Starting Principles

• We have relatively few basic options, but by combining unique permutations, we can produce a wide variety of designs (e.g., all lasers are grouped together, but can be changed to have different frequencies, power sources – such as in nuclear bomb pumped lasers, mount types, and so on).
• Focus on “performance-oriented/black box” approach parameters in the design process (e.g., the muzzle velocity of a railgun versus the specific materials used in the sabot).
• Works with the prototype development/Request For Proposal system (I.e., player creates a spec sheet, submits it as a request for proposals and the game gives back more detailed info for what various R&D facilities think they can deliver)
• Missiles and other “deployable” weapons such as the aforementioned nuclear bomb pumped lasers are designed as their own "spaceships" and NOT as weapons installations.
• Weapons not used on “spaceships” aren’t included either, because nobody is sticking firing ports on their ships.
• “Weapons” that are closer in behaviour to other systems also aren’t included, such as ECM/hacking facilities which should be grouped with electronics and sensors IMO.

This gives specific benefits:

• Grouping things together allows for broad generalizations when learning how to play and means the player doesn’t have to scroll through a hundred-item long list. It also means it’s easier to create common models for behaviour from the code side.
• Black box parameters mean players don’t have to know what’s going on under the hood to make effective weapons, and weapons can be parameterized by far fewer variables than, say, doing things in the other direction like the approach used by CoaDE (where the specific details of the weapon must be specified, which the game then converts into weapon performance).
• Expressing said internal workings, however, is important – it adds flavour and immersion. As such, the game needs a realistic “auto-complete” function that tries to make the player’s requested performance work with what has been developed. Likewise, a bit of randomness at this step is good. Nobody’s sure if the new gun that’s being built for the warships is going to deliver when put through trials.

Types of Weapons

1. Directed EM weapons
   • Optical lasers, masers, x-ray lasers, gamma ray lasers, etc.
   • Vary wavelength, delivered and/or supplied energy, expected range, possibly lasing medium, and method of providing power (ship’s reactor vs nuclear bomb-pumped, etc) as well as other things.
   • Possible inclusion of EMP weapons and non-coherent sources of radiation, or their own section?
2. Particle Beams/Subatomic Kinetics
   • Plasmas, subatomic particle beams, and so on, generally moving at relativistic velocities.
   • Vary particle energy, expected range, and method of providing power (ship’s reactor vs nuclear shaped charge, etc) as well as other things.
3. Macroscopic High Velocity Kinetics
   • Not-quite relativistic weapons firing big bullets. Traditional naval artillery, railguns, coilguns, light gas guns, EFPs, a M2HB bolted on a frame, and so on.
   • Vary velocity, projectile size, projectile type (if delivering a specific payload from #4, otherwise safe to default to a lump of tungsten), and method of providing power (once again, ship’s reactor vs nuclear shaped charge, etc) as well as other things.
4. Warheads/Projectiles
   • Either for blowing up ownship or being launched via a gun.
   • Includes kinetic rods-from-god, various types of nukes, conventional explosives, chemical-biological-radiological-nanotech payloads, continuous rod warheads, and other shit.
   • Vary warhead or projectile size and what’s filling it.
5. Launchers
   • VLS tubes, hangar bays, launch rails, boxes and pods, and so on.
   • This is basically just specifying the enclosing dimensions and how it operates.

Generally speaking, all weapons should also have an option to be optimized against individual target ships, for PD, or a mix of both (DP weapons). Mountings should probably also be broadly specified at this point (a turreted particle beam emitter is going to be very different from a spinal mount). Things that are universally applicable to a module such as power consumption and mass should also be included.