So I've been working on my little browser game which is a Sci-Fi 1v1 ship fighting game. Step two, now that it's kinda up and running, is to start generating some items. I'm doing ok coming up with general purpose items, but when it comes to weapons I am absolutely stuck.

Here's my list so far:

Turrets - Kentic
Mass Cannons
Flack Cannons
Artillery

Turrets - Energy
Beam Cannons
Rail Guns
Gravity Drivers

That, plus a few mines and missiles, is about all I have =/

Now maybe this is all I need, and having a bunch of weapons in these categories is enough? I feel like there should be more variation though, but I'm not sure. So I guess my question is two fold:

1) Does that sound like enough variety?
2) If there should be some more categories, does anyone have any ideas of some extra ones? Any thoughts on good resources to get some ideas?

Cheers!

The standard weapon types are:
beams
mass drivers/kinetic
combustion/explosive

There are all kinds of beams:
leech shields
leech reactor
ion beams
disruptors
plasma
lasers
random made up energy types

Kinetic:
rails guns
gauss cannons
mass drivers

explosive/combustion:
missiles
mortars
different explosives like nuclear or plastic
shrapnel

huh, interesting

Some good places to look for this are Gratuitous Space Battles, Space Pirates and Zombies and Galciv.
You also have non standard weapons like tractor beams and gravity bombs and using engines as a weapon and mines and the various kinds of drones.

That's some good info. Thanks mate

How do you see weapons differing from each other? Is it just a matter of one has a bigger damage score than the last? Does energy/kinetic/explosive become effected by different ship vulnerabilities/resistances?

Just trying to get an idea of how complex your making battles so in turn if you can show variety in weapons or need a large variety.

How do you see weapons differing from each other? Is it just a matter of one has a bigger damage score than the last? Does energy/kinetic/explosive become effected by different ship vulnerabilities/resistances?

Just trying to get an idea of how complex your making battles so in turn if you can show variety in weapons or need a large variety.

mmmmm, that's a good point. It is a point of concern that having too many weapon types is just going to get to hard to play with any sort of reliability (ie. not feeling like the combat results are up to luck). It's not so much that a weapon just does more damage than the last, it's that they all have different strengths and weaknesses. In theory no category will be better than others, but weapons in that category will range from bad to good.

So far, based on the feedback from AltarofScience, this is what I'm thinking:


Turrets - Kenetic
Mass Drivers - Hull/Armor = medium damage, shield = low damge, high rate of fire, no powergrid usage, low chance to hit
Flack Cannons - Hull/Armor = very high damage, shield = very low damge, low rate of fire, no powergrid usage, high chance to hit
Artillery - Hull/Armor = very high damage, shield = low damge, very low rate of fire, no powergrid usage, low chance to hit
Rail Guns - Hull/Armor = medium damage, shield = low/medium damge, medium rate of fire, medium powergrid usage, high cpu, medium chance to hit
Quantum Drivers - Hull/Armor = extreme damage, shield = medium damge, low rate of fire, medium powergrid usage, very high cpu, low chance to hit

Turrets - Energy
Beam Cannons - Hull/Armor = low damage, shield = medium damge, low rate of fire, high powergrid usage, low cpu usage, medium chance to hit
Plasma Weapons - Hull/Armor = medium damage, shield = medium damge, low rate of fire, high powergrid usage, low cpu usage, high chance to hit
Ion Beams - Hull/Armor = low damage, shield = very high damage, low rate of fire, very high powergrid usage, low cpu, medium chance to hit
Subspace Beams - Hull/Armor = low damage, shield = low/medium damge, low rate of fire, high powergrid usage, high cpu, very high chance to hit
Gravity Rams - Hull/Armor = extreme damage, shield = no damge, very low rate of fire, extreme powergrid usage, low cpu, medium chance to hit


Ordinance
Mines - Explosive - Damage to hull/armour
Mines - EMP - Damage to shield
Mines - Warp Bubble - Slows ships speed
Mines - Trash Flack - Does damage based on speed of other ship as it passes through the debri field
Chaffes - Reduces chance of missiles hitting
Decoy Drones - Chance of avoiding attacks for given time period (more expensive = longer effect)

Missiles - 4-5 types of some kind, not sure yet.



So that's the idea : )

Since any attempt to balance such things is ultimately in your hands, I feel the names would suffice;

Kinetic Missile
Bombs
Torpedoes
Cruise Missiles
Tactical Missiles (Small versions of cruise missiles)
Strategic Missiles (Nukes)
Light Missile (Generic name, designed for anti-fighter use)

Kinetic Projectile
Point Defence
Artillery
Magnetic Acceleration Cannon (MAC)
Railgun (Smaller version of the above)
Cannon
Autocannon (Smaller version of the above)
Siege Cannon

Energy Missile
Chemical Bomb (Replace "chemical" with anything sciencey, such as plasma, neutron, photon, graviton etc, inflicts status effects)
Chemical Torpedo (Same as above)

Energy Directed
(Chemical) Lance (Replace "chemical" as above)
(Chemical) Pulse Laser
(Chemical) Beam Laser
Microwave Laser

Energy Misc
Nova (Generic name, creates a nova which deals damage around caster ship)
Repair Laser
Shield Recharger

Misc
Drones
Fighters
Bombers
Logistics support ships (repair/reshield)

To spin some balance into the mix;

Bombs
Very short range, extreme high damage, may only target large ships, countered by range

Nova
Inflicts light damage to everything near caster. Damage too light to really harm large ships, but devastating against light craft. Countered by just not using light craft.

Drones/Fighters
Very short range but capable of making the distance up using their own drives; countered by point defence and nova weaponry.

Torpedoes
Mid range. High damage. Can't target fighters/drones. Countered by extreme close range (bombs), extreme long range, or relying on fighters/drones.

Missiles
Mid range. Low damage. Capable of engaging any target, even torpedoes/bombs. Countered by large ships (damage too low to be a threat) and avoiding fighters/drones.

Tactical Missiles

High range. Mid damage. Can lock small ships, but mostly ineffective. Designed for use against large ships. Low DPS compared to torps/bombs. Countered by getting in close with high dps/short range weapons or fighters.
And so on, you get the idea.

Note that all of the above is completely unscientific. "Real" space warfare would likely exclusively use railguns due to the complete lack of friction in space, and the fact that a railgun of sufficient size would be capable of accelerating a lump of metal to insane speeds, ensuring engagements take place at utterly ridiculous ranges. The accuracy of such weapons with gravity mostly taken out of the equation would render "fighters" and missiles easily shot down. Large ships make large targets, ensuring that ships would only be as large as their engines needed to be, and the size of their railgun.Fighters especially are rather a joke. There is nothing stopping a huge city-size ship from being as nimble and fast as a shuttle sized ship in the absence of friction. The contrary would actually be the case; the large ship with the larger engines would travel faster than the "fighter" with fighter sized engines. Something to keep in mind if you're after a semblance of realism (which I would not recommend, as it's dull!).

I have been arguing over the illogicality of fighters for years, although I guess John Scalzi beat me to the punch. No one is ever willing to concede that physics>fighters. I guess because people, especially in PvP games are anal about "player skill" and "fairness" and space combat is all about math. Ah well.

I would say it's because of player skill and fairness. Like Eiviyn said it's just dull for the most part while also seeming slightly wacky. I remember a game where your ships would spin around half way to a target and use their main engines to slow down, now as far as i know that totally practical in real space but frankly it looked a bit strange from the player perspective.

There are ways around it "legitimately". If I remember correctly Farscape used the "oh you were wrong all along about most things" approach. There are also IPs that dress everything up in pseudo-realism with say a Phlebotinum or Unobtainium thrown in to make up for any obvious holes in the science.

As for the original topic, not sure what I could add without going into the totally absurd but TVtropes (if you haven't looked the subject up on there already) is a surprisingly wonderful place to look up these kinds of things, there's quite a funny rant about how much better kinetic weapons are that you may find useful.