blends and separates them into a "spectrum" of sorts, rebinds them (*shrugs*) and spews them out in sort of a beam-like blah of awesome craziness. This is not meant to be an actual rainbow as it is not a refraction of light, rather, it is a nonsensical expulsion of "cool". I like to imagine that the "beam" as we will call it, functions and looks a bit like the final stage ultimate attack from the anime Big O -
Possibly a better example of the same type of beam would be the Vector Cannon from the PS2 classic Zone of The Enders: 2nd Runner -
The beam would also contain stars and sparkles for goofy effect.

Now as for the effects of the weapon, my idea was to have the beam not simply destroy your enemies but instead blast them into AHSUM submission; they are enveloped in an explosion, turning them into cute and helpless neutral mobs i.e. bunnies, puppies, penguins, what have you etc etc. It could also just randomize the enemy and act a bit like the Wabbajack from the popular multi-platform Elder Scrolls series. For those who don't know what that is here's a video -

Finally, while the beam is being fired, it would be fun for the weapon to play a looping blip of music. I like the idea of this, or something like this - between 2:02 and 2:16

In Team AHSUM!, our motto is "High five for expressing yourself!" and has been for some time - The point being there is no wrong way to go about being you. We, Team AHSUM! stand by this and want our weapon to be in the same boat, therefore supposed unoriginality and cliche-ness are irrelevant. Thank you for reading and for your input on our weapon.

 

He's the real deal. Though I'm gonna take direct credit for the premise of a super-charged solid beam. I thought that making it a homing rainbow beam would A: be less feasible and B: less fun. Its important to me that the weapon is something that will require skill to use. Otherwise, people would grow bored with it very quickly.

 

Make it a Double Rainbow!

 

Taken from the pre-order's Q&A.

Since the donor gets to put in input on how they'd like the gun to function, I think it's possible that the OP could make the request that the gun's visuals function differently depending on the planet's Biome.

 

I like the idea! I suggest an incredibly long and ridiculous loading phase (similar to the mech attacks in the example videos for show). Unless it's meant to be an actual combat weapon and not a joke weapon... in that case, pyrotechnics galore. This weapon was MADE for anime. It'd be awesome if the animations reflected that.

Maybe a player battle-cry while firing along with/instead of the chiptune (along the lines of Goku's "KAMEHAMEHA")?

In PvP, having the player turn into a random animal is a bit OP. How about for just a temporary period? Maybe some other effects such as switching the order of all their equipment, flipping their sprite (left is right, down is up), or even blowing their worn inventory off of their bodies.

 

We are agreed on the charge time, and I think there should be some sound to accompany it. However...

A battle cry would be difficult since I don't think the players have default sounds they would make, and it might break the feel in any case. You would have to provide battlecry's for each race/gender combo just for the weapon. That seems unlikely, and I don't think its essential. Plus, I'd like a sound effect that can be sustained. Hence the music loop. Who knows how long you'll be able to fire this thing for, after all.

As for the combat elements of it, I believe we can have a weapon that has a ridiculously long and ostentatious charge-up and still have a viable means of distributing "damage". It will simply require a lot of skill to use, ideally.

I agree that turning other players into animals is a bit OP. As for its actual effect, I'm gonna talk with the devs when the time comes. They know what will fit the game better than anyone, after all.

 

Agreed, and I never see homeless people making statues or making weapons for people who help them out.

Also a little story,
recently asked my neighbors’ little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President some day. Both of her parents, are liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, ‘If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?’
She replied, ‘I’d give food and houses to all the homeless people.’
Her parents beamed with pride.
’Wow…what a worthy goal.’ I told her, ‘But you don’t have to wait until you’re President to do that! You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I’ll pay you $50. Then I’ll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house.‘
She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, ’ Why doesn’t the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50? ‘
I said, ‘Welcome to Conservatism.’

 

I think it's a good idea that the power of this amazing weapon would blow you backwards when you fire it.
Also:
Imma firin' mah LAZOOOR

 

Like dis?

Ohh and how about penguin grenades :O

 

Agreed, but not too much. We'll see what they can do with the engine. If it pushes you back a few feet slowly as you fire it, I don't see an issue.

Nah. See the first two vids we posted. Much more drawn out. If possible, I'm going to have it look nothing like the rainblower, honestly. My friend and I didn't know it existed, and we don't think its that cool. Plus I was never personally attached to the design. That schematic was originally for a homing weapon. We've now decided on a charged beam. Different function warrants different design.

 

I think that a long charge sequence followed by a not quite as long-lasting blast, is very important. I'm thinking something along the lines of a 10 second charge, and then an 8 second blast.It would also be nice if you had freedom of movement while charging, but once you fire, movement is locked and you are rendered stationary until finished (think Samus' final smash attack from Super Smash Brothers Brawl)



To prevent enemies from just jumping outside of the blast and attacking you from behind, the beam would paralyze anyone caught in the initial blast until it subsided. I figure that considering you can get full-auto micro-rocket launching pistols as one of the many (very scary) randomly generated fire arms, the lockdown effect would be tolerable.

Thoughts?

 

All people whining about "lack of creativity", the OP is a boss because he spent $1000 to help the devs.

 

This.

Makes sense. Just thinking of random ways to up the ante.

So long warm-up, long cooldown? In that case, maybe some very powerful effects wouldn't be so bad in a PvP setting. What if the beam did turn players into animals upon making contact? It would be difficult, considering the time to fire the gun as well as the fact that it's a fixed beam (with possible recoil) that it might not be too OP. The affected player would then have to make it back to his/her ship/spawn point to be transformed back to normal. This would both take an enemy out of the equation as well as be a fun way to mess around as another creature type (for friend and foe alike).

Of course, some situations would occur when a player would not be able to reach their ship/spawn point (underground, for one), so the effect should probably have a reasonable timed duration (e.g. 120 seconds). The code would probably already be in place in a general sense (change the player's Object Class to that of a mob for a fixed duration).

Face it -- how fun would it be to chase a player-turned-penguin around the planet? Or being chased?

Another idea: What if the gun had two modes (yeah for more needless complexity)? One for transforming enemies into harmless, fluffy creatures, and one for turning teammates into large, formidable ones? The devs could feed the random creature generator into the output for the gun's beam, meaning you'd have a chance of either turning into a relatively harmless mob or a large, deadly one. More fun at parties!

EDIT: Or, for simplicity, one mode where a decent mix of "fluffy" mobs, low-danger mobs, and dangerous mobs. Random effects for everyone.

 

If I had to design a weapon as a option I would say no and just ask them to implement a TF2 stickybomb launcher.

 

I'm sorry, but as much as I appreciate the support to Chucklefish, when did exactly having money automatically made someone creative? I don't think anyone is "whining"; copying a weapon from TF2 out of all places IS the definition of "lack of creativity", even if you spend a lot of money in the process.

 

The good thing is that it won't suck, if you advertised just a bit less then it would be nice, like call it "ASHUMS ..............." instead of Team Ashums, but it's up to you I guess

 

Since everyone seems to like gimmicky, how about a weapon that launches small harmless "looking" creatures like monty python's rabbit? Make it fire them like a grenade launcher, but make it able to harm you, like a grenade launcher would. Heck... make the little creatures be bombs that explode on contact with the enemy. No homing, though. Too overpowered in pvp. As for it's design, how about a cage on the end of a stick, maybe 6 or so feet long? And the "firing" animation could be an overhead swing like with a sword or other melee weapon.
But don't make it only rabbits, of course. If possible, a variety of hostile squirrels, chipmunks, randomly generated tiny creatures... I think it would be a fun weapon to play with, especially if instead of regular ammo you made your own using parts from the creatures you kill yourself. A stick of dynamite+body part+random type of material based on creature part. Like something "wool-like" for a furry creature, scales for a scaly one... Need some complication for a potentially powerful weapon.
Edit: P.S. I came up with this idea because I just saw the new "anti-mario" crud from PETA.

 

First, Lawls was not saying that because he spent $1000 OP is creative, they were saying that OP is a good person for helping the devs.
Second, TF2 weapon shoots rainbows and is a horn of somesort, that is the same about Ultra Fantastic Rainbow Blaster.
What differs is how the rainbow shots out of the horn, (charging, not being able to move whole it's being shot etc.) how the rainbow beam is created, (Fusion of black and white) and the design of the horn itself; OP's horn has multiple pipes that combine together into one big horn.

"Lack of creativity" is arguable, but I see it having creativity from Icrok, I can reasonably see that a good amount of creativity and time were spent to make this rough draft of a weapon.