Dust balloons. Imagine balloons composed of many small cells, so that damage compromises individual cells instead of popping the whole thing at once.
The cells themselves are made of a thick canvas material with piercing resistance 1 and blast resistance 4. In addition, Damage from a single attack over a certain value (15?) is ignored, passing through the ballonet. So while rapid fire light weapons will tear your balloons to shreds, heavy cannons won't be as effective. Lastly, the balloon will loose lift in proportion to it's damage.
This mod proposes to make air-dropped bombs more useful by giving them more unique characteristics, based off of historical air-dropped iron bombs.
The idea behind iron bombs is that they are inaccurate and very heavy, but massively destructive. The heaviness of the bombs will not be reflected in the weight of the weapon module, which is merely the bomb-dropping apparatus, but rather in the ammo consumption.
A small ammo storage may only provide enough for perhaps 3-5 bombs, but each bomb will deliver a large explosion. The bombs will be as inaccurate as they are now, but a direct hit will hurt. The inaccuracy combined with low ammo count will mean that they are only effective against ground based targets.
Except what we have already are very much unlike these iron bombs in terms of yield and weight. The current bombs resemble perhaps 50 lb bombs, whereas I'm talking about adding something like 500-1000 lb bombs, such as might be carried by your early 20th century fighter-bomber.
The quantitative difference in scale would make for a qualitative difference in how the bomb is used I think, because you would have to do some designing around them in exchange for a payoff against ground targets, forcing an airship into a specialized role. Existing bombs are lightweight (in both senses of the word) enough that you can just add them onto existing designs without too much hassle.
Anyways, incendiary bombs would be neat. I'd like to see incendiary rockets even more though.
I think in effect the heavier bombs would just become downwards facing rockets (that are slightly more accurate) which isin't very interesting in my opinion and makes the normal bombs redundant.
Yes they may be slightly more inaccurate and somewhat heavier/more expensive but they have a much bigger impact. Compared to normal bombs they are pretty much better in every respect since you can just ignore the slight price increase and add a small dust cell somewhere, unless these weapons were the heavy cannon equivalent to bombs (in contrast to normal cannons, for example) that would actually be a really good addition!
"heavy cannon equivalent to bombs (in contrast to normal cannons, for example)" I guess is a way of describing it. Except in addition to slow fire rate there is extremely limited ammo capacity. Like I said, the module itself would not be that heavy. The bombs themselves are what is supposed to be heavy.
I don't see any reason to have the weapon weight linked to ammo capacity since the ammunition stores are basically universal and every other weapon is not linked to ammo. Just having it weigh more would make more sense and be much simpler.
Even if their was this type of weight mechanic, wouldn't it just be better if the equation ammunition store weight = ammo + base weight?
The only way to represent the weight of ammunition in the game is by the cost of firing a weapon in terms of ammunition points. Ammo points are provided by ammo storage modules and ammo storage modules have weight.
Whether it's a good idea to make a point of using this fact, I dunno. It's just an idea, and it probably would be simpler to think in "conventional" terms. But one of the benefits of modding is that you have the freedom to try unconventional angles to the extent that the game will permit you.
Either way, the fact is that the weight of ammunition is directly tied to ammo cost.
Commander
I still haven't got around to applying for the mod developer programme but it's never to early to plan ideas!
Anyways...
Sponson/Paired Casemate Weapon Variants
Basically as described in this suggestion post.
Dust Ballonets
Dust balloons. Imagine balloons composed of many small cells, so that damage compromises individual cells instead of popping the whole thing at once.
The cells themselves are made of a thick canvas material with piercing resistance 1 and blast resistance 4. In addition, Damage from a single attack over a certain value (15?) is ignored, passing through the ballonet. So while rapid fire light weapons will tear your balloons to shreds, heavy cannons won't be as effective. Lastly, the balloon will loose lift in proportion to it's damage.
Commander
Iron Bombs
This mod proposes to make air-dropped bombs more useful by giving them more unique characteristics, based off of historical air-dropped iron bombs.
The idea behind iron bombs is that they are inaccurate and very heavy, but massively destructive. The heaviness of the bombs will not be reflected in the weight of the weapon module, which is merely the bomb-dropping apparatus, but rather in the ammo consumption.
A small ammo storage may only provide enough for perhaps 3-5 bombs, but each bomb will deliver a large explosion. The bombs will be as inaccurate as they are now, but a direct hit will hurt. The inaccuracy combined with low ammo count will mean that they are only effective against ground based targets.
Commander, Engineering Corps
Iron Bombs are just another way of saying 'dumb bomb' or 'unguided bomb' ie, what we have already.
Incendiary bombs would be neat
Commander
Except what we have already are very much unlike these iron bombs in terms of yield and weight. The current bombs resemble perhaps 50 lb bombs, whereas I'm talking about adding something like 500-1000 lb bombs, such as might be carried by your early 20th century fighter-bomber.
The quantitative difference in scale would make for a qualitative difference in how the bomb is used I think, because you would have to do some designing around them in exchange for a payoff against ground targets, forcing an airship into a specialized role. Existing bombs are lightweight (in both senses of the word) enough that you can just add them onto existing designs without too much hassle.
Anyways, incendiary bombs would be neat. I'd like to see incendiary rockets even more though.
Air Lord, Engineering Corps
I think in effect the heavier bombs would just become downwards facing rockets (that are slightly more accurate) which isin't very interesting in my opinion and makes the normal bombs redundant.
Yes they may be slightly more inaccurate and somewhat heavier/more expensive but they have a much bigger impact. Compared to normal bombs they are pretty much better in every respect since you can just ignore the slight price increase and add a small dust cell somewhere, unless these weapons were the heavy cannon equivalent to bombs (in contrast to normal cannons, for example) that would actually be a really good addition!
Commander
"heavy cannon equivalent to bombs (in contrast to normal cannons, for example)" I guess is a way of describing it. Except in addition to slow fire rate there is extremely limited ammo capacity. Like I said, the module itself would not be that heavy. The bombs themselves are what is supposed to be heavy.
Air Lord, Engineering Corps
I don't see any reason to have the weapon weight linked to ammo capacity since the ammunition stores are basically universal and every other weapon is not linked to ammo. Just having it weigh more would make more sense and be much simpler.
Even if their was this type of weight mechanic, wouldn't it just be better if the equation ammunition store weight = ammo + base weight?
Commander
I'm not sure what you are trying to say.
The only way to represent the weight of ammunition in the game is by the cost of firing a weapon in terms of ammunition points. Ammo points are provided by ammo storage modules and ammo storage modules have weight.
Whether it's a good idea to make a point of using this fact, I dunno. It's just an idea, and it probably would be simpler to think in "conventional" terms. But one of the benefits of modding is that you have the freedom to try unconventional angles to the extent that the game will permit you.
Either way, the fact is that the weight of ammunition is directly tied to ammo cost.
Air Lord, Engineering Corps
To my understanding you said that the weight of the weapon (btw, i like this idea) is relative to the amount of bombs?