// Weapon System: Ideas for addons and more

[Noname117]

Thanks you all for your contributions! This is all very interesting.
Just a few remarks:

• Adding more block of the same base type will increase weapon power and energy requirement. No need for an "overload" or "power" addon block.
• Gimbal will start in the 5-10 range I guess (to be tweaked), but each addon or stacking will decrease the range and the speed at which it moves.
• Not a fan of multi-components gun, one block should be enough to have a functional weapon. Only exception is for ammunition, where I think it is ok to ask the player to link/pipe a crate to the gun.
• I havent played ftd , but if one of you wants to make me a quick explanation that would be cool
• Each weapon and addon should have different energy/heat requirement, and also have a shield/armor or else damage profile, that way the weapon design would impact the ship design, but also the way combat are managed.

Ideally on top of Laser/Beam I should add custom-made missiles and kinetic weapon with custom-made shell. Plus maybe a couple of funny weapon that could come much later on (flame-plasma thrower, ect).

So I'll add my thoughts on a few of these remarks.

I'd recommend against automatic weapon gimbal. Maybe you could have a block which allows for a small gun to be gimballed easily, but if you add in automatic weapon gimbal then suddenly ungimballed small guns, like those found on most sci-fi fighters and real life fighters, become entirely pointless. Having a gimbal block does mean that gimballed small guns are slightly more expensive and slightly more mechanically complex than ungimballed guns, which gives both types of guns their own advantages and disadvantages.

I think, depending on the weapon system, having a couple of components make up a weapon would work. It doesn't make the weapon super complex or too difficult to explain to the average player. And it allows you to have interchangeable components as well, which allows for more customization within the same weapon system.

Going back to my gun idea, you could simplify it by combining the barrel and the chamber, which leads you to needing 2-3 parts (aside from the shellevators and ammo racks) to get a gun to function. But, again, that's not super complex, and it's easy to tell the player how to build the system. Tell them that the gun barrel is the main part of the gun, that a loader is needed to load shells into the gun, that a couple types of loaders need to have either a clip or belt storage to function, and that there are optional barrel attachments you can add to the end of the barrel to space-proof the gun.

Every single part has it's own role here (the barrel for shooting the bullet, the loader for loading the bullet, the clips/belts for storing rounds ready-to-fire, and the barrel caps for optional air-tightness regarding the barrel), which allows for the ability to swap out different components when building weapons (a more realistic approach than just having all weapon improvements be upgrades). This actually means that you can have a wider variety of basic-tier weapons, rather than all basic-tier weapons being nearly the same thing.

And that's why I think that most weapon systems should probably consist of 2-4 parts arranged in a specific order. It's not too complicated to understand, easy to explain and document, and allows for interchangable
components to get a wider variety of guns. It actually might be easier to explain and build a 2-4 part gun with interchangable parts than to build that same gun as a 1-piece weapon with 1-3 upgrades.

From the Depths is a naval vehicle-builder/strategy game. The vehicle building in the game offers a wide variety of possible designs and tactics to employ with said designs, but it suffers from bad AI, some unneeded complexity regarding it's systems, a bit of a case of the 1m block system-building issue, and a terrible meta caused by using 1m blocks along with other gameplay mechanics and balancing. It's actually a good game (along with Starmade) to examine when developing your own vehicle builder to see what it does well and what it does poorly.

And I do think you should have a couple of kinetic weapons. Normal guns and railguns function completely differently, and should be represented as different systems entirely in the game. And you could also go the route of having both coilguns and railguns instead of picking one or the other. Although these 2 types of guns operate basically the same way, so I don't think much would be different between them other than looks and maybe a few minor stats.

[Dwarf-Lord Pangolin]

On the building side I want to do a base block stackable with addons like other systems. So the system is easy to gasp for newcomers but allows for some freedom for advanced designs.
I already have ideas for a few addons type but I want to hear yours first

• Capacitor: the capacitor would give a burst capability. The weapon would be able to fire several shots in a row, before having to recharge. It wouldnt increase dps per se, but could definitely be useful as you are not always shooting at your target. On a beam it would just increase the firing time.
• Barrel: placing a barrel at the top of the laser would increase the weapon range and projectile velocity.

Regarding the overall dynamic, I am shooting for a system where small light fighters can coexist with bigger ships.
Bricks weapon will be less powerful but will have a builtin gimbal, so shooting at a fast target will be efficient.
On the other side bigger ship could use bigger block based weapons. These wont have any gimbal feature, but they could be mounted on turret of course. The heavier the turret, the slowest it will be to rotate. At one point for very big weapon it would be faster to have a hard point and just rotate the ship
At the end it will be difficult to shoot fast moving fighters with big weapons, so big ship might need some light anti-fighters turret systems.

To be honest, the basics of this system as you've described it almost perfectly matches what I've been hoping for. I'll have more in-depth feedback as the weapon system starts being fleshed out and we can see how it performs in-game, but the core of this system sounds perfect. It sounds like it would be easy for new players to understand, while still offering players a huge degree of freedom over tailoring the weaponry of their ships to match what they want. I can see just about every kind of ship being viable with a system like this, from fast, light interceptors, to big dreadnoughts with a huge cannon running down the spine. This sounds perfect!

[RedAlert_007]

Turret mounts which a weapon could be placed on, GUI element to assisgn target priority

E.G: If missile within 100m, target missile, else target weapons on hostile vessels within 4000m

[Doehg]

Weapon Attachments

This is kinda a big, nice, delicious, organized, color-coded list of modules - as I know like, everyone, wants modules

Key:
usable with any weapon
usable with only energy weapons
usable with only conventional weapons (KE and explosives)
usable with stated weapons
usable only with laser weapons (still energy)

Base Block
- basic weapon block that starts the modular weapon

• works, but not that well
• normal fire rate, damage, muzzle velocity, range, and accuracy
• must be placed first
• Resizable to allow loading of larger projectiles
• fires at semi auto by default
• base blocks that consume ammunition must have ammunition fed to each of them in order to fire
• conventional weapon base blocks do not consume additional energy
• conventional weapons do not receive direct base block size bonuses, only bonuses from being able to actually fit a larger caliber into the breech

Barrel

• increases weapon accuracy and muzzle velocity, up to a point
• muzzle velocity only increases for conventional weapons
• does not affect laser weapons directly
• once barrel is too long, muzzle velocity starts decreasing, and accuracy increase slows
• muzzle velocity takes form of a negative quadratic, and accuracy looks logarithmic
• resizable in smaller increments if needed

Rifling

• increases accuracy
• very slightly decreases muzzle velocity
• you kinda just..,.,.,., place it in the barrel - its more of an attachment for the barrel, like the accelerator

Gatling barrel

• allows higher fire-rate weapons to fire for longer without overheating the barrel
• significantly decreases accuracy as barrel gets longer
• has to spin up, and uses energy as it does
• this isn't really a conventional Gatling gun, with the multiple firing chambers and all, it more allows fast-firing energy weapons to fire down multiple barrels so they don't heat only one all the time
• with conventional weapons, it's kinda implied that they act normally

Accelerator

• attaches to barrel
• increases muzzle velocity
• creates heat & consumes energy constantly whilst powered
• negates barrel velocity slow as it's length increases
• uses a magnetic field to accelerate the projectiles of non-railgun guns
• pretty much a more generalized version of the tech used in the Nazi V-3 Cannon

Heat sink

• dissipates heat away from gun more effectively, reducing chance of malfunction or breakage
• dissipates to objects in contact, with obvious consequences
• dissipates to other heat sinks, and through them to ship
• if not connected to ship, will dissipate to surrounding air or space, obeying the laws of thermodynamics for the surrounding medium
• can be attached to any gun parts that accept modules and actually create heat (base block(s), barrels, capacitors, etc)
• other things, like fans, heat pipes, and water cooling, can be attached to them to increase their effectiveness further & attach more effectively to the ship, or air

Auto Reciprocator

• allows weapons to fire at full auto
• potentially could just be a setting on the base block, but I like the idea of an attachment more, plus it takes up an attachment slot
• consumes additional energy when used with energy weapons
• reduces muzzle velocity of conventional weapons
• produces additional heat
• fires slower the larger the projectiles get. I mean you could try to fire faster, but it would likely just explode; there's a reason howitzers don't shoot like submachine guns

Capacitor

• increases per shot damage and base muzzle velocity
• creates heat when charging
• decreases base fire rate
• equivalent to more base blocks of damage and muzzle velocity than one base block
• may discharge at different times to compensate for fire rate decrease

Capacitor bank

• discharges four bursts of charge to the gun
• decreases base damage and muzzle velocity
• increases "fire rate" - has to recharge every burst, but takes much less time than a regular capacitor
• multiple Capacitor banks automatically chain to increase fire rate
• Capacitor banks may be changed between burst and full auto
• produce less heat than regular capacitors

Energizer

• placed along a barrel
• increases damage
• produces heat and consumes energy in same way as an accelerator

Splitter

• splits the projectile into an additional projectile(s)
• attached at the end of the barrel
• slightly less damage and muzzle velocity per projectile
• significantly smaller range and accuracy
• does not consume power, but produces heat per shot
• powered splitters produce more heat (and consume energy) but do not reduce damage or muzzle velocity, and reduce accuracy and range slightly less

Focus lens

• increases accuracy
• slightly decreases damage and accuracy as it heats up
• collects heat overtime; takes longer than most parts to dissipate
• placed at the end of a barrel
• more advanced lenses dissipate heat more efficiently, and take less in in the first place

Gyro lens

• allows compensative aiming in a small aim cone, like the current gyro-systems already in-game
• same stuff as the focus lens, except accuracy is decreased instead

Muzzle Break

• decreases recoil
• slightly decreases base muzzle velocity and per-shot accuracy
• increases accuracy for higher fire-rate guns, due to less recoil
• helps protect gun from overburdening due to shot recoil of higher calibers
• attached at the end of the barrel
• modifiable to direct gasses in specific directions, basically being able to turn it into a compensator

Charge inducer

• Induces a high net charge unto the projectile, adding conductive energy damage (can fry electronics, but really isn't physically damaging)
• high heat production and energy consumption
• if projectile is not moving fast enough, it may fuse to the inducer and block the barrel, damaging the inducer irreversibly (circuit is hopefully broken by a fuse somewhere - I mean with "void reactor" technology, id expect fuses or circuit breakers to be a given)
• attached at the end of the barrel

Rail Barrel

• significantly increases accuracy and muzzle velocity
• significant power consumption and heat production
• requires capacitors to fire; more capacitors = more speed
• if the projectile is going too slow when it comes out of the breech, it may fuse to the barrel, with obvious consequences
• if there is too much current through the gun, it may overload and become damaged
• longer guns and more power increase the KE more

Ammunition input

• used to insert ammo into weapons that consume ammunition (conventional, plasma, etc)
• connects to external, on ship storage, or to an ammunition container attached to the gun
  note: this connects to an on ship storage with conveyers or pipes, depending on the ammunition type, and the longer it gets, the more generally sketchy it gets. If the feed is broken, it will take longer to get the ammunition to the gun the farther away the source is
• attaches to the Auto Reciprocator, if present

Ammunition container

• holds different types of ammunition for a weapon
• its just like a gas canister, ammo box, or magazine - depending on the type of ammo your gun takes
• must be replaced or refilled once it runs out
• Not exactly safe

Base Weapon Types

Energy
(weapons that consume energy to fire the initial projectile or laser)

Plasma

• Consumes ammunition (hydrogen/deuterium/other gases, or anything you can manage to plasmafy), along with ship energy, though less ammunition and energy than conventional and laser weapons, respectively
• Has a variable muzzle velocity, though due to the plasma's low mass, it is much higher than conventional weapons by default
• Modifiable into a flamethrower-like weapon, firing a continuous line of plasma at medium range - with a longer barrel. the line stays contained across a longer distance
  
• applies heat, energy, and kinetic damage (though electric & kinetic are much lower than heat)

Laser

• Consumes energy (the highest of all the energy weapons)
• Has an unchangeable muzzle velocity of 299,792,458 m/s
  
• Applies heat and energy damage, along with radiation damage, depending of the wavelength

Conventional
* all KE weapons produce slight, centralized heat damage, simply because of the collision
* also if you use incendiary, tracer, or explosive ammunition, the damage will change accordingly

Rifle

• Low caliber weapon most effective against infantry and very light armor
• Creates low heat and recoil, efficient at sustained automatic fire, and relatively compact
• Variable muzzle velocity, highest base out of all conventional weapons
  
• KE damage
  

Autocannon

• Basically a larger caliber version of the rifle, effective against medium armor
• Still efficient at firing automatically, though not as long as the rifle, and a bit larger
• Variable muzzle velocity
  
• KE damage
  

Regular Cannon

• Very large caliber cannon effective against heavy and very heavy armor
• Due to high heat and pressure, Automatic fire is either very slow and only technically automatic, or simply a bad idea
  
• KE damage
  

Mortar

• Fires high-yield explosives out of a cannon at a relatively low muzzle velocity
• Long effective range, usually fired at a high arc to get over walls
• Most damage, range, and accuracy per unit volume of weapon and ammunition of any conventional (and possibly all types of) weapon
  
• Depends on type of payload, but basic payload is explosive (heat & distributed KE)
  

Missile launcher

• launches high-yield explosives propelled by rockets contained in a lightly armored shell
• controllable range depends on the amount of fuel loaded into the engines - once fuel runs out, missiles will continue to fly on a ballistic trajectory until detonated
  
• Mostly explosive, but yet again depends on payload
  

Special
Weapons that are either (a) a combination of Energy and Conventional, (b) not really a "Gun", or (c) just generally hard to classify

Plasma Blade

• A continuously circulating ring of plasma shaped into a blade by a magnetic field
• Basically a big lightsaber if you put in on your ship - or a regular lightsaber if you manage to feed enough power into an infantry-sized weapon
• Consumes lots of power, and initial plasmatic ammunition to get it started, and sustain the arc
  
• Heat and energy damage
  

Fusion Cannon

• Uses a very powerful nuclear reaction to propel shrapnel in a shot-gun like way
• In atmosphere, you can forget the shrapnel and turn it into effectively a directed nuclear explosion.
  
• KE, Heat, and radiation
  

Antimatter Spear

• A crude weapon that consists of magnetically suspended antimatter at the end of a stick
  
• PURE ENERGY
  

Nanite Ejector

• Fires nanobots that can do things like repairing ships, mining, stealing or delivering energy, and maybe other stuff
• Can also be used like the Proto-seeker from Robocraft, or the smartgun from Fractured Space
  
• Depends
  

STiF-MaDe (space-time fabric manipulation device)

• able to manipulate space-time, pushing and pulling ships
• if fed with enough power and coolant, it has the potential to crush or explode ships, send them millions of years in the future, create wormholes and blackholes, and bring time to a near standstill - or just explode
  
• um... dEPenDs?
  

Shield Gun

• Fires a shield-kind-of-thing to overload the target's shield, and bring it down for a bit
• It will transfer power to their ship, and may charge up their capacitors for their benefit, but if it adds more power than they have capacity for, it will start generating lots of excess heat
• Their shield will come back up once their energy levels have gone below what they were before you shot them with your shield overloader gun thing
  
• heat if the energy levels are overloaded
  

wow thats one t h i c c list thing
and guess what
I' m n o t o u t o f s t u f f t o w r i t e a b o u t

[Noname117]

Going to go through the suggestions on Doehg's post and say my thoughts on them.


Base block: Seems like an OK idea, although I'm not sure the way you've presented it is a good idea. Base blocks combining to make a larger gun doesn't seem like a great idea for me, but if they're re-sizable blocks then that shouldn't matter. Adding up to do more damage with solid ammunition based weapons like with normal guns and railguns doesn't seem like a good idea. Instead, I think having the ammo and other gun characteristics define the damage is a better, and more realistic, idea. Plus, it means you can improve a ship's damage output just by improving it's ammunition.


Barrel: A good idea if they're re-sizable. If they're not, then you run into the same problem I have in From the Depths where if I want to make a barrel of a specific caliber (naval term), then it either winds up being too short or too long, because 1m blocks aren't precise enough.


Rifling: As I stated before, I like this idea. I'm just not sure how you'd add it as an upgrade. Maybe "rifled barrels" would be better, or just have it as a setting in the base block.


Gatling Barrel: You seem to not understand how a rotary cannon (basically a gatling gun, but a more wide-spread term) works. It's not that you have one chamber constantly firing into each barrel, it's more so where you have multiple barrels, chambers, and loading devices all on 1 rotating device. Basically, a rotary cannon is actually multiple single-barreled cannons spinning rapidly., with all the loaders receiving from the same input.


Accelerator: This seems like pseudo-science for a weapon which should function as it normally would. There is no reason this should increase muzzle velocity (which is determined by the gases expanding behind the bullet).


Heat Sink: A really good idea actually.


Auto Reciprocator: This is flat out a bad idea. This is how you get a meta of FTD's super-fast-firing medium to large caliber guns, and completely nerf single-shot guns. It's something arbitrarily made-up which will most likely create an un-satisfying meta in the end. Go with the loading system I suggested earlier for conventional guns, although maybe with some additional tweakable aspects (such as energy used by the auto-loaders and belt-fed-loaders, which then generates heat). You get your high-rate-of-fire weapons which work more realistically and have additional drawbacks (like difficulty in switching ammo types). And then you also can have guns similar to the French autoloaders in games like World of Tanks and War Thunder. A high alpha-strike of several shots in relatively quick succession prior to a long reload.

Although I'll admit the Auto Reciprocator could work with energy weapons. Those things can be all pseudo-science, so balance and weapon customization should be bigger factors.


Capacitor/Capacitor bank/Energizer/Splitter/Focus Lens: Not too much to say about these. Energy weapons can work however the developer wants (Although I'd suggest getting lasers to work semi-properly).


Muzzle Brake: Good idea, but be careful about having every gun design require it. For some reason looking back at history naval guns typically lack muzzle breaks while land-based guns more often have them.

OK, I looked up the reason why and it seems that muzzle brakes redirect some of the gas backwards from the gun to reduce the recoil. On larger guns with larger mountings, such as on ships, recoil isn't that much of a concern, and IRL you'd be sending a lot of gasses back onto the deck from a relatively big gun. Not sure how that would work in space, but I do think you'd heat up the outer areas of your ship behind your gun while reducing said recoil a little bit.

One other thing regarding muzzle brakes: Apparently Sabot rounds break up in their barrels.


Charge Inducer: I'd argue that the role of this would be better served by a piece of ammunition, but I guess this could be a usable idea

One thing I should add here: air-tightness modules might be a good fit for additions to the tips of guns. Modules which would prevent air from leaving the gun during the reloading process. They can either function like 1 end of an airlock.


Rail Barrel: Sounds like a good idea, but is "if the rail is going to slow when it comes out of the breech" a typo, or do you think railguns actually fire rails/rods?


Ammunition input: Not a great idea as you described it in my opinion. Simplified ammunition schemes like this is a major problem with the meta of From the Depths in my opinion, where it greatly encourages faster firing guns and allows the ammunition rooms on ships to be hidden much better, which removed a major and realistic weak-spot.

There's a reason I suggested the ammunition transfer system I did. Have basically space engineers pipes with speed limitations on objects moving through (as I called them, shellevators) move the ammunition from the ammo room to the gun. Make them consume power. Maybe an ammunition input could work, but the range should be small, and unblocked to an ammunition output attached to an ammunition container or shellevator. Although maybe you could have an automatic transfer from an output to an input, but with the transfer between the two requiring a clear route, and taking longer the further the 2 are away from each other, and the more direct the route between the 2 is.

One more thought is you could have an ammo teleporter, which would teleport ammo sent through it to a gun room, or even into the gun itself. It would take a lot of power to use, and may disable ammunition loading if it's taken out and there isn't a backup system in place. One cool use of these could be inter-ship ammunition loading, possibly with the ability to have a carrier reload it's fighters without the need to recover it's fighters. Possibly while the fighters are out there in battle.


Ammunition Container: A good idea, but, at the very least with guns and railguns, should hold already assembled projectiles. Maybe there should also be an "ammunition tank" which holds ammunition for energy weapons. Also, Ammunition in containers should be explosive if hit. Magazine explosions should be considered very dangerous.

[VIPMTHE2ND]

Modular Weapons

Holy block of text, Batman!

More seriously: Given the concept for weapons-table-like creation of custom missiles -- and the potential for custom shells, mines, etc etc using this system -- I'm not entirely convinced an FtD style custom gun system is the way to go anymore.

Granted, I'm not entirely sure how such a system could be made to work well, but it'd be really cool if it did.

[Amazigh]

Modular Weapons

I agree with Vipm, this doesn't seem like the best idea to me, feels too complex.

I'd go for something along the same lines, but much simpler, so that base weapon blocks function fine on their own and are where the major differentiation in weaponry comes about. While the selection of add-on parts are there to specialize weapons to some degree, but not to completely change the functionality.

[Everpro]

Hello,
First of all i have to say that i Discovery this game 2 weeks ago so i not backed this game, but i have some ideas to the weapon system and how to improve it. Another thing, sorry about my English.

Weapon Concept
Reading the comments of how the weapons should work I came into a conclusion based on what people want, the dev wants a simple and a intuitive system but the players want an expansive and full of possibilities, so we came to the problem of Death x Complexity. Basically we want the most death for the least amount of complexity, making a simple system that more the experienced players could expand and create and the newcomers could learn with some easy. To achieve this is necessary to create a system with simple and clear rules, so I came with this idea: except for melee weapons a weapon work basically shooting a bullet in the foe so I divided the weapon in three parts:

The bullet/projectile/Power
Is basic the weapon has to shot something, and this could be anything, a bullet, plasma, heat a harpoon etc.

The Core
Is the central part of the weapon, its where the bullet will propel itself, ex: the chamber where a explosion happens in a weapon or where the laser form.

The trigger
Now you have the core and the ammo but you still need a command to shot your weapon. The trigger will command this, this could literally be a trigger on a pistol handle, could be a button on a panel or even a proximity sensor.

The Add-ons
Besides the other categories the add-ons are totally optional but they greatly diversify and improves how the gun behaves, I will explain in more details soon.

General idea
The thing here is that having these three parts creating a simple rule, we could have a system where changing these parts the gun would feel totally different of one to another and putting add-ons could diversify even more how a weapon behave not just only giving more damage or range (but parts like this still necessary).

Weapon types
I divided the gun parts in different types, but first lest talk about common parts.

Commo Parts
Are some parts and add-ons that can be used with any weapon.

Aim
As simple as it look, are 1x1 or 2x2 Bricks that can be put on guns to get a better vision of the target.
Zoom: is a type of telescopic aim made to aim at long distances.

• Iron sight: stay with the basic, made to use with handheld weapons
• Display: can be connect with sensor and cams to look around and have a better vision of the battlefield.
• Shield aim: while aiming creates a shield in front of the player mostly 3x3 bricks but can get bigger.

Handle
This one is focused on handheld guns, handles will determine how the player/ mech will hold the weapon and its animations, and can work as a trigger (This parts also could limit how many bricks a weapon would have).

• Rocket Launcher handle: the player would carry this weapon above their shoulders.
• Pistol handle: player hold the gun like a pistol or a smg this mean that you can dual wielding.
• Rifle handle: player holds the gun like a rifle but can’t dual wielding.
• Minigun: this one is interesting, the player hold the weapon like a minigun, a flamethrower or a giant canon for your mech (you decide).

Barrel
Put in front of the weapon mostly change how the bullet behave.

• Divider: work in any type of weapon, rise the number of bullets per shot (like a shotgun) but in the cost of a bit of damage, precision and damage.
• Range: simple range barrel.

Loaders/Ammo
Different ways to load the gun.

• Manual: the bullet is put one at a time, this mean a slow fire rate but more damage (because you can get better bullets).
• Magazine: still manual but uses magazines, good fire rate but lower damage (could be a version that drops the block on one side like a used battery).
• Automatic Loader: actually, this on is pretty big, takes ammunition from a nearby storage and have a constant fire rate not too quickly nor slow. The storage could be attached to a cable that transports energy or ammo, or could teleport ammunition (I think someone already said this).

Sensors
Sensor can vary as their use, they can be used as a trigger to activate a weapon or together with a display to give information.

• Proximity: send a signal when someone is nearby (this could be used in mines for example).
• Impact: sense collisions ex: you throw a grenade and when it hit the ground it will explode.
• Movement: sense nearby movement and can show information on a display like a map showing the movement on the area.
• Energy: sensor and can guide missiles to energy being produced like reactors.

Kinect Weapons
Are weapon based in shooting projectile of solid matter.

Projectile weapons
This weapon need to be loaded with some type of bullet.

Core
Mechanism that will shot the bullet.

• Single shot: This core shot one bullet at a time, slow fire rate but high damage.
• Automatic: high fire rate, low precision with some bullet spread.
• Rotatory core: Brick/Block size 3x3 can be attached multiple barrels, extremely high fire rate, low range, high bullet spread.

Bullets
Projectiles used.

• Explosive: only high caliber/Single shot core, give damage to multiple blocks in range of the explosion:
• Tracer: correct its path to hit the foe, only high caliber/single shot core, high precision, low range.
• Thermite: make the foe take fire.

Add-on

• Rail gun barrel: uses energy to give more damage on the projectile.

Missiles/Mines/Grenades
Just blocks that explode in a lot of different ways, they use the same base blocks to get different solutions, very useful with sensors to trigger the explosions.

Core-Warhead
Load of the bomb affecting what the explosion will do. All brick/block size 1x1.

• Explosive warhead: normal explosion.
• Thermite: explosion make thigs get on fire.
• Gravity: attract nearby object to the center of the explosion.
• Gas: leave a cloud of gas.

Propulsion
A way to the warhead be launched.

• Missile pod: basically, that thing under the jet fighters that hold missiles, perfect to small fighters.
• Launcher pod: hold multiple missiles
• Rocket propulsion: a block that go behind the missile, serves to propel the missile.

Add-on

• Magnetic clasp: holds on any surface that it touches (made to be used with grenades)

Energy Weapons
Weapons that are built in premise that you have to use energy to shot.

Laser/beams
Basically, the energy are used to create light and heat, when the heat go to a certain level the weapon will stop for a time.

Core
Where the light is produced.

• Laser core: like the blasters in Star Wars, shooting short beams of light, divide damage to the shots generate a small amount of heat.
• Beam core: more conventional beam of light, shot constantly, high damage, produce lots of heat.

Power
Is where the core will get its energy.

• Reactor: brick/block 1x1 produce energy in small amount, produce a bit of heat, can merge with other reactor blocks to generate more damage (perfect for small weapons that uses small amount of energy but can shot quickly).
• Battery: storage a big amount of energy, generate no heat, can recharge in vehicle seats or recharging stations (perfect for powerful weapons that will shot a small amount of times).
• Wi-receiver: receives energy of a transmitter from a wireless system, part of the energy is lost, there is a range limit (perfect for carriers and fighters this could make an interesting tactic, trying to focus in one big reactor super-efficient and transmitting to the other ships nearby.
• Stealer: steal energy from reactors and batteries nearby depending of the distance of the power source.

Add-on

• Intensifier: more damage, more heat, less precision, low fire rate.
• Intensifier capacitor: more range, more heat.
  Heat disposal: lower heat and more heat resistance (how many a weapon can resist heat before stop working).

Plasma
A weapon that shot super-heated gas controlled by magnets.

Core

• Plasma core: create the plasma, bullet speed of this weapon is pretty low but high damage.

Power
Pretty much the same as Lasers an beam.

Add-on

• Intensifier, Intensifier capacitor and heat disposal are the same.
• Bullet bouncing: make the bullet bounce on the wall.
• Thrower: just throw plasma into everything, lows the range a lot, raise the spread, high damage.

Heat
Any weapon that inflicts heat as damage, takes storage heat as ammo.

Core

• Flame core: make things burn, shot flames into a straight line in front of the weapon.
• Heat core: deals damage in form of radiation, short range but can heat objects that it hits.

Power
Thrower, Reactor, Battery, Wi receiver and stealer are the same.

• Heat Battery: can storage heat.
• Fuel loader: you can use fuel as power source to create heat or flames.
• Heat generator: can create heat from fuel or energy.
• Heat grabber: takes heat from nearby objects to use as ammo

Others ideas

Acid
Core: Acid Core: creates acid.
Ammo: Fuel loader , to load tanks with acid(maybe you could have a pipe to take from other storages)
Add-on: thrower

Grapple hook
Core: Cable launcher: will propel a block in front of the weapon that the player can put anything.
Ammo: Harpoon: will hold in surfaces that it hit.

[psy_commando]

Being a fan of Mass Effect's ship design, I'd love if it could be possible to make long multi-block mass driver weapons?
So for instance you'd make a rectangle of mass driver blocks and the width/height of the blocks would determine the size of the projectile, and the length of the blocks determine the speed and power of the projectile. Power usage and etc would increase accordingly. And various addons like autoloaders and etc could trade-of firing speed for ship power or max projectile size for example.

The same could be done for missiles! There could be a system like in From the Depths where you can basically construct your missiles with various parts and a varying size.
https://fromthedepths.gamepedia.com/Missile
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFRdoKn3G3Y

Actually, a lot of weapon systems from From the Depths are a pretty interesting source of inspiration!

[Jüj]

tbh the ability to modify and customize your weapon with weapon addons and modular weapon blocks is a must, however balance is imperative