project-navigation
Personal tools

Author Topic: Whats the reason to have secondary weapons?  (Read 4986 times)

Offline peterfarge

  • Rookie
  • ***
  • Posts: 12
    • View Profile
Whats the reason to have secondary weapons?
« on: November 15, 2007, 07:23:00 pm »
Hello Forum,

I'm wondering what is the reason for the secondary weapon? (Knife, Pistol, Uzi, ...)
They need less movement points, but if you change the weapon you will have wasted an equal amount.

Sugggestion:
What about changing the harm concept? If you get shot, you dont loose HP, but abilites? If you get shot on the suit, you broke a rip, so you cannot use the railgun/Rocket lancher anymore?
Its unrealistic that a medi pack can fully recover a soldier, do the recovery only to bring the soldier home, to recover him in the hospital.

What about weapon training? It will cost money, so in the beginnig a soldier can only use a pistol?


Peter

Offline Destructavator

  • Combination Multiple Specialty Developer
  • Administrator
  • PHALANX Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 1908
  • Creater of Scorchcrafter, knows the zarakites...
    • View Profile
Re: Whats the reason to have secondary weapons?
« Reply #1 on: November 18, 2007, 02:01:08 pm »
I'm wondering if perhaps it would be a good idea for there to be more situations where a primary weapon could be rendered useless or temporarily unavailable, as at present a pistol is really only good for if a soldier's main weapon is a rocket launcher or something else heavy and the soldier enters a small room or simply runs out of ammo.

Some ideas:

Being hit by an alien plasma shot or blast could cause a soldier to (sometimes, depending on where he/she is hit) drop what they are holding.

Some aliens might be resistant to some types of weapons that can only be made into a pistol or larger rifle.  If this sounds confusing, I'll put it this way:  A special type of ray gun is needed to hurt or kill an alien, but through R&D humans can only build a weapon that can produce this type of ray in the form of a large, bulky rifle, because it is too difficult to make it into a smaller pistol.  By the same token, perhaps a weapon can only be a pistol because it can't be manufactured successfully into a larger device.

Weapons can also misfire, jam, and get damaged by things even as simple as getting wet (water).

Some types of high-penetrating or explosive weapons might not be allowed on some missions because of how dangerous they are to the environment - For example if aliens attempt to attack a nuclear power plant or explosives factory, only certain weapons could be used to avoid a catastrophe.  (These might be good ideas for new missions, BTW.)

I'm not a gun expert, but wouldn't some weapons not work in space (in future missions, or if aliens attacked a space station or orbital installation)?

Offline Kaerius

  • Rookie
  • ***
  • Posts: 85
    • View Profile
Re: Whats the reason to have secondary weapons?
« Reply #2 on: November 18, 2007, 05:42:00 pm »
I'm not a gun expert, but wouldn't some weapons not work in space (in future missions, or if aliens attacked a space station or orbital installation)?
The flamer.

The only other weapon I can think of it having a large effect on would be plasma, which would be MORE effective(the plasma wouldn't lose heat over distance as much as in air, ironically). So I guess it would have greater range, but then, any weapons firing solid matter would have infinite range.

Another thing to consider is that recoils would propell you backwards as much as the bullet goes forward, and probably send you spinning, the biggest reason to switch to lasers in space. ;)

Offline Psawhn

  • Squad Leader
  • ****
  • Posts: 210
    • View Profile
Re: Whats the reason to have secondary weapons?
« Reply #3 on: November 25, 2007, 08:38:10 pm »
Recoil isn't magically more powerful just because you're in space. You only really have to consider it, too, if you do not have stable contact with something to cancel out the small impulse given to you by the bullet. Magnetic boots, artificial gravity ('though centrifuge gravity may throw off your aiming), or an EVA Chair will mean you have to worry about recoil only as much as you need to do on the ground.

Plus, flamethrowers are probably more effective in an artificial oxygen-rich environment like that on a space station. You're thinking if it's in a vacuum - at which point many things we take for granted go funny, too. Most weapons (especially lasers) will overheat much too quickly, as air isn't there to take away the waste heat. Although bullets will still fire (they contain oxidizer as well as gunpowder), the gun itself may jam if it relies on reaction gases to eject the spent cartridge, load the next round, (like most semiautomatics / gas-operated guns), because  of different pressures than what it was designed for.

Actually, most weapons that operate in a vacuum (excluding blades) need to be specially designed to operate in one.

mad-biker

  • Guest
Re: Whats the reason to have secondary weapons?
« Reply #4 on: December 09, 2007, 09:07:12 am »
remember the old JA games, where each person had mechanical skills. your weapon would jam or break and you had to use points up to fix it. also dropping weapons when getting hit, or fear, damage by alien weapons, say your using a rocket launcher, and it takes a shot causing the ammunition to detonate..

Offline Pioter

  • Cannon Fodder
  • **
  • Posts: 4
    • View Profile
Re: Whats the reason to have secondary weapons?
« Reply #5 on: December 09, 2007, 02:08:32 pm »
I my opinion mad-biker got the point. There should be stress on using secondery-guns. I myself during game were using them only at the very begining.

Takai

  • Guest
Re: Whats the reason to have secondary weapons?
« Reply #6 on: December 21, 2007, 05:46:09 am »
In the original UFO (first 2) I was giving pistols to the Launcher operators (just in case).

Shotgun- or SMG-type weapons would come in handy in close-combat type situations, like assaulting a building (or a UFO).

Both usages are pretty obvious, I think.

mad-biker

  • Guest
Re: Whats the reason to have secondary weapons?
« Reply #7 on: December 25, 2007, 09:13:08 am »
the shot gun reminds me of aliens (alien 2 movie), carry a pump action, i like to keep this handy for close quarters ;-)