Distant Worlds: Legends Weapons...

[Erik Rutins]

Ok, I'm overdue as far as posting more preview information and I've has some specific requests for information on the new weapon technologies. It's worth noting that this is one of the few areas of the game that we are still tweaking and the final expanded tech tree will be in the next beta build, so the screenshots I can show now are of the somewhat more minimal original tech tree.

First, the basics.

Rail guns are less accurate than most other direct fire weapons and also slower and tend to have a shorter range. However, they have a fairly quick rate of fire and have the unique ability to partially bypass shields. At the same time, they are more affected by the reactive component of armor than other direct fire weapons.

Phased Beams are beams of intensely focused directed energy that are more accurate than most other direct fire weapons and cause quite a bit of damage, but also consume quite a bit of energy. They have the unique ability that they are less affected by armor and have an easier time burning through it to damage other components than other direct fire weapons.

With that said, let's build a ship with both of these weapons and see how they look!

Regards,

- Erik

[Nedrear]

Well since a railgun is a electrically launched physical projectile it surely interacts with armor instead of energy shields in contrast to energy weapons more likely being dispersed by energetic counter shields than armor. The armor simply melts away though taking time...
 
A highly efficient rail gun would be a clear weapon of choice against larger flying shields but unprotected spacestations or ships as to break through their armor and destroy the shield generators and after that waste the station by plasma fire. Depending on the efficiency and balance between the guns my fleets must be well chosen as to make an armor worth its purchase. I want to create a monopoly on most steel and take my railgun to tell the Securan: "Buy or burn". Funny idea...
 
Can we get a fleet commander giving bonuses to efficiency of railguns or beam weapons?

[Erik Rutins]

Ok, sorry for the delay. So let's design a new Cruiser of the "Excelsior" class, with seven of our best Rail Guns and Phaser Cannons as its main weaponry.

[Erik Rutins]

We'll use a nearby pirate base as our weapons testing range. Let's head over there...

[Erik Rutins]

Rail guns are normally at a shorter range than the beams, but in this case the first screenshot I managed to grab showed the rail guns firing.

[Erik Rutins]

And now the phased beams connect...

[Erik Rutins]

It doesn't take long...

[Erik Rutins]

Until the predictable result.

[Erik Rutins]

Time for more of a challenge... [;)]

[Erik Rutins]

That should give you some idea of how Rail Guns and Phased Beams look and how they might be useful in your ship designs. In general, rail guns are great at dealing with shielded but less armored foes and phased beams vice versa. Each of these offers a new tool for your ship designs with some different options compared to the existing weapons.

As soon as I have the next build with the final tech tree, I'll post that for you all with the weapon stats as well. [8D]

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Nedrear
Can we get a fleet commander giving bonuses to efficiency of railguns or beam weapons?

Admirals do not have weapon-specific abilities, with the exception of fighters, but they can improve things like targeting, countermeasures, weapon damage, weapon rate of fire, energy usage, etc.

Regards,

- Erik

[WoodMan]

Looks great, to be honest though when I hear railgun, I think visually of that blue spiral thing from Quake and that film with Arnie in it [:D]

oh, and some nice shots of the new Dhayut stuff, good job [8D]

[Simulation01]

Very nice!  Thanks for posting this Erik! [:)]

I assume that there will be different color phaser beams and rail guns? Also, shouldn't there be more rail gun bullets in a line? I know this is a picture and it's hard to capture everything happening here, but what I was looking forward to with rail guns was an effect similar to what we all saw in Stargate Atlantis...with the stream of bullets we saw.

[Erik Rutins]

You just need more rail guns to have that "stream of depleted uranium" look. Let me see if I can get a screenshot of a purely rail gun equipped ship...

I realized that instead of waiting for the next build, I could also share with you the tech trees and stats for these in design form. After confirming with Elliot that there were no other planned changes in the final implementation, here's what you can expect from the final rail gun and phased beam tech trees (please excuse the rough look as this is taken from our design documents, it will look much better once I can show you an in-game screenshot from the next build):

[Erik Rutins]

Here's the tech tree:

[Erik Rutins]

One other interesting point to highlight is that both rail guns and phased beams do not lose damage over distance, so while rail guns are short range weapons and phased beams are not the longest range of the beam weapons, they hit just as hard at all ranges.

Regards,

- Erik

[Igard]

ORIGINAL: Simulation01

Very nice!  Thanks for posting this Erik! [:)]

I assume that there will be different color phaser beams and rail guns? Also, shouldn't there be more rail gun bullets in a line? I know this is a picture and it's hard to capture everything happening here, but what I was looking forward to with rail guns was an effect similar to what we all saw in Stargate Atlantis...with the stream of bullets we saw.

Sim, they look like they're going in a straight line to me.


Looks great! I'm really excited to begin experiments with some designs.

[Erik Rutins]

Ok, here are two more combat shots and that will hopefully do it. [8D]

[Erik Rutins]

Another view of the Phasers...

[J HG T]

Looking great! Seems like rail guns can indeed be used for bombartment, albeit they do relatively small amount of bombing damage. Still, good to have alternatives. 
And the new Dhayuut ships look excellent too. Remind me of MOO2 for some reason. Not a bad thing at all.

@Woodman
"when I hear railgun, I think visually of that blue spiral thing from Quake"
Yeah, when I played it on LAN with my friends the railgun was almost banned. It was ludicrous in the hands of a skilled player. ULTRA KILL!