[IDEA] Shield Projection "Weapon"

[Starfire]

I was thinking about how weapon projectiles work today, and what if there was a projectile big enough to surround the ship? Would all enemy weps hit it and be blocked? lets say we make the weapon mount in the centre of the ship, with the speed of the weapon close to Zero. this would make a unmoving projectile that blocks everything like a Zotan shield right? Your own weapons could be mounted outside of this bubble and still work right?

[R4V3-0N]

I had this idea before but I couldn't manage to do it because I am not the most experienced weapon modder out there, I didn't want to devote to much time into it because I am quite busy at the moment I'm afraid, how ever I think someone else would give it a shot.

[MightyKebab]

Wouldn't it be hardcoded? Most things that seem impossible in FTL are.

[R4V3-0N]

technically no, a weapon (besides bomb and beams) can be shot down with ANOTHER laser, ion, or missile.

This is how you can shoot down enemy attack drones or incoming attacks.

This can be done, but not sure how to do the art of it exactly to be quality... etc

Edit: technically it is hard coded to TAKE impacts

[Sleeper Service]

This also depends on how collision detection works. Does the game really calculate how big the projectile is?

[Starfire]

This also depends on how collision detection works. Does the game really calculate how big the projectile is?

I believe so, isn't this why breach/ Hermes missiles ALWAYS get shot down? Anyways I'm on my phone and can't mess with ftl right now, ill try to later this day.

[Sleeper Service]

Pretty interesting. Could even create synergies with the position of the weapon mount, by having it protect just a limited area. I'm pretty sure projectiles have a decay time when being spawned on the player screen. CEs mines where planned to be even slower, but would then simply disappear and be warped to the enemy screen. So that might limit the devices usefulness.

Would also be interesting to know if bombs can have the same collision detection, cause they could be teleported anywhere onto your ship and can exist indefinitely (controlled by anim time). If this works you could have a shield projectors that can continuously spawn secondary shield bubbles that cover a room or even the majority of the ship and exist for a set amount of time. Using the shield images as projectile graphic... Projectile size and lifespan could give room for different weapon tiers...

With auto fire and a short cooldown on the weapon this might even almost simulate something like a real shield. Well, you projector could still miss, but even that would create a bubble somewhere near by...

[English Narwhal]

Not to be the idea sniper, but I'm pretty sure that you can't make a weapon that 'surrounds' a ship as a shield does. It's hard coded, I think, for weapons (other then beams and bombs) to shoot and hit/miss.

[Sleeper Service]

Well this certainly needs testing. But the idea here was to use weapons to spawn big, unmoving projectiles and use these projectiles collision to block shots. Theoretically, from what we know about projectile behaviour, this could work. Guess I'll just try it out now...

To the Testrel!

[Kieve]

Not to be the idea sniper, but I'm pretty sure that you can't make a weapon that 'surrounds' a ship as a shield does. It's hard coded, I think, for weapons (other then beams and bombs) to shoot and hit/miss.

Following this theory, you could target your own ship with a "Shield Projector" bomb (or, bomb-type), which would generate a graphic much like a shield bubble. Bombs can take hits just like anything else, which means the fake shield would function the same way. You could then have Shield Projectors of varying size and power requirements, to protect critical systems from missiles or similar.

I may have to test this myself...