Ringworld, Sphereworld Weapons |
For anyone who has read Larry Niven's Ringworld series, I was wondering if something was possible. You know how the Ringworld was capable of harnessing energy from the star and using it as a weapon? Is that even possible to implement in SE5, and if so, how would you go around doing it...? This is an idea that popped into my head after I built my first ringworld.
Re: Ringworld, Sphereworld Weapons
Couldn't it be possible to create a 'larger' weapon platform that isn't to big, and then give it a requirement formula so that one requirement to build is a planet size of at least 100,000kt?
Perhaps make it 4,000kt, have the 'weapon' itself be at least 2,000kt.
That leaves some space for other things, such as a special platform core (at least 1,000k itself), some shields and armor, maybe a few backup/defense weapons, and other items such as combat sensors, ecm, etc.
Make the thing pricey as heck, so it is not something that can be quickly/easily built.
The weapon itself could have something like 5 times more power than a massive mount wave motion gun, maybe have better range also, and a supply cost that could cripple an early frigate, and pehaps the core component generates supply based on the number of stars in system (since it is a 'sun powered' weapon, even though a ring/sphere world system is going to have 1 star...), and perhaps only hold enough supply for a few shots (or even just one shot) if no supply storage is used.
On the subject of solar powered stuff...
If possible, could the formula that increases the output of 'solar' items based on the number of stars in system, be used to create a weapon that gets a damage/range bonus based on the number of stars in a system?
E.g., a weapon could do a base of 50 damage to 80 ls range (just off of 'ship power'), but get base of +50 damage and +40 ls range for every star in a system. It could be a little 'smaller' but a little more expensive than comparable weapons, since the bulk of its damage and range would be based on the stars in the system it is in.
Re: Ringworld, Sphereworld Weapons
I like this approach. Provided the mineral, rads and/or organic cost is right it would require a proportional amount of time to build, which would balance things a bit. Now, there should also be a huge reload time, so that it could only be fired once or twice during combat. Come to think of it, maybe it would require extra modding to ship model properties so that this weapon could only target capital ships or something? Alternatively, SEIV allowed for a "one component per planet" type of weapon platform component. If SEV does too, it would be a good way to prevent massive abuse of this kind of toys.
If it turns out that it can not be restricted to targeting just one or a few large ship types, then it won't be worth the effort. An attacker would simply need a bunch of fast frigates for roadkill since the weapon would fire on the closest target anyway, waste a shot and become utterly useless.
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See my PBW game stories on http://users.pandora.be/banzaiboy/sevpbw/.
Re: Ringworld, Sphereworld Weapons
You could always mod in a gigantic weapon platform hull and a gigantic weapon such that the hull only fits on a ringworld or sphereworld, and the weapon only fits on that hull...
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