COW Design - Weapon Design
Each weapon to be fitted onto a ship first has to be designed.
It can then be added to the ship design in whatever quantity is required.
There are 3 main types of weapons that a ship can carry - Direct Fire weapons (i.e. guns),
Indirect Fire weapons (i.e. bombs and missiles) and fighters (ships in their own right).
Direct Fire Weapons
Direct Fire weapons provide general purpose medium and short range offensive and defensive (point defence) power.
Adjustable Parameters are:
- Weapon Type
- Weapon Size (affects range and damage)
- Weapon Power (for kinetic weapons)
- Weapon Mounting (e.g. fixed, arc, turreted)
- Weapon Enhancements (e.g. armour piercing, shield piercing, streaming, autofire)
There are four main types of direct fire weapons:
Beam Weapons
These take the form of a directed beam of energy (lasers, phasers etc).
They tend to have good accuracy at all ranges, but damage dissipates over range.
Damage is at a maximum value up to range1, then falls off linearly to zero at range2.
Increasing the size of the weapon increases the maximum damage, and the values of range1 and range2 (inverse exponential).
Kinetic Weapons
These are basically projectile weapons (e.g. mass drivers, gauss cannons etc).
Their damage does not change with range, but accuracy decreases as range increases.
Accuracy stays at a maximum value at range1, then falls off linearly to zero at range2.
Increasing the size of the weapon increases damage, but does not affect accuracy.
The 'power' setting for a kinetic weapon is independent of its size.
Increasing the power level without increasing size will increase the speed of the projectile,
making it more accurate at longer ranges (i.e. it extends range1 and range2, inverse exponential).
In addition, the damage inflicted by the projectile is increased slightly (inverse exponential).
Kinetic weapons tend to be long and narrow, and thus are very space inefficient when mounted.
Particle Weapons
These take the form of a focussed stream of elementary particles. These particles tend to dissipate at a certain range, therefore damage is pretty much constant up to this range, at which point it rapidly drops to zero. Accuracy is fairly constant over range, though overall it tends to be lower than that for Beam Weapons. Particle weapons do more damage than other direct fire weapon types when within range.
Warp Weapons
Warp weapons use the direct manipulation of space/time to inflict damage and destruction.
They tend to be very large and have a slow rate of fire, but inflict massive amounts of damage
and can bypass shields and armour (accuracy dependent). Warp weapons have a minimum range below
which they will not fire. After this minimum range, the accuracy drops off linearly. More powerful
implementations of warp weapons tend to have a larger minimum range.
Damage is independent of range for a given weapon. However more accurate hits can completely
bypass a ship's shields and armour and directly inflict damage on the ships internal systems,
causing far greater damage than a less accurate hit, which merely damages shields and armour.
Weapon Mounts
Direct fire weapons can be mounted in different ways.
Fixed (spinal), Arc (fixed facing, but aimable) and Turret (rapid aiming in any direction).
There are different overheads for using different mounts :
- Fixed mounts : No Overhead
- Arc mounts : Varies with arc coverage (typically 50% overhead)
- Turreted mounts : Varies with tracking rate (typically at least 100% overhead).
Indirect Fire Weapons
Missiles
Missiles consume negligible power, but have a limited number of reloads within a single combat.
Adjustable Parameters are:
- Warhead Type
- Warhead Size
- Warhead Quantity (MIRV / Scatter Pack)
- Sensor Type
- ECCM Type
- Chassis Type (determines engine technology)
- Chassis Speed
- Chassis Manoeuvrability
- Chassis Range
- Number of Reloads
Torpedoes
Torpedoes are a type of missile which uses an energy charge for its propulsion and destructive power.
Since the propulsion and warhead are generated by the firing ship rather than internally to the missile
itself the launcher is much larger than that for a regular missile, and requires a large amount of power.
However, each reload is very small in size compared to a missile (effectively just a sensor and guidance unit).
Adjustable Parameters are:
- Torpedo Type
- Torpedo Size
- Sensor Type
- Torpedo Speed
- Torpedo Manoeuvrability
- Torpedo Range
- Number of Reloads
Bombs
Bombs are missiles with limited or no propulsion system - they rely on the motion of the launching vehicle in order to hit their target.
However they are immune to ECM effects.
Adjustable Parameters are:
- Warhead Type
- Warhead Size
- Number of Reloads
Fighters
Fighters are designed in the same way as other ships, but with certain limitations.
See the Ship Design section for details.
Specific fighters designs are not fitted to a ship in the same way as in the Moo games.
Instead, a carrier class ship is fitted with fighter capacity (determines how many fighters can be transported),
launch tubes (determines how fast fighters can be launched in combat) and landing bays (determines how quickly
fighters can be retrieved). Thus a carrier class ship can carry any mix of fighters that it has room for.
Adjustable Parameters are:
- Fighter Capacity.
- Number of launch tubes.
- Number of landing bays.
Capacity is measured in hull sizes, thus twice as many small fighters (size 1.0) can be carried as of the largest fighters (size 2.0). Launch tubes and landing bays are size independent, each tube or bay can launch or retrieve one fighter at a time.
Fighter capacity is cheap and has negligible power consumption. However, life support capacity must be included for the pilots of the fighters.
Weapon Design Calculations
Direct Fire Weapons
Weapon Size = Weapon Tech Size * Weapon Power * Weapon Mount Overhead * Weapon Mods
Weapon Mount Overhead:
Fixed Mount Overhead = 1.0
Arc Mount Overhead = Arc Mount Tech Size * Firing Arc
Turret Mount Overhead = Turret Mount Tech Size * Turret Tracking Rate
Missiles
Missile Size = Warhead Size + Chassis Size + Guidance Size
Warhead Size = Warhead Tech Size * Warhead Power * Warhead Quantity
Chassis Size = Chassis Tech Size * Chassis Speed * Chassis Range * Chassis Manoeuvrability
Guidance Size = (Sensor Tech Size + ECCM Tech Size) * Warhead Mount
Launcher Cost = Missile Cost
Launcher Size = Missile Size
Torpedoes
Torpedo Cost = (Torpedo Tech Cost * Torpedo Size) + (Sensor Tech Cost * Sensor Size)
Torpedo Size = (Torpedo Tech Size * Torpedo Power * Torpedo Manoeuvrability) + (Sensor Tech Size * Sensor Size)
Launcher Cost = Launcher Tech Cost * Launcher Size
Launcher Size = Launcher Tech Size * Launcher Power Requirements
Launcher Power Requirements = Launcher Tech Power * Torpedo Power * Torpedo Speed * Torpedo Range
Bombs
Bomb Cost = Warhead Tech Cost * Bomb Size
Bomb Size = Warhead Tech Size * Warhead Power
Launcher Cost = Bomb Cost * 0.5
Launcher Size = Bomb Size * 0.5
Fighters
Fighter Crew Count = Fighter Capacity
Storage Cost = Fighter Storage Tech Cost * Storage Size
Storage Size = Fighter Storage Tech Overhead * Fighter Capacity
Launch Tube Cost = Launch Tube Tech Cost * Launch Tube Size
Launch Tube Size = Launch Tube Tech Size * Maximum Fighter Size * Number of Launch Tubes
Landing Bay Cost = Landing Bay Tech Cost * Landing Bay Size
Landing Bay Size = Landing Bay Tech Size * Maximum Fighter Size * Number of Landing Bays